The successes and failures of Pakistan’s nukes
From the start Pakistan’s nuclear programme was military-oriented and India-specific. The initial proposition was that Pakistan was a weaker rival of India and had business to transact with India that could require application of military force. The ambivalent nature of India-Pakistan relations is known, with its three wars and three semi-wars. Pakistan was decisively defeated in 1971 and concluded thereafter that there is no future in conventional wars with India because it is richer and can always outspend Pakistan. Pakistan therefore decided to go nuclear to offset India’s advantages.
When exactly Pakistan started its nuclear programme does not signify; it was sometime in 1970s. Pakistan succeeded in the middle of the 1980s in enriching uranium. That key success led to other successes and soon Pakistan was able to fabricate nuclear weapons, admitting only its major components in 1990. But it was able in 1986 to threaten India with a nuclear riposte to the likely extension of India’s exercise Brass Tacks into a thrust into Sindh, as was feared.
Once Pakistan became nuclear-capable, it decided to twist the Indian lion’s tail in Kashmir, fearing no military response from it. It chose an undercover semi-war with India in Kashmir. Events in India-administered Kashmir late in the 1980s gave Pakistan an opportunity: it metamorphosed Kashmiris’ non-violent secular political protest agitation – against India’s manipulation of elections in Kashmir – and captured the movement’s leadership, converting it into an Islamic jihad. It did so through jihadis, most of them veterans of Afghanistan’s anti-Soviet war and many of whom had doubled as Taliban. This led to many consequences.
India chose to suppress the jihad by inflicting horrible human rights violations on Kashmiris. The Indians need to be blamed for these gross human rights violations. But Pakistan also shares some responsibility. Why? Because it did not think its options through. It should have foreseen what the Indian reaction would be. And whether the pressure Pakistan was putting on it was enough to make India cry “uncle.” In the event, Indians fought on – i.e., to kill as many Kashmiris as possible. The result is that Kashmiris have lost something like 80- to 85,000 lives and many more limbs. Loss of property is astronomical in purely Kashmiri terms. Despite these sacrifices the Kashmiris are not an inch nearer their azadi. The outlook is more Indian atrocities, if jihad continues.
True, India might continue to inflict human rights violations even after Pakistan has stopped sending militants from outside. So long as there is an armed insurgency in Kashmir, the Kashmiri freedom fighters are offering India its chance: in a violent conflict, India would crush the puny violence by Kashmiris with its far greater violence-making machine. Adopting violent insurgency is a foolish game for Kashmiris.
Remember Pakistan’s military thinkers, who controlled the nuclear programme throughout, wove strange strategic doctrines in the hubris created by nuclear weapons. On the one hand, they dreamed dreams of federating Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan in order to confront India with this strategic depth. How unrealistic this foolish project was should be clear. On the other hand, a theory was evolved that keeping Indians engaged in a proxy war in the Kashmir Valley would free Pakistan from the worry of an Indian attack. So long as India was kept on the hop, Pakistan was safe. In retrospect, this can be seen as foolish ratiocination.
In 2002, the Indians called Pakistan’s bluff. They brought forward their troops on the Pakistan border in staggering numbers. They made as if they would invade. The threat was credible for both friend and foe. The rest of the world thought that thanks to balance of power, Pakistan would be obliged to use its nuclear option first. A nuclear war will result. The rest of the world was not prepared to accept it. Everyone advised the two to make up.
Pakistanis too saw that the Indians meant business. Pakistan made a U-turn in the Kashmir policies by promising no more infiltration from this side. That firm promise by Pakistan’s president resolved the crisis and Indian troops began withdrawing by October 2002. Normalcy took some time to return. India later offered negotiations and the hand of friendship (April 2003). How genuine it was, or is, is hard to say. Anyhow, the long stalled Composite Dialogue, first agreed in 1997, was resumed. Although it has gone nowhere for over a year, it has not finally broken down. The talks are going on and more are scheduled.
Dispassionate assessment of the true utility of Pakistani nukes is urgent. There are two clear negative entries in the national ledger. One, nukes were of no use to Pakistan vis-‡-vis Kashmir and it had to promise it will not longer send jihadis. The promise was repeated several times to Indians and Americans. The second context was the 2002 war crisis. India was ready to attack if Pakistan had it not made those promises about Kashmir. That is to say, India was taking the risk of a war despite the presence of Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent, probably not less effective than India’s own. One calls for taking purposeful note of the mere fact that Indians made a credible move to attack Pakistan, ignoring the presence of the Pakistani nuclear deterrent. That simply shows that this Nuclear Deterrent did not deter India threatening war.
Why does one make such a sweeping claim? Because Pakistani nuclear devices were sold as giving Pakistan an impregnable defence against India; it was argued that given the nukes’ presence, no one would dare attack. The fact that India dared makes those nukes less credible than they were thought to be. It is being argued that India did not finally attack because of those nukes. But that is a non sequitur and takes us nowhere. The decisive moment was when the Pakistan president made the premise of virtually ending the jihad in Kashmir. Obviously, nukes were no help to Musharraf; if the notional benefit of the nukes had to be sacrificed to keep peace, the nukes’ value gets heavily diluted. The nukes are no longer vital for Pakistan’s security because (a) Pakistan could not win Kashmir through the proxy war; and (b) these nukes could not defend Pakistan against India’s threatened attack without Pakistan making vital political concessions.
Let’s note that no outsider loves Pakistan because of these nukes. No outsider appears to dread Pakistan’s nukes, not even India. No outsider is prepared to do as Pakistan wishes him to do because it has nukes. It is true the same is true of India. But India is out of context here.
There is another negative aspect of the nukes: there is Dr A. Q. Khan’s underground bazaar of nuclear contraband. The story has not ended. The rest of the world is still interested. They all think that Pakistan is vulnerable to various threats from inside. They believe that there are anti-Musharraf and anti-Pakistan elements inside who can get hold of these weapons. They feel that extremist forces can, in conceivable eventualities, get control of these weapons. Pakistan is more vulnerable because of these nukes. Conceivable threats of external intervention exist.
Pakistanis have paid through their nose for these nukes. Pakistan’s economy has been put under a pressure that it cannot really bear. The kind of inflationary pressures and the growth of poverty that has taken place are due to Islamabad not being able to invest enough in the social sectors. The economic price of the nukes is lost opportunities.
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