Pakistan's Battlefield Nuclear Policy: A Risky Solution to an Exaggerated Threat

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 118-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaganath Sankaran
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Nuclear Weapon ◽  
Short Range ◽  
Cold Start ◽  
Ballistic Missile ◽  
Indian Government ◽  
Border Regions ◽  
Nuclear Policy ◽  
International Border

Pakistan has introduced a new battlefield nuclear weapon, Nasr, into its arsenal. Nasr, a short-range ballistic missile, was first flight-tested in 2011. Pakistani leaders have declared that the weapon is meant to deter India from executing its Cold Start war doctrine. The doctrine was conceived by members of India's army and its strategic community in 2004 as a solution to perceived operational shortcomings of the army in responding to major terrorist incidents involving Pakistanis. It recommends the positioning of smaller army units at the international border with the capability to rapidly invade Pakistan and occupy narrow slices of territory, while denying Pakistan the ability to anticipate the attack and to immediately assemble a counterattack force. The Cold Start war doctrine, however, has since been publicly disavowed by the Indian government, and the Indian army has not reorganized or equipped its troops in a manner consistent with the doctrine. Further, the use of battlefield nuclear weapons inside Pakistan or near the densely populated border regions could potentially cause civilian casualties in the tens of thousands. These factors should dissuade Pakistan from deploying the Nasr missile.

Iraq's Chemical Weapons Legacy: What Others Might Learn from Saddam

2005 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-208
Author(s):  
Richard L. Russell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Nuclear Weapon ◽  
The United States ◽  
Chemical Weapons ◽  
Nation States

Iraq's experience with chemical weapons provides ample lessons for nation-states looking to redress their conventional military shortcomings. Nation-states are likely to learn from Saddam that chemical weapons are useful for waging war against nation-states ill-prepared to fight on a chemical battlefield as well as against internal insurgents and rebellious civilians. Most significantly, nation-states studying Iraq's experience are likely to conclude that chemical weapons are not a “poor man's nuclear weapon” and that only nuclear weapons can deter potential adversaries including the United States.

The Madness beyond MAD—Current American Nuclear Strategy

1984 ◽  
Vol 17 (01) ◽  
pp. 33-40
Author(s):  
Robert Jervis
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Military Power ◽  
Nuclear Strategy ◽  
The Past ◽  
Means And Ends ◽  
Soviet Force ◽  
Nuclear Policy ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S

A rational strategy for the employment of nuclear weapons is a contradiction in terms. The enormity of the destruction, either executed or threatened, severs the nexus of proportionality between means and ends which used to characterize the threat and use of force. This does not mean, however, that all nuclear strategies are equally irrational. The nuclear policy of the Reagan administration—which is essentially the same as that of the Carter administration and which has its roots in developments initiated by even earlier administrations—is particularly ill-formed. As I will demonstrate, the basic reason for this is that the strategy rests on a profound underestimation of the impact of nuclear weapons on military strategy and attempts to understand the current situation with intellectual tools appropriate only in the pre-nuclear era.American strategy for the past several years—the “countervailing strategy”—has been based on the assumption that what is crucial is the ability of American and allied military forces to deny the Soviets military advantage from any aggression they might contemplate. The U.S. must be prepared to meet and block any level of Soviet force. The strategy is then one of counterforce—blocking and seeking to destroy Soviet military power. The goal is deterrence. Although it is concerned with how the U.S. would fight many different kinds of wars, both nuclear and non-nuclear, it is not correct to claim that the strategy seeks to engage in wars rather than deter them.

15. The Return to Confrontation, 1979–80

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Young ◽  
John Kent
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Short Range ◽  
The United States ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Slow Progress ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
East West

This chapter examines why the United States and the Soviet Union returned to confrontation during the period 1979–1980. Despite the slow progress of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), there were at least some efforts to control strategic weapons. Short-range and intermediate-range nuclear weapons, in contrast, continued to grow in number and sophistication, particularly in Europe, where NATO and Warsaw Pact forces still prepared for war against each other, despite détente. The failure to control theatre nuclear weapons led to a new twist in the European arms race at the end of the 1970s which helped to undermine recent improvements in East–West relations. The chapter first considers NATO’s ‘dual track’ decision regarding theatre nuclear weapons before discussing the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. It concludes with an assessment of the revival of the Cold War, focusing on the so-called Carter Doctrine.

scholarly journals Nuclear Disarmament without the Nuclear-Weapon States: The Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty

Daedalus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 149 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harald Müller ◽  
Carmen Wunderlich
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Nuclear Weapon ◽  
Nuclear Disarmament ◽  
The Road ◽  
Common Basis ◽  
Global Zero ◽  
Nuclear Arms

The 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (tpnw) represents a daring act of self-empowerment: nuclear have-nots produced an international disarmament treaty without the involvement of the nuclear-weapon states or their allies. In this essay, we assess how the new treaty relates to the existing nuclear order and its four central norms: constraints on use, political restraint, non-proliferation, and disarmament. We discuss the tpnw's origin in and impact on this contested order. At the heart of contestation are two security concepts: deterrence versus the immediate ban of nuclear arms, which result in fundamentally different ideas on how to pursue the road to “global zero.” Whether or not the tpnw and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons are compatible depends on how the opponents handle their controversies. The key is to overcome the emotionalized polarization and rediscover a common basis in order to prevent damage to the existing nuclear order and bring forward nuclear disarmament in practice.

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