HVK Archives: Ambiguity as an incredible nuclear theology
Ambiguity as an incredible nuclear theology - The Pioneer
Raja Menon
()
4 August 1996
Title : Ambiguity as an incredible nuclear theology
Author : Raja Menon
Publication : The Pioneer
Date : August 4, 1996
After a decade by India watchers to identify the
institutions responsible for making nuclear weapon
policy, there was a recent admission in the newspapers
for the first time that the country was not going to sign
the CTBT in its present form because the Chiefs of Staff
Committee (among others) had advised against it. This is
indeed a small step forward since the Chiefs of Staff
Committee were never consulted when India first proposed
nuclear disarmament four decades ago. The committee was
also not consulted prior to the Pokharan blast, and the
committee was ignorant of the official government stand
in the months leading upto the NPT fiasco. It is of
course possible that the refusal to sign the CTBT was so
serious a matter that the faceless organizations which
had so far bungled strategic decision making, now needed
a high level excuse for taking a step which could
boomerang economically. Hence the reference to the
Chiefs of Staff Committee among others so that the
adverse fallout, if any, could be shared by more
institutions.
During the run-up to the, NPT and the more recent CTBT,
it was interesting to see how comprehensive was the view
that the nuclear bomb was a foreign policy option, and
not a weapon. The uncharitable said that this was
primarily because the subject was being discussed by the
Government in an MEA file. Surely if it was a weapon it
would be discussed in an MOD file'? The arguments for
signing it varied from the need to be constant to our
earlier stand proposing such a treaty forty years ago, to
our responsibility to contribute to "world peace". It is
interesting to look at the various arms of the
government and see who is responsible for what in solving
a national security problem. The finance and commerce
people are keen to, or should be keen to advance the
country economically, and if the major trading nations
are going to restrict trade to India because of Delhi's
stand on the bomb, they would rather we didn't make it.
But there is a long way to travel between the major
trading governments doing something, and their own
multinationals permitting it to be done. If the
Government could do all that is patently obvious for the
overall economic advancement of their people the Indian
government would long ago have disinvested sick PSUs,
scrapped the state electricity boards, abolished the CPWD
and axed the bureaucracy. The Americans in pursuit of
world peace would stop trading with communist China and
fundamentalism funding Saudi Arabia. Since none of this
happens, it is more than likely that if we were to make a
credible nuclear deterrent, half of Silicon valley would
be in Delhi helping us to do so, and make a couple of
bucks in the meanwhile.
Another arm of the government, the External Affairs
ministry, it is clear, does not want to be bullied over
signing the CTBT, because it simply doesn't want to be
bullied on anything. It would be naive to assume that
the MEA actually has a vision of a nuclear armed India,
with a specific level of deterrence, so that
hence forward, Indian diplomats, when they speak will do
so as representatives of a nuclear power. Of all the
MEAs, our own one perhaps understands power the least,
not for any fault of its own. The senior officials grew
up in Nehru's time when power was eschewed as a factor in
foreign policy motivation. Instead we occupied the moral
high ground, irritating everyone else and for at least
the last twelve years the author is aware, the MEA has
resisted getting into a dialogue with the armed forces to
coordinate defence and diplomacy. So it is unlikely that
the MEA understands the nuances of nuclear theology, or
that they wish to resist the CTBT from an intellectual
view-point.
The Defence Minister is quite something else. As a
newspaper columnist recently said, why should the General
and Admirals complain about the present Minister? After
all, he can stand straight and salute. Perhaps, that is
being unkind to the minister, for a previous incumbent
who also was a wrestler, from Maharashtra, turned out to
be one of the most successful defence minister of all
time. So grassroots ministers have to be brought up to
standard by "experts". A commodity not easily found in
the MOD which could consist of bureaucrats with diverse
backgrounds like agriculture, power distribution, cottage
industry and the like. This is where the Chiefs of Staff
Committee should come in - but do they? Ever since the
arguments on the NPT began, some things have become
clear. The sheer inability of the PM's Office, which
apparently handles the matter, to make up its mind on
stating India's nuclear policy has been so long standing
that foreign observers have convinced themselves that
surely no government can be so incompetent. Therefore,
they concluded, Delhi actually had a devious oriental
game plan which was a new variant of the established
principles of western nuclear theology. This they
christened nuclear ambiguity, a brilliant South Asian
invention, where a nation transits from 'No Bomb' to
'Full Deterrence' in a matter of days. New Delhi now
heaved a sigh of relief. Academics who needed government
support jumped on the ambiguity wagon and named it a few
other fine sounding names. Delhi at last had a
'strategy'. But what of the Chiefs of Staff Committee?
Some merely sulked in the corner, others were too
embarrassed to say that they had not been consulted and
knew nothing about the country's ambiguous capability. A
few stood up and stated unequivocally that whatever the
scientists and bureaucrats may dream up, the country had
no nuclear capability,and were certainly nowhere near
achieving deterrence. In any case, whether deterrence
was achieved or not, it would have been more relevant to
ask Islamabad or Beijing. Neither capital has acted in
any manner as to indicate their belief in a credible
Indian deterrence. The unfortunate aspect of all this is
that if there is a hardheaded professional body in the
country, it is the Chiefs of Staff Committee.
Individually they have reached the top of their
proffession - their advisers are the best the services
have to offer. The decisions they take pertain to the
clash of wills, weapons and men. To have stood by and
permitted the government to adopt a policy of nuclear
ambiguity meant a betrayal of all the principles of
warfare on which they had been brought up. Nuclear
warfare requires nuclear deterrence or nothing.
Deterrence must include an inventory of warheads and
delivery systems that caters for operational losses,
mission failures and pre-emptive strike. Above all, the
capability must be advertised, because nuclear weapons
are not a secret weapon whose use is clearly premeditated
to achieving victory on the battlefield. Its power must
be visible enough in peacetime for it never to be used.
Knowing all this, what has the committee actually done?
It acquiesced in the induction of the Prithvi as part of
the 'ambiguity' programme, knowing full well that the
1974 nuclear test is insufficient to confer on the
Prithvi, a credible nuclear warhead. This professional
body joined the dreamers and non professionals of the PMO
in converting what is actually a national security issue
into a foreign policy issue.
Admittedly, much of the drift and blundering took place
when there was no full time Minister of Defence, other
than the PM himself. The Minister of State of Defence
was a notorious light weight who could only be entrusted
with laying foundation stones and cutting ribbons. So if
the committee lacked a spokesman in the Cabinet, this is
understandable, but the blunders were not part of the
cabinet's work - it entirely originated in the PMO.
What should the Chiefs of Staff do when the armed forces
of India operate outside the government, unlike anyone
else in the world? To wait upon constitutional propriety
until the politicians see the light and voluntarily call
the chiefs of staff into the government is to presume the
absurd. The politician is a self made creation, a man
far bolder than any entrepreneur, who risks everything on
the elections to win or lose all. To him a man who waits
on the sidelines to be called to be given his due, is a
man to be left in the sidelines. The chiefs of staff are
today effectively isolated from the levels of decision
making by self-serving bureaucrats.
The parliamentary estimates committee who objected to the
functioning of the MOD for three years running, then
called for testimony, at which, only the MOD gave
testimony, on its own behalf! Naturally the services
wonder, how a committee that includes the most powerful
man in India can be given such a run around.
Back
Top
|
