18 June, 1998
Atomic gains, nuclear losses
"Eqbal Ahmad assesses the changes in Pakistan's situation since the country conducted nuclear tests"
By Eqbal Ahmad
Pakistan's nuclear tests are having an even more profound impact on the domestic environment than on its defense or foreign relations. The phenomenon was to be expected, but its scope is greater than one could have imagined. It is too early to examine the import of the prime minister's 11 June blockbusting speech. A so-called revolution has been inflicted upon the country, if only in outline. Moreover, there is as yet no indication as to how the government proposes to bridge the ever-widening national chasm between intent and implementation. Necessarily then, what follows can only be a tentative assessment of Pakistan's gains and losses since the nuclear tests.
Rhetorical flourishes and emotional highs notwithstanding, the change in Pakistan's security environment is not substantive. While the shape of what some politicians and analysts grandiosely call the "strategic balance" between India and Pakistan has changed, the realities underlying it remain largely unchanged. There was for nearly a decade an implicit threat that conventional war between the two could result in the use of nuclear weapons, in particular by the conventionally weaker party. This presumption is now explicit. It is debatable whether Pakistan's security interests were best served by maintaining that ambiguity or by following India into rendering its capability overt. I still believe that, notwithstanding Delhi's provocative muscle-flexing, Pakistan's security interests have not been served by matching India show-for-show-plus-one. There is no way now to prove or disprove that proposition. What can be said however is that the older verities remain true.
One such truth is that there exists a balance of mutual destruction which renders irrational, and therefore unlikely, the pursuit by either adversary of a decisive conventional war. This fact has traditionally defined the parameters of Indo-Pakistan conflict in the following ways: (i) Both sides could decide -- but didn't -- that the new risks were much too great to continue with old disputes, and engage in creative diplomacy to resolve them. (ii) They might continue the conflict, as they have so far done, at a low level of intensity by proxy warfare, and by bleeding each other by violent and not-so-violent sabotage operations. (iii) Tensions resulting from (ii) may result in the threat or actuality of conventional warfare of limited scope and/or duration. The Indian mobilisation and Pakistani riposte in 1987 and 1990 are examples of such threats which did not materialise. (iv) All three options require a sophisticated system of management for the nuclear arsenal in each country until such time as the parties agree to mutual disarmament. There has also existed a certain concentration of international monitoring on whether or not the two adversaries are reaching a level of confrontation that risks becoming nuclear. It was this phenomenon that produced the forceful US diplomatic intervention in summer 1990.
This paradigm has not significantly changed since India and Pakistan both conducted multiple nuclear tests. The conflict remains and neither side has shifted from its old positions so as to make possible a meaningful peace process. The struggle in Kashmir continues with Pakistan's help, and so does India's harsh military effort to suppress it. Since the nuclear tests, India has beefed up its military presence there. Covert warfare continues. Since the eleven nuclear tests, Pakistan has blamed India for two bloody acts of sabotage -- a bomb explosion in a cinema hall and the blowing up of a railway train. There is no evidence to suggest that the covert warfare between the two countries can no longer bring them close on occasion to conventional confrontations such as those that occurred in 1987 and 1990. There is evidence, however, that the great powers are more cognizant than before of the risks inherent in the simmering conflict between the two neighbours.
Pakistani officials and several commentators have been emphasising this last to be a major gain from the nuclear tests. They say that the question of Kashmir has now been placed on the front burner of international politics. This is true. But we need to inquire into the practical value -- political, economic or military -- of this achievement. Obviously, the recognition by the United States, the P-5, the G-8 and the UN Secretary-General that Kashmir is a core issue that ought to be addressed has not led them to soften their sanctions against Pakistan, which welcomes their interest, or harden them against India, which spurns it.
In contrast to India, Pakistan has exhibited a sophisticated diplomatic posture in recent weeks. The Foreign Office's submissions to the big powers' meeting in Geneva and to the Security Council were excellent, carefully worded and admirably nuanced drafts. Similarly, Islamabad's unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing is a wise, no-cost gesture that is liable to favourably impress international opinion. Yet these commendable initiatives are unlikely to bring about a meaningful change in great power behaviour. The reason is that no significant shift has occurred in the South Asian equation of power, and in the relative importance of India and Pakistan in the world economy and politics.
When a nuclear balance of terror -- in the Pakistan-India contest, this ought to be distinguished from such concepts as "strategic parity" and "military balance" -- exists between two adversaries, the focus of conflict is on the conventional capabilities of each. It is for this reason that during the Cold War the United States and USSR maintained huge conventional forces and deployed them in each other's proximity in Western and Eastern Europe. This rule applies with even greater force to the unique situation of India and Pakistan, for never before have two enemies so proximate and so environmentally-integrated possessed nuclear arms.
The tests have not improved Pakistan's conventional capability, actually or potentially. On the contrary, in this respect at least the international sanctions are likely to hurt Pakistan much more than India, which has a much larger, broader and more diversified industrial base. It is a significant indicator that in its recent budget India augmented formal defence spending by 14 per cent while the informal increase -- i.e. if one counts allocations to its R&D and military-industrial complex -- amounts to an estimated 33 per cent. Pakistan, by contrast, has increased defense spending by 8 per cent which is barely enough to meet the costs of inflation. Also, its industrial base is considerably smaller. It is most likely that in the coming years, the military disparity between the two countries will continue to grow.
The one aspect in which a substantive change may have occurred in Pakistan's favour is its standing in the Middle East. The region's governments and people are living under the frightening shadow of Israel's nuclear arms. And, make no mistake. Israel is not India. It is not, by any definition of the word, a normal contemporary state. It is the only member of the UN that has yet to declare its international boundaries. It is still committed to the expansionist agenda of achieving Eretz Israel. It is still colonising what remains of Palestinian land in the Arabs' possession. A significant portion of its political society still aims at destroying the holy Muslim sites of Jerusalem. It still occupies, in violation of the United Nations Charter, the territories of three sovereign Arab countries.
It is still diverting and draining the water so essential to the survival of millions of Arab people. And yet, it nevertheless enjoys the wholehearted support and protection of the United States. It is only natural that the beleaguered Arabs should welcome the emergence of a potential nuclear balance in their vicinity. The change in Arab attitudes toward Pakistan has been reinforced by growing evidence of Indo-Israeli nuclear collaboration.
Yet the truth is that Pakistan is not in a position to benefit significantly from this favourable Middle Eastern disposition. Pakistan's ruling establishment knows that at the slightest hint of such a move, the wrath of the United States will descend on us; only then will we know what real sanctions are like. It is a risk that Pakistan's government cannot take, and Islamabad has been vowing not to take it. So this, too, is an unrealisable gain.
Beyond the change in atmospherics, which rarely endure, Pakistan's passage from an ambiguous to an explicit nuclear power has not substantially changed its strategic position. In contrast, the fall out has so far been most considerable at home. There, a state of emergency was imposed almost simultaneously with the announcement of the tests in Chagai.
The fundamental rights granted by the Constitution are suspended. The president reads the proclamation which was later approved by parliament, "was pleased to declare that the right to move to any court, including a High Court and the Supreme Court, for the enforcement of all the fundamental rights conferred by chapter 1 of part 2 of the Constitution shall remain suspended for the period during which the said proclamation is in force." Nothing, except the good will of the executive authority, now stands between the citizens' rights and their violation. It is an extreme, draconian measure which democracies rarely if ever employ, save in the exceptional circumstances of total war or complete anarchy.
Ironically, the state of emergency has been imposed in Pakistan just as the highest authorities in the land were claiming that Pakistan had achieved strategic balance with its adversary, and that national security was now firmly assured. Are we to assume, then, that citizens' rights will deteriorate in this country in inverse proportion to officially proclaimed improvements in its security environment and national might?
Foreign currency accounts held by citizens and expatriates were seized and converted into local currency, arbitrarily and in violation of pledges made by the prime minister himself. It is true that these accounts had to be frozen in order to prevent a panic flight of capital and hard currency. But what justification is there for converting them into rupees, thus hurting large numbers of middle class citizens, expatriates and investors, and ruining above all the credibility of the state? Unless the government rectifies this injustice soon, the consequences of this amoral opportunism will be felt by the state and society for a long time to come.
On 11 June, the prime minister addressed the nation, and was promptly dubbed a "revolutionary" in the official media for promising land reforms, strict collection of loans and taxes and a host of austerity measures. There is not enough room here to comment on his extraordinary speech.
Four simple reminders are in order. One is that, to date, revolutions from above have failed, everywhere and at all times. Two, what succeeds from above are reforms, provided they are seriously conceived and methodically enforced. Three, enforcement of reforms requires a streamlined, lean, efficient, cooperative and rule-based administrative mechanism. That mechanism is in shambles here -- obese, corrupt, insecure and sullen. Four, it is a cardinal rule of reform, revolution, warfare and all such enterprises, not to fight on too many fronts simultaneously, and not to make too many enemies at the same time. Will someone close to him examine the Prime Minister's otherwise commendable agenda in the light of these principles, interrupt all the yes-men that surround him and tell him the truth? That one person would do Nawaz Sharif, and Pakistan (if the prime minister listens to him), a very great favour indeed.