A Nuclear Armageddon in the Making in

South Asia
Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com
Undoubtedly, for nearly two decades, the most dangerous place on Earth has been the
Indian-Pakistani border in Kashmir. Its possible that a small spark from artillery and
rocket exchanges across that border might given the known military doctrines of the
two nuclear-armed neighbors lead inexorably to an all-out nuclear conflagration. In
that case the result would be catastrophic. Besides causing the deaths of millions of
Indians and Pakistanis, such a war might bring on nuclear winter on a planetary scale,
leading to levels of suffering and death that would be beyond our comprehension.
Alarmingly, the nuclear competition between India and Pakistan has now entered a
spine-chilling phase. That danger stems from Islamabads decision to deploy low-yield
tactical nuclear arms at its forward operating military bases along its entire frontier with
India to deter possible aggression by tank-led invading forces. Most ominously, the
decision to fire such a nuclear-armed missile with a range of 35 to 60 miles is to rest
with local commanders. This is a perilous departure from the universal practice of
investing such authority in the highest official of the nation. Such a situation has no
parallel in the Washington-Moscow nuclear arms race of the Cold War era.
When it comes to Pakistans strategic nuclear weapons, their parts are stored in
different locations to be assembled only upon an order from the countrys leader. By
contrast, tactical nukes are pre-assembled at a nuclear facility and shipped to a forward
base for instant use. In addition to the perils inherent in this policy, such weapons would
be vulnerable to misuse by a rogue base commander or theft by one of the many
militant groups in the country.
In the nuclear standoff between the two neighbors, the stakes are constantly rising as
Aizaz Chaudhry, the highest bureaucrat in Pakistans foreign ministry, recently made
clear. The deployment of tactical nukes, he explained, was meant to act as a form of
deterrence, given Indias Cold Start military doctrine a reputed contingency plan
aimed at punishing Pakistan in a major way for any unacceptable provocations like a
mass-casualty terrorist strike against India.
New Delhi refuses to acknowledge the existence of Cold Start. Its denials are hollow. As
early as 2004, it was discussing this doctrine, which involved the formation of eight

division-size Integrated Battle Groups (IBGs). These were to consist of infantry, artillery,
armor, and air support, and each would be able to operate independently on the
battlefield. In the case of major terrorist attacks by any Pakistan-based group, these
IBGs would evidently respond by rapidly penetrating Pakistani territory at unexpected
points along the border and advancing no more than 30 miles inland, disrupting military
command and control networks while endeavoring to stay away from locations likely to
trigger nuclear retaliation. In other words, India has long been planning to respond to
major terror attacks with a swift and devastating conventional military action that would
inflict only limited damage and so in a best-case scenario deny Pakistan
justification for a nuclear response.
Islamabad, in turn, has been planning ways to deter the Indians from implementing a
Cold-Start-style blitzkrieg on their territory. After much internal debate, its top officials
opted for tactical nukes. In 2011, the Pakistanis tested one successfully. Since then,
according to Rajesh Rajagopalan, the New Delhi-based co-author of Nuclear South
Asia: Keywords and Concepts, Pakistan seems to have been assembling four to five of
these annually.
All of this has been happening in the context of populations that view each other
unfavorably. A typical survey in this period by the Pew Research Center found that 72%
of Pakistanis had an unfavorable view of India, with 57% considering it as a serious
threat, while on the other side 59% of Indians saw Pakistan in an unfavorable light.
This is the background against which Indian leaders have said that a tactical nuclear
attack on their forces, even on Pakistani territory, would be treated as a full-scale
nuclear attack on India, and that they reserved the right to respond accordingly. Since
India does not have tactical nukes, it could only retaliate with far more devastating
strategic nuclear arms, possibly targeting Pakistani cities.
According to a 2002 estimate by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), a worstcase scenario in an Indo-Pakistani nuclear war could result in eight to 12 million
fatalities initially, followed by many millions later from radiation poisoning. More recent
studies have shown that up to a billion people worldwide might be put in danger of
famine and starvation by the smoke and soot thrown into the troposphere in a major
nuclear exchange in South Asia. The resulting nuclear winter and ensuing crop loss
would functionally add up to a slowly developing global nuclear holocaust.
Last November, to reduce the chances of such a catastrophic exchange happening,
senior Obama administration officials met in Washington with Pakistans army chief,
General Raheel Sharif, the final arbiter of that countrys national security policies, and

urged him to stop the production of tactical nuclear arms. In return, they offered a
pledge to end Islamabads pariah status in the nuclear field by supporting its entry into
the 48-member Nuclear Suppliers Group to which India already belongs. Although no
formal communiqu was issued after Sharifs trip, it became widely known that he had
rejected the offer.
This failure was implicit in the testimony that DIA Director Lieutenant General Vincent
Stewart gave to the Armed Services Committee this February. Pakistans nuclear
weapons continue to grow, he said. We are concerned that this growth, as well as the
evolving doctrine associated with tactical [nuclear] weapons, increases the risk of an
incident or accident.
Strategic Nuclear Warheads
Since that DIA estimate of human fatalities in a South Asian nuclear war, the strategic
nuclear arsenals of India and Pakistan have continued to grow. In January 2016,
according to a U.S. congressional report, Pakistans arsenal probably consisted of 110
to 130 nuclear warheads. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute, India has 90 to 110 of these. (China, the other regional actor, has
approximately 260 warheads.)
As the 1990s ended, with both India and Pakistan testing their new weaponry, their
governments made public their nuclear doctrines. The National Security Advisory Board
on Indian Nuclear Doctrine, for example, stated in August 1999 that India will not be the
first to initiate a nuclear strike, but will respond with punitive retaliation should deterrence
fail. Indias foreign minister explained at the time that the minimum credible deterrence
mentioned in the doctrine was a question of adequacy, not numbers of warheads. In
subsequent years, however, that yardstick of minimum credible deterrence has been
regularly recalibrated as Indias policymakers went on to commit themselves to upgrade
the countrys nuclear arms program with a new generation of more powerful hydrogen
bombs designed to be city-busters.
In Pakistan in February 2000, President General Pervez Musharraf, who was also the
army chief, established the Strategic Plan Division in the National Command Authority,
appointing Lieutenant General Khalid Kidwai as its director general. In October 2001,
Kidwai offered an outline of the countrys updated nuclear doctrine in relation to its far
more militarily and economically powerful neighbor, saying, It is well known that
Pakistan does not have a no-first-use policy. He then laid out the thresholds for the
use of nukes. The countrys nuclear weapons, he pointed out, were aimed solely at
India and would be available for use not just in response to a nuclear attack from that

country, but should it conquer a large part of Pakistans territory (the space threshold),
or destroy a significant part of its land or air forces (the military threshold), or start to
strangle Pakistan economically (the economic threshold), or politically destabilize the
country through large-scale internal subversion (the domestic destabilization threshold).
Of these, the space threshold was the most likely trigger. New Delhi as well as
Washington speculated as to where the red line for this threshold might lie, though there
was no unanimity among defense experts. Many surmised that it would be the
impending loss of Lahore, the capital of Punjab, only 15 miles from the Indian border.
Others put the red line at Pakistans sprawling Indus River basin.
Within seven months of this debate, Indian-Pakistani tensions escalated steeply in the
wake of an attack on an Indian military base in Kashmir by Pakistani terrorists in May
2002. At that time, Musharraf reiterated that he would not renounce his countrys right to
use nuclear weapons first. The prospect of New Delhi being hit by an atom bomb
became so plausible that U.S. Ambassador Robert Blackwill investigated building a
hardened bunker in the Embassy compound to survive a nuclear strike. Only when he
and his staff realized that those in the bunker would be killed by the aftereffects of the
nuclear blast did they abandon the idea.
Unsurprisingly, the leaders of the two countries found themselves staring into the
nuclear abyss because of a violent act in Kashmir, a disputed territory which had led to
three conventional wars between the South Asian neighbors since 1947, the founding
year of an independent India and Pakistan. As a result of the first of these in 1947 and
1948, India acquired about half of Kashmir, with Pakistan getting a third, and the rest
occupied later by China.
Kashmir, the Root Cause of Enduring Enmity
The Kashmir dispute dates back to the time when the British-ruled Indian subcontinent
was divided into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan, and indirectly ruled
princely states were given the option of joining either one. In October 1947, the Hindu
maharaja of Muslim-majority Kashmir signed an instrument of accession with India
after Muslim tribal raiders from Pakistan invaded his realm. The speedy arrival of Indian
troops deprived the invaders of the capital city, Srinagar. Later, they battled regular
Pakistani troops until a United Nations-brokered ceasefire on January 1, 1949. The
accession document required that Kashmiris be given an opportunity to choose between
India and Pakistan once peace was restored. This has not happened yet, and there is
no credible prospect of it taking place.

Fearing a defeat in such a plebiscite, given the pro-Pakistani sentiments prevalent

among the territorys majority Muslims, India found several ways of blocking U.N.
attempts to hold one. New Delhi then conferred a special status on the part of Kashmir it
controlled and held elections for its legislature, while Pakistan watched with trepidation.
In September 1965, when its verbal protests proved futile, Pakistan attempted to change
the status quo through military force. It launched a war that once again ended in
stalemate and another U.N.-sponsored truce, which required the warring parties to
return to the 1949 ceasefire line.
A third armed conflict between the two neighbors followed in December 1971, resulting
in Pakistans loss of its eastern wing, which became an independent Bangladesh. Soon
after, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi tried to convince Pakistani President Zulfikar
Ali Bhutto to agree to transform the 460-mile-long ceasefire line in Kashmir (renamed
the Line of Control) into an international border. Unwilling to give up his countrys
demand for a plebiscite in all of pre-1947 Kashmir, Bhutto refused. So the stalemate
continued.
During the military rule of General Zia al Haq (1977-1988), Pakistan initiated a policy of
bleeding India with a thousand cuts by sponsoring terrorist actions both inside Indian
Kashmir and elsewhere in the country. Delhi responded by bolstering its military
presence in Kashmir and brutally repressing those of its inhabitants demanding a
plebiscite or advocating separation from India, committing in the process large-scale
human rights violations.
In order to stop infiltration by militants from Pakistani Kashmir, India built a double
barrier of fencing 12-feet high with the space between planted with hundreds of land
mines. Later, that barrier would be equipped as well with thermal imaging devices and
motion sensors to help detect infiltrators. By the late 1990s, on one side of the Line of
Control were 400,000 Indian soldiers and on the other 300,000 Pakistani troops. No
wonder President Bill Clinton called that border the most dangerous place in the
world. Today, with the addition of tactical nuclear weapons to the mix, it is far more so.
Kashmir, the Toxic Bone of Contention
Even before Pakistans introduction of tactical nukes, tensions between the two
neighbors were perilously high. Then suddenly, at the end of 2015, a flicker of a chance
for the normalization of relations appeared. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a
cordial meeting with his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, on the latters birthday,
December 25th, in Lahore. But that hope was dashed when, in the early hours of

January 2nd, four heavily armed Pakistani terrorists managed to cross the international
border in Punjab, wearing Indian Army fatigues, and attacked an air force base in
Pathankot. A daylong gun battle followed. By the time order was restored on January
5th, all the terrorists were dead, but so were seven Indian security personnel and one
civilian. The United Jihad Council, an umbrella organization of separatist militant groups
in Kashmir, claimed credit for the attack. The Indian government, however, insisted that
the operation had been masterminded by Masood Azhar, leader of the Pakistan-based
Jaish-e Muhammad (Army of Muhammad).
As before, Kashmir was the motivating drive for the anti-India militants. Mercifully, the
attack in Pathankot turned out to be a minor event, insufficient to heighten the prospect
of war, though it dissipated any goodwill generated by the Modi-Sharif meeting.
There is little doubt, however, that a repeat of the atrocity committed by Pakistani
infiltrators in Mumbai in November 2008, leading to the death of 166 people and the
burning of that citys landmark Taj Mahal Hotel, could have consequences that would be
dire indeed. The Indian doctrine calling for massive retaliation in response to a
successful terrorist strike on that scale could mean the almost instantaneous
implementation of its Cold Start strategy. That, in turn, would likely lead to Pakistans
use of tactical nuclear weapons, thus opening up the real possibility of a full-blown
nuclear holocaust with global consequences.
Beyond the long-running Kashmiri conundrum lies Pakistans primal fear of the much
larger and more powerful India, and its loathing of Indias ambition to become the
hegemonic power in South Asia. Irrespective of party labels, governments in New Delhi
have pursued a muscular path on national security aimed at bolstering the countrys
defense profile.
Overall, Indian leaders are resolved to prove that their country is entering what they
fondly call the age of aspiration. When, in July 2009, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
officially launched a domestically built nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine, the
INS Arihant, it was hailed as a dramatic step in that direction. According to defense
experts, that vessel was the first of its kind not to be built by one of the five recognized
nuclear powers: the United States, Britain, China, France, and Russia.
Indias Two Secret Nuclear Sites
On the nuclear front in India, there was more to come. Last December, an investigation
by the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity revealed that the Indian government
was investing $100 million to build a top secret nuclear city spread over 13 square miles

near the village of Challakere, 160 miles north of the southern city of Mysore. When
completed, possibly as early as 2017, it will be the subcontinents largest military-run
complex of nuclear centrifuges, atomic-research laboratories, and weapons- and
aircraft-testing facilities. Among the projects aims is to expand the governments
nuclear research, to produce fuel for the countrys nuclear reactors, and to help power
its expanding fleet of nuclear submarines. It will be protected by a ring of garrisons,
making the site a virtual military facility.
Another secret project, the Indian Rare Materials Plant, near Mysore is already in
operation. It is a new nuclear enrichment complex that is feeding the countrys nuclear
weapons programs, while laying the foundation for an ambitious project to create an
arsenal of hydrogen (thermonuclear) bombs.
The overarching aim of these projects is to give India an extra stockpile of enriched
uranium fuel that could be used in such future bombs. As a military site, the project at
Challakere will not be open to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency or
by Washington, since Indias 2008 nuclear agreement with the U.S. excludes access to
military-related facilities. These enterprises are directed by the office of the prime
minister, who is charged with overseeing all atomic energy projects. Indias Atomic
Energy Act and its Official Secrets Act place everything connected to the countrys
nuclear program under wraps. In the past, those who tried to obtain a fuller picture of
the Indian arsenal and the facilities that feed it have been bludgeoned to silence.
Little wonder then that a senior White House official was recently quoted as saying,
Even for us, details of the Indian program are always sketchy and hard facts thin on the
ground. He added, Mysore is being constantly monitored, and we are constantly
monitoring progress in Challakere. However, according to Gary Samore, a former
Obama administration coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction,
India intends to build thermonuclear weapons as part of its strategic deterrent against
China. It is unclear, when India will realize this goal of a larger and more powerful
arsenal, but they will.
Once manufactured, there is nothing to stop India from deploying such weapons against
Pakistan. India is now developing very big bombs, hydrogen bombs that are citybusters, said Pervez Hoodbhoy, a leading Pakistani nuclear and national security
analyst. It is not interested in nuclear weapons for use on the battlefield; it is
developing nuclear weapons for eliminating population centers.
In other words, as the Kashmir dispute continues to fester, inducing periodic terrorist
attacks on India and fueling the competition between New Delhi and Islamabad to

outpace each other in the variety and size of their nuclear arsenals, the peril to South
Asia in particular and the world at large only grows.
Dilip Hiro, a TomDispatch regular, is the author, among many other works, of The
Longest August: The Unflinching Rivalry between India and Pakistan (Nation Books).
His 36th and latest book is The Age of Aspiration: Money, Power, and Conflict in
Globalizing India (The New Press).
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch
Book, Nick Turses Tomorrows Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa,
and Tom Engelhardts latest book, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and
a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.