Alain C. Enthoven wrote a book with K. Wayne Smith titled, How Much is Enough?, published by the RAND Corporation in 1971 and re-issued in 2005. Professor Enthoven has been asking this question his entire professional life, most recently about health care. Back in the 1960s, his subject of inquiry was the Pentagon’s budget. His book’s subtitle, Shaping the Defense Program, 1961-1969, clarifies its content, which dryly recounts battles waged by civil servants recruited by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara who sought to apply hard quantitative analysis to questions of military procurement and other matters previously the exclusive domain of the military services. Back then, these civil servants were known, pejoratively or otherwise, as the “whiz kids.” Enthoven rose through their ranks to become Assistant Secretary of Defense for Systems Analysis in 1965.
It was a bruising experience for civilian number crunchers and systems analysts to butt heads with senior officers used to keeping them at arm’s length. In countries where efforts to produce nuclear weapons and their means of delivery are deemed essential, regardless of cost, friction occurs with the outside world, not with civil servants. Only later, if at all, is the question of ‘How much is enough’ relevant.
The following essay was written for Pakistani readers, but has wider applicability. It appeared in Dawn on January 1st.
How much is enough? Every state possessing nuclear weapons has difficulty answering this question. It’s natural to think that more weapons will result in more security because nuclear weapons are so fearsome and because it’s hard to know what hand the competition is holding. If the competition responds in kind, feelings of insecurity usually grow. Refusal to compete can also result in greater insecurity. Improved relations and nuclear risk-reduction agreements, tacit or otherwise, can provide a way out of this dilemma.
The guardians of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal have achieved many successes, despite the efforts of the United States and export control regimes to prevent them. Despite an economy one-ninth the size of India’s, outside observers now believe that Pakistan is ahead of India in some nuclear weapon-related capabilities, including the size of its stockpile. India is not, however, standing still. It, too, is increasing the size of its stockpile and flight-testing more advanced missiles. If New Delhi decides to pick up the pace of this competition, Pakistan will feel less secure as an unwanted arms race picks up steam.
Even if India chooses not to pick up the pace, Pakistan will become more insecure unless its economy and social cohesion improve. Nuclear weapons can help severe crises from becoming wars, and some kinds of added nuclear capabilities can strengthen deterrence. But nuclear weapons cannot fix domestic ills, and if deterrence fails, the significant costs of acquiring nuclear weapons will become a mere down-payment to the extreme costs associated with their use.
The United States and the Soviet Union remain object lessons of how success can breed competition and insecurity. Both superpowers were guilty of wretched nuclear excess because their competition was always measured in relative, rather than absolute terms. An adversary’s gains were always bad news, no matter how many weapons the home team possessed. The successful acquisition of “second strike” capabilities – the ability to withstand a surprise attack and respond with devastating effect — never did relieve Cold War anxieties because the competition didn’t wane, even at very high numbers. This twisted superpower dynamic only subsided when the Soviet Union failed because its economy couldn’t sustain the competition.
Three states with mid-sized nuclear arsenals – Great Britain, France and Israel – managed to avoid this dynamic because they didn’t have a nuclear-armed adversary in their approximate weight class, and because all three could rely on Washington as a back-up.
One key decision point for all states with nuclear weapons is whether to seek the means to deliver them at short, as well as longer ranges. Mobile missiles with longer ranges are easier for the home team to control in a crisis and harder for an adversary to target. Short-range capabilities are the hardest to control because, in order to have maximum deterrent effect, they need to be positioned close to where battle lines might be drawn. These lines can change and can be breached quickly, especially with the use of air power.
The United States and the Soviet Union were never able to figure out how to secure short-range nuclear capabilities and to maintain command and control over them in the fog of war. Nevertheless, the superpowers handed thousands of battlefield nuclear weapons to soldiers who would become victims of fallout from friendly as well as enemy fire. The Soviet Union planned to carry out a ground offensive across Europe with tactical nuclear weapons, while the United States planned to stop tank offensives with them. With the benefit of hindsight, these plans now appear to have been pure folly.
Huge Cold War arsenals of tactical nuclear weapons have shrunk considerably, but many still reside in Russian and U.S. stockpiles. Success that leads to excess eventually results in reductions — long after it becomes clear that the risks associated with tactical nuclear weapons far exceed their military utility.
Pakistan and India won’t compete as foolishly as the United States and the Soviet Union, but they are still entering uncharted territory. This territory is even harder to map because Chinese strategic capabilities figure into New Delhi’s nuclear requirements, and because all three countries maintain secrecy over their holdings. A triangular competition makes it even harder to determine how much is enough.
As the conventional military balance tilts in India’s favor, Pakistan has signaled a requirement for short-range nuclear capabilities to strengthen deterrence against the threat of Indian retaliation after dramatic attacks by violent extremists based in Pakistan. New Delhi might also seek short-range nuclear capabilities, if it decides not to rely on longer-range missiles and airpower. Other new aspects of the competition are emerging with cruise missiles and sea-based nuclear capabilities. The question, ‘How much is enough?’ is being answered in ways that Pakistan and India are unlikely to find reassuring.
For Pakistan, the correct answer is zero. The downside of nuclear weapons is nuclear war with India, with devastating consequences for Pakistanis. The upside is either nonexistent or trivial.
No combination of terrorism, conventional war, or nuclear war can gain for Pakistan even an inch of Indian-controlled Kashmir. Nor are nuclear weapons needed to defend against India, because India lacks the hostile intent to conquer either Pakistan or the remainder of Kashmir.
At a minimum, Pakistan needs to adopt an unambiguous no-first-use policy, avoid tactical nukes, and otherwise reduce its nuclear risk taking. It would also be good to crack down on all terrorism and make peace with India.
“…India lacks the hostile intent to conquer either Pakistan or the remainder of Kashmir.”
Well ya SAY that, and it may well be true, but if either folk in Pakistan disagree, or the regime and intent in India changes, then…?
These two countries are unambiguously in a long-term state of military tension. You can’t just tell Pakistan that ‘India is really nice, just trust them’, and then expect to see Pakistan unilaterally disarm. Which is a shame because, you know, that methology would solve a LOT of problems if it worked.
And if you can think of a way for the Pakistani government to “crack down on all terrorism” without generating more terrorism, I’m sure they’ll be happy to hear your plan.
🙂
India is a democracy and also has a history with Pakistan. 1) India’s present and future intent can be inferred from its political parties. Where is the major Indian political party, or important faction thereof, that advocates conquest of Pakistan or of the remainder of Kashmir? 2) Unlike Pakistan, India’s past non-actions in Kashmir show lack of intent to resolve the dispute militarily or through proxy terrorists.
From my standpoint as an outsider, the tension is primarily coming from Pakistan. Pakistan can choose to reduce this tension with India at any time. Pakistan’s nuclear risk taking is not in Pakistan’s self-interest. Pakistan has no genuine national security reason for nuclear weapons possession.
Cracking down on terrorism will strongly discourage terrorism, not produce more terrorism. In addition to punishing terrorists, it is important to de-legitimize their activities from a political, moral, and religious standpoint.
Ah well, I’ll skip over the first bit (again, India and Pakistan have had several wars, so it’s not unreasonable for them to suspect that they’ll have another one someday), and go to the terrorism.
What exactly is “cracking down”? Honestly, the problem of how to stop Pashtuns from killing you is basically one of those unsolvable zen riddles that has stood the test of centuries. You can’t arrest them out of it, you can’t kill them out of it, you can’t propagandise them out of it, you can’t starve them out of it, and if you CAN occasionally bribe them for a while, they traditionally use that brief respite to buy better weapons.
What is the sound of one hand clapping? You can only leave them the hell alone and hope they’ll do the same to you – but as long as folk are demanding secession (something few countries treat with a sense of humour) and as long as the War on Terror™ continues to involve exploding Pashtun folk, I really can’t see how “cracking down” is going to do much more than inflame the situation.
Note well, the Pakistani army went into the Swat boots-and-all in ’09. The terrorist situation? Inflamed. And those were mostly foreign nutbags! It’s way worse whenever you kill Pakistani-Taliban, because those are local nutbags…
‘Cracking down’, in a counter-insurgency sense, inevitably leads you to kill people. Those people have friends and family who will now be highly motivated to kill your people. Hence: you make MORE terrorists. Especially given that a fair few of the people you kill won’t be terrorists, and the ones who were terrorists to you, weren’t actually terrorists to their friends and family.
I could wave my hands about and suggest some vague and idealistic answer, but the fact is that it’s the sort of Gordian Knot that, if you try swinging a sword at it, just ends up as two Gordian Knots. There’s a certain level of prosperity that tends to dampen down an insurgency fast, but even if Pakistan had the resources, how do you get that into a poorly developed region with a people deeply suspicious of outside influence, a significant number of whom will really impress the local girls if they take an AK to your face?
I’m very glad I don’t have the job of working that one out.
The assumption that more US troops will lead to better outcomes in Afghanistan is questionable, in my view. There may be marginal gains, as well as more casualties, with more US boots on the ground. Will this make an appreciable difference in the post-withdrawal outcome? The Obama administration appears to have answered this question in the negative.
MK