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South Asia: Work for Long-Term Stability in Region, Analysts Say By Kerry Boyd Several U.S. experts last week supported the Bush administration’s plan to focus on preventing a South Asian war but said the United States must also pave the way for a more stable future once the current crisis passes. A nuclear war in the region “would make Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like nothing,” and would require massive international assistance to deal with the consequent humanitarian crisis, said Institute for Science and International Security President David Albright on Thursday. Albright and other South Asia analysts spoke at the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace to launch their new collected papers: “A New Equation: U.S. Policy Toward India and Pakistan After Sept. 11.” Fortunately, there is only a “low probability” of nuclear war, although some scenarios of nuclear escalation are realistic, Albright said (see GSN, June 7). He noted, however, that if Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf were overthrown, it would change the calculations dramatically and for the worse. Therefore, the United States should focus on preventing such an event, he said. Deal with Kashmir If conventional and unconventional war can be avoided in the near term, there are several steps the United States can take to prevent continuing instability, the analysts said. In terms of overall policy toward South Asia, the United States must help resolve the dispute over the Kashmir territory, which is divided between the two countries, said Lee Feinstein of the German Marshall Fund. U.S. efforts in the region since the end of the Cold War have usually taken the form of crisis diplomacy, Feinstein said. U.S. leaders should instead help Pakistan and India work to begin a process of resolving the Kashmir dispute. While no one should expect immediate results, the world can no longer “let the Kashmir issue fester,” he said. Even if the current crisis does not lead to war, “there will be more close calls” if the two countries do not deal with Kashmir, he said. Although India prefers to deal with Kashmir as an internal or bilateral issue, “Kashmir is now everybody’s problem,” partly due to the nuclearization of the subcontinent, Feinstein said. The United Nations, China, Russia and the United States have all become involved in trying to prevent war and must deal with the dispute over the territory. “The most effective nonproliferation measure would be for India and Pakistan, with discreet assistance from Washington, to resolutely devise a process to address the half-century-old dispute over Kashmir,” Feinstein wrote in his paper. The Kashmiri people should also be part of the final process, he added. Promoting Nuclear Restraint If South Asia peacefully resolves its current crisis, the United States should put nuclear restraint back on the agenda as a top priority in its South Asian policy, Feinstein said last week. In his paper, he called on the United States to encourage India and Pakistan to define a credible minimum deterrent at the lowest level possible and to promote confidence-building measures. The United States should also engage both countries in nonproliferation efforts, he said. The United States should also encourage continual meetings between Indian and Pakistani experts to discuss nuclear issues, said Lewis Dunn of Science Applications International Corp. Often such meetings could be unofficial, such as involving retired officials, and participants could discuss potential scenarios and what could go wrong in times of heightened tension, he said. Sharing Lessons Learned Dunn and Feinstein also suggested that the United States should provide advice based on lessons it has learned trying to manage its own nuclear capability and preventing nuclear conflict during the Cold War. Encouraging Pakistani and Indian experts to discuss nuclear issues and providing lessons from the U.S. experience could help the adversaries identify questions and issues they must address on their own, Dunn wrote in his paper. The United States should also share information on some of its “organizational best practices,” such as personnel reliability programs, Dunn wrote (see GSN, March 18). Some officials are interested in such assistance. The United States could provide unclassified information on such issues as safely transporting hazardous materials in difficult weather conditions, Pakistani Brig. Gen. Feroz Khan told Global Security Newswire. The United States should provide some of its expertise — through unclassified means — on nuclear safety, he said. “Why must I learn something that was already learned in the 1950s and ’60s?” he said. Safeguarding Materials Slightly trickier is the possibility of U.S. assistance to help safeguard nuclear materials. Some members of Congress have proposed expanding programs similar to those in the former Soviet Union for protecting WMD materials to other countries (see GSN, March 20). The United States should offer assistance to protect such materials, Albright, Dunn and Feinstein said. Albright suggested offering items such as unclassified books on nuclear weapons safety and surveillance equipment (see GSN, March 18). The United States should also work to persuade India and Pakistan to adopt internationally accepted export controls to prevent the spread of WMD materials, he said (see GSN, May 22). Feinstein wrote that the United States should provide nonsensitive equipment, such as monitoring equipment for vaults and tracking equipment for nuclear weapons. Dunn wrote that limited discussions on steps to “make a nuclear weapons unusable” in a case of theft and provisions of nonsensitive technology and equipment to enhance security are other ways to improve safety. NPT Restrictions The experts said the United States is under certain obligations, stemming from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which would limit the types of assistance it could provide to India and Pakistan, who have not signed the treaty. Those obligations are important and affect U.S. efforts to prevent proliferation in other regions, Dunn said, but he added that the NPT requirements leave room for some useful assistance. At a minimum, the United States could provide unclassified materials related to nuclear security and control, he said. Feinstein also said that providing information available in the public domain could be helpful without violating the NPT. Offering advice based on U.S. experience managing a nuclear arsenal and providing nonsensitive equipment are some examples. The United States should follow the motto of “do no harm” in deciding what assistance to provide — such as withholding any technologies that would enhance the countries’ ability to deploy their nuclear weapons, he said. Consequences of South Asia on Global WMD Proliferation Beyond direct assistance to South Asia, the analysts also said the United States must consider the broader implications of the tensions between the two nuclear-armed states. “The concern is to avoid a ‘cascading effect’ where second-tier states feel increasingly exposed by their earlier decision to give up the nuclear option,” Feinstein wrote (see GSN, June 7). If the two countries avert war, it could add support to the argument that nuclear weapons are a stabilizing force, therefore increasing the risk that more countries would pursue obtaining nuclear weapons, Dunn said. On the other hand, if nuclear war occurs and obliterates Pakistan, the message to the world would be very different, he said. For further information, see: Stimson Center Background on Kashmir
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