surreal_ravi

India moves closer to N-deployment


By Praful Bidwai

NEW DELHI: Five years after it conducted a series of nuclear blasts,
the Indian government has taken one more step toward the actual
induction and deployment of nuclear weapons into the country's arsenal
, enhancing the nuclear danger in the troubled South Asian region.

The Political Council of the Indian Nuclear Control Authority (NCA)
met on Monday to review the "arrangements" being put in place for
India's nuclear weapons deployment and decided to accelerate work on
various parts of the infrastructure needed for "the strategic forces
programme".

This was the first-ever meeting of the Political Council of the
authority, which was itself created in January this year. The NCA is
uniquely entrusted with developing, deploying and, when necessary,
ordering the launch of nuclear weapons.

The NCA consists of the Political Council, an Executive Council with
recommendatory powers, and the Strategic Forces Command, composed of
the representatives of the three services, which is meant to manage
the nuclear arsenal.

The Political Council alone can authorize the use of nuclear weapons.
It is comprised of the prime minister, the ministers for home,
finance, external affairs and defence, and the national security
adviser.

India's nuclear stance has gradually but significantly hardened over
the years. First, it abandoned the old Nehru policy of nuclear
abstinence and conducted a nuclear weapons test in the guise of a
"peaceful" explosion in 1974.

Then, in 1996, India walked out of the Geneva negotiations on a
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, declaring that the ban would not lead
to genuine disarmament. But it announced it would itself not make
nuclear weapons. Then, in May 1998, it shocked the world - and its own
citizens - by conducting a series of five nuclear tests.

But soon after this, India developed some hesitation and experienced
problems in operationalizing its weapons capability. The US
government, which held a dozen rounds of talks with top Indian
officials on the issue, also mounted pressure on New Delhi not to
openly deploy its atomic weapons.

There was some ambiguity about India's nuclear doctrine and its
emphasis on the pledge of "no-first-use" - namely, the commitment that
the country would not be the first to use nuclear weapons (it would
only fire them in retaliation); and it would never use them against
non-nuclear powers.

In the recent past, the hesitance has given way to active preparation,
and US pressure has eased greatly under the Bush administration,
itself devoted to nuclear weapons. India is now proceeding to
"consolidate its nuclear deterrence".

The new emphasis is on making the Indian nuclear threat more
"credible" by erecting a command and control structure and
demonstrating the political will to use nuclear weapons, as well as
the military capability to do so.

Strongly associated with this shift is India's military leadership,
which was brought on board as special invitees to the NCA Political
Council meeting.

Going by official briefings about Monday's meeting, the Political
Council was informed that neither the command-and- control (C-2) nor
the indications-and-warning (I&W) system is yet in place.

The I&W system's function is to alert the NCA of a possible hostile
nuclear attack. The C-2 system is meant to take command of nuclear
weapons and authorise their use.

According to some other reports, a planned concrete underground
bunker, where the nuclear command post is to be housed, is not yet
ready, but is under construction.

India has plans to set up an alternative chain of nuclear command in
case the normal, regular command is decapitated or otherwise unable to
function during a crisis. It is unclear if much progress has been made
in this direction.

It seems likely too that the original target for transferring
nuclear-capable military equipment from the three services to its
operational arm (the Strategic Force Command) by the end of August,
has been missed. This may take some more time.

As of now, India has the nuclear-capable 2,000-2,500 kilometre range
Agni-II ballistic missile and two versions of the short- range
(150-250 km) Prithvi missile, both of which can be fitted with nuclear
weapons.

It is also in the process of serially producing and inducting a new
Pakistan-specific missile, the Agni-I, with a range of 700 to 800 km.

Pakistan's response to India's nuclear preparations is entirely
predictable. It will try to match, and equalize or "get even", with
India. Pakistan is believed to be more advanced than India in marrying
nuclear warheads to missiles, and it will certainly move towards
deployment at the same pace as India.

This spells a special danger. There is no strategic distance worth the
name between the two nuclear rivals. Therefore, "early warnings" and
"indications" do not amount to much. Missile flight-time between the
two countries' cities is as little as three to eight minutes.

But Indian and Pakistani decision-makers will have no time interval
worth the name in which to determine whether and how to respond to a
rival missile attack. The time needed to process information about a
hostile missile launch, and pass it up to the apex command for a
political decision, is five minutes or longer. Therefore, no amount of
command-and-control preparation is likely to reduce the chances of a
knee-jerk launch-or-warning or retaliatory response by either side.

Comparative analysis has shown that the chances of an accidental,
unintended or unauthorised nuclear attack are highest in South Asia of
all places in the world. They are probably higher than during the Cold
War after the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

The move towards nuclear deployment in South Asia comes amidst a
stalling of progress toward normalization of relations, promised by
Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee four-and-a-half months ago.

Last week, India-Pakistan talks on the resumption of severed air links
- and conditional upon them, rail links - broke down. Meanwhile, the
two governments are back to megaphone diplomacy and exchange of
hostile rhetoric.

Domestic factors in both India and Pakistan could complicate matters
and precipitate yet another confrontation between them. Nuclear
weapons can only aggravate their mutual tension, especially with
Kashmir as the flashpoint.-Dawn/The InterPress News Service.