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India-Pakistan: Analysts Propose to Safeguard South Asian Arsenals By Kerry Boyd U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) said earlier this month that he intends to propose legislation to expand U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction programs — established to help former Soviet states dismantle and secure nuclear materials and facilities — to countries including Pakistan and India. “The precise replication of the [CTR] program will not be possible everywhere, but a satisfactory level of accountability, transparency, can and must be established in every nation with a WMD program,” Lugar said in a Council on Foreign Relations speech (see GSN, March 5). The United States and other countries with applicable knowledge should offer assistance to Pakistan and India to help them ensure the security of various nuclear assets, said Robert Einhorn, a senior analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation. “There’s no reason that any process that has worked in Russia couldn’t work well in any other country,” said Jon Wolfsthal of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Start Simple Although Pakistan’s command and control system works well, India and Pakistan could learn a lot from the U.S. experience of managing its own nuclear capability and avoiding nuclear war with the Soviet Union, said Brigadier Feroz Khan, director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Affairs Division of the Pakistani Joint Services Headquarters. “Why must I learn something that was already learned in the 1950s and 60s?” he said. U.S. advisors should help both countries install more sophisticated locks, fool-proof communication systems and other means to prevent unauthorized access to and use of weapons, Khan said (see GSN, Nov. 29, 2001). Any assistance, however, must not be in a context of weakness and must not violate the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty or other legal requirements, Khan said. “No one’s asking for nuclear weapon designs,” he said. Personnel Reliability Khan and Wolfsthal both suggested that the United States could help improve ways to ensure loyalty and reliability of personnel with access to nuclear materials and facilities (see GSN, Oct. 1, 2001). The United States — which uses techniques also used by banks, government and other entities that require a loyal and stable work force — has provided its experience developing a personnel reliability program to Russia, said Wolfsthal. U.S. measures include drug tests, credit history checks and lie-detector tests to ensure that workers with access to sensitive materials are loyal, stable and do not have weaknesses that could allow someone to blackmail or tempt them, said Wolfsthal. Pakistan already has some technology and procedures to ensure proper control, such as identity cards and coded locks, Khan said. He added that the country could, however, benefit by learning more about the U.S. personnel reliability system, as could India and Israel — the other two nuclear powers outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty regime. Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers The United States can also offer assistance beyond CTR-type efforts. One important measure is to establish crisis prevention centers, Khan said. “South Asia is endemic to crisis” and needs a method to deal with tense situations, he said. Pakistan and India should establish nuclear risk reduction centers in Islamabad and New Delhi similar to the ones in Moscow and Washington, Khan said. Nuclear risk reduction centers are “a good idea,” said Einhorn. “It’s a modest confidence-building measure that can provide a vehicle for exchanging information that could help defuse a crisis.” The United States and former Soviet Union established two Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers in 1988 to provide “direct, reliable, high-speed systems for the transmission of notifications and communications at the government-to-government level,” according to a U.S. State Department summary. The two centers exchange information, such as notifications of ballistic missile launches, in accordance with treaties and confidence-building agreements. A South Asian center might include a combination of diplomats, scientists and military officials with regular meetings between Indian and Pakistani officials, Khan said. Potential Problems Concerns exist, however, that threat reduction programs might not work in South Asia due to Pakistani and Indian distrust of U.S. intentions, some analysts said. “I think we should be realistic about what the Pakistanis and Indians are prepared to accept in the way of help from other countries,” said Einhorn. Pakistan and India do not trust each other, and they are unlikely to provide U.S. personnel access to certain nuclear facilities, he said. CTR programs between the United States and Russia followed decades of interactions between U.S. and Soviet, and then Russian, officials that created a level of confidence and comfort allowing some access, Einhorn said. That is not the case in South Asia. Despite those potential difficulties, the United States should still offer assistance, he said. The techniques and approach of the CTR program in the former Soviet Union are applicable to South Asia, but the program may not be politically workable, Wolfsthal said. India and Pakistan are “paranoid about U.S. intentions,” he said. “There’s a lot of skepticism about our intentions.” The principle behind the CTR program — that many unsecure nuclear weapons were left in the former Soviet Union — does not apply to Pakistan, Khan said. The regional context in South Asia and lack of cooperation between India and Pakistan create a very different situation. Khan emphasized that he supports the concept of CTR but is unsure whether it applies to South Asia. Tension to Dialogue In any case, proposals for U.S. assistance and South Asian cooperation face a serious obstacle in the current mobilization of Pakistani and Indian forces after a Dec. 13 attack on the Indian Parliament. Tension reduction measures are most needed but are particularly difficult in such a climate, Einhorn said. The situation might have to calm down before India and Pakistan can begin serious dialogue, but in the meantime, the United States can “float ideas” and let the two countries “mull them over,” he said. India and Pakistan should not expect assistance from the United States until the two form some type of cooperative security agreement to prevent misperceptions and escalation, Khan said (see GSN, Feb. 25). India and Pakistan must promise to restrain their forces — both conventional and nuclear, Khan said. South Asia needs a third party to jumpstart, facilitate and monitor agreements, Khan said. If India and Pakistan reach a restraint agreement, the United States could help provide information on each country’s adherence with an agreement, he said. The United States previously has used information from satellites and other means to prevent crises in South Asia, so why not formalize that role, Khan said.
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