India-Pakistan Nuke war danger by radical Pakistani Islamists: Top Pakistani Nuke Scientist
Pakistan Nuclear Physicist
Pakistan Nuclear Physicist On Nuclear Weapons, At Asian Security Conference !!
"The Relevance (Or Otherwise) Of Nuclear Weapons In The 21st Century"
Prof. Pervez Hoodbhoy, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan
ABSTRACT: The old nuclear order is crumbling. But what will take its place? This short paper speculates on the strategic significance of nuclear weapons twenty years into the future, examines possibilities for nuclear terrorism, and asks if nuclear abolition stands a chance. While the larger questions need to be posed at the global level, South Asia is of especial interest.
By 2030 the strategic world will be very different from what it is today. The United States, the sole hegemonic power of the early 21st century, will still be the most powerful among nations. But it shall only be one player among several. Science and technology the creators of wealth and power are rapidly diffusing across the globe, aided by globalization and the internet. They are creating powerful rival nation-states which no longer bend to American wishes. Nuclear monopolies belong to history; breakout countries like North Korea and Iran have put yet another nail in the coffin. Interestingly, the winds of change are driving countries along very different nuclear trajectories both towards and away from weapons.
Profound changes are already visible in the US. Although it was the first country to invent and use nuclear weapons, its enthusiasm started waning after the end of the Cold War. A realization slowly dawned that every warhead added to its arsenal of 30,000 certainly increased maintenance and security costs but brought little benefit. Arch-conservative Cold Warrior, and an inner member of the US nuclear policy establishment, Paul Nitze, was years ahead of his colleagues when he wrote in 1999: I see no compelling reason why we should not unilaterally get rid of our nuclear weapons To maintain them is costly and adds nothing to our security we can achieve our objectives with conventional weapons. There is nothing to be gained through the use of our nuclear arsenal.
1More recently, in the now famous articles published in the Wall Street Journal of 2007 and 2008, the four famous horsemenGeorge Schultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn called for nuclear global elimination2. Coming from the hawkish Kissinger particularly, this was a bombshell of sorts and left Republican conservatives in a state of shock. But strangely, the Pentagon concurred, and there is little doubt that a serious reassessment of the worth of nuclear weapons to the US is in the works. The election of Barack Obama as president gave an additional impetus towards decreasing the salience of nuclear weapons in US strategic thinking. Reaffirmation of START, as agreed upon by presidents Obama and Medvedev in 2009, certainly points in that direction.
One needs to be clear about motives. Americas apparent change of heart comes primarily for pragmatic reasons, not high moral principles.
The first is nuclear terrorism. Nuclear weapons have utility in determining power relations between nation states. But they are worse than useless in dealing with holy warriors, for who reward lies in the hereafter. By engineering a nuclear catastrophe in some Western city, Osama bin Laden and his disciples dream of provoking a nuclear response from the US against Muslim holy sites and populations Mecca, Cairo, Teheran, and Islamabad. This, in their minds, would hasten the advent of the dajjal, a mythological one-eyed creature who will hasten the day of ultimate victory. Together with other non-state actors, religious extremists stand greater chances of success in a world awash in nuclear bombs and fissile materials. Hence a non-nuclear world is safer for the US.
The second reason for the changed US mood is that nuclear weapons are unnecessary for remaining as the top dog in todays world3. The US has an enormous advantage in conventional weaponry. Twenty-first century warfare does not belong to dumb nukes. Instead, laser weapons, drones, hi-tech ships, aircraft, and space-based assets are actual war-fighting instruments rather than static instruments of deterrence. All fighting forces want smart, precision-guided weapons with in-built microprocessor chips and computers. Fuel-air explosives the rich mans mini-nukes carry enormous destructive power, zero radiation effects, and can also be delivered with great precision by giant bombers.
Add to this that nuclear weapons have lost much of their scare power. US nuclear weapons have not been used for 65 years and the enormity of consequences if they are actually used means that they are viewed as distant and abstract threats. From the American point of view, an adversarys newly acquired nuclear weapons are a highly unwelcome equalizer. Indeed, if Saddam Hussain had succeeded in his plans, the course of Iraqs history might have been quite different. It has finally dawned on US strategists that, in the long run, other nations can be prevented from going nuclear only if there is a some semblance of uniformity non-proliferation norms carry meaning only when they apply to all actors, both good and bad.
There is nothing surprising about Americas new realization. What is surprising, however, is that it took so long in coming. The bellicosity of the George W. Bush regime, and the attack of 11 September 2001, slowed the path to this eventuality. Of course, I do not mean to suggest that an anti-nuclear consensus has finally emerged in the US. So, for example, even as the Four Horsemen argue in their latest WSJ op-ed4 that the US must work to realize the vision of a world without nuclear weapons, they want significant investments to undo the adverse consequences of deep reductions over the past five years in the laboratories budgets for the science, technology and engineering programs that support and underwrite the nations nuclear deterrent. This is nothing but an excuse to maintain a potent nuclear arsenal that can be periodically upgraded. Clearly, US national interest rather than broad universalism guides their analyses.
Still, as mentioned earlier, on balance the good news is that there are encouraging trends in the US towards deep cuts in its nuclear arsenal, and this has already inspired a positive reaction in Russia. A real test of US intentions and Obamas strength will be to bring on line the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). This treaty, signed in 1996, would prohibit any testing of nuclear weapons or devices. Countries that still need to come on line, apart from the US, are China, North Korea, India, Israel, Iran, Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt, and Columbia. India and Pakistan have committed not to test, albeit politically and not formally. Optimistically, Obama will be able to muster sufficient support for his countrys ratification against the Republican opposition. The next few months will tell.
South Asias Nuclear Future
Let us now transport the two main issues discussed above nuclear terrorism and reduced utility of nuclear weapons into the South Asian context.
In 1974, Indias demonstration of nuclear capability triggered Pakistans own Manhattan Project that culminated in the Chagai tests of 1998. Today, with 70-100 fission weapons spread across Pakistan and fissile materials produced or processed at numerous locations, the threat from religious extremists both outsiders and establishment insiders is real but unquantifiable.
There is little doubt that the Pakistan Army takes the safety of its nuclear weapons seriously and has taken a wide variety of protective measures. But in spite of the apparent professionalism of the Strategic Plans Division, which has nuclear custodial responsibility, procedures and technical fixes for safing nuclear weapons are only as good as the men who operate them. This lies at the very heart of the safety issue.
For more than 25 years, the Pakistan army had nurtured Islamist radicals as proxy warriors for covert operations on Pakistan's borders in Kashmir and Afghanistan.
This produced extremism inside parts of the military and intelligence.
Today, some parts are at war with other parts, as is evident from the dozens of suicide attacks on the military and intelligence establishment. Some attacks were so intricately planned that they obviously had to have essential help from the inside.
One does not know if radical Pakistani Islamists can eventually hijack a weapon, or acquire the technical expertise and the highly enriched uranium needed for a crude in-situ nuclear device. But it is quite certain that, having gone to the trouble of getting it, they will use it if they can.
One should not assume that London or New York will be the preferred targets because Islamabad and Delhi may be just as good and certainly much easier.
If a retaliatory nuclear response from India on Pakistans cities is triggered, this would be the fulfillment of a dream to ignite the ultimate conflict that would destroy both kafirs (unbelievers) and munafiqs (Muslim hypocrites). In the twisted logic of the fanatics, those who follow Islam imperfectly and those who oppose it are equally bad. The numerous suicide bombings of mosques, and of Pakistans public places, have now established the Talibanic theorem: munafiq = kafir. Thus it is not just the United States but also India and perhaps Pakistan still more that need to fear nuclear terrorism.
There is a second interesting parallel with the US situation: powerful India has unwittingly reduced its huge strategic advantage over weaker Pakistan to near nil by going nuclear. Only at the risk of starting a nuclear war could India have responded to the Kargil invasion (1999), the attack on the Indian parliament (2001), or the Mumbai massacre (2008). Of course, India may freely construct any number of Cold Start type strategies in the next few decades, and of a two-front front war under a nuclear over-hang (by itself an interesting newly invented phrase), articulated by Indian general Deepak Kapoor in January, 2010. But these are highly risky games, and Pakistan may react out of proportion to the degree of Indian success. While mutual terror induces a quasi-peace, the downside is that Indian and Pakistani nuclear trajectories can never be too far from the brink. Although this fact does not seem to bother either country unduly, it is dangerous for precisely this reason.
A prediction: notwithstanding the complication induced by the China factor, I think it is only a matter of time before the Indian establishment matures into producing its own Nitzes and Kissingers.
Towards Global Zero?
At the beginning of 2010, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists decided to move its famous Doomsday Clock from 5 minutes to midnight backwards by one minute5. This reflects cautious optimism that, on balance, the world is safer today than in previous years. Created in 1947, the Doomsday Clock has been adjusted only 18 times prior to today, most recently in January 2007 and February 2002 after the events of 9/11.
The BAS statement explains: "This hopeful state of world affairs leads the boards of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists--which include 19 Nobel laureates--to move the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock back from five to six minutes to midnight. By shifting the hand back from midnight by only one additional minute, we emphasize how much needs to be accomplished, while at the same time recognizing signs of collaboration among the United States, Russia, the European Union, India, China, Brazil, and others on nuclear security and on climate stabilization.6"
The statement continues: "A key to the new era of cooperation is a change in the U.S. government's orientation toward international affairs brought about in part by the election of Obama. With a more pragmatic, problem-solving approach, not only has Obama initiated new arms reduction talks with Russia, he has started negotiations with Iran to close its nuclear enrichment program, and directed the U.S. government to lead a global effort to secure loose fissile material in four years. He also presided over the U.N. Security Council last September where he supported a fissile material cutoff treaty and encouraged all countries to live up to their disarmament and nonproliferation obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty...7"
One might continue this note of optimism: populations in the West now openly question the need for nuclear weapons instead of buying into the rhetoric of indispensability. The absurdity of maintaining nukes in post-Cold War Europe is apparent. Where is the enemy? Why put your own people at needless risk to accident and sabotage? Antagonize neighbors with whom you no longer have much of a quarrel?
I am not proposing Osama bin Laden for the Nobel Prize. But he and his followers must be credited with enhancing awareness about nuclear dangers. Even more, their maniacal actions have shown the futility of deterrence.
That was all the good news.
The bad news is that proliferation risks will rise in proportion to the number of nuclear power plants in non-nuclear states, and that the demand for such plants will increase in proportion to fossil fuel depletion and climate change severity. Learning to separate plutonium and uranium from reactor wastes puts a country high on the learning curve towards nuclear weapons. In fact, even purely peaceful nuclear programs aimed at generating power can be rapidly redirected towards weapons production if a country so decides. It is, after all, all about learning the art of managing neutrons: they can be used to release fission energy slowly for power purposes, or rapidly to create an explosion. (The same is not true for fusion energy!)
Then, there is the imponderable: what will happen if there is an actual use of nuclear weapons over the next twenty years? The shock wave amplified by the instant communications of modern times would impact differently in different parts of the world. Where strong anti-nuclear movements exist, the sheer horror would force a move towards abolition. But, depending upon whether the perpetrator is another country or an extra-state actor, one can imagine that other countries may want to rush towards acquiring these weapons lest they too become victims.
Sixty five years after they were first tested and then used, nuclear weapons continue to be a menace to the human race. What might it take to bring about global nuclear disarmament?
A fissile material cutoff is key. Production of the basic stuff that goes into bombs highly enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium will have to cease. This points to the need for an international agreement based upon some painstakingly worked out technical document that allows uranium enrichment for power generation but firmly closes loopholes for weapons, and that involves minimally intrusive verification procedures. Disposition of existing fissile stocks by some relatively proliferation-proof means must be part of the package. The resistance to ceasing fissile material production will not come from the five nuclear weapon states they already have more material than they want.
But India and Pakistan are in a full-fledged nuclear arms race, a race that's only partially in response to the other. Today, they are the world's only countries that are openly increasing their fissile material stocks. Swimming against the tide of global nuclear arms reductions, they fear possible international agreements. Before the inevitable happens, they want to push their nuclear programs forward as hard as possible. China, pointing at the small size of its arsenal relative to those of the US and Russia, has also resisted being drawn into an agreement.
Notwithstanding the one minute of Doomsday Time recently added to our safety, life on the planet remains deeply imperiled. Immediate threats to human security will come increasingly more from economic collapse, groups bent on terrorizing civilians, or from resource scarcity exacerbated by climate change and exploding populations, rather than from conflict between nuclear armed countries. Against these new dangers, nuclear weapons are a liability. Their possession by a few countries stimulates desire in other countries and complicates things immensely. The sooner South Asia realizes this fact the better.
Dr. Pervez Amir Ali Hoodbhoy is Professor of nuclear and high energy physics, as well as chairman, at the department of physics, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad. He received his BS, MS, and Ph.D degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and remains an active physicist who often lectures at US and European research laboratories and universities. Dr. Hoodbhoy received the Baker Award for Electronics and the Abdus Salam Prize for Mathematics. He is frequently invited to comment on nuclear and political matters in Pakistani and international media.
Chindits: Pakistan Nuclear Physicist On Nuclear Weapons, At Asian Security Conference !!
Pakistan Nuclear Physicist
Pakistan Nuclear Physicist On Nuclear Weapons, At Asian Security Conference !!
"The Relevance (Or Otherwise) Of Nuclear Weapons In The 21st Century"
Prof. Pervez Hoodbhoy, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan
ABSTRACT: The old nuclear order is crumbling. But what will take its place? This short paper speculates on the strategic significance of nuclear weapons twenty years into the future, examines possibilities for nuclear terrorism, and asks if nuclear abolition stands a chance. While the larger questions need to be posed at the global level, South Asia is of especial interest.
By 2030 the strategic world will be very different from what it is today. The United States, the sole hegemonic power of the early 21st century, will still be the most powerful among nations. But it shall only be one player among several. Science and technology the creators of wealth and power are rapidly diffusing across the globe, aided by globalization and the internet. They are creating powerful rival nation-states which no longer bend to American wishes. Nuclear monopolies belong to history; breakout countries like North Korea and Iran have put yet another nail in the coffin. Interestingly, the winds of change are driving countries along very different nuclear trajectories both towards and away from weapons.
Profound changes are already visible in the US. Although it was the first country to invent and use nuclear weapons, its enthusiasm started waning after the end of the Cold War. A realization slowly dawned that every warhead added to its arsenal of 30,000 certainly increased maintenance and security costs but brought little benefit. Arch-conservative Cold Warrior, and an inner member of the US nuclear policy establishment, Paul Nitze, was years ahead of his colleagues when he wrote in 1999: I see no compelling reason why we should not unilaterally get rid of our nuclear weapons To maintain them is costly and adds nothing to our security we can achieve our objectives with conventional weapons. There is nothing to be gained through the use of our nuclear arsenal.
1More recently, in the now famous articles published in the Wall Street Journal of 2007 and 2008, the four famous horsemenGeorge Schultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn called for nuclear global elimination2. Coming from the hawkish Kissinger particularly, this was a bombshell of sorts and left Republican conservatives in a state of shock. But strangely, the Pentagon concurred, and there is little doubt that a serious reassessment of the worth of nuclear weapons to the US is in the works. The election of Barack Obama as president gave an additional impetus towards decreasing the salience of nuclear weapons in US strategic thinking. Reaffirmation of START, as agreed upon by presidents Obama and Medvedev in 2009, certainly points in that direction.
One needs to be clear about motives. Americas apparent change of heart comes primarily for pragmatic reasons, not high moral principles.
The first is nuclear terrorism. Nuclear weapons have utility in determining power relations between nation states. But they are worse than useless in dealing with holy warriors, for who reward lies in the hereafter. By engineering a nuclear catastrophe in some Western city, Osama bin Laden and his disciples dream of provoking a nuclear response from the US against Muslim holy sites and populations Mecca, Cairo, Teheran, and Islamabad. This, in their minds, would hasten the advent of the dajjal, a mythological one-eyed creature who will hasten the day of ultimate victory. Together with other non-state actors, religious extremists stand greater chances of success in a world awash in nuclear bombs and fissile materials. Hence a non-nuclear world is safer for the US.
The second reason for the changed US mood is that nuclear weapons are unnecessary for remaining as the top dog in todays world3. The US has an enormous advantage in conventional weaponry. Twenty-first century warfare does not belong to dumb nukes. Instead, laser weapons, drones, hi-tech ships, aircraft, and space-based assets are actual war-fighting instruments rather than static instruments of deterrence. All fighting forces want smart, precision-guided weapons with in-built microprocessor chips and computers. Fuel-air explosives the rich mans mini-nukes carry enormous destructive power, zero radiation effects, and can also be delivered with great precision by giant bombers.
Add to this that nuclear weapons have lost much of their scare power. US nuclear weapons have not been used for 65 years and the enormity of consequences if they are actually used means that they are viewed as distant and abstract threats. From the American point of view, an adversarys newly acquired nuclear weapons are a highly unwelcome equalizer. Indeed, if Saddam Hussain had succeeded in his plans, the course of Iraqs history might have been quite different. It has finally dawned on US strategists that, in the long run, other nations can be prevented from going nuclear only if there is a some semblance of uniformity non-proliferation norms carry meaning only when they apply to all actors, both good and bad.
There is nothing surprising about Americas new realization. What is surprising, however, is that it took so long in coming. The bellicosity of the George W. Bush regime, and the attack of 11 September 2001, slowed the path to this eventuality. Of course, I do not mean to suggest that an anti-nuclear consensus has finally emerged in the US. So, for example, even as the Four Horsemen argue in their latest WSJ op-ed4 that the US must work to realize the vision of a world without nuclear weapons, they want significant investments to undo the adverse consequences of deep reductions over the past five years in the laboratories budgets for the science, technology and engineering programs that support and underwrite the nations nuclear deterrent. This is nothing but an excuse to maintain a potent nuclear arsenal that can be periodically upgraded. Clearly, US national interest rather than broad universalism guides their analyses.
Still, as mentioned earlier, on balance the good news is that there are encouraging trends in the US towards deep cuts in its nuclear arsenal, and this has already inspired a positive reaction in Russia. A real test of US intentions and Obamas strength will be to bring on line the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). This treaty, signed in 1996, would prohibit any testing of nuclear weapons or devices. Countries that still need to come on line, apart from the US, are China, North Korea, India, Israel, Iran, Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt, and Columbia. India and Pakistan have committed not to test, albeit politically and not formally. Optimistically, Obama will be able to muster sufficient support for his countrys ratification against the Republican opposition. The next few months will tell.
South Asias Nuclear Future
Let us now transport the two main issues discussed above nuclear terrorism and reduced utility of nuclear weapons into the South Asian context.
In 1974, Indias demonstration of nuclear capability triggered Pakistans own Manhattan Project that culminated in the Chagai tests of 1998. Today, with 70-100 fission weapons spread across Pakistan and fissile materials produced or processed at numerous locations, the threat from religious extremists both outsiders and establishment insiders is real but unquantifiable.
There is little doubt that the Pakistan Army takes the safety of its nuclear weapons seriously and has taken a wide variety of protective measures. But in spite of the apparent professionalism of the Strategic Plans Division, which has nuclear custodial responsibility, procedures and technical fixes for safing nuclear weapons are only as good as the men who operate them. This lies at the very heart of the safety issue.
For more than 25 years, the Pakistan army had nurtured Islamist radicals as proxy warriors for covert operations on Pakistan's borders in Kashmir and Afghanistan.
This produced extremism inside parts of the military and intelligence.
Today, some parts are at war with other parts, as is evident from the dozens of suicide attacks on the military and intelligence establishment. Some attacks were so intricately planned that they obviously had to have essential help from the inside.
One does not know if radical Pakistani Islamists can eventually hijack a weapon, or acquire the technical expertise and the highly enriched uranium needed for a crude in-situ nuclear device. But it is quite certain that, having gone to the trouble of getting it, they will use it if they can.
One should not assume that London or New York will be the preferred targets because Islamabad and Delhi may be just as good and certainly much easier.
If a retaliatory nuclear response from India on Pakistans cities is triggered, this would be the fulfillment of a dream to ignite the ultimate conflict that would destroy both kafirs (unbelievers) and munafiqs (Muslim hypocrites). In the twisted logic of the fanatics, those who follow Islam imperfectly and those who oppose it are equally bad. The numerous suicide bombings of mosques, and of Pakistans public places, have now established the Talibanic theorem: munafiq = kafir. Thus it is not just the United States but also India and perhaps Pakistan still more that need to fear nuclear terrorism.
There is a second interesting parallel with the US situation: powerful India has unwittingly reduced its huge strategic advantage over weaker Pakistan to near nil by going nuclear. Only at the risk of starting a nuclear war could India have responded to the Kargil invasion (1999), the attack on the Indian parliament (2001), or the Mumbai massacre (2008). Of course, India may freely construct any number of Cold Start type strategies in the next few decades, and of a two-front front war under a nuclear over-hang (by itself an interesting newly invented phrase), articulated by Indian general Deepak Kapoor in January, 2010. But these are highly risky games, and Pakistan may react out of proportion to the degree of Indian success. While mutual terror induces a quasi-peace, the downside is that Indian and Pakistani nuclear trajectories can never be too far from the brink. Although this fact does not seem to bother either country unduly, it is dangerous for precisely this reason.
A prediction: notwithstanding the complication induced by the China factor, I think it is only a matter of time before the Indian establishment matures into producing its own Nitzes and Kissingers.
Towards Global Zero?
At the beginning of 2010, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists decided to move its famous Doomsday Clock from 5 minutes to midnight backwards by one minute5. This reflects cautious optimism that, on balance, the world is safer today than in previous years. Created in 1947, the Doomsday Clock has been adjusted only 18 times prior to today, most recently in January 2007 and February 2002 after the events of 9/11.
The BAS statement explains: "This hopeful state of world affairs leads the boards of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists--which include 19 Nobel laureates--to move the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock back from five to six minutes to midnight. By shifting the hand back from midnight by only one additional minute, we emphasize how much needs to be accomplished, while at the same time recognizing signs of collaboration among the United States, Russia, the European Union, India, China, Brazil, and others on nuclear security and on climate stabilization.6"
The statement continues: "A key to the new era of cooperation is a change in the U.S. government's orientation toward international affairs brought about in part by the election of Obama. With a more pragmatic, problem-solving approach, not only has Obama initiated new arms reduction talks with Russia, he has started negotiations with Iran to close its nuclear enrichment program, and directed the U.S. government to lead a global effort to secure loose fissile material in four years. He also presided over the U.N. Security Council last September where he supported a fissile material cutoff treaty and encouraged all countries to live up to their disarmament and nonproliferation obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty...7"
One might continue this note of optimism: populations in the West now openly question the need for nuclear weapons instead of buying into the rhetoric of indispensability. The absurdity of maintaining nukes in post-Cold War Europe is apparent. Where is the enemy? Why put your own people at needless risk to accident and sabotage? Antagonize neighbors with whom you no longer have much of a quarrel?
I am not proposing Osama bin Laden for the Nobel Prize. But he and his followers must be credited with enhancing awareness about nuclear dangers. Even more, their maniacal actions have shown the futility of deterrence.
That was all the good news.
The bad news is that proliferation risks will rise in proportion to the number of nuclear power plants in non-nuclear states, and that the demand for such plants will increase in proportion to fossil fuel depletion and climate change severity. Learning to separate plutonium and uranium from reactor wastes puts a country high on the learning curve towards nuclear weapons. In fact, even purely peaceful nuclear programs aimed at generating power can be rapidly redirected towards weapons production if a country so decides. It is, after all, all about learning the art of managing neutrons: they can be used to release fission energy slowly for power purposes, or rapidly to create an explosion. (The same is not true for fusion energy!)
Then, there is the imponderable: what will happen if there is an actual use of nuclear weapons over the next twenty years? The shock wave amplified by the instant communications of modern times would impact differently in different parts of the world. Where strong anti-nuclear movements exist, the sheer horror would force a move towards abolition. But, depending upon whether the perpetrator is another country or an extra-state actor, one can imagine that other countries may want to rush towards acquiring these weapons lest they too become victims.
Sixty five years after they were first tested and then used, nuclear weapons continue to be a menace to the human race. What might it take to bring about global nuclear disarmament?
A fissile material cutoff is key. Production of the basic stuff that goes into bombs highly enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium will have to cease. This points to the need for an international agreement based upon some painstakingly worked out technical document that allows uranium enrichment for power generation but firmly closes loopholes for weapons, and that involves minimally intrusive verification procedures. Disposition of existing fissile stocks by some relatively proliferation-proof means must be part of the package. The resistance to ceasing fissile material production will not come from the five nuclear weapon states they already have more material than they want.
But India and Pakistan are in a full-fledged nuclear arms race, a race that's only partially in response to the other. Today, they are the world's only countries that are openly increasing their fissile material stocks. Swimming against the tide of global nuclear arms reductions, they fear possible international agreements. Before the inevitable happens, they want to push their nuclear programs forward as hard as possible. China, pointing at the small size of its arsenal relative to those of the US and Russia, has also resisted being drawn into an agreement.
Notwithstanding the one minute of Doomsday Time recently added to our safety, life on the planet remains deeply imperiled. Immediate threats to human security will come increasingly more from economic collapse, groups bent on terrorizing civilians, or from resource scarcity exacerbated by climate change and exploding populations, rather than from conflict between nuclear armed countries. Against these new dangers, nuclear weapons are a liability. Their possession by a few countries stimulates desire in other countries and complicates things immensely. The sooner South Asia realizes this fact the better.
Dr. Pervez Amir Ali Hoodbhoy is Professor of nuclear and high energy physics, as well as chairman, at the department of physics, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad. He received his BS, MS, and Ph.D degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and remains an active physicist who often lectures at US and European research laboratories and universities. Dr. Hoodbhoy received the Baker Award for Electronics and the Abdus Salam Prize for Mathematics. He is frequently invited to comment on nuclear and political matters in Pakistani and international media.
Chindits: Pakistan Nuclear Physicist On Nuclear Weapons, At Asian Security Conference !!
