Nuclear risk reduction

By Michael Krepon

THE COLD War experience with nuclear risk reduction was obviously unique, playing out in the context of a bipolar strategic and ideological competition. A great distance separated the antagonists. Both the United States and the Soviet Union accumulated huge and diverse nuclear arsenals, which were limited by treaty constraints. And both superpowers managed alliances under protective nuclear umbrellas.

Clearly, none of these factors apply to southern Asia. And yet, the key elements of nuclear risk reduction during the Cold War still appear to be applicable. As during the Cold War, regional stability and risk reduction in southern Asia requires tacit or formal agreements not to change the territorial status quo in sensitive areas by military means. Nor can India, Pakistan and China reduce nuclear risks if they engage in brinksmanship along national borders or lines of actual control. In southern Asia, no less than along the inter-German or Korean borders, there is an evident need to minimise or avoid dangerous military practices. Nuclear risk reduction between India and Pakistan or between China and India is very hard to envision without special reassurance measures directly related to weapon systems that are most worrisome.

The absence of trust in the faithful implementation of agreed obligations is no less corrosive between India and Pakistan or India and China than between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Proper implementation of risk reduction agreements reached is therefore required. Proper implementation can build trust, but monitoring and verification are also necessary. It is also self- evident that nuclear risk reduction, regardless of region, requires reliable lines of communication across borders, as well as redundant command and control systems.

While the Cold War experience can provide useful lessons for India, Pakistan and China, it does not provide easy answers. India and its neighbours must adapt lessons learnt to the unique strategic and political cultures, geography, and nascent nuclear and missile programmes now under way in the region.

The regional competition in southern Asia consists of two dyads - India versus Pakistan, and China versus India - and one triangle. In each of the dyads, the stronger of the two antagonists does not outwardly acknowledge the competition, making cooperative nuclear risk reduction extremely difficult. Nor do Pakistan and China acknowledge their previous collaboration against India. A triangular effort at nuclear risk reduction would be plagued by this history, and by the lack of symmetry resulting from three- cornered interactions. As a result, formalised bilateral or trilateral arms control treaties would be very difficult to negotiate in the complex security architecture of southern Asia. In contrast, the U.S. and Soviet Union made treaties the centrepiece of nuclear stabilisation and risk reduction.

National leaders in China, India, and Pakistan have all declared their firm intention not to repeat the nuclear excesses of the U.S. and Soviet Union. No one expects them to accumulate the liabilities that come with bloated nuclear arsenals. Large nuclear arsenals, however, carried the presumed benefit of risk reduction by providing insurance against a surprise attack. Because arsenals were so large, preemption was not a plausible option.

Small nuclear arsenals might not provide that much of an insurance policy, particularly in the early phases of a nuclear competition. Put another way, limited arsenals might generate risks, rather than guarantee risk reduction. Indeed, the historical record suggests that security concerns have been particularly worrisome to states possessing small nuclear arsenals. This was certainly true for the U.S.-Soviet experience, when nuclear risks were greatest in the early phases of arsenal- building, when vulnerabilities were evident, verification weak, and command and control untested. The brief, crisis-filled record since India and Pakistan acquired covert nuclear capabilities seems to confirm this proposition. If China, India and Pakistan are to demonstrate a superior wisdom that resists ever-increasing nuclear capabilities, they must first demonstrate a superior wisdom to reduce nuclear risks.

This analysis suggests that nuclear risk reduction will be a far more complex undertaking in southern Asia than was the case for the U.S. and the Soviet Union. As bad as Cold War nuclear dangers were, bipolarity provided a measure of simplification. The nuclear balance could be codified in treaties predicated on equality. A common understanding of stabilising and destabilising activities could also be negotiated. Competition was pervasive, and yet aspects that were most dangerous were placed off limits. After initial jockeying, the divisions of Berlin and Korea were accepted; Washington and Moscow did not exchange artillery fire across these lines, and military planning was not predicated on daily, violent interactions between soldiers.

India, Pakistan and China are very far from these stabilising conditions. In Central Europe, there were no `lines of actual control'. Not so in southern Asia. Even the relatively quiet, poorly demarcated border area dividing India and China is the scene of occasional jockeying between military patrols. Until last fall, the situation along the Line of Control dividing Kashmir was far worse, with Indian and Pakistani troops over- running each other's posts, engaging in small arms, mortar, and artillery fire, and regularly taking casualties. Nothing in Cold War experience remotely replicates these patterns of ritualised violence.

Indian and Pakistani Government officials and strategic analysts assert that they will not fall into the traps of U.S.-Soviet competition. To avoid these traps, restraint in deployment and force sizing is necessary, but insufficient. Unilateral actions to improve command and control and cross-border monitoring are also essential, but insufficient. Nuclear risk reduction is southern Asia - as was the case for the U.S. and the Soviet Union - can only succeed if this agenda includes collaborative elements.

In South Asia, triangular or bilateral treaty obligations relating to nuclear capabilities would be very difficult to negotiate since neither equality nor formalised inequality is likely to be acceptable to one or more parties. Even if treaties were negotiable during the formative and most dangerous phase of their nuclear competition, India, Pakistan and China do not have the independent, redundant means to monitor treaty obligations, the willingness to accept the transparency necessary for treaty verification, or a serious interest in accepting intrusive monitoring by third parties. The role that treaties played in reducing nuclear risks during the Cold War is therefore unlikely to be available to national leaders in China, India and Pakistan. In this event, stand-alone nuclear risk reduction arrangements become more essential, but also more difficult, given the absence of trust that verifiable treaty obligations might generate.

The rhetorical declarations of peaceful intent and negotiated confidence-building measures that Islamabad and New Delhi have relied upon instead of treaties provide a completely inadequate basis for nuclear risk reduction. Rhetorical pronouncements have usually been advanced to place ``the other'' at a political disadvantage. The impulse for negotiating confidence-building measures (CBMs) has mostly followed wars or crises on the Subcontinent. This impulse usually wanes after a crisis has passed.

The subsequent record of existing CBMs - where obligations are initially honoured and then forgotten - hardly builds confidence. If this dynamic is applied to nuclear risk reduction, India and Pakistan face a very troubled period ahead. Existing CBMs could provide a solid foundation for nuclear risk reduction - but only if there is a sea change in Pakistani and Indian implementation practices.

Pakistan has been the demandeur of a nuclear restraint regime, while engaging in a Kashmir policy that increases nuclear dangers. The basic incompatibility of Pakistan's nuclear diplomacy and Kashmir policy is widely understood. Now it will be tested anew in bilateral diplomacy. Much common ground to reduce nuclear dangers has already been cleared in diplomatic exchanges before Kargil. If both sides are serious about reducing nuclear dangers, they will not hold new nuclear risk reduction agreements - or their proper implementation - hostage to wrangling over Kashmir.

(The writer is president emeritus of the Stimson Center.)

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