Introduction
Today, the greatest security threat all over the world is that of terrorist using nuclear weapons. However, the probability of such an event occurring remains low but with the advancement in technology we can never be sure of what will happen tomorrow. If it does occur, the consequences would be detrimental and world altering. Keeping such a weapon out of reach of terrorist should be given the utmost priority in all the agendas of the 21st century.
It includes the key facts of global security. Leaders all over the world (especially those from the White House), the congress and in the community have realized the need of fighting against the use of nuclear weapons by terrorists. For instance, it is estimated that, if a ten Kiloton nuclear weapon is used on any of the biggest cities in the world; it would kill thousands of people instantly. This would not only lead to lose of life, but it would result in economic depression with the weakest economies being damaged the most.
It would interfere with the global level of investing and spending (which has gone up) and it would take decades to recover. These effects would even be adverse if there is threat of a second weapon being used in the same country or in another. However, optimists argue that, nuclear weapons can be used to deter the chances of war between two nations. This paper will elucidate this view as it tries to explain how the use of nuclear weapons by India can deter Pakistan from engaging in nuclear war.
Nuclear war between India and Pakistan
The explosions that occurred in 1998 between Indian and Pakistani reopened the debate on the probability of nuclear weapons being used by terrorists. This was the first violent war to occur after the cold war. Propagation optimists argue that nuclear weapons have an alleviating effect in international and regional relations because they prevent predictable wars while pessimists challenge that claim.
Pragmatist scholars elucidate the nuclear tests of May 1998 in security terms. The standard pragmatist elucidation is that India needs nuclear weapons to dissuade the conventional and nuclear military threat coming from China and the nuclear threat from Pakistan, provoked by Chinese assistance to the Pakistani nuclear weapons program.
On the other hand, other scholars affirm that, the 1998 Pakistan nuclear force was necessary in countering the superiority in Indian military with a small nuclear force (Mohammed, 1999:60). They go further to explain that, the use of nuclear weapons is the greatest equalizer in international relations; the only way for Pakistan to deter an Indian conventional attack is the threat of using nuclear weapons in war.
These scholars conclude that, India and Pakistan became more secure after the nuclear explosions that occurred in May 1998 based on the assumption that nuclear weapons can be used to restore peace because their devastating destructiveness stabilizes international relations and restore power regionally. Presently, there are many arguments about the utility of nuclear weapons in restoring peace after the cold war.
Post-test Indo-Pakistani nuclear relations give a prospect to re-examine the question of deterrence stability in a regional perspective. The issue is important because there is dormant conformist war going on between the two countries in Kashmir, and the danger of acceleration from conformist to nuclear war is very authentic.
Prime ministers from the two countries met in 1999 to discuss the strategies to use in order to control the extent to which nuclear arms were being used. However, they did not make any genuine progress even though they signed some agreements that seemed to have long good intentions although they contained short details (Narang, 2010:5).
They promised to alert each other in case there was risk of any devastating nuclear war. They also promised to carry on with their affirmed suspension on further nuclear trails, and agreed to announce in advance any testing of ballistic missiles. However, this did not seem to be enough considering that past attempts had failed in implementing confidence and security between the two countries.
The proliferation
The central precept behind propagation optimisms is that, the main impact of the use of nuclear weapons is to dissuade war between their possessors. Nuclear propagation is assumed to have a stabilizing effect because even a small nuclear arsenal can deter potential enemies from attacking the proliferators.
Deterrence is essential because the risk of vengeance by even a small number of nuclear weapons overshadows any probable gain of a military attack. Optimists also argue that new proliferators are least expected to suffer the same domination and to have power over problems as the powers used during the cold war (Barry, 1999:1).
On the other hand, pessimists hold that nuclear disarmament is much better that nuclear deterrence because the later one can fail or lead to regional nuclear war. They also challenge the rational behind the deterrence theory; organizational deficiencies may force new nuclear nations to create insufficient forces which might be susceptible to anticipatory military strikes.
This is because some organizational behaviours are likely to result in deterrence failures consequently leading to accidental war. For instance, budgetary constraints may force a nation to take ineffective measures for protecting a small nuclear arsenal. Before the May 1998 nuclear tests, explosion optimists asserted that the sheer continuation of Indian and Pakistani abilities to fabricate nuclear weapons on short notice dissuaded them from fighting an all-out conformist war for fear of acceleration to the nuclear level.
The outcome of the two crises between India and Pakistan (1987 and 1990) is a clear indication that even non-weaponized deterrence works. The 1987 India’s Brasstacks and the accelerating problems in Kashmir in 1990 resulted in a crises that would have resulted into war although it did not. This shows that, it is not only the use of nuclear weapons that can deter nations from engaging in wars, peace can be restored through mutual agreements (Walker, 1998: 518).
Nuclear deterrence
Nuclear deterrence is a strategy used by states where by a nuclear warhead in inserted in operational delivery systems to deploy a given number of nuclear weapons necessary to impose intolerable damage on its opponent. The state of affairs between India and Pakistan can be compared to that in Israel where a full-fledged small nuclear force with an advanced degree of weaponization was developed.
In spite of the oratory accompanied by the 1998 nuclear tests, India and Pakistan are yet to deploy nuclear weapons, even though the latest missile tests make the deployment more feasible (Devin, 1996:114). In November 2008, a group which was supported by Pakistan (Lashkar-e-Taiba) raided Mumbai for three days and killed more than 163 people.
Instead of India mobilizing its military forces to strike back against the terrorist, it restrained. They have adopted the declared minimum deterrent postures and have taken nuclear weapons out of the closet and seem to be moving into another game. The missile test explosions results that accepted nuclear deterrence were significantly different from the view of the Indian nuclear doctrine developed by the Prime Minister, Nehru, who had rejected the use of nuclear weapons for deterrence since it contrasted with Indian security policy.
By acting in response to the Indian nuclear tests, Pakistan missed the chance of having, for their first time, self-governing nuclear international relations. prior to the test explosions, Pakistan had made a number of nuclear arms control suggestions, together with a nuclear-weapon free zone for south Asia, that were all the time cast off by India on the grounds that they did not reflect some factors (Carranza, 1998:118).
Who benefits from nuclear deterrence?
Nuclear weapons have at all times been seen as an immense equalizer in intercontinental relations. One may dispute that India would not be dissuaded from using unadventurous weapons to meet a predictable Pakistani assault to free Kashmir, from following Kashmiri rebels into Pakistani region.
The great equalizer debate cuts both ways that is the Pakistan and India. In reference to this elucidation, the Pakistani test explosions have not gotten rid of India’s intrinsic strategic dominance, since in any nuclear stability that emerges in South Asia; India will be considerably more influential than Pakistan by a factor of not less than three or four in numbers of warheads and bombs (Francine, 1995:70).
This disparity will be exaggerated by Pakistan’s deficiency in a tactical depth, which induces it to come up with ballistic missile expertise to counteract the susceptibility of its air force to Indian conservative counterforce attacks.
Before setting up its nuclear dominance, India will have to entirely develop a considerable nuclear force at the threat of becoming economically insolvent, like the former Soviet Union.
India may even be enticed to create a nuclear arms contest to reinstate her tactical prevalence on the subcontinent, while elongating the Pakistani financial system to its limit. On the other hand, Pakistan does not essentially have to go on board on a nuclear arms contest with India, and could implement a policy of asymmetric avoidance, comparable to that of France.
Conclusion
As discussed above, many optimists believe that, the use of nuclear weapons by India can deter or escalate the chances of nuclear war between India and Pakistan. However, pessimists hold that deterrence balances are not intrinsically constant. The sagacity dilemmas shaped by nuclear deterrence circumstances are aggravated at the local level because local powers are short of the refined technology that kept the tranquillity throughout the Cold War.
Reference List
Carranza, M. 1998, “Dangerous Optimism: Non-Weaponized Deterrence and Regional Peace in South Asia,” International Politics 35 p. 118.
Barry, B. 1999, “India Promises, with Pakistan, to Seek Peace,” New York Times, p .1.
Devin, H. 1996, “Nuclear Deterrence in South Asia: The 1990 Indo-Pakistani Crisis,” International Security 20 p. 114.
Francine, F. 1995, Bridging the Non-Proliferation Divide.(Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
Mohammed, A. 1999, “Nuclear India and Indian-American Relations,” Orbis: A Journal of World Affairs 43 p. 59-74.
Narang, V. 2010, Pakistan’s nuclear posture: Implications for South Asian Stability. Web.
Walker, W. 1998, “International Nuclear Relations after the Indian and Pakistani Test Explosions,” International Affairs 44 p. 518.