In its first declaratory policy after self announced status of a
nuclear weapons state the Govt. of India said that
- India would pursue a policy of limited deterrence
- It will not use the nuclear weapon first These are very similar to
the policies announced by the Chinese govt. after they exploded their first device at Lop
Nor in October 1964. While the second is clear enough the first one, namely , limited
deterrence calls for a closer examination and clarification.
Before analysing the concept of limited deterrence an
understanding of deterrence in the context of India's perceived national security threats
would be essential. In the context of international relations deterrence would mean
preventing another nation from pursuing a policy , if not a course of action which is
perceived as detrimental to the interests - particularly the national security interests -
of the country. Deterrence in the nuclear context would be to stop a hostile power from
carrying out a nuclear attack.
Conventional wisdom points to China and Pakistan as envisagable
security threats for India. The nature of threats from these countries have been too well
discussed in the past in a no. of forums and strategic literature and does not bear
repetition. What needs scrutiny however are the chances of these countries carrying out a
nuclear attack on India. Secondly what would be the minimum deterrence against such
attacks and how effective would be such deterrence ?
In Pakistan we have a neighbor who , from the moment of birth had
decided to be an implacable foe of India and keeps harping on Kashmir issue as the core of
the problems between the two countries. Given the irreconcilable differences between the
two countries on this issue India cannot afford to rule out yet another war with Pakistan
which had already gone to war twice before on this issue. Being weaker than India in
conventional arms capability Pakistan may come under considerable pressure to use the
nuclear weapons in the next round of conventional war .( One can recall such a contingency
in the past when the Indian armed forces were almost at the gates of Lahore in the 1965
war. Fortunately Pakistan had no nuclear capability then). It is interesting to note that
Pakistan has consistently refused to sign a No First Use agreement with India . Pakistani
writings on the subject make it amply clear that Pakistani Nuclear weapons are only Indo
centric. What may deter Pakistan from contemplating nuclear attack on India is a nuclear
India .
In the momentous month of May 1998 both India and Pakistan
unveiled their long suspected nuclear capability though the extent of capability from the
angle of yield have been questioned by some western sources. The nuclear capability has
been sought to be proved with a handful of tests. a procedure which has been questioned by
some experts who have been associated with the nuclear programs of India .Even if Govt. of
India chooses to dismiss them as "doubting Thomases" a study of India's
deterrence capability would raise questions like how many war heads and related delivery
systems are readily available with India. More important, how many are held and will be
further produced by Pakistan. The only source of such information is the educated guess of
the western experts who place 60+ bombs with India and 15 to 25 or so with Pakistan. Would
this number be taken as sufficient deterrence against Pakistan ? The question however
cannot just be one of numbers. With no first use policy , deterrence would really be the
country's ability to absorb a first nuclear attack and retaliate in a manner unacceptable
to Pakistan. This would mean ensuring the survivability of our nuclear weapons with their
delivery systems in a nuclear attack and having the command and control systems in tact.
Simply put, the delivery systems and their payloads need to be protected in hardened silos
from both conventional and nuclear attack. The executive arm of the Govt. (Read Prime
minister and his cabinet colleagues with adequate no. of civilian and armed forces
managers ) need to be available to take charge of the post attack scenario . The
population itself needs to be protected with underground shelters and given post attack
rehabilitation. None of these seem to have been planned as yet unless of course they are
well guarded secrets "in the interest of national security ". It is no secret
that India , except for a modest mileage in Calcutta does not have underground railways
yet. Former Soviet Union , the U.S. and China have all planned for a nuclear attack and
have provided for secure positions for the command and control post after the attack. Even
their population would have in major cities a readily available shelter in their
underground rail stations.. Mere possession of a few bombs does not ensure deterrence
without the attendant infrastructure to deal with the inherent risks of a nuclear war. The
infrastructure enables the country to survive a first attack and retaliate.
The second issue is the capability for retaliatory attack which
would cause unacceptable damage to Pakistan . Though the definition of what is
unacceptable is predicated on Pakistan's perceptions, a reasonable interpretation would be
that the retaliatory attack should decapitate its command and control systems and destroy
to a large extent its war making capabilities – both conventional and nuclear. This
depends on accurate intelligence and excellent attack capability with precision guided
munitions and accurate missiles with very low Circular Error Probable (CEP - a radius with
the target as the centre within which 50% of the fired nuclear armed missiles will strike
). Missiles known to be operational and in India's inventory are the Prithivis with ranges
of 150 and 250 Kms. A third version with a range of 350 is reportedly under development.
The IRBM Agni has been flight tested only thrice so far out of which one was a failure and
one had apparently a reentry problem. The CEPs of these missiles are not known. The future
plans of operationalising Agni with acceptable Circular Error Probable are also not known
as further development of this missile seems to have slowed down probably under intense
pressure from the west. Major cities of Pakistan like Islamabad and Karachi which are the
two nerve centres would be , for example, 280 KMs and 240 Kms respectively from the
nearest cities of Jullundur ( Amritsar is even nearer ) and Bhuj at the Indian Border.
India should therefore be able to bring these two cities under nuclear threat by deploying
Prithvis close to the border. Karachi would further be vulnerable to sea based cruise
missiles like Sagarika which is said to be under development. The border deployment
however carries the inherent risk of the missiles being destroyed both by air action as
well as in a conventional armor attack. Safe deployment would therefore have to be
adequately away from the range of Pakistani air or missile attack which in turn would mean
longer range missiles like Agni , The possession of Ghauri missile by Pakistan needs to be
taken into account in this regard.
Any CEP more than 1Kmr. would be of no value with a conventional
payload and India would then have to use nuclear payload with unforeseen consequences
including the possibility of the radio active fallout reaching India back. Hence
development and deployment of Medium Range Ballistic Missiles (MRBM) like Agni , contrary
to general impression , is essential even in a nuclear exchange with Pakistan.
Any nuclear exchange between the two countries would be
catastrophic for both , the region and the rest of the world. The only way to avoid this
would be to ensure that nuclear war cannot be started or succeed. . Destruction of the
opponent's ability to attack even first would ensure that no nuclear war is fought between
the two.. This would call for rapid development of cruise and short range missiles with
maximum accuracy possible. This ability coupled with the second strike capability (
i.e.capability to absorb the first strike and retaliate effectively ) would be deterrence
with greater degree of confidence. Deterrence is also effective only if the opponent is
made aware of our capability and stopped from underestimating it.
As for deterrence against China India does not seem to possess
the capability now .The Prithvi is of no relevance with respect to china. Any worth while
target in China either on counter value (attacking civilian targets ) or counter force
(attacking armed forces centres ) strategy would require MRBM with a range of at least
3000-4000 Kms. The known range of Agni is 2500 kms. The kind of distance involved here
would be clear when one considers that the distance between Calcutta the nearest city in
India to Beijing would be 3200 Kms as the crow flies. As against this China is known to
possess missiles of all classification which can reach any part of India . Their known
nuclear inventory is 434 out of which 284 are strategic nuclear weapons. China's nuclear
arsenal consists of a triad of strategic delivery systems, as well as tactical ones
including nuclear artillery and atomic demolition mines. They have the Inter continental
ballistic missiles (ICBMs) with 11000kms range, Intermediate range Ballistic Missiles
(IRBMs) with ranges between 1800 to 7000 Kms. and pay loads ranging from 200 K tons to 5
Mega tons.
It is hard to believe that India would be able to catch up with
this capability in near future. China is disturbed not so much with the recent entry of
India in the nuclear club as by India citing them as a reason for going nuclear. The
concept of Limited deterrence therefore leaves some questions unanswered , at least as far
as China is concerned. China's policy of no first use could be some source of solace that
absence of deterrence against China at the moment may not be fatal.
S.Gopal
7-12-1998
(Former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India)
