Has Pakistan’s quest for nuclear weapons brought it security, prosperity and stability as envisioned by its military and political leaders? Or has it served to reinforce the civil-military imbalance without enhancing security or building prosperity or strengthening democracy? These questions are as relevant today as they were in 1974 when India tested a nuclear device and Pakistan responded by embarking on a secret plan to build a similar bomb for Pakistan. Or in 1998 when India tested five nuclear devices and Pakistan tit-for-tatted, despite the huge economic and military costs which followed in its wake.
India has since consistently refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and Pakistan has hid behind India’s skirts and spurned it too. But there has been one big difference. India didn’t have to pay any price for defying the West because it hadn’t entered into any strategic alliances with it. But when the cold war ended, the US walked out of Af-Pak in 1989 after accusing it of having crossed the nuclear “red light” and subjecting it to a range of economic and military sanctions in the 1990s for its nuclear defiance.
On May 11, 1998, India upped the ante by testing five nuclear devices. In dismal straits already, Pakistan could test and be damned, or abstain and hope to reap rewards from the West. For over two weeks, Pakistan’s civilian leadership dithered. But, apart from some phone calls from President Bill Clinton to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif with vague promises of a financial reward, there was nothing concrete on the table.
Meanwhile the rhetoric from India was becoming more threatening and taunting by the day. The gist of it was: if you have the bomb, show it now; if you haven’t got it, get ready to be thrown into the Arabian Sea for meddling in Kashmir. In the event, all doubts and confusions in the mind of Pakistan’s people, media, military and civilian leadership were swept aside and all were shoved on to the same page of national anger and honour, propelling Pakistan to test six devices and going “one up”. The day after, as expected, the sky fell on Pakistan’s head. Faced with a suffocating economic embargo by the West, the Sharif government devalued the rupee by 50 per cent and froze over US$10 billion in private forex reserves. The sanctions were replaced by huge doses of economic and military assistance after the US “returned” to Af-Pak following 9/11 and Pakistan’s military leadership agreed to another “partnership” with it, as in the 1960s and 1980s, in pursuit of American goals in the region. That partnership has now been reinforced in the wake of the Taliban’s threat to the state of Pakistan, mainly because of the West’s fear that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons could fall into the “wrong hands”.
If Pakistan’s nuclear program has been the bane of its life by provoking instead of resolving conflict, it has also been a boon by “renting in America”. But has the bomb served its original purpose of bringing security to Pakistan and obviating the need for a prohibitively expensive conventional arms race in the region with India? The record shows an interesting relationship between provocation, lack of conflict resolution and deterrence.
In the 1980s India seized Siachin and provoked Pakistan to support the Khalistan insurgency in Punjab. The two countries edged towards war after India launched “Operation Brasstacks” in 1987. Pakistan’s dictator General Zia ul Haq announced that Pakistan was a screw driver’s turn away from the bomb and reinforced the signal by nudging Dr A Q Khan to confide to Indian journalist Kuldip Nayar in early 1988 that Pakistan had the bomb. Did this stop India from teaching Pakistan a lesson? In the 1990s, Pakistan bled India in Kashmir. But India didn’t launch a war against Pakistan across the international border, not even after the Kargil provocation by Pakistan in 1999. Was the invisible deterrence working overtime? Again, in 2001 December, India was provoked by the Pakistani-backed jihadis, who attacked the Indian parliament in New Delhi, to move its army to the border with Pakistan and think of retaliatory strikes. Did Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent halt India in its tracks? Much the same thing happened in 2008 after Mumbai. India was outraged but didn’t retaliate militarily. Did Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent play a role?
The short answer is: Yes. But the nagging question remains: if the cause of war – a serious provocation by one or the other in the presence of passionate unresolved disputes – is removed through conflict-resolution, there is no need for expanding the nuclear deterrence in Pakistan. Certainly, in view of a continuing expansion of Pakistan’s conventional military might, a de-emphasis on nuclear weapons coupled with better safety procedures is just the sort of restraint that is needed to reassure the world and bury conspiracy theories of Pakistan’ impending dismemberment. A starting point in this direction could be to revitalize the process of conflict resolution entered into by India and Pakistan in 2004 as soon as possible. India should now realize that the oblique threat of terrorism which haunts it is already an existential issue for Pakistan and nothing can be gained by putting pre-conditions on the peace process.