Crisis in South Asia

In May 1999, as the world watched with bated breath, India and Pakistan exploded their respective nuclear devices and announced their entry into the ranks of nuclear weapon states. While it was long known that both countries had been trying hard to develop such devices covertly, the explosions caught the world by surprise. India had already tested a nuclear device in the Pokhran desert way back in 1974. Both countries claimed that national security issues forced them to conduct the nuclear tests. India announced that it had to deter the Chinese in the north, who were already rumored to have deployed nuclear-tipped missiles in Tibet, most of them pointed at New Delhi and other Indian cities. Pakistan, on the other hand, said that it had to go public with its nuclear weapons program to deter any new Indian ambitions in South Asia. Irrespective of the postures adopted by these countries and the West, which immediately put into place a regime of sanctions, it raises a fundamental question very relevant for this time in mankind's history - Are nuclear weapons a relevant means for national security? In this essay, I will examine the subtleties of the nuclear arms race and strive to demonstrate that national security is served by means other than a weapons program.

History of Atomic Weapons

Nuclear weapons are a legacy of World War II and assumed great significance during the years of the Cold War. In the early 1940's, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, a top-secret team was engaged in developing a weapon, the destructive power of which was said to be far in excess of anything that mankind had known thus far. The United States tested its first nuclear device in Alamogordo in New Mexico on July 1945. On August 6, 1945, the U.S. used the atomic bomb against Japan in Hiroshima. Three days later on August 9, this was repeated against Nagasaki. Millions died, while several more millions were maimed for generations to come ("The First Atomic Bomb" 2-3).

Robert Oppenheimer, the leader of the so-called Manhattan Project that developed the nuclear bomb, quoted the Hindu scriptures saying that the bomb is like a "thousand suns risen all at once", an expression that the scriptures had originally used to herald the appearance of God. As an aside, it is still not known fully why the U.S. decided to use the bomb in the first instance, why it had chosen to strike at two cities, and why it used them in spite of Japan posturing towards complete surrender ("The Atomic Bomb and American Strategic Thought" 1).

Only the U.S. had nuclear weapons when World War II ended, and these weapons were projected as the protectors of the free world, providing succor and safety against Communism being exported by the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, such security was short-lived. In the late 1940's, the Rosenberg couple defected from the US to the Soviet Union, taking with them blueprints of nuclear devices. Shortly thereafter, the Soviet Union conducted its own nuclear weapons test (Frost 1).

For more than four decades after all these events, the US and the USSR held the entire world at ransom, developing capabilities to destroy the world several times over and over again, with the doctrine of MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction ("First and Second Strikes" 3). In August 1991, with the demise of the Soviet Union ("Collapse of the Soviet Union" 1), this threat of destruction of planet earth substantially decreased, with the world moving quickly to a unipolar structure with a lone superpower, the US.Nuclear weapon states constituted the Big Five, and these five countries - U.S., Russia, Britain, France and China - assumed extraordinary powers in the UN Security Council such as the veto. They also constituted the Permanent Members of the Security Council; all other member states were restricted to rotating 2-year terms.

Mirage of Nuclear Security

The fall of the Soviet Union is an illustration of the fact that nuclear weapons alone are not guarantors of national security. Consequent to President Gorbachev's glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring), the USSR crumbled into several independent states, in spite of the Soviets having an impressive portfolio of atomic weapons ("History of Russia" 2).

Vietnam inflicted the most haunting defeat that the US has ever suffered in the past 100 years. Nuclear weapons did not help the US in retaining control in Saigon, South Vietnam. In the global village of today, it is very "expensive" diplomatically and economically to use nuclear weapons in war. The willingness to exercise a "first strike" is fraught with risk. Land-based or sea-based missile launches are detectable, and there exists the very real possibility of a retaliatory strike by the enemy.

Catastrophic Mistakes

Zimmerman points out that there have been several instances during and after the Cold War that almost plunged the world into an accidental nuclear war. One such incident occurred in January 1995.In order to study the Northern Lights, the Norwegians had launched a meteorological missile. This launch was detected by Russian Early Warning Systems. Even though the Norwegians had alerted the Russians much in advance about this launch, that information had not reached the top officials in Russia. Russia's top officials, including President Boris Yeltsin, thought that this launch was part of a US-orchestrated first strike. They had to make a tough decision on whether they should fire a retaliatory strike. Fortunately for the world, the missile turned away from Russia in the direction of the sea (Hurley 74-75).

Economics of Nuclear Weapons

Nuclear weapons are expensive to build, test, and maintain. The US spends billions of dollars every year on maintaining its existing stockpile of atomic weapons and in developing newer versions. The W-88 miniature, which was in the news recently during the congressional investigation of possible Chinese espionage and theft of US nuclear weapons technology, is a case in point.

Can India, Pakistan and China with their huge populations and low per capita income and GDP afford to invest in the white elephants called atomic weapons? Certainly not. With exploding populations close to a billion people each, India and China have other serious issues to worry about, including harnessing of resources to feed hungry mouths, reducing pollution, and improving the standard of living of their peoples. Pakistan's economy is currently in shambles, and the country is surviving largely on the doles of US foreign aid to the tune of $2 billion every year.

Real Source of Security

The real source of strength for a country is not in nuclear weapons, but in effective conventional forces (army, navy and air force) coupled with improvements in standard of living of its people. Ever since their country's devastation in World War II, the Japanese have worked hard and have raised their GNP to phenomenal levels, earning for them a pride of place in the comity of nations. The Nordic countries, including Sweden and Norway, have some of the most stable economies and the highest standards of living in the world. Japan, Norway and Sweden have very strong conventional forces, and expend a lot of energy in maintaining the strike and defense capabilities of their militaries. But they do not possess atomic weapons. In addition, these countries have signed and ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty ("CTBT Signatories and Ratifiers" 3-4).

Economical strength should also be supplemented by creative and meaningful diplomacy with neighboring countries and with the world at large. Potential problems should be defused by negotiations marked by an attitude of give and take. With improvements in the standard of living, and with attention focussed on a paradigm of meaningful engagement with neighboring countries, rancor and divisiveness take a back seat. Nuclear weapons are not an effective tool to safeguard national security in today's world. Only a strong economy coupled with effective conventional forces can ensure such security.


Work Cited
"Atomic Bomb and American Strategic Thought." Britannica Online. Encyclopaedia Britannica.
"Collapse of the Soviet Union." Britannica Online. Encyclopaedia Britannica.
"CTBT Signatories and Ratifiers." Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers, Last Updated 13 Oct. 1999.
"First Atomic Bomb." Britannica Online. Encyclopaedia Britannica.
"First and Second Strikes." Britannica Online. Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Frost, B., "The Debate That Won't Die", Britannica Online. Encyclopaedia Britannica. 1 Feb. 1998.
"History of Russia." Britannica Online. Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Hurley, J. A, ed. "Weapons of Mass Destruction" – Opposing Viewpoints,
The United States Should Remove Its Nuclear Arsenal From Alert Status. California: Greenhaven Press, 1999.