Pakistan’s Tactical Nuclear Warheads and India’s Nuclear Doctrine
In an endeavour to preserve strategic stability, India, a reluctant
nuclear power, has demonstrated immense restraint despite grave
incitement from Pakistan. In stark contrast, ever since it became a
nuclear-armed state, Pakistan’s behaviour has been marked by
brinkmanship, with provocation bordering on actions that could lead to
large-scale conventional conflict with nuclear overtones. Recent
developments in Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal have been of the same
destabilising pattern.
As part of its quest for ‘full spectrum deterrence’, Pakistan has
developed the Hatf-9 (Nasr) short-range ballistic missile (SRBM).
Pakistan claims the Hatf-9 is equipped with a tactical nuclear warhead
(TNW) and is intended for battlefield use as a weapon of warfighting.
The Pakistan Army appears to believe that a few TNWs can stop the
advance of Indian forces across the International Boundary (IB) into
Pakistan. By employing TNWs on the battlefield, the Pakistan Army hopes
to checkmate India’s ‘Proactive Offensive Operations’ doctrine, which
is colloquially called the ‘Cold Start’ doctrine.
This brief analyses the efficacy of TNWs as weapons of
warfighting. It examines the likely impact of its use by Pakistan on
the columns of the Indian Army advancing across the IB and,
consequently, on India’s nuclear doctrine.
Major Shortcomings of TNWs
The term TNW is a misnomer as the employment of nuclear weapons on
the battlefield will have a strategic impact and geo-strategic
repercussions. A more appropriate term for these low-yield short-range
weapons would be ‘nuclear weapons designed for battlefield use’. As a
class of weapons, TNWs are extremely costly and complex to manufacture
and also difficult to transport, store and maintain under field
conditions due to their intricate electronic components. As missiles
capped with TNWs may be required to be fired at short notice, the
nuclear warheads have to be kept in a fully assembled state and ‘mated’
with the missile. Due to the short range of SRBMs – Hatf-9 has a
maximum range of 60 km – the authority to fire has to be delegated at
an early stage in the battle.
These two factors lead to the dilution of centralised control and
create a proclivity to ‘use them or lose them’. TNWs are also
vulnerable to battlefield accidents and are susceptible to unauthorised
use, or what Henry Kissinger had called the ‘Mad Major Syndrome’.
SRBMs are normally dual-use missiles and, as these have to be forward
deployed because of their short range, they are likely to be targeted
during war with conventional missiles, by fighter-ground attack (FGA)
aircraft on search-and-destroy missions and, in the case of Hatf-9, by
long-range artillery. This could lead in rare cases to sympathetic
detonation of a nuclear warhead resulting in unintended consequences,
especially if one-point safety capability is not the norm. Together,
all of these disadvantages lower the threshold of nuclear use and make
TNWs a dangerous class of weapons.
While the Nasr SRBM is technically capable of being capped with a
nuclear warhead, whether this has actually been done is not known in
the public domain. The warhead is likely to be based on a linear
implosion plutonium design and is likely to have been cold tested.
Pakistan’s plutonium stocks are limited. The four Khushab reactors can
together produce plutonium that is sufficient for only 10-12 nuclear
warheads per year. Considering the low level of damage that TNWs cause,
the decision on how much of the plutonium stock should be allocated for
TNWs vis-à-vis strategic warheads would be a difficult one to make.
Hence, it maybe deduced that Pakistan is unlikely to have a large
stockpile of TNWs in its nuclear arsenal.
As evident from the experience of the NATO-Warsaw Pact of the Cold
War, the term ‘limited nuclear exchanges’ is an oxymoron. Nuclear
exchanges cannot be kept limited and are guaranteed to escalate rapidly
to full-fledged nuclear war with strategic warheads designed to
destroy large cities and cause hundreds of thousands of casualties.
Hence, India has very correctly refrained from adding the TNW class of
weapons to its nuclear arsenal. As TNWs lower the nuclear threshold and
are, therefore, inherently destabilising, it is necessary that
international pressure be brought to bear on Pakistan to eliminate
these weapons from its nuclear arsenal.
Strategic Stability
Strategic stability is a product of deterrence stability, crisis
stability and arms race stability in the context of a hostile political
relationship between two nations. In the South Asian context, the
hostile political relationship stems from the unresolved territorial
dispute over Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) with an active Line of Control
(LoC). The state of strategic stability in South Asia has for long
been a cause of concern for the international community. Pakistan’s
proxy war against India is now in its third decade despite several peace
overtures made by India. Waged primarily by Pakistan’s ‘deep state’ –
the Pakistan Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) – through
terrorist organisations like the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Jaish-e
Mohammad (JeM) and the Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), it is showing no signs
of tapering off. In fact, the unrest in Kashmir Valley in the summer of
2016, terrorist strikes at Udhampur, Gurdaspur, Pathankot and Pampore
and the interception of infiltration attempts across the LoC once again
indicate an increase in the intensity of the proxy war.
Despite grave provocation, including the terrorist strikes at
Mumbai in November 2008, India has shown immense strategic restraint
and has limited its counter-insurgency operations on its own side of
the LoC in J&K. Another ‘major’ terrorist strike sponsored by the
Pakistani ‘deep state’– on a sensitive target, causing large-scale
casualties and extensive damage to critical military or civilian
infrastructure –is likely to result in Indian military retaliation
against the Pakistan Army and its organs with a view to raise the cost
of waging a proxy war.
Pakistan’s ‘first use’ doctrine, quest for ‘full spectrum
deterrence’, development of TNWs as weapons of warfighting, army’s
control over nuclear decision making and the risk of nuclear weapons
falling into the hands of the jihadis are all potential threats to
regional stability. Pakistan views India’s ‘Cold Start’ doctrine as
being de-stabilising. Overall, the state of relations between the two
countries may be described as ‘ugly stability’, a term coined by Ashley
Tellis in the mid-1990s. It is at best a tenuous stability that could
evaporate very quickly in the face of a prolonged crisis.
Possibility of Limited War
As per the Indian conventional wisdom, there is space for limited
war below the nuclear threshold. Though Indian military retaliation to a
major terrorist strike would be carefully calibrated to avoid
threatening Pakistan’s nuclear red lines, under certain circumstances
the exchanges could escalate into a war in the plains. For example,
Pakistan may launch pre-emptive offensive operations across the IB,
including strikes on Indian air bases or naval assets. Such a response
from Pakistan will force India to launch counter-offensive operations
with a view to destroying as much as possible of Pakistan’s war waging
capabilities and, in the process, simultaneously capturing a limited
amount of territory as a bargaining counter. The capture of territory
is unlikely to be a primary aim as territories captured across the IB
will have to be returned.
The Pakistan Army seeks to convince India that it has a low
nuclear threshold and that its nuclear red lines are fairly close to
the IB. The proximity of nuclear red lines to the IB would vary from
sector to sector and would be a matter of careful assessment based on
intelligence inputs. In keeping with its behaviour as a responsible
nuclear power, India would like to keep the scale and the intensity of
the conflict low so as not to threaten Pakistan’s nuclear red lines.
However, if Pakistan’s defensive operations do not proceed as planned
and it perceives the ‘space’ red line as threatened at one or more
places, the Pakistan Army may deem it necessary to use TNWs on its own
soil to contest India’s offensive operations, in keeping with its
clearly stated intention to do so.
Pakistani analysts (senior retired armed forces officers as well
as diplomats and academics) appear convinced that no Indian prime
minister will authorise massive retaliation with nuclear weapons if
Pakistan uses ‘a few’ TNWs against Indian forces on its own soil – on
the grounds that such use does not constitute ‘first use’ for India.
Presumably, a similar belief is held by Pakistan’s senior commanders
who are in positions of authority in the nuclear chain of command. Such
a belief, though falsely held, lowers the threshold of use of nuclear
warheads as weapons of warfighting. Also, though such a belief
questions the credibility of India’s doctrine of massive retaliation,
it does not address the issue of the consequences that Pakistan will
suffer in a contingency where the Indian prime minister, heading the
Political Council of the Nuclear Command Authority (NCA), actually
approves massive retaliation. Deterrence is ultimately a mind game.
Efficacy of TNWs as Weapons of Warfighting
Given the low casualty rates and minimal material damage if TNWs are
employed on the battlefield against mechanised forces, the Pakistan
Army’s faith in their ability to bring Indian offensive operations to a
grinding halt is questionable. Simple calculations on the efficacy of
TNWs against a mechanised combat group (roughly comprising an armoured
regiment and a company of mechanised infantry) advancing in desert or
semi-desert terrain are revealing. The combat group (60 armoured
fighting vehicles – AFVs) would normally advance with two combat teams
forward over a frontage of 10-12 km and depth of 8-10 km. In a nuclear,
biological and chemical (NBC) environment, AFVs generally move forward
in buttoned-down condition (cupolas closed, full NBC protection). A
reasonable assumption would be that the civilian population of the
sector in which TNWs are intended to be employed would have been
evacuated.
If a nuclear warhead of 8-10 kt is detonated over a combat group
(low air burst explosion, with the ground zero close to the centre),
the initial casualties would be in the range of 20-30 personnel killed
or wounded and 10-12 AFVs destroyed or damaged. While the leading
combat group would need to regroup (undertake casualty evacuation,
repair and recovery and decontamination), the reserve combat group of
the combat command/ armoured brigade could resume the advance in six to
eight hours. In the case of an Indian bridge head across a water
obstacle being hit, the casualties would be a hundred times greater,
but in a bridge head the adversary’s troops would be in contact with
Indian troops and, hence, a bridge head is a much less likely target.
By employing TNWs against the Indian forces, even if Pakistan does
it on its own soil, the Pakistan Army would have broken the nuclear
taboo without achieving anything substantive by way of influencing the
course of an ongoing military operation. In the process, it would risk
the destruction of its major cities and strategic reserves as well as
nuclear forces should India choose to retaliate massively. The
leadership of the Pakistan Army must also have done these calculations.
Therefore, their advocacy of the Indian disinclination to retaliate
massively in response to their use of TNWs on their own soil indicates
either a flawed analysis or a bluff that the Indian armed forces would
be inclined to call.
Doctrinal Challenges
During a crisis, if deterrence breaks down, the essence of nuclear
strategy would lie in minimising civilian and military casualties and
material damage and preventing escalation, while ensuring the survival
of the state. If Pakistan detonates TNWs on Indian forces on its own
soil, the major options available to India are:
- A massive retaliation to inflict unacceptable damage, in
keeping with India’s stated doctrine. The adoption of this option would
very seriously threaten to cripple Pakistan as a functional nation
state.
- A flexible response (quid pro quo or quid pro quo plus response) in
order to minimise the probability of further nuclear exchanges and
keep the level of casualties and destruction as low as possible. For
example, in retaliation for the use of two 8-10 kt warheads against the
Indian forces on the Pakistani soil, India may employ four or five or
even six nuclear warheads to target Pakistan’s strategic reserves and
nuclear forces, while ensuring that only those forces are attacked
which are well away from civilian population centres.
- Refraining from retaliating with nuclear weapons, but warn Pakistan
of dire consequences if any more nuclear strikes are launched and
increase the scale and the intensity of conventional offensive
operations. (This is the least likely option and is not discussed
further.)
Once deterrence breaks down, a publicly declared doctrine
becomes irrelevant. In such a scenario, the political council of the
NCA will have to decide as to how to retaliate based on the advice
given by the executive council, of which the three services chiefs are
members. The method and the mode of retaliation will be based on the
prevailing operational-strategic situation and the likely reactions of
the Pakistani armed forces, especially the probability of further
nuclear exchanges. The assessment will also include the likely reactions
of the international community – the threats held out, the appeals
made and the course of the discussions at the United Nations Security
Council (UNSC).
India’s nuclear doctrine clearly states that “nuclear weapons will
only be used in retaliation against a nuclear attack on Indian
territory or on Indian forces anywhere.” This debunks the Pakistan
Army’s belief that its use of TNWs against Indian forces on its own
soil will not constitute ‘first use’. A widely held belief among
members of the Indian strategic community is even if the Pakistan Army
employs TNWs against the Indian forces on the Pakistani soil, the most
appropriate option will be massive retaliation to inflict unacceptable
damage on Pakistan.
Though such a decision will not be made lightly, from the Indian
point of view, massive retaliation is the only suitable option as
anything else will run the risk of lowering the nuclear threshold and
encouraging the Pakistan Army to continue to bank on the early use of
TNWs to counter operational reverses. Also, breaking the nuclear taboo
would be considered unacceptable and flexible response would run the
risk of continued and repeated nuclear strikes. A decision to approve
massive retaliation would be far easier to reach in case Pakistan uses
TNWs against the Indian forces, but on the Indian soil.
Recommendations for Change in India’s Nuclear Doctrine
As 12 years have passed since India’s nuclear doctrine was approved
by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) in January 2003, and many
new developments have since taken place, a review of the doctrine is
necessary. In fact, a review should be carried out every 10 years.
Recommendations for continuity in some provisions and changes in other
provisions of India’s nuclear doctrine are given below:
India’s nuclear doctrine premised on ‘credible minimum deterrence’
and posture of ‘no first use’ has stood the test of time and no change
is necessary.
India’s declaratory strategy is that of ‘massive retaliation’ to a
nuclear first strike and is ‘designed to inflict unacceptable damage’.
This was enunciated in the statement issued by the Government of India
on January 04, 2003, after the CCS had reviewed the progress in the
operationalisation of India’s nuclear deterrence.
Ideally, the retaliatory strategy should have been that of
‘flexible response’ that results in ‘punitive retaliation… to inflict
unacceptable damage’, as envisaged in the Draft Nuclear Doctrine of
August 17, 1999, prepared by the first National Security Advisory Board
(NSAB) headed by K.Subrahmanyam. However, as the strategy of ‘massive
retaliation’ is a viable deterrence strategy that has served India
well, no change is recommended. It would work well even in a contingency
where the Pakistani planners may consider using TNWs against the
Indian forces on the Pakistani soil as they cannot possibly risk
massive Indian retaliation.
The credibility of massive retaliation needs to be enhanced
through a carefully formulated signalling plan. Signalling should be
based on an elaborate plan designed to showcase the preparedness of
India’s nuclear forces and the firmness of its political will. For
example, information about regular meetings of both the political and
the executive council of the NCA should be made public (without
disclosing the agenda).
India’s nuclear doctrine states that India will retaliate with
nuclear weapons in case chemical or biological weapons are used against
India. This is neither credible nor desirable as chemical or
biological weapons may be used by non-state actors or by a state
through proxy non-state actors with easy deniability. In either case,
it would not be appropriate to retaliate with nuclear warheads. Hence,
this formulation should be dropped from the nuclear doctrine.
Despite its costs and the risk of endangering arms race stability,
ballistic missile defence (BMD) provides major advantages to a nation
that follows a ‘no first use’ strategy. The government should consider
sanctioning a phased BMD project to protect major cities and strategic
forces
As TNWs are extremely destabilising, Indian diplomacy should
ensure that international pressure is brought to bear on Pakistan to
eliminate TNWs from its nuclear arsenal. A sustained campaign needs to
be mounted by strategic analysts, scholars and academics to apprise the
policy community and the public of the risks associated with TNWs.
It is in India’s interest to discuss nuclear confidence building
measures (CBMs) and nuclear risk reduction measures (NRRMs) with
Pakistan in greater depth than has been the case till now. Back channel
diplomacy can also play a useful role in promoting confidence and
reducing the risk of inadvertent escalation to nuclear exchanges.
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