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Dawn May 16, 2005 Vajpayee's nuclear winter By Jawed Naqvi "I'M NOT sure what weapons will be used in World War III, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones," said Albert Einstein. There are of course other valid reasons also to be wary of nuclear weapons. History has shown, when the time comes, nuclear prowess can neither save governments that harness it nor ensure the survival of nation states that exult in its false security. India marked the seventh year of its misplaced nuclear tests last week. One instructive way of looking at the event could be that it was the first anniversary of the1998 tests when their author, the mighty BJP, was wallowing in oblivion, worsened by a debilitating factious war. True it has taken six scorching long years for the mindlessly jingoist party to be given the boot. But the fact is that it was thrown out in a shock verdict by the very people it pretended to protect from goodness knows what. In any case there is ample hint here that by conducting the May 11 and 13 tests in Pokharan, the BJP was neither able to endear itself to the popular will of India nor did it become apolitically invincible party it had set out to become. For lesser mortals like Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who could not resist the lure of tit-for-tat patriotic fervour, the lesson from history was harsher still. His nemesis came in military uniform to hoist him by his own petard. Mr Sharif could survive in power for no more than one mere anniversary of his rush of blood. Worse, his post Chaghai months were tainted for the most part by political miscalculations as also by a widely condemned military brinkmanship that came with the Kargil standoff. Closer home, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had to use an unpopular emergency route to rule India in the summer of 1976, exactly two years after she inaugurated India's first atom bomb. Here was a mighty leader, deified as Durga, the goddess of power, by Mr Vajpayee no less for her part in the creation of Bangladesh in1971. What then forced her to rush into a nuclear test in 1974? If it was for the good of the country as everyone claims the people of India seem to have missed the point. For they summarily rejected her when she did hold the elections in 1977. Mr. Vajpayee too had lost three key state elections for his party - in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi - within four months of Pokharan II. If the two self-deluding leaders of South Asia - Messrs Sharif and Vajpayee - who bequeathed to their nations a dangerous and risky nuclear legacy have been dispatched to political oblivion, the fiendish illusion of nuclear weapons had conjured fatal tricks even earlier. The crumbling into pieces of the mighty Soviet Union less than a decade before the advent of South Asia nuclear upstarts remains a prime example of the hollow prowess of nuclear weapons. Here was a superpower, with 3,800 strategic offensive nuclear warheads in its arsenal, that lay spread-eagled. Is the United States with 4,500 such warheads any more secure as a nation because of its nuclear arsenal? Robert McNamara, secretary of state with President Kennedy, was privileged to have a cockpit view of the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 when the world, according to him, "came within a hair's breadth of nuclear disaster." Today Mr McNamara has become a staunch critic of what he admits is his country's hypocritical approach to nuclear disarmament at the ongoing NPT review conference. He feels that even as the United States goes around prohibiting some selected countries from acquiring nuclear weapons, many are not sure if the United States has a legitimate argument. "Keeping such large numbers of weapons, and maintaining them on hair-trigger alert, are potent signs that the United States is not seriously working toward the elimination of its arsenal and raises troubling questions as to why any other state should restrain its nuclear ambitions," Mr. McNamara observes in the latest Foreign Policy journal. Mr McNamara worked on issues relating to US and Nato nuclear strategy and war plans for more than 40 years. "During that time, I have never seen a piece of paper that outlined a plan for the United States or Nato to initiate the use of nuclear weapons with any benefit for the United States or Nato. I have made this statement in front of audiences, including Nato defence ministers and senior military leaders, many times. No one has ever refuted it." As India and Pakistan continue to gloat over their supposedly foolproof nuclear command and control system, Mr. McNamara indicates that these could be tall claims. He illustrates the point with examples to show how nearly impossible it could be to avoid accident seven for the more experienced nuclear powers. "Only a few years ago did we learn that the four Soviet submarines trailing the US Naval vessels near Cuba each carried torpedoes with nuclear warheads," he recalls. "Each of the sub commanders had the authority to launch his torpedoes. The situation was even more frightening because, as the lead commander recounted to me, the subs were out of communication with their Soviet bases, and they continued their patrols for four days after Khrushchev announced the withdrawal of the missiles from Cuba." Mr. Vajpayee complained recently that as former premier he has not much work to do. Well, as he wades through the political equivalent of a self-inflicted nuclear winter, Mr. Vajpayee would do well to ponder the disastrous consequences of his indiscretions of May 1998, which still reverberate menacingly across a seriously worried world. _________________________________ SOUTH ASIANS AGAINST NUKES (SAAN): An informal information platform for activists and scholars concerned about Nuclearisation in South Asia South Asians Against Nukes Mailing List: archives are available @ two locations May 1998 - March 2002: <groups.yahoo.com/group/sap/messages/1> Feb. 2001 - to date: <groups.yahoo.com/group/SAAN_/messages/1> To subscribe send a blank message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> South Asians Against Nukes Website: www.s-asians-against-nukes.org SOUTH ASIANS AGAINST NUKES (SAAN): An informal information platform for activists and scholars concerned about the dangers of Nuclearisation in South Asia SAAN Website: http://www.s-asians-against-nukes.org SAAN Mailing List: To subscribe send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] SAAN Mailing List Archive : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SAAN_/ ________________________________ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SAAN compilers. 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