SOUTH ASIA NUCLEAR (IN)SECURITY?

Dr. J. JeganaathanAssistant Professor

Department of National Security StudiesCentral University of Jammu – Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) – INDIA

Email: chamujegan@gmail.com

South Asia: A Region without Regionalism

1.Indian subcontinent to South Asia

2.Home to more than 2,000 ethnicities across 7 countries with an estimated population of 1.64 bn people

3.Region with multiple identities

4.Two nuclear armed rivalries

5.One of the most volatile regions in the world

6.Parochial nationalism overshadows regionalism

Nuclearisation of South Asia: A quest for Strategic Parity?

• Indo-Pak Conflict• Liberation of

Bangladesh, a decisive phase

• Sino-India Rivalry• 1962 War• Boundary

disputes

Nuclear Deterrence in South AsiaTheory and Practice

What is deterrence?

‘Deterrence is a belief on strategic capability to avoid or prevent itself from being attacked by its opponents - the opponents believe that it is not worth to take a military action on the

state.’

(Charles W. Kegley Jr. and Eugene R. Wittkopf, 1998).

Types of Deterrence

• Deterrence by Denial

• Threat to deny an adversary the ability to achieve its military and political objectives through aggression

• Deterrence by Punishment"Deterrence by punishment may be posed an action on other state's

industry, population, or even the lives of its leader". (Keith B. Payne and C. Dale Walton, 2002)

• Deterrence by Defeat

• Deterrence by defeat shows the state will not to engage or initiate a war because the state certainty that it will be defeated

Indo-Pak MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction)

Indo-Pak Nuclear Equality

Kargil War & Nuclear Deterrence

• Deterrence by denial is deterrence failed

• “Strategic stability permits, if not creates, instability by making lower levels of violence relatively safe because escalation up the nuclear ladder is too dangerous.” – Robert Jervis

Post-9/11 Deterrence by Punishment

2001 – Parliament Attack

2002 – Operation Parakram

2003 – Ceasefire Agreement

2005 – Indo-US Nuclear Deal

2008 – Mumbai Attack

2011 – Operation Abbottabad

2012 – Induction of Battlefield Nuclear Weapons by Pakistan (Nasr)

Is Nuclear South Asia More Stable?

• Indian Army’s ‘Cold-start Doctrine’

• Deployment of Pakistan’s Battlefield Nuclear Weapons

• Waning US reassurances to Pak in case of conventional war by India due to selective action against homegrown terrorist groups

Cold Start: Myth & Reality

• Cold Start, India's forces would be put in place along the border, where they could attack quickly, make shallow penetrations into Pakistan, and seize slices of land. The seized territory would then be used as leverage to force Pakistan to act against terrorists within its borders (Smith, 2011: 207).

Pak’s Battlefield NukesSelf-defeating or Self-assuring?

“If Pakistan were to suffer an overwhelmingly large number of civilian and military casualties when a Nasr is detonated, then is the weapon really a deterrent?”

(J. Sankaran, 2014)

“The purpose behind the development of Battlefield Nuclear Weapons and Hatf II (Abdali) is to counter the Indian Cold Start doctrine”

(Director General, Strategic Plans Division, Lt. Gen. (retd.) Khalid Ahmed Kidwai)

Nuclear Weapons: More May be Worse

• Production of more nuclear weapons may be worse for South Asia Security & Stability because of conflict escalation and nuclear terrorism