Nuclear Weapons – Some Common Myths
01 Sep, 2001 · 561
Lt Gen Vohra deconstructs some common myths about nuclear weapons
"Pak N-might bigger than
India
’s, says US” – this headline on page one of the Times of India of 8 June 2000 , caused considerable consternation. The Washington-datelined report states “the
USA
has reassessed earlier estimates of
India
and
Pakistan
’s nuclear capabilities and come up with the conclusion that
Islamabad
is better off than
India
”.
USA
and
USSR
at the time of the Cuban crises in Oct 1962 are a case in point. The
US
had a 17 to 1 superiority with 5000 strategic nuclear warheads to 300 Soviet ones. In his book Danger and Survival Bundy says, “We had to assume that in any nuclear exchange, no matter who started it, some of the missiles and bombers would get through with megaton bombs. Even one would be enough. We had no interest in nuclear exchange other than to avoid it. The fact that our strategic forces were very much larger gave us no comfort”. A NWS has to work out the size of its arsenal and delivery systems to ensure its credibility rather than the size of the arsenal of its perceived nuclear adversaries. The need to match or create a larger arsenal is a myth.
USA
was the only nuclear power. One heard of war fighting strategies of “Massive Retaliation” and “Flexible Response.” However, in the 1960s, at the time of Cuban crises, the basic concern was to dissuade and deter so that the nuclear weapon did not have to be used.
US
Secretary of Defence, in his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee. He said, “Any time you get into a war, the possibility that you will use every weapon available has to be left open”. This is reflected in the Pakistani article that appeared in The Dawn [Islamabad-5 October 1999], authored jointly by Agha Shahi, Zulfiqar Ali Khan and Abdul Sattar (now the Foreign Minister). Discussing the exigency under which
Islamabad
may consider the use of nuclear weapon, they state, “if the enemy launches a war and undertakes a piercing attack to occupy large territories or communication junction, the weapon of last resort would have to be invoked”. The use of the word “invoked” needs to be noted. The word “used” has been carefully avoided.
India
could consider taking out our nuclear arsenal, to deny us its use – in practice, it is an extremely risky proposition. Even on odd weapon that survived the so called ‘first strike’, could cause irreparable damage”. The last sentence is reminiscent of the Bundy reasoning quoted earlier and reinforces the deterrence aspect of nuclear weapons and the anxiety to avoid their use. It is a myth to state MAD is not reliable; deterrence is not outdated. Deterrence derives from the nature of these weapons; no one will initiate their use as no one will accept assured destruction in response. The threat to use it as a last resort weapon is a bluff.
Pakistan
is fully aware that even if a nuclear strike would cause considerable damage in
India
, a retaliatory attack would well-nigh annihilate
Pakistan
because of its smaller size.
Europe
, that likely would start with conventional weapons and develop into a limited nuclear war. A limited nuclear war is a myth. The considered aim of nuclear weapons is to deter a nuclear exchange. Should such an exchange take place, limiting it is not in the nature of these weapons; besides, the devastation caused by even tactical nuclear weapons can be crippling.
It would be pertinent to mention that, in case of a nuclear stand off between two nuclear weapon states (NWS), what is relevant is their credible nuclear capability and not the size of their arsenals. The arsenals of the
The evolution of nuclear strategy has traversed many stages since the mid-1940s when the
The other aspect was expressed in 1981 by Casper Weinberger, the
In his paper “Whither with the Nukes,” presented at a conference on “Peace and Security in South Asia after the Indo-Pakistan Nuclear Tests” held at Islamabad on 3-5 December 1998, Lt Gen Asad Durani, former head of Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) stated, “neither of us relishes the prospect of ever using them, especially when the other side could match the response….
During the NATO-Warsaw Pact confrontation, when nuclear war fighting was still considered a possibility, simulations predicted casualties upto 100 million if cities were also attacked. Hence it was argued that a limited war with nuclear weapons could be won. For such wars, miniaturized nuclear weapons were considered suitable for conventional targets like artillery and armour concentrations, besides airfields and bridgeheads. The use of these tactical nuclear weapons was visualized for a war in
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