Abstract
In 1999, then-US President Bill Clinton called South Asia “the most dangerous place on Earth.” He made the statement in the aftermath of the 1998 conflict between the region’s two nuclear-armed neighbors, India and Pakistan, in the Himalayan theater of Kargil. These hostilities played out within a year of both countries conducting nuclear-weapon tests, which were supposed to banish the prospect of even a conventional war between them. Kargil preceded the frightening India-Pakistan military standoff in Kashmir in 2001. On both occasions, nuclear threats were freely traded between the two sides. Wide sections of public opinion around the world agreed with Clinton’s assessment, though, predictably, the political establishments of the region, including, especially, India, demurred at the description. While critics continue to debate and dissect the nuclear-threat issue, one thing is clear: South Asia has not become any less dangerous since then. The nuclear-proud neighbors have continued their arms and missile race, and the tentative moves toward “a peace process” were nearly terminated after the Mumbai terrorist strike of November 2008.
South Asia at a Crossroads, however, as the editors indicate in their introduction, goes beyond the topical subjects suggested by the title. The book is not about the Kashmir dispute nor is it about the threat of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons passing into the hands of Taliban insurgents and Al Qaeda terrorists, although these and related subjects are touched upon. The volume deals mainly with other issues having “implications for stability and security for the region and beyond.” The issues include missiles and missile defense systems, India’s space program, and energy security scenarios.
Primarily a compilation of papers presented at an international conference held in Berlin in October 2007, the book places the question of South Asian peace and security in a global and, to a lesser extent, Asian, perspective. The conference, which included representatives of governments, non-governmental bodies, and individuals, was jointly organized by MIT, the German Federal College for Security Studies (BAKS), and the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH) at Hamburg University. The editors mention that India officially declined to participate in the conference; however, several Indian experts, including one associated with the country’s nuclear weapons program attended.
Post-9/11 international events of particular relevance to South Asia figure prominently in the book’s essays. Though none of the contributors takes an explicit political side, many write on the regional repercussions of the policies and actions of the US—especially starting with the George W. Bush administration.
Judging from the writers’ perspectives, the most important of the repercussion for the region was the US-India civilian nuclear cooperation deal. This would not have been possible outside a “strategic partnership” envisioned by Bush and endorsed by succeeding Indian governments. At least six papers (out of the 29 included in the book) focus on this compact, analyzing it from different viewpoints.
Uta Zapf, a member of the German Bundestag from the Social Democratic Party, presents the peace movement’s perspective in sharp and clear terms. “The argument that this deal could bring India closer to the non-proliferation regime is not true,” she writes. “The danger that this cooperation will support India’s weapons program is imminent.”
Going into further detail, Oliver Meier of Hamburg University notes: “By accepting the ‘separation’ between military and non military facilities, the IAEA [the International Atomic Energy Agency] has come very close to recognizing India’s nuclear weapons status, a point not lost on India’s nuclear lobby.” He also points out that the “deal has set back efforts to develop tighter and broader rules to govern trade in dual-use technologies by watering down NSG [Nuclear Suppliers Group] guidelines and by hurting efforts to bring selective export control regimes in line with multi-lateral principles.”
India’s Krishnamurthy Santhanam, formerly of the country’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), makes a technical point that amounts to a pro-weapon interpretation of the deal. He recalls: “the nuclear weapons dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 … were preceded only by one full-scale test in the Nevada desert … they were delivered over Japan by transport aircraft … they did not face the severe environmental or flight stresses characteristic of modern air combat.” He adds: “The situation today is different … the orbit of even a modest Third World nation today bristles with surveillance radars, fire control radars, reconnaissance aircraft … Under these circumstances, vector survivability becomes … important.”
Santhanam goes on to suggest the need for further nuclear testing by India. He also argues that the US-India deal contains “important features” including ones that allow for such testing.
For former Pakistani diplomat Tariq Osman Hyder, “The US-India nuclear deal represents a missed chance to introduce restraint and to bring in both countries. It could have encouraged strategic restraint for both countries while offering the benefits of civil nuclear power to the two countries, both of which are fossil-fuel deficient and require energy for socio-economic development of their large populations.” A China-Pakistan nuclear deal, now reportedly in the pipeline, was not in the cards at the time of the conference. It remains to be seen whether this proposed agreement could promote strategic restraint between the two countries.
The volume attaches well-deserved weight to the missile programs, or the missile race in the region. India’s anti-ballistic missile program is accorded special importance. Putting this issue in an international perspective, Subrata Ghoshroy, an Indian-American security expert, writes in an informative paper: “There was little mention of missile defense in the [Indian] media until the Indian government in May …2001 made a rather unexpected announcement expressing support for the US decision to deploy a global missile defense system.” This led to US-India collaboration in an anti-missile system, which Foreign Policy placed on its list of the “Top 10 Stories You Missed in 2008.”
The US missile defense program was highly controversial even at home. In 1967, then-US President Lyndon Johnson said: “Tonight we know how many missiles the enemy has, and it turned out, our guesses were way off. We were doing things we didn’t need to do. We were building things we didn’t need to build. We were harboring fears we didn’t need to harbor.” Very much the same point is made by quite a few contributors about the modification and modernization of the missile defense program based on what they find to be either mythical or grossly magnified threats of ballistic attacks on the US and Europe from Iran.
India’s antimissile buildup and participation in a US-founded missile defense architecture is often sought to be justified in terms of a need to position the South Asian giant as a “counterweight” to China. The project, however, raises fears closer to home. Pakistani specialists Moeed Yusuf and Khalid Banuri, for example, argue: “not only a fully deployed shield but even operationalization of its components has implications for the Indo-Pak balance.” They cite as instances two components India has acquired from Israel: the Green Pine radar system, covering “all of Pakistan’s sensitive targets and command centers,” and the Phalcon AWACS platform, with “the ability to monitor Pakistan’s territory.”
India’s space program also receives considerable attention—with the larger backdrop provided again by US efforts to acquire dominance in increasingly militarized space, disregarding international treaties meant to ensure a variety of satellites operate in peace to serve the vital needs of the world’s population.
India’s nuclear program started in 1962, under the aegis, significantly, of the country’s Department of Atomic Energy. It remained a niche in the country’s nuclear establishment until 1972, when it became a part of the space department.
Indian defense analyst Ajey Lele writes about the partial militarization of the program over the years. Notably, he mentions the cartographic satellites launched by India in recent years, to give the country “the capability of keeping a constant eye on its surrounding region.” He also notes the proposal to create an aerospace command.
All this may not spell out competition for a Pakistan that seems to be focusing its energies on the nuclear-missile race. Yusuf and Banuri admit: “As India pursues its global ambition, its future military procurements may become less and less Pakistan-specific. Nonetheless, as in the nature of defense systems, these acquisitions would simultaneously provide India a capability that would increase its advantage over Pakistan,” continuing that it “will force Pakistan to react in order to restore the military balance.” The much talked about rise of India as a regional power is fraught with the risk of an accelerated military race in South Asia.
The logic of the situation brings to light the fallacy of the hope that peace would come from the blasts of 12 years ago at Pokharan and Chagai, the nuclear-weapon testing sites of India and Pakistan, respectively. Hyder does not make “strategic stability” sound like sustainable peace when he asks: “If stability between the West and the USSR rested upon their strategic capabilities, why should not the same be true in the case of Pakistan and India in South Asia?”
India’s space scientist Srinivasan Chandrashekar expresses a similar sentiment: “Once both countries went nuclear, ideally the logic of deterrence should have led both countries to exercise greater control and restraint. Unfortunately, this has not happened.” This is another way of saying that the theory of deterrence has been disproved once again.
Despite the variety of viewpoints it offers, the volume presents a consensus of experts of contending camps on the crucial importance of peace and security in this region. South Asia at a Crossroads deserves a place on the shelves of anyone seeking an informed understanding of the issues that have created a particularly “dangerous place on Earth.”
Footnotes
Author biographies