Nuclear Exchange Between India And Pakistan example essay topic

In May 1998 India's new coalition government led by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) conducted five nuclear tests. This was shortly responded by Pakistan with similar action, and the world realized that it received at once two new overt nuclear states. The nuclear tests were met with great popular celebration in the two countries and a big concern worldwide. Why nuclear tests in 1998 took place?

Brahma Chellany, Professor of Security Studies at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi puts three major motivations for India: non-proliferation pressures; Chinese nuclear capabilities; tension with Pakistan cooped with Pakistani developing nuclear capacity supported by China; and failure of Global nuclear disarmament. Brahma mentions, that 'India has been a prime target of the CTBT and the proposed Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FACT). The two measures are part of a 'dragnet strategy' to capture those in the NPT. The CTBT was a key catalyst in the Indian decision to become an overt weapon state...

The CTBT made India acutely aware of the technical imperatives of its long-held nuclear option, and of its closing opportunity to test its prototype weapons. By seeking forcibly to 'capture' India through a coercive entry-into-force provision, and making a thinly veiled threat of sanctions if India refused, the CTBT left New Delhi with little choice'. Brahma also argues, that continues India's policy of strong support of the idea of Global nuclear disarmament did not meet adequate reply from nuclear club, and even the end of the Cold War did not change the situation in principle. As a result, 'in fact, India had been the only economy among the world's top ten to be without the protection of a nuclear arsenal or umbrella'. Brahma views nuclear threat from its neighbourhood as an important motivation for India's nuclear tests and displays this issue in the context of China-Pakistan anti-Indian axis.

He fairly mentions, that China used India-Pakistan dispute for promoting Pakistani nuclearization and creating an additional trouble for its strategic rival in the region. 'Pakistan is prominent in Indian strategic planning because of its China connection. Without that link, Islamabad would not be able to sustain its bellicosity towards India, or pose the level of nuclear and missile threat that it does... In its strategic calculations, the importance China attaches to Pakistan is similar to that which the US attaches to Israel'. What undoubtedly comes from this observation is, that in this nuclear triangle India-Pakistan old animosity puts significant contribution in promoting nuclear race. Another trustworthy expert of this issue Kamal Matinuddin puts in: 'The Kashmir dispute has played a major role in the nuclearization of South Asia.

If this dispute had been settled to the satisfaction of the parties concerned, India may have thought twice before embarking on the road to becoming a nuclear state. Pakistan may even have accepted the presence of a nuclear India in the subcontinent if India had not denied the Kashmiris their right of self-determination'. The hostility between the two states is grounded in the circumstances of the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 with the creation of Pakistan in the face of strong opposition from Indian nationalists who rejected the idea of a separate Muslim state. The dispute over Kashmir and hostile relationship between India and Pakistan is a consequence of this historical opposition. At the same time, 'the issue has enormous symbolic significance for both India and Pakistan, for whom the integration of Kashmir's Muslim majority is absolutely bound to their respective 'secular' and 'Islamic' identities'. Pakistani general Mahmud Ali Durrani, the participant of India-Pakistan wars and conflicts and, undoubtedly, qualified expert of Indo-Pakistani relationships in his book 'India And Pakistan.

The Cost of Conflict. The Benefits of Peace' (the book is issued in 2000), in the chapter titled 'The Causes of Conflict', points as causes of tension and conflict between two states traditional hatred between two nations and territorial issues. Nuclear race is not even mentioned in this regard. If nuclear race was a serious cause of tension between the states, it would indubitably be mentioned by Pakistani author, the more so as the initiator of this race is more India rather than Pakistan. Durrani gives a sorrowful baggage of Indo-Pakistani 50 years rivalry, evidently caused by territorial disputes and religious hostility: '- Indo-Pakistan wars of 1948 and 1965: over 50 000 people died. - The civil war in East Pakistan in 1971 and the following Indo-Pakistan war: almost one million people died.

- Unrest in East Punjab (India): about 30 000 people died. - Uprising in Indian controlled Kashmir since 1998. Over 50 000 civilian died in addition to over 10 000 soldiers: the current estimates for the civilian dead in the region of 60 000 to 70 000. - The loss of human life in the Sia chen region runs into thousands. - The continuing tensions and periodic exchange of fire along the Line of Control results in heavy costs in force maintenance, loss of property, damage to crops, loss of domestic animals and above all the loss of human life. There is no data available on the loss of civilian lives on both sides of the LOC but death and injury through artillery shelling, small arms fire, mines and retribution al raids is a common routine occurrence for hapless Kashmiris who straddle the LOC'.

This terrible heritage, which actually has nothing common with nuclear issue represents more than enough ground for tension between two states. Thus, we can conclude with high confidence, that the India-Pakistan nuclear arms race is a symptom rather than a fundamental cause of tension between the two states. Nevertheless, being a symptom of the tension between the two states, India-Pakistan nuclear race is a very important symptom and, moreover, it is a fundamental consequence. Possibility of nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan is much higher than it was between United States and Soviet Union during the Cold War. Following arguments justify this view: 1. Though the scale of confrontation between India and Pakistan is incomparable with the scale of confrontation between two global superpowers, the level of hostility and mutual hatred is much higher.

2. United States and Soviet Union never had mutual war or direct military conflict, while India and Pakistan managed to have three full-fledged wars and number of small scale border conflicts in the recent historical past. 3. Two superpowers didn't have territorial dispute - the most traditional cause of war, while it is the main issue of India-Pakistan bilateral relationships since the emergence of this states. 4. India and Pakistan do not have command and control system for nuclear weapons deployed by the US and the Soviet Union.

'Economic constrains... will limit the ability of the two nations to develop a fail-safe system... With a highly populated contiguous border and virtually no depth, it will be extremely difficult to receive confirmation of a surprise strike. This is bound to enhance the chance of an accidental strike from either side. With large groups of extremists in both countries, an unauthorized strike, though highly unlikely, cannot be ruled out'.

As the threat of nuclear exchange is quite real, possible outcomes of this are of great importance. Consequences of the possible nuclear war between the two states were studied by Purdue University (USA). There estimations are based on the existing nuclear potential of India and Pakistan its current condition: Even the most limited nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan would spell utter catastrophe. The immediate effects of the explosions - thermal radiation, nuclear radiation and blast damage - would cause wide swaths of death and destruction.

Victims would suffer flash and flame burns. Retinal burns could occur in the eyes of persons at distances as great as a hundred miles from the explosion. People would be crushed by collapsing buildings and torn to shreds by flying glass. Others would fall victim to raging firestorms and conflagrations. Fallout injuries would include whole-body radiation injury, produced by penetrating, hard gamma radiation; superficial radiation burns produced by soft radiations; and injuries produced by deposits of radioactive substances within the body.

In the aftermath, those few medical facilities that might (miraculously) still exist would be taxed beyond endurance. Water supplies would become unusable as a result of fallout contamination. Housing and shelter would become unavailable for hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of survivors. Transportation and communication would break down to the most rudimentary levels. Severe food shortages would be inevitable.

Certain of the biological and ecological effects of a nuclear war would be felt by other states in the region. Radioactive fallout does not respect political boundaries. Because of the manner in which nuclear explosions behave in the atmosphere, the altitude reached by the mushroom-shaped cloud would depend upon the force of the explosion. For yields in the low-kiloton range, the cloud would remain in the lower atmosphere, and its effects would likely remain local. That is, these effects would not extend beyond the boundaries of the combatant states.

But for yields exceeding 30 kilotons, parts of the clouds of radioactive debris would "punch" into the stratosphere, affecting non-combatant states as well. Throughout the South Asian region affected by nuclear exchanges, an enormous health threat would be created by tens of thousands of rotting, unburied corpses. In many areas radiation levels would be so high that corpses could remain untouched for weeks or even months. With transportation destroyed, survivors weakened and myriad post-war reconstruction tasks to be performed, corpse disposal would be difficult, if not impossible.

Dangerous global consequences of these possible results of the nuclear exchange between the two states are evident. So, in some extent in longer term perspective nuclearization of two countries may even promote final resolution of India-Pakistan long lasted confrontation. Considering new, extremely dangerous nuclear realities of India-Pakistan confrontation, international community has to concentrate serious efforts on resolution of this long dispute. Following the view, expressed by Daily Telegraph, 'the need for international intervention has never been greater, not just prevent a war but to force the two sides finally to resolve the Kashmir dispute', because 'the trivialization of nuclear war by both armies and their macho ideologies - jihad and martyrdom on the one side, Hindu fundamentalism on the other - coupled with the elite's refusal to educate their public about the horrors of nuclear conflict, only add to the dangers... many Pakistanis think a nuclear bomb just makes a bigger bang than an ordinary one'... tension, or even hostility between India and Pakistan is result of the circumstances of partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, which caused territorial dispute between the two states. An important role in this hostility is also played by hatred between two nations based on warfare and terrorism background and religious difference. The India-Pakistan nuclear race has to be treated as a symptom rather than cause of the interstate tension.

A fare analysis shows, that Pakistani factor together with others played an important role in India's nuclearization, and Pakistan's decision to have a nuclear weapon was almost completely evoked by confrontation with India. Being a symptom of the tension between the two states, the India-Pakistan nuclear race is a very important symptom and, moreover, it is a fundamental consequence. Nuclear tests, conducted in the two countries in 1998, generated a possibility of nuclear exchange between them, and converted the India-Pakistan tension from mostly bilateral into serious regional and even international threat. As an international threat requires a serious international involvement which has to be directed on two major issues: achieving higher nuclear transparency and safety in the two states; and eliminating a source of tension by promoting resolution of territorial dispute.