Excerpt
Late last month, after a NATO engagement in Pakistan went wrong and left 25 Pakistani troops dead, the West scrambled to get its story straight. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO’s secretary-general, quickly called the battle a “tragic unintended accident.” The White House waffled; President Barack Obama later expressed regret over the incident but did not apologize. Islamabad, meanwhile, castigated the United States for violating its sovereignty, closed the Torkham border crossing, and announced it would sit out the recent Bonn conference on Afghanistan.
Whether the attack was entirely unintended or a pointed provocation, the Pakistani reaction offered yet further proof that current U.S. policy toward Pakistan has failed.
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Country or Region: Pakistan
Haqqani, Husain
Abstract
Washington has not had an easy time managing the U.S.-Pakistani relationship, to put it mildly. For decades, the United States has sought to change Pakistan’s strategic focus from competing with India and seeking more influence in Afghanistan to protecting its own internal stability and economic development. But even though Pakistan has continued to depend on U.S. military and economic support, it has not changed its behavior much. Each country accuses the other of being a terrible ally — and perhaps both are right.
Pakistanis tend to think of the United States as a bully. In their view, Washington provides desperately needed aid intermittently, yanking it away whenever U.S. officials want to force policy changes. Pakistanis believe that Washington has never been grateful for the sacrifice of the thousands of Pakistani military and security officials who have died fighting terrorists in recent decades, nor mourned the tens of thousands of Pakistani civilians whom those terrorists have killed. Many in the country, including President Asif Ali Zardari and General Ashfaq Kayani, the army chief, recognize that Pakistan has at times gone off the American script, but they argue that the country would be a better ally if only the United States showed more sensitivity to Islamabad’s regional concerns.
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Ho, Joshua, and Sam Bateman, eds
Summary
Maritime issues are particularly important for Asian countries, where there is a high reliance on shipping routes for international trade, many difficult disputes over maritime boundaries, and the prospect of increasing tensions where maritime power might play a significant role. This book uses contributions by 17 experts to build a comprehensive survey of the maritime issues affecting Asia. It discusses the issues overall, goes on to examine the issues from the perspective of each of 14 key countries, and concludes by assessing the prospects for resolving common problems in order to preserve good order at sea.
Mirza, Faisal Mehmood, Olvar Bergland, and Naila Afzal
Abstract
Government of Pakistan has taken several measures in recent years for conserving electricity to reduce its electricity shortfall. In this context, this study attempts to quantify the impact of different electricity conservation policies on value-added of industrial and services sectors in Pakistan. Results indicate that unanticipated shocks to electricity consumption and technical efficiency form a positive relationship while electricity price has a negative relationship with value-added in industrial and services sectors in the long run. Direct electricity conservation policies and policies that aim at increasing electricity prices will have an adverse impact on value-added of both the sectors. Policies that induce improvements in energy efficiency will have a positive impact on the sectorial output in the long run. Therefore, the government should not pursue direct consumption curtailment polices to mitigate the electricity crisis rather steps should be taken to enhance energy efficiency in the economy. This can be done by setting targets for reducing energy intensity in both the sectors. Moreover, energy efficiency should be incorporated in the mainstream of energy policy and specific laws should be enacted to establish institutions and develop methods to help in effective conservation and efficient consumption of limited energy resources.
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Mallard, Grégoire
Summary
Many Baby Boomers still recall crouching under their grade-school desks in frequent bomb drills during the Cuban Missile Crisis—a clear representation of how terrified the United States was of nuclear war. Thus far, we have succeeded in preventing such catastrophe, and this is partly due to the various treaties signed in the 1960s forswearing the use of nuclear technology for military purposes.
In Fallout, Grégoire Mallard seeks to understand why some nations agreed to these limitations of their sovereign will—and why others decidedly did not. He builds his investigation around the 1968 signing of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which, though binding in nature, wasn’t adhered to consistently by all signatory nations. Mallard looks at Europe’s observance of treaty rules in contrast to the three holdouts in the global nonproliferation regime: Israel, India, and Pakistan. He seeks to find reasons for these discrepancies, and makes the compelling case that who wrote the treaty and how the rules were written—whether transparently, ambiguously, or opaquely—had major significance in how the rules were interpreted and whether they were then followed or dismissed as regimes changed. In honing in on this important piece of the story, Mallard not only provides a new perspective on our diplomatic history, but, more significantly, draws important conclusions about potential conditions that could facilitate the inclusion of the remaining NPT holdouts. Fallout is an important and timely book sure to be of interest to policy makers, activists, and concerned citizens alike.
Jorland, Patrice
Abstract
Although the cold war ended 17 years ago, studies and reports on foreign affairs are, most of the time, dreary or pessimistic. True enough, the state of the ‘Greater Middle East’ and Africa’s dramas are causes for deep concern, but Asia is also pointed at, because of its population, its growth rates, its exports of industrial goods, its social imbalances, its political emergence, its military budgets, the arms race and nuclear proliferation going on there. China, India, Pakistan, North Korea: the East is seen as the main actor undermining the universal non-proliferation rules and institutions. Is it really so? Until now, the non-proliferation system has been rather efficient, even in Asia; it should be backed and could be strengthened.
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Rosenbaum, Ron
Summary
In this startling book, now in paperback, the bestselling author of Explaining Hitler warns that a nuclear World War III is not only the most massive and imminent threat to existence as we know it, but also one of the most ignored.
While Russian aggression grows and North Korean nuclear ambitions increase unabated, tensions continue to escalate between India and Pakistan and in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Iran remains committed to developing its nuclear program despite international sanctions.
No other writer has assembled the extraordinary array of sources and experiences that Ron Rosenbaum calls on to inform his examination of nuclear war. While working from both historical and contemporary perspectives to explore the people and events that could shape the form of a third world war, he suggests humans have never before been so close to annihilation. In this book, Rosenbaum examines both the paranoia and very real set of possibilities that informs our view of nuclear war and asks whether we can “undream” the nightmare.
Reed, Thomas C., and Danny B. Stillman
Summary
This is a political history of nuclear weapons from the discovery of fission in 1938 to the nuclear train wreck that seems to loom in our future. It is an account of where those weapons came from, how the technology surprisingly and covertly spread, and who is likely to acquire those weapons next and most importantly why.
The authors’ examination of post Cold War national and geopolitical issues regarding nuclear proliferation and the effects of Chinese sponsorship of the Pakistani program is eye opening. The reckless “nuclear weapons programs for sale” exporting of technology by Pakistan is truly chilling, as is the on-again off-again North Korean nuclear weapons program.
Rabinowitz, Or
Summary
Most observers who follow nuclear history agree on one major aspect regarding Israel’s famous policy of nuclear ambiguity; mainly that it is an exception. More specifically, it is largely accepted that the 1969 Nixon-Meir understanding, which formally established Israel’s policy of nuclear ambiguity and transformed it from an undeclared Israeli strategy into a long-lasting undisclosed bilateral agreement, was in fact a singularity, aimed at allowing Washington to turn a blind eye to the existence of an Israeli arsenal. According to conventional wisdom, this nuclear bargain was a foreign policy exception on behalf of Washington, an exception which reflected a relationship growing closer and warmer between the superpower leading the free world and its small Cold War associate. Contrary to the orthodox narrative, this research demonstrates that this was not the case. The 1969 bargain was not, in fact, an exception, but rather the first of three Cold War era deals on nuclear tests brokered by Washington with its Cold War associates, the other two being Pakistan and South Africa. These two deals are not well known and until now were discussed and explored in the literature in a very limited fashion. Bargaining on Nuclear Tests places the role of nuclear tests by American associates, as well as Washington’s attempts to prevent and delay them, at the heart of a new nuclear history narrative.
Perkovich, George, and James M. Acton, eds
Abstract
In the past few years, horizontal and vertical proliferation have collided. That is, the need for significant strengthening of the nonproliferation regime in the wake of nuclear developments in North Korea, Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan is now absolutely clear. So too, however, is growing unwillingness among non–nuclear-weapon states to even consider additional measures in what they see as the absence of serious progress by the nuclear-armed states toward disarmament.
The pathbreaking paper Abolishing Nuclear Weapons by George Perkovich and James Acton was first published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies as an Adelphi Paper in September 2008. One of the paper’s major aims was to prompt serious international analysis, discussion, and debate, recognizing divergent views within and between nuclear-armed states and those that do not possess these weapons. The absence of such engagement in official forums such as Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conferences and the Conference on Disarmament makes it vital for nongovernmental actors to take the lead in hopes that governments will see the value of such dialogue and follow.
The present volume takes the next step. To advance the sort of analysis and dialogue Perkovich and Acton call for, they have invited a distinguished group of experts—current and former officials, respected defense analysts—from thirteen countries, nuclear and non-nuclear, to critique the Adelphi Paper. Their diverse views explore pathways around obstacles to nuclear disarmament and sharpen questions requiring further official and nongovernmental deliberation. Perkovich and Acton are grateful to the contributors for the thoroughly constructive character of their critiques.
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Paul, T.V
Summary
Since the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks, no state has unleashed nuclear weapons. What explains this? According to the author, the answer lies in a prohibition inherent in the tradition of non-use, a time-honored obligation that has been adhered to by all nuclear states—thanks to a consensus view that use would have a catastrophic impact on humankind, the environment, and the reputation of the user.
The book offers an in-depth analysis of the nuclear policies of the U.S., Russia, China, the UK, France, India, Israel, and Pakistan and assesses the contributions of these states to the rise and persistence of the tradition of nuclear non-use. It examines the influence of the tradition on the behavior of nuclear and non-nuclear states in crises and wars, and explores the tradition’s implications for nuclear non-proliferation regimes, deterrence theory, and policy. And it concludes by discussing the future of the tradition in the current global security environment.
Ogilvie-White, Tanya, and Rodrigo Álvarez Valdé
Abstract
This article assesses the impact of the U.S.-led disarmament agenda on the disarmament diplomacy and policies of the three nuclear-capable states not party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)—India, Israel, and Pakistan. These states, often referred to as “NPT holdouts,” undermine the application of the NPT obligations on all parties. Universality of the treaty framework has long been considered vital to strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime and consolidate non-nuclear norms. But can new U.S.-led disarmament momentum create the necessary dynamics to encourage the holdouts to disarm, or is this wishful thinking? This article argues that sustained disarmament momentum from the Western NWS will not be enough—a more comprehensive approach to disarmament is needed, including a genuine commitment by all NWS to engage in transparency and reductions, and full nuclear compliance and cooperation by Iran.
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Krepon, Michael
Abstract
Even during periods of significant leverage, Washington has not had the power to stop and reverse Pakistan’s nuclear trends. Pakistan’s nuclear establishment has successfully deflected unwelcome US diplomatic initiatives and has been able to draw the line between necessary adaptation to, and rejection of, external pressures. Pakistan’s national security managers clearly perceive that Washington’s highest priorities in bilateral relations relate to the US military campaign in Afghanistan and efforts to combat terrorist groups with global reach. They presume that nuclear issues will continue to take a backseat to ongoing military campaigns in which Pakistan’s assistance is crucial for America’s success. This correlation of pressure and response might well change if Pakistan’s nuclear activities again become front-page news. Absent this, US-Pakistani relations do not lend themselves to effective, near-term suasion by Washington on nuclear issues, whether via the 2010 US Nuclear Posture Review or other means. Pakistani leaders remain sensitive to US initiatives because Washington sets the international tone on nuclear issues. Nonetheless, Pakistan’s concerns over Indian nuclear capabilities and intentions trump Washington’s powers of persuasion.
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Kapur, S. Paul
Abstract
Significant nuclear reductions by the United States can affect other states in one of five ways: by directly altering their strategic calculations and postures; by indirectly altering their strategic calculations and postures by affecting the behavior of third-party states; by undermining formal US deterrence commitments; by eroding the United States’s perceived ability to provide “informal” deterrence through the maintenance of an active global presence; and by creating normative pressure for states to emulate US nuclear reductions. Only the erosion of “informal” deterrence is likely to affect South Asia; to the extent that significant US nuclear reductions affect South Asia, then, their impact is likely to be destabilizing.
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Hastings, Justin V
Abstract
This article uses a geographic approach to examine one aspect of the nuclear black market: the coordinators who bring buyers and sellers together, and transport goods between them. The most important factor in determining the geographical structure of a proliferation network is the network coordinator’s access (or lack thereof) to unique state resources. Coordinators with access to state resources and prerogatives can avoid embedding themselves in hostile countries or relying on commercial infrastructure, often leading to territorially diffuse logistical networks. Coordinators without such access are forced to rely on commercial infrastructure and favorable local political, economic, and social conditions, often resulting in territorially centralized logistical networks. This is illustrated through case studies of Abdul Qadeer Khan’s supply networks to Pakistan, Libya, and Iran. The article concludes with some observations about the implications of a geographical approach for understanding nuclear proliferation networks.
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