Mohammed Ayoob
Both Republic of Republic of India together with Islamic Republic of Pakistan receive got betwixt 120 together with 140 nuclear warheads, according to estimates provided past times the Arms Control Association. However a study produced inward 2015 past times the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace together with the Stimson Center asserts that Islamic Republic of Pakistan may live outpacing Republic of Republic of India inward damage of its nuclear stockpile, together with may possess 350 nuclear warheads inward the adjacent 5 to x years. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 2016 SIPRI study confirmed the assessment that Islamic Republic of Pakistan has to a greater extent than nuclear warheads than India. However, what distinguishes the ii neighbors’ nuclear-weapons programs from each other is non hence much the measuring of production or the size of the stockpiles, but their radically unlike nuclear doctrines. The major departure betwixt the ii countries’ nuclear doctrines is that spell Republic of Republic of India has renounced kickoff role of nuclear weapons, Islamic Republic of Pakistan has refused to practise hence past times reserving its correct to role nuclear weapons inward the confront of India’s conventional superiority.
So far, dubiety regarding Pakistan’s nuclear threshold is the principal constituent preventing a major conflagration inward South Asia. Pakistan’s refusal to disavow kickoff role of nuclear weapons, together with its emphasis on amassing tactical nuclear weapons together with short-range missiles every bit a corollary of its nuclear doctrine, tin live explained inward low-cal of its conventional-force inferiority vis-à-vis India. It is inward fact a mirror icon of the American nuclear doctrine every bit applied to fundamental Europe during the Cold War. The U.S. of America refused to disavow kickoff role of nuclear weapons, together with deployed tactical nuclear weapons inward fundamental Europe on a large scale, because of NATO’s presumed inferiority inward damage of conventional ability vis-à-vis that deployed past times the Warsaw Pact.
But for Pakistan, the dubiety introduced past times its nuclear doctrine has achieved roughly other major objective every bit well. It has provided Islamic Republic of Pakistan amongst the shield behind which terrorist groups armed together with trained past times Islamabad, such every bit Lashkar-e-Taiba together with Jaish-e-Muhammad, tin engage inward acts of terror that practise mayhem non alone inward Indian-administered Kashmir but too inward other parts of India. The fright of escalating a conflict amongst Islamic Republic of Pakistan to the nuclear marking has prevented Republic of Republic of India from retaliating to these provocations amongst the massive role of its superior conventional force.
India desisted from retaliating against terrorist bases or Pakistani military machine installations fifty-fifty when a massive terrorist performance launched from Islamic Republic of Pakistan targeted India’s fiscal capital, Mumbai, inward Nov 2008. This onslaught lasted for more than lx hours together with left at to the lowest degree 174 people dead.
However, it seems that the logic of this deterrence is fast eroding. Attacks such every bit the ane inward Mumbai, together with subsequent assaults on Indian military machine installations inward Kashmir together with elsewhere, receive got too provided justification for India’s hard-line Hindu nationalists to raise anti-Pakistan rhetoric, together with putting pressure level on the Indian regime to intensify its military machine response. In the past times few months, Indian retaliatory attacks receive got targeted non alone terrorist bases but too Pakistani military machine facilities, causing meaning casualties amid Pakistani forces.
The escalation inward the lastly ii years inward terror attacks, peculiarly past times Jaish-e-Muhammad, amongst the obvious connivance of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan army, on Indian military machine targets inward Kashmir together with surrounding Indian states has made the province of affairs really perilous. In the past times several months, terrorist groups operating from Islamic Republic of Pakistan receive got undertaken several such major attacks, causing meaning loss of life amid Indian safety forces.
A major terrorist onslaught on the Uri army camp inward Jammu together with Kashmir inward September 2016, which left seventeen military machine personnel dead, motivated the Indian regime to reassess its strategy for responding to such attacks. On September 29, 2016, Republic of Republic of India launched its kickoff publicly acknowledged “surgical strike” against terrorist bases inward Pakistan. Although at that spot had been speculation that Republic of Republic of India had conducted such strikes before every bit well, this was the kickoff admission past times New Delhi that it was laid upwards to launch major retaliatory attacks against targets inward Islamic Republic of Pakistan together with Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
In the latest incident, inward Feb 2018, Jaish terrorists attacked an Indian military machine army camp inward Jammu; 5 regular army personnel together with iv militants were killed. In retaliation, the Indian regular army destroyed a Pakistani regular army postal service amongst the assist of rocket launchers, killing, according to Indian sources, twenty-two Pakistani personnel. This tit-for-tat telephone substitution is reaching unsafe proportions.
So far, the Pakistani military machine has downplayed Indian incursions together with retaliatory attacks together with refused to recognize their seriousness, because it does non desire to seem weak inward the eyes of the Pakistani public, which is together with hence probable to clamor for revenge. However, the Pakistani military machine cannot croak on to downplay Indian attacks, peculiarly inward low-cal of the increasing fatalities. There is the danger that at roughly point, either past times miscalculation or past times design, an Indian surgical blast inward Pakistani territory volition force the Pakistani military—which controls the nuclear weapons—to retaliate inward force.
If a full-scale state of war erupts, at roughly signal Pakistan, unable to counter superior Indian conventional forces, could resort to battlefield nuclear weapons, every bit its doctrine proclaims. While Republic of Republic of India subscribes to a no-first-use doctrine, it has made it abundantly clear that it volition massively retaliate against whatsoever role of battlefield nuclear weapons past times Islamic Republic of Pakistan without making a distinction betwixt tactical together with strategic nuclear weapons. This strategy, every bit enunciated inward a controversy issued past times the regime of Republic of Republic of India on Jan 4, 2003, is designed to inflict unacceptable harm on the enemy.
Former Indian national safety advisor Shivshankar Menon elaborated this strategy inward his memoirs: “India would hardly risk giving Islamic Republic of Pakistan the peril to send out a massive nuclear blast later on the Indian reply to Islamic Republic of Pakistan using tactical nuclear weapons. In other words, Pakistani tactical nuclear weapon role would effectively gratuitous Republic of Republic of India to undertake a comprehensive kickoff blast against Pakistan.”
This is a really scary scenario. Pakistan’s overreliance on its nuclear deterrence, peculiarly its refusal to subscribe to the no-first-use doctrine, when combined amongst its reckless back upwards for terrorist groups attacking Indian military machine together with civilian targets, could unintentionally usher inward a nuclear winter—and spell doom non alone for South Asia, but for a much wider surface area surrounding the subcontinent.
Mohammed Ayoob is senior swain at the Center for Global Policy inward Washington, DC, together with University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of International Relations at Michigan State University.
Image: Pakistani military machine personnel stand upwards beside short-range Surface to Surface Missile NASR during Islamic Republic of Pakistan Day military machine parade inward Islamabad, Pakistan, March 23, 2017. REUTERS/Faisal Mahmood
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