After gaining the freedom of Pakistan, the founder of Pakistan Quaid-e-Azam in a meeting convened in the Chamber of Commerce Bombay said that “We will live in Pakistan and you will live in India. In this way, we will be the neighbors”. India Pakistan relations since independence remained wavy towards each other including four wars since the partition between the two countries.
Twenty-four years ago on 28th May 1998, Pakistan tested its nuclear weapons capability code name “Chagai-I”. Pakistan conducted five simultaneous tests in Chagai, these tests were followed by another on 30th May. All the tests were in response to India’s tests on the 11th and 13th of May. In fact, Pakistan’s quest for a nuclear weapons capability was a direct consequence of India’s nuclearization of South Asia. Before the May 1998 tests, India had already conducted a nuclear test code name “Smiling Buddha” in May 1974. India at that time claimed that the test was a peaceful nuclear explosion this claim was rejected by Pakistan.
Earlier, India refused to be part of the Nuclear no proliferation treaty (NPT) terming it a discriminatory treaty. Pakistan reacted to India’s refusal to be part of the NPT treaty sighting security reasons. Both the countries remained outside the NPT, neither has signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Pakistan had no option but to establish nuclear deterrence for obvious security reasons.
The situation started changing in the 1960s after India’s war with China after which India felt the need for nuclear compulsion. This argument that India’s programme was the response to the Chinese nuclear test in October 1964 is not correct and lacks a logical basis as by April 1964 India had all the elements which were needed to produce a nuclear weapon. India inaugurated its reprocessing plant in April 1964 and it was the first country in Asia to have that kind of facility.
Potential asymmetries exist between India and Pakistan whether one talks about the conventional capabilities or nuclear purpose capabilities. India is a unique case whereby a country that is conventionally superior to Pakistan has gone up piling weaponry and technological sophistication into its nuclear build-up. In this scenario, Pakistan was left with very little choice but to tell the Indians in very clear terms that even though Pakistan’s policy is based on deterrence but if India aggressed Pakistan then Pakistan was left with no choice but massive retaliation.
Pakistan was in favor of NPT if India signed. Pakistan after the Indian nuclear test in 1974 proposed a South Asia nuclear-weapon-free zone, Pakistan also proposed a Zero missile zone in South Asia to ensure the stoppage of further weaponization of South Asia. Pakistan after refusal from India left with no other option but to acquire its own nuclear capability. Any negotiations must not cover the future ban on the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons but they should take into account the existing stocks. The reason for the existing stockpile is because Indians had a head start over Pakistan and then, particularly after the NSG waiver, India had the ability to produce more warheads. India has expanded its nuclear weapons capability, after getting a civil nuclear cooperation deal from the United States in 2008. India got this deal as a result of a policy shift in the U.S. administration, which was more likely to contain emerging China.
Pakistan on the other hand is not looking for parity in number when it comes to nuclear weapons but to ensure a credible second-strike capability. Pakistan has made it clear publically, the conditions under which Pakistan will contemplate using its nuclear weapons, and that condition is if Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is threatened. What happened in Balakot Pakistan’s territorial integrity and sovereignty were not threatened, as Pakistan had the capacity to respond at the conventional level. The ability which Pakistan has gotten in its Doctrine of Full Spectrum Deterrence is to deter India at the operational, tactical, and strategic levels.
There is a conceptual difference that needs to be understood that Pakistan’s nuclear capability is for deterrence not for warfighting. Strategic experts have defined Pakistan’s nuclear capability that the conventional imbalance between India and Pakistan to such a level that Pakistan surely needs an equalizer in the form of nuclear weapons. Pakistan was forced to take that decision as a response, in self-defense, to the nuclear tests and accompanying hostile posturing by its neighbor. These developments, unfortunately, put an end to the prospect of keeping South Asia free of nuclear weapons, an objective that Pakistan had actively pursued.
