Staring down at a nuclear showdown!

India and Pakistan have both worked hard not only to continue their nuclear weapons programs but have also tried to demonstrate that both can be responsible members of the club of nations who possess nuclear weapons. Irrespective of the arguments of why they should have them in the first place, the fact remains the the Indian sub continent is the moist nuclear weapon saturated space per square mile on the planet. Since possessing nuclear weapons both adversaries have had limited war skirmishes and neither has threatened to use nuclear weapons.

Pakistan, which has faced numerous terrorist attacks, largely as an over hang from the war in Afghanistan, (where it did support militant elements at a time), has taken extra pains to ensure its command and control system is not only not compromised but also vital information is shared with the major powers to give them comfort that a militant group cannot simply walk in and take over Pakistan's nuclear weapons. It was thus all the more surprisingly that a former US Secretary of Defense recently said the nightmare scenario for him is such an eventuality happening.

However, in August the dynamics within the Indian sub continent have suddenly changed with the actions of Indian PM Modi changing the status of Indian administered Kashmir. While the merits or demerits of this have been discussed elsewhere, from a military strategic point of view one has to wonder what happens if India and Pakistan go to war yet another time over Kashmir.

Many would like to believe like the Kargil war of the 1990's and other skirmishes between the two nations another slug match will also remain limited in hostilities and nuclear weapons will not be a factor in such a war. Imran Khan, the Pakistani Prime Minister, has gone to some length to assure the world that it would not be the first to start hostilities and not the first to use nuclear weapons. However, Pakistan's strategic doctrine has never had a 'no first use' policy, and there is a reason for this. Pakistan dwarfs India in terms of conventional arms and the size of their armed forces. India has invested heavily in its navy including nuclear submarines all which can blockades Pakistan's two commercial ports and on the ground India could throw all its military might to occupy Pakistani territory and then negotiate hard of Kashmir.

Some would say well this has not happened in the 1990's during the Kargil war so why would India take such an aggressive position towards Pakistan when it did not do the same in the past 20 years. Simply put, the political leadership during those times was not motivated with by an image of greater India and a predominantly Hindu India nurtured in the thinking of the RSS (a Hindu militant organization from whose ranks PM Modi rose to lead the BJP). In addition the should India not be able to restore normalcy in its part of Kashmir soon enough then blaming Pakistan and carrying out what it calls surgical strikes across into Pakistan will be the only public relations exercise that Modi can use to divert attention from Kashmir.

This time around it would seem in the backdrop  of the August Modi moves on Kashmir a surgical strike by India would perhaps not get an equivalent response or a defensive response of just shooting at planes crossing into Pakistan. The Pakistan political set up and the army cannot be seen to be weak in any such response. This clearly sets the stage for escalation to a level where the conflict cannot be contained. Herein lies the problem then with nuclear weapons.

The basic doctrine of Pakistan's nuclear strategy is that only if it was losing a ground war to India and any chance of repelling Indian gains through conventional means cannot be successful then only would nuclear weapons be used. This is the basic reason for Pakistan acquiring nuclear weapons soon after India made the first move to go nuclear. Thus for Pakistan to have a 'no first use' policy on nuclear weapons would never make sense. Indeed, Pakistan's doctrine does not have a first use policy in an offensive mode. In other words it is unlikely that Pakistan would use a nuclear weapon at the start of hostilities, however limited, to simply try and gain a strategic advantage. The reason for this is logical as there is not enough geographical space between the two neighbors to use a nuclear weapon in such an offensive role without a fall out on the attacker itself.

It would seem that from India's point of view their nuclear arsenal is seen as a deterrent to avoid Pakistan or for that matter China to consider an attack. First strike capability and surviving a first strike to them counter attack in nuclear terms is not only a complicated calculation but also a very messy affair with millions of casualties on each side. There is little or no public information on the level of sophistication that each of the two countries possess in terms of their nuclear warheads and delivery systems, though it would seem that Pakistan might well have invested in tactical nuclear capabilities to give it more flexibility should it ever have to use them for a strike to prevent being over run in conventional warfare.

If reason prevails then its obvious to prevent a first use of nuclear weapons by Pakistan, India will have to measure its military actions against Pakistan. Any push to over run Pakistan and capture territory including a major city will result in escalation to the nuclear level. In such a scenario India will have to measure what benefit a limited conventional war will gain for it in Kashmir and indeed will it not be seen by its own people as a diversion to the events within Kashmir. India's right wing political thought seems to suggest that a Bangladesh type invasion is possible into the Pakistan side of Kashmir, forgetting that the situation in 1971 in Bangladesh was one of a civil war and one that the then Pakistan military and political elite totally mishandled.

It is therefore all the more important for the world to understand that the sub continent is at a very precarious level of tensions and it is important for all parties to play their role to defuse the situation. A war between India and Pakistan will not benefit anyone and in the long run there will be no winners. There are forums to resolve this dispute and these must be explored. Passions have to be tempered and sense has to prevail and at the end of the day it must be the Kashmiri people who must decide their own fate.