[sacw] S. Asia New Nukes Book Review

[aiindex@mnet.fr]

FYI
(South Asians Agianst Nukes)
------------------------------

The Friday Times
28 October 2000

New nukes, old speak

M V Ramana reviews New Nukes, a book by Praful Bidwai and Achan Vanaik on
South Asia's nuclearisation and says the strongest sections are those in
which the authors advance a devastating critique of the deterrence delusion

"India's decisive step to become a nuclear weapon state has brought about
a qualitative new state in India-Pakistan relations, particularly in
finding a lasting solution to the Kashmir problem." This claim made shortly
after the May 1998 nuclear tests by L. K. Advani, the Indian home minister
and a prominent leader in the Hindu ultra-nationalist Bharatiya Janata
Party, would soon be proved right and wrong. Within three weeks, Pakistan
tested its own nuclear weapons bringing about a qualitatively new state in
India-Pakistan relations. However, barely a year later, India and Pakistan
were involved in bitter fighting over a 15000-ft high mountain ledge near
the town of Kargil, Kashmir. For the first time since 1971, India called on
its air force to launch attacks. In response Pakistan scrammed its own
fighters; air raid sirens were tested in Pakistan's capital city,
Islamabad. Both countries conducted army exercises at various points along
the borders and the navies were put on alert. What was even more ominous
was the rate at which the two countries exchanged nuclear threats - at
least 13 threats by high-level officials and political leaders according to
one count. Clearly no lasting solution had been found!

It is in the wake of South Asia's nuclearisation and the attendant dangers
that Praful Bidwai and Achin Vanaik, both journalists and long-time
disarmament analysts and activists, begins exploring the "new state" in
India and Pakistan with a discussion of the Kargil crisis and the lessons
it offers. That result of that effort is the book New Nukes: India,
Pakistan and Global Nuclear Disarmament.

The first lesson they draw is that South Asia is the most likely place in
the world where a nuclear exchange can take place. This is not to say that
it cannot happen elsewhere, but a recognition of the near-war conditions
(or, perhaps, even low-intensity war) that prevail along the India-Pakistan
border and the poor state of relations between the two countries, now
nuclear armed. The second, and perhaps more important, lesson is that the
Kargil conflict "revealed the horrific absurdity of relying on nuclear
deterrence." Though International Relations theorists of the "realist"
variety may remind us of Glenn Snyder's 'Stability Instability Paradox' -
that nuclear weapons which are supposed to lend stability to relations
between countries also causes instability because countries may now engage
in limited 'conventional' war without worrying about escalation - the fact
remains that most 'hawks' in India, who pride themselves on being realists,
prior to the Kargil conflict, claimed that with the overt acquisition of
nuclear weapons, conventional wars between India and Pakistan would be
averted. Kargil demonstrated the falsity of their claims.

Kargil was also one of the costliest 'crises' - the economic costs to
India was over Rs. 10,000 crores (US$2.5 billion). This is small when
compared to the costs of building a nuclear arsenal, let alone fighting a
nuclear war. C. Rammanohar Reddy, an economist and journalist, estimated
that just the investment costs involved in building the kind of nuclear
arsenal envisioned by the Indian Draft Nuclear Doctrine would amount to
over Rs. 40,000 crores. Then there would be the opportunity costs involved
in investing in a nuclear arsenal to the neglect of health, education and
infrastructure. For countries like India and Pakistan, choosing bombs over
urgent necessities simply demonstrates their "horrendous neglect and
callousness towards basic human needs as well as distorted public spending
priorities."

Among the strongest sections in New Nukes are those in which Bidwai and
Vanaik advance a devastating critique of the "deterrence delusion."
Examining the efficacy of deterrence is extremely important. As Bidwai and
Vanaik put it, "the case for nuclear weapons...stands or falls with the
strengths or weaknesses of the arguments for or against deterrence."

According to deterrence theory, because any use of nuclear weapons by two
countries possessing large nuclear arsenals would lead to massive
destruction in both countries, no country would initiate war. (In other
formulations, it is only nuclear war that would not be initiated.) This
notion of nuclear deterrence, by being articulated often enough, seems to
have become accepted as true. Deterrence, however, is not a law of nature.
It is simply 'a state of mind' and there is no reason to believe that
deterrence will "hold or whenever or whomever you want."

Bidwai and Vanaik list many arguments against deterrence, pointing out
that it is at best an unstable equilibrium and demonstrating why there are
multiple possibilities of failure. A single rash act, or even rumors of a
planned attack by the adversary, may trigger a nuclear war. If that
happens, the massive destructive power available to both sides, intended
precisely to strengthen deterrence would ensure large-scale death and
destruction.

The arguments against deterrence form one major component of what must
really be described as several books rolled into one. Some of the other
components deal with the history of the Indian and Pakistani nuclear
programs, the special dangers and specific impacts in the South Asian
situation, the global context, the history and the future of the peace
movement and the immorality of nuclear weapons. Though at one level this
gets a little confusing, it is also useful to see the arguments against
nuclearism as one inter-related package. Bidwai and Vanaik's deep
commitment and long years of thinking about nuclear weapons and following
nuclear developments in India and the rest of the world is apparent
throughout the book. Not just through the wealth of detail (resulting in
part from their journalistic access) and profusion of arguments against
nuclear weapons, but, perhaps more important, through the strong political
sense that comes out of activism on a range of issues.

If the book has any failing, it is that it attempts an extremely ambitious
task. But in failing Bidwai and Vanaik have nonetheless come up with an
incredibly wide-ranging survey of fifty-five years of living with nuclear
weapons, focussing particularly on the peculiar dangers associated with
these in South Asia. Bidwai and Vanaik's book is unusual among books
related to nuclear weapons in that it grapples with the hard problems of
how to build a peace and anti-nuclear movement. The lessons and suggestions
that Bidwai and Vanaik offer are as relevant for other countries as they
are for India. As the authors conclude, "if [such a movement] succeeds
there is everything, indeed literally a whole world, to be gained."

M V Ramana is based at the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies,
Princeton University