Hans J. Morgenthau was a heavyweight whose books, including Politics Among Nations (1948) and In Defense of the National Interest (1951), packed a real wallop. Morgenthau also wrote with great clarity about nuclear weapons. Check out his essay, “The Four Paradoxes of Nuclear Strategy,” which appeared in the March 1964 issue of the American Political Science Review.
Here’s what Morgenthau had to say about tactical nuclear weapons and escalation control:
Both tactical nuclear war and graduated deterrence presuppose three capabilities on the part of belligerents: the rational ability to deduce the intentions of the enemy from his use of nuclear weapons, the rational ability to know exactly at every moment of the war what kind of nuclear weapon it is necessary and prudent to use, and the practical ability to impose the limitations so determined upon all nuclear command posts. Both tactical nuclear war and graduated deterrence require a rational interplay of the intentions and actions of the belligerents, an interplay which theoreticians may calculate in the form of ‘models’ but which it is impossible to achieve consistently in reality. That impossibility derives from three factors: the essential ambiguity of the military act (which it of course shares with the political act), uncertainty about the enemy’s intentions, and the enormous and irreparable risks, in nuclear war, of mistakes in interpretation.
Of the countries that possess tactical nuclear weapons, the two that currently seem to place increased value on them are Russia and Pakistan. Pakistan’s program raises more red flags because military friction between Pakistan and India is more likely than Russia coming to blows with NATO or China.
The history of wars on the subcontinent is rife with miscalculation: one side or the other has been surprised by their beginning and prosecution. Tactical nuclear weapons also lend themselves to surprise and miscalculation.
Very short-range delivery systems for nuclear weapons – like the 60-kilometer Nasr (or Hatf IX) missile that Pakistan has flight-tested, and India’s 150-kilometer Prahaar – are not very helpful against tank offensives or fast-moving targets; even if railheads and bridges were suitable targets, they may not be within reach. Very limited use of tactical nuclear weapons by Pakistan might serve to warn India against advances, but the job of Pakistan’s armed forces is to prevent, and not to detonate, mushroom clouds on home soil.
Whatever limited military utility short-range nuclear weapons possess depends on extreme forward deployments, where they would be most subject to attack, where early use would be most likely, and where command and control is most susceptible to breakdowns. Avoiding these pitfalls requires very slow-moving fronts on the subcontinent and the absence of air strikes. The first assumption is not unreasonable; the second is very questionable. In a crisis, there are also significant internal-security and escalation risks associated with the movement and forward-deployment of short-range systems advertised as being nuclear-capable.
After testing nuclear devices in 1998, Indian and Pakistani spokespersons downplayed the value of tactical nuclear weapons, without ruling them out. Pakistani military officers stressed that any use of a nuclear weapon would have strategic consequences — a very sound analysis, and one that greatly undermines the case for tac nukes. Why risk crossing this momentous threshold with hard-to-defend and hard-to-control short-range weapons when more survivable and controllable longer-range nuclear forces are available?
Pakistan, unlike India, does not announce its nuclear doctrine. Instead, those in authority use press releases and the occasional interview to make essential points. The press release after the Nasr’s flight test advertised the utility of tactical nuclear weapons. This statement is probably a rejoinder to India’s growing conventional capabilities and its more proactive military plans. While India, in typical fashion, is moving slowly to implement those plans, Pakistan’s military is methodically filling in perceived shortfalls in nuclear capabilities.
In defense of their perceived need for tactical nuclear weapons, Pakistani interlocutors point to NATO’s strategy during the Cold War of dealing with a conventionally superior foe. Hans Morgenthau’s warnings are again falling on deaf ears.