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The Rediff Special/ Commodore C Uday Bhaskar

Square the circle

The Indian nuclear tests of May 1998 are now a year old and a swift review would suggest that this initiative has had a positive fall-out for India both in terms of addressing its core security considerations, as also the deeper commitment to the total elimination of nuclear weapons. In other words, one may infer that the cause of deterrence and disarmament have been both advanced -- paradoxical as it may sound.

The paradox has its genesis in the contours of the dominant discourse on the nuclear issue -- which a la Foucault -- is deeply embedded with the power grid. That is, the prevailing nuclear narrative of the post Hiroshima world has the discriminatory NPT at its core and the entire edifice has been built on the rationale that only five nations in the world may have this capability as NWS or nuclear weapon states (US, Russia, China, France and UK) -- and that all the other states have no option but to accept a non-nuclear weapon status -- NNWS.

The bottom line was that such an arrangement was desirable not merely as part of realpolitik but also had a theological and ethical underpinning that accorded this discriminatory mandate to the select five in the larger interests of global security and stability.

India which had opposed the imposition of such an unequal and discriminatory arrangement since its inception in 1970 was itself ambivalent about how to address the nuclear issue that was a complex mix of technological, strategic, political and humanitarian determinants.

However the arrival of China as a NWS in 1964 and the further consolidation of Beijing's nuclear arsenal compelled India to review its strategic neighbourhood and 1974 saw a reluctant India carrying out its first nuclear explosion -- the reluctance stemming from an abiding commitment to pacifism and a discomfort with macro military power, and a deeply entrenched abhorrence of the nuclear weapon -- a collective response shaped from Hiroshima/Nagasaki and the Gandhian value system that inheres in the Indian body-politic.

It is against this background that one has to surf through the events of the last quarter century where there was a twin degradation of India's core security interests and the commitment to global disarmament. China's own strategic rationalisation at the global and regional level witnessed a co-operative framework that allowed Beijing to provide WMD (weapons of mass destruction -- i.e. nuclear weapons and missiles) to the south Asian periphery that began with Saudi Arabia and focused on Pakistan. The WMD capability had become a techno-strategic inevitability and the Cold War considerations of the US and the former USSR in the Middle East, West Asia and Afghanistan led to a situation where India had to contend with an adverse WMD presence that included ballistic missiles and a clandestine nuclear programme in the periphery that included China, Pakistan and Afghanistan at the visible end.

This macro security profile -- if WMD is so classified -- had a complex and non-linear impact on the internal security dimension of India -- that is micro-security, wherein the low intensity conflict was stepped up from across the border against the Indian state and society in areas that were conducive to such a proxy war. Thus from the late 1980s onwards there was a symbiotic linkage between the WMD capability that Islamabad acquired and the state sponsored terrorism/militancy in states such as Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab -- and on occasion in the Indian north-east. By the early 1990s it was evident that India had a dual challenge to respond to -- one hand the clandestine/furtive WMD capability that Pakistan was acquiring, the tacit involvement of the major powers such as the US and China in the matter, and the LIC campaign with its complex diversity and the ramifications for the Indian body politic.

At the global level the post 1991 ambience was equally negative for the US and its allies had stepped up the regulation of WMD capabilities -- and in a short span of five years after the end of the Cold War -- China and France had come on board the NPT; the treaty itself was eternally and unconditionally extended with no obligations on the global community to commit themselves to disarmament; and soon the CTBT was drafted in a coercive manner that was detrimental to Indian interests and sensitivities. The die was cast and in the 1996 CTBT debate one notes the emergence of a nuanced sense of realism in the Indian debate and security establishment. India reluctantly dug its heels in on the CTBT and displayed its ability to be a resistant state on WM matters and the events that followed are recent history - right unto May 11, 1998.

The decision to cross the nuclear Rubicon by the Vajpayee government should not have come as a surprise to anyone following the internal debate in India and the public statements by the party. The BJP in its election manifesto of December 1997 announced that they would address the nuclear asymmetry India was dealing with and this was unambiguously reflected in the Agenda for Governance issued soon after the BJP led coalition was sworn into power in March 1998. If September 1999 marked a benchmark in terms of the CTBT -- the end of the three year period when the treaty would come into force dependent upon the ratification -- the window of opportunity for India was closing. If this was one determinant, the test firing of the Ghauri missile by Pakistan in April 1998 may have injected greater political salience to the WMD issue and one may conjecture that a conscious decision was taken to conduct the nuclear tests of May 1998. Yes, they were followed by Pakistan within a fortnight and the sub-continent was irrevocably nuclear weaponised. The NPT has its own semantic and it was evident that no crashing of the club would be endorsed -- but India and Pakistan had introduced a new reality to the nuclear order: they may not become NWS a la NPT -- but they were SNW -- states with nuclear weapons -- a reality that had to be acknowledged -- however distastefully it was projected.

The immediate aftermath of the May 1998 tests saw a welter of responses -- from jingoism and a mood of celebration to anxiety, angst and fear of a worst case scenario that included a possible Indo-Pak nuclear war. The US-led Western response was critical and condemnatory and the NPT order closed ranks -- that is the five NWS and their politico-military allies -- the most intense (shrill?) being those states who were ostensibly non-nuclear but found it necessary to seek their protection under the US nuclear umbrella! The diktat was clear -- as reflected in the UN Security Council Resolution 1172 of June 1998 and the economic sanctions that were imposed soon after by various nations. India was urged/exhorted to recant, cap, roll back and revert to a NNWS status. Dire predictions were made that in essence contained two elements: one -- India and Pakistan would slip into an arms race and accidental nuclear war; and two -- the post Cold War nuclear order and related stability would be wrecked beyond repair if Delhi was not brought to heel. (Only India was identified since it was perceived that Pakistan had adopted a lock-on position vis-a-vis its larger neighbour and was hence tacitly exonerated of major transgressions).

In the intervening 12 months -- after a little fumbling and faltering, India has been consistent in the path it is pursuing. The objectives in effect are three fold: a) the quiet determination to move towards a minimum credible nuclear deterrent in terms of force levels that would be underpinned by a doctrine of no-first-use akin to the Chinese; b) the commitment to disarmament would not be diluted ; and c) reconciliation and dialogue with the major/relevant powers would be sustained across the board. These positions have been consistently retired by the Indian establishment from the PM downwards in fora ranging from the UN General Assembly to the Indian Parliament. This framework translated into high-level meetings with the US, a tacit commitment not to delay the CTBT negotiations provided there was some reciprocity from the global community; interaction with Pakistan to stabilise the post nuclear test relationship and a reaching out to China which was outraged at the manner in which it was projected as a source of strategic concern to India.

The balance sheet a year later is reasonably satisfactory that India is evolving the contours of its minimum credible deterrent and has brought its missile programme back on stream -- the Agni II was tested on April 11, 1999 with plans for the equivalent of an Agni III as and when it is appropriate. Simultaneously disarmament has received a fillip and paradoxical as it may sound, it is only after the Indian tests that some voices are being raised -- such as the Group of Eight nations -- that have reminded the five NWS about their disarmament commitments. This is an effort that will have to be sustained and the new government in Delhi would in all probability bring this up in the 1999 UNGA.

The third strand is the dialogue that has been sustained -- with the US, France, Russia in the first instance -- and now with China and Pakistan regionally. The more encouraging aspect has been the outcome of the Lahore bus ride as reflected in the Lahore Declaration that has a nascent roadmap for the strategic capabilities path that India and Pakistan are embarked upon -- and the manner in which be stabilised/managed.

The results of this were seen in the April missile tests by India and Pakistan when three missiles were tested -- the Agni, the Ghauri and the Shaheen -- and the responses on either side were far more muted than the shrill reaction generated in 1998. Hope? Perhaps yes. But the road is still bumpy -- for India will have to evolve the equivalent of a strategic asymmetric mutuality with both Pakistan and China where it will be located somewhere in between. Currently China is estimated to have about 500 nuclear warheads of which almost 90 per cent are non-strategic -- that is they are relevant to the neighbourhood. And Beijing has reached this plateau 35 years after its first test in 1964.

Hypothetically, India would have to locate its arsenal quantitatively below this figure and if 150 warheads is a ballpark figure for India in terms of adequacy and affordability, the challenge for Delhi would be to encourage Islamabad to define its own level of sustainable strategic mutuality -- 50 warheads or 75? -- and accept this asymmetry as being in the furtherance of its core security interests.

One year later India need neither be apologetic nor euphoric about May 1998. The nuclear weapon is an apocalyptic capability and has to be handled with humility and sagacity. Unfortunately it is a techno-strategic inevitability nurtured by realpolitik and primeval human responses. Prudence suggests it cannot be put back into the bottle and we will have to deal with it for some more decades. The only course to steer for the world as a whole and India in particular is to square the circle -- disarmament must finesse the imperatives of deterrence.

More recent developments are less than happy augury -- NATO at its 50th anniversary unambiguously reiterated the centrality of the nuclear weapon with a caveat for first-use well into the next millennium. Russia smarting over Kosovo followed suit and has stated it would fund more R&D into the nuclear weapon field. China is equally irate over Kosovo -- and the inadvertent bombing of its embassy could not have happened at a more inappropriate moment. Trans-border military capability is acquiring a centrality and autonomy in the strategic arsenals of the major states at a time when the trend towards equitable disarmament would necessitate a devaluation of the nuclear weapon and the missile it is lashed to.

These are turbulent times and the uneasiness of the post Cold War years is palpable in the contradictory tenor that obtains between the major powers viz: Washington-Beijing-Moscow on one hand, and that between the US-led NATO and the rest of the world on the other. India as a major yet unaligned nation needs to read the strategic tea leaves very carefully even as they are being repeatedly stirred and harmonise its nuclear profile with the other dimensions of comprehensive and sustainable security for almost a billion people. The prescription a year after Pokhran may be to urge deep and sincere introspection -- as opposed to unwarranted apologia or mindless euphoria.

Commodore Uday Bhaskar is deputy director, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi. The views expressed here are his personal opinion.

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