Getting real about nuclear terrorism

In May 1998, surprise nuclear tests by India and Pakistan transformed regional strategic calculations and added a dangerous new dimension to tensions between the two long-time rivals.

According to Taylor Branch, writing in The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President, Indian officials who spoke with then US President Bill Clinton were fully aware of the potential devastation a clash between the two nations could lead to, calculating that a doomsday nuclear volley would kill 300 to 500 million Indians while annihilating all 120 million Pakistanis (although the Pakistani side insisted its rugged mountain terrain would shield more survivors than the exposed plains of India).

Regardless of the accuracy of these numbers, and although the two countries’ military strategies differ (India’s is based on conventional superiority, while Pakistan tends to emphasise nuclear deterrence to cancel out this advantage) one thing is clear: the threat of nuclear terrorism looms large over both.

Bringing India into the non-proliferation regime will be crucial if Pakistan is also to be drawn in – moves that would both help reduce the risk of nuclear conflict as well as the risk of nuclear materials falling into the wrong hands.

India and Pakistan made a good start in the field of nuclear cooperation when they signed an agreement in 1989 not to attack each other’s nuclear facilities. And in a more recent positive sign, in November 2008, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari stated Pakistan was willing to commit to a no-first-use policy for its nuclear weapons – a policy he said he could secure backing from parliament for. However, only four days after the suggestion, terrorists struck Mumbai, killing 176 people and stirring up tensions between the two countries.

Pakistan’s refusal to join the nuclear proliferation regime is also linked to India’s rejection of the same system. Both countries are not bound by the conditions reached after the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was agreed, such as the 1997 Additional Protocol, to strengthen the non-proliferation regime. As a consequence, the continued exclusion of Pakistan and India from the non-proliferation regime is actually intensifying the nuclear arms race in South Asia.

Bringing India into the regime will mean addressing its objections to becoming part of the arrangement: it believes that the non-proliferation regime is discriminatory as it is rooted in the NPT, which only gives nuclear weapons status to five countries. The US has already taken a significant step toward accepting India through the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement, the framework for which was agreed in 2005. Here, the US defended the exception for India because of its impeccable record in non-proliferation. But the move upset Pakistan, which argued the exceptional treatment for India risked triggering an arms race.

It seems clear then that granting both countries de-facto nuclear weapons state status through suitable amendments to the NPT would be the best way of curbing the on-going arms race and reducing the threat of nuclear terrorism by making it easier for the International Atomic Energy Agency to hold the nuclear infrastructures of both countries to the highest scrutiny.

Many nations may baulk at such a move. But the stakes are too high to sideline pragmatism as the guiding basis for policy.

Luv Puri is a Fulbright Fellow at New York University.