DAWN - Opinion; 24 May, 1998
Hawks make strange bedfellows
By Eqbal Ahmad
THIS has been quite a week of dove flying and fear peddling. This essay concerns - to use a terminology which was first used with reference to a Pakistani divide in 1965 but came into vogue during the Vietnam war - not the doves but the hawks. I mean those who argue that in response to the five Indian nuclear tests Pakistan should carry out its nuclear test. At least two hawks have used the word "explosion" but I like to think that they mean test, presumably underground.
In several ways, it has been a week of surprises. The first surprise was, of course, the tests by India in a 3+2 sequence. For reasons which I shall argue another time, Indian hawks have committed a blunder for which India shall pay dearly in the years to come. China, on the other hand, will profit from India's mistake strategically, as will Pakistan if its government avoids, as it appears to be doing, a knee-jerk reaction. A second surprise lies in the number and quality of doves in Pakistan. Judging from columns and letters in newspapers, they are not only numerous but a majority also write on the question of Pakistan's options dispassionately and knowledgeably. That is a surprise because as a rule persons whom a female hawk has derisively called 'peaceniks' tend to be high on morals and low on facts and analysis.
The biggest surprise are the hawks. The world over, they tend to be die-hard empiricists who offer 'cold facts' about strategic balance, tactical benefits, and weapons systems to justify their preferences. In contrast, a striking feature of the current crop of Pakistani hawks is a near-total absence of facts and analyses. The emotional quotient is high instead. There are strident, apocalyptic warnings that if Pakistan does not now conduct nuclear tests, it shall cease to be a sovereign state, becoming a dependency of the United States and a vassal of India. How, why, by which process is that likely to happen? And what historical antecedents are there to support that conclusion? One would expect - cold war Kissinger-Kahn-Schilling style - some well-constructed, plausible scenarios to justify their doom and gloom prediction. Instead, we are treated to more dire warnings of apocalypse tomorrow. Not surprisingly, from India come their reinforcements. Only the most gullible or the most frightened can fail to see that Messrs. Vajpayee, Advani, Jaswant Singh, Krishan Lal Sharma et al are trying desperately to get Pakistan to try a nuclear test. It is pathetic how hawks here are biting the bait.
General K.M. Arif's (Dawn, May 16) now-or-never argument begins by placing Pakistan among the "small neighbours" on India's "periphery". This kind of thinking denies the intrinsic potential of this country; it also devalues and confuses national identity. With a population of some 130 million hard-working and dynamic people, Pakistan is not 'small' by the prevailing standard of nation states. Smallness, in this instance, is clearly a state of mind, not an objective reality. Similarly, a country with common borders with China, Iran, Afghanistan, and India is hardly peripheral. In fact, Pakistan is a country of intrinsic importance - strategically, politically, culturally, and economically - in South Asia and also in the Middle East. How much this importance is translated in fact at a given time depends on national policy and domestic conditions.
After a detailed description of BJP officials' aggressive posture which bears no relevance to the option he recommends for Pakistan, General Arif concludes that the Indian tests give "Pakistan a one-time chance to demonstrate its nuclear capability here and now. Many a tomorrow becomes too late." No further explanation is offered of what kind of "capability" he wishes to demonstrate, why is it so essential to do so "here and now", what makes it a "one-time chance", and how, by what mechanism, will it serve Pakistan's security interests? We are to take his recommendation as self-evident truth.
I am constrained to say that coming from a soldier who once held a key decision-making post, his policy-oriented statement betrays a shocking absence of discipline of detail, a fundamental requirement of strategic planning. Therein may lie one insight into how we got into the Afghanistan mess, a prime example of 'feel good' make-hay policy, the price of which several generations of Pakistanis and Afghans will continue to pay.
Another retired general, Ghulam Umar, argues (Dawn, May 17, 1998) that for Pakistan "A similar response is the only option". There is "urgent" need to demonstrate "nuclear capability encompassing total requirements of strategic as well as tactical nuclear weapons." One may hope that he knows what few civilians or soldiers do not - that the range of weaponry he considers so "urgent" are in fact available for testing. For if they are not, he should know that Pakistan shall be exhibiting vulnerability, not strength. For three thousand years, military strategists have argued the virtues of ambiguity in environments of uneven military balance. Hopefully, our generals know their works. General Umar bases his argument on the familiar "balance of power" formula.Yet, he fails to mention what that will be for Pakistan in relation to India. After all, balance of power is calculated as much in economic, political, and psychological as in military terms. Similarly, he emphasizes the urgency for "strategy and doctrine" for Pakistan, without even hinting at what those could be. Again, the absence of a discipline of detail in such senior soldiers is worrisome. After all, they are talking national security.
General Mirza Aslam Beg pays relatively more serious attention to detail. At a press conference in Islamabad, he said what he argued later at length recommending a "well calculated response", a "policy of restraint" that would test the world's and especially the great powers' reaction, their will and capacity to pressure India and to forge a resolution to the Kashmir dispute. We can afford such restraint, he argues, without risking our national security because "we have in our possession a credible nuclear deterrence." Meanwhile, he says, Pakistan should prepare to carry out a range of tests "at a time of our choosing." (News, May 17, May 21, 1998) One does not have to agree with General Beg to acknowledge that his argument is informed, consistent, and has been made with attention to detail. Similarly, while I do not quite agree with the "five Nos" argued by former President Farooq Leghari, his position suggests knowledge, analysis and an ability to subordinate anxiety and xenophobia to thought.
In the United States, jokes used to circulate within the military about the civilian cold warriors' tough-minded unconcern with costs. "They know war from books", Admiral Eugene Larocque once said to me, "We know war as an awful reality. So we tend to be more cautious." Although it is not a similar situation, I have thought of Larocque's remark while reading their advocacy of nuclear tests by Pakistan. Mr. Afzal Mahmood (Dawn, May 17) makes the familiar argument that twice - in 1987 and 1990 - India refrained from invading Pakistan because there existed between them the "nuclear deterrence". Immediately following this statement he states point blank that "The stark reality is that a non-weaponized nuclear device is no deterrence at all." I, for one, could not put his one and one together.
Similarly, Farooq Hasnat posits two options for Pakistan: carry out a nuclear test, or "accept western dictates". With much scare-thou exhortation but without any facts, citation of historical precedence, or reasoning based on empirical projection, he predicts that if it "accepts western dictates", Pakistan "will lose its independence and sovereignty and would become an Indian vessel (sic)."
The most difficult to swallow have been our ideologues and politicians. Professor Khurshid Ahmed, a leading light of the Jamaat-I-Islami, asserts that "Pakistan has no option but to come up with a matching response and acquire an atomic (sic) status." No argument is offered here, only the assertion. What, one may ask, will be a "matching response", one, two, four, five tests? Hiroshima model or Nagasaki, thermonuclear, tactical or mini-bomb, clean or dirty, or shall we, can we make all of them? And, what may I ask is "an atomic status"? In his lengthy article (Dawn, May 17) Professor Ahmed repeatedly emphasizes the necessity of having a "correct and accurate understanding of the facts" but he offers none.
We are expected, instead, to uncritically digest his diatribe against "the creed that is Hinduism", and against America, the newly discovered, post-Afghanistan-jihad bete noire of the 'Islamists'. The US, he discloses at great length, seeks to dominate the world, build India into a world power, establish Israel's hegemony in the Middle East, encourage civil war among Muslims and - get this one - promote in Pakistan the forces of globalization, secularism, and feminism. The latter, he claims, aims at breaking up the family bond. Let us assume all that to be true but what does that have to do with nuclear weapons testing or strategy? As one concrete argument in behalf of conducting nuclear tests, Mr. Khurshid Ahmed quoted the Holy Qura'n (al-Anfal:60). His use of a holy verse to justify a weapon of mass extermination is nothing short of blasphemous; but then I deem that law too defective to invoke it against the good professor.
As for our politicians, most of them sense in this crisis an opportunity to win popularity, put undue and irresponsible pressure on government at a time when national security demands deep deliberation and diplomacy. Facing charges of grand larceny of national wealth, Benazir Bhutto has returned from abroad to lead the pack. She speaks brazenly of "failure of leadership" and demands of Mr Nawaz Sharif to resign. The All Party Conference has given the government a deadline of May 30 to 'explode' (sic) a bomb. And so it goes.
In these patriots lies the hope of BJP leaders who are so desperate to push Pakistan into baring its secrets and joining India in confronting the world's opprobrium. They are making gestures whose intent will be lost only on the crass political opportunist and the blindest of hawks.
Consider these: day two, Mr. Vajpayee says Pakistan has a right to test its weapons. Day three, calculated rumours are put out that Pakistan has tested a weapon. Day six, Advani says Pakistan "should realize the change in the geo-strategic environment" of the region. Day eight, Advani threatens action in Kashmir. Day nine, Mr Jaswant Singh makes noises about why they can understand Pakistan wanting to test its own weapons. Day nine, India tests the Pinaka, a Pakistan-specific, multi-barrelled rocket with a range of 40 km.
All this, at a time when it is trying also to defuse the negative international reaction to its five nuclear tests. India's hawks had never needed their Pakistani counterparts so desperately. Such are the ironies of international politics.