The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis Vol. 31, No. 2, June 2019, 273－291 Pakistan’s Nuclear Ambitions: The Debate over Doctrine Huazhong Tu,* Prashant Kumar Singh,** Nan You *** and Bo Tu ****1234 Tsinghua University, Beijing and Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences, Kunming, People’s Republic of China; Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, New Delhi, Republic of India; Tsinghua University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; Silla University, Busan, Republic of Korea This study analyzes the debate on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program among the Pakistani elites, who include scientists, strategists and politicians. The study examines the nuclear doctrine that emerges from this, as well as the likely ways in which it can impact peace and stability on the Indian subcontinent. It also underlines the possible influence of the Pakistani nuclear doctrine on the nuclear doctrine of other “unrecognized” emerging nuclear weapon states such as North Korea. After its creation and independence in August 1947, Pakistan’s elites considered survival to be the primary national strategic objective of the country in the harsh international environment, especially with regards to India. This understanding shaped Pakistan’s security policy in the early years, post August 1947. The three wars Pakistan fought with India proved that the collective security policy and the anti-nuclear weapons advocacy by Pakistani defensive realists was not the best strategy in the prevailing security environment. In this backdrop, the Multan meeting in January 1972 initiated a fierce debate on whether a nuclear weapons program was the best strategy for ensuring national security. The participants included defensive realists, offensive realists, liberals and separatists. The offensive realists won the debate, shaped Pakistan’s nuclear policy, and initiated its nuclear weapons program. Separatists here refer to the sub-nationalist forces that seek political separation from Pakistan. Keywords: Pakistani nuclear debate, defensive realism, offensive realism; liberalism; nuclear doctrine * First Author. E-mail: [email protected] ** Corresponding Author. Email: [email protected] *** Corresponding Author. Email: [email protected] **** E-mail: [email protected] ISSN 1016-3271 print, ISSN 1941-4641 online © 2019 Korea Institute for Defense Analyses http://www.kida.re.kr/kjda 274 Huazhong Tu, Prashant Kumar Singh, Nan You and Bo Tu Introduction At present, five countries—the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China—which happen to be the first developers of nuclear weapons and incidentally the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC)—are recognized as nuclear–weapon states (NWS) under the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty (NPT). However, since the NPT came into force in 1970, the number of nuclear powers outside the official nuclear club has been continuously expanding, to include India (1974), Pakistan (1998) and North Korea (2006). Israel is also widely believed to be in possession of a nuclear weapon arsenal.1 These four however are yet to be recognized as NWS under the international nuclear regimes, particularly the NPT. This has given rise to legitimate concerns regarding their nuclear doctrines and whether they are more radical than those followed by the recognized NWS. This issue is extremely crucial for world peace. Among the unofficial NWS, Pakistan deserves special attention considering the geopolitical significance it has enjoyed since it came into being in 1947. Pakistan is a country with the sixth–largest standing army in the world, and a nuclear power as well as a declared, albeit unrecognized, nuclear–weapons state, the second in South Asia and the only nation in the Muslim world to have that status. Therefore, an analysis of Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine, which was quite vague and complex in the years following May 1998 when it conducted its first nuclear tests, has its own relevance. In terms of conventional military power, India has been stronger than Pakistan according to almost every metric of military power—the army, the navy and the air force. And the gap continues to grow, as claimed by a Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs report.2 Pakistan and India went to war in 1948, 1965, 1971 and fought an “undeclared war” in Kargil in 1999. Even though the two countries possess nuclear weapons, these weapons have not been able to negate or reduce the possibility of war, as the Kargil war proved. An intense armed conflict broke out between the two countries in 1999, unmindful of the fact that the two countries had declared their nuclear weapon status just a year ago in May 1998. Thus, contrary to expectations, one may, in fact, argue that their nuclear weapons have actually enhanced the possibility of war in South Asia, as they have acquired the confidence provided by nuclear weapons, which are their guarantee against any “existential insecurity” or nuclear blackmail. Thus, the takeaway from the 1999 Kargil war was that Pakistan saw its newly acquired nuclear weapons as a shield behind which it could fuel and stoke the conflict in Kashmir, safe from any possible Indian retaliation. However, the counter to this argument is that it was the nuclear signaling3 which hastened international intervention that prevented the situation from deteriorating further. Thus, there is a recurring fear that a conflict in South Asia has the potential to escalate into a nuclear war in a short span of time. This situation warrants an analysis of Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine to understand exactly under what compulsions it would resort to exercising its nuclear option in a war with India. Pakistan’s nuclear program has been widely criticized for lacking transparency. Therefore it is necessary to review the trajectory of its development to arrive at an Pakistan’s Nuclear Ambitions: The Debate over Doctrine 275 understanding of its nuclear doctrine. According to some Western experts in arms control and non-proliferation studies, military cooperation with China and North Korea have been prioritized in Pakistan’s foreign policy since 1965. This cooperation, in their opinion, has included Pakistan’s clandestine nuclear and missile development activities as well. In fact, A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear program, in 2004, confirmed the existence of a global proliferation network, which had, over almost two decades, passed on nuclear technology, expertise and designs to North Korea, Iran, Libya and possibly other countries. This reveals the inadequacy of the existing nuclear non- proliferation architecture for controlling the spread of nuclear weapons.4 The clandestine missile and nuclear technology exchange between North Korea and Pakistan has long been a proliferation concern. This exchange also says something about Pakistan’s desperation for nuclear weapons, which is reflected in its ambiguous nuclear doctrine. Pakistan has yet to formally declare its nuclear doctrine. Pakistani officials maintain that ambiguity serves Pakistan’s interests better, as it denies information about Pakistan’s nuclear threshold to the enemy, who could use it to exploit the gaps in Pakistan’s nuclear strategy.5 The lack of a publicly declared official doctrine does not, however, suggest that no doctrine exists.6 This can be deduced from the debate among the Pakistani elites available in newspapers, journals and other media. In fact, a literature review of the nuclear debate remains the most effective way to understand Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine. Pakistan’s Earliest Security Policy: Collective Security and Dialogue The partition of India, at the end of British colonial rule in 1947, gave birth to the new state of Pakistan on the Indian subcontinent, which comprised British India’s Muslim majority provinces in the northwest and east of the country. Its creation as an independent state was the culmination of decades of intense political churn around the issues related to Muslim identity during colonial rule in India and concerns relating to their future in a free and democratic India.7 In Pakistan’s view, the creation of Pakistan followed the acceptance of the two nation theory, that Muslims and Hindus constituted two different nations, in view of their distinctly different religious outlooks and history.8 This theory has shaped a perception in Pakistan that India is the “other.” Political elements, such as military and religious fundamentalists, have exploited this sense of the “other” to designate India as Pakistan’s “arch-enemy.”9 However, since the comprehensive national strength of India at various levels has been far greater than that of Pakistan, its survival in the face of the threat from “Hindu India” was deemed a primary security and strategic concern by Pakistani elites. Although this concern may not be as acute now as it was in the earlier period, India has been the point of reference for shaping Pakistan’s threat perception all along. The first Indo–Pak war broke out in Muslim-majority Kashmir as early as 1947 itself. The Pakistani army suffered huge losses in the war. The Indian army secured two– thirds of the territory, while the Pakistan army could hold onto only one–third. It learned the lesson that it lacked the weapons and training to counter the Indian army in battle. 276 Huazhong Tu, Prashant Kumar Singh, Nan You and Bo Tu Hence, ensuring the territorial survival and integrity of Pakistan, and the security policy it should adopt to guarantee its existence, became the paramount issue for the Pakistani elites of the time. In this scenario, the first school of thought, which grappled with the issue of the best possible strategy for Pakistan’s security, was that of the defensive realists.10 Defensive realists generally avoided aggressive security policies towards India. This approach shaped Pakistan’s early security policies to a great extent. Liaquat Ali Khan, the first prime minister, foreign minister and defense minister, represented this school of thought in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Considering Pakistan’s weaker comprehensive national strength compared to India, the defensive realists underlined the importance of a “collective security policy” as a diplomatic instrument to balance India.