Kashmir and Terrorism aren't the Problem, it's the Bomb!!!!

Posted from THE GUARDIAN of May 24, 2002

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,721165,00.html

=======================================================
Kashmir and terrorism aren't the problem, it's the bomb 
=======================================================

Martin Woollacott 

Four years ago this month, nuclear explosions in the Rajasthan desert and 
in the Baluchistan mountains ended the long period in which India and 
Pakistan had unwisely acquired nuclear military capacity but had 
nevertheless been wise enough to refrain from translating it into actual 
weapons. The blasts at Pokharan and Chagai changed the terms of war and 
peace in the subcontinent, and in the world. 

Never before had two powers so apt to go to war faced each other with such 
weapons. Proxy encounters aside, Russians and Americans had never fought, 
and when the Americans and Chinese clashed in Korea only one side had the 
bomb. But here were two countries that had fought repeatedly since 
independence, and which were still head to head in Kashmir, adding nuclear 
bombs and missiles to their armouries. Even if they stopped short of 
complete weaponisation and deployment, they could still swiftly prepare a 
nuclear strike, as Pakistan apparently did in 1999 at the time of the 
Kargil fighting. 

Risky as the situation was before September 11, the danger deepened as 
India and Pakistan entered into an intense competition to benefit from the 
shifts in American policy which followed the twin towers attack. The Indian 
government had sought a closer engagement with the US and, in spite of the 
sanctions imposed after the tests, had benefited from an American tilt 
toward New Delhi underlined by President Clinton's visit to India in March 
2000. This American connection was important to the Bharatiya Janata party, 
which leads the Indian ruling coalition, for practical and ideological 
reasons. It put Pakistan at a disadvantage, it fitted with the BJP's neo-
liberal economic policies, and it played to the BJP vision, or illusion, of 
India as a great power that could speak to the US on equal terms. 

September 11 brought instant American attention to Pakistan, restoring an 
old relationship, and turning the aid and trade tap back on for the 
Musharraf regime. Pakistan's disadvantage was ended, to India's 
considerable annoyance. But India's relationship with the US was also 
deepened. South Asia had become what the BJP had always wished it to be, an 
area of great strategic importance to the US, and India was by far the 
biggest and strongest state in that region. Atal Behari Vajpayee, the prime 
minister, could portray himself as a leader in the campaign against 
terrorism. So, of course, could Pervez Musharraf. A dangerous courtship 
ensued as Washington wooed both India and Pakistan, and the two in turn 
courted Washington. Both looked to the US to coerce the rival suitor. 

The Indian government saw the possibility of ending Pakistani support for 
rebels in Kashmir, without the necessity for any concessions on its part. 
Musharraf saw the exact opposite. The right moves might lead to some 
internationalisation of the Kashmir dispute and to India being forced to 
agree to arrangements, perhaps over elections later this year, that could 
be presented at home as at least not a defeat for Pakistan. The instrument 
with which India chose to press Pakistan was a mass mobilisation that, 
quite apart from the danger of war, led to grave strains and costs for both 
countries but was particularly painful for the much poorer Pakistan. 

On the Pakistani side, Musharraf limited his efforts to restrain the 
militant groups long involved in Kashmir operations. Leaders were arrested 
only to be released or kept under nominal detention. Whether this is 
because he is too weak to take stronger measures or because, in spite of 
his pledges, he wishes to maintain an active programme of what India calls 
cross-border terrorism is not clear. The distinction between the "moral, 
political and diplomatic support" which Pakistan insists it will continue 
to offer to Kashmiris, and the military support and aid to extremist groups 
it says it will not, would be hard to maintain even for a regime more in 
control. 

But it is difficult to see how Musharraf's purposes are served by incidents 
such as the recent attack on the Indian army camp near Jammu, or by the 
earlier attacks on the Indian and the Kashmir parliaments. Proof of his 
wanting or permitting such attacks is so far missing, which ought to be a 
consideration when India considers its responses. 

But it seems that the Indian government prefers to think that Musharraf can 
be made to suppress the militants by the direct threat of war, and 
indirectly through American pressure on Pakistan. The result is the bizarre 
and dangerous combination of a conventional military build-up which is 
almost first world war in its scale and nature with the nuclear capacity 
which the two sides now possess. Keeping this mass of men and guns on alert 
while avoiding local incidents or exchanges of fire escalating into real 
fighting is naturally difficult, and the odds are that it will sooner or 
later go wrong. 

Even if the immediate threat of war may not be as great as some think, the 
risk will not go away until many of these men are stood down and alert 
levels reduced. This would be the case even if the Indian government had no 
plans for offensive action. If it does have such plans, it is easy to see 
how a limited operation, say to take out bases in Pakistan-held Kashmir, 
could become something bigger, and conceivably have nuclear consequences. 

Praful Bidwai and Achin Vanaik wrote in the preface to their outstanding 
study of how and why India and Pakistan came to acquire nuclear weapons 
that nuclearisation induced a mood of complacency in both countries, with 
some political and military leaders believing it allows for more 
brinkmanship rather than less. Their book argues convincingly that the BJP 
authorised nuclear testing for essentially irrational reasons. The bomb was 
a trophy the BJP wanted and it was "bent on crossing the nuclear threshold 
regardless of the strategic environment." It was also bent on provoking 
Pakistan into tests of its own which would serve as a retrospective 
justification for the Indian decision. 

The glee with which these "achievements" were celebrated was 
striking. "Megatons of prestige" proclaimed a typical Indian headline at 
the time of the tests, while in Pakistan nuclear "success" was marked by 
the construction of supposed replicas of the Chagai range on traffic 
circles in big cities. This suggests that at the popular level, too, there 
is little understanding of what nuclear war would mean, or that such 
understanding has been undermined by official propaganda. 

The result is that governments and opposition parties both contend with 
popular demands for "action" and play with such demands, as a deeply 
unpopular BJP is doing today in India. Vajpayee vacillates, bellicose one 
day and restrained the next. Musharraf does the same in minor key, and both 
try to manipulate the western envoys. They were rescued by outsiders once 
before, at the time of Kargil, and that may well happen again. But the 
reality that both countries have not yet faced is that their problem is not 
Kashmir, nor terrorism, nor even the more general enmity which estranges 
them from each other, but the bomb itself. 

New Nukes by Praful Bidwai and Achin Vanaik (Signal Books, Oxford). 

m.woollacott@guardian.co.uk