Defense and Insecurity in South Asia
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THE HENRY L STIMSON CENTER Defense and Insecurity in Southern Asia: The Conventional and Nuclear Dimensions Chris Smith The Henry L. Stimson Center was founded in 1989 as a nonprofir, nonpartisan institution devotecl to public policy research. The center Shekhar Gupta concentrates on particularly difficulr narional and inre¡national security issues where policy, technology, and politics intersect. Our aim is to William J. Durch produce research that is relevant to policymakers, rigorous by academic Michael Krepon stanclards, ancl unclerstandable by the pLrblic at large. Or.rr projects assess rhe sources ancl consequences of international conflict, as well as the tools needed ro build national security and international peace. Henry L. Stimson's distinguishecl career in defense ancl foreign policy spanned four decades in which the Unitecl States grew into its new role as a global power. As secretary of war uncler President Taft, Stimson concentracecl on reforms to streamline the U.S. Army. At the age of forty-nine, he volunteerecl as an arrillery officer in lØorlcl l7ar I and served on the front lines in France. As President Hoover's secretary of state in I 930, he negotiared the Lonclon Naval Treaty for the United Occasionnl Paper No. 21 May 1995 States. In 1940, as President Roosevelt's secreta¡y of war, Stimson managecl the war efforr ancl was involvecl with the clevelopment of the atomic bomb. His lasr preoccupation in office, ancl in the last few years of his life, was how this devastating weapon coulcl be controlled. 'We aclmire Henry L. Stimson's nonpartisan spirit, his sense of purpose, and his ability ro steer a steady course toward clearly defìnecl long-range national securiry goals. By establishing a research center in his name, we hope to call attention to the issues he cared about, as well as to his reco¡d of public service, and to propose, as Stimson did, pragmatic steps toward ideal objecrives. @ Pragmatic steþs toward iÅeal objectioæs @ THE HENRY L. STIMSON CENTER zl Dupont Circle, N.w. tr Fifth Floor El Washington, DC 20016 E tc:202.,273,5956 tr faxZOZ.7g5,9034 Contents About the Project Y About the 4uthors.................. vlI Introduction Michael Krepon...... tx Conventional Forces and Regional Stability Chris Smith......... I Nuclear Weapons in the Subcontinent Shekhar t Gupta........ 33 Research Note: Chinese Security Policies, Programs, and Perceptions William.J. Durch.... 53 Qrpyright @ l995 by Tlrc Hcnry L. Stimsrln Ccntcr 2l Dupont Circlc, NW Fifth Floor Washington, DC 2003ó (z0z) zz3-595ó Fax (202) 7 85-9034 About the Project The Henry L. Stimson Center is stuclying factors contributing to regional dcmand for advanced conventional weapons, on thc assumption that the canonical principles of arms control (to reduce the likelihood of war, the costs of war preparation, and the destructiveness of conflict) cannot be applicd effectively to regions of tension without addressing the sources of demand for armaments. Any efforts to prevent or to mitigate regional conflicts that address the tools of war must take demand factors explicitly into account, even if they seek primarily to constrain arms supplies, because unmodified demand will seek, and inevitably [ind, alternative channels of supply. Some demand f'or arms is driven by perceptions of external threats and some by lt desires to pose external threats in the service of any number o[ personal, national, or i<Ieological agenclas. When those threats abaLe, demand can safely plummet and may well do so (as it has in Europe since 1989). Wherc dcman<l is internally-rlriven, by a qucst for prcstige or a struggle for power, the policies, perccptions, and circumstances that must change to mitigate conflict and encourage arms restraint arc intcrnal as well, but parties to civil war can and often do have outside support, and thcir struggles havc regional consequenccs. External and internal motivations fbr arms boLh cocxist and intcract. þ Their commingling is particularly complcx in states that cmergc from the wreckage of cmpires; statcs that must sort out the sometimes-violent claims to political power or self- determination oI racial, rcligious, or ethnic groups. Nowhere do more old impcrial paths cross than in the part of thc world stretching from the Balkans through Southern Asia, encompassing, sincc late 1991, what were the southern republics of the former Soviet Union. This part oI thc Stimson Centcr's projcct on conventional arms sales and proliferation examincs the policies and perceptions of India, Pakistan, and China, three key states whose intcrnal stability, arms programs, and mutual relations have consi<Icrable impact on the stability of dsia, ancl on thc military policies and programs o[ many othcr states in thc region. The Stimson Ccnter woulcl like to thank thc John Mcrck Fund. whosc support madc this rcscarch possiblc. This projcct is directcd lbr thc Ccntcr by William J. Durch. About the Authors William J. Durch is Scnior Associate at the Henry L. Stimson Center. He has taught at Georgetown University, servecl as assistant director of the Defense and A¡ms Control Studies Program at thc Massachusctl.s Institute of Technology, and held a research appointment at the Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University. He was a foreign affairs officer in the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in the Carter administration, joining the government from the staff of the Center lor Naval Analyses. He is the editor of The Evolution of UN Peacekeeping: Case Studies and Comparotive Analysrs. Durch holds a BSFS from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service (1972) and a doctorate in political science from MIT (1988). I Shekhar Gupta is Senior Editor ol lndia Today. He has written extensively for India Express. and the Asion. Wall. Street Joumal on subjects ranging from defense and security policies to lndian national politics. Gupta has received fellowships from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and thc Amcrican Society of Newspaper Editors. Gupta is a recipient of the Inlaks Founclation Young Journalist of thc Year Award (1986). His publications includc Assam: A Valley Divided, as well as chapters in The Punjab Story and The Assossinalion ond Afler. Gupta was recently a Research Associate at thc lnternational lnstitute o[Stratcgic Sl.udies, London, where hewrote anAdelphi paper on the prospects of long-tcrm stability in Inclia. Michael Krepon is Prcsiclent of the Hcnry L. Stimson Center. Krepon previously worked at the Carnegie Enrlclwmcnt for InternationalPeace, the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and thc U.S. House of Representatives, assisting Congressman Norm Dicks. He is the author o[ numcrous articles and author or editor of six books. Krepon is a graduate of the Franklin & Marshall College an<l thc Johns Hopkins School o[ Advanced International Studics. Chris Smith is a Scnior Rescarch Fellow at the Ccntrc lor Det'encc Studies, King's College. lxlnclon, and Dircctor <lf thc Ccntre's North-South Detènce an<I Security Programme. Prcviously, hc hacl bocn a MacA¡thur Foundation Rcsearch ancl Writing Fellow, a Research Fclklw at thc Institutc krr Dcvelopment Studies at thc University o[ Susscx and the United Nations Univcrsity, and a Visiting Follow at the Henry L. Stimson Ccnter. Smith is the organizcr <lf an annual summer workshop on sccurity ancl arms control issues lor young talent in Soul.h dsia. He is the author o[ the rccently published bo<¡k India's Ad Hoc Anenal: Direction or Drift in Defence Policy? (1994). Introduction by Michael Krepon The cssays that follow describe an unsettled security environment in southern Asia. Concerns about stability on the Subcontinent now focus primarily on Pakistan's internal troubles and future direction, as well as on India's missile programs, which appear to be driven more by politicaland bureaucratic imperatives than by military necessity. The possible deployment by New Delhi of the Prithvi missile and India's continued production o[weapons- grade fissionable material makes restraint by Islamabad on these fronts difficult to sustain, both on political and strategic grounds. I Reactive stcps by Pakistan, such as deploying new nuclear-capable missiles or uncapping its fissionable material production program. are likely to generate further cstrangement from the United States. Many Indian strategic analysts appear not to be conccrned by a further cleterioration in US-Pakistani relations. This feeling is not widely shared by South Asian cxperts in the United States, who worry a great deal about where Pakistan is hcading. Thus, with good reason, Shekhar Gupta concludes his essay by noting that the prognosis lor progrcss on nuclcar and missile proliferation issues between India and Pakistan "docs not providc much scope fior optimism." Chris Smith's essay notes that Pakistan's continued support for the insurgency in Kashmir appears likely. Indeed, givcn the growing weakness of the central government, it is becoming increasingly unclear whether Islamabad could effectively curtail support for disaffccted Kashmiri groups by various actors within the country, even if it wanted to. Continued support lor Lhe insurgency, however, is not cost free. To begin with, it heightens tensions that framc national decisions to proceed with nuclear programs and missile deployments. Nor is it clcar that ai<l to clisalfccted groups can be limited to the Kashmir insurgency: Pakistan itsclf is now subjcct to growing intcrnal strains, clomcstic violcnce, and scvcrc ccntrifugal fìlrccs. Thus, the ncxus o[ stratcgic choicc on the Subcontinent is inextricably linked to domcstic politics and thc dcstabilizing consequcnces of new missile deployments. In contrast, the csscncc o[ thc compctition between India and Pakistan is no longer a conventi<¡nal arms racc. As Smith notcs, Pakistan is hard pressed economically to match a spurt in Indian procurement, and Islamabad's prcferred source of military equipment, the United States, remains closecl by thc Prcsslcr amcndment.