Stability-Instability Paradox- Concept of Limited War & TNW response

[HRK]

Posting a paper of MIT Scholar & Associate Professor of Political Science Mr. Vipin Narang published in NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL Journal June -2014 edition.

This paper address the the subject of Strategic(Nuclear) Stability & Tactical Instability (Limited Conventional War Doctrine & Pakistan's TNW approach) in South Asia, further this paper excellently analysis the situation with the 'overall Defence Structure & Posturing of both states' rather to analysis these factors in isolation which all or most of the analyst are use to do in their analysis.

NOTE: As always you all are requested not to post or reply till the posting of complete paper
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Military Modernization and Technological Maturation, an Indian Perspective: Stabilizing the Instability-Stability Paradox

India and Pakistan are only now reaching the point in their strategic modernization programs where both can reasonably calculate, and therefore accept, that the other side has a secure second strike capability both because of the increasing quantity of forces and increasingly survivable basing modes which renders any thoughts of neutralizing the other’s arsenal, no matter how remote they may have been before, simply in-feasible. Thus, military modernization and the technological maturation of India and Pakistan’s nuclear forces are only now beginning to generate stability at the strategic level. This is the good news, for now. The biggest threat to stability at the strategic level would be the development of a workable ballistic missile defense system (BMD). For a variety of reasons, such as the quantity of forces needed to saturate or evade BMD systems and the increasing penetrability with MIRVs, I argue that a condition of strategic stability is likely to exist for quite a while as both India and Pakistan’s forces and command and control architectures mature. Although conflicts can nevertheless escalate uncontrollably, there will be declining rational incentives to initiate a strategic nuclear exchange, irrespective of how intense a conflict has already erupted.

On the other hand, a growing array of capabilities at the lower-end of the use spectrum, by both countries, including tactical missile systems, cruise missiles, miniaturized warheads, systems at higher states of readiness, also amplify the tactical instability of the relationship. This suggests not only that conventional conflict may be increasingly possible under the umbrella of strategic stability, but that limited or tactical nuclear use may also be possible since such use would "theoretically be war terminating" since, under a condition of strategic stability, the receiving side of limited nuclear use still has no rational incentive to retaliate with full strategic nuclear force. Thus, technological maturation of both sides’ nuclear forces are simultaneously stabilizing the strategic level of the relationship and destabilizing the tactical and operational levels of the nuclear relationship. These developments and the growing stability of the strategic nuclear balance, paradoxically, actually amplify the probability of major conventional conflict and even tactical nuclear use as the relationship moves forward.

When the strategic balance was unstable or just emerging, limited or tactical nuclear use was inhibited or deterred because the instability of the strategic nuclear balance generated nontrivial probabilities of further escalation to the strategic level. As technological maturation stabilizes the strategic nuclear balance, this condition will reverse itself. That is, over time with the maturation of nuclear forces structures on both sides, the probability of strategic nuclear exchange has and will decline, but the probability of limited or tactical nuclear use may increase. Figure 1 provides a very crude conceptual depiction of how this relationship operates, with some hypothetical probabilities in the event of a major India-Pakistan conflict. The important point here is to recognize the inverse relationship between strategic and tactical nuclear stability

The key point is that the driving variable for this relationship is the modernization of both sides’ nuclear force structures, particularly incontrovertibly secure second-strike capabilities, and the development of lower order use options by both sides, particularly Pakistan which has explicitly assigned nuclear roles to its battlefield capabilities, e.g. the Nasr. Of course, India could do the same eventually with the Prahaar and cruise missiles. The central argument of this paper is that nuclear force modernization in South Asia will have a key tradeoff the probability of strategic nuclear exchange will fall, which is certainly a positive development, but the probability of limited nuclear use will correspondingly rise in the event of a major ground engagement. This dynamic assumes that there is a meaningful distinction between tactical and strategic nuclear use in South Asia

 

[HRK]

Clarifying the Stability-Instability Paradox

There is a significant amount of conceptual sloppiness when referring to the so-called stability-instability paradox, a term first coined by Glenn Snyder in 1965, and further unpacked by scholars such as Robert Jervis and, in the South Asian context, Paul Kapur. The general referent in the stability-instability paradox is the mutual nuclearization of a conflicting dyad. That is, once two rivals acquire nuclear weapons, the terrifying prospect of their use caps conventional escalation beyond a certain point, thereby freeing both sides to engage in lower levels of conflict at higher frequencies than prior to nuclearization. However, a key qualification of the stability-instability paradox often forgotten is that it takes more than simply the mutual possession of nuclear weapons to generate stability at the nuclear level. There must be a condition of mutual secure second-strike capabilities in order for a state of strategic stability when neither side has an incentive to initiate a strategic nuclear exchange to obtain. Without this qualification, the strategic balance is unstable since one or both sides may calculate that a strategic nuclear war is ‘winnable’, either through a preemptive counterforce strike, or some combination of preemption and damage limitation measures. Only when the strategic balance is such that both sides are mutually vulnerable despite iterative
attempts at disarming strikes, can A dyad be termed stable.

In 1965, Glenn Snyder famously wrote the following about the condition known as the stability-instability paradox, which is worth reproducing here verbatim: “The greater the stability of the ‘strategic’ balance of terror, the lower the stability of the overall balance at its lower levels of violence. The reasoning is that if neither side has a ‘full first-strike capability,’' and both know it, they will be less inhibited about initiating conventional war and the limited use of nuclear weapons, than if the strategic balance were unstable. Thus firm stability in the strategic nuclear balance tends to destabilize the conventional balance and also to activate the lesser nuclear ‘links’ between the latter and the former.”

The stability-instability paradox is often characterized incorrectly as: mutual nuclearization creates stability at higher levels of violence, thereby generating instability at lower levels of violence. This is largely an incorrect reading of the concept. What Snyder, and Jervis after him, indicated to was that nuclear stability at the strategic level can generate instability at both lower conventional and nuclear rungs of the escalation ladder. That is, the stability-instability paradox does not simply obtain when two adversaries merely acquire nuclear weapons, it obtains when they both achieve secure-second strike forces and both sides are aware of this condition, thereby neutralizing any incentive to disarm the adversary with a first strike, which is what Snyder and Jervis classify as nuclear instability at the strategic level. This distinction is incredibly important in the context of regional nuclear powers where achieving secure second-strike forces and a correspondingly survivable command and control infrastructure is not necessarily a trivial matter.

Snyder very explicitly notes that only once a state of mutual stable strategic nuclear balance is achieved might two rational states experience higher incidences of conventional conflict, or even limited nuclear use, since neither party would have an incentive to escalate the conflict to the full strategic level. The balance of conventional forces actually has little to do with the theoretical logic of the stability-instability paradox, except to suggest that the conventionally inferior side NATO during the Cold-War and Pakistan in the India-Pakistan dyad has incentives to manipulate nuclear risk; but whether
it does so at the tactical or strategic nuclear level depends on the degree to which there is strategic nuclear stability.

The instability at the nuclear level enables one party with revisionist intentions to engage in low-level sub-conventional attacks at the other, knowing that a full-scale conventional conflict ought to be inhibited for fear of escalation to the tactical and subsequently strategic nuclear level, since instability at the strategic level increases the probability of such an exchange. This is the condition that India and Pakistan found itself in for the first ten years after nuclearization, as Kapur argued. Instability at the nuclear level created stability at the conventional level, which both in turn created instability at the sub-conventional level. But it was a tenuous stability at the conventional level and the Subcontinent was one aggressive decision away from strategic nuclear exchange. In short, instability at the strategic nuclear level made every crisis in South Asia a potential nuclear tinderbox.

What ought to happen as India and Pakistan establish stability at the strategic nuclear level, augment their nuclear force structures and establish increasingly survivable deployment modes and procedures? In this case, stability at the highest level should, logically, generate instability at each lower order level of the conflict spectrum. That is, stability at the strategic nuclear level allows escalation all the way up to limited nuclear use, but no further. Therefore, South Asia might find itself in a condition of stability (strategic nuclear)-instability (tactical nuclear)-instability (conventional)-instability (subconventional); or what Snyder and Jervis would recognize as simply a stability-instability paradox.

The upside is that the probability of strategic nuclear exchange should fall as both accept mutual vulnerability at that level, thereby providing high-order stability to the Subcontinent. The downside is that it becomes rational for conventional conflicts to be initiated by one or both sides, which can escalate all the way to limited nuclear use as a war-termination strategy. The most likely scenario for this would be Pakistani limited nuclear use against an Indian armored offensive operating on Pakistani soil in retaliation to some real or perceived provocation, which would terminate the conflict at that level, with either a tit-for-tat limited nuclear response or simply war termination since a full Indian strategic retaliatory response ought to be deterred by Pakistan’s survivable second-strike capabilities. Therefore, as argued earlier, the achievement of strategic stability at the nuclear level ought to immunize South Asia’s cities from nuclear use, but at the price of an increased risk of serious conventional conflict and limited nuclear use on military targets.

 

[HRK]

Conclusion
This paper argued that technological modernization and maturation in the Indian and Pakistani nuclear force postures and command and control infrastructure will carry with it a key tradeoff between strategic and tactical nuclear stability. The extent of that tradeoff will vary depending on the types of systems fielded. Some developments, such as the numerical growth of forces and increasingly survivable basing modes, will enhance strategic stability. Others such as BMD and MIRVs could undermine strategic stability. Meanwhile, the increasing sophistication of tactical and cruise or beyond visual range missiles enable both India and Pakistan to, as Glenn Snyder put it, activate “lesser” nuclear links under conditions of strategic nuclear stability. Thus, going forward, the dyad may shift from a condition of a tenuous stability at the conventional level to one at the highest strategic nuclear level. This development would open the possibility for significant conventional conflict and even lower order nuclear-use as a war termination strategy but ought to eliminate the risk of a full strategic nuclear exchange by either party.
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