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The News International [India] June 24, 2004 NUCLEAR CBMS: GOOD, NOT GOOD ENOUGH by Praful Bidwai Within barely a month of the swearing-in of a new government in New Delhi, the Pak-India dialogue process has taken off. Besides a "secret" meeting between National Security Advisers J N Dixit and Tariq Aziz, there were at least three telephone conversations between Foreign Ministers Natwar Singh and Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri in the past fortnight. Then came Sunday's agreement on nuclear confidence-building measures (CBMs), followed by a meeting between the two Foreign Ministers in China in a "very cordial, friendly and warm atmosphere". Their "chemistry" was "pretty good". Clearly, both governments are trying to impart a serious momentum to the peace process. The coming Foreign Secretaries' meeting should see progress towards a comprehensive discussion of many issues. After assessing "the progress on all aspect of bilateral relations including Jammu and Kashmir", Singh and Kasuri described the result as "positive". Kasuri says: "We want summit-level talks to be a success ... we can't afford a failure". This should put at rest fears, especially in Pakistan, that the United Progressive Alliance government would not have the same commitment to seeking reconciliation with Pakistan as Vajpayee's regime. As this Column has argued, there is across-the-broad support in India for a peace dialogue. Civil society solidly favours it. Many UPA constituents and supporters have always been keen on it. Some took sober positions on Pakistan just when the NDA, including Vajpayee, was hysterically threatening Pakistan with an "aar-paar ki ladai" (battle to the finish), and had declared peaceful co-existence with it virtually impossible. The peace process's resumption is good news. Amidst these hope-bearing developments, a note of caution might sound off-key. Yet, that has become necessary after the nuclear CBMs agreement. The measures, it must be stressed, are welcome even though half of them restate what was agreed in 1999. They put nuclear risk-reduction on the table and promote transparency, a rare commodity in the subcontinent. South Asia would be worse off without them. However, the measures are modest, and may prove inadequate in reducing the regional nuclear danger. It would be a grave error to celebrate them as a way of stabilising the strategic balance, leave alone establishing "control" over the nuclear "genie". Contrary to claims, the two nuclear "twins" have not learnt how "to tango" happily. On the positive side, Pakistan and India have reiterated the 1999 agreement to notify each other in advance of missile test-flights and to continue with "unilateral" moratoria on nuclear tests. Besides, they will establish a "dedicated and secure" hotline between their Foreign Secretaries and upgrade the existing hotline between their Directors-General of Military Operations. Secondly, they will work towards "an agreement with technical parameters on pre-notification of flight-testing of missiles", furnishing to each other details on their missile test-flights' timing and paths. This will mark a minor improvement on the practice followed even before 1998. However, these are, strictly, not confidence-building but transparency measures. They cannot generate confidence that India and Pakistan will substantially reduce the nuclear danger. The hotline between the two Foreign Secretaries will help clear misunderstandings, especially in crises. But these officers are not the key decision-makers in nuclear-military matters. They can at best act as conveyors of information and facilitators of decision-making by the political/military leadership. This might discourage "loudspeaker diplomacy". But it cannot be a substitute for nuclear risk-reduction measures (NRRMs). I have three simple reasons for saying so. First, the grave nuclear danger in India-Pakistan is the use of nuclear weapons, whether by intent or accident. This isn't imaginary. The two neared the brink of a nuclear confrontation three times since 1998: over Kargil, and in January and June 2002 when one million soldiers eyeballed one another. The only way of reducing nuclear risks is non-deployment of nuclear weapons - by keeping warheads separated from delivery systems (missiles, aircraft, etc). Once nuclear weapons are deployed, there is a definite risk that they might be used - unauthorisedly, unintentionally, or by design. The two should have agreed to non-deployment for one or three years. They didn't. Second, there is an urgent need to halt the India-Pakistan nuclear and missile arms-races. Once medium- and long-range missiles are fully developed and deployed, the likelihood of their use becomes high. There is little strategic distance between India and Pakistan. Missile flight-time between their major cities is 3 to 8 minutes - too little for corrective action. Logically, India and Pakistan should have frozen missile development through a moratorium on further test-flights for two to three years. But they failed to negotiate this. Worse, the agreed nuclear-test moratorium clause takes away with one hand what the other has given. The test ban will hold - "unless, in exercise of national sovereignty, [either state] decides that extraordinary events have jeopardised its supreme interests". This qualification is fatal. Third, they should have agreed to address four specific risks: use of nuclear weapons through miscalculation because of faulty information processing or technologies; unauthorised use of nuclear weapons by "rogue" groups or fanatics; accidents, fires and explosions near nuclear weapons; and rumours of imminent use and the resultant panic response. They did none of this. These have been serious accidents in both countries' military installations and nuclear facilities, including aircraft crashes, fires, adventurist actions by commanders. Good NRRMs must address these risks - by making authorisation procedures transparent, and installing systems to detect preparations for unwarranted launches. The two failed to negotiate such NRRMs. The result is inadequate. The inadequacy's roots lie in the belief that "deterrence", including hair-trigger readiness, is more important than safety; secondly, the CBM agreement's assumption that nuclear weapons possession promotes "stability". The first assumption is dangerously untenable in the India-Pakistan context, marked by a history of war, strategic miscalculation and volatility. The second is falsified by experience. Nuclear weapons have proved immensely destabilising in South Asia. Their possession has encouraged nuclear sabre-rattling and adventurism. The real downside of the CBMs is that India and Pakistan are anxious to appear "responsible" nuclear weapons-states so they get to keep their nuclear weapons. That's why there isn't a single word about nuclear disarmament in the agreement, not even as a long-term goal. Equally important is the clause jointly calling for "regular working-level meetings to be held among all nuclear powers to discuss issues of common concern", and also for "bilateral consultations" on "security and non-proliferation ... in multilateral negotiations." Clearly, India and Pakistan want a place in the Nuclear Club - itself the greatest danger to world security. They have no intention of promoting regional or global disarmament. We should know better. True safety and security lies in the total elimination of nuclear weapons. NRRMs are best a transitional step to that goal. One final word. Experience shows that CBMs on verification don't create trust. Rather, it is the pre-disposition to trust that guarantees that CBMs will work effectively and promote greater trust. India and Pakistan agreed to conventional CBMs in the 1990s - such as prior warning of large-scale military exercises and a commitment not to violate each other's airspace. These were breached because there was no pre-disposition to trust. Under today's more favourable climate, India and Pakistan should have aimed high. They didn't. Their CBMs could fall below the threshold. 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