Managing Nuclear Conflict in South Asia

Managing Nuclear Conflict in South Asia

Introduction

In the twenty-first century, the Indian subcontinent has surpassed Europe as the most likely region for nuclear war. Over the past three decades, the Cold War rivals—Russia and the United States—have decreased their nuclear armory by more than 70 percent. Meanwhile, India and Pakistan have begun the world's second nuclear arms race. Since their partition in 1947, India and Pakistan have fought three major wars and remained on the brink of conflict for more than six decades. The South Asian neighbors carried out rival nuclear weapons tests in 1998 and are now estimated to possess at least 80 nuclear weapons each. Pakistan has more than doubled the size of its arsenal in the past four years, likely as a means of countering India's greater conventional strength. As these countries develop more advanced nuclear capabilities, chances increase that even a relatively small skirmish could escalate into a nuclear conflict. For example, earlier this year, Pakistan announced it had tested a small nuclear warhead designed to be used against invading troops on Pakistani soil (Kaye, 2007).

A nuclear war between India and Pakistan would be an absolute catastrophe. A Natural Resources Defense Council study found that even a limited nuclear exchange consisting of as few as 10 warheads could result in about three million casualties (Natural Resources Defense Council, 2002). Moreover, the effects of such a conflict would not be confined to South Asia: According to a recent article in Scientific American, a major regional nuclear conflict could spark a global “nuclear winter,” with worldwide implications for agriculture. Given the terrible effects of a nuclear exchange, much ink has been spilled articulating policies to prevent war, particularly a nuclear war, between India and Pakistan. However, little has been written about how the United States should respond if diplomacy fails—that is, if a nuclear war breaks out between India and Pakistan, how can the United States contain the conflict so it does not come to involve other nations with alliances or interests in the region and significantly larger nuclear arsenals?

Foreign Interests and the Indian subcontinent

On the surface, preventing foreign intervention in a nuclear conflict appears to be a simple task. Asking how to keep countries from jumping into a nuclear war seems like asking how people can be kept from running into burning buildings. It's not hard; they have plenty of reasons to steer clear. But the web of alliances, rivalries, and power politics on the Indian subcontinent means that foreign intervention in any major conflict between India and Pakistan—even a nuclear one—cannot be discounted. China, in particular, has close ties to Islamabad and views Pakistan as integral to its strategy of containing Indian influence on the subcontinent. Beijing—which has provided military and, allegedly, nuclear aid to Islamabad—would almost certainly provide some sort of support to Pakistan, be it covert or open, in the event of a conflict with India. Such assistance could enflame the smoldering rivalry between Beijing and New Delhi (Peters, ...