Reforming the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty - implications for Pakistan

[MultaniGuy]

Reforming the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty for New Realities
It’s time to amend the NPT to bring India and Pakistan into the fold as nuclear weapons states.

By Saurabh Todi
January 04, 2019

Image Credit: DRDO


The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) came into force in 1970. It became the bedrock of the global nonproliferation and disarmament regime due to its near universal membership. The NPT was envisaged as a comprehensive treaty that addressed issues including nonproliferation, disarmament and peaceful uses of nuclear energy. However, the NPT has been largely unsuccessful in making any progress toward disarmament. A successful disarmament treaty would have to be preceded by an effective arms control mechanism; that in turn demands an acceptable level of trust between all of the nuclear weapon states (NWS), inside or outside of the NPT. To instill such confidence and to facilitate any purposeful negotiations on disarmament, it is essential that the NPT is amended to include NWS outside of the NPT into the treaty as recognized NWS.

Most of the nuclear weapon states are adversaries of each other and use nuclear weapons as a deterrent. Any technological advancement by one state is bound to elicit a response by their perceived adversary, albeit within the confines of their technological prowess. The dynamics between the United States and Russia, the United States and China, the United States and North Korea, India and China, and India and Pakistan exemplify such contentious relationships. The expected U.S. withdrawal from the 1987 U.S.-Soviet Union Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, uncertain extension of the New START treaty, development of nuclear-capable hypersonic weapons and underwater drones by Russia, development of Pakistani tactical nuclear weapons, and rapid modernization of nuclear arsenals by every nuclear weapon state are some very recent developments that have the potential to further accentuate tensions between these nations.

Currently, there are four known NWS outside of the NPT: India, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan. Considering that Israel practices a policy of nuclear opacity and North Korea is currently negotiating the status of its nuclear weapons program, either of these countries cannot be considered for inclusion into a reformed NPT unless they declare themselves as a NWS and express no intention of unilaterally disarming. That leaves India and Pakistan as the only non-NPT NWS that can be realistically included in the reformed NPT.

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India and Pakistan have often criticized the NPT as discriminatory, with an Indian diplomat once famously lamenting that the NPT had led to “nuclear apartheid.” Both countries initiated their indigenous nuclear programs and tested nuclear weapons in 1998. It’s been 20 years since, and both India and Pakistan have fast growing nuclear arsenals and have developed everything from tactical ballistic missiles to MIRVs to ICBMs. Furthermore, the world has come to terms with South Asian nuclear weapons and no one expects either India or Pakistan to disarm unilaterally anymore. Bringing them into the fold of the NPT would formalize the accepted reality and push both nations to become responsible stakeholders in global nuclear disarmament discussions. Additionally, frequent bilateral and multilateral communication between adversaries can help soothe concerns and misjudgments regarding their nuclear weapon capabilities and their command and control structures.

The NPT NWS have a formal mechanism to engage in multilateral discussions on disarmament issues at the NPT Review Conferences and can pursue bilateral discussions to determine relevant confidence-building measures. However, such an opportunity for multilateral participation is not afforded to the NWS outside of the NPT. Due to the risk of violating Article 1 of the NPT, experienced NWS are circumspect in sharing their best practices regarding nuclear command and control structures with their non-NPT counterparts.

As India and China develop and become more assertive in their shared region, it is crucial for them to engage in frequent dialogues and initiate confidence-building measures to minimize any scope for miscalculation. The inequity in their NWS status has prevented India and China from initiating a formal bilateral nuclear discussion. Similarly, given the historically tense India-Pakistan relationship, engaging at a multilateral forum can provide an alternative platform to discuss nuclear issues away from the shadow of their acrimonious bilateral relationship.

By adopting the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in 2017, the UN General Assembly effectively repudiated the NPT for its inability to make any real progress on universal disarmament. The fact that successive NPT Review Conferences have discussed disarmament without representation from a quarter of the world’s NWS probably explains the lack of any reasonable progress on the issue. Engaging in comprehensive discussions on disarmament with participation from all the stakeholders would only strengthen the NPT regime and reinforce the commitment of the NWS towards disarmament. Institutions that don’t evolve to reflect realities of the time end up losing their relevance.

Reforms to such legacy institutions will not come easy and negotiations will take a long time to conclude. If implemented, amendment of the NPT would represent a monumental modification in the nonproliferation structure that has governed the world for the last 50 years. Extensive, constructive and proactive deliberations will allow a reformed NPT to take shape, inspire confidence, build credibility and mature into a strengthened version of its previous self.

Saurabh Todi is a graduate research assistant at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California.
https://thediplomat.com/2019/01/reforming-the-nuclear-nonproliferation-treaty-for-new-realities/

 

[MultaniGuy]

@Indus Pakistan
@waz
@The Eagle
@Horus
@xyxmt

 

[GumNaam]

Doesn't explicitly say that PAKISTAN has tested ICBMs...not that we can't. Just don't need to, not yet at least.

 

[MultaniGuy]

Doesn't explicitly say that PAKISTAN has tested ICBMs...not that we can't. Just don't need to, not yet at least.

Yes that was my mistake in the thread title. I have corrected it.

I meant to say that Pakistan has developed ICBMS, not tested them yet. I terrible mistake on my part. I have fixed it.

 

[GumNaam]

We don't explicitly test ICBMs just for the same reason we don't launch our own satellites...the entire western hemisphere will bust a pancreas and start suffering from dysentery while their media would start dast from their mouths about how Pakistan can target any country across the globe and how the world just became a more dangerous place JUST because Pakistan can launch satellites now.

But we'll test them when the time is right...right now the western civilization is behaving itself.

 

[MultaniGuy]

We don't explicitly test ICBMs just for the same reason we don't launch our own satellites...the entire western hemisphere will bust a pancreas and start suffering from dysentery while their media would start dast from their mouths about how Pakistan can target any country across the globe.

But we'll test them when the time is right...right now the western civilization is behaving itself.

I think I misunderstood the article. When I click on the hyperlink of ICBMs it refers to a diplomat article to India. And the MIRV hyperlink to a diplomat article to Pakistan.

Anyways...

 

[Figaro]

Where is the evidence that Pakistan has developed MIRVs?

 

[MultaniGuy]

Where is the evidence that Pakistan has developed MIRVs?

Here:

Why Pakistan's Newly Flight-Tested Multiple Nuclear Warhead-Capable Missile Really Matters
Pakistan’s pursuit of a MIRV capability complicates strategic stability calculations in South Asia.

By Ankit Panda
January 25, 2017


On Tuesday, Pakistan, for the first time ever, conducted a flight test of a new medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM), the Ababeel. The missile, according to a release by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), is capable of carrying multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle as its payload, according to the release.

The ISPR release specifically added that the Ababeel is “capable of carrying nuclear warheads and has the capability to engage multiple targets with high precision, defeating the enemy’s hostile radars.” It also adds that the “Ababeel Weapon System” — presumably referring to the prospective MIRV payload — is “aimed at ensuring survivability of Pakistan’s ballistic missiles in the growing regional Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) environment.”

A lot of what’s included in this release bears out with what Pakistan has been trying to do recently. Specifically, the focus on survivability and penetrability to assure strategic retaliation is notable. As I wrote earlier this month with Vipin Narang, a nuclear strategy expert and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Pakistan tested — also for the first time ever — it’s Babur-3 nuclear-capable submarine-launched cruise missile (SLCM).

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As we identified in that article, one of the drivers behind Pakistan’s pursuit of SLCMs was to increase the survivability of its nuclear arsenal, partly assuaging the “use-it-or-lose-it” dilemma, which makes nuclear first use likelier in the event of a conflict. We identified this as potentially stabilizing given Pakistan’s plans to deploy low-yield battlefield nuclear weapons with field commanders for use against conventional Indian forces.

Between the SLCM and the Ababeel, Pakistan’s self-avowed focus on survivability seems real enough, even if India’s existing ballistic missile defense capabilities are quite modest. MIRVs, as they were conceived of during the Cold War, were pitched by U.S. and Soviet planners as a cost-effective way to defeat BMD systems. The logic behind this was the observation that it was almost always cheaper to produce additional warheads than additional missiles. (The original logic behind MIRVs during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States was different, focusing on their utility as a first-strike counterforce weapon; more in the link at the bottom of this article on this.)

In Pakistan’s case, if its MIRVs are intended for countervalue targeting (i.e., intended for use against civilian populations to cause unacceptable levels of damage), Rawalpindi could even forgo the more complex work required to develop MIRVs and simply go with MRVs (multiple reentry vehicles). The most advanced MIRV payloads allow for precision-targeting of the independent reentry vehicles, permitting for counterforce use.

I spoke to Narang after the Ababeel test. He notes that “it is hard to deny that India and Pakistan are in a full-blown arms race” at this point. He told me that a MIRV capability could fit into Pakistan’s burgeoning strategy to enable the use of battlefield nuclear weapons against Indian conventional forces (who may quickly mobilize into Pakistani territory as part of ‘Cold Start’) in a crisis without suffering Indian retaliation: “If a state is worried about the survivability of its limited missile force and anticipates significant attrition of that force by the adversary, MIRVs provide multiple warheads with which to retaliate for every missile that does survive.”

Per India’s existing no-first-use nuclear doctrine, Pakistan’s use of nuclear weapons — regardless of yield — would be sufficient trigger for a full-on strategic nuclear response. Without MIRVs (and without an SLCM), Pakistan’s existing inventory of road-mobile launchers and missiles would be less likely to survive a “first” strategic strike by India (following Pakistan’s “first” use at the tactical level).

The existence of MIRVs would leave India unsure of its capability to fully disarm Pakistan, leaving Rawalpindi with the option to launch a strategic second-strike (“third” strike overall). This strategy wouldn’t necessarily require Pakistan to pursue further research into developing maneuverable reentry vehicles for its MIRVs since it would be interested in a countervalue strike. Put succinctly: a MIRVed Pakistani strategic capability may stand as a powerful deterrent to India’s retaliatory capabilities, freeing Pakistan up to use battlefield nuclear weapons as a war-terminating strategy without concerning itself with escalation to the strategic level.

This confers a degree of strategic stability and ostensibly gives Pakistan an important advantage at the battlefield level against Indian plans like ‘Cold Start.’ However, many of the problems that Narang and I raised in our earlier article on the Babur-3 persist with the Ababeel. The simple math of MIRVs means that Pakistan, which already has one of the world’s fastest growing nuclear arsenals, would need more warheads. It’s unclear from ISPR’s released test footage and statement just how large the Ababeel is and how many warheads it could bus, but the problems that worry analysts of nuclear weapons in Pakistan, including theft and potential unauthorized use/transfer, grow more, not less, acute with MIRVs in the game.

Finally, one potential destabilizing effect of Pakistani MIRVs could be on India’s own doctrine. A debate on revising India’s no-first-use and massive retaliation doctrine has grown in recent years and given that Pakistani MIRVs could potentially box-in India on strategic retaliation following Pakistani battlefield-level nuclear use, voices in New Delhi may use this as the straw to break the camel’s back on either no-first-use or on at least New Delhi pursuing its own symmetrical lower-yield battlefield nuclear option for a proportional low-level nuclear warfighting capability.

Remember, India’s nuclear doctrine states that the “fundamental purpose of Indian nuclear weapons is to deter the use and threat of use of nuclear weapons by any State or entity against India and its forces.” If a retaliatory second-strike is unpalatable given the expected survivability of Pakistan’s own strategic retaliatory capability, New Delhi could be tempted to do away with either no-first-use — which raises another set of related problems, with India potentially deciding to store its weapons assembled for first-strike use — or massive retaliation, opting to explore lower-level or multiple strategic target retaliatory options itself.

The above represents just some of the questions around strategic stability stemming from Pakistan’s march toward a MIRV capability. India is further along this path, but primarily thinks about its MIRV capability in terms of the Chinese BMD environment. China, meanwhile, according to the U.S. Department of Defense, has MIRVed its DF-5B and DF-41 missiles. Looking at Pakistan and India today, it’s clear that MIRVs are coming to South Asia.

For readers looking for a thorough and up-to-date treatment of MIRVs in this region, I strongly recommend the Stimson Center’s book on “The Lure and Pitfalls of MIRVs: From the First to the Second Nuclear Age,” edited by Michael Krepon.

https://thediplomat.com/2017/01/why...clear-warhead-capable-missile-really-matters/

 

[GumNaam]

Where is the evidence that Pakistan has developed MIRVs?

Uh bbbhoy, here we go...

 

[SipahSalar]

Where is the evidence that Pakistan has developed MIRVs?

How about US Defence Intelligence Agency report?

https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Ashley_03-06-18.pdf

“In January 2017, Pakistan conducted the first test launch of its nuclear-capable Ababeel ballistic missile, demonstrating South Asia’s first MIRV payload, and in early July, Pakistan demonstrated an expanded-range Nasr CRBM”