Command and Control Infrastructure:Operational Asymmetries and Dichotomies*

Dr. Zafar Iqbal Cheema** 

Introduction 

ommand and control (C²) of nuclear weapons is a very complex mechanism and a difficult task faced by the national decision-makers.  Strategic Command and Control systems (C²) are developed by states to ensure that nuclear weapons are used only when authorised by the legitimate decision-makers and their unauthorised and accidental use is entirely ruled out. Complete achievement of both these objectives appears mutually exclusive to some degree. Peter Fever points out that the central challenge in developing a “fail-safe” C² system is an “always/never dilemma”: “Leaders want a high assurance that weapons will always work when directed and a similar assurance that they will never be used in the absence of authorized direction.” [1] These appear apparently contradictory objectives. According to Scott Sagan, “Achieving these twin objectives presents leaders with a severe trade-off problem because actions taken to meet one objective often reduce the likelihood of achieving the other goal.” [2] To meet these objectives from one end of the spectrum, highly assertive or centralized C² systems are designed where central leadership at the top reserves the authority to allow the use of nuclear weapons so that unauthorized or accidental use is ruled out. But centralized control causes unwarranted delays in cases where weapons are readily required to be relied upon, due to, for example, less early warning time or a surprise ‘decapitation attack’ which might disrupt the C² or entirely destroy the system rendering it unusable. [3] From the other end of the spectrum, ‘delegative’ C² systems are developed where weapons are placed under the command of regional military commanders in a ready state of alert with the requisite authority to use them under different contingencies. While the delegative command systems ensure a ready-response capability, they entail the possibility of an unauthorized or an accidental use.                                                                                        

The US nuclear history enables organization theorists to predict, according to Scott Sagan, that officers seek both an independent capability and delegation of authority to use weapons of mass destruction, lobby hard to maximize their autonomy and “oppose any technical and procedural innovations that take operational decision-making power out of their hand.” [4] That also leads to competition or rivalry within the armed forces to gain exclusive or more control over nuclear weapons. The realists argue that the central determinant for the development of a delegative or assertive C² system is the nature of threats as envisioned in the military doctrine of a state. The state leaders would prefer highly assertive C² systems if their adversaries are either conventionally armed or lack sufficient number of nuclear weapons and accurate delivery systems, and cannot successfully carry out decapitation attacks against their C² infrastructure. However, the realists contend that a state is likely to opt for a delegative system if it perceives decapitation threats to its nuclear arsenal and C² infrastructure, and aims to maintain ready response capabilities. Fears of pre-emptive attack or first strike from an adversary would create strong incentives for a delegative C² system. Different strategic doctrines would produce different command and control systems. According to strategic culture theory, a state’s C² system may be strongly influenced by domestic politics and decision-making traditions. Neo-culturalists argue that C² system can reflect internal political struggles and a state’s political hierarchy. A state leader might have to take into account that pre-delegation to a military commander or another civilian leader would need to identify a successor. According to Sagan, “If control over a state’s nuclear weapons arsenal symbolizes the highest political authority in that state, then pre-delegation of weapons release authority would signal who was next in the line of succession.” [5]      

India and Pakistan have divergent perceptions of their conflict on Kashmir, nuclear deterrence and stability in the region, and command and control over nuclear weapons. Majority of the people in Pakistan and the intelligentsia share the global perception about Kashmir as ‘the world’s most dangerous nuclear flashpoint’, whose continuation in the present form carries dangerous portents for regional stability, and international peace and security. The opinion in India differs with varying degrees of scepticism in various sections of the elite, especially about Pakistan exploiting the nuclear dynamic in its favour to extract strategic benefits in the management and resolution of the Kashmir dispute, and maintaining a strategic equilibrium. However, many Indians also regard the situation potentially dangerous. The conflict over Kashmir has gradually become an alarming manifestation of a complex situation in which issues of politics, war and nuclear stability are inextricably interwoven. The situation carries possibilities of misperception, miscalculation and accidental use of nuclear weapons, spilling over from a conventional conflict like Kargil or the spring 1990 crisis. The history of warfare and vituperation between the two countries makes it absolutely imperative that not only the conflict over Kashmir be resolved, but nuclear stability must be consolidated through a number of confidence-building, restraint regime and risk reduction measures. This may begin from bridging the wide gap over contentious issues and eventually go over to develop a common understanding about the role and utility of nuclear weapons in the maintenance of peace, strategic equilibrium and deterrent stability.

         After the May 1998 nuclear tests, both India and Pakistan proclaim to pursue a policy of weaponization, without a clear identification of what is weaponization, but, broadly speaking, it can be interpreted to entail induction of nuclear weapons into the armed forces. Although weaponization is different from deployment, these are overlapping processes. By way of definition, weaponization can be considered as the process of manufacturing, assembling, testing, and integrating warhead devices into weapon system. Deployment can be defined as the process of transferring bombs and/or warheads to military units for storage and rapid mating with delivery systems. The first necessary step in weaponization, therefore, is to design and test a weapon, which both India and Pakistan now claim to be doing. After the tests, some Pakistani scientists claimed that their nuclear devices were already ‘weaponized’ and ready to be equipped on delivery systems. [6] On the Indian side, Dr. Chidambaram, Chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission, stated that except one Indian device, which was a weapon, other devices exploded at Pokhran, during the nuclear tests in May 1998, had ‘weaponizable configurations.’ [7] That has been interpreted to suggest that the devices have a design on which weapons could be built. P. R. Chari however suggests that it can be inferred that India is still some distance away from deploying nuclear weapons of the sub-kiloton and thermonuclear category. [8]

                According to Chari, India’s security deteriorated after the nuclear tests. It provided a rationale for Pakistan's nuclear test — as a result Pakistan achieved strategic parity with India and it was able to erode its inferiority in conventional arms.[9] Chari believes that once the deployment decision is taken, the political leadership would find itself being tossed around by the inter-service rivalry in the military – each service wanting its own nuclear weapon-systems. That would ensure that India’s concept of a minimum credible deterrence would come under strain if India goes in for a triad of nuclear forces. Inter-service rivalry would drive the political leadership towards developing more and more nuclear weapons, similar to what happened in the United States during the Cold War.

On August 17, 1999, India pronounced a draft Indian nuclear doctrine, which proclaims the development and maintenance of credible minimum deterrence based upon a strategic triad of nuclear forces (land-based, air-based and sea-based), second strike capability and punitive retaliation with nuclear weapons if deterrence were to fail. [10] There is no official estimate of the credible minimum deterrence. However, individual views of some members of the National Security Advisory Board and others range from 50 to 400 nuclear and thermonuclear weapons. [11] The draft doctrine proclaims:

 

The fundamental purpose of Indian nuclear weapons is to deter the use and threat of use of nuclear weapons by any State or entity against India and its forces. India will not be the first to initiate a nuclear strike, but will respond with punitive retaliation should deterrence fail. [12]

 

The doctrine outlines that credible deterrence requires: sufficient, survivable and operationally deployable nuclear forces with robust command and control, and efficient intelligence and early warning systems. [13]   It is noteworthy that the doctrine outlines:

 

India’s peacetime posture aims at convincing any potential aggressor that: (a) any threat of use of nuclear weapons against India shall invoke measures to counter the threat: and (b) any attack on India and its armed forces shall result in punitive retaliation with nuclear weapons to inflict damage unacceptable to the aggressor. [14]

 

The doctrine does not specify the measures India might undertake against any threat of use of nuclear weapons. If such stipulated measures were pre-emptive in nature, they would enhance the possibility of strategic miscalculation and might generate an unintended conventional or nuclear clash, which ostensibly is its purpose to avoid. Article 2.7 of the draft Indian doctrine lends support to the possibility of pre-emptive measures. It says:

 

Highly effective conventional capabilities shall be maintained to raise the threshold of outbreak both of conventional military conflict as well as that of threat or use of nuclear weapons. [15]

 

Conventional wisdom suggests that India considers nuclear weapons as essentially political weapons meant to enhance strategic status, having no military value, but a close reading of the draft Indian nuclear doctrine indicates that it regards nuclear weapons as instruments of war. It is, in fact, an aggressive war-fighting doctrine. The doctrine is escalatory in nature, generates pre-emptive threats and therefore, would undermine deterrent stability if it were to be adopted in totality by the Indian government. Conventional pre-emptive strikes against adversary’s nuclear forces would precipitate a nuclear war. Pakistan considers India’s doctrine as offensive, provocative, and threatening to regional security and global stability. [16]

According to Rodney W. Jones, the Indian nuclear doctrine is based upon an expansive war-fighting force structure, without specifying adversaries, or an actual threat, and whose language alluded provocatively to using conventional pre-emptive capabilities offensively against any party that might threaten to use nuclear weapons against India and its armed forces. [17] He opines: “by calling this strategy document a draft, the authors may hope to draw Pakistan reactively into public declarations of its own nuclear policy.” [18] The doctrine would not only fuel a nuclear arms race, but enhance strategic instability. Although the draft doctrine has yet to be formally approved by the Indian government, it is generally believed that some Indian government would eventually embrace it mostly overtime.

Subsequent statements emanating from New Delhi generated further uncertainties about nuclear stability in the region. The Indian Defence Minister, George Fernandes, declared on January 5, 2000 at a seminar organized by the Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA) on the ‘Challenges of Limited War’ that Pakistan’s possession of nuclear weapons does not rule out the possibility of a limited conventional war. [19] The statement seems to be influenced by the Kargil conflict in summer 1999. The Defence Minister said that Pakistan did hold out a nuclear threat during the Kargil war but it had not absorbed the real meaning of nuclearisation. That it can deter only the use of nuclear weapons but not all and any war. He went on to say that the issue was not that war has been made obsolete by nuclear weapons and that covert war (proxy war) is the only option, but that conventional war remains feasible, though within definite limitations. One of the implications of his statement is that the nuclear deterrent cannot prevent a limited conventional war between India and Pakistan. The former Indian Army Chief, General V.P. Malik, reiterated a similar theme in an interview that despite Pakistan’s nuclear weapons capability, India could cross over the LOC in hot pursuit operations. [20] Since the attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13, 2001, the outcry in India for such pursuits or a action against Pakistan has been raised to unprecedented level and their relations have slumped to the lowest since 1999 Kargil conflict. The armed forces of both the countries are fully mobilized against each other — sitting eye-ball to eye-ball. It is an extremely dangerous situation from where hostility can flare-up any time and erupt into a full-scale war, which may not confine to a purely conventional level.  It is an ominous sign for peace and stability in the South Asian region. 

 

Nuclear Command and Control (C²) Infrastructure

Command and control issues are specifically addressed by both India and Pakistan but in very different ways. Command and control aspects are specifically stated in the Article 5 of the Indian draft nuclear doctrine. Article 5.1of the doctrine requires:

 

Nuclear weapons shall be tightly controlled and released for use at the highest political level. The authority to release nuclear weapons for use resides in the person of the Prime Minister of India, or the designated successor(s). [21]

 

In actuality, however, the Indian Prime Minister has not designated his successor(s), in public at least, which some quarters would expect, given his fragile state of health.  The Indian nuclear doctrine generates ambiguity, some suggest deliberately, by saying that ‘authority to release nuclear weapons’ for use rests with the Prime Minister, without specifying any contingencies under which nuclear weapons would be released. It does not exclude a peacetime release or in any length of time earlier to a crisis-situation, or who knows that the weapons might have already been released. India has left open for its adversaries to guess the contingencies under which it would release or have already released nuclear weapons for use. Given the geographic proximity between India and Pakistan and extremely short early warning time, which is bound to be shorter than the time to release nuclear weapons, India’s adversaries would consider it safer to presume that nuclear weapons have already been released to Indian military.

 

Article 5.2 of the Indian nuclear doctrine lays down that:

An effective and survivable command and control system with requisite flexibility and responsiveness shall be in place. An integrated operational plan, or a series of sequential plans, predicated on strategic objectives and a targeting policy shall form part of that system. [22]

 

This is axiomatic with actual deployment of nuclear weapons against prefigured targets. It requires that an integrated operational plan shall form part of the C² system which would compel the Indian Prime Minister to pre-delegate authority to use nuclear weapons to the military commanders, an impression which is at variance with first part of the command and control system (Article 5.1). Responsiveness ensues from ready-response capabilities, which would be difficult to put into practice unless there is some pre-delegation of authority. Operational military requirements as visualised in this article would compel India, to reduce the time to respond rapidly, which is difficult without pre-delegation. This imperative would undermine traditional civilian control over nuclear weapons, which is the conventional norm in India.

Article 5.3 lays down that, “For effective employment the unity of command and control of nuclear forces including dual capable delivery systems shall be ensured.” [23] The authors of the doctrine indicate the fact that India at the moment lacks a joint or unified command structure in its armed forces and visualises the possibility of an organizational friction between the Indian Army and Indian Air force, on who, for example, would have a final control over nuclear weapons to maintain the unity of command. That creates an operational imperative for an integrated Strategic Nuclear Command, dedicated for the deployment of nuclear weapons, or, a joint command at the top echelon of the Indian Armed forces, like Joint Chiefs of Defence or Military Staff.

                Article 5.4 of the Indian doctrine also lays down that survivability of nuclear arsenal and the requirement of C⁴I² systems shall be assured.[24] (C⁴ stands for command, control, communication and computing systems and I² stands for intelligence and information). Survivability depends upon the size of the nuclear force including a second-strike capability, dispersal and mobility of the nuclear weapon systems to ensure that the force is redundant enough to escape its destruction or major disruption in case of a pre-emptive or first strike by the adversaries. According to this year’s annual report of the IISS (International Institute for Strategic Studies), London, India possesses fissile material for 65 nuclear weapons.[25] The quantity of fissile material is not synonymous with nuclear weapons devices, which may not be at the optimal level of the available material. However, India should have no technical difficulty in manufacturing the requisite number of devices. The problem lies in formatting nuclear weapons with delivery systems, especially with missile-based delivery systems. India may have enough Prithvi missiles for these number of nuclear weapons but not Agni missiles at this moment. On August 25, India's Defence Minister authorized production of 300 short-range, nuclear-capable Prithvi missiles. The decision was taken in response to a reported August 15 test of the Ghauri III by Pakistan, an intermediate-range, nuclear-capable ballistic missile.[26] In a policy speech to the Parliamentary Consultative Committee, Jaswant Singh, as Defence Minister for a brief period, announced that Agni would be inducted into the Indian armed forces by 2002.[27] There are reports that in the pursuit of the policy of nuclear weapons deployment, coordination between the Indian Army, scientists from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), and the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) on the nuclear weaponization of the Agni missile is in progress.[28] It is reported that the Government of India has decided to develop ballistic missiles with a longer range than the presently developed versions of Agni.[29]

Survivability is problematic to be ensured if a country offers a no-first use declaration. India’s no-first use declaration is unilateral, which its adversaries would not consider advisable to rely upon in their strategic calculations, especially Pakistan, who has not announced a no-first use declaration. China has however made a no-first use declaration like India. By the time India manufactures a large number of nuclear weapons, dispersal of nuclear-capable aircraft and mobility of missile launchers is the option Indian decision makers are likely to undertake. India’s vast strategic depth is a great asset, which it can rely upon to enhance survivability of its nuclear arsenal. India, however, is quite a distance away from a real second-strike capability, especially in the naval sector, though hectic efforts are being made to improvise a semblance of that nature by installing a ship-based version of Sagarika missile. A C⁴I² system is not beyond India’s long-term potential, but is far away in the short term. To actually develop one would take enormous commitment of financial, industrial and technological resources over a long period of time.

What appears a little surprising is the Article 5.5 of the draft Indian nuclear doctrine, which requires that the Indian defence forces shall be in a position to execute operations in an NBC environment with minimal degradation. [30] (NBC stands for Nuclear, Biological and Chemical). It is a well known fact that at the time of ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), India declared that it possesses a stockpile of chemical weapons, but India and Pakistan both being signatories of the CWC, preparations for an NBC environment at the operational level on India’s part signifies that it does not rule out the use of chemical and biological weapons. Although India is required to dispose off the existing stockpile under the provisions of the CWC within 10 years of its signatures, in the Pakistani perceptions, it creates new uncertainties for stability in the region. In 1992, India and Pakistan signed a bilateral agreement not to use chemical weapons against each other on the understanding that both the countries were non-chemical weapon states. Both countries also signed the global Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) as non-chemical weapons states but afterwards India declared a stockpile of chemical weapons before ratification in 1997. The Indian possession of chemical weapons and developing plans for an NBC environment would not only exacerbate existing distrust, but would generate new apprehensions.

                Article 5.6 of the draft doctrine stipulates, “Space based and other assets shall be created to provide early warning, communications, damage/ detonation assessment.” [31] These are routine operational and technological measures from which India appears to be a quite a distance away if these are to be based upon modern technologies.

                In an illustrative article, M. V. Ramana points out three specific dangers which the deployment of nuclear weapons by India would pose to the security and stability of the South Asian region. He suggests that the reported “Indian policy to deploy nuclear weapons would open up the possibilities of accidental or unauthorised use of the weapons, and development of more weapons as a result of inter-service rivalry.”[32] Ramana opines that so long as the low-intensity conflict in Kashmir continues unabated, it would continue to inject instability in the fragile nuclear relations of India and Pakistan. Deployment of nuclear weapons will inevitably demand delegating authority to military officers on the field for a host of reasons such as poor communications, short distances and geographic contiguity between India and Pakistan, and resultantly, less early warning time. It was reported that the Boeing 737-200 that took the Indian Prime Minister, A.B. Vajpayee, on a three-nation tour abroad in 2001, was not equipped with direct dialling facility. [33]

                The chances of unauthorised use of nuclear weapons might gradually increase along with increase in the ranks of the Indian military persons under the fundamentalist influences. According to Ramana:

 

                The saffronisation of the Indian polity would certainly have affected its armed forces. Investigations into the riots that erupted after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, especially those in Mumbai, revealed such a trend in the police force and in the Provincial Armed Constabulary. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has never hidden its desire to use nuclear weapons against Pakistan.[34]

 

                Ramana cites at length from Panchjanya, the RSS mouthpiece, which proclaimed at the time of the Kargil war:

 

The time has come again for India's Bheema to tear open the breasts of these infidels and purify the soiled tresses of Draupadi with blood. Pakistan will not listen just like that. We have a centuries-old debt to settle with this mindset. It is the same demon that has been throwing a challenge at Durga since the time of Mohammad bin Qasim. Arise Atal Behari! Who knows if fate has destined you to be the author of the final chapter of this long story? For what have we manufactured bombs? For what have we exercised the nuclear option?[35] 

 

                Ramana continue to infer that given such exhortations, if a military officer sympathetic to the RSS is authorised to use nuclear weapons, then the possibility of his launching a weapon against Pakistan cannot be ruled out.[36]

                The complexities inherent in contingencies like geographic contiguity, short distances and less flight times between India and Pakistan would generate pressures for pre-delegation of authority, failing which might generate impulses for unauthorised launches. Despite the enormous financial and technical resources invested in setting up and operating C⁴I² systems by the superpowers, there was frequent failings and false alarming. It was despite the fact that warning time between them ranged from 20 to 30 minutes. South Asia lacks financial and technological resources for fail-safe systems and the early warning time is too less to undertake rationally calculated decisions.

                The development of inter-service rivalry for the control of nuclear weapons and the consequent increase in requirements for nuclear weapons cannot be discounted. Due to the inter-service rivalry in United States, “the Air Force, Navy, and Army, each assessed their nuclear requirements largely in isolation, without considering the forces of their sister services. This led to duplicative targeting...(and) the problem of overkill.”[37] It is believed that a missile tracking radar near Moscow, for example, was the target of no less than 69 nuclear weapons of the United States nuclear forces. [38] 

                There are reports that the Indian military services are involved in an intense competition to seek control over the newly proposed post of the Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS), the office that would have its finger on the nuclear button.[39] According to Ramana, more recent reports suggest that the Indian Army is to raise a special missile regiment to induct Agni. The decision was apparently made in June this year 2001 and was primarily based on three considerations. First, the Army was the largest of the three forces. Second, it had an infrastructure that could be adapted for storing and deploying Agni-II with minimum modifications and cost. Third, it had the maximum experience in handling the Prithvi ballistic missile.[40]  In response to this decision, the Indian Air Chief, Marshal A. Y. Tipnis, wrote to Defence Minister that the IAF's views had not been incorporated into the CDS structure.[41] Joining hands with him was former Chief of the Air Staff, O. P. Mehra, who sought an immediate review of the decision allowing the Army to raise a “strategic rocket command.”[42] The IAF is apparently not enthusiastic about being absorbed in a new tri-service architecture and the formation of a strategic command where all the three services will be equally represented.[43] A news report quotes an unnamed IAF official as claiming that the “question whether the Agni should also be given to the IAF is being considered.”[44] Sometime earlier, Uday Bhaskar, an officer retired from the Indian Navy, who is currently Deputy Director of the IDSA, argued that the nuclear button should be with the Navy since it had “both maritime and aviation roles.” Dismissing the IAF's doubts, he argued that these should “not distract us from the inevitability of a CDS.”[45] Regardless of who wins this battle, if the Draft Nuclear Doctrine's recommendation for a strategic triad is followed, sooner or later all three services are likely to get nuclear weapons of their own - at least if the current plans for deployment are followed.

                According to a study in India Abroad, titled ‘India's Emerging Nuclear Posture: Between Recessed Deterrent and Ready Arsenal,’ by Ashley Tellis, India’s objective is to create a ‘force-in-being,’ which is described as a nuclear deterrent that consists of available but dispersed components.[46] Essentially, it consists of unassembled nuclear warheads, with their components stored separately under strict civilian control, and dedicated delivery systems kept either in storage or in readiness away from their operational areas - all of which can be brought together rapidly to create a usable deterrent force during a supreme emergency. The study suggests that it symbolize a critical shift in India's strategic direction by committing the country to the active development of a nuclear deterrent of some kind, a course that is unlikely to be reversed in the future by any succeeding government.[47] The study states that the force-in-being implies that India's nuclear capabilities will be strategically active, but operationally dormant, giving New Delhi the capability to execute retaliatory actions within a matter of hours to weeks. Such a capability will allow India to gain in security, status, and prestige, while simultaneously exhibiting restraint, it says.[48] However, it underestimates that rapid retaliatory capability would be extremely difficult to assemble in view of the geographic contiguity and negligible early warning time of an incoming pre-emptive of first strike attack. 

                According to the study, India would acquire a nominal deterrence capability against Pakistan and China, while avoiding both the high costs of a ready arsenal and any weakening of its long tradition of strict civilian control over the military. The study says that Beijing's current nuclear force is both technologically and numerically superior to that of India and extensive Chinese attacks could devastate India's ability to reconstitute its dispersed components, leaving New Delhi with only a ragged retaliatory capability of perhaps little political consequence.[49] It says although Indian policymakers acknowledge that a ready nuclear arsenal is not desirable from the viewpoint of New Delhi's interests, they are strongly committed to continued nuclear weaponization and missile development.

W. P. S.  Sidhu maintains that, “Political leaders and nuclear technocrats have been reluctant to include the armed forces in either the decision making about or the development of nuclear weapons.” [50] According to him:

 

The DRDO is the organization likely to retain possession of nuclear warheads” and “only when key decision makers are convinced that a crisis would lead to a nuclear attack would the order be given to release nuclear warheads. This order would be conveyed from a national command post outside New Delhi through a series of codes sent over several communication channels to assure its authenticity. [51]

 

However, Sidhu cites V. S. Arunachalam, the former head of the Indian DRDO as saying, “If New Delhi goes up in a mushroom cloud, a certain theatre commander will go to the safe, open his book, and begin reading at page one, paragraph one, and will act step by step on the basis of what he reads.” [52]   To Sidhu: “This plan simply lacks credibility.”

Sidhu calls the Indian C² a system of “divided control, in which civilian had absolute control over nuclear arsenal and military was in possession of delivery systems.” [53] He maintains that in future however the divided control arrangements could change to one in which the possession and the right to use nuclear weapons is delegated to the military. [54] According to India’s post 1998 nuclear tests policy of weaponization, in the wake of which nuclear weapons are to be gradually deployed. It means weapons at some stage have to be handed down to the armed forces if military commanders were to rely upon them.

It must be noted, however, that the Indian nuclear doctrine is in draft form and although there are greater chances that future Indian governments would mostly adhere to it, the provisions of the doctrine are by no means mandatory until the doctrine is officially approved. Secondly, as we have seen in the case of the five NPT recognized nuclear weapons states, especially the United States and the former Soviet Union, or presently Russia, nuclear doctrines are time bound declarations and keep changing according to the strategic objectives and situational requirements. Therefore, further changes cannot be ruled out in the Indian nuclear doctrine.

Pakistan has not pronounced a nuclear doctrine but its policy to maintain a small but credible nuclear force and address asymmetric strategic equilibrium with India by invoking nuclear weapons suggests the outlines of an emergent nuclear doctrine. Pakistan has often declared that, ‘Minimum nuclear deterrent will remain the guiding principle of our nuclear strategy.’ [55] "The minimum nuclear deterrence can and will never be compromised," Gen Musharraf reiterated while inaugurating the 26^th International Nathiagali Summer College on Physics, in 2001. [56] He further stated, "Pakistan believes in maintaining a minimum credible deterrence and does not want to direct its available resources towards the race of weapons of mass destruction." [57]   This declaration is indicative of an evolving nuclear doctrine. Pakistan aims to counterpoise India’s conventional military superiority and attempts to prevent a large-scale war with its nuclear weapons capability. It rejects India’s no first use declaration, which is believed to undermine its deterrent capability to prevent India from going to war. Its reliance upon the concept of first use without specifying the situations in which it would contemplate using nuclear weapons is intended to maintain flexibility. Pakistan’s nuclear strategy seems to prevent an all out war with India in the wake of the continuing low-intensity conflict in Kashmir.

Pakistan did not have a nuclear declaratory, deployment or employment doctrine before May 1998. But in the wake of the 1998 nuclear tests, Pakistan is now formulating such plans. Its decisions to assemble a small nuclear force rapidly, to diversify weapons by utilizing designs that rely on both uranium and plutonium, to develop comprehensive missiles programs, and to take steps to miniaturize nuclear warheads suggest the outlines of a nuclear doctrine. Similarly, as stated earlier, the decisions of Pakistani leaders to address an asymmetric strategic balance with India, to ward off crises that threaten their national security, and to neutralize prospective nuclear blackmail by invoking nuclear weapons and missile capabilities, further suggest the formulation of a nuclear doctrine. Public declarations about the doctrine need to be differentiated from its operational and functional dimensions. The downgrading of Pakistan’s conventional military capability has lowered its threshold for invoking the threat of use of nuclear weapons. It feels compelled to threaten the use of nuclear weapons at an early stage if a war looms at the horizon or use them as weapons of last resort, running the risk of loosing them if not used. 

In February 2000, Pakistan spelled out its command and control structure, dealing with nuclear weapons. It announced the setting up of a National Command Authority (NCA) to deal with nuclear weapons development, employment and C⁴ (command, control, communications and computerisation). Under the NCA is newly set up Strategic Plans Division (SPD), which specifically deals with C² of nuclear weapons. Pakistan announced two special Committees to deal with nuclear weapons issues; an Employment Control Committee and a Development Control Committee. The Employment Control Committee is chaired by the Head of Government with Foreign Minister as its Vice-Chairman, and the Ministers for Defence and Interior, the CJCS (Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff), three Service Chiefs and Director General SPD are its members. The Development Control Committee is also chaired by the Head of Government and has more or less similar membership except Foreign Minister is not its Vice-chairman and it is joined by atomic bureaucracy, i.e., Head of the KRL (Kahuta Research Laboratories), Chairman PAEC (Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission) and Head of the NDC (National Defence Complex).   

The Pakistani C² system, like India, is also silent about pre-delegation of authority in case the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Employment Control Committee, i.e., Head of Government and Foreign Minister are both abroad, which is quite possible. They have been many times in the past, when they were together abroad on foreign tours and are likely to be together abroad in the future as well. The Employment Control Committee can conjure alternative scenarios and contingencies under which nuclear weapons can be employed and authority for their actual use is pre-delegated, in case, any of those contingencies practically realise. It would enhance strategic stability, if Pakistan explicitly makes known the contingencies involving its vital security interests, which would warrant the employment or threat of use of nuclear weapons from its point of view and the adversary refrains to committing itself to positions from which it might be difficult or too late to retrieve. It would help avoid a war based upon misperceptions.

According to 2001 Annual Report of the IISS, London, the balance of forces in the subcontinent is opaque, "as expected for nuclear-weapons states early in the development and acquisition cycles," the London-based think tank said. [58] The Report stated that by the end of 1999, non-governmental assessment of fissile material stockpiles in South Asia credited India with the means to make 65 nuclear weapons and Pakistan to make 39. [59] The relative balance of capabilities was clouded by reports in June last year asserting Pakistani advantages in missiles, nuclear weaponization for missiles and command-and-control arrangements, the IISS Report said. [60] “While Pakistani officials assert that they do not intend to compete with India in nuclear weapons, they have certainly invested heavily in doing so”, it said. Although India's nuclear infrastructure is far greater, Pakistan's military programmes, especially the nuclear and missile ones, have first call on available resources, IISS Report said. [61] The Report went on to say that the search for stability, reassurance and nuclear risk-reduction between Pakistan and India was stymied by the absence of official talks last year. Nuclear risk-reduction and stability talks between India and China were frozen last year for different reasons, the Report noted. [62]

There are a number of confidence building and restraint measures operative between Indian and Pakistan, which augers well for peace and stability in the region. The subject is beyond the scope of this paper. Those measures are further likely to be improved. In the July 2001 Summit, Vajpayee and Musharraf were expected to discuss, among other key issues, a mechanism to prevent nuclear accident between their forces. Pioneer reported that India and Pakistan were likely to discuss the establishment of a 'Nuclear and Ballistic Missile Stabilization Regime' in the summit talks, which have not realized so far. [63] It also reported that the Indian Army was likely to be directly involved in the talks to chart out a nuclear risk- free environment in the subcontinent. “The need for the military's presence in the talks is because the Pakistan Army is also involved.” A proposal discussed in the Lahore Summit on Nuclear and Ballistic Missile Risk Reduction Centre was likely to be reiterated. A proposed nuclear risk reduction centre will include measures like not targeting economic installations and population centres. It is worth stating that India and Pakistan have refrained from targeting population centres in the wars of 1948, 1965 and 1971. “A mechanism to inform each other about their nuclear capabilities is part of the proposed agreement. Since no physical verification of the nuclear institutions is possible, the two sides are likely to have hotlines at the political level. The hotline at the military level is already in place,” the Pioneer said. [64] All these stipulated measure seem to be held in abeyance due to the present spate of confrontation between India and Pakistan in which the armed forces of the two states are fully mobilized against each other. However, the worst times seem to be over and the situation might gradually normalise for the above measures to be undertaken again.

There is a voluminous body of literature favouring and opposing the prospects of deterrent stability between India and Pakistan. The lines of divisions between the proponents of nuclear deterrence and its opponents are drawn along the culturally ingrained orientations and preferences, which often colour the so-called rational analyses and conclusions. Many South Asian experts generally agree that a state of mutual deterrence has been established between India and Pakistan, though the various descriptions of this deterrence differ from each other. India - Pakistan nuclear tests in May 1998, and attendant doctrinal developments would add transparency and may enhance stability, although at a higher level of threshold and provided other essential pre-requisites of nuclear deterrence are fulfilled. These may include early warning systems, C³I networks, and survivable weapons capabilities, including second strike capabilities. The non-weaponized deterrence regime between India and Pakistan is transformed into a weaponized regime after their nuclear tests and both states’ policies of weaponization. However, there would be no guarantee to completely rule out accidental or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons with any degree of definiteness.

India and Pakistan are passing through the formative phase of establishing command and control systems for nuclear arsenals. They may acquire technologies to install PAL (Permissive Action Links) and institute processes to forestall accidental and unauthorized uses of nuclear weapons in the long-term perspective. Neil Joeck believes that the development of command and control mechanisms would enhance stability in a crisis, and improve the ability to avoid nuclear use in the event of war. [65] He suggests that operational considerations, e.g. nuclear doctrine, weapons safety, alternative response options, intelligence and early warnings would help to reinforce deterrence at ground level and ensure that both sides are not with a choice between suicide and surrender. [66]

Nuclear weapons “make the cost of war seem frighteningly high and thus discourage states from starting any wars that might lead to the use of such weapons.” [67]   As the nuclear capabilities of India and Pakistan mutually hold their cities a hostage, any thought of annihilation of tens of thousands of civilians does amount to ‘unacceptable damage.’ The excruciating damages of a possible nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan would be unpalatable for both countries, militarily, politically, socially, and economically. And this is what makes their counter-value deterrence stable. According to Devin Haggerty, “if history discloses an unblemished record of political leaders resisting the temptation to decapitate their enemies' nuclear forces, opacity enhances their extreme caution. After all, opaque nuclear forces are even less attractive targets for first strike than transparent ones, because they are even more shrouded in ambiguity and secrecy.” [68] That scenario is however, changing in South Asia after India – Pakistan nuclear tests in May 1998.

Nuclear weapons generally erode conventional disparities. According to an opinion in the influential Times of India, may be India could flatten Islamabad 20 times over instead of Pakistan flattening India five times, but overkill is an illusive strategy. [69] Nuclear deterrence, unlike conventional one, is not decisively degraded by quantitative or qualitative disparity. So long as a state’s strategic arsenal is sufficient to survive the first strike and can still inflict unacceptable damage, it does not have to match the adversary’s arsenal in numbers. [70] Credible deterrence may be achieved with a small nuclear force. [71]

Unlike conventional weapons, nuclear weapons are not militarily usable, but are in fact political and psychological weapons and therefore, meant to deter aggression and war. The general perception in Pakistan is that nuclear tests in 1998 redressed the asymmetries in the strategic equilibrium and restored the power balance. The Indian and Pakistani nuclear deterrents dissuade each other from embarking upon a course of action perceived prejudicial to their vital national security interests. It is a policy as well as a condition to establish a new psychological relationship between the two old antagonists. Both the adversaries would be dissuaded from undertaking a course of action injurious to each other’s interests due to the fear of infliction of an unacceptable damage, which would far outweigh the stipulated advantages. Each adversary’s dissuasion is, therefore, based upon a rational calculus of costs and benefits. India and Pakistan do not possess formidable weapons capabilities compared to the superpower models, but they are sufficient to cause unacceptable damage in case of counter-value targets in both countries. In fact, with the increase in the number of nuclear weapons, they may be moving towards counter-force strategies.

Nuclear weapons helped to maintain peace and prevented military adventures in the past and there is no reason to believe that they will not do so in the future. Even a powerful state is unlikely to commit aggression if it concluded that the potential gains are not worth the losses it has to risk. It is not necessary to conjure up doomsday scenarios of annihilation that entail an “unmitigated disaster.” [72] There is an almost consensus in the Pakistani strategic, scientific and bureaucratic community that a nuclear deterrent capability is the best guarantee, if there can be one, to ensure peace, stability and the absence of an all out war with India.

                However, the present state of strategic stability between India and Pakistan is a precarious one, which needs a more constant monitoring and vigil than the former cold-war models. The geographical proximity between India and Pakistan does not permit enough early warning information and time; three to five minutes at present, is inadequate for a rational and calculated response. This might prompt launch on warning responses enhancing the chances of miscalculation. The relatively less sophisticated command and control systems may cause difficulties to deal with problems of accidental and unauthorized launch of nuclear weapons. The increase in mistrust and hostility between India and Pakistan since the Kargil crisis and the unresolved Kashmir dispute compounds the problems of nuclear arms and missiles proliferation, and adds to divergent perceptions about strategic stability and regional security in South Asia. 

Pakistan has to bear in mind that it does not engage itself in an open ended nuclear arms race with India since the latter's larger economy would enable it to allocate stupendous resources for nuclear military development which the former can least afford. It needs to dispassionately work out the essential requirements of a minimum credible deterrence against India and then onwards watch against unnecessary escalation. An over-kill capability would be superfluous. The announcement of a Pakistani nuclear doctrine, not in rapid response to the draft Indian nuclear doctrine, but based upon its own merits of credible minimum deterrence, would mitigate the chances of misperception and provocation by India

Both India and Pakistan should not ignore the global trends in favour of restraint on their nuclear capabilities. The present nuclear capabilities of India and Pakistan, based upon the demonstration of 1998 nuclear tests, would help to promote stability and prevent the outbreak of war. Limitation of their nuclear capabilities can only come slowly and gradually through strengthening of mutual security. India and Pakistan should agree to contain their nuclear weapons capabilities within safe and manageable limits, mutually agreed upon by both countries. They must be willing to address the horrific consequences of a nuclear war if deterrence were to fail. With the acceptance of each other’s nuclear capabilities, they should also initiate a dialogue for a balanced reduction of conventional armed forces, which are much larger than their economies can afford. The existing confidence and security building measures can be reinforced through monitoring of the force deployments. Through confidence and security building negotiations, India and Pakistan can obviate the requirements for hardened silos, nuclear submarines, and even a search for the improvement of second-strike capabilities, which are being considered essential for stable deterrence. Only then a mutually beneficial and long lasting peaceful atmosphere can be created in the subcontinent. The long-term maintenance of a nuclear deterrent relationship by itself is a complex strategic issue that in case of India and Pakistan would even be a much more demanding task. A resolution of Kashmir dispute would eliminate the raison d’être of hostility between India and Pakistan.

One cannot exclusively rule out the likelihood that any one of the recurrent crises between India and Pakistan over Kashmir would not escalate to a nuclear war. What if deterrence were to fail? It looks a chilling prospect. The damage to India and Pakistan out of a nuclear war will result in complete economic, commercial and industrial collapse. The elimination of communication systems, infrastructure and the present political dispensation will retard the prospects of retaining both countries’ present political and geographical unity. The scope of human suffering on both sides will be incalculable. The collateral damage will impede for long the revival of civil societies. The possibility of an accidental or unauthorised use of nuclear weapons in the subcontinent cannot be exclusively ruled out in view of the lack of technological sophistication of command, control and communication systems. Geographical proximity and less early warning time is a serious handicap for rationally calculated responses and may compel India and Pakistan to shift focus on rapid reaction capabilities and launch on warning strategies. These factors are potentially destabilising elements in the mechanics of nuclear deterrence. The possibility of war can be averted through a range of arms control, security and confidence building measures by dissipating the intensity of the conflict, pending the ultimate settlement of the contentious issues like Kashmir dispute. The Kashmir conflict offers a grim reminder to re-examine the existing hypotheses about the dynamics of conflict and its linkage with nuclear stability in the subcontinent.n