Moving Away from the 'Nuclear Precipice'
Surely no philosophical discourse is needed to understand or agree that nuclear weapons are never meant to be used.
Once driving on a busy New York street a few years ago, I was struck by a bumper sticker with a strange message. It read: “One nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day.” This appeared rather childish if not an ultimate understatement. But taken literally, the message spoke volumes about the nuclear precipice. It will indeed take only one, just one, nuclear weapon, to ruin our day with no other day to follow.
Surely no philosophical discourse is needed to understand or agree that nuclear weapons are never meant to be used. They are only a means of 'deterrence' and to an extent seem to have served this purpose during the peak Cold War period. But one must also agree that the risk of a nuclear catastrophe will continue to loom until the universally acclaimed goal of 'Global Zero' is accomplished.
The Cold War is over, yet tens of thousands of nuclear weapons developed as a means of 'deterrence' remain in arsenals around the world. Together the US and Russia alone possess more than 95 per cent of the world's nuclear weapons. Their command and control systems are still tuned to permit immediate launch. The situation elsewhere is no less alarming.
Woefully, beyond rhetoric, there has been no progress towards a nuclear weapon-free world. The current global nuclear order inspires no-confidence in the nuclear disarmament or non-proliferation agenda which is being followed in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner with scant commitment to the overarching goal of “general and complete disarmament” as envisaged in Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
If global disarmament is beyond reach today, it is only because the multilateral system is being used to legitimise the strategic interests of only the selected few. Partial efforts at arms reduction and arms limitation do not amount to disarmament. They only take the focus away from the imperative of a nuclear weapon-free world with the major nuclear weapon states telling the world that their nuclear weapons with limited reductions will stay forever while others should do without them – a situation that amounts to telling people not to smoke while you have a cigarette dangling from your own mouth.
Unless a fundamental change is brought in this approach to global security, there is no prospect for a global consensus on disarmament in pursuit of a nuclear weapon-free world. President Obama understands the reality and has admitted that he may not live long enough to see a nuclear-free world, and that the US will maintain a nuclear arsenal “as long as these weapons exist”. This sums up the entire disarmament scenario.
Even the famous 'Gang of Four' consisting of four veteran US policymakers, Henry Kissinger, William J. Perry, George P. Shultz and Senator Sam Nunn as a bipartisan Quartet of individuals with impeccable credentials as 'Cold Warriors,” while questioning the very concept of nuclear 'deterrence' justify that “as long as nuclear weapons exist, America must retain a safe, secure and reliable nuclear stockpile primarily to deter a nuclear attack and to reassure our allies through extended deterrence.”
In an extraordinary series of widely published essays since 2007, the Quartet has been pursuing a determined campaign for global attention to the fact that our world today is “on the precipice of a new and dangerous nuclear era.” According to them, the accelerating spread of nuclear weapons, nuclear know-how, and nuclear material has brought us to a tipping point where reliance on nuclear weapons even as a means of deterrence is becoming increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective.
While suggesting development of effective strategies to deal with daunting new spectrum of global security threats, the Quartet also consider the US and Russia have no basis for maintaining a structure of deterrence involving nuclear arsenals in ways that “increase the danger of an accidental or unauthorised use of a nuclear weapon, or even a deliberate exchange based on a false warning.” In stating this, they however seem to leave unstated what uses the US nuclear stockpile might have other than deterring a nuclear attack. It appears by applying different yardsticks to different situations, they have chosen a “safe, secure and reliable” nuclear arsenal over a “safe, secure and peaceful” world.
In building their case for non-nuclear deterrence based on conventional weapons, the four former US policy-makers have argued that during the Cold War, nuclear deterrence was useful in preventing only the most catastrophic scenarios but did not deter the Soviet moves into Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. Nor were the numerous crises involving Berlin, including the building of the Wall in 1961, or major wars in Korea and Vietnam, the Cuban Missile Crisis, or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. In the case of the Soviet Union too, its nuclear weapons did not prevent its collapse or regime change.
In their view, the US and Russia were “lucky” that nuclear weapons were not used during the Cold War, and the world today had better not continue to bet its survival on continued good fortune with a growing number of nuclear nations and adversaries globally. The Quartet's broad conclusion outlined in its latest essay this March is that “nations today must move forward together with a series of conceptual and practical steps toward deterrence that do not rely primarily on nuclear weapons or nuclear threats to maintain international peace and security.”
The Quartet's most important, indeed insightfully realistic conclusion is the recognition that for some nations, nuclear weapons may continue to appear relevant to their immediate security. According to them, there are certain undeniable dynamics at play-for example, the emergence of a nuclear-armed neighbour, or the perception of inferiority in conventional forces – that if not addressed could lead to the further proliferation of nuclear weapons and an increased risk that they will be used. In their view, some nations might hesitate to draw or act on the same conclusion unless regional confrontations and conflicts are addressed. This requires redoubled effort to resolve these issues.
Interestingly, this assessment is of direct relevance to the India-Pakistan nuclear equation, the only one to have grown up in history totally unrelated to the Cold War and rooted in their legacy of unresolved conflicts and confrontations. This aspect together with a number of nuclear and strategic restraint measures mutually applicable to India and Pakistan found adequate reflection in the outcome of the latest round of a Track Two process called Ottawa Dialogue held at Stanford University's Hoover Institution in Palo Alto, California, from July 6 to 8, 2011.
The Ottawa Process is sponsored by prestigious academic institutions and comprises a distinguished group of academics and retired senior civil and military officials from both India and Pakistan. The Palo Alto meeting hosted by former US secretary of state George Shultz welcomed the recent resumption of high-level India-Pakistan dialogue and formulated an elaborate list of nuclear and other CBMs for presentation to the two governments before their foreign ministers meeting in New Delhi in on July 27.
The idea was to assist the official (Track One) process between the two nuclear-capable neighbours, with a history of conflicts and confrontations, in developing a mutually acceptable framework of nuclear restraint and stabilisation measures, including nuclear risk-reduction measures. Last year, they had made similar recommendations to the two governments which already seem to have found way in their expert-level discussions on “implementation and strengthening of existing arrangements and identification of additional mutually acceptable measures to build trust and confidence and promote peace and security.”
The new list includes a wide range of confidence building measures that could be implemented not only to prevent an accidental launch of nuclear weapons and escalation of conflicts between the two countries but also to stabilise their broader relationship through mutual confidence building and restraint measures. These also include conventional military CBMs/restraint measures and steps to encourage people-to-people engagement.
The Cold War is over, yet tens of thousands of nuclear weapons developed as a means of 'deterrence' remain in arsenals around the world. Together the US and Russia alone possess more than 95 per cent of the world's nuclear weapons.
The Ottawa Group was mindful of the fact that some of the proposed CBMs cannot be undertaken in the absence of stability in other aspects of the relationship but they can, at least, contribute to the creation of a “virtuous cycle;” an atmosphere in which progressively more ambitious steps can be taken in all fields of confidence-building. In the ultimate analysis, however, India and Pakistan representing the most uneasy nuclear equation in today's world will have to move beyond CBMs and purposefully get involved in conflict resolution.
Pakistan's longstanding proposal for Strategic Restraint Regime involving nuclear and missile restraint, conventional balance and conflict resolution will go a long way in promoting nuclear and conventional restraint and mutual stabilisation. Likewise, non-induction of ABMs and other destabilising systems could also serve as an arms limitation measure. Arms reduction could follow in due course later as the two sides build up trust and confidence.
Steady improvement in their relations requires fundamental changes in the way they deal with each other. A clearer framework of principles is needed on the basis of which to organise future relations. India, being the biggest country in South Asia, must lead the way by discarding hegemonic designs in the region.
Both countries also need an informed public dialogue on the subject of the implications of a nuclear conflict in South Asia, and of the opportunity costs which attend the continuation of an uncontrolled nuclear rivalry. Such a dialogue must include discussions on the need and modalities for addressing the underlying causes of their outstanding disputes.
For both India and Pakistan, peace and prosperity must now become the strategic priority. Mutual renunciation of the use of force for settlement of their outstanding disputes, including the Kashmir issue will ensure a stable and peaceful neighbourhood conducive to harnessing the region's vast untapped economic potential.
Shamshad Ahmad
The writer is a former foreign secretary.