By Rabia Akhtar
A nuclear agreement between Pakistan and the United States
benefits everyone. Except Pakistan. Regardless of the conditions, Pakistan
should not pursue any civil nuclear agreement with the United States. Pakistan
should review its national security concerns and decide whether it wants to be
bound by the rules of conduct of an unbalanced nuclear order.
Pakistan’s Desire for a Nuclear Deal
There are three main reasons why Pakistan wants a civil nuclear
deal with the United States.
First, Pakistan believes that the strategic dynamics in the region
are heavily tipped in favor of India — post Indo-U.S. nuclear deal. The
agreement, which U.S. lawmakers passed in 2008, removes nuclear sanctions on
India and allows the United States to share nuclear technology so India can
develop its civilian nuclear industry. The U.S.-led Nuclear Suppliers Group
(NSG) waiver for India has allowed it to sign nuclear cooperation agreements
with at least a dozen countries, allowing India to obtain nuclear fuel for its
civilian nuclear program from NSG nations. This arrangement allows India to
direct its limited indigenous reserves of fissile materials solely towards
nuclear weapons production.
The Indo-U.S. deal only requires India to separate its civilian
and military facilities. It does not require India to cap its nuclear weapons
production, unlike the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to which India is not a
signatory. In addition, the deal does not require India to take stringent
measures to ensure there is no diversion of fissile material from the civilian
to the military side.
Pakistan also finds it troubling that India’s drive towards
qualitative and quantitative improvement in its nuclear arsenal doesn’t seem to
alarm the international community as much as Pakistan’s nuclear inventory
estimated at 110-130 nuclear warheads. Similarly, the ever-increasing range of
India’s intercontinental ballistic missiles with Agni V at 5000 km and Agni VI
under development eyeing an estimated range of beyond 10,000 km has raised only
a few eyebrows. To Pakistan, this is evidence enough of the dual standards by
which the global non-proliferation regime operates. Given such free rein,
Pakistan worries that nothing stands in India’s way from enhancing the quality
and quantity of its nuclear weapons arsenal. Thus it is believed that the
strategic balance between India and Pakistan can only be restored if a similar
deal is offered to Pakistan.
The second reason why Pakistan desires a nuclear deal is its own
internal energy needs. Pakistan maintains that it has legitimate and urgent
energy needs that could be met by a nuclear deal allowing it to access fissile
material for its civilian nuclear program. After the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal was
signed in 2005, the NSG gave a special country-specific exemption to India in
2008 allowing it to receive nuclear exports from NSG members. At the time the
exemption was given, Indian nuclear facilities were not under the International
Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. They still aren’t. All of Pakistan’s current
nuclear power plants are under IAEA safeguards, and it expresses a willingness
to maintain similar safeguards on new nuclear power plants and to obey the
regulations in any future engagements in regular nuclear commerce with other
NSG members, an opportunity that it has been denied for decades.
The third reason for Pakistan to pursue a nuclear deal is the U.S.-led
push for Indian membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Pakistan fears that
once India is let in, Pakistan’s entry into NSG will not be possible given that
the group is a consensus based entity and a single country veto can block
membership of any new entrant. Given decades of mutual hostility, India has
enough incentives to block Pakistan’s entry into the nuclear supplying body.
Thus the only possible path would be a simultaneous entry into the NSG of both
India and Pakistan. India and Pakistan should be evaluated for nuclear deals
based on the same criteria and they should be granted equal rights in terms of
nuclear cooperation with other countries and licensing for nuclear commerce.
Daltonization-Kreponization-Normalization of
Nuclear Pakistan
The study ‘Normal Nuclear Pakistan’ was released in August by Toby
Dalton and Michael Krepon. This report was not well received by Pakistan or
India. For the Indian strategic community, the very idea of mainstreaming
Pakistan and proposing nuclear parity with India was seen as preposterous. For
the Pakistani strategic community, this scholarly report was perceived as
dictation by the United States telling Pakistan what constituted normal
behavior.
The Dalton-Krepon report provides some recommendations for Pakistan
to find an audience receptive to its desire for a civilian nuclear deal.
Pakistan has categorically rejected five nuclear weapon-related initiatives
proposed in the report:
- Pakistan
should shift from ‘full spectrum’ to ‘strategic deterrence’. Pakistan maintains that after having developed Nasr,
a battlefield nuclear weapon, it has achieved full spectrum deterrence
(FSD). FSD provides Pakistan the flexibility to deter threats posed by
Indian Cold Start strategy of limited incursion at tactical level. This
upgrade in deterrence policy however is said to be consistent with
Pakistan’s original credible minimum deterrence doctrine.
- Pakistan
should limit the production of its short-range delivery vehicles, tactical
nuclear weapons and commit to a ‘recessed’ deterrence posture. Pakistan maintains that the Indian Cold Start
doctrine (CSD), which the Indians claim to have shelved, is very much
alive and operational. Until and unless the neighborhood stabilizes, and
India truly shelves its aggressive doctrine, Pakistan cannot consider
limiting the production of its short-range delivery vehicles and tactical
nuclear weapons which were developed to counter the CSD.
- Pakistan
should lift its long held veto in the Conference of Disarmament and let
the negotiations on the Fissile Material Cut Off Treaty (FMCT) begin and
both reduce and stop its fissile material production. Pakistan’s position on the FMT is not going to change
anytime soon. Pakistan maintains that unless and until the treaty
addresses existing fissile stocks along with a cut-off of fissile material
production, it will not be acceptable.
- Pakistan
should separate its civilian and military facilities. We should recall that India agreed to this as part of
its deal with the United States.
- Pakistan should sign the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) without waiting for India to sign (first or simultaneously). The only problem Pakistan
has with signing the CTBT and not ratifying is the political commitment it
requires. If Pakistan does make this political commitment and India goes
ahead and conducts a nuclear test, it will be difficult for Pakistan to
exit the treaty to signal its protest. Pakistan observes a unilateral
moratorium on nuclear testing and maintains that it will not be the first
one to resume testing in the region.
The Dalton-Krepon report provides two alternate futures for
Pakistan. The first option allows Pakistan to continue its nuclear competition
with India, matching it weapon by weapon, tank by tank, missile by missile.
This would require huge economic resources that Pakistan lacks. The second
alternate nuclear future is that Pakistan de-links its nuclear requirements and
capabilities from competing with India. Dalton-Krepon suggest that Pakistan
should take pride in its accomplishment of achieving strategic deterrence which
means retaining the good old formulation of ‘credible minimum deterrence’ and
refrain from upping it to full-spectrum deterrence along with nuclear
war-fighting capabilities and plans.
Pakistan’s Most Desirable Nuclear Future
The most desirable future scenario would be to see a safe and
secure nuclear Pakistan. This would entail a Pakistan that shouldn’t have to
plead for admission in the Nuclear Suppliers Group; a Pakistan that could
afford all its decisions no longer resting on an action-reaction equation
vis-à-vis India; a Pakistan that is proactive in its engagement with the rest
of the world. Pakistan should rethink the objectives of its nuclear program,
think about the strategic amount of nuclear weapons it needs to be secure, and
then stop at that number. It should work towards making its nuclear arsenal
sustainable and deterrence more credible. Rather than talking about nuclear
mainstreaming and seeking accommodation in the global nuclear order, Pakistan
should think about nuclear sufficiency, nuclear sustainability and
strengthening its deterrence credibility. Pakistan did not come this far
by begging the gate-keepers of the nuclear non-proliferation regime, but by its
own indigenous efforts to achieve nuclear capability. Any civilian nuclear
deal, if offered to Pakistan, by the United States or any NSG country other
than China, will come with conditions that will cripple Pakistan’s nuclear
program. It is not worth pursuing.
The article was
originally published in Foreign Policy Magazine on 17 December 2015.
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