WASHINGTON: South Asian experts reject the nuclear pessimism
in Western capitals about their region, noting that the West’s nuclear
“sky is falling” in South Asia argument does not hold when seen in
proper context.
This is the conclusion of a report by a
prestigious Washington think-tank, the Atlantic Council, which also
rules out the possibility of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan.
The
council based these findings on a series of seminars it held recently
in New Delhi, Islamabad and Beijing, noting that South Asian experts who
participated in these meetings were more optimistic than the “nuclear
sky is falling” arguments often aired in the mass media, and policy
conferences in general.
The experts argued that China,
India and Pakistan, despite being enmeshed in a complex rivalry, “are
stakeholders in the existing international order, and are committed to
an open economic order and multilateral institutionalism”.
The
experts also noted that all three countries were embedded in a global
order that’s vastly different from either the pre-World War I era or the
“first nuclear age” that was manifested during the Cold War.
“The
nuclear ‘sky is falling’ argument is simply not supported by the
evidence, at least when evidence is embedded in its proper context,” the
experts maintain.
The report, however, warned that the
greatest threat to stability in the region “comes not from the
development of large, sophisticated and diversified nuclear arsenals,
but from the continued stability of the institutions guarding them”.
The
experts highlighted the consequences of “aggressive nationalism” in
China and India, and the potential for the “the first three decades of
the post-Cold War era” to become merely “a temporary hiatus in their
onward nuclear journey”, which could lead to “truly horrendous”
consequences that would prove true the “worst-case assumptions of the
nuclear pessimists”.
The report noted that until
recently, the threat of a nuclear war was thought most likely in South
Asia, where India and Pakistan are involved in a festering low-intensity
conflict fostered by deep conflicts about identity and territory.
The
report underlined two specific dangers: Pakistan deploying tactical
nuclear weapons in a conventional war with India, and India’s
investments in ballistic missile defences (BMD) and multiple re-entry
vehicle (MRV) technology, which gives New Delhi a first-strike option
against Pakistan.
The report noted that China, India and
Pakistan also share a common institutional legacy of civilian
dominated nuclear decision-making structures, in which the military is
only one partner, and a relatively junior one, among a host of others.
“All
three factors — the structural, the normative, and the institutional —
dampen both countries’ drives toward trigger-ready, destabilising,
operational nuclear postures that lean toward splendid first-strike
options,” it added.
The report noted that “Pakistan has
developed tactical nuclear weapons, although it does not appear to have
operationalised tactical nuclear warfare”.
On a positive
note, the report added, neither India nor Pakistan was conducting
nuclear tests to develop or improve designs for nuclear warheads. The
same holds for China
