https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2017/04/26/south-asia-nuclear-self-deterrence-as-a-virtue/

South Asia: Nuclear Self-Deterrence as a Virtue

Deterrence strategists value the fear and shock effect a state’s nuclear capability to inflict harm induces in the leadership of an adversary. The capability is so envisaged and built as to convey a certainty in case of conflict, with political will demonstrated in peacetime to assure the adversary that the nuclear decision maker would not shy away from genocide and ecocide when the push of conflict comes to nuclear shove.

Nuclear strategists have it only half right. The ability to inflict harm cannot be seen independently of the like ability of the adversary to similarly cause harm right back. This brings in self-deterrence, to—at a minimum—question the nuclear strategists’ input to decision making, and—at a maximum—to stay the nuclear hand. Just as avidly nuclear strategists articulate their wares, anti-nuclear practitioners must show-case nuclear dangers to induce self-deterrence in decision makers.

A small storm in South Asia’s nuclear teacup last month provides an entry point into using India’s case in an imagined nuclear aftermath as example.

Recently, noted nuclear watcher Vipin Narang set the cat among the nuclear pigeons. At a Carnegie international nuclear policy conference in Washington DC, he put together the writings of two former officials who dealt with India’s nuclear deterrent, namely the former National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon and the former head of the Strategic Forces Command Lt Gen Nagal, to posit that India is moving towards a first strike nuclear posture.

He argues that the writings of the two officials after leaving respective jobs suggest that India plans to take out Pakistan’s nuclear capability in case of tactical nuclear first use by Pakistan or in case India decides not to wait for Pakistan’s nuclear first use prior to its own launch of a disarming, counter force, strike. In the same breath he says that this might as yet be wishful since India does not quite have the capability yet.

Jawaharlal Nehru University don, Rajesh Rajagopalan, elaborates that such a strike would require 60 warheads for a first strike, with another 30 up India’s sleeve for follow-on strikes. Both sensibly argue against going down this route, but base their argument on strategic grounds.

An argument missed in the discussion—which nuclear strategists in general take care to avoid altogether—is the likely effect of Pakistan’s strike back, even after suffering a first strike equivalent nuclear attack.  that has taken out its ability for a coherent response along with its physical capability to strike back.

Self-deterrence is a taboo word in nuclear theology. Nuclear strategists are in the business of scaring the adversary. Self-deterrence on the other hand implies buying into nuclear scaremongering and staying one’s nuclear hand. In the case under discussion of India’s contemplation of a nuclear first strike, self-deterrence would imply taking stock of the consequences and prudently shelving the option of first strike.

If, as Rajagopalan argues, it would take 60 warheads to attempt a disarming strike, India needs examining the environmental impact over the long term of not only these 60 impacts—even if all are not ground bursts—but of knock-on detonations and scattering of nuclear debris of Pakistani nuclear warheads so struck. Since Pakistan has some 120 warheads, India might wish to take out perhaps two thirds of them to set back its retaliatory capability. At least half of these need being added to the environmental damage calculus, making for an effects estimate of about 100 warheads.

Also, when confronted with a disarming strike, Pakistan would make its remaining numbers count. Though under broken-backed conditions and even if decapitated, it might still like to get in a blow or two at India’s political and economic centers of gravity, Delhi and Mumbai respectively. It would try and get in at least a tenth of India’s salvo on these two targets counting on India dissolving into being a ‘geographical expression’, as India was once envisaged in Winston Churchill’s malicious phrase.

Environmental costs are easier to imagine. Seldom discussed are the socio-political consequences in the aftermath of first strike and retaliatory strikes.

In India’s case, bordering states would be directly affected including that of India’s principal nuclear decision maker, the prime minister, who belongs to Gujarat. Punjab, ruled by an opposition party and abutting Pakistan’s heartland, stands to be most affected with the political and economic power of Sikhs, one of India’s significant minorities, who live in Punjab, directly impacted.

Pakistan’s plight would focus the attention of global jihad, embroiling India in a far worse and by far wider imbroglio. Since there are only desert stretches on the other side, Pakistani refugees would likely stream eastward. Prime time view of the Syrian migration towards Europe indicates India’s border fence might wilt.

Having heard Narang, Pakistan would surely redouble its attempts at squirrelling away its nukes. Some would be stashed away unobtrusively in areas of what it considers its strategic depth, ungoverned spaces along the Af-Pak border. It would innovate on how to use its smuggling networks to get across a suitcase bomb or two through the border or the Arabian Sea. Nuclear terrorism could make a spectacular advent.

Further, how this influx of Pakistani refugees into India will impact India’s social harmony is easy to guess. The manner India’s largest minority—its Muslims—have been put upon by the right wing formations after the victory of the party subscribing to cultural nationalism, the Bharatiya Janata Party, suggests a worsening of inter-community relations.

This buffeting of internal security can only heighten centralization. Authoritarian tendencies marked in today’s polity in India will get a fillip, prompting a backlash across India’s periphery. Externally, India’s economic and diplomatic isolation would be near complete, making India ripe for an insular dictatorship at war with itself.

Though India might have ‘won’ the nuclear war itself, it would have lost the peace—the only sensible way to define victory in war. Self-deterrence might have more sense to it than all deterrence strategists purvey.

Modi and the Military

by Ali Ahmed   |  October 25, 2014

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2014/10/25/modi-and-the-military/

Universally, militaries are conservative-realist entities. India’s is no different. Therefore, though an apolitical one, it is probably not unhappy with the election of a conservative government to power in Delhi. Whereas other governments have been constrained by their parliamentary strength and have used the military sparingly, this government does not need to look over its shoulder. In fact, it is already delivering on several of the military’s long standing demands. Mr. Modi’s Diwali foray to Siachen suggests there is more to the Modi-military relationship than mere photo opportunities. What might this be?

Commentators, citing the recent disruption of the decade long ceasefire on the Line of Control (LOC), have it that India has changed its policy from passivity to greater aggressiveness. It is also being prickly on the China front, so much so that analysts have advised greater caution. While the army has been given a ‘free hand’ in one report on the LOC owing in the defence minister’s words to India having greater ‘conventional strength’, on the China front, since India has a lot of catching up to do, India is probably more restrained, even if it  is projecting a tougher  stance.

Assuming Indian strategy is, in the words of its National Security Adviser, ‘effective deterrence’, then India would have strengthened its fences early and then settled down to concentrating on its economic development. As a grand strategy, this is unexceptionable, even if the initial phase could well have been different with Mr. Modi following up on the promise of the meeting with Mr. Sharif in Rashtrapati Bhawan forecourt.

Mr. Modi rightly reasoned that Mr. Sharif was not the best interlocutor in Pakistan and that he could not deliver on what the only other credible interlocutor in Pakistan, its army, can possibly settle for. This best explains India’s strategic line taken. It has essentially told Pakistan off, even if has not ‘shut up’ that army as Mr. Modi imagines. Mr. Modi’s going to Siachen only strengthens this message, that even the supposed low hanging fruit, a solution to Siachen, is out of reach. By aggression on the LOC, Mr. Modi and his hard-line security adviser, Mr. Dovel, are messaging that if Pakistan does not accept the new status quo, then India can and will inflict ‘pain’ for ‘adventurism’ in the words of its defence minister.

Messaging thus can only be based on prior strategic calculation that the Pakistan army would play along. So while Pakistan’s army may use its former maverick chief, Musharraf, to plug the hardline for its part and have its spokesperson mimic India’s warning with his own on Indian ‘misadventure’, as a calculating strategic player, it will see the strategic imbalance and lay off India. In any case, it is somewhat busy warding off its own Jihadis. India can aggravate its western front at will through its higher profile in Afghanistan and proximity with the new government in Kabul. Will the Pakistan army see things this way?

India is no doubt aware that Pakistan’s army has proven irrational before, be it in 1971, when it lost half the country; and more recently, at Kargil. Therefore, if India is going in for an aggressive strategy, it is aware that Pakistan army may not get the message of deterrence and there could well be conflict.

This can also be taken as a form of deterrence in that it is India that is playing irrational. It is seemingly in the game of ‘chicken’ in which it has got into the car and stepping on the accelerator, has thrown away the steering. This way Pakistan will have to veer away lest it be crushed by the Indian juggernaut. This is indeed deterrence strategy of sorts.

Even if it does not work, India has readied itself over the past decade with its switch over and its practice of the ‘cold start’ doctrine. India has therefore catered for the worst case. While most would cry ‘watch out for the nukes’, India is perhaps banking on these not coming into the equation in a brief, limited war, irrespective of the spent-force, General Musharraf’s vainglorious threats.

While to most war spells economic downslide, to India’s decision makers it may well stimulate the economy. As it is, India is privileging the defence sector. It has opened it up to foreign investment. It is set to stay at the top of the arms importers table for the remainder of the decade. The US has displaced Russia as its largest supplier. More widely, the government is itself fronting for big corporations interested in the defence sector. The ‘make in India’ slogan can be defence sector led.

Therefore, the only restraint on war, the notion that it would be bad for the economy, is not one that the government may find overly persuasive. In fact, the political gains from a short, sharp war in which Pakistan is taught a lesson or two may be worth the risk. Externally, it may displace Pakistani military from the decision apex in Pakistan, enabling finally the ascendance of the peace lobby there. Internally, a victory would prove as good for the BJP as it was for Indira Gandhi.

Therefore, the Indian strategy is a win-win one—for itself. In case Pakistan takes the hint, then India can proceed with its economic trajectory unmolested. In case Pakistan does not play ball, then India can use the economic stimulus of a brief bout of hostilities to continue, after a short pause, down its economic trajectory.

As with any strategy, there is an element of risk. However, are assumptions such as of Pakistani rationality; on the economic fallout of war; and unlikelihood of a war going nuclear, one too many? Can it be that the conservative-realists, new to power and itsexercise, in presenting themselves as different from their predecessors, are stretching tad too far? Or are there military-societal explanations for the military-Modi chemistry on display that strategic analysts cannot quite capture? Answers will emerge, and hopefully not through a mushroom cloud.

India-Pakistan

Demystifying India’s Volte-Face on Pakistan

http://thediplomat.com/2014/09/demystifying-indias-volte-face-on-pakistan/

India’s new government has sprung two back-to-back surprises on Pakistan: the first was inviting Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to the swearing-in of Prime Minister Narendra Modi; the second was the about-face on foreign secretary level talks upon the resumption of dialogue.

The first of these was seemingly couched in Indian regional diplomacy, but was mainly directed at Pakistan. The message was that with a new right-leaning government in New Delhi, Pakistan could expect bolder movement on the outstanding issues between the two.

However, the second stemmed from the new government’s reluctance to be brought to the negotiating table under Pakistani pressure. There were an estimated 95 incidents along the Line of Control (LoC) this summer, with 25 on the international border (or “working boundary,” according to Pakistan).

A strategic view of the increase in action along the LoC is that it is the Pakistani military’s attempt to get India to engage meaningfully. A political view is that it was intended to position the military favorably within Pakistan, to first gain credibility for the talks by pushing India to the table, and second to caution the Pakistani government against any “sell out.”

In this event, the Pakistani high commissioner’s meeting with Kashmiri separatists, something traditionally acceded to by India, provided the pretext for the cancellation. It was India’s message to Pakistan’s “miltastablishment,” to use former Punjab acting chief minister, Najam Sethi’s phrase, that force will not work, particularly on a new government with a “tough” self-image.

India’s outstretched hand in the Rashtrapati Bhawan (Presidential Residence) forecourt appeared promising for the peace constituency in Pakistan, which comprises liberals and the business lobby. It is a longstanding Indian policy to expand the peace constituency by holding out economic benefits as an incentive for Pakistan to go beyond the Kashmir question. Cancelling talks was unhelpful in empowering the peace lobby relative to India-skeptics in Pakistan.

It is apparent that India’s strategy does not rely on this constituency’s ability to marginalize hardliners. The cancellation and the manner it was done together suggest India’s intent to bring about change through other means.

In a speech to troops while in Leh, Modi pointed out that the Pakistani military’s shift to a proxy war was due to India’s conventional advantages. Obviously these advantages have not been so overwhelming they could deter a proxy war.

The ability to administer military punishment was found wanting when it was tested during the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Even though India has had a conventional doctrine for the nuclear age, called Cold Start, since the attack on India’s Parliament in December 2001, the military’s wherewithal to execute its policy could not keep pace given the strained economic circumstances during the later part of the last decade.

Deterrence deemed insufficient, India is now attempting to compel.

India is expected to import $250 billion in arms over the next ten years. It is filling in the gaps in its conventional inventory, such as artillery, to remove any doubt of credibility about its conventional deterrence. The amount of foreign investment allowed in defense manufacturing has been upped to 49 percent. Since assuming office, the prime minister has visited Jammu and Kashmir twice, addressing troops on both occasions. Additionally, keeping the defense portfolio without a full-time minister has allowed Modi to keep a closer eye on it.

Three warships have been commissioned in close succession, although two of them are reportedly not quite ready. The buildup on the Chinese front, reviewed most recently by the part-time defense minister in August when he visited the mountain strike corps forming there, could prove useful on the western front too. Carte blanche has been given to the Army and the Border Security Force by respective ministers to administer a “befitting reply” on the LoC and international border.

Within this flurry of activity is couched a message for Pakistan. Thus far, Pakistan has been upping the ante in the hope of getting India to move on Kashmir. This time around, India hopes to increase pressure to get Pakistan to forget Kashmir.

Will this strategy succeed?

Pakistan, for its part, has a counter-strategy of ensuring that it is always in a position to credibly show itself in conflict with India. All it needs to do to win is to avoid losing. Further, its moves on the nuclear front are meant to convey the threat of escalation. This places India’s conventional threat in question, as it is based on keeping any conflict non-nuclear.

Indeed, a paradox emerges in that the more successful India is in its armament program, the greater is the probability of Pakistan’s proxy war challenge heightening at the lower end of the conflict spectrum, and the nuclear shadow lengthening at the upper end.

In Rawalpindi’s perception, with the U.S. set to exit Afghanistan and “good behavior” on Kashmir over the past decade not having “worked,” it may be back to business. Besides, it might be better for Kashmir to act as a sink for surplus Islamist energy than Pakistan’s cities and Punjab. The spike in firing incidents since talks were cancelled suggests as much.

India could also undertake a proxy war itself, an accusation Pakistan has made before, most notably at the Sharm-el Sheikh joint statement in Egypt. The appointment of an intelligence czar as India’s national security advisor is an indicator. Afghanistan readily lends itself as a suitable site for such an endeavor. Any such conflict would certainly spill-over into Pakistan. In India’s calculation, placing Pakistan on its back foot could make it less adventurous in Kashmir.

A strategy of overawing Pakistan is dangerous. Four potential proxy wars threaten: in Afghanistan, its spillover into Pakistan, in Kashmir, and in Islamist terror in India; this last heightened by al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahari’s latest video. At the same time there would be conventional and nuclear muscle-flexing by both sides.

Given such dangers, India and Pakistan would do well to restart the peace process at the earliest opportunity, during the two prime ministers’ appearances at the U.N. at the end of next month. At the least, it would reinsert a buffer between crisis and conflict.

Realistically, this may not be on the cards. India, set on upping the ante, may have decided to hold course no matter what. In this game of chicken, it hopes Pakistan’s army will be the first to blink. This is a touching, if entirely unfounded, faith in Pakistan’s army.

Deterrence has a shaky and brief shelf life

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main51.asp?filename=Ws030112Deterrence.asp

Ali Ahmed says current India-Pakistan nuclear confidence measures are not enough

Illustration: Tim Tim Rose ALSO READ  To Love A City Bus a pawn in Indo-Pak politics  Can India and Pakistan mend the rifts? Yes. Here are a few good tips to make sure we get there

THE FIFTH meeting of the Joint Working Group on nuclear confidence building measures (NCBMs) ended in Islamabad as the year 2011 ended. There was a previous meeting in late 2007 and a subsequent one was aborted after the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul. Between then and now we had the 26/11 crisis with a nuclear backdrop. And in the meantime, Pakistan has unveiled a tactical nuclear missile system, the Nasr. India’s steps towards a triad and a ballistic missile defence system are sure and steady. Clearly, the two states got the timing of the meeting right.

But there’s much to be done. Periodic meetings are useful but insufficient. What needs doing instead is the establishment of a standing engagement mechanism. The problem with this is that neither state wishes to give the impression that it sees the nuclear dimension of their relationship as problematic. They wish to convey that deterrence being in good health, there is no need for a more extensive interface. Both appear to be nuclear optimists, sanguine that deterrence works. Another problem is that the two states have arguably entered an era of mutual assured destruction (MAD). MAD’s yardsticks of the Cold War on the levels of destruction amounting to 50 per cent of the industrial capacity and 25 per cent of the population need not detain us. Given the nuclear ordnance at the disposal of the two states, they can despatch the other back to the Stone Age.

The arsenal of both reportedly is in the vicinity of three digits. India believes it can destroy Pakistan while it can survive because of its size. Pakistan for its part has been increasing its nuclear numbers to ensure that enough survive to be able to set India back sufficiently for India to disabuse itself of the notion that it can survive Pakistan.

India’s posturing is apparently for deterrence; to assure Pakistan that since it would survive, it does not fear Pakistani nuclear posturing. Yet, firstly, the subcontinent being one geographic entity, nuclear effects will have consequences across the Indo-Gangetic plains. Second, Pakistan’s numbers are sufficient to take out a few consequential Indian cities. With New Delhi and Mumbai gone, it would take a while to put India together again. Lastly, even if India survives, it would lose out in its competition with China.

While the possibility does serve to deter, the doctrines of the two states enhance dangers. Pakistan, hoping to extend the working of deterrence to the conventional level by preventing an Indian conventional attack, has advertised its intent of going nuclear first. India hopes to use its conventional might to deter Pakistan from being overly provocative at the subconventional level. Given that at the subconventional level armed non-state actors operate with impunity, the situation does call for strategic engagement between the two states.

That none of the series of crises, numbering in some counts to seven in the nuclear era dating to the mid-1980s, has eventuated into a conflict of nuclear proportions suggests that deterrence is operational. But while relying on deterrence may be useful and also help cement NCBMs, the two states must more importantly arrive at a solution to their outstanding problems. CBMs, as the term suggests, are no cure; while deterrence, being fallible, needs to be made redundant. The problem is that deterrence and conflict resolution are mutually incompatible. Deterrence brings about protraction of conflict. It makes the possibility of conflict endemic by inducing the notion that it is manageable. Its management becomes equated with national security. National security is therefore doubly threatened by deterrence: one through keeping existential problems unaddressed and, second, in deterrence promising more than it can deliver when push comes to shove.

THE DANGER is for the two states privileging NCBMs over the consequential dimension of their engagement. The implication of deterrence as a strategic doctrine subscribed to by both states is that they do not expect their underlying disputes would be resolved soon. In effect, nuclear dangers would persist. NCBMs, while necessary, are insufficient. What needs to be put in place is a Nuclear Risk Reduction Centre (NRRC) to manage future crises so they do not spiral into conflict. Since neither state wishes to draw attention to the nuclear dimension of their relationship, they would be wary of the term NRRC. Therefore, the mechanism could be created under a different name and with a broader mandate, such as that of a strategic dialogue.

This would help them address the deeper substratum of their relationship, that of imbalance in relative power. India’s preponderance is seen as threatening by the Pakistani military that runs that state.

Ali Ahmed is a research fellow at the IDSA.
aliahd66@gmail.com

The Direction of India’s Deterrent
http://www.ipcs.org/article/nuclear/the-direction-of-indias-deterrent-3471.html

Vipin Narang’s timely reminder, ‘Indian Nuclear Posture: Confusing Signals from DRDO’, (http://bit.ly/qqpFSo) on discipline as an index of institutionalization of the nuclear deterrent is welcome. He takes umbrage at the DRDO’s propensity for role expansion as evidenced by its press releases subsequent to tests that ascribe operational roles to their wares, such as ballistic missiles having a nuclear role. The task is rightly that of the NSCS. Such checks from independent strategic experts is useful to avoid criticisms that ‘experts’ advantaged with ‘insider’ knowledge tend to orchestrate information in the media and Indian strategic literature.

However, Narang unwittingly brings up some assumptions that ought to be questioned. The contention of their universality needs interrogation. The more significant one is that India’s deterrent managers are sufficiently cognizant of the implications of India’s deterrent mantra ‘minimum credible deterrence’. It is intended that there be equity of emphasis between the two. However, the tendency in this formulation, as pointed out by Rajesh Basrur, has been towards the ‘credible’.

This is self-evident from the formulation of the related tenet of India’s nuclear doctrine, as expanded upon in the CCS review of 2003: ‘Nuclear retaliation to a first strike will be massive and designed to inflict unacceptable damage.’ This has been reasonably interpreted by its military as being a ‘very heavy’ retaliation, as phrased by the departing Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee. General ‘Paddy’ Padhmanabhan had, rather colourfully and truthfully, said during his memorable press conference, ‘the perpetrators of such an outrage will be punished so severely that their continuation in any fray will be in doubt.”

In effect, the assumption that India’s nuclear doctrine is one merely of ‘assured retaliation’ is not fully accurate. In addition, the promised retaliation is to be of ‘sufficient’ dimensions, which may not necessarily be ‘massive’, to inflict ‘unacceptable damage’. Inflicting unacceptable damage in retaliation commands a consensus in India. Its definition has not been attempted officially, but refers to hurting the enemy considerably for nuclear first use. This is in keeping with the underlying idea of deterrence by punishment.

The problem that India faces is in the interaction between its conventional and nuclear doctrines and those of the putative adversary, Pakistan. Pakistan has demonstrated a capability for tactical nuclear use by unveiling the Nasr, and insists that its deterrent is also to deter conventional attacks by India. India for its part has over the last decade moved to a proactive conventional posture, so as to under cut the impunity seemingly enjoyed by Pakistan at the sub-conventional level at which it practices proxy war. Thus, in case Pakistani nuclear threshold is triggered unintended by India’s conventional operations, India’s escalation to unacceptable levels of damage on the enemy may result in like retaliation. Such an Indian response will be perfectly credible for higher order nuclear first use by Pakistan, but much less so for lower order use such as against a tactical target with the intention of strategic communication.

Therefore, for the DRDO to be furnishing India suitable options of response for threatened lower order nuclear first use seems to be sensible. That it has not unilaterally embarked on this can be conceded since the NCA, the NSCS and the SFC have been around for the better part of the last decade. In fact, it could well be that DRDO and its press releases are being employed for tacit signaling.

Narang is right that it needs to be centralized and institutionalized. But for the moment keeping the communication exchange low profile perhaps suits India in being faithful to the idea that South Asia continues as the ‘most dangerous place on earth’. Narang rightly discerns a move towards a war-fighting posture to under-grid deterrence in India’s developing a variegated nuclear capability in Prahaar and Shaurya. In case such signals emanated from the nuclear complex then they would be liable to be read with greater alarm, not only outside but also inside the country. India’s self-effacing nuclear moves will then come under scrutiny. With the DRDO at the firing line, it can be ascribed as a case of easily remedied institutional over-extension, rather than a deliberate off the record policy movement. Narang has evidently spoiled the party.

But is the nuclear complex right in moving in the direction that Narang detects? While this is not approved of by Narang, subscribing as he does to the traditionally accepted framework of India’s deterrence, it is contended here that India needs to move away from the older formulation of unacceptable damage. It is not credible for lower order nuclear first use. In which case, there needs to be a suitable ‘tit for tat’ capability on hand. This will ensure deterrence at this level too, even while ‘unacceptable damage’ remains within the prerogative of choice.

It is another matter that even at this lower level of nuclear exchange, India does not need the variegated nuclear capability it is acquiring. Is it a case, as Narang suggests, of organizational momentum, or a case of ‘keeping up with the Jones'? Either way, Narang’s recommendation that institutionalization proceed apace is both welcome and timely.

Deterrence Stability in a Context of Strategic Instability http://www.claws.in/index.php?action=master&task=753&u_id=77  Article No.:	1752	Date:	11/02/2011
Deterrence Stability in a Context of Strategic Instability
Ali Ahmed
E-Mail- aliahd66@hotmail.com
Deterrence stability may be defined as the assurance of non-use of nuclear weapons in crisis or conflict with the warring sides deterred from introducing nuclear weapons in a conflict. Bringing this about requires technological, command and control arrangements, organisational and stable civil-military relations by both sides. Since this is a dynamic process, deterrence stability is a page always ‘under construction’. This was aptly explained by Micheal Krepon, speaking at the Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi on February 8, 2011. Pakistan’s arsenal has been inching up the nuclear ladder. The Washington Post, on January 31, 2011 reports:  “Those figures make Pakistan the world’s fifth-largest nuclear power, ahead of ‘legal’ powers France and Britain.” The figure is 100 weapons, representing a ‘doubling’ over the past four years. Yet, this advance of 10 weapons over last year has scarcely been remarked upon in India. Are Indian comfort levels to do with deterrence stability? A Pakistan comfortable with its nuclear capability is an advantageous for deterrence stability. Therefore, if it is working towards a figure in the upper two digits or lower three digits, it is a nuclear reality India could live with. Having ‘edged past India’, as per the Washington Post, Pakistan would not then see itself as the disadvantaged side in a nuclear equation. The perception of parity would enable it to rest easy its nuclear finger. Pakistan would not be faced with a ‘use them or lose them’ dilemma, on two counts. One is in its increased numbers assuring second strike capability and second is India’s assurance of ‘no first use’ (NFU), thus avoiding nuclear brinkmanship and contributing to deterrence stability. This understanding of deterrence stability is tested by the diverse doctrines of the two states. India’s doctrine is underpinned by the belief, as stated by a former defence minister, that “nuclear weapons deter nuclear weapons”. Pakistan, taking a page out of NATO’s Cold War doctrine, has a wider usage for nuclear weapons, it being to deter war itself. India, on the other hand, sees scope for conventional war below the nuclear threshold, albeit a limited war. This divergence in nuclear doctrines contributes to deterrence instability in light of prevalent strategic instability. Continuing strategic instability in South Asia owes to Pakistani unwillingness, under the guise of inability, to roll back terror infrastructure. In a failing state, non-state actors have acquired greater autonomy, with another terror attack a distinct possibility. While India’s strategic restraint thus far has received considerable acclaim, it may be severely tested next time round. Internal political considerations may override India’s cost-benefit calculation forcing it to react militarily by administering, at a minimum, lower levels of military punishment, such as by surgical strikes. Pakistani response could witness a descent from crisis into conflict. What are implications of the doctrinal divergence in the context of such strategic instability? That Pakistan has not acceded to NFU does not necessarily imply ‘first use’. However, prudence requires that the possibility of first use is ruled in. In the Pakistan nuclear weapons discourse first use may be “in a defensive mode, on its own territory, on a tactical target, with a strategic purpose”. This does not automatically imply a failure of Indian deterrence. Deterrence would have succeeded to the extent of restricting the strike to lower order levels. What does this mean for deterrence stability? India’s resort to limited war, as in the scenario, negates Pakistani perception of nuclear weapons deterring war. India’s perception of nuclear weapons deterring nuclear weapons too comes under question. Neither country is entirely right. This implies that finding a middle ground in perceptions of deterrence may help with deterrence stability in conditions of strategic instability. What constitutes the modus vivendi? With both arsenals poised at about the three figure mark, there is an assurance of second strike capability. Neither can expect to wipe out the other’s capability for nuclear retaliation causing unacceptable damage. That Pakistan would suffer more, given the disparity in size, accounts partially for its reach for higher numbers. It perhaps feels the need to inflict a higher level of damage on India for proportionate levels of hurt and pain. Given this, a situation of mutual assured destruction can be deemed to exist. Though there is a school of thought that says that India can survive a nuclear attack, while Pakistan cannot, India would not like to compromise its national aim of economic and socio-political revival. Its threshold of ability to withstand damage goes down in proportion to its advance. It would therefore prefer to avoid receiving unacceptable nuclear damage, since compensation in the form of demise of Pakistan is not worth the setback. What does this imply? In a situation of strategic instability, deterrence stability is therefore predicated not so much on probability of nuclear non-use as on limiting nuclear escalation to levels below unacceptable damage. In other words, since non-use cannot be guaranteed, deterrence stability rests on avoiding unacceptable damage. It follows that while non-use is the best, given that ensuring against escalation is not possible to guarantee, the next best is to make sure that any nuclear exchange terminates at the lowest possible level, as posited in the Sundarji doctrine. What is the practical fallout? It means a revision of India’s nuclear deterrence doctrine away from its promise of nuclear retaliation to inflict unacceptable damage. This means a move towards ‘flexible’ nuclear retaliation. This does not lessen deterrence in that the possibility of escalation to unacceptable levels will continue to serve to deter, since there is no guarantee against escalation. This is a better way to cope with the more likely scenario of Pakistani nuclear first use. It would entail assured retaliation, but perhaps with commensurate levels of attack. It would be in line with India’s national aims and war aims. The change would bring India’s advantages at both the conventional and nuclear levels back into the reckoning, thereby strengthening deterrence. The revision of deterrence stability as proposed here is up for debate. Ali Ahmed is Research Fellow at the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses (IDSA)