Rashna
Senior Member
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2015
- Messages
- 2,259
- Likes
- 704
'Pak needs mini-nukes to deter India'
WASHINGTON: The long-time guardian manager of Pakistan's nuclear assets is maintaining that the country's new battlefield tactical nuclear weapons is serving as a deterrent to war with India, amid growing concerns in Washington that it has actually shortened the fuse because the mini-nukes, which are delegated to field commanders, could fall into rogue hands.
Not going to happen, insisted retired general Khalid Kidwai, custodian and planner of Pakistan's nuclear security and strategy for many years, despite reports within the country that it has had to weed out prospective extremists with "negative tendencies" from its ranks. If anything, he asserted, the tactical nukes, which can be used on battle formations, had deterred India's Cold Start doctrine, which is aimed at a quick punitive military strike in the event of another Mumbai-style operation by Pakistani intelligence.
Skepticism ran deep at a Carnegie Endowment event on nuclear security where Kidwai, who led the administration of Pakistan's nuclear and missile weapons program and now serves as an adviser to the National Command Authority, was grilled about what US analysts believe is a shortening of the nuclear fuse by Pakistan with its Nasr missile, which has a 60-m range. Kidwai insisted that it's development and deployment actually made war less likely because India had had to rethink the Cold Start strategy.
On its part, India has indicated that use of any nuclear weapon by Pakistan, regardless of its size, will result in massive retaliation. But Kidwai appeared to counter that by revealing that Pakistan's Shaheen-3 missile, test fired this month with a 2750-km range, was aimed at countering India's second-strike capability, possibly from bases it was developing in Andaman Nicobar Island on the far side of India's east coast.
Although the missile's range brings the middle-east, including Israel, into the nuclear calculus, Kidwai insisted the Pakistani weapons program was India- specific.
US nuclear experts are alarmed at what they see as Pakistan's lowering of the nuclear threshold even as Islamabad blames it on Washington's tilt towards New Delhi in recent years, including the civilian nuclear deal that Pakistan claims allows India to expand its nuclear arsenal.
"Pakistani military planners and front-line soldiers will find battlefield nuclear weapons to be a logistical nightmare. Indeed, the unanticipated challenges that arise with the forward deployment and use of tactical nuclear weapons — incorporating nuclear fire planning with conventional maneuver operations, maintaining a clear chain of command in crisis scenarios where nuclear weapons are being used, and hardening communications against EMP blasts, among other dilemmas — offset the deterrent value these systems are purported to provide," warned a recent review by the Stimson Center of Pakistan's tactical nukes.
Jeffrey McCausland, the author of the report, concluded that that Pakistan's efforts to develop and produce short-range, nuclear-capable systems will seriously undermine deterrence stability and escalation control on the subcontinent.
Such conclusions, widespread in the US strategic community, has not stopped Washington from continuing to support what critics see as fungible US aid to Islamabad that frees up Pakistan's own scarce resources to develop nuclear weapons.
‘Pak needs mini-nukes to deter India’ - The Times of India
WASHINGTON: The long-time guardian manager of Pakistan's nuclear assets is maintaining that the country's new battlefield tactical nuclear weapons is serving as a deterrent to war with India, amid growing concerns in Washington that it has actually shortened the fuse because the mini-nukes, which are delegated to field commanders, could fall into rogue hands.
Not going to happen, insisted retired general Khalid Kidwai, custodian and planner of Pakistan's nuclear security and strategy for many years, despite reports within the country that it has had to weed out prospective extremists with "negative tendencies" from its ranks. If anything, he asserted, the tactical nukes, which can be used on battle formations, had deterred India's Cold Start doctrine, which is aimed at a quick punitive military strike in the event of another Mumbai-style operation by Pakistani intelligence.
Skepticism ran deep at a Carnegie Endowment event on nuclear security where Kidwai, who led the administration of Pakistan's nuclear and missile weapons program and now serves as an adviser to the National Command Authority, was grilled about what US analysts believe is a shortening of the nuclear fuse by Pakistan with its Nasr missile, which has a 60-m range. Kidwai insisted that it's development and deployment actually made war less likely because India had had to rethink the Cold Start strategy.
On its part, India has indicated that use of any nuclear weapon by Pakistan, regardless of its size, will result in massive retaliation. But Kidwai appeared to counter that by revealing that Pakistan's Shaheen-3 missile, test fired this month with a 2750-km range, was aimed at countering India's second-strike capability, possibly from bases it was developing in Andaman Nicobar Island on the far side of India's east coast.
Although the missile's range brings the middle-east, including Israel, into the nuclear calculus, Kidwai insisted the Pakistani weapons program was India- specific.
US nuclear experts are alarmed at what they see as Pakistan's lowering of the nuclear threshold even as Islamabad blames it on Washington's tilt towards New Delhi in recent years, including the civilian nuclear deal that Pakistan claims allows India to expand its nuclear arsenal.
"Pakistani military planners and front-line soldiers will find battlefield nuclear weapons to be a logistical nightmare. Indeed, the unanticipated challenges that arise with the forward deployment and use of tactical nuclear weapons — incorporating nuclear fire planning with conventional maneuver operations, maintaining a clear chain of command in crisis scenarios where nuclear weapons are being used, and hardening communications against EMP blasts, among other dilemmas — offset the deterrent value these systems are purported to provide," warned a recent review by the Stimson Center of Pakistan's tactical nukes.
Jeffrey McCausland, the author of the report, concluded that that Pakistan's efforts to develop and produce short-range, nuclear-capable systems will seriously undermine deterrence stability and escalation control on the subcontinent.
Such conclusions, widespread in the US strategic community, has not stopped Washington from continuing to support what critics see as fungible US aid to Islamabad that frees up Pakistan's own scarce resources to develop nuclear weapons.
‘Pak needs mini-nukes to deter India’ - The Times of India
