Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control in South Asia after the Test Ban

As the nuclear weapon states continue to reduce their nuclear arsenals and international efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons are reinvigorated, South Asia remains a unique region almost entirely unencumbered by nuclear arms control. Despite the recent popularity of the notion that nuclear deterrence is stabilizing the Indo-Pakistani conflict, there is good reason to believe that the risks of war and of the use of nuclear weapons are not fully appreciated. Nevertheless, the prospects for negotiated measures to improve the situation are not good because of the domestic politics on both sides. Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control in South Asia after the Test Ban sheds new light on the risks of the current stand-off, the hidden costs of the nuclear options, and the domestic sources of the region's inertia. The report brings together Indian, Pakistani and Chinese perspectives.

Among the findings:

• The common Pakistani perception that Pakistan's nuclear option deters war and therefore reduces the risks to Pakistan in covertly supporting insurgencies on Indian territory is based on a poor understanding of Indian military planning. As a result, the probability of an increase in Pakistani support to insurgents and an Indian military response is higher than is generally appreciated.

• The bases of Indian and Pakistani military planning are quite different and the mismatch of perceptions could lead to nuclear escalation. Pakistani leaders have said that nuclear weapons could be used early in a war, while the Indian military plans on the assumption of a long conventional war that would include counterforce attacks which would also debilitate the Pakistani command and control system.

• Despite Western concerns about Chinese-supplied and indigenous ballistic missiles, both India and Pakistan rely more heavily on Western-supplied combat aircraft for nuclear missions. If assembled and used, India's nuclear weapons would most likely be delivered by its Anglo-French Jaguar or French Mirage 2000 squadrons, if not the Russian Su-30. Pakistan relies on the French Mirage III and V attack aircraft, if not the US F-16.

• Arms suppliers have furnished India with the technology that could make a counterforce attack against Pakistan's air bases successful, creating a much greater incentive for Pakistan to deploy nuclear armed ballistic missiles and perhaps more nuclear warheads and the materials of which they are made. Despite the common perception that India does not receive much Western military support, almost every major arms exporter has provided counterforce or strategic defence technology to India, including France, Israel, Italy, Russia, Sweden, the UK, and the USA.

• India's reluctance to enter international arms control commitments stems from an exaggerated perception of the risks arms control poses for the nuclear option rather than the purported fear of China. Sino-Indian relations are improving and neither side has taken the other into account in its nuclear planning. Nuclear weapons are irrelevant to the border dispute in any case.

• Pakistan could take a number of significant arms control initiatives that would improve its international standing and put India on the diplomatic defensive—for example signing the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty—but a self-perpetuating dynamic in domestic politics has caught the Pakistani arms control establishment in a rut that is disadvantageous to the country, militarily as well as politically.

• Although the economic costs of the Indian and Pakistani nuclear options are relatively low, the indirect cost in terms of the poor reliability and safety of their civilian nuclear power sectors is attributable to the two states' isolation because of their nuclear options and their refusal to accede to the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.