The author is a well-known journalist and freelance columnist

mbnaqvi@cyber.net.pk

Logically one of the most likely outcomes of the Delhi Summit would be a set of agreements under the rubric of CBMs (confidence building measures) or Nuclear Restraint Regime. Doubtless there would be some other agreements too that would yield incremental benefits in the spheres of trade, cultural exchanges and a somewhat more relaxed visa regime. What will be vain to hope for is a satisfying resolution of the Kashmir problem or a true ending of the Indo-Pakistan cold war and arms race that may lead before long to a reversal of adversarial attitudes and assumptions between India and Pakistan. On the whole, the two governments are likely to soldier on - in the well-worn grooves.

A set of understandings will be useful and necessary about the safe keeping of nuclear weapons and missiles that would, among other things, confer on the enemy the right to prior knowledge of how, when or on what targets are these dreaded weapons to be dropped. That will go a long way toward preventing an accidental or unintended nuclear war. It will aim at preventing unauthorised launching of nuclear-tipped missiles. If precedence of the Soviet-American era is followed, the already implemented CBMs may be improved upon and added to. Maybe the two subcontinental adversaries will devise their own version of talks on MBFR (mutually balanced force reduction) and disarmament or at least some restraint. Such measures can go some way in reducing military tensions and smoothen out the sharp edges of political discord.

Thus so long as nuclear weapons do exist such efforts will be necessary and useful. But what was clearly useful in 1960s between the global rivals separated by thousands of miles may not be replicable in South Asia nor will such measures result in the same kind of relief and safety. Logic of Indo-Pakistan nuclear deterrents will, in the context of Kashmir and other disputes and given the time and other constraints, dictate its own doctrines and practices. What seems certain is that whether anyone likes it or not, the mere fact of nuclear weapons in the armoury of the enemy will force each to employ 'launch-on-warning' - the hair-trigger readiness - doctrine and the targets for immediate and maximum effect will be on cities rather than military or industrial-economic installations. As for the polite nonsense about 'no-first-use', in real life both sides will race to be the first to use - though, if luck holds or God wills, neither side may use these weapons. The latter possibility exists. But it cannot be relied upon.

There were other spurious doctrines doing the rounds that both Indian and Pakistani cold warriors were predicting in the earlier 1990s: one of these was that the presence of nuclear weapons will make war impossible. Well, this notion was put paid to by India's Defence Minister and Indian Army Chief in 2000 when they propounded their latest doctrine that nuclear weapons deter only nuclear weapons and a war can still take place. India has followed up this message to Pakistan with the exercise Poorna Vijay merely to show how. Pakistan economy's state shows how 'cheap' the nuclear weapons business is; what is its true impact on India is the common Indians business to inquire - how come a Great Powers' human development indicators are so unsatisfactory. We in Pakistan should worry about our own economy and its overstretch. The so much bruited freeze on defence spending in real terms will, on current or conventional view, render Pakistan's security vulnerable - unless of course the Delhi Summit achieves the unlikely feat of converting Indo-Pakistan ties nature from adversarial to friendly.

Sometime theories look fine on paper. But real life in South Asia has shown that the mere presence of nuclear weapons is destabilising and tension-promoting because there is no defence against anyone's atomic weapons. Their mere existence creates extreme fear and mistrust about the intentions of the "other". Moreover, both the Pakistani and Indian governments' behaviour since 1998 has shown that once this monster of Nuclear Mass Destruction Weapons has been unleashed, arms race has been compulsively intensified. Both sides have shown by their actions that there is no such thing as a Minimum Nuclear Deterrent; there can only be biggest feasible deterrent limited only by resources and capacity. One only needs to quote the present Foreign Minister's caveats earlier in 1999 about the need to counter the increasing numbers of Indian MDWs and their improved quality before he became a Minister.

While conceding that so long as these MDWs exist a detente needs to be worked out, this nuclear detente has to be purposefully recognised as a very troublesome thing; few peace lovers can be comfortable with it. The main objection to it is that one of its chief unintended effects will be to make nuclear MDWs permanent in both countries. Indeed it is possible to suspect the intentions of hardliners on both sides who are so earnest about it and who constitute the subcontinental, or public sector, counterparts of the famous Industrial-Military Complex. Their desire for such a detente, while being aimed at preventing day-to-day crises, misunderstandings and accidents, also provides much of the long-term butter on their military budgets-given toasts. They are worldly-wise people.

Anyway, whatever may have happened in the east-west cold war, in South Asia the first fruit of nuclear capability was the questionable political behaviour of the two governments after 1998: based on a false sense of invincibility on both sides, one side embarked boldly on the Kargil adventure and the other served a direct or near-direct threat of war for the temerity to go and occupy empty outposts in Kargil. Needless to say, there has been a non-stop increase in tensions on the LoC and elsewhere on the Radcliff Line. Threat of an all out war continues to loom. The bottomline is that these nuclear MDWs have increased both the mistrust and the threat of war in which non-use of these weapons will depend entirely on God's grace.

What follows from this is that there is no law of nature or God or man that lays down that there must be two adversarial Nuclear Deterrents in the subcontinent. We can revert to what all of us used to say for so many decades: these weapons are immoral and are an unmitigated evil. They simply should not be. That means both Pakistan and India should return to the nuclear disarmament agenda, both global and regional. Among the many bogus doctrines being hawked around, a notable foolishness is that innocence once lost cannot be regained. They mean nuclear capability cannot be disinvented. This is nonsense. Don't most countries know how to make gas and other chemical weapons? Must the entire UN membership then acquire and deploy chemical, biological and other new weapons of mass destruction simply because their scientists can make them? If chemical weapons treaty and conventions can outlaw chemical and biological weapons, so can nuclear ones-if only we can build a political will in the two governments. After all anyone can see the patent fact that given these MDWs both Pakistan and India are less secure today that they were before 1998. They are also nearer to a war.

This is not really the place to argue at length the triangular argument over nuclear arsenals. Insofar as Pakistan's Bomb lobby is concerned, its reasoning is straightforward: 'we have a bitter dispute with India on Kashmir, we have gone to war several times over it, and may yet do so again. But India is a rich and big country and its conventional armed forces are stronger than ours. Therefore, Pakistan security needs nuclear MDWs to offset India's superiority'. Also, 'we will be happy to give up this nuclear deterrent should India do the right things: settle Kashmir as we and the Kashmiris desire plus agree to disarm its nuclear forces'. India dismisses Pakistan as virtual non-entity and asserts that so long as China retains its nuclear armaments, so will India. China is sure to argue, like India, that its nuclear armaments are not aimed at India at all. They are meant to safeguard against possible threats from the US and various other unspecified sources. So the vicious arguments can go on ad infinitum.

Once the basic tenets of this power politics - the doctrine of nuclear deterrence can keep a balance of power and thus keep peace - surrounding nuclear weapons is conceded, they lead to absurd results in real life in South Asia and achieve the opposite effect of bringing a war closer, as we have seen. This way vertical proliferation of nuclear deterrents will go on here also without it achieving the stated objectives. Rather the opposite of what may be fondly desired is likely to happen.

Those who seek peace and cooperation among nations, especially in the desperate case of India and Pakistan, have no option but to accept nuclear disarmament as a creed as well as a practical objective whether or not anyone else agrees to act likewise. Unless a person can adopt a moral - and political - position unilaterally, his commitment to nuclear disarmament should be seen as non-existent. Those who require others to adopt the same view prior to his self-abnegation or at least simultaneously, is not true devotee of peace and nuclear disarmament. He is a closet believer in power politics. His position amounts to that of the rake who will not give up his orgies until all others stop sinning.

One more distracting argument needs to be swept out of the way. It was used mainly by India's Bomb lovers. It has now begun appearing in the Pakistani official discourse. How can we disarm unilaterally when the P-5 and Israel go on proliferating vertically? A sham anti-imperial demagoguery underlies it. The short answer is: let us do what is right and forget what the big powers are doing. For resolving the resulting asymmetry and anomaly, let India and Pakistan after deciding to disarm - and after they have shown some progress - can mount an international nuclear disarmament campaign. After gaining credibility through actions, they will have the sympathy of all people of goodwill everywhere. Let us watch how public opinion is forcing US President George Bush Jr to be on the defensive about Kyoto Treaty and even NMD. Progress may be slow but will follow in the long run.

There is no reason why South Asia should not resume being NWFZ (nuclear weapons free zone) and invite the rest of the world to watch how it goes about the business. Both countries will be several degrees more secure if the nuclear MDWs are scrapped, despite other asymmetries. Progress in economic cooperation, trade and cultural exchanges can set the stage for progress on nuclear disarmament and even the Kashmir conundrum. Only more imagination and ingenuity is needed. Once it is ensured that neither side is eventually seen to have lost to its counterpart almost any agreement can be made including one on Kashmir. An agreement on making South Asia NWFZ will create so much goodwill that other issues will cease to be too hard to resolve.