Yaum-e-Takbir

Wither security?

Nearly two decades following Pakistan crossing the nuclear threshold, a day commemorated as “Yaum-e-Takbir”, it is being questioned whether Pakistan is more secure today?

India declaredly, embarked upon a military nuclear program in 1974 after its first nuclear test at Pokhran. Pakistan had no option but to follow suit because of the threat India’s nuclear program posed to the region. On May 11 and 13, 1998, India again tested its nuclear devices and went into a jingoistic fever, intimidating us with dire consequences,  forcing Pakistan to come out of its nuclear closet on May 28, 1998.

One would have assumed that following Pakistan’s declaration of its nuclear assets, India would have rested on its laurels but its xenophobia, which knows no bounds, impelled it to cross different milestones in its quest for achieving nuclear superiority. Indian defence planners aspired to develop the nuclear triad: aerial, surface and sub-surface based nuclear weapons, which would be a stepping stone in absorbing a nuclear first strike and delivering a telling second strike blow.

India tends to compete with China, raising its bogey time and again, despite the fact that China has extended it the hand of friendship, is reaching out to invest in India and also resolve its border issues with it. In reality India attempts to browbeat Pakistan and its martial strategies including the Cold Start Doctrine are Pakistan centric. Since this war doctrine, based on the German strategy of Blitzkrieg, was designed to rapidly strike Pakistan with quick response forces and decimate Pakistan before it could deploy its nukes, Pakistan had to devise a counter strategy. In one stroke, Pakistan offset India’s Cold Start Doctrine by developing battlefield tactical nuclear weapons. India has cried hoarse regarding the security of Pakistan’s tactical nuclear weapons, stating that the weapons would be prone to snatch and grab by miscreants while the threshold of command taking the tactical decision of launching nuclear weapons would be lowered to Lieutenant Colonel’s level. India recruited US support in its tirade targeting Pakistan’s tactical nuclear weapons, simultaneously developing its own Prahaar and Shaurya tactical nuclear missiles.

To make matters further precarious, India now seems bent on introducing nuclear weaponry in the seas, which would exacerbate the South Asian security environment. Taking lessons from Indian strategic thinker K. M. Pannikar and US Naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan, that the key to world domination in the twenty first century would lie in the control of the Indian Ocean, India is nuclearising the seas at a rapid pace. It is being egged on in this quest by the US, which perceives India to be able to countermand Chinese growing presence in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. Besides using its own brand of gunboat diplomacy, the US is supporting India’s nuclearisation process by sustaining its dream of joining the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) and other portals which provide nuclear fuel. The NSG is a multinational body concerned with reducing nuclear proliferation by controlling the export and re-transfer of materials that may be applicable to nuclear weapon development and by improving safeguards and protection on existing materials.

Indian articulation of its ambition is vividly depicted in its Naval Strategy Document of 2015. Various steps taken by India in the near past to nuclearise the Indian Ocean comprise, constructing or acquiring nuclear powered submarines and conventional sub surface platforms equipped with weapon systems armed with nuclear warheads. The INS Chakra, an Akula class submarine leased from Russia, the construction of the Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV) Project, under the joint supervision of the Indian Navy, the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) has been under development since 1999. This project produced its first nuclear ballistic missile submarine, the INS Arihant, which has completed its critical diving tests and undergone the test launch of unarmed ballistic missiles.

The hulls of another two SSBNs, including INS Aridhaman, have already been completed and these vessels are expected to be launched by 2017. On March 31 this year India conducted a test of the K-4, an intermediate range nuclear-capable submarine-launched ballistic missile, from the indigenously built submarine the INS Arihant in the Bay of Bengal. The K-4 and the projected K-5 will thus become parts of its nuclear triad, enabling India to have second strike nuclear capability.

The INS Chakra is so far the first and only operational nuclear attack submarine in the Indian fleet. This nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN) was commissioned in the Indian Navy in April 2012. It made India the only country besides the five nuclear-weapons states to operate an SSN. Acquired on a ten-year lease from Russia, the INS Chakra gives the Indian Navy operational flexibility that increases its effectiveness, particularly in blue-water operations. India is currently in negotiations with Russia to acquire another submarine of this class. Additionally, the Indo-Russian joint production has helped India acquire the Talwar class frigates. The new frigates of this kind are armed with eight Brahmos missiles, capable of carrying nuclear warheads. This missile can be launched from submarines, surface ships, land and air, thereby providing additional strength to its nuclear arsenal.

Thus the Indian Navy, whose area of operation includes the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Bay of Bengal, which comprise numerous sea lines of communication (SLOC) chokepoints, such as the Strait of Hormuz, Bab El Mandeb, and the Malacca Straits. Almost 97% of India’s foreign trade by volume and 60% of the world’s sea-borne trade and energy resources are transported through these strategic bottlenecks. With its advanced naval platforms, India will be able to deny the SLOCs for other littoral states while keeping its own routes open.

Pakistan is keen to keep the Indian Ocean denuclearized but at the same time it is eager to acquire civil nuclear energy to meet its requirements for power. For starters, consistent with its commitment to the objectives of non-proliferation support for international efforts towards the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery, Pakistan has adopted policy Guide on Strategic Export Controls, which harmonise Pakistan’s national export control measures with those multilateral export control regimes, including the NSG. Thus on May 18, 2016, Pakistan formally applied to the International Atomic Energy Agency seeking acceptance to the NSG.

Indian application predates Pakistan’s and if India gets accepted earlier, it will be in a position to block Pakistan’s entry into the NSG. Thus Pakistan’s work is cut out to pursue its application and ensure that it gets accepted simultaneously. It must commence a serious diplomatic exercise to approach each and every one of the 48 NSG members to garner their support for Pakistan’s entry into the NSG.

In the same vein it must proceed to join the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), which is an informal and voluntary association of countries which share the goals of non-proliferation of unmanned delivery systems capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction, and which seek to coordinate national export licensing efforts aimed at preventing their proliferation. The MTCR was originally established in 1987 by Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. Since that time, the number of MTCR partners has increased to a total of thirty four countries, all of which have equal standing within the Regime.

There are 32 littoral states in the Indian Ocean. Pakistan needs to muster the support of the other thirty and make a strong petition in the United Nations to have the Indian Ocean declared a nuclear free zone.

If Pakistan is to be made truly secure, it must set its own house in order, while simultaneously exposing Indian designs to subvert the peace and tranquillity of South Asia and the Indian Ocean. Yaum-e-Takbir was meant to make Pakistan safe from the nefarious designs of its detractors. Let us resolve to do so effectively.