Abstract
The Obama administration has made a great effort to increase the role of advanced conventional weaponry in US national security thinking and practice, in part to help reinvigorate the global nuclear disarmament agenda by reducing the role played by nuclear weapons in the US defense posture. However, such a strategy is fundamentally flawed because increases in US conventional superiority will exacerbate US relative strength vis-a`-vis other powers, and therefore make the prospect of a nuclear weapon-free world seem less attractive to Washington’s current and potential nuclear rivals. Consequently, it is highly likely that the impact of efforts to increase US advanced conventional superiority through ballistic missile defense and a conventional ‘‘prompt global strike’’ program will ensure that the Obama administration is adopting a pathway to nuclear abolition on which it is the sole traveler for the foreseeable future.
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Country or Region: Pakistan
Carranza, Mario Esteban
Summary
Mario Carranza studies in depth the linkages between Indo-Pakistani nuclear relations and the International Nuclear Order. He critically analyzes the de facto recognition by the United States of India and Pakistan as nuclear weapon states and looks at the impact of that recognition on the International Nuclear Order and its linchpin, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The book provides a critical analysis of the New International Nuclear Order sponsored by the United States after the September 11 terrorist attacks and the place of India and Pakistan in that order. The author considers the survival of India and Pakistan in relation to a strategy of nuclear deterrence and debates the possibility of establishing a robust nuclear arms control regime in South Asia as part of a broader effort to revive global nuclear arms control and disarmament negotiations.
Sankaran, J
Abstract
How many battlefield nuclear weapons would it take for Pakistan to stop a major armored attack by the Indian army? How big would each bomb have to be? Would the cost in civilian Pakistani deaths—not to mention deaths among its own military caught on the nuclear battlefield—be so great as to make it self-defeating for Pakistan to use the bombs? At first glance, the main advantage of Pakistan’s new battlefield nuclear weapon—known as the Nasr missile—would appear to be its ability to slow down and stop an armored attack by the Indian Army inside Pakistan, before it reaches vital cities. But deeper examination reveals that deploying this particular weapon on the battlefield against an advancing Indian armored column would cause substantial deaths and injuries to Pakistani citizens, rendering its purpose moot. If there is any value to a Pakistani nuclear weapon, it lies instead in the bigger strategic picture: Its mere presence means that Pakistan has the ability to threaten India’s cities and military garrisons with retaliation in response to an Indian incursion.
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Rajaraman, R
Abstract
Two recent developments in South Asia have increased the risk of an accelerated arms race between India and Pakistan. One development is Pakistan’s introduction of the Nasr missile, a very-short-range, “tactical” nuclear weapon that threatens India’s conventional forces and could also tempt other countries to develop battlefield-usable nuclear weapons. The other development is India’s announcement that it plans to use its nascent ballistic missile defense program to protect the civilian populations of Delhi and Mumbai, which would weaken Pakistan’s strategy of deterrence by threatening civilian casualties. Although these two developments occurred in response to other perceived threats and are not directly connected, both have introduced new and more dangerous dimensions to the South Asian nuclear scene.
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McDonnell, Timothy
Abstract
In this Nuclear Notebook, guest author Timothy McDonnell reviews the five states that developed nuclear weapons outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty—India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, and South Africa—and explores the milestones associated with each country’s weapons program. These states tend to have smaller, less technologically sophisticated nuclear arsenals, and have conducted fewer nuclear tests than the five nuclear powers—China, France, Great Britain, Russia, and the United States. But in some cases, the author writes, the line separating the technical differences between the two groups’ nuclear arsenals is starting to blur.
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Kristensen, Hans M., and Robert S. Norris
Abstract
The US raid that killed Osama bin Laden has raised concerns about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. In the process of building two new plutonium production reactors and a new reprocessing facility to fabricate more nuclear weapons fuel, Pakistan is also developing new delivery systems. The authors estimate that if the country’s expansion continues, Pakistan’s nuclear weapons stockpile could reach 150–200 warheads in a decade. They assess the country’s nuclear forces, providing clear analysis of its nuclear command and control, nuclear-capable aircraft, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles.
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Kristensen, Hans M., and Robert S. Norris
Abstract
In this Nuclear Notebook, the authors write about nonstrategic nuclear weapons—starting with the difficulty of finding a universal definition for them. Although the United States and Russia have reduced their nonstrategic stockpiles, significant inventories remain. And other nuclear weapons states appear to have nonstrategic nuclear weapons as well. Today, at least five of the world’s nine nuclear weapons states have, or are developing, what appears to meet the definition of a nonstrategic nuclear weapon: Russia, the United States, France, Pakistan, and China. The authors present information on the weapons at each of these arsenals.
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Kristensen, Hans M., and Robert S. Norris
Abstract
In April 2012, India successfully test-launched the Agni V ballistic missile—and though the missile needs more testing and is still several years away from operational deployment, the Agni V introduces a new dynamic to the already complex triangular security relationship among India, Pakistan, and China. India is estimated to have produced approximately 520 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium, sufficient for 100–130 nuclear warheads; however, not all of the material has been converted into warheads. Based on available information about its nuclear-capable delivery vehicles, the authors estimate that India has produced 80–100 nuclear warheads. In this article, the authors explore how the country will need even more warheads to arm the new missiles it is currently developing.
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Kristensen, Hans M., and Robert S. Norris
Abstract
The authors calculate that some 125,000 nuclear warheads have been built since 1945, about 97 percent of them by the United States and the Soviet Union and Russia. The nine nations with nuclear weapons now possess more than 10,000 nuclear warheads in their military stockpiles, the authors estimate, with several thousand additional US and Russian retired warheads in storage, awaiting dismantlement. The nuclear stockpiles of China, as well as Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea, are minuscule in comparison with the US and Russian arsenals, but more difficult to estimate. Still, the authors believe that China’s nuclear weapons stockpile has surpassed Great Britain’s. Although the total number of nuclear warheads in the world is decreasing because of US and Russian reductions, all the nations with nuclear weapons continue to modernize or upgrade their nuclear arsenals.
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Korb, Lawrence J., and Alexander Rothman
Abstract
Major news media and think tanks have written and broadcast repeatedly about efforts to prevent nuclear war in South Asia, but relatively little attention has been paid to containment should a conflict between India and Pakistan break out. Even a limited nuclear exchange in South Asia would kill millions and have adverse environmental effects far beyond the region. Because India and Pakistan have ties to the world’s major nuclear powers, such an exchange also has the potential to expand into worldwide nuclear war. A US-led effort to engage the major nuclear powers in bilateral or multilateral no-first-use pledges would decrease the likelihood that a conflict between India and Pakistan could spin out of control. Beyond South Asia, a no-first-use policy would help the United States implement its nonproliferation agenda, promote stability between nuclear weapons states, and deemphasize the role of nuclear weapons in defense policy, saving the United States money and increasing world security.
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Heinonen, Olli
Abstract
As one who has led inspection teams in North Korea, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and other nations, Olli Heinonen says he cannot discount the possibility that a nuclear weapon will be used in the next 10 years. He asserts that the verification regime of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty may need an overhaul to contend with current developments such as the nuclear ambitions of non-state actors. He offers perspective on North Korea’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, Israel’s bombing of a suspected nuclear facility in Syria, Iran’s ambition to enrich uranium, the challenges of stopping proliferation, and the need for closer international cooperation and firmer action against proliferators.
Read the full article here.
Blair, Charles P
Abstract
Pakistan’s nuclear assets may be tempting targets for terrorists. Experts are split, however, on the actual threat posed. Some assert that Pakistan’s nuclear assets are on the verge of seizure by terrorists, while others contend that the risk is minimal at best. Because neither side develops robust or holistic threat assessments, however, American decision makers, who wisely include open sources when evaluating possible threats emanating from Pakistan’s nuclear infrastructure, are not adequately informed. Thus, the author maintains that the real threat assessment is yet to be made—one that goes beyond merely considering assumed terrorist capability and putative vulnerabilities.
Read the full article here.
Wolpert, Stanley
Summary
This new edition brings Stanley Wolpert’s brilliantly succinct and accessible introduction to India completely up to date for a new generation of readers, travelers, and students. In crisp detail, Wolpert gives a panoramic overview of the continent on which the world’s most fascinating ancient civilization gave birth to one of its most complex modern democratic nations. India now includes new sections on the country’s current global economic development, the recent national elections, and on its international relations, including those with Pakistan, China, Sri Lanka, and the United States, India’s new strategic global partner.
Tellis, Ashley
Abstract
Whether the civil nuclear cooperation agreement with India is completed right away or whether the war on terrorism in Pakistan chalks up more successes in the next few months, the recent U.S. approach toward South Asia represents a dramatically successful example of what many believe Washington is congenitally incapable: the capacity to think strategically over the long term and implement complex policies that require diplomatic adroitness and political agility. Although specific elements of this policy have been controversial and the gains accruing to them more tentative, the regional approach currently pursued toward India and Pakistan has nevertheless been more successful than could have been imagined when President George W. Bush first took office. The most striking evidence of this accomplishment is that, in sharp contrast to the last several decades, the United States today finds itself in the fortuitous position of enjoying good relations with India and Pakistan simultaneously while both states seek to sustain a durable peace with one another. This outcome is owed partly to structural changes in global and local geopolitics, as well as to decisions made by visionary regional leaders, but it derives fundamentally from the new tack pursued by the United States in South Asia. Unlike previous administrations, which faced great difficulty in crafting an appropriate policy toward India and Pakistan because they could not balance what were often conflicting demands involving these two countries, the Bush presidency resolved this conundrum by setting out on a new path entirely. Rather than attempting to reinvigorate the older, failed policies of supporting one competitor or the other, Bush took to its limits the strategy advocated in an influential RAND report prior to his election in 2000, namely, that Washington ought to pursue a differentiated policy toward the region centered on “a decoupling of India and Pakistan in U.S. calculations.”
Schmidt, John R
Summary
How did a nation founded as a homeland for South Asian Muslims become a haven for Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups? In this groundbreaking work, former U.S. diplomat John R. Schmidt, who served in Pakistan in the years leading up to 9/11, takes a detailed look at the country’s relationship with radical Islam. The Unraveling is the clearest account yet of the complex, dangerous relationship between the leaders of Pakistan and jihadist groups—and how the rulers’ decisions have led their nation to the brink of disaster and put the world at great risk.
