India, Pak cannot afford a nuclear war

War, they say, is far too serious a business to be left to Generals; or politicians. But events since the Pulwama suicide bombing on February 14 seem to be spiralling out of control and there is talk of ‘war’ in TV studios and among hawks and hard liners in both India and Pakistan. Hours after the Indian Air Force struck at Balkot in Pakistan and destroyed a terror camp run by Jaish-e-Muhammad, Major General Asif Ghafoor of the Pakistan Army addressed a press conference. He promised retaliation by Pakistan, warned India to wait to be surprised and added ominously that the National Command Authority (NCA) of Pakistan would be meeting on Wednesday. He icily added, “I hope you know what NCA means and what it constitutes”.

The National Command Authority of Pakistan is the principal body that looks after nuclear issues. And it has been known for several years that Pakistan has been developing low intensity nuclear weapons for use against advancing columns in limited space. The meeting of the NCA was clearly meant to signal that Pakistan would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons in case of war. This development comes days after former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh warned of increasing risks of nuclear war. He was speaking at a book launch of an ORF ( Observer Research Foundation) publication, Nuclear Order in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Rakesh Sood.

Experts have indeed noted with concern that “With every passing decade, advances in technology make it easier and cheaper to create ever more deadly nuclear weapons, buy or make longer range and more effective missiles, and go for various hi-tech weapon systems that could not have been imagined just a while ago.”

It is tempting to recall what Pakistani physicist and nuclear scientist Pervez Hoodbhoy wrote some years ago.

“If there is a lesson to be learnt,” he wrote, “it is that Indian and Pakistani hawks have colluded in bringing death, destruction, and the prospect of a nuclear graveyard for their peoples. Being engaged in a tribal blood feud, their vision and judgement have been fatally impaired. They mistake patriotism as hatred for the other country instead of love for their own. Unfortunately for the peoples of the subcontinent, their monopolistic control over the media (particularly television) ensures that other voices cannot be heard.”

“Never before have two such poor, suspicious and bloody-minded neighbours, holding such immense powers of destruction, glared at each other so ferociously.”

Leaders on record have always ruled out a nuclear war in the subcontinent. With China, India and Pakistan having nuclear weapons, it would act as a deterrent, they argued. But with fast developing technology, nuclear weapons are today said to be cheaper to produce and acquire.

Pakistan has argued that tactical nuclear weapons would only be used in self-defence. It blames the former Indian Army chief Deepak Kapoor’s ‘Cold Start Strategy’ aimed at cutting Pakistan into ‘salami slices’ for prompting the ‘defensive’ action. The low-yield bombs, it has declared, will be used as and when Indian troops advance into Pakistan.

Experts acknowledge that it might be tempting for a smaller and more vulnerable country to use small, nuclear weapons against a more formidable adversary. But the strategy assumes that the response would also be equal in scale and intensity. In a post-Pulwama interview given by former Pakistani dictator General Pervez Musharraf. while ruling out a nuclear war, said that Pakistan could take the lead with a nuclear strike but it would have to be prepared for a retaliation which would be twenty times more severe. “If we attack with one nuclear bomb, India will be able to respond with 20. And the only way out of it will be to strike first and strike at 50 places. But are we prepared for the consequences?”

India too has full-spectrum deterrence, including nuclear submarines, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and space-based assets. But while Pakistan does not have the resources to match India’s capability, its smaller nuclear weapons, said to be guarded by as many as 10,000 Pakistani troops, run the risk of falling into the hands of jihadis who would like to trigger a full-scale war with India.

Way back in 1983 the American television movie The Day After depicted a full-scale nuclear war and its impacts on people living in and around Kansas City. By the time the movie ends, almost all of the main characters are dead or dying.

ABC broadcast The Day After on November 20, 1983, with no commercial breaks during the final hour. More than 100 million people saw it. It remains one of the most watched television programs of all time. Brandon Stoddard, then-president of ABC’s motion picture division, called it “the most important movie we’ve ever done.” The Washington Post later described it as “a profound TV moment.”

It was also a turning point for US foreign policy. Thirty-five years ago, the United States and the Soviet Union were in a nuclear arms race that had taken them to the brink of war. The Day After was a piercing wakeup shriek, not just for the general public but also for then-President Ronald Reagan.

Shortly after he saw the film, Reagan gave a speech saying that he, too, had a dream: that nuclear weapons would be “banished from the face of the Earth.” A few years later, Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the first agreement that provided for the elimination of an entire category of nuclear weapons. By the late 1990s, American and Russian leaders had created a stable, treaty-based arms-control infrastructure and expected it to continue improving over time