Deterrence is a problematic concept at best. But even if India and
Pakistan were to meet the postulated conditions for deterrence to
work, the potential for large-scale war would not vanish
The two gruesome attacks in Kashmir within the space of 2 weeks have,
once again, brought India and Pakistan to the brink of full-scale
war. It is with some trepidation that the term "brink" is used here -
by the time this article appears, it is quite possible that actual
war may start. Though India and Pakistan have fought wars in the
past, this one would be different, for it will be fought under a
nuclear shadow.
War is hugely destructive even in the absence of nuclear weapons.
South Asia has been witness to this more than once in the past. But
nuclear weapons immensely raise the level of destruction. The use of
just one nuclear bomb can kill hundreds of thousands of people, not
to mention the resulting disruption of society. Under such
circumstances, war between nuclear weapon states like India and
Pakistan is, as the recent statement by the Indian Coalition for
Nuclear Disarmament and Peace calling for a halt to the preparations
for war puts it, not an "acceptable option".
What has been happening in South Asia points even more directly to
the imprudence of depending on nuclear weapons for security through
the deterrence argument. Deterrence is a problematic concept at best.
But even if India and Pakistan were to meet the postulated conditions
for deterrence to work, the potential for large-scale war would not
vanish.

The standard model for deterrence talks about rational and unitary
actors weighing the devastating consequences of nuclear weapons use
and deciding not to go to war. Even accepting the patently
unrealistic descriptions of countries as single-minded objects (When
was the last time the PPP and the Muslim League, or the BJP and the
Congress, saw eye-to-eye on the full details of any issue?) the South
Asian situation is different because there are other players in the
game.
This is borne out by the recent history of previous agreements that
the two governments have come to. It has usually been a case of one
step forward, two steps backward. After the nuclear tests and much
muscle flexing came the Lahore agreement where the two governments
decided to have limited transparency on their nuclear programmes and
settle their disputes peacefully. Shortly thereafter was the Kargil
conflict, which effectively buried the Lahore agreement. Similarly,
there was the attempt at Agra towards establishing better diplomatic
relations but events post-9/11 and the December 13 attack on the
Indian Parliament brought things back to the brink of war.
What is common to both of the above-mentioned disruptions is that
they were not the result of publicly stated official Pakistani
policy, but were carried out by militants. The relationship of the
militants to the Pakistani military, or whether President Pervez
Musharraf can indeed exert greater control over them, is irrelevant
to this argument. If the government controls the militants, then for
the attacks of December 13 or the more recent ones to have gone
forward represents the height of bravado and brinkmanship. Certainly
not the kind of behaviour that is indispensable for stable
deterrence. If there is no direct control, as the official claim
goes, then the operations of militant groups that carry out attacks
of such magnitude that they may well provoke an Indian
counter-attack, possibly leading to full-scale war, is proof that
they are important enough players to affect the calculations of India
and Pakistan. There can be no stability as long as they are in the
picture.
In the context of deterrence the recent report by Bruce Riedel,
American Diplomacy and the 1999 Kargil Summit at Blair House, is
revealing. Riedel discloses that the US detected evidence that
"Pakistan were preparing their nuclear arsenals for possible
deployment." This is disturbing in itself. But what is much more
disturbing is that during the meeting between Prime Minister Nawaz
Sharif and President Bill Clinton, Sharif seemed "taken aback" when
confronted with this fact.
Though it is quite possible that these preparations constituted mere
posturing and only intended to attract American attention, the fact
that the Prime Minister of the country did not know about plans for
use is alarming. It is clearly extremely dangerous if in a country
possessing a nuclear arsenal, the leader loses control over the
actions of military, especially its nuclear armed sections. One
cannot be completely confident of President Musharraf's control over
the entire army either, especially given his professed lack of
control in the border areas in the Kashmir region.
Riedel's report also demonstrates something else that goes in the
face of the often-parroted claim that nuclear weapons protected
Pakistan and kept the war from escalating. What comes through in the
report is the sense that India, and Prime Minister Vajpayee, did not
stop the war fearing Pakistani nuclear weapons. It was reassurance
from the US that Prime Minister Sharif would behave himself and order
Pakistani troops back from the Line of Control that set the
conditions for the cease-fire.
There are multiple lessons to be learnt here. First, that nuclear
weapons are not to be relied on to keep the peace. Instead they offer
the threat that on top of the devastation from war would be that of
nuclear destruction. The second is that the ongoing militancy is
extremely dangerous and detrimental to both countries, bleeding them
slowly to death. Nuclear weapons add to this problem by allowing
political leaders to assume that their nuclear arsenals provide a
cover that would prevent the conflict from escalating. Such an
assumption is unwarranted; by increasing the number of small-scale
conflicts, nuclear weapons only amplify the probability of
large-scale conflict.
Finally, it underscores the importance of genuine and honest
negotiations towards solving the problems between the two countries
politically, getting rid of nuclear weapons in the region and
establishing a lasting peace. But such negotiations cannot be carried
out with any confidence unless actors on both sides can be made to
see the futility of holding on to extreme positions which has set the
action-reaction dynamics in the region.
M V Ramana is a physicist and research staff member at Princeton
University's Program on Science and Global Security. He is the author
of "Bombing Bombay? Effects of Nuclear Weapons and a Case Study of a
Hypothetical Explosion" (Cambridge, USA: International Physicians for
Prevention of Nuclear War, 1999). Some of
his writings can be found at  http://www.geocities.com/m_v_ramana/nuclear.html