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Issue Brief
Gaurav Kampani, Senior Research Associate
Proliferation Research and Analysis Program (PRAP)
Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS)
Monterey Institute of International Studies
June 2002
Issue Introduction
The
recent crisis between India and Pakistan, which again raised fears
of a war between the two nuclear powers, has receded. A combination
of international pressure and military threats from India led to a
shift in Pakistani policy; India, in turn, has initiated moves to
relax tensions. Though war has been averted in this current crisis,
basic, critical problems still exist between the two South Asian
powers. Central issues include India’s mistrust of Pakistani
President Pervez Musharraf, the presence of Pakistani-backed
militants in Indian-controlled Kashmir, and the upcoming elections
in Kashmir. As the two countries continue to assess each other’s
actions and behavior, a precarious situation remains.
Issue Brief
The possibility
of war in South Asia, which seemed likely in the last week of May and
early June, now seems remote. Pakistan has caved in to international
pressure and India’s war threats and apparently stopped cross-border
infiltrations of civilian combatants into Indian-controlled Kashmir. In
an acknowledgement of the shift in Pakistan’s Kashmir policy, India has
withdrawn its naval armada that was massed in the North Arabian Sea.
India’s Vajpayee government has also lifted the overflight ban imposed
on Pakistani commercial jets in the wake of the terrorist attack by
Pakistani-sponsored militants on India’s parliament in December 2001. In
a further attempt to relax tensions, New Delhi has hinted that it will
upgrade diplomatic relations with Islamabad in the near future. These
tension-relieving steps and the success of the intense
conflict-prevention efforts of the international community led by the
United States would suggest that the crisis that brought India and
Pakistan, two nuclear powers, to the brink of war, is winding down.
However, a closer analysis suggests that tensions continue to lurk
beneath the surface.
Despite India and Pakistan’s decision to end aggressive patrolling by
their respective navies, both countries continue to keep their armies
and air forces deployed in forward areas. And although Islamabad has
suggested that both countries demobilize their forces, New Delhi has
rejected the proposal. Instead, Indian government officials from the
prime minister on down have reiterated that India will not undertake
demobilization until it can verify that Pakistan’s verbal assurances
have been translated into “hard” evidence on the ground.
Jammu and Kashmir: Ethnic Mix of a Disputed State
There are three major reasons why the Indian government is
unwilling to accept Pakistan’s assurances at face value.
First,
the Vajpayee government does not trust Pakistani President Pervez
Musharraf and the military-intelligence establishment that he
represents. It was Musharraf who sabotaged Indian Prime Minister
Vajpayee’s peace efforts at the Lahore Summit by initiating intrusions
into Indian territory, which led to the Kargil war in the summer of
1999. Similarly, Indian leaders consider Musharraf’s refusal to give up
support for the cross-border insurgency in Kashmir as the reason behind
the failure of the Agra Summit in June 2001. Likewise, in January 2002,
Musharraf made a public pledge not to allow Pakistan to be used as a
base for terrorist activities anywhere in the world, including Kashmir;
but he soon reneged on that promise. After a brief respite in January
and February 2002, the Pakistani military resumed infiltration
operations into Indian-controlled Kashmir.
Given the empirical record of Pakistan’s broken promises, Musharraf’s
credibility is at its nadir in New Delhi. Several Indian hardliners
suspect that Pakistan’s military has made a policy reversal in Kashmir
against its will--not because it was convinced of the folly of its
erstwhile policy of sponsoring insurgents to wage a sub-conventional war
against the Indian army, but because it was trapped between the wedge of
international pressure and impending Indian military action. Hence,
instead of ordering an immediate demobilization, the Indian government
would prefer to wait and verify that the changes in Islamabad’s Kashmir
policy are permanent.
Second, India is not satisfied with
Pakistan’s pledge to halt cross-border infiltrations. The Vajpayee
government wants the militant camps and related infrastructure in
Pakistan dismantled. Above all, Indian leaders want the Pakistani
government to disband the militant groups. India insists that Islamabad
accept and implement the latter two demands because it fears that
Pakistan’s military regime could renege on its promises after India
demobilizes its forces or once U.S. political attention strays. In such
circumstances, India would have gained little through its policy of
military mobilization, and conditions in Kashmir would worsen once
again. However, Pakistan regards the militant groups as a potential
military resource: militants could serve as a potential fifth column
against the Indian military in the event of another Indo-Pakistani war.
Hence, the issue of disbanding the militant groups is likely to remain a
divisive issue in Indo-Pakistani relations.
Finally, there is the
problem of elections in Kashmir, which the Indian government plans to
hold in October 2002. The majority of insurgents fighting the Indian
government in Kashmir are opposed to an election within the framework of
the Indian constitution. Pakistan’s military-intelligence agencies, too,
oppose the idea of elections without tripartite negotiations between the
Indian government, the militant groups, and the Pakistani government.
Although New Delhi has indicated a willingness to negotiate with the
Kashmir-based militant groups that pledge to abandon violence, the
Indian government rejects the idea of making Pakistan, which it regards
as “part of the problem of terrorism,” party to any proposed
negotiations.
Because of Pakistan’s past support for insurgent
groups, there are now an estimated 2,500-3,000 militants in
Indian-controlled Kashmir. The militant groups have a history of
assassinating moderates who oppose the armed insurgency or who consider
participating in the electoral process. Pakistan’s military-intelligence
establishment has also played a role in sidelining those militant
leaders who want greater autonomy for Kashmir under the aegis of the
Indian constitution or those who favor independence. Pakistan’s agenda
all along has been to force India to hold a plebiscite in which India’s
Kashmiri population would choose either India or Pakistan to govern the
region. As a result, India fears that, despite the Pakistan military’s
pledge to halt cross-border infiltrations, Pakistani intelligence
agencies could manipulate the militants already present in
Indian-controlled territories and arrange to have them sabotage the
electoral process. Should Indian fears prove to be accurate, tensions
could flare up again.
Come October, India’s cabinet committee on
security will once again assess whether there has been a positive change
in Islamabad’s behavior. A positive assessment from New Delhi will
likely pave the way for military demobilization and a resumption of
diplomatic dialogue with Pakistan on all issues, including Kashmir.
However, if evidence on the ground suggests that Pakistan has backed out
of its promises, the Vajpayee government will be confronted with two
uncomfortable options: either unilaterally demobilize despite Pakistani
bad-faith or initiate some sort of military action against Pakistan
before the onset of winter. Since unilateral demobilization would result
in a loss of credibility for the Vajpayee government, and since the
Indian military cannot be kept mobilized indefinitely, military strikes
against Pakistan could become the favored option by default.
If
this latter scenario comes to pass, the war clouds that have temporarily
receded could return just as swiftly to threaten peace in South Asia.
Relevant Resources
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Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monitoring Proliferation Threats Program, Chronology of Indian Missile Development. |
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Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monitoring Proliferation Threats Program, Chronology of Pakistani Missile Development. |
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Federation of American Scientists, India-Pakistan Nuclear Crisis. |
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Fourth Freedom Forum, South Asia and the Bomb. |
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Acronym Institute, India and Pakistan Missile Tests, 1999. |
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Gaurav Kampani, “India’s Compellance Strategy: Calling Pakistan’s Nuclear Bluff in Kashmir,” (Monterey, CA: Center for Nonproliferation Studies, June 2002). |
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Gaurav Kampani, “Placing the Indo-Pakistani Military Standoff in Perspective,” (Monterey, CA: Center for Nonproliferation Studies, April 2002). |
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P. Cotta-Ramusino and M. Martellini, “Nuclear safety, nuclear stability, and nuclear strategy in Pakistan,” A concise report by a visit by Landau Network – Centro Volta, 21 January 2002. |
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Brahma Chellaney, “Fighting Terrorism in Southern Asia,” International Security, Vol.26, No.3, Winter 2001/2002, pp.94-116. |
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Samina Ahmed, “The United States and Terrorism in Southwest Asia,” International Security, Vol.26, No.3, Winter 2001/2002, pp.79-93. |
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Clayton Bowen and Daniel Woulven, “Command and Control Challenges in South Asia,” The Nonproliferation Review 6 (Spring/Summer 1999). |
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Mario Carranza, “An Impossible Game: Stable Nuclear Deterrence After the Indian and Pakistani Tests,” Nonproliferation Review 6 (Spring/Summer 1999). |
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P.R. Chari, “India’s Nuclear Doctrine: Confused Ambitions,” Nonproliferation Review 7 (Fall/Winter 2000). |
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P.R. Chari, “Nuclear Restraint and Risk Reduction in South Asia,” 2001. |
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Jaswant Singh, “Against Nuclear Apartheid,” Foreign Affairs (September/October 1998), pp. 41-52. |
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Shelley A. Stahl and Geoffrey Kemp, Arms Control and Weapons Proliferation in the Middle East and South Asia (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992). |
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Strobe Talbott, “Dealing with the Bomb in South Asia,” Foreign Affairs (March/April 1999), pp. 110-123. |
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Samina Ahmed, “The (Nuclear) Testing of Pakistan,” Current History (December 1998), pp. 407-411. |
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Samina Ahmed, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons Program: Turning Points and Nuclear Choices,” International Security 23 (Spring 1999), pp. 178-204. |
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Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, (London: Yale University Press, 2000). |
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From Surprise to Reckoning: The Kargil Review Committee Report, (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1999). |
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Sumit Ganguly, The Crisis in Kashmir: Portents of War, Hopes, and Peace, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). |
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Sumit Ganguly, The Origins of War in South Asia: Indo-Pakistani Conflicts Since 1947, (London: Westview Press, 1986). |
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Gary Milhollin, “India’s Missiles – With a Little Help from Our Friends,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (May 1989), pp. 31-36. |
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Pratap Bhanu Mehta, “India: The Nuclear Politics of Self-Esteem,” Current History (December 1998), pp. 403-406. |
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George Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation, updated edition (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001). |
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“In
Musharraf’s Words: ‘A
Day of Reckoning’,”
New York Times, 12 January 2002. |
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“Text: India’s Reaction to Musharraf Speech,” New York Times, 13 January 2002. |
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U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s testimony before the U.S. Senate, “Testimony at Budget Hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,” U.S. Department of State, 5 February 2002. |
This
material is produced independently for NTI by the James
Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the
Monterey Institute of International Studies and does not
necessarily reflect the opinions of and has not been
independently verified by NTI or its directors,
officers, employees, agents. Copyright © 2007 by MIIS.
