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June 10, 2002, U.S.
Edition
In Praise of
Nukes (Gulp)
Contrary
to media hysteria, nuclear weapons have actually had a sobering effect
on India and Pakistan. But that can't last forever.
By
Fareed Zakaria
Relax. There won't be a nuclear war on the Indian Subcontinent. At least not this month. Frustrated though it is, India will be deterred from launching a military offensive by two things--nuclear weapons and American soldiers. Contrary to much of the media hysteria, nuclear weapons have actually had a sobering effect on both India and Pakistan. In the first 30 years of their independence (pre-nukes) they fought three wars; in the second 30 (post-nukes) they have fought none. To put it another way, if neither side had nuclear weapons, they would be at war right now. Nuclear deterrence is not pretty--remember the Cuban missile crisis--but it usually works.
Second, India knows it wouldn't be easy to fight now because many of Pakistan's prime targets--its air bases, for example--are swarming with American troops. For its part, Washington has a huge incentive to put out the flames. If there is a war, its operation against Al Qaeda will collapse as Pakistan's troops abandon the Afghan border to fight Indian forces.
There's a final reason why India won't go to war. Its current strategy is working. What you have been watching for the last three weeks might look like a frenzied move toward war. In fact it is a well-thought-out attempt by India to end Pakistan's support for terrorism in Kashmir. New Delhi has decided that in order to get Pakistan's--and Washington's--attention, it has to make threats that are utterly believable. As one of India's best columnists, Shekhar Gupta, wrote last week, "To be convincing to others [the strategy] had to be so real that even we believe that we are heading for war."
Washington has moved fast, bearing down on President Musharraf to halt the terrorist traffic into Kashmir. This week's trips by Richard Armitage and Donald Rumsfeld will emphasize that message. But then what? Having solved this month's crisis, Washington and the world will breathe a sigh of relief and go home--and there lies the danger. Both India and Pakistan are reaching a point of no return on Kashmir. Kicking the can down the road will only ensure another crisis later. And that one will not be so easily defused.
The most likely scenario is that Pakistan, under pressure, will put a stop to terrorist crossings for a couple of months--as it did after the last blowup in January--but then allow them to slowly resume. When, inevitably, another major terrorist attack takes place in Kashmir, India will face its own crisis of credibility. It has made too many threats over the last six months to stay quiet. Musharraf has also made his own threats to "give a fitting reply" to any Indian attack, making clear that if India launches a limited operation--say only into Pakistan-occupied Kashmir--he will not keep his response limited to that area but might go into Indian territory. The war on the ground has been low-level; the war of words is already nuclear.
Neither side wants war. Their threats are really deterrents. But as the arms-control scholar Thomas Schelling once noted, two things are very expensive in international life: promises when they succeed and threats when they fail. There is a real danger that by ratcheting up the rhetoric, each side will have to act if those threats fail. Will nuclear deterrence work time after time? If the United States and the Soviet Union had had a Cuban missile crisis every three months, at some point they could have gotten unlucky.
There is no permanent solution to the Kashmir problem, at least none in sight. But there is a solution to the current crisis. Pakistan must end its support for cross-border terrorism. It could support the Kashmiri groups who rebel against India politically and diplomatically. But it must end its 13-year policy of bleeding India through state-sponsored terrorism. More than anything else, a shift in this policy would move the region off the eternal brink of war.
For Musharraf, this means new risks. Ending Pakistan's support for the Taliban and confronting Islamic militants at home was easier; he had the vast majority of Pakistan on his side. But Kashmir is a cause with which every Pakistani identifies. If Musharraf is going to back down on it, he will need something in return.
Enter Washington. The United States should keep pressing Musharraf relentlessly but also make clear that if he does abandon terrorism permanently, Pakistan will reap rewards. Politically that means helping to restart talks between India and Pakistan on Kashmir. (It is even conceivable that New Delhi would agree to some quiet American mediation, one of Pakistan's long-standing hopes.) Economically it would mean aid, trade and a permanent push from Washington to help Pakistan emerge as a modern, moderate Muslim nation.
In other words, the best outcome for South Asia would be if India's threats against Pakistan succeed--and so do Washington's promises.