global_zero_commission_on_nuclear_risk_reduction_report

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GLOBAL ZERO COMMISSION ON NUCLEAR RISK REDUCTION REPORTDE-ALERTING AND STABILIZING THE WORLD’S NUCLEAR FORCE POSTURES• Intrusion detectors and physical barriers;• Separation of warhead cores from their detonationcomponents;• Storage of components in protected underground sites;• Institution of PAL-like authenticating code systems;• Internal security undertaken by a large security forcevetted through a system akin to the U.S. Personnel ReliabilityProgram;• “Cradle-to-grave oversight” applying to all engineering,scientific, and military personnel;• Two-person rule within the army in which no action involvinga nuclear weapon can be undertaken by fewerthan two people (firing may require three people); and• Dummy missiles to complicate adversarial military calculations.According to a 2009 report, Pakistan locates much of its nuclearweapons infrastructure to the north and west of thecountry and many of the sites are close to or within Talibanand al Qaida dominated areas. 29 However, no nuclearweapons are stored in the area of Taliban activity, and theSPD has a 25,000-person security force and specially trainedrapid-reaction forces to strengthen nuclear security. Viewsdiffer on the question of jihadist influence within the Pakistaniarmy and the possible subversion of the nuclear establishment.30 However, the army today seeks to dissociate29 Ibid.30 Zia Mian and Pervez Hoodhboy argue that religion has divided intotwo armies: one is a national army that sees Islam as part of Pakistanicultural identity, the other believes it is God’s army and that the stateand Islam are inseparable. The authors believe that this division mayhave even trickled down to the Strategic Plans Division (see PervezHoodbhoy and Zia Mian, “Pakistan, the Army and the Conflict Within,”Middle East Research and Information Project, July 12, 2011, http://www.merip.org/mero/mero071211.) Shuja Nawaz argues that Pakistan’smilitary realizes the need to provide security for the populace, but isill-equipped to deal with the already difficult-to-police militants. Thearmy is unprepared for war with India and unprepared to meet thechallenges posed by internal insurgencies. He believes the army needs tobe transformed from a “lumbering giant” to a “leaner and highly mobileforce” in order to provide security to Pakistanis and isolate insurgents.(Shuja Nawaz, Crossed Swords: Pakistan It’s Army and the Wars Within,Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.) Christine Fair argues that thebehavior of Pakistan’s army is based on a fear of Indian hegemony in theregion. Pakistan’s army has worked to limit Indian and Russian influencein Afghanistan, supported terrorism against India, and sought alliancesitself from terrorists.Pakistan retains a first-use option as a counterweight to India’ssuperior conventional forces, but officials have statedthat nuclear weapons will be used only as a last resort. Asearlier noted, India’s Cold Start doctrine instigated Pakistaniplans to develop and deploy tactical nuclear weaponsfor limited use on the battlefield. These weapons – primarilyshort range missiles – and their infrastructure would needto be forward deployed in peacetime in order to be effective.Pakistan, however, has yet to move battlefield weapons intoforward positions and reports on the Pakistani nuclear arsenalcontinue to describe it as stored and de-mated.Other key elements of Pakistan’s nuclear war plans wererevealed by the remarks of the SPD’s head, General KhalidKidwai, to private researchers (Pakistani officials later calledGeneral Kidwai’s remarks neither an official statement nor aprecise summary of nuclear use policy):“Nuclear weapons are aimed solely at India.In case that deterrence fails, they will beused if India attacks Pakistan and conquersa large part of its territory; India destroysa large part either of its land or air forces;India proceeds to the economic strangling ofPakistan (i.e., naval blockade and stoppingof the waters of the Indus River); or Indiapushes Pakistan into political destabilizationor creates a large scale internal subversion inPakistan.” 31Who decides when to cross the nuclear Rubicon? A troikawith the United States. and China among others strictly as a result of thisfear. Fair argues that this strategic climate in Pakistan will not changebecause of the prevalence of military culture based in the two-nationtheory and the ideology of Islam. [C. Christine Fair, Fighting to the End:The Pakistan Army’s Way of War, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, May27, 2014).]31 Paulo Cotta-Ramusino and Maurizio Martellin, “Nuclear safety, nuclearstability and nuclear strategy in Pakistan,” January 21, 2002, http://www.centrovolta.it/landau/content/binary/pakistan%20Januray%202002.pdf.26
GLOBAL ZERO COMMISSION ON NUCLEAR RISK REDUCTION REPORTDE-ALERTING AND STABILIZING THE WORLD’S NUCLEAR FORCE POSTURESof officials, reportedly. According to a senior Pakistani militaryofficial, the control of the nuclear arsenal is governedby a “three-man rule.” 32 Any decision regarding the use ofnuclear weapons requires the concurrent agreement of threepersons: the president, the prime minister and an unidentifiedthird person.The SPD, which serves as the secretariat for these nationalcommand authorities, gives the Pakistani military a keyrole in managing nuclear operations. It has instituted a twomanrule and procedures for unleashing the forces. A seniorPakistani official has been quoted as saying that althoughfinal operational control of tactical nuclear arms resides inmilitary hands, “The basic control remains with the civilianleadership, in consultation with the military commanders.And the usage will be controlled at the highest level, even ifthe smallest device in the smallest numbers has to be used.” 33This centralization could unravel, however, if Pakistan proceedsto deploy battlefield nuclear weapons to counter India’sCold Start plans. Battlefield nuclear weapons at forwardpositions require local commanders to have considerablymore authority and capability to arm and launch nuclearweapons than other types of weapons require. Former SPDofficials have warned that tactical nuclear weapons mightforce Pakistan to rethink centralized control over nuclearweapons and lead to pre-delegation. 34 A case could be madefor devolving nuclear release authority to the level of corpscommanders at an early stage of a crisis.Given these trends toward decentralization, given both Pakistan’sand India’s lack of prior experience in managingnuclear forces on high alert, given the rapid growth in thesize of their arsenals, given Pakistan’s strategy of early firstuse, and given flight times of just a few minutes between theneighboring countries, the risks of nuclear weapons use inthe region during a crisis are too high for comfort. Escalatoryupdrafts would blow strongly toward deliberate or unintentionaluse culminating in a large-scale nuclear exchange.Such a war would be cataclysmic not only for South Asiabut the entire world. 35 The region’s vulnerability to nuclearterrorism contributes further volatility. Crisis dispersal ofnuclear weapons in this part of the world increases their exposureto terrorist capture. The use of such a weapon againsta major city like Mumbai could too easily set in motion atrain of events that bring India and Pakistan to the brink ofnuclear war.North Korea is verging on a rudimentary capability to delivera handful of nuclear weapons to targets in the vicinity ofthe Korean peninsula. While it is reportedly making headwayin miniaturizing nuclear warheads to fit atop its missiles,existing missiles already have adequate space in theirnosecones to carry crude nuclear fission bombs to targetsas far away as Japan. North Korea’s small arsenal of 10-16fission bombs, which may grow to 20-100 by 2020, probablycould be married to some form of delivery vehicle – aircraft,ship, or land-based rocket – within a few days of a decisionauthorizing it. If and when this arming occurs, a nuclear disasterwill be waiting to happen in, on, and around NortheastAsia. North Korea increasing its attack readiness to thepoint of being able to strike quickly would be highly destabilizingand would bring the region to the brink of nuclearuse by design or accident.Doubts about the mental competence and balance of NorthKorea’s erratic ruler, Kim Jong Un, and his team call into seriousquestion the standard assumption that nuclear deterrentforces are always under the control of rational individuals.32 Hans Born, National Governance of Nuclear Weapons: Opportunitiesand Constraints, Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of ArmedForces, 2007, pp. 13-14.33 Elaine M. Grossman, “Pakistani Leaders to Retain Nuclear-ArmsAuthority in Crises: Senior Official,” Global Security Newswire, February27, 2014, http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/pakistani-leaders-retain-nuclear-arms-authority-crises-senior-official/.34 Ibid.35 The <strong>global</strong> climatic and humanitarian effects of nuclear war arediscussed in Department for Disarmament Affairs, Study on the Climaticand Other Global Effects of Nuclear War, New York: United Nations,1989; Alan Robock, “Consequences of Nuclear Conflict: Nuclear WinterStill a Threat,” (presentation at the Second Conference on the HumanitarianImpact of Nuclear Weapons, Nayarit, Mexico, 2013); Michael J.Mills, “Global Famine after a Regional Nuclear War: Overview of RecentResearch,” (presentation at the Third Conference on the HumanitarianImpact of Nuclear Weapons, Vienna, Austria, 2014).27
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