Abstract
Ever since decolonization and the partition of the former British colony of India into the states of India and Pakistan, there has been an enduring conflict between them, which has resulted in various crises. It has continued despite dramatic changes in the geopolitical environment. The conflict is over national identity, territory, and the power position in the region. The Pakistani elite have been unable to accept the division of Jamma and Kashmir and seek equal status with India, while India sees itself as a great power in the region. The conflict escalated into war at the very creation of the state of Pakistan in 1947–48, as well as in 1965 and 1971. The war in 1971 resulted in the division of Pakistan, a defeat that instilled a great sense of insecurity in Pakistan and a greater determination to find a way to overcome India’s military superiority. In order to balance India’s conventional military superiority, Pakistan acquired a small-scale nuclear weapons capability using bombers and medium-range missiles as delivery vehicles. Already by 1974, India had a significant nuclear industry and had demonstrated its capacity to explode nuclear devices. Whereas Pakistan’s nuclear weapons doctrine is Indo-centric, India acquired a nuclear capability as part of an ambition to be recognized as a great power and seeks to deter not only Pakistan but also China. The acquisition of nuclear weapons by both India and Pakistan raises the specter of a regional nuclear conflict with catastrophic consequences. However, there is a widespread view in the strategic studies community that nuclear weapons are likely to prevent armed conflict due to the effects of nuclear deterrence and the unacceptable risks that the protagonists face in the event of war. In the case of Indo-Pak relations, however, nuclearization seems to have had the opposite effect, as the frequency of the crises has increased since both countries became declared nuclear powers. This paper is concerned with the effect of nuclear weapons on the security crisis in South Asia. The literature on the Indo-Pak conflict generally agrees that the stability of the strategic nuclear relationship is the key factor in explaining the phenomenon of the increasing frequency of crises since both countries have been acknowledged as nuclear powers. The majority of scholars claim that the strategic relationship is stable and that this stability creates a strategic space for Pakistan to initiate conflict at a conventional level. An alternative view expressed in the literature is that the strategic nuclear relationship between Pakistan and India is not stable and that the conflict is driven by this instability—in other words that the real risk of nuclear escalation gives Pakistan confidence that India will be deterred from employing its superiority at the conventional level. This paper argues that the endeavors by scholars to explain the Indo-Pak conflict on the basis of strategic stability or instability are unconvincing. The strategic studies literature asserts that strategic stability exists if two protagonists have a secure second-strike capability that is sufficiently large to inflict unacceptable damage on the opponent and thus can deter aggression. The paper argues that the strategic nuclear relationship between Pakistan and India is not stable and that deterrence of conflict between the two states is not stable. The behaviors of the protagonists cannot be explained on the basis of the balance of their nuclear and conventional capabilities, but instead are the products of strategic cognitive dissonance. This means that there is a serious risk of conflict escalating to the nuclear level.
PDF