Pakistan and
India Play With Nuclear Fire
By JONATHAN POWER
LONDON--India and Pakistan have had a jolly month playing
with matches. Just to show the world how responsible they
are with their new-found nuclear arsenals they ve traded
fire almost daily over and around the border that separates
the two halves of the disputed state of Kashmir, killing
over 90 soldiers and civilians. Not a bad month s work for
two nations that in their pre-nuclear state twice have been
to war over this idyllic piece of Himalayan real estate.
Both Indian and Pakistani policy makers seem blithely
unaware of the immense self-discipline that kept the U.S.
and the Soviet Union from letting off their missiles in the
days of their nuclear stand-off, aptly named the Cold War.
Fighting of any kind, much less nuclear war, was frozen.
There was never a single Russian or American soldier killed
by the other side.
Just as important was the military self-discipline of
both sides--the absolute, unwavering subservience of the
military to civilian control. India may have that but
Pakistan certainly doesn t. The finger on Pakistan s nuclear
trigger is too intimately related to the supposedly
independent guerrillas who do combat with the Indian army in
Kashmir.
Above all, was the command and control systems of both
superpowers. The technological sophistication necessary to
keep nuclear weapons bolted down and safe from illicit use
was of a very high order. All the indications are that
Pakistan and India have not given enough priority to this
aspect. Nor do they have the real-time intelligence to give
decision makers safe and accurate assessment of what the
other side may be up to. We now know, too, what we didn't
know at the time that, for all the superpowers' safeguards,
there were a number of times when the USSR and the USA came
dangerously close to launching their nuclear weapons through
political miscalculation, accident and, in one very serious
case, military deceit.
India and Pakistan went to war over Kashmir in 1948 and
1965. The events of this year are uncannily following the
exact pattern of 1965. India accuses Pakistan of sending in
irregular soldiers. Pakistan denies this but insists loudly
on a free election in which it knows Kashmir s Moslem
majority would vote to become part of Pakistan. But India
remains adamant that Kashmir belongs to India, threatening
war if Pakistan insists on rocking the status quo.
The original division of British-ruled India into
Moslem-dominated Pakistan and Hindu-dominated India resulted
in appalling carnage and laid the foundations for today s
enmity and mistrust. Western opinion, in as much as it has a
point of view, tends to blame Mohammed Jinnah of the Moslem
League for the break up of a united India--that was the
message, for example, from Richard Attenborough s cinematic
masterpiece, "Gandhi".
But there is another opinion, perhaps even more
persuasive. It is argued by the Indian scholar H.M. Seervai,
whose great work on the subject, published some eight years
ago, shows that the unity of India was not sabotaged by
Jinnah but by Jawaharlal Nehru, independent India s first
prime minister, who repeatedly miscalculated by refusing to
take Jinnah seriously. At one time Jinnah would gladly have
kept India whole as long as Moslem sensibilities were
recognized.
Today India is again on a weak ground. It still denies a
free vote. But Pakistan will not make progress by always
upping the ante and sending in covert forces. Pakistan has
long played with fire but with nuclear weapons out in the
open it is a suicidal game that gives every indication of
ending with mankind s single greatest disaster. This is not
to overstate it.
In 1965 the world was so seized by the Kashmir crisis the
UN Security Council sent secretary-general U Thant to try
and broker a peace. Unsure if he had been successful he
returned to New York to hear that Chinese troops were
reported to be massing on the Indian border in support of
Pakistan.
In the end Soviet prime minister Alexei Kosygin went into
overdrive and engineered a cease-fire and withdrawal of
forces. Where is the secretary-general today? Where are Bill
Clinton and Boris Yeltsin? There are some well-thought out
compromises waiting to be pushed-- one cleverly worked out
by the former Pakistani minister of finance, Mahbub ul Haq,
who died last month. Also there has been the suggestion that
India be granted a permanent seat in the Security Council,
if it would permit a free vote in Kashmir. The world itself
is playing with fire if it leaves these two antagonists a
free hand to work themselves up to the point when their
pride pushes them to devastate a fifth of the planet.
August 12, 1998,
LONDON
Copyright © 1998 By JONATHAN POWER
Note: I can be reached by phone +44 385 351172
and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
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