A Tale of South Asia’s Strategic Stability

Introduction

Since India’s first nuclear test in 1974, South Asia has been beset with unique challenges. The challenges to strategic stability between the two South Asian nuclear powers are beyond the usual deterrence, arms race, crisis, and first-strike stability parameters. Only China and Russia have contiguous land frontiers like Pakistan and India. No other nuclear powers have unresolved territorial disputes. Although the ways of lives of some nuclear powers may differ and become a source of unstable relations, these are not as innate as the ideological differences between Pakistan and India. Interestingly, systemic developments such as between the U.S. and China are also an overload on South Asian stability.

This series of seven blogposts shall examine strategic stability on the parameters of deterrence, arms race, crisis, and first-strike stability. Examination of each variable shall also include impact of U.S.-China growing competition in the region. Then other challenges impacting stability shall be elaborated. Finally, the concluding blogpost shall present some propositions to build South Asian strategic stability. This post takes a brief view of what constitutes strategic stability.

Context

Strategic stability is a condition of absence of war amongst nuclear powers in which no side engages in nuclear brinkmanship. Weighed against this ideal, there is systemic and regional strategic instability and an urgent need to at least mitigate the nuclear risk.  Until recently, the U.S. and Russia had a consensual understanding on strategic stability, an objective they jointly developed, and others reluctantly latched on to it albeit varying interpretations. For instance, France had concerns that such a statement would undermine the deterrent effect of its arsenal. Now, even the Americans and Russians have increasingly competing priorities about the measures to be taken to build strategic stability. Likewise, the other seven of the nine nuclear powers (N-9) express commitment in-principle but face an impasse on strategic stability.

On January 3, 2022, in a joint statement after their strategic stability talks, the UN Security Council’s five permanent nuclear-armed States (P-5) reaffirmed a thirty-seven-year-old Reagan-Gorbachev principle[i] that “nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”[ii] Preventing nuclear war and avoiding an arms race is in mutual interest. The common understanding among the P-5 to avoid a nuclear war “can pave the way for concrete measures for strategic stability at the global and regional levels.”[iii] Under pressure of Non-Proliferation Treaty’s review conference, the P-5 reiterated their ceremonial commitment to disarmament (Article VI of NPT). The journey to disarmament is arduous and both the U.S. and Russia have not shown enough leadership.

Strategic instability has increased because the P-5 are inter alia competing for strategic advantage and forming new security alliances that impact regional power balance, increase distrust and security dilemma.[iv] Each step a State takes even in response to an adversary forces the other to raise the bar of its security, creating a perpetual action-reaction cycle.

Even if a N-9 State works industriously towards reducing the risks of a consequential nuclear war, it must first deter its adversary. Building stable deterrence is contingent on a situation of mutual vulnerability and is paradoxical in nature. That is why France and UK have in past considered strategic stability an anathema to deterrence. The P-5 pledge would, therefore could be rephrased to accommodate deterrence requirements: a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought but should be credibly threatened. The last phrase points out that deterrence is paradoxical[v] i.e., to avoid deterrence breakdown, threat of a nuclear war must be given.

An unauthorized or unintentional use of nuclear weapons would result in deterrence breakdown and erode strategic stability. Even though P-5 States agree to take national efforts on de-targeting and affirm that their nuclear weapons are not targeted at each other or at any other state, this is a non-verifiable assurance.

In 1978, the P-5 and other members of the UN set related benchmark during the First Special Session on Disarmament – commonly referred to as SSOD-I – by calling for “indivisible, equal and undiminished security” for all states “at the lowest possible level of armaments and military forces.” [vi]

Forty-four years on, P-5 have not been able to meet their obligation[vii] to disarm. However, they have focused on partial measures such as non-proliferation and arms control to address nuclear threats and in part to retain their selective technological monopoly.

The other nuclear powers have also joined hands with P-5 to create a security environment more conducive towards nuclear zero. The absence of nuclear war is mere consolation because strategic stability and disarmament remain a pipedream. Much is left to be done to avoid military confrontations, strengthen predictability, increase mutual understanding and confidence, and prevent an arms race. The jury is still out on who to blame for the instability. As a starter, understanding the myriad interpretations of strategic stability is in order. An assessment of which State has walked its talk follows next.

Interpretations of Strategic Stability: What art Thou?

Background

Peace is fragile and there has never been ideal peace. In a nuclear world, acknowledging the fragility of peace and striving for strategic stability is closest to the ideal. While disarmament remains aspirational, peaceful arms control measures could build strategic stability. Likewise, stable deterrence relationships would thrive on mutual vulnerability. There is vast literature on the troika of strategic stability, arms control and deterrence and synthesizing a common consensual interpretation of these concepts is not possible. Below is an inexhaustive selection of interpretations on strategic stability.

The U.S., Britain, and France

Although Britain and France have had reservations on endorsing Reagan-Gorbachev principle, they agreed to approve it in 2022. The American conception of strategic stability is well summed up below:

A situation in which no party has an incentive to use nuclear weapons save for vindication of its vital interests in extreme circumstances…As in the classic understanding of first-strike stability, a stabilizing force posture should both be demonstrably survivable and exhibit restraint such that an opponent does not fear excessively for the effectiveness of his retaliatory capability.[viii]

The British interpretation is almost identical, “A situation which assures that states are not incentivized and not pressured to use nuclear weapons – requires less conflictual and more predictable security relationship.”[ix] This implies a balanced combination of threat to use nuclear weapons to deter adversaries while extending a handshake for arms control measures to reduce the risk of war.

The NATO blames that Russia and China are lowering the barriers to nuclear use and eroding the firebreak between conventional and nuclear conflict.[x] Likewise, the U.S. believes that as compared to Cold War, the situation is changed because of return of geopolitics; whereby revisionist powers seek to alter the status-quo. Rising powers and regional rivals are expanding their nuclear arsenals.[xi]

Russia

A top Russian diplomat lamented on the sidelines of a Track-1 event that the U.S. is unilaterally eroding the strategic stability concept that it mutually developed with Moscow during Cold War. Russia’s understanding of strategic stability revolves around the belief to have mutual deterrent relationship, based on strategic balance and parity with the U.S.[xii] From the official Russian vantage point, strategic stability is:

A situation deliberately maintained where there is no temptation for either party to use weapons of mass destruction as means of first strike, no deliberate effort to acquire military dominance and the military capabilities should be in consonance with national security needs only.[xiii]

The above two conceptualizations clearly indicate that strategic stability is not contingent upon nuclear deterrence only. It rather encompasses related political, economic, and technological developments.

Five additional factors impact strategic stability and drive Russia’s contemporary thinking. One, Ballistic Missile Defense systems being fielded by the U.S. and its NATO allies around Russia. These affect Russian force posture. Two, the U.S. / NATO conventional precision-guided munitions have compelled Moscow to develop similar capabilities to maintain strategic balance. Three, possibly of space-based weapons and increasing militarization of space have compelled Russia to follow suit while proposing initiatives such as no first placement of nuclear weapons in outer space. Four, to offset the Western reliance on antisubmarine warfare, Russia has developed and fielded Poseidon nuclear-powered-armed-intercontinental torpedo. Five, Russia also includes in its nuclear calculus the arsenals of UK and France besides the U.S.[xiv]

China

Chinese views on strategic stability imperatives are quite identical to Russians. Beijing is of the view that the traditional de-facto mutual vulnerability relationship between China and U.S. is eroding because of Washington’s aspiration to develop first-strike capability against Beijing.[xv]

China has long considered Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) as the central pillar of Sino-U.S. deterrent relationship. However, the U.S. does not equate this concept with strategic stability and prefers not to describe Sino-U.S. nuclear relationship as based on MAD.[xvi]

This disagreement on the baseline of nuclear deterrence between the two sides also has ramifications for arms race stability. The advanced emerging conventional weapons – like BMD, hypersonic missiles and so on – that U.S. considers imperative for its security are seen by China as a serious threat to its nuclear second-strike capability.

Israel

Tel Aviv maintains ambiguity about its nuclear capability and there is scarcity of literature to judge Israel on the parameters of strategic stability. The little scholarship available tends to project Israel’s though on strategic stability “in non-nuclear contexts.”[xvii] The concept of strategic stability was deeply embedded in Israeli strategic thinking since the inception of the State of Israel, albeit in a wider context of the existential threats Israel faced and without the explicit term “strategic stability.”[xviii] Israel tends to condition its strategic posture on how successful is the world in containing proliferation i.e. no other state in the region should pursue a nuclear or WMD ambition.[xix]

North Korea

Pyongyang is a greater hermit than Israel in terms of producing strategic literature. The interpretation of its strategic culture has been done by outsiders,[xx] which obviously will carry biases.[xxi] Given the tiny size of its arsenal and long-range delivery capabilities, North Korea would face the classic use it or lose it dilemma that means it shall pre-empt in a crisis fearing it will lose the nuclear capability to an American first-strike.

India

The Indian conceptualization, doctrines and force posture developments have been now mainly aligned with the U.S. It has become an active partner of the U.S. to contain China, while keeping the main weight of its military capability trained on to Pakistan. Per Indian thinking strategic stability is a “product of deterrence stability, crisis stability, and arms race stability in the context of a hostile political relationship between two nations; for example, an unresolved territorial dispute.”[xxii]

Pakistan

Pakistan, like China and Russia, subscribes to a wider interpretation of the strategic instability that includes political considerations. For instance, a relationship between India and Pakistan that encompasses the political conditions, security circumstances, doctrines and force postures that mutually preserve peace, prevent crises [and] escalation, and resolve disputes to reduce risk of a war – especially a nuclear exchange.[xxiii] Pakistan is of the view that there is no space for war[xxiv] under nuclear overhang.

Further Thoughts

In a broader sense, stability is a combination of deterrence and arms control. Nuclear mushrooms have not risen over cities after the U.S. nuclear-bombed Japan in 1945. Strategic stability has been held since then owing to a mix of luck and the assumption that all nuclear powers are rational actors.

The nuclear-armed states have different and contending interpretations of strategic stability. This affects their doctrines and postures and shape arms control choices. There are asymmetries in the capabilities of N-9, which are a source of eroding strategic stability. The sources of instability are not limited to U.S.-Russian rivalry but have different origins and regional implications.

ENDNOTES[i]Time to Renew the Reagan-Gorbachev Principle | Arms Control Association[ii]Joint Statement of the Leaders of the Five Nuclear-Weapon States on Preventing Nuclear War and Avoiding   Arms Races | The White House[iii]P-5 statement a positive development; can pave way for strategic stability: FO – Daily Times[iv]Security dilemma | international relations | Britannica[v]Review: Is Nuclear Deterrence Paradoxical? on JSTOR[vi]A-S10-4.pdf (un.org)[vii] As per Article VI of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the P-5 took an obligation “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament under strict and effective international control.” [viii] Strategic Stability: Contending Interpretations, Elbridge Colby, Michael Gerson, Army War College , Strategic Studies Institute. [ix] Shaun Gregory, Rethinking Strategic Stability in South Asia, SASSU Research Report No. 3, September 2005, Rethinking Strategic Stability in South Asia (ethz.ch)[x]Russia Forces ‘A New Normal’ on Europe, Stoltenberg Says > U.S. Department of Defense > Defense Department News[xi] (Evan Braden Montogomery, “Sources of Instability in the Second Nuclear Age: An American Perspective,” in Lawrence Rubin and Adam Stulberg, eds., The End of Strategic Stability? Nuclear Weapons and the Challenges of Regional Rivalries (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2018). [xii] Andrey Pavlov and Anastasia Malygina, “The Russian Approach to Strategic Stability: Preserving a Classical Formula in a Turbulent World,” in Lawrence Rubin and Adam Stulberg, eds., The End of Strategic Stability? Nuclear Weapons and the Challenges of Regional Rivalries (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2018). [xiii] Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov, 2019. [xiv] Andrey Pavlov and Anastasia Malygina, “The Russian Approach to Strategic Stability: Preserving a Classical Formula in a Turbulent World,” in Lawrence Rubin and Adam Stulberg, eds., The End of Strategic Stability? Nuclear Weapons and the Challenges of Regional Rivalries (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2018). [xv]Tong Zhao, “What the United States can do to stabilize its nuclear relationship with China,” Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Feb 2019. [xvi]China and nuclear weapons (brookings.edu). [xvii] Shlomo Brom, Israel and Strategic Stability in the Middle East, ­­ Institute for National Security, p. 99, June 1, 2016, https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep17012.10[xviii] Ibid. [xix] Emily B. Landau, From Nuclear Disarmament to Strategic Stability: Implications for Israel of an Emerging Global Debate, pp 115-126, Institute for National Security, June 1, 2016, https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep17012.11[xx](PDF) North Korean strategic culture: survival and security (researchgate.net)[xxi]North Korea’s Strategic Vision for 2022: Focus on Rural Development – 38 North: Informed Analysis of North Korea[xxii]Brig (Retired) Gurmeet Kanwal, “Strategic Stability in South Asia,” Sandia National Laboratories, 2017, p.11. [xxiii]“South Asian strategic stability a Pakistani perspective,” YouTube Video, Posted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, 4 April 2017. [xxiv]No space for war between nuclear powers: DG ISPR (nation.com.pk).