A Nuclear Pakistan - What Now?

Contributing Editor Vice Adm (Retd) IF QUADIR looks at May 28, 1998 and the future geo-political changes in the region as a result of Pakistan’s nuclear testing

Bravo too to all, but most of it to our Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who as the country’s chief executive, took it upon his shoulders to give the go ahead against the strongest campaign ever launched nationally and internationally to convince the government not to go nuclear.

For my wife and I, having been married on 28 May, 1961; Pakistan’s demonstration of its nuclear capability on 28 May, 1998 made our thirty seventh wedding anniversary a unique and one of the most joyous moments of our lives.

Pakistan now having scaled the nuclear ladder, finds itself on a platform that is being shaken by others who had managed to climb the same ladder earlier and built a club house for themselves on the top. Furthermore, they are trying to keep the doors of that club house shut to others. That this refusal affects India equally is of little consolation or consequence to us in Pakistan because those who matter in the world have up to now applied conflicting standards in their dealings between the two of us and which are unabashedly tilted in favour of India. We, therefore, have to be careful as after a short display of parental displeasure with New Delhi this tilt would most likely make a come back under pressure of the pro-Indian lobby in Washington.

In addition to many measures being taken to contain the nuclerisation of South Asia beyond American precepts, some of the Club members are demanding of the two South Asian states to adopt policies which amount to putting a variety of fetters on our programs and even scaling down in certain respects. Again, if these demanded policies were to be adopted, because of different nature of our power and weapons programs they would in the long run effect Pakistan much more adversely than India. Consequently, like Symington and Pressler of the past, these new steps too would in effect be (one) country specific. To face this unfair bias and discrimination, the government and the people of Pakistan would have to be particularly wary of the changing situation as it develops in respect of our nuclear program, and the nation would have to be fully prepared to meet the consequences of our own actions and those of other’s, if we want to safeguard our interests, no matter how harsh and unbearable their actions might become. All Pakistanis have to be made aware that retention of nuclear technology and weapons is not only essential for our future security but much more than that they are vital for the future development and well being of the country and the people alike. The country’s nuclear capability must be safeguarded at all costs.

While defending our newly acquired position, rights and interests as a nuclear weapon state; Pakistan’s leadership, of whatever hue and colour, it has to appreciate and realise fully that acquisition of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems has provided the country with certain sinews of power which give us far reaching capabilities of defence as well as of offence. With these weapons of mass destruction it is now not an equation against India alone that matters but our possession of nuclear weapons has other implications too which have to addressed to very quickly and seriously. Thus on the positive side, for the first time ever since independence God has blessed us not only with the capacity to defend ourselves and our interests with greater confidence by ourselves alone but what matters even more is that Pakistan in conjunction with others can now help to enhance the security and stability of this whole region much more effectively than ever before. It is this latter, the ability to do good, that needs to be built upon and highlighted to the world, particularly to our neighbours. The maturity in international affairs and peaceful behaviour which Pakistan has consistently displayed throughout its fifty years of independence, the fact that throughout our existence unlike India we have never threatened the security of any neighbour and that we have always associated ourselves with all the peaceful efforts of the United Nations all over the sphere. This, our past performance should assure the world and be a guarantee that while in possession of nuclear weapons we could be equally relied upon to proceed maturely and peacefully in the future and that we could help to bring greater peace, security and stability to the region in continued association with the rest of the world.

To re-establish our bonafides quickly, it requires early and vigorous political and diplomatic action. Sending retired bureaucrats, civil or military, despite their personal standing would at best achieve only marginal results, particularly in Western democracies and in China or Russia. The language of the politicians at the state level is very different from that of others and therefore these countries are happier to deal with politicians of other states in preference of other personalities, particularly if those countries are democracies too. India after her nuclear explosions did just that. Therefore, to be effective, our communications and exchanges with other governments must be at the political level assisted by Foreign Office, Embassies and retired gentlemen as and when required. We have people like Nisar, Shahbaz and others, some even from the opposition, who could inspire full confidence abroad and who are neither emotional nor hot headed; unless off course the Prime Minister cannot repose confidence in them. If that be the case then all one could do is to say good bye to democracy and bye-bye to a viable Islamic and democratic political system in Pakistan. The best one could then hope for is of a few politicians propped on the shoulders of bureaucrats, civil or military, to administer this country.

On the negative side, the awesome destructive power of nuclear weapons is liable to use for threatening the security of other states or their interests overtly as India has done recently or covertly, as another state in our general area is doing to the security of its neighbours or their interests; some of those vital to them and to other countries dependent on those interests. Of these latter, oil as the world’s largest source of energy is one such example, while United States’ access to Central Asia is another. Japan and Western Europe import nearly eighty percent of their oil from the Gulf area, the sea route to which lies within visibility range of Pakistan’s Navy and Air Force. Similarly, the most accessible route to CAS from the Indian Ocean lies through Pakistan and Afghanistan. Our geographic location together with increased military prowess now provides us heightened diplomatic and political leverage in regional and international affairs which resource needs to be tapped more actively. However, while talking to other countries we must not fail to take advantage of the fact that the Indian government as well as many Indian leaders have by their recent actions and statements done what Pakistan has scrupulously avoided i.e. threaten other states. Not content with that, many Indian intellectuals cum opinion builders have gone even further and suggested the use of a similar aggressive policy in the Indian Ocean containing the vital trade routes of the whole world under the guise of defence of Indian interests at sea. More of it later.

However, Pakistan’s newly increased ability to effect other’s security and their interests in the Arabian sea places many new responsibilities and obligations on us which need to be addressed to immediately if we are to inspire and restore their confidence in our future policies. In the past too we have had similar offensive capabilities though on a lesser scale but we had cared very little about them because firstly we had been so much more pre-occupied with issues on land in the North that our Establishment had little time to simultaneously look at possibilities that lay right under our chin in the South in the Arabian Sea which could have been converted (exploited as some would prefer to call) to our advantage politically and diplomatically. Secondly, till quite recently we were so deeply tied with the West that we rarely cared to display much independence of thought or action in the region. Thus USA, the West, G7 or our neighbours had little to worry about any misuse of our military capabilities in the Arabian Sea except in their favour. Later, with USA taking lesser and lesser interest in Pakistan and this country being forced to start thinking independently after forty years of dependence, Washington must have hoped to wear down our offensive strength by reducing military supplies or making them too expensive for the country when obtained through other sources, with a view of making sure that Pakistan remains of little military consequence to their interests. However, the dynamic independence displayed by Nawaz Sharif and the simultaneous nuclerisation of Pakistan has completely upset that equation. To add to this new unfamiliar situation for the West, our hasty involvement of Israel with India in a plan to attack our nuclear installations before the nuclear bombs were tested and the unfortunate extensive publicity we gave it, though very likely true, must have created further alarm bells in USA. A nuclear Pakistan with capabilities of its delivery, publicly depicting Israel as a military threat was inviting that country to go overtly nuclear as well which in turn by the Domino theory would force other countries of the area to go nuclear. A prospect which continues to worry the West and others greatly since long. Perhaps we could have exercised greater caution here.

In explaining our future policies to other countries we should effectively exploit Indian nuclear sabre rattling to threaten China and Pakistan immediately after she exploded its devices at Phokran earlier this year. Simultaneously we should highlight the dangerous implications of the Indian desire to extend its hegemony into the Indian Ocean by brandishing a nuclear sword at sea. Indians are already talking of submarine launched nuclear tipped cruise/ballistic missiles (for use on shore targets). Under these circumstances could any Indian Ocean Rim or South East Asian country be safe from Indian weapons of mass destruction? This Indian recklessness and boasting could be contrasted to our sober and patient approach throughout, both before and after the (nuclear) weaponisation of the two countries. Furthermore, it is sad to observe that in this whole affair it has been the policy of continued high technology transfer to India from USA since 1985; when the US, Pakistan and the Mujahideen were giving the final death blow to Soviet Union; that gave India encouragement and the breakthrough to achieve her present nuclear and missile capabilities and to establish the base for future advances, including computer simulations, in those fields. Emotionally, India is now practically at the same stage as Iraq was before its invasion of Kuwait. These Indian capabilities together with nuclear submarines (reportedly to French design which class was offered to Pakistan also much earlier) in their final stages of planning in India could not have been possible but for instance the sale of high speed computers supplied from USA. What additional high technology the West must have transferred to India with the aim of building it up as a cushion against China can only be guessed at (and Russia too for the same very reason). But the West must be reminded that all this Western assistance to New Delhi is now likely to come back home soon to roost in the Indian Ocean in the form of danger to West’s own vital air and sea lines of communications, a threat much more serious than the old Soviet Union was ever able to pose during the Cold War period. Keeping these and some other developments in mind, the recent Sino-American statement from Beijing would, one hopes, put a complete stop to all high technology transfers to India, the real bull in the china shop; and not to Pakistan and Iran only as a quid pro quo for Taiwan. Were that to happen it would be like the replay of a Greek Tragedy in South Asian environment.

Even with all the above in our favour all Pakistanis have still to appreciate that even without nuclear weapons capability, a cause of great concern to major powers and our neighbours about Pakistan has been the continuing political instability in the country. It is not so much the frequent comings and goings of elected governments witnessed of late but the complete and continuing lack of acceptance of any single form of government and administration (constitution) ever since independence both by the bureaucracy, civil and military, and the elected politicians; Ghulam Muhammad, Iskander Mirza, Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto, Zia-ul-Haq, Benazir and Nawaz Sharif. The three elected prime ministers in forms like; avoiding elected Local Bodies, the real root of democracy and Islamic form of administration, a constitutional requirement, and perhaps considered a constitutional threat to the order presently in place; and sharing of powers with the federating units etc. Were Pakistan located in one corner of the world or lying some where in the middle of Pacific or the Sahara, the absence of a system of governance cum administration (the real purpose of politics and not just making money or enjoying power) acceptable to the people and to those who matter in our country would have been of little consequence to the rest of the world. But Pakistan located at the junction of so many interests i.e., Russian, Chinese, Indian, American, European, Arab and Iranian; the lack of political cum administrative stability leading to the possibility of an internal strife sucking them in to safeguard their own regional interests worries those countries no end. Were we in Pakistan to recount how blissfully and rapidly we got sucked into the whirlpool of domestic intolerance, a civil war and Indian aggression in 1971 with its reverberations abroad particularly in the Muslim world, China, USA, Russia and in the UN Security Council; we would realise how close we are to a similar but even more dangerous situation today. We also would then be able to appreciate the genuineness of others’ worries about our continued unstable internal political situation. Thus the possibility of domestic turmoil once again and of the consequent chances of dissemination of our nuclear and missile knowledge to others must be uppermost in every one’s mind and not only in America’s. It is therefore high time that we in Pakistan, all of us, from the highest constitutional as well as the parallel machinery downward to the man in the street put our heads together and decide firmly on one form of government which is genuinely acceptable to all. Be it democratic, autocratic, dictatorial or any other; but let it not be hippocratic because hypocrisy is one of those things most disliked by God and invites His wrath. And we should know of it from our own past experience. The duality of thought and action frequently witnessed in Pakistan worries other countries and makes the people of Pakistan sceptical as well as cynical. It constitutes one of the many reasons for making the present situation so unpredictable and dangerous. We must also not forget and as brought out by this writer in a senior officers’ seminar for General Zia on Pakistan’s security, that never before in history has this land i.e., Pakistan ever been genuinely independent except under Ranjit Singh. Now that God in His infinite mercy has given us an opportunity once again, let us not waste His munificence by our own default. Let us in Pakistan, allow our wisdom teeth to grow side by side with our nuclear molars. The success of our future could only lie in that.

An important point emerging from the above concerns adopting a form of government/ administration truly acceptable to all in the country. Furthermore, the format of our Establishment itself needs remodelling such that the Crimson Thread’ of Elected Civilian Control’ weaves visibly down the length from the parliament headed by the prime minister through the cabinet to all the ministries, departments, defence services headquarters and other Offices of the Federal Government. In addition, the prime minister must have an appropriate but direct channel of command to all military units including the smallest deploying nuclear capable weapons, strategic or tactical. This basically means a type of coded and secure communication system which can be operated by the prime minister only or his standby in case he is incapacitated, which would authorise the use of a suitable nuclear weapon if ever required. With modern technological means available off the shelf, Pakistan does not have to depend on outside help to devise a fool-proof system for the purpose. Any expert advice from outside could however be welcomed.

Besides the above, one other important issue concerns the administration and operation i.e., control of the defence forces. Efficiency and economy both demand the establishment of a proper Joint Staff Headquarters under a Chairman responsible to the Cabinet through the Defence Minister for the preparation of all plans of military operations, materials, logistics and training in peace time and for conduct of war under the Prime Minister during periods of hostilities. This subject by itself requires a separate, proper and detailed study. However, it was most encouraging to observe that for the visit of Strobe Talbott end July, decisions on important issues were taken by the full Defence Committee of the Cabinet with the defence service Chiefs and Heads of concerned civil departments invited to attend. Such a precedence if regularly followed should go a long way in re-establishing the old tradition of civilian control over the armed forces for the first time since 1953/54 (except for a short interlude of 1972 - 1977) when the C-in-C Army was given the portfolio of Defence Minister in addition to his own duties. That exercise had proved to be the proverbial camel invited to put his head into the tent. Such regular DCC Meetings would ensure that in future all agencies of the government speak the same language at all times, at home and abroad. In the meantime it is for consideration whether with the gradual return of a truly democratic dispensation in the country, should foreign civilian emissaries or politicians be allowed to meet our military leaders except on reciprocal basis only ?