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Arms race in South Asia

Nadia Tasleem
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India and Pakistan go nuclear

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Historical background of Indian Nuclear Program

• India's nuclear program was mainly conceived by Homi Bhabha, an influential
scientist who persuaded political leaders to invest resources in the nuclear sector.
• India embarked on an atomic energy programme as early as 1944. At that time
Dr. Homi Bhabba, as Chairman of the Atomic Energy Committee, (that later
turned into Atomic Energy Commission, in 1948), sought a ton of uranium oxide
from Canada.
• This paved the way for building the Canada-India Reactor (CIR). It later turned
into CIRUS. The reactor was to be utilized for exploiting only the peaceful
application of atomic energy. However it worked without any international
safeguards. CIRUS reactor, in 1960, began making weapons grade plutonium.
• In 1945, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Mumbai was inaugurated.
• India also borrowed the US heavy water under the ‘Atoms for Peace Programme.’
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Dr. Homi Jagangir Bhabha

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India’s Department of Atomic Energy

• India’s Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) was created under the direct charge
of the Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru through a Presidential Order.
• On 1 March 1958, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was established in the
Department of Atomic Energy that replaced the commission set up a decade
earlier under the Department of Scientific research, which was established on 10
August 1948. The DAE was headed by Dr. Homi Jagangir Bhabha.
• The DAE was established with very clear stated objectives ranging from
contributing towards India’s nuclear security to the generation of safe,
economically competitive electricity from nuclear energy by exploiting the
natural resources of thorium and uranium available in the country.
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Jawaharlal Nehru
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Indian Nuclear Program during Nehru’s era

• In a statement made by Nehru, in 1958, he said, “I do not see any way out of the
vicious cycle of poverty except by utilizing the new sources of power which
science had placed at our disposal.”
• The first Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, launched an ambitious nuclear
program to boost the country’s prestige and self-reliance in energy with primary
focus on producing inexpensive electricity.
• Jawaharlal Nehru saw nuclear power, in its peaceful capacity, as providing India
with the ability to leapfrog many technologies. India could go from dung power to
nuclear power in a single step. He proclaimed India’s new dams and power
stations as modern ‘temples.’ Nehru, and the Indian government, set out to
create one of the finest science training systems in the non-Western world.
• In the meantime, the decision to develop the complete nuclear fuel cycle also
gave India the technical capability to pursue nuclear weapons.
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Political debates in India

• In the years that followed, the internal debate over whether India should develop
a nuclear explosive device continued.
• On one hand, the scientific establishment wanted to prove that it was technically
capable of detonating a nuclear device, whereas hawks within the security
establishment pointed to security developments in China and elsewhere as
necessitating a nuclear deterrent.
• Many politicians opposed nuclear weapons both for economic and moral
reasons, arguing that nuclear weapons would not make India safer, and that the
solution to nuclear proliferation was comprehensive global nuclear disarmament.
• As a result, a consensus emerged on both sides that India should not sign the
Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) when it was opened
for signature in 1968 unless the nuclear weapon states agreed to a clear plan for
nuclear disarmament.
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International Reaction
• India’s 1974 nuclear test was condemned by many countries as a violation of the
peaceful-use agreements underlying U.S. and Canadian-supplied nuclear
technology and material transfers, and was a major contributing factor to the
formation of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
• Canada pulled its support for the Indian nuclear program shortly afterwards. The
United States likewise considered the test a violation of the Atoms for Peace
program and responded with sanctions against India.
• As Secretary of State Henry Kissinger affirmed, “The Indian nuclear
explosion…raises anew the spectre of an era of plentiful nuclear weapons in
which any local conflict risks exploding into a nuclear holocaust”
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Chinese Nuclear test and change in Indian policy

• India’s policy of nuclear abstinence underwent a definitive change after the first
Chinese nuclear tests in 1964.
• This shift in India’s nuclear policy to nuclear ambiguity began with its own nuclear
tests, which was a watershed in India’s nuclear decision making.
• In the late 1960s nuclear scientists continued to develop the technical capacity
for a nuclear explosion. Ultimately, on 18 May 1974, under orders from Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi, India tested a fission device which it described as a
“peaceful nuclear explosion” (PNE) or “Smiling Buddha” at Pokhran.
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Impact of Realism on Indian policy line

• India’s refusal to sign NPT, its nuclear tests in 1974, its choice of unsafeguarded
nuclear facilities, its pursuit of enrichment technology, its refusal to accept a
mutual verification proposal by Pakistan, its rationale for the development of
Missile development program and refusal to accept the US proposal for capping,
roll-back and elimination of nuclear weapons program are decisions that were
largely influence by the rise of Realism and neo-Realism in India.
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Indian Nuclear policy from 1974-1980s

• Due to international alarm about the military implications of its nuclear
explosion, India did not follow the 1974 test with subsequent tests, nor did it
immediately weaponize the device design that it had tested.
• After testing its first bomb in 1974, India took over two decades to build a nuclear
arsenal and delivery system capable of military deployment. In the years after
Smiling Buddha, India had significant difficulty procuring nuclear materials from a
suddenly hostile international market.
• Despite these challenges, the BARC leadership managed to construct their biggest
nuclear plant to date—the Dhruva reactor—at Trombay in 1977. It would produce
most of the plutonium for India’s nuclear weapons program, but did not reach full
power until 1988. The Indian government also approved a ballistic missile
program in 1983.
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• Over the next decade, the Defense Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL)
built the short-range Prithvi missile and the long-range Agni missile. Both were
eventually equipped with nuclear warheads.
• Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi authorized weaponization of India's nuclear
capability in late 1980s when India got engaged with China, Srilanka, Pakistan and
had to counter Kashmir uprising.
• During the 1990s, India faced renewed international pressure—particularly from
the United States—to curb its nuclear program with the advent of the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which sought to put an end to all nuclear
explosions, including underground tests. India did not ratify the treaty; somewhat
ironically, neither did the United States.
• Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee explained India’s motivation to develop
nuclear weapons at a UN meeting in 1997: “I told President Clinton that when my
third eye [an old Indian proverb] looks at the door of the Security Council
chamber it sees a little sign that says ‘only those with economic power or nuclear
weapons allowed.’ I said to him, ‘it is very difficult to achieve economic wealth.’”
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India becomes a de-facto Nuclear weapon State

• Physicist Rajagopala Chidambaram, the head of BARC, (Bhabha atomic research
centre) was soon authorized to proceed with additional nuclear tests.
Preparations were carefully concealed and engineers worked at night to avoid
detection by American satellites.
• Operation Shakti—also known as Pokhran II—took place on May 11, 1998.
• India tested five nuclear devices, although not all of them detonated. Indian
officials claimed that the bombs had a yield equivalent to 45 kilotons of TNT, but
independent estimates put the number closer to 16 kilotons.
• “India is now a nuclear weapons state,” declared Prime Minister Vajpayee days
after the tests. "We have the capacity for a big bomb now. Ours will never be
weapons of aggression.”
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International Reaction
• India faced almost universal condemnation in the aftermath of the Pokhran II
tests.
• The United States said it was “deeply disappointed” in India’s decision.
• The United Kingdom expressed its “displeasure,” and Germany called the tests “a
slap in the face” of the countries who had signed the CTBT.
• Even Pakistani Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub Khan asserted, “India has thumbed
its nose to the Western world and the entire international community.”
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Brief history of Pakistan’s Nuclear Programme

• Pakistan has been a rather slow and reluctant starter in the field of nuclear
development.
• It was not until 1954 when the American exhibition on ‘Atoms for Peace Plan’
toured Pakistan that some interest was aroused in the potential of this new
technology for National development.
• Consequently a 12-member Atomic Energy Committee was appointed by the
Government of Pakistan to prepare blueprints for the promotion of atomic
energy in Pakistan.
• Based on the recommendations of the committee an ‘Atomic Energy Council’ was
set up in March 1956, with the task of planning and developing peaceful uses of
atomic energy.
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• Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) finalized its plans in 1957 for the
acquisition of a research reactor. Though the plans for the reactor did not
materialize as it anticipated due to various bureaucratic impediments and lack of
conviction at the government level.
• In 1963, the US supplied 5 MW ‘swimming pool’ type research reactor was finally
set up at the Pakistan Institute of Science and Technology (PINSTECH).
• In the meantime PAEC had, in 1962, entered into negotiations with Canada for
the acquisition of a CANDU type nuclear power plant and an agreement in this
regard was reached in 1965.
• In 1972, Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP), was inaugurated involving
Pakistan, Canada and IAEA.
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Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto

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Role of Z.A Bhutto

• In the words of Z.A. Bhutto;

“If India developed an atomic bomb, we too will develop one ‘even if we have to eat
grass or leaves or to remain hungry’ because there is no conventional alternative to
the atomic bomb.”
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• On assuming power on 20 December 1971 after the dismemberment of Pakistan, Bhutto

convened a meeting of the Pakistani scientists and asked them to deliver him the so-
called ‘Islamic bomb’.
• Hence the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, headed by Munir Ahmad Khan, focused
on the plutonium route to nuclear weapons development using material from the
safeguarded Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP), but its progress was inefficient due
to the constraints of nuclear export controls applied in the wake of India's nuclear test.
• Indian nuclear tests in 1974 further aggravated Bhutto’s concerns. Pakistan perceived an
immediate nuclear threat from the Indian nuclear weapons capability.
• Its threat perception was echoed by PM in the National Assembly of Pakistan. Describing
the Indian capability as a ‘fateful development and a threat to Pakistan’s security’, he
added:
“A more grave and serious event has not taken place inn the history of Pakistan. The
explosion has introduced a qualitative change in the situation between the two countries.”
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A. Q. Khan
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A.Q. Khan’s return to Pakistan

• In the meantime, Bhutto held a meeting with A. Q. Khan who was serving in
Netherlands.
• Around 1975, A.Q. Khan, a metallurgist working at a subsidiary of the URENCO
enrichment corporation in the Netherlands, returned to Pakistan to help his
country develop a uranium enrichment program.
• Having brought centrifuge designs and business contacts back with him to
Pakistan, Khan used various tactics, such as buying individual components rather
than complete units, to evade export controls and acquire the necessary
equipment.
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Pakistan’s agreement with France

• In 1976, Pakistan signed an agreement with France to acquire a plutonium
reprocessing plant to be installed at Chashma near Dera Ghazi Khan under
trilateral international safeguards.
• The agreement was recommended by the IAEA.
• United States however exerted pressure on both Pakistan and France to cancel
the deal.
• Finally with the rise of Zia ul Haq in power brought an end to Pak-French nuclear
deal.
• Pakistan, however, could acquire a uranium hexafluoride plant from West
Germany between 1977 to 1980. The plant got established at Dera Ghazi Khan.
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Pakistan’s Nuclear Program during Zia’s era

• In contrast to Bhutto, Zia ul Haq proved astute in adopting a nuclear policy which
appeared less provocative.
• Zia deliberately fostered ambiguity, took calculated risks and skillfully exploited
the loopholes in the US non-proliferation policy.
• He remained adamant to pursue nuclear program for which foundations had
already been laid by Bhutto.
• In the words of Zia, “We shall eat crumbs but will not allow our National interest
to be compromised in any manner whatsoever.”
• It was the time when Carter administration had terminated all economic and
military assistance to Pakistan on the basis of the Symington Amendment.
• Things however changed with the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.
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Decade of 80s
• By the early 1980s, Pakistan had a clandestine uranium enrichment facility, and A.Q. Khan would
later assert that the country had acquired the capability to assemble a first-generation nuclear
device as early as 1984.
• Major change inn the regional environment led the new US government to resume economic
and military cooperation with Pakistan.
• The Regan administration provided Pakistan with $ 3.2 billion aid package and cash sale of F-16
fighter bombers over a period of 6 years.
• Amidst these developments, Pakistan’s nuclear program acquired a boost.
• By the early 1980s, Pakistan had a clandestine uranium enrichment facility, and A.Q. Khan would
later assert that the country had acquired the capability to assemble a first-generation nuclear
device as early as 1984.
• On 1 March 1987, the Observer carried an interview with A Q Khan, by a famous Indian
journalist, Kuldeep Nayar, in which Khan reportedly admitted that Pakistan possessed Nuclear
weapons.
• In an interview in the same month, Zia also acknowledged that Pakistan had acquired nuclear
weapons capability.
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From late 80s to 1998

• Benazir Bhutto, after winning elections, paid a visit to the US and assured US
Congress that Pakistan had neither developed nor intended to develop a nuclear
device. She reiterated her opposition to the development of a bomb but without
a willingness to sign NPT.
• However it has been reported that Benazir Bhutto did not have a control over the
secret Nuclear weapons Programme Coordinating Committee, chaired by the
President.
• Despite international pressure, Pakistan continued its Nuclear weapons program.
Finally inn 1992, Pakistani Foreign Secretary, Shehryar Khan, in an interview with
the Washington Post, stated that Pakistan had acquired the capability to
assemble at least one nuclear device.
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1998: Pakistan goes Nuclear

• Indian nuclear tests in 1998, created enormous pressure on Pakistani political and
military personals.
• After rigorous discussions and scrutiny, Pakistan decided to reciprocate India by
carrying its nuclear tests.
• Pakistan detonated five explosions on 28 May and a sixth on 30 May 1998, during
the regime of PM Nawaz Sharif.
• With these tests Pakistan abandoned its nuclear ambiguity and stated that it
would maintain a "credible minimum deterrent" against India.
• In 1998, Pakistan commissioned its first plutonium production reactor at
Khushab, which was capable of producing approximately 11 kg of weapons-grade
plutonium annually.
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Indian Nuclear Doctrine

• India’s nuclear doctrine, which was made public in 2003, is based on three main
tenets – no-first-use (NFU), massive retaliation, and force posture of credible
minimum deterrence.
• Since 2016, India has been party to three major non-proliferation regimes: in
June 2016 the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), aimed at curbing
missile proliferation; in December 2017 the Wassenaar Arrangement that
coordinates export control of dual-use goods and technology; and in January
2018 the Australia Group that controls the transfer of toxic chemicals and
dangerous pathogens.
• India has bolstered its credibility by putting NFU as part of its nuclear doctrine. In
addition, India has been claiming to not consider nuclear weapons to be a
military solution; it refers to nuclear weapons as a means of political deterrence.
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• According to Dr Manpreet Sethi, an Indian expert on nuclear security,

“India’s development and advancements in nuclear weapons are in line with India’s
declared nuclear doctrine and do not present any changes to the doctrine’s
baselines. So the development of a triad or the investment in research and
development in India’s nuclear technology is in line with India’s declared and
assured nuclear doctrinal commitments.”
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Cold Start
• India has also declared the ‘Cold Start Doctrine’, which is intended to allow Indian
conventional forces to perform holding attacks or limited retaliatory strikes
without crossing Pakistan’s nuclear threshold to prevent nuclear retaliation in
case of a conflict, and is designed to reorient India’s military forces towards a
more aggressive, offensive capability.
• It refers to the quick mobility of Indian troops hence enhances Indian
conventional superiority.
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Pakistan’s Nuclear Doctrine

• Pakistan does not have a formally declared nuclear doctrine, so it remains unclear
under what conditions Pakistan might use nuclear weapons.
• In 2002, President Pervez Musharraf stated that, "nuclear weapons are aimed
solely at India," and would only be used if "the very existence of Pakistan as a
state" was at stake.
• Lieutenant General Khalid Kidwai, former Director General of Pakistan’s Strategic
Plans Division (SPD) that acts as a secretariat for the Nuclear Command Authority
of Pakistan further elaborated that this could include Indian conquest of
Pakistan's territory or military, "economic strangling," or "domestic
destabilization."
• The literature analysing the official statements, interviews and news reports
asserts that the derivation of ‘first use’ and a unilateral moratorium against
nuclear testing remain consistent.
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• Pakistan’s minimum credible deterrence with the evolution of the ‘Shaheen III’ and
‘Nasr’ tactical missiles has raised questions about references to the status quo, since
such developments clearly imply an early use of nuclear weapons. Finally, the phrases
'full spectrum', 'nonmention of escalation control' and 'war termination’ drive
Pakistan’s continuous development of its nuclear arsenal. In a sense, the premise of
Pakistan’s nuclear programme is specific against threats, and perceived threats, from
India.
• In the words of Pakistan’s Brig Gen (Ret) Tughral Yamin,
“Pakistani arsenal is meant to provide what is officially described as full spectrum
deterrence. Tactical nuclear weapons are meant to deter any shallow Indian thrust at the
lowest level of engagement, within the framework of the so-called Cold Start Doctrine /
Pro-Active Operations. A second strike capability is being developed by equipping the
conventional submarines with nuclear tipped ballistic missiles. Cruise missiles are being
developed to beat the Indian [ballistic missile defences (BMDs)]”
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Arms Race in South Asia

• Arms Race refers to the increase in arms (both quantitatively and qualitatively) by
two or more countries in order to create an equilibrium in a region.
• In case of South Asia, dynamics are different. India and Pakistan are two nuclear
States indulged in enhancing their capability to ensure regional balance.
• In the meantime China factor also plays significant role in increasing Indian
apprehensions.
• Indian first nuclear test was carried to counter Chinese nuclear power but
Pakistan got threatened. Meanwhile Chinese effort to acquire ‘hypersonic
missiles” to counter US have raised serious concerns within Indians, further
increasing apprehensions of Pakistan.
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Pakistani stance
• ISPR (Inter-Services Public Relations) claims, “We don’t want to go towards Arms
race but in order to ensure Strategic balance, we have to.
• Pakistan claims to make ‘tactical weapons’ (Nasr or Hatf 9 with 60km range)
primarily to counter Indian ‘Cold Start’ as it will increase Indian conventional
superiority.
• Indian ‘Arihant’ led to Pakistani efforts towards Nuclear based submarine.
Meanwhile, Pakistan has also carried test of sea-based missile (Babar) that can be
launched via any platform of Sea.
• Pakistani MIRVs (multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle) have been
successfully tested to counter Indian capability to intercept.
Thank You