The hovering nuclear clouds

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The latest kerfuffle on the nuclear front has been stirred up by comments made last month by a Harvard faculty member of Indian origin at a conference at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC. He opined that India has shifted or is shifting its nuclear doctrine from a retaliatory one to a one based on first-strike, which could well be in a preemptive mode. This means that India might well abandon no first-use, either soon as part of this shift or in face of provocation.

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Anticipating the shift, a back of the envelop calculation done in this column two years back had it that at least 50 weapons would require to be dropped for setting back Pakistan’s retaliatory capability.

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Presuming Pakistan manages to sneak in some of its own nuclear attacks timely and, later, its scattered nuclear forces fire off any remaining warheads in India’s direction, we could add some 20 nuclear strikes, not all of which will be impacting India since the early nuclear use by Pakistan might be in form of tactical nuclear weapons on its own territory against advancing Indian military columns. There would also be some knock-on detonations of Pakistani nuclear weapons subject to Indian strikes. Thus, we have a figure of about a 120 detonations, of which about a tenth could well be in India.

Though India would in this case receive strikes in the lower double digits, these might be tellingly directed at India’s nerve centers. 

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A rough estimate is that India can expect up to 10 nuclear incoming strikes from the Arabian Sea. Assuming DRDO manages to down 5 of these, an overall 15 impacts would be the price to pay for ‘wiping Pakistan off the map’ in George Fernandes’ unforgettable phrase.

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... assuming that two thirds of India’s strikes are airburst, about 25-30 Indian strikes will raise a dust, as would the 15 Pakistani bombs that manage to get through. Thus, we have a figure of about 45 mushroom clouds in the subcontinent, at least some of which would be in urban settings.

It is possible that given the dispensation currently in power in Delhi, there would be no compunction in eliminating Pakistan. Since the nuclear aftermath would provide an opportunity for gaining a firm grip over India, ostensibly to prevent chaos, there are incentives for a regime pre-disposed towards an authoritarian system.

Given this propensity, strategists would be well advised to think one-up. By selling first-strike as a doable proposition, they may end up with a political decision maker - with a self-belief in being a strong man and decisive - grasping the nettle.

How will this turn out?

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India could well manufacture a nuclear trigger in the form of a chemical attack on its forces – a’la Tongking Bay incident that brought the US directly into the Vietnam war. Recently in Syria, purported chemical weapons used by the regime led to the US missile strikes. Similarly, attribution of chemical attacks to Pakistan could open it up for pre-emptive nuclear retribution, with information warfare later cluttering the truth.

Clearly, South Asia is closer to a nuclear conflict than strategists care to let on. They need to take nuclear scaremongering more seriously, and so must the prospective nuclear decision makers.

Given all this, Prime Minister Narendra Modi should be apprised of the possible dangers.

Firstly, Modi would be wise to query the numbers. He should double the numbers of Pakistani warheads credited here as striking India’s solar plexus. It would take considerably more chutzpah than he needed to face the critics of demonetization.

Secondly, he could be arraigned for genocide, if not in front of the International Criminal Court – which India has in anticipation taken care not to sign up to – but in innovative global criminal tribunals set up for accountability.

Thirdly, even if Pakistan is history, the saffronites’ ‘Muslim problem’ would not have gone away. Not only would Pakistani refugees inundate the border-states but they would be a conduit for a jihadi, hybrid war.

In this nuclear era, what should matter to the decision maker is not what we can do to the  enemy but what the enemy could do to us.

nuclear dynamics

Will Modi relook at ‘massive’ retaliation in India’s nuclear doctrine?

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The nuclear doctrine review, which will likely be initiated soon by the new government in accordance with its promises in its manifesto, is an opportunity. India’s nuclear doctrine promises ‘massive’ nuclear retaliation in case of enemy nuclear first use against India or its forces anywhere.  What exactly is ‘massive’ is not spelt out.

There are three versions of ‘massive’. One is the Cold War version which meant ‘assured destruction’ of the enemy, defined in terms of damage and casualties. The second is counter-value targeting, counter value being an euphemism for city busting. In this case, even a single bomb on an urban centre can be considered a disaster of ‘massive’ proportions. The third is brought on by the need to preserve oneself from counter retaliation in kind. This would entail reducing the enemy’s capability for nuclear retaliation.

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The difficulty with this is that the alternatives offered make it appear as though nuclear war is fightable. Therefore, such alternatives do not find discussion in peace literature, which in turn restricts itself unduly to discussion of the abolition of nuclear weapons. While that is undoubtedly a useful thrust, abolition may be distant yet and there could well be radioactive mushrooms sprouting prior to that happening.

It is another matter that once the mushroom clouds blot out the sun, the dream of nuclear weapons abolition will be brought considerably closer. However, it may be too late then. Therefore, there is a need for the peace movement to also engage with nuclear doctrines that states think up.

Since India is now poised to think its doctrine afresh, peaceniks must vet the doctrine even if their instincts tell them that getting rid of the weapons is the best direction to go. It is in this spirit that this article discusses nuclear doctrine. There are rational alternatives.

Let’s begin with the Cold War interpretation of ‘massive’. Thinking on these lines, best voiced by George Fernandes when he was defence minister, has it that Pakistan would be ‘finished’ in case it used nuclear weapons. His army chief said that it would no longer be in a position to continue in the fight. Hardliners talk of obliterating Pakistani recovery capability as a state and society. A calculation has it that reducing six to ten cities to dust will be enough.

The second interpretation is city busting. In this a city or two less will surely put rationality back into the minds of Pakistani nuclear decision makers. Knowing that there are more cities that India could take out and that it has the means to do so, Pakistanis may throw in the nuclear towel. This risks Pakistani counter retaliation in like mode, a city for a city in light with the literalist Quranic interpretation that surely is not lost on Pakistan’s army controlling the nuclear trigger: a tooth for a tooth.   

In most scenarios of nuclear use, Pakistan is depicted as relying on its tactical nuclear weapon, the Nasr, for achieving a strategic purpose. It could use this against advancing Indian military columns on its own territory with an aim of ‘asymmetric escalation’ (Vipin Narang) of the conflict, in part to catalyse conflict termination by intervention of the alarmed international community. In this case, if India was to take out a Pakistani city or two, with the aim of in-conflict deterrence and to avenge itself, it would constitute escalation in itself, a move from military to civilian targets.

It cannot be guaranteed that even as Pakistan proves responsive to the international community’s intervention, it does not alongside lob a bomb or two on India’s urban centres to get even for what it would consider disproportionate Indian reaction.

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The third interpretation of ‘massive’ is to remain unscathed while delivering a massive nuclear blow to the enemy. This will involve reducing his nuclear retaliatory capability by hitting his command and control systems, delivery capability and arsenal. Since Pakistan has over 100 weapons which it will likely stash away over ten secret locations, a counter-force attack would require over 30 detonations across Pakistan at a minimum.

To be sure, a few more sites may require being hit taking this number to 50 or so. A few Pakistani bombs can be expected to survive and be lobbed back, broken-backed, at India. Adding these, perhaps 10-15 in number, on India’s heartland cities, takes the detonations to over three score. This dust and smoke will surely blot out the sun.

As is evident none of the three interpretations of ‘massive’ leaves India unscathed. Therefore, to go ‘massive’ is foolish. There are alternatives.

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A third model has been aired, too: that of ending an exchange at the lowest level of nuclear use. In case of the popular scenario of Pakistani tactical nuclear first use, India could likewise hit back at a lower order level and alongside, proceed with efforts at ending the exchange(s). This may require cooperation with Pakistan in the midst of conflict. Since both states have an interest to prevent escalation, such cooperation is not unthinkable and will doubtless be facilitated by the concerned international community.

Even so, this model is somewhat overly reliant on conflict diplomacy that may actually be overtaken by events. Suggesting a nuclear risk reduction centre would set alarm bells ringing, be seen as a vote against the efficacy of the deterrent in place, and as wishful at this stage of confidence-building engagement between the two states.    

The case for nuclear non-retaliation

Seen in the light of the above, there is a case for non-retaliation. When India is confronted with the favourite scenario of strategists,  that is of lower order first use by Pakistan, it could choose not to retaliate with nuclear means. It could instead fight back with conventional means, including conventional degradation of Pakistani nuclear assets.

Since Pakistan will be in the nuclear dog house and India on the moral high ground, there would unlikely be a repeat of Pakistani nuclear temerity. In any case in-conflict deterrence will continue in place with India likely to hit back harder in case Pakistan makes the same mistake twice over.

A ‘no’ to nuclear retaliation at the crux has the advantage of keeping  the politics of the conflict at the centre. Otherwise, as Clausewitz reminded all, conflict will have a tendency to spiral into what he called ‘Absolute War’. While in his time this was taken as the ‘ideal type’, in the nuclear age it is very much a possibility. Therefore, more needs to be done to avoid this, including formulation of sensible doctrines. That is a lesson of the Cold War that all nuclear states need to be held accountable to. This will also help preserve the ‘minimum’ against the onslaught of ‘credible’ in the doctrine of ‘credible minimum deterrence’.

India’s nuclear strategists that will likely get into a huddle soon must take care to think this option - nuclear non-retaliation - through. It could be facilitated by adoption of a ‘flexible’ nuclear doctrine that leaves the manner of retaliation to be decided depending on the circumstance of nuclear first use by ruling in conventional retribution. That India may not join Pakistan in breaking the nuclear taboo may lead Pakistan to check its nuclear finger.

The important point here is that it is not only nuclear deterrence as traditionally conceived that can produce nuclear reticence. How to prevent nuclear outbreak and limit it must guide the doctrine-  making process. Traditional blinkers that the ‘usual suspects’ have on may require  to be abandoned.

A NUCLEAR-FREE WORLD

Getting ‘practical’ on No-First-Use

PM Manmohan Singh’s plans to minimise nuclear risks, as articulated at a recent conference, revolves around formulation of a ‘global no-first-use’ norm. Firdaus Ahmed points to why a practical solution is less about global norms and rests more likely on issues closer home.

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Inaugurating the Indian Pugwash Society and IDSA conference on ‘A nuclear weapons free world: From conception to reality’, the prime minister urged the world to move beyond ‘partial and discriminatory’ approaches and towards a world free of nuclear weapons. Excoriating Cold War thinking that legitimised nuclear first use, he called for an agreed multilateral framework involving all states possessing nuclear weapons.

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This is likely the very last call of the prime minister in furthering India’s commitment to a nuclear weapons convention. It is in line with India’s Draft Nuclear Doctrine, largely adopted as India’s official nuclear doctrine, which had stated: ‘8.2. Since no-first use of nuclear weapons is India's basic commitment, every effort shall be made to persuade other States possessing nuclear weapons to join an international treaty banning first use.’ The Prime Minister was only fulfilling a doctrinally ordained commitment.

The position he put forth is consistent with India’s long standing nuclear perspective, an early articulation of which was in a 1968 IDSA monograph, ‘A strategy for India for a credible posture against a nuclear adversary’, anonymously authored most likely by late Mr. Subrahmanyam. The monograph maintained that legitimacy of nuclear weapons could only be abolished by foreswearing of their first use (p. 5).

Subrahmanyam went on to ensure inclusion of this in the Draft Nuclear Doctrine, that he is credited with stewarding through the large and opinionated first National Security Advisory Board that he headed thirty years down the line by making preambular reference to ‘the very existence of offensive doctrine pertaining to the first use of nuclear weapons and the insistence of some nuclear weapons states on the legitimacy of their use’ as constituting the premier threat (Para 1.5).

The idea is that once nuclear weapons use is considered illegitimate their eventual elimination will be closer. This would involve as a first step a constriction in the purpose for which they can be used, restricting this to only deterring nuclear weapons use. This entails adoption by other nuclear states that have other uses for nuclear weapons, such as to deter conventional attack, to move towards the Indian view that the sole purpose of nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear weapons. This switch in thinking enables moving towards No First Use, which once subscribed to by all would be the ‘global no first use norm’ referred to by Dr. Manmohan Singh.

But does this articulation constitute the ‘practical measure’ that the PM had in mind?

India has not been able to get its neighbour Pakistan on board over this in the past two decades. One of JN Dixit’s non-papers to Pakistan in 1994 was on No First Use of the capability, even though the two states were not overt nuclear powers then. Pakistan subscribing to a different perspective on nuclear weapons – that they are also to deter war itself – was unwilling to give up its nuclear trump card to checkmate India. And with good reason since it was then embarked on proxy war and wanted to deter India’s conventional military might being brought to bear on it for its temerity.

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This attempt at making India’s conventional advantage relevant once again in the nuclear era has had the consequence of making Pakistan more reliant on its nuclear card. Its restive nuclear trigger finger is best symbolised by the Nasr, a tactical nuclear weapon.

Though unpalatable and perhaps unfair to India, its position will inevitably be seen through the India-Pakistan lens. A plausible critique could well be that this is an attempt by India to defang Pakistan, thereby making its (India’s) conventional power reckonable. Ducking such arguments will remain difficult till India really wishes to finally get ‘practical’. Clearly, if India is serious on creating a norm, it would require first taking its neighbour along.

Here, one harks back to the debate of the early eighties that had Pakistan taking a leaf out of India’s book dating to 1949 by offering a ‘no war pact’ and India offering friendly neighbourly relations instead. The latter can bring about the former, even without a pact. With war ruled out thus, there would be no question of nuclear first use or no-first-use implying nuclear retaliation. Friendly relations are hostage to outstanding issues that need resolving. Therefore, ‘practical’ steps towards no-first-use begin closer home.

One of Subrahmanyam’s reasons for nuclear advocacy for India was that mutual deterrence was stabilising. Responding to General Sundarji’s invite to participate in the seminal postal seminar in the early eighties at the College of Combat which Sundarji then headed, Subrahmanyam wrote that Pakistan’s ‘inferiority at the conventional level will be compensated when mutual deterrence at the nuclear level is established (Combat Paper No. 2, p. 53).’ He believed that this would enable Pakistan reconcile to the status quo on Kashmir. Time proved him wrong, however.

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It would require making good on its offer of friendship. It cannot have Kashmir and eat it too. Dr. Manmohan Singh had the answers in his first term: making borders irrelevant. However, this got sidetracked by 26/11. Getting practical on No-first-use is therefore not so much about nuclear weapons and certainly less of norms at the global level. It is about conflict resolution closer home.  

Subrahmanyam’s answer in his 1968 monograph was that renouncing nuclear first use as illegitimate could be enforced by all states collectively retaliating against any state resorting to nuclear weapons. Since he was writing in the context of the Cold War, not only was such renunciation unrealistic for the conventionally disadvantaged West, but such collective action was incomprehensible. It is with good reason then that the PM chose to end his speech by vaguely referring to ‘verification’ and ‘political measures’.

The apprehension that arises is that with such renewed advocacy of the impossible, India may be creating the grounds for exiting its No-first-use commitment. When it blasted its way into the nuclear club, it had reasoned that this owed to no one listening to its call for nuclear disarmament. When no one listens to its No-first-use call, would India give it up?

Firdaus Ahmed
10 April 2014

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NUCLEAR DOCTRINE

One gaffe too many

The slips in the use of words in India’s official nuclear doctrine may be inadvertent but, nevertheless, point to a worrying amateurishness in the domain, says Firdaus Ahmed.

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17 March 2014 -

In his Subbu Forum Society lecture a year ago, Shyam Saran, Chair of India’s National Security Advisory Board, referred to the National Command Authority while talking of India’s nuclear command and control mechanisms in place. This would have been confusing for those who knew that India’s apex decision making authority in nuclear matters is the Nuclear Command Authority.

National Command Authority is incidentally the term Pakistan has for its nuclear decision making body. This can be explained away as a typographical error in Saran’s speech. However, if such errors creep into India’s nuclear texts once too often, there is a problem. This article makes the case that there is indeed a problem that brings into question India’s control of its nuclear weapons complex.  

The most glaring instance is India’s use of the term ‘massive’ in its nuclear retaliatory doctrine. The term ‘massive’ owes to ‘massive retaliation’ that figured in early Cold War history. The idea was that the US would reply with massive force, both conventional and nuclear, in case of Soviet military adventurism anywhere. The doctrine was over time appropriately modified to ‘flexible response’ in light of Soviet acquisition of nuclear retaliatory means to target the US national homeland.

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One criticism of the term has it that the official doctrine was adopted in the wake of India’s ‘redeployment’ of troops from their Operation Parakram positions on the border back to barracks. The stepping back by the nationalist BJP-led government was sought to be compensated by a stepping up of the nuclear rhetoric. That rhetoric should sear official doctrine is itself an indictment of the process of doctrine making, if not of the doctrine itself.  

Massive nuclear retaliation was promised by India in case of enemy ‘first strike’. First Strike in the nuclear lexicon is distinct from ‘first use’. Nuclear first use is the introduction of nuclear weapons into a conflict. One manner of ‘first use’ is in the form of ‘first strike’, defined as the attempt to degrade the enemy’s nuclear retaliatory capability to levels in which it is unable to mount a counter strike. An adversary need not resort to nuclear first use in a first strike mode always. Nuclear use in the first instance could also be lower order nuclear strike, such as tactical nuclear use.

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However, for lower order nuclear first use or strikes with low ‘opprobrium quotient’, going counter value is avoidably escalatory, since the adversary would not spare India’s cities in counter retaliation. This strategic aspect apart, that should in itself lend pause to India’s nuclear retaliatory choice consideration, it is clear that India confused the term ‘first strike’ with ‘first use’.

There is little reason to do so since the term No First Use is a familiar one. Since ‘No First Strike’ is not used in such cases, there was little reason for India to adapt the term for its own purposes. That the phrasing of its doctrine was not cognizant of this distinction suggests a deficiency that needs alerting against.

There are other egregious errors that need recounting. Take what is regarded as the ‘central pillar’ in India’s nuclear doctrine: No First Use (NFU). While India wishes others to believe that its NFU pledge is without a caveat, this is not what the written word suggests. In the Draft Nuclear Doctrine, NFU was qualified by, and confused with, the negative security guarantee. NFU was not taken as applicable for states aligned to the state that resorted to nuclear first use.

There are no readily conceivable circumstances that required this qualification of the NFU and the negative security guarantee. It was akin to threatening Myanmar or Bangladesh with nuclear retaliation in the event that either was aligned with China in a conflict in which China used nuclear weapons against India. A second distant possibility is in case Afghanistan was to serve the purpose of enhancing its ‘strategic depth’ for Pakistan in a conflict in which Pakistan resorts to nuclear first use.

To its credit India excluded this phrasing from its 2003 doctrine. Nevertheless, its confusion between NFU and negative security guarantees continued. To its NFU policy, it added: ‘Non-use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states.’ This is quite unnecessary since non-nuclear states cannot be expected to resort to first use in the first place.

Further, it ended up introducing another caveat to its NFU pledge: that NFU would be redundant in case of ‘major’ attack by chemical or biological weapons. This invited criticism that the circumstance was yet again difficult to comprehend, since all South Asian states and China were signatories to the comprehensive treaties banning both categories of weapons. If terrorists were in mind when India thought up this caveat, it was equally difficult to comprehend as to how it could retaliate against a state for the atrocity.

Criticism on this count by a foreign observer of India’s nuclear scene, Scott Sagan, was apt. He said that this was an instance of India aping the US that had at the time used the nuclear threat to dampen any thought in Saddam’s mind of going nuclear in case of US invasion. This yet again shows India looking outwards for its nuclear inspiration and messing up in the process. 

The uncertainty surrounding the nuclear doctrine is only compounded when its National Security Advisor, who heads the Executive Council and is secretary to the Political Council of the Nuclear Command Authority, makes similar mistakes. In his speech at the golden jubilee of the National Defence College in 2010, he restated India’s NFU as: ‘no first use against non-nuclear weapon states’.

As pointed out by Vipin Narang, a close observer of India’s nuclear scene, this was mistaken, since the NFU is a guarantee to states with nuclear capability and the ability to resort to nuclear first use, should they so choose. It is not NFU but negative security guarantees that are applicable to non-nuclear states. Though the speech writer can take the rap in this case, the fact is that nuclear doctrinal statements that are vehicles for deterrence related messaging cannot be taken lightly.

While all this does sound like nit-picking, the fact is that such mistakes – repeated and unnecessary – point to a worrying amateurishness in India’s nuclear domain. This is less liable to detection than the more visible problems with India’s submarine arm, evident from the three submarine-related accidents over the past year. The latter bring into question India’s ability to deploy and sustain a nuclear submarine-based ‘triad’, while the doctrinal gaffes revealed here detract from India’s presenting itself as a responsible nuclear power.

Clearly, India’s nuclear establishment could do with continuing scrutiny so that it does not add to the threat India is otherwise subject to due to its very location in a tough nuclear neighbourhood.

Firdaus Ahmed
17 March 2014

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