The Road Not Taken

THE Pokhran tests have established India’s nuclear capabilities. This has provoked Western and Pakistani commentators to scream that New Delhi has acted with reckless abandon, that its nuclear tests are dangerous and foolish because they are bound to heighten security concerns in Asia and precipitate a military arms race which no country can afford. But the Indian perspective is quite different. New Delhi says it was forced to gatecrash the nuclear club because its pleas for effective and equitable global disarmament were blithely ignored by Washington. However, India now appears ready to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) provided it is granted the same nuclear status as the "club of five". Indeed, Indian strategic analysts argue that the world would be no less safe with the entry of India, Pakistan and Israel into the nuclear club than it is with the historically most "war-prone gang of five".

There is a problem with this thesis. It appears to open the route to nuclear proliferation by countries which have abandoned their nuclear programmes (like South Africa, Argentina and Brazil) or decided not to build one (like Germany and Japan) or want to brandish nuclear weapons (Iraq, Iran and Korea). In other words, India might be opening a Pandora’s box of nuclear states and making the world much more unsafe than it is today.

India’s decision has also put Pakistan on the horns of a dilemma. Islamabad admits it can test and make nuclear bombs but it hasn’t done so as it doesn’t want to precipitate a new arms race in the subcontinent. But now that India is pushing ahead with its own nationalist agenda, and may or may not sign the CTBT, Pakistan is faced with Hobson’s choice. If it does not demonstrate similar nuclear capabilities as India, its case for joining the club of five will not be as strong as India’s and it will be forever doomed to the status of an insecure partner in the non-proliferation alliance. But if it follows India’s route, the penalties and sanctions which face it would be much stiffer and more crippling than those against India. What should it do?

An answer to this may be found in the political circumstances in which India has tested its bombs and the West’s response to these tests. The curious thing about the tests is that there was no advance warning, especially by the US, of any Indian preparations in the offing. This is in dramatic contrast to the situation in late 1995 when American intelligence sources leaked credible reports based on satellite data that India was readying the Pokhran site for an underground explosion. The swift and hostile reaction which followed at that time may have persuaded India to postpone the tests. But since no such preemptive "strike" was forthcoming from Washington this time round, Pakistanis are wont to wonder whether Washington may have had strategic reasons not to reveal India’s impending tests. Certainly, there is circumstantial evidence to support such a conspiracy theory.

US President Bill Clinton recently sent two important envoys to India and Pakistan, Thomas Pickering and Bill Richardson. Shortly before India conducted the nuclear tests, the Indian foreign secretary made a discreet visit to Washington. Indeed, shortly before Pakistan test-fired its Ghauri missile, the Pakistani army chief was warmly welcomed in Washington. We do not know what was discussed in all these meetings. But we do know that discussions between the Americans and Pakistanis were followed by the Ghauri test and discussions between the US and India were followed by the nuclear tests.

바카라 웹사이트Is it possible, ask lay Pakistanis, that the US may have decided to "concede", albeit reluctantly, a one-off missile test by Pakistan and a one-off nuclear testing by India in exchange for getting both countries to sign the CTBT? This would help explain why Clinton has merely expressed his "regrets" at Pakistan’s missile test and why he is now only "disappointed" with India and insisting that India should sign the CTBT without further ado. Of course, Clinton stands to gain a feather in his cap if both countries are now nudged into signing the CTBT. If this hypothesis is correct, we should expect US "disappointment" with India to translate into insignificant sanctions only for one main reason: so that a "proper" message is sent out to Pakistan, which is likely to be hurt by sanctions much more than India, and it is restrained from following India’s example.

Pakistan’s choices are clear. It can either test its nuclear device immediately and line up behind India to sign the CTBT on the same terms and conditions as India. Or it can forego or postpone nuclear testing, negotiate some sort of "peace dividend" with Washington and sign the CTBT when India does so.

There are greater advantages and fewer pitfalls in the second approach. If Pakistan takes the first route, it might have to contend with sanctions during the time it takes for India and Pakistan to negotiate their terms for signing the CTBT. This could have far more serious short-term consequences for Pakistan’s economy than for India’s. In fact, the economic outlook is so bad in Islamabad that the Nawaz Sharif government would have serious difficulty in keeping the economy afloat in the stormy sea of sanctions. But if Islamabad takes the second route and postpones its decision to test, it could conceivably expect to receive a minimum dividend on the "F-16 or money back" option and a repeal of the Pressler amendment when Clinton visits Pakistan this autumn. The second route is also less problematic because, as a recognised threshold nuclear power state with demonstrated missile capabilities, Pakistan’s security can remain reasonably assured without testing a nuclear device immediately. After all, Islamabad has managed to establish a nuclear deterrence for over a decade without testing a device.

Clinton had a quiet word on the phone with Sharif on Thursday. A high-powered US delegation of nuclear experts, defence personnel and state department officials arrived in Pakistan on Friday. It is carrying a big stick and some carrots. An anguished Pakistani PM is in session with his cabinet colleagues. Though scientists say they are ready to press the trigger, and Benazir Bhutto has banded with fundamentalists to demand a test, the Pakistani press is, by and large, against any "knee-jerk" reactions. There are two roads which can be taken. The road not taken could make all the difference.

(The writer is editor of Friday Times, Lahore.)