Living in the nuclear make believe!

Time and again, some personality or the other from one of our ‘friendly’ states in the West makes a loaded statement concerning the security of Pakistan’s nuclear assets. Why they have to do this defies imagination. Maybe it is meant to keep our strategic planners on their toes. Or, perhaps, to send a signal around that Islamabad continues to be a dangerous customer to do business with. What gives the common man a queasy feeling though is the fact that our attitude is a bit on the ambivalent side. While on the subject, it may be worth noting that, whether by coincidence or design, mention of universal nuclear disarmament, and/or nuclear weapon free zones, has simultaneously disappeared from the front pages.

This may be the time to indulge in a little introspection on why we opted for the nuclear option in the first place? Our defence analysts have held the view that we went for the “bomb” because we saw it as a “deterrent”. What is a deterrent? The dictionary defines ‘deterrent’ as ‘a nuclear weapon the possession of which is supposed to deter the use of a similar weapon by another power.’ This is one aspect: where one nuclear power wishes to deter another from the use of its nuclear weapons against it.

Another aspect may be more relevant in the present case. When there happens to be a major disparity in the conventional forces of two antagonistic powers, the weaker side can employ the threat of use of its nukes to deter the bigger power from overrunning it. It may be worth recalling that this very argument was applied by Nato vis-a-vis the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War.

Now, analysing the European situation a bit further, it will be seen that the deterrence factor lay in the threat of use of nukes by the West in the event of an attack on Western Europe by superior conventional forces of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact states. This deterrent served well in the rather tense state of affairs during the Cold War. It needs to be stressed that more than anything it was the mere threat of ‘first use’ of nukes that kept the Soviet and Warsaw Pact ambitions in check. Had the US and West foresworn the first use of nukes then this deterrence factor would have been nullified. The same equation is roughly applicable in South Asia, where India has a far superior conventional force. And yet, not so long ago, the then president had himself made a ‘no first use’ offer to India.

It is a tad difficult to understand how Pakistan could afford to commit itself to “no first use” of nuclear weapons. Of course, it could possibly make some sense when read with the then president’s other assertion that “I do not feel threatened by India”. That assertion in itself opens up another line of thought! Should this be the case, we may as well roll back our nuclear programme and/or put our nukes in mothballs and forget about the whole business of nuclear deterrence.

All in all, the one point that can be made is that our attitude towards vital issues has been inexplicably very much on the defensive side. If a state adopts a defensive and apologetic stance right in the beginning, it leaves little scope for a fallback position. To take just two examples from the recent past: various apologists of government policies had been heard remarking that interception of the US drones would be tantamount to declaring war on the United States. Or, that the US and/or Nato incursions into our territory and the resultant carnage were, in fact, America’s way of assisting us in “our war”.

So far as the ‘nuclear option’ goes, it may be preferable to adopt a rational rather than an emotional approach. Nuclear weapons – let us face it - are part of the problem rather than part of the solution. The preferred ultimate objective should be nuclear disarmament rather than nuclear non-proliferation. The latter is a negative rather than a positive concept. The compound word non-proliferation was conjured up (reportedly by the Indian representative) when negotiations for a nuclear disarmament treaty were in progress. This compound word has been the bane of the Non-Proliferation Treaty since its inception.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 6^th, 2017.

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