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KARACHI, Islamic Republic of Pakistan — The Karachi Naval Dockyard, dwelling occupation solid port together with strategic nervus centre for Pakistan’s fleet, sits on a sliver of the world bracketed betwixt Port Grand, a “family fun” pier that features kiddie rides together with a panoramic sentiment of warships at anchor, together with Machar Colony, a sprawling slum where cattle graze on garbage together with a meg human inhabitants live inwards nearly unimaginable squalor. It was here, during the placidity predawn of May 6, 2014, that four rogue naval officers walked upwardly the gangway of the PNS Zulfiqar, a 4,000-ton frigate that was preparing to set to sea. H5N1 guard inspected their ID badges together with saluted. Once on board, their innovation was to bring together upwardly amongst some other grouping of half dozen militants disguised inwards marine uniforms who were approaching the Zulfiqar inwards an inflatable dinghy. Together they hoped to hijack the ship together with job it to assault a US Navy patrol inwards the Indian Ocean. But an alert crewman on board the frigate noticed something was wrong. The men inwards the dinghy were armed amongst AK-47s — non the measure weapons used past times Pakistani marines. When he challenged the grouping inwards the dinghy, a gunfight rapidly erupted. While the attackers fired automatic weapons together with rocket-propelled grenades, the crewman shredded the unclean amongst an anti-aircraft gun, killing all six.
Hearing the commotion, navy commandos from some other vessel rushed to the scene, but it soundless took several hours to regain command of the ship from the 4 rogue officers already on board. Eventually all of them were killed, the concluding 1 blowing himself upwardly after he was cornered.
The audacity of a bloody assault within 1 of the most heavily secured naval facilities inwards Islamic Republic of Pakistan was jarring enough. Even to a greater extent than jarring was the root of the attack: al-Qaeda, which claimed responsibility for the strike together with praised the dead men as “martyrs.” Five to a greater extent than naval officers implicated inwards the plot were afterward arrested, charged amongst mutiny, together with sentenced to death.
The Zulfiqar incident is the most serious inwards a long string of deadly security breaches at Pakistani military machine installations, from multiple attacks on nuclear facilities nigh Dera Ghazi Khan (2003 together with 2006) together with on the air strength bases at Sargodha together with Kamra (2007 together with 2012) to the the gruesome 2014 assault on a schoolhouse for the children of military machine officers inwards Peshawar that left to a greater extent than than 140 people dead, including 132 children.
But fifty-fifty if Pakistani bases have got been hitting before, the Zulfiqar strike is peculiarly alarming. That’s because Islamic Republic of Pakistan is preparing to arm its submarines together with perchance some of its surface ships amongst nuclear weapons — which way terrorists who successfully grapple their way into a Pakistani naval base of operations inwards the futurity could potentially larn their hands on some of the most unsafe weapons on earth.
The Islamic Republic of Pakistan navy is probable to presently identify nuclear-tipped cruise missiles on upwardly to 3 of its 5 French-built diesel-electric submarines. It has also reached a bargain amongst mainland People's Republic of China to purchase 8 to a greater extent than diesel-electric assault submarines that tin toilet live equipped amongst nuclear weapons. These are scheduled for delivery inwards 2028. Even to a greater extent than disturbing, Pakistani military machine authorities say they are considering the possibility of putting nuclear-tipped cruise missiles on surface vessels similar the Zulfiqar.
THE NEW GENERATION OF NUCLEAR SUBMARINES INCREASES THE RISK OF H5N1 DEVASTATING WAR BETWEEN INDIA AND PAKISTAN
Pakistan says its determination to add together nuclear weapons to its navy is a straight response to India’s August 2016 deployment of its showtime nuclear submarine, the Arihant. H5N1 second, fifty-fifty to a greater extent than advanced Indian nuclear submarine, the Arighat, began sea trials concluding November, together with 4 to a greater extent than boats are scheduled to bring together the fleet past times 2025. That volition give Republic of Republic of India a consummate “nuclear triad,” which way the province volition have got the powerfulness to deliver a nuclear strike past times land-based missiles, past times warplanes, together with past times submarines.
The submarine is the key component. It’s considered the most “survivable” inwards the trial of a devastating showtime strike past times an enemy, together with thus able to deliver a retaliatory minute strike. In the theology of nuclear deterrence, the betoken of this unholy trinity is to brand nuclear state of war unwinnable and, therefore, pointless.
When it comes to Republic of Republic of India together with Pakistan, past times contrast, the novel generation of nuclear submarines could growth the adventure of a devastating state of war betwixt the 2 longstanding enemies, non larn inwards less likely.
India together with Islamic Republic of Pakistan have got gone to state of war 4 times since 1947, when Great Britain partitioned what had been a unmarried colony into Hindu-majority Republic of Republic of India together with Muslim-majority Pakistan. They have got been inwards a province of constant hostility ever since, together with for the past times 2 decades, they have got been locked inwards a frightening nuclear arms race on land. Pushing the competition into the Indian Ocean makes the province of affairs fifty-fifty to a greater extent than unsafe past times loosening the chain of command together with command over the weapons, increasing the number of weapons, together with placing them inwards an environs where things tend to function wrong.
“The nuclearization of the Indian Ocean has begun,” Zafar Jaspal, a nuclear security adept at Islamabad’s Quaid-i-Azam University, told me. “Both states have got at nowadays crossed the threshold.”
This should live setting off alarms throughout the international community. Growing numbers of nuclear weapons volition presently live deployed to submarines patrolling some of the most bitterly contested waters on world — together with controlled past times jittery together with potentially paranoid officers on perpetual high alert nearly a surprise assault from the other side.
The trial is a game of nuclear chicken every scrap as unsafe as the “my push is bigger than yours” competition betwixt Donald Trump together with Kim Jong Un on the Korean Peninsula. The deviation hither is that this 1 is going almost completely unnoticed.
Putting nukes on submarines makes a nuclear state of war much to a greater extent than likely
The modern nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed submarine is arguably the most fearsome weapon ever conceived. The US Navy’s eighteen Ohio-class boats tin toilet each send 154 nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. They tin toilet move beneath the sea for months, virtually undetectable, together with their arrive at is express entirely past times the crew’s endurance together with nutrient supply.
When nosotros utter nearly nuclear submarines, nosotros utter nearly 2 different, but related, things: what powers the subs, together with what kinds of weapons they carry. The US, Russia, the UK, France, together with mainland People's Republic of China have got nuclear-powered submarines that are also armed amongst nuclear weapons. State of Israel is thought to have got submarines that are armed amongst nuclear warheads, but they’re powered past times diesel-electric generators. That matters because those types of submarines, dissimilar the nuclear-powered ones made past times America together with other major world powers, are noisy — together with thus easier to runway — together with tin toilet to a greater extent than oftentimes than non rest underwater for entirely a calendar week or 2 at most.
India has spent billions of dollars to bring together that exclusive lodge — together with came closed to disaster. The $2.9 billion Arihant nearly sank a few months after its commissioning when a hatch was left opened upwardly together with seawater flooded the propulsion compartment. The embarrassing mishap, blamed on “human error,” was hushed upwardly past times the ministry building of defense. Even India’s senior political leadership was kept inwards the dark. The boat has been undergoing extensive repairs since concluding February, according to a Jan 8 report inwards the paper the Hindu, which was the showtime to study the entire saga.
Meanwhile, India’s “other” nuclear submarine, the INS Chaka — an Akula-class submarine on loan from Russian Federation primarily for grooming purposes — is also inwards dry out dock after an unspecified accident damaged its sensitive sonar equipment. In February, Russian Federation sent Republic of Republic of India a $20 meg nib for repairs.
Pakistan, for its part, announced concluding yr that it had successfully test-fired a submarine-launched cruise missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. That was a clear indication that the province wanted to start arming its submarines amongst nukes. It had already signaled that it was willing to set nukes on some of its surface ships.
The job is that putting nukes at sea significantly weakens the chain of command together with command over the weapons, which way the adventure of an accidental substitution of burn — or full-on nuclear state of war — betwixt Republic of Republic of India together with Islamic Republic of Pakistan volition growth exponentially.
Up until now, both Islamic Republic of Pakistan together with Republic of Republic of India have got implemented rigorous checks to maintain their weapons prophylactic together with eliminate the possibility of inadvertent or rogue launches. In India, ultimate potency inwards the chain of command together with command rests amongst the country’s civilian political leadership.
In theory, Pakistan’s nuclear trigger is also inwards civilian hands. H5N1 trunk called the National Command Authority, headed past times the prime number minister, must authorize whatever determination to job nuclear weapons. But inwards reality, it is the military, widely regarded as the most stable together with disciplined establishment inwards the country, that controls all aspects of the country’s nuclear program.
Equally important, both Republic of Republic of India together with Islamic Republic of Pakistan have got kept their warheads together with delivery systems “de-mated” — that is, the nuclear warhead is stored far away from the missile that would deliver it. Or inwards the instance of India’s bombs, the trigger or detonator is kept far from the fissile core.
But at sea — together with especially when yous function beneath the sea — this is pretty much impossible. The warheads together with missiles have got already been assembled together with stored inwards the same place, together with private submarine captains have got pregnant liberty to determine whether to launch their nukes.
“The novel danger for both countries is that the job of command together with command over the submarines becomes really tenuous,” said Pervez Hoodbhoy, a Pakistani nuclear physicist together with frequent visiting scholar at Princeton University, where nosotros spoke concluding summer. “With land-based weapons, the warhead is separated from the delivery system. You can’t do that amongst warheads on a submarine. When it leaves the port, it is already armed.”
Hoodbhoy said that leaves military machine planners amongst 2 options: “Either yous do non give the arming code to the captain … or yous give it to him earlier he leaves the port together with he can, of his ain accord, launch a nuclear missile.”
In submarine warfare, the glaring weak link inwards the chain of command has ever been communication betwixt the sub beneath the sea together with the key command. Normal radio waves cannot penetrate the ocean’s depths. To communicate amongst a submerged submarine, really depression frequency (VLF) together with extremely depression frequency (ELF) radio transmissions are necessary. These frequencies cannot send vocalism communications, entirely coded messages or — at a snail’s measuring — text messages. It’s also hard for the subs to have communications of whatever form if they’re submerged likewise deeply.
These communications are also strictly one-way; subs tin toilet take away heed what basis commanders are telling them but can’t reply or inquire questions. “Essentially the submarine is on its own,” said Hoodbhoy, adding that “it can’t communicate back” unless it sticks an antenna higher upwardly the surface together with potentially reveals its location.
Hiding beneath the ocean, almost impossible to detect, nuclear submarines have got the swell payoff of beingness able to endure a nuclear strike past times an enemy state together with launch a devastating second-strike response. The same can’t live said for the land-based VLF transmitters that give the subs their orders. These are impossible-to-hide sitting ducks, vulnerable to enemy assault inwards a showtime strike. Knock out these installations together with the submarines are operating blind.
If yous lookout adult man Denzel Washington together with Gene Hackman grapple it out inwards the underwater thriller Crimson Tide, yous larn a pretty accurate movie of how things tin toilet function S rapidly inwards the extreme isolation of a nuclear submarine cutting off from its centralized command.
Pakistan together with Republic of Republic of India went to the nuclear brink during a 1999 state of war inwards the disputed territory Kashmir, coming closer to pulling the trigger than fifty-fifty the US together with Soviet Union during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The Kashmir number continues to roil both countries, together with then it’s non hard to imagine a Crimson Tide scenario inwards which an Indian submarine commander, aware that his province is nether attack, receives an incomplete or unclear monastic tell to launch. What does he do?
Here’s some other scenario: Republic of Republic of India knocks out Pakistan’s entirely VLF transmitter inwards Karachi. The beleaguered commander of 1 of Pakistan’s diesel-electric submarines — lost inwards the fog of war, unable to communicate amongst the National Command Authority, together with nether assault past times 1 of India’s highly capable anti-submarine hunters — launches a cruise missile. Is it armed amongst a conventional warhead or a nuclear warhead? Do Indian authorities hold off until it hits a major population centre to discover out? Or do they monastic tell an immediate retaliatory attack?
Experts who have got modeled an India-Pakistan nuclear substitution say that in 1 trial the showtime nuke is launched, it would live nearly impossible for either side to deescalate.
That way each side would probable exertion to unleash its entire arsenal of 100 or to a greater extent than nuclear weapons on the other side’s population centers. The ensuing firestorm would set out a cloud of radioactive ash that would darken skies, cool temperatures, together with disrupt agriculture to a greater extent than or less the globe for a decade or more. Millions would die, together with millions to a greater extent than would live faced amongst displacement together with starvation as nosotros function inwards what scientists have got termed nuclear winter.
In many ways, the powerfulness to start — or preclude — such devastation rests inwards the hands of private submarine commanders. During the Cold War, US submarines had a “two-man rule” that required a commander (Hackman’s graphic symbol inwards Crimson Tide) together with executive officeholder (the component played past times Washington) to take away hold that a launch monastic tell was valid.
As Cold War tensions eased, the two-man dominion was replaced past times a to a greater extent than rigorous organisation of checks that require the sub commander to utilize an externally provided code inwards monastic tell to launch.
India has non said how it volition maintain command of its submarines. “There’s a lot of confusion together with non much clarity on this,” said Yogesh Joshi, an analyst at Stanford University who is writing a mass on India’s nuclear submarine program. “They are acting as if this is something soundless inwards the future, something they tin toilet recollect nearly later.”
The province of affairs volition function fifty-fifty to a greater extent than fraught if Islamic Republic of Pakistan follows through on its threat to arm its surface vessels amongst nuclear weapons. In that scenario, some ships volition send nuclear weapons together with some won’t. This ambiguity creates all kinds of novel pathways for mistakes, misunderstandings, miscalculations, together with mischief. If a missile is launched from 1 of these ships, how volition Republic of Republic of India know whether it is a nuke or not?
“That volition Pb us to Armageddon,” warned Abhijit Singh, a old Indian naval officeholder together with electrical flow senior swain at the Observer Research Foundation, a New Delhi recollect tank.
The other large worry, especially amongst regard to Pakistan, is that nuclear weapons volition somehow autumn into the hands of terrorists. With Pakistan’s existing land-based arsenal, the warheads together with missiles are stored separately inwards a serial of heavily guarded hugger-mugger locations. That can’t live done amongst ships together with submarines. The weapons volition have got to live handled together with stored at the Naval Dockyard inwards Karachi or at the newer Ormara facility inwards Balochistan. Either way, terrorists volition know precisely where they have got to function to larn what they want.
And al-Qaeda has already shown a willingness together with capability to hitting those facilities. Naval Station Mehran, a sprawling base of operations inwards Karachi that is headquarters for the navy’s air fleet, is following to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan air force’s giant Faisal base, a probable repository of nuclear components.
In 2011, a squad of xv to twenty heavily armed militants breached the security perimeter at Mehran, made their way to the take in of the base, together with destroyed 2 P-3C Orion anti-submarine aircraft.
Pakistani commandos together with security personnel spent nearly eighteen hours fighting to retake the base, together with at to the lowest degree xiii of them died inwards the effort. The Pakistani Taliban initially claimed responsibility, but afterward at that spot were credible suggestions that al-Qaeda may have got carried out the attack. Either way, the ease amongst which the attackers entered the base of operations — together with their focus on destroying the most valuable military machine assets — suggested they had inside help.
When the Mehran base of operations came nether attack, both Islamic Republic of Pakistan together with Republic of Republic of India at in 1 trial set their nuclear assets on high alert because of its proximity to 1 of Pakistan’s key nuclear stockpiles. The incident left both sides uneasy nearly the security of their most destructive weapons.
“The Islamic Republic of Pakistan navy was ever known to live a highly professional person force. Now all of that seems to have got changed,” Singh, the old Indian naval officer, told me. “The systemic infiltration of the navy past times these radicalized elements is shocking to us,”
Although these incidents are motion for alarm, most experts take away hold that Islamic Republic of Pakistan has done a goodness task safeguarding its nuclear weapons. Protecting the nukes — from India, from homegrown terrorists, together with from the US military, which has spent millions of dollars helping Islamic Republic of Pakistan secure its nuclear arsenal but soundless remains a suspect ally — is Pakistan’s highest priority.
The supervision of the nation’s nuclear arsenal is managed past times an elite agency within the military machine called the Strategic Plans Division. Rising higher upwardly the morass of Pakistan’s domestic politics, the SPD projects an ikon of calm professionalism. In Islamabad, I met amongst Brig. Gen. Zahir Kazmi, managing director of the SPD’s arms command together with disarmament branch, who made the instance that Islamic Republic of Pakistan “is really much alive” to the dangers of managing nuclear weapons at sea.
“We are confident but non complacent,” he said.
Kazmi recognized the responsibleness of safeguarding the weapons inwards the human face upwardly of a challenging domestic security environs but bristled at whatever proposition from an American that Pakistan’s military machine mightiness non live upwardly to the task of protecting its most of import assets.
“Managing nuclear security together with security is non a white man’s burden only,” he said. “Pakistan is managing its responsibilities quite well. There is a deliberate style to forget that Pakistan’s tape is as good, if non better, than that of the US.”
America’s role inwards the growing numbers of nukes inwards the Indian Ocean has been 1 of muddled ambiguity. In 2008, the US signed a commercial understanding that allows Republic of Republic of India to portion inwards most of the benefits of the Nuclear Suppliers Group fifty-fifty though Republic of Republic of India has never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This bending of the rules allows Republic of Republic of India to import uranium for civilian liberate energy projects, freeing upwardly domestic capacity for production of the highly enriched uranium (HEU) needed to fuel the reactors on its novel submarines.
Last summer, the US signaled a sharper arguing toward Republic of Republic of India past times conducting articulation naval exercises inwards the Indian Ocean amongst Republic of Republic of India together with Japan. This was meant as a warning to China, amongst its growing ambitions inwards the Indian Ocean, but it did picayune to calm anxieties inwards Pakistan.
Meanwhile, inwards his really showtime tweet of 2018, President Trump abruptly together with unexpectedly cut off military machine aid to Islamabad.
“The States of America has foolishly given Islamic Republic of Pakistan to a greater extent than than 33 billion dollars inwards assist over the concluding xv years, together with they have got given us zip but lies & deceit,” Trump tweeted on New Year’s Day. “They give prophylactic haven to the terrorists nosotros hunt inwards Afghanistan, amongst picayune help. No More!”
Aside from the oddity of conducting unusual policy via Twitter, the world scolding was taken inwards Islamabad as a humiliating insult, farther complicating ties amongst an admittedly hard but necessary US ally inwards Washington’s never-ending “war on terror.”
The mutual frigidness state of war betwixt Republic of Republic of India together with Islamic Republic of Pakistan seems to live heating up
As the Indian Ocean arms race accelerates, both Republic of Republic of India together with Islamic Republic of Pakistan are rethinking when together with how they mightiness accept the nightmare measuring of launching the doomsday weapons at each other.
Their nuclear rivalry goes dorsum to May 1998, when both countries shocked the world amongst a serial of nuclear tests. Five years later, Republic of Republic of India declared its “no showtime use” doctrine. India’s political leadership has made clear that it views nukes as political weapons — a way to projection global powerfulness together with perhaps win a spot on the UN Security Council — non as war-fighting weapons. India’s military, however, has been frustrated past times Pakistan’s tactic of allowing terror groups to grapple a low-grade proxy state of war against India.
Pakistan calculates that it tin toilet job this tactic to wound Republic of Republic of India without fright of retaliation because Republic of Republic of India would live afraid of provoking a nuclear response. The 2001 attack on India’s parliament building together with the 2008 Mumbai attack are the most notorious examples of this.
Both were carried out past times Pakistan-based militants amongst well-established links to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, the military’s powerful spy agency. Terrorism is the classic underdog’s tactic. Islamic Republic of Pakistan is clearly the underdog inwards whatever nonnuclear matchup amongst India, but it is sure the world’s showtime nuclear-armed underdog to successfully apply the tactic against a nuclear rival.
Infuriated past times what it sees as a form of blackmail, India’s military machine is looking to develop strategies inwards which it could apply its superior conventional strength to punish Islamic Republic of Pakistan without provoking a nuclear response.
Pakistan, meanwhile, has tweaked its nuclear doctrine from “credible minimum deterrence” to something it calls “full spectrum deterrence,” which patently countenances the job of low-yield tactical battlefield nuclear weapons on its ain territory inwards the trial of an Indian incursion — some other unsettling showtime inwards the annals of nuclear deterrence.
During the Cold War, the dynamic that drove the US-Soviet arms race was MAD — mutually assured devastation — which saw both sides accumulate vast arsenals amongst tens of thousands of warheads. The logic was that each side possessed such overwhelming destructive powerfulness that neither would ever dare job it. Both sides understood that a nuclear state of war would live unwinnable and, therefore, unthinkable. H5N1 opposite — together with every bit perverse — dynamic propels the India-Pakistan rivalry. As Republic of Republic of India searches for ways to job its overwhelming conventional military machine advantage, a nervous Islamic Republic of Pakistan is forced to maintain lowering the threshold for nuclear retaliation.
As a result, at that spot have got been recent signals that Republic of Republic of India is rethinking or reinterpreting its no-first-use doctrine. H5N1 2016 mass past times Shivshankar Menon, a respected national security adviser inwards the previous government, caused a stir past times declaring “a potential grayness expanse as to when Republic of Republic of India would job nuclear weapons first.” Menon suggested Republic of Republic of India would live prepared to monastic tell a preemptive strike if it appeared Islamic Republic of Pakistan was nearly to job its nuclear weapons.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party floated a similar thought inwards 2014, urging a to a greater extent than flexible nuclear doctrine to bargain amongst Pakistan. And spell Modi himself says he remains committed to no showtime use, his previous defence strength minister, Manohar Parrikar, argued that Republic of Republic of India needed a less restrictive nuclear doctrine.
If zip else, Indian generals are speaking much to a greater extent than aggressively since they completed the total nuclear triad, which gives them an assured way of hitting Islamic Republic of Pakistan fifty-fifty if Republic of Republic of India has been hitting past times a nuclear attack. In January, Gen. Bipin Rawat, the army’s novel principal of staff, declared that Republic of Republic of India was prepared to test Pakistan’s threat to job nuclear weapons if a novel state of war broke out.
“We volition telephone outcry upwardly their bluff,” Rawat said. “If given the task, nosotros volition non say nosotros cannot cross the edge because they have got nuclear weapons.”
And that’s why this all matters together with then much for the 2 countries together with their hundreds of millions of citizens — together with the world as a whole. Republic of Republic of India together with Islamic Republic of Pakistan are mortal enemies that have got dozens of nuclear warheads aimed at each other. That was scary when those nukes were entirely on land. It’s a much scarier province of affairs at nowadays that those nukes have got been set onto submarines that displace deep underwater, asset the deadliest payloads imaginable.
Tom Hundley is a senior editor at the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
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