The celebration of the Youm-e-Takbir in 2022 in Pakistan recalls the history of South Asian nuclearization which was the result of decades-long rivalry between two archrival neighbours, India and Pakistan. The decision for testing nuclear devices and declaring a status of nuclear weapon state internationally was a tough choice for Islamabad in 1998 because the Indian opposition to Pakistan in the regional extra-regional affairs and New Delhi’s historical multileveled conflict with Islamabad were the primary factors convincing the Pakistani government on the detonating of nuclear devices in May 1998. It was the Indian threat which compelled Pakistan to acquire nuclear weapons and declared its quest for counterbalancing New Delhi with full political determination and a strong defence system. The strategic calculations of the Islamabad-based strategic community started thinking about the nuclear option in the 1970s when the Indian intervention in the war of Eastern Pakistan and Indira Gandhi’s decision for conducting peaceful nuclear tests jeopardized Pakistan’s status in its home region. The nuclear capabilities of India, declared by Gandhi’s government, was a shift in Indian strategic thinking which altered the regional security environment of South Asia. The changing attributes of the South Asian regional security environment inflicted a sense of insecurity in Pakistan’s mindset and started pushing Islamabad towards the nuclear domain. Further Indian actions forced the government of Pakistan to conduct nuclear tests as a response to Indian nuclear tests in the Vajpayee government in 1998. The motives of Pakistan for conducting nuclear tests were purely defensive and counterbalancing to the Indian nuclear behaviour which initially transformed its peaceful nuclear program and converted it into military directions. Thus, the nuclearization of South Asia started attracting the proponents of the international nuclear nonproliferation regime toward India and Pakistan. The leading academic circles of the international community also started developing varying viewpoints on the nuclearized version of India-Pakistan hostility and growth under the strategic competition of two neighbouring nuclear powers with decades-long hostile interaction.
Therefore, the contemporary debates on global nuclear politics cannot be separated from South Asia where the strategic competition between India and Pakistan has shifted the entire regional political order under the nuclear shadows. The leaders of India and Pakistan preferred to acquire nuclear weapons with the objective of keeping the regional politics in their own favour. Pakistan’s response to the Indian decision of detonating nuclear devices was a defensive move and an attempt of Pakistani government to keep the South Asian regional balanced and stable. Thus, Pakistan’s quest for achieving nuclear weapon status was a counterbalancing measure of Islamabad, and a step which ensured a regional nuclear deterrence in the hostile South Asian security environment. The establishment of deterrence in the nuclearized subcontinent let both contestants avoid any circumstances of war due to the presence of nuclear weapons. This factor reduced the probability of any major war between New Delhi and Islamabad; the inception of nuclear deterrence made war less likely between New Delhi and Islamabad. Indian ambitions for keeping the region in its favour and Pakistan’s desires for keeping the region balanced and stable were the contesting attributes which were the main reasons for the South Asian nuclear race. The pursuit to meet the strategic requirements of their conventional defensive mechanisms placed the entire South Asian region under the nuclear shadows while degrading the scope of peace and stability in South Asia.
In this way, it is more appropriate to maintain that the nuclearization of the South Asian subcontinent added another chapter in the history of South Asia where the India-Pakistan strategic competition has become a permanent feature of regional politics. The subsequent regional developments in South Asia started undermining the role of nuclear deterrence while challenging the notion of strategic stability. India’s growing antipathy towards Pakistan resulted in various trends of weapon modernization in the territorial and maritime affairs of South Asia. These modernizing trends have further augmented Pakistan’s sense of insecurity; thus, the South Asian regional security environment is the result of Indian regional hegemonic ambitions and its aim of diminishing Pakistan’s role in its domestic region. These attributes of the nuclearized subcontinent have intensified the regional security environment of South Asia. Presently, the negative impacts of the Indian regional dominating role are persistently jeopardizing the vision of peace and stability under the nuclear shadows. The ever-growing Indian weapon capabilities are the fundamental factor complicating the South Asian regional security environment.
Thus, the year 2022 has completed twenty-four years of South Asian nuclear deterrence but it leaves negative impacts on the deterrence stability. The threats to the deterrence stability are attached to the terms of crisis stability between India and Pakistan. Therefore, it is difficult to say that the South Asian regional security environment is approaching a stable security regional apparatus. The reason behind this awful picture of nuclearized subcontinent is New Delhi’s offensive regional policy and belligerent interaction with the territorially adjoining nations.
