GHAURI & THE REGIONAL SECURITY MILIEU

REDEFINING THE ROUTE TO SOUTH ASIAN CO-OPERATION

Columnist Dr SHIREEN M MAZARI examines the various options before the regional countries in the light of new development

The first round of talks was followed by India's overt deployment of Prithvi and the Indian MiG incursion into Pakistani territory. Yet Pakistan continued the dialogue and India continued with her belligerency - as well as reneging on agreements reached at the second round of bilateral talks in Islamabad. Then came the BJP's Hindu fundamentalist electoral manifesto, including a commitment to make India overtly a nuclear weapon state. Pakistan continued with its peace-through-dialogue stance, but by the time the BJP formed the new Indian government, it was clear that this approach of Pakistan's was not working - since there was no reciprocity from the Indians. Through it all, the Indian army continued its action in Occupied Kashmir, unabated and unhindered by any human and moral considerations. Worse still, the West, including the USA, seemed to acquiesce comfortably to India's increasingly overt pursuance of its missile and nuclear programmes.

So finally, what the Pakistanis should have done a while back, they did - they successfully test-fired their medium range missile. Militarily the missile fills a much-needed state-of-the-art technological gap in Pakistan's weapons' systems. This vacuum had been aggravated with the continuing refusal of the US to allow sale of modern weapon systems to Pakistan. The Pakistani air chief's public lament at the state of affairs in the Pakistan Air Force's weaponry showed the acute level of the problem - especially with the US unwilling to resolve the F-16 issue.

Of course, the Ghauri does not alter the Pak-India military balance in Pakistan's favour - that has never been the need. What it does do is to rectify the preponderant imbalance in India's favour. Thus it creates a stable deterrence in the subcontinent. This stability becomes further reinforced when seen in nuclear terms - for both Pakistan and India's missiles only make sense within a nuclear mode. Ghauri redressed the imbalance caused especially by the development and deployment of Prithvi. And it is Prithvi that is Pakistan's concern - since the range of the Agni is far beyond Pakistan! The Indian defence minister was quite right to assert that Ghauri is no threat as such to India because the Prithvi can reach all parts of Pakistan. But with Ghauri Pakistan cannot be held to ransom by Prithvi now.

However, the real impact of Ghauri goes beyond purely military dimension within the South Asian security miliue. To begin with, the test-firing of Ghauri is the first substantive and overt step taken by Pakistan in terms of its security. For too long Pakistan has dithered on what was termed 'nuclear ambivalence'. Yet, despite this nuclear ambivalence, Pakistan was continuously penalised as a nuclear weapon state and the ambivalent posture lost its utility a long time back. But for some reason no government in the country was willing to assert its right to bolster the country's defences despite India's ever-growing missile programme. The result was a badly weakened defence and a military imbalance in relation to India. So the covert nuclear deterrence was losing its stability, because at the very least deterrence and the threat behind it has to be conveyed as clearly as possible. Ghauri re-establishes the stability of a mutual nuclear deterrence in South Asia.

Even more important, contrary to the Western claims that Ghauri will accelerate the missile race in the subcontinent, Ghauri will in fact help to contain that race at a stable level. How? Because earlier India was able to continue its missile development unchecked by any counter development by Pakistan. Now, with the Ghauri success, Pakistan can draw India to the negotiating table to mutually agree on limited deployments of missiles and also limiting the number of warheads and so on - what is known as number-crunching. This could not be done till Pakistan had something to offer in terms of negotiations - now Pakistan does. So the missile 'race', even if it remains a race will now be a stable race. However, if the leaders in the two countries can develop a sense of history and foresight, then they can evolve a minimal nuclear deterrence for South Asia and extricate themselves from costly and runaway arms races. But one missing link for this is the mutual overt acceptance of each other's nuclear weapon status. And if this acknowledgement is done mutually, the pressure from outside will be less effective. So, in many ways, Ghauri may well push the dialogue process further and in a more meaningful manner. The Pakistani leadership can be seen to be pursuing dialogue not in desperation and from a position of weakness, but as a matter of choice and from a stable, balanced position. This perception was becoming critical in terms of the domestic polity also. Now Pakistan can show that a strong defence and dialogue are complementary. It is up to India to respond in kind. If all the Indian bellicosity of 1997 failed to deter Pakistan from pursuing the dialogue option, the test-fire of Ghauri should in no way hinder India from pursuing such an option - which Pakistan continues to offer.

Where to go from here?

Given the nature of the conflicts between Pakistan and India, as well as the geopolitical reality of the region, what is needed is to stabilise this conflictual relationship. In other words, to accept that the two states will be in conflict/competition and to evolve a co-operative mode which recognises this factor. Hence the economic route to co-operation is unrealistic and unfeasible - subject as it is to the overriding politico-strategic imperatives.

Instead, the security route to co-operation is more rational - as well as more likely to lead to eventual conflict resolution. The example of the European Community (EC) is often cited as an example that South Asia could emulate. And it is a viable example if one studies the factors that led to what the EC is today. It must be remembered that the origins of the EC, lying in the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), were initially primarily political. The main rationale was to eliminate the historic threat to Europe from Germany and to end the Franco-German rivalry by integrating the strategic sectors of the two communities - coal and steel - and thereby to avoid a repeat of the two World Wars. It was only when the issue of the disputed Saar region had been settled through a plebiscite, in which the people opted to go with Germany, that European integration really began to take shape. So it was the security route that finally led to the economic integration of Europe, and in the early years political factors dominated European economic decision-making, including the question of British entry into the Common Market, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and of course the Turkish membership of the European Community - an issue that continues to be politically motivated.

Coming back to South Asia, the security route becomes more critical because presently the nuclear factor and now missiles are a source of stability within the region. The covert nuclear deterrent is already a factor which has stabilised conflict in South Asia, and this could be further strengthened if it was reinforced mutually between Pakistan and India. Also, the successful test-firing of Ghauri means that Pakistan can now offer proposals to India for establishing a stable missile presence in South Asia - involving mutual limitations on the deployments of Prithvi and Ghauri and limitations on warhead development.

So how does one go about the security route to co-operation?

First, Pakistan and India must acknowledge each other's nuclear weapons capability overtly. The ambiguity that has surrounded the nuclear deterrence in South Asia makes this deterrence unstable, for one of the basic requirements of deterrence is that the threat must be conveyed as clearly as possible. This can only be done if both sides first accept the ground realities of each other's nuclear capability.

Second, following this, both sides need to move towards stabilising that nuclear deterrence efficiently and at minimal cost - hence the need to establish a mutual, minimal nuclear deterrence. This requires number-crunching and Confidence and Security Building Measures (C & SBMs). Already most of the C & SBMs existing between Pakistan and India are primarily aimed at defusing tensions, albeit temporarily.

But, of course, even within the East-West context, from where they originated in the post-45 international system, CBMs really became effective only when core conflictual issues had been resolved and military parity had assured an effective deterrence in the US-Soviet equation: That is, in the post-Cuban Missile crisis era which signalled the end of the Cold War and the beginnings of detente.

Third, an overt nuclear deterrence will allow Pakistan to cut down on conventional defence spending - this is of vital interest to Pakistan. A beginning can be made on the CFE Treaty, that is the 1990 Paris Treaty on conventional force reduction in Europe. The logic of that treaty is equally applicable here, that is to reduce the chances of surprise attacks and stabilise the military balance, rather than eliminating military force per se from the region.

Actual measures Pakistan and India should take:

- Limitations placed on missile deployments and warheads.

- Limitations on offensive weapon systems, curtailment of forward build-up of military cantonments and airfields. None of these measures would deprive India or Pakistan of deterrence or defence capability. While Pakistan has around 8 or so forward airfields, India has over 15 forward and 16 medium-range airfields. Apart from these, it has only 9-10 remaining military fields in the rear. Given the range of India's military aircraft and the Prithvi, closing some of these forward airfields would be primarily a CBM.

- Thinning of Troops deployed along the borders.

- Focus on limitations on armoured and mechanised formations - both sides need to reduce their conventional offensive manoeuvre capabilities. India's rationale of the threats from other neighbours like China or even Bangladesh does not hold within this context, since the armoured and mechanised formations are really only suitable, terrain-wise, against Pakistan.

- Reduction in naval build-ups.

- Move towards prohibiting the induction of the latest technologies and weapons into their conventional forces. The underlying mutual minimal nuclear deterrence would lessen the need for this.

Fourth, with the eventual recognition and acceptance of each other's nuclear weapons capability, co-operation in the nuclear field can also take place between Pakistan and India - especially in terms of multilateral nuclear fuel centres, where technology can be jointly controlled. Examples of such centres exist in Europe already. Given the problem both countries face in terms of conventional power generation, including the costs, nuclear power can become a viable alternative. Here the security route can eventually lead to direct economic benefits.

Fifth, Pakistan must move towards evolving the modalities of a Non-Aggression Pact - either at the bilateral level or the SAARC multilateral level. Such a pact differs from a no-war pact and does not deny the use of the military option in self-defence - it only denies parties the option of aggressing against other parties to the pact.

In addition what does such a pact imply?

a) It calls on both sides to commit not to aggress against each other within a military framework. This implies that both India and Pakistan cannot simply intensify exchanges along the LoC into an all-our war against their international borders. A non-aggression pact will further build on the confidence-and security-building measures (C & SBMs) involving the hot-line, communication facilities between commanders on both sides of the LoC and other such measures - some of which are already in place but not adhered to strictly.

b) In the long term, if such a pact is signed, it demands a removal or limitation on deployment of aggressive weapon systems aimed at each other. And this is where the pact becomes significant for Pakistan, because ballistic missiles are classified as offensive weapon systems.

c) Perhaps most importantly, a non-aggression pact does not deny either side a mutual minimal nuclear deterrence. If anything, it allows such a mutual deterrence to be the mainstay of such a pact, because it denies either side the mad race towards ever-spiralling weapons' acquisition. Given that nuclear weapons are here to stay in South Asia - as long as India has regional and global power ambitions and China retains her nuclear option, and Pakistan has limited conventional resources - a non-aggression pact offers a stable strategic nuclear environment to Pakistan and India.

d) It could also lead to the creation of a SAARC peacekeeping initiative to ensure the implementation of the non-aggression pact. Such an initiative would also deny states like India the chance to use the peacekeeping cover to intervene militarily in neighbouring states like Sri Lanka.

Sixth, with the successful testing of the Ghauri missile, Pakistan and India can both become party to the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). Especially for Pakistan this would allay fears that Pakistan would supply missile technology to other Muslim states. The MTCR is basically a Suppliers Club and places no restrictions on member states developing their own missile systems.

All the above measures deal with the reality of the Pakistan-India situation on the ground - with neither state having to renounce its defence capability even as mutual deterrence is strengthened. Until such times as the conflicts are resolved at least the two states will be refraining themselves from unrestrained and destabilising arms races - and will have moved from a cold war, unstable relationship to a more stable, detente framework of interaction.

In other words, the security route to co-operation seeks to work within the existing conflictual Pakistan-India relationship - but tries to stabilise this conflictual relationship. Once such a stable structure is established the chances of long-term economic co-operation become more feasible also - as does the potential for people-to-people contact and so on. Till then, all other issue areas remain subject to the politico-strategic disunity that prevails in the region as a result of unresolved conflicts and a basic competitiveness that will always underlie the Pakistan-India interaction, given the geopolitical realities of the region and Indian ambitions.