ZIA MIAN M. V. RAMANA
May 2018 marked the 20th anniversary of the nuclear weapon tests by India and Pakistan. Over these past two decades, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has covered the growing nuclear programs of the two countries and the profound risks they pose to the roughly 1.5 billion people now living in these two countries, who make up one-fifth of humanity. Here, guest editors Zia Mian and M.V. Ramana select a few of the many articles on nuclear South Asia that have been published by the Bulletin. On 11 May 1998, Indian Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee announced that three nuclear devices had been exploded earlier that day. Two days later, following two more explosions, Vajpayee proudly announced that India was now a nuclear weapon state. A couple of weeks later, on May 28 and 30, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced that his country had conducted six nuclear explosions.
Although the 1998 tests by India surprised much of the world, readers of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists had been forewarned. In 1996, one of us (ZM) had written that if the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were to come to power, India might test a thermonuclear weapon, and that Pakistan would welcome the opportunity this might create to test its own nuclear weapons.
The potential use of nuclear weapons has shadowed all military conflicts in the subcontinent since the nuclear tests of 1998. During the conflict over the Kargil region of Kashmir in 1999, the third war over Kashmir, Indian and Pakistani officials delivered indirect and direct nuclear threats at least 13 times. The Bulletin has carried articles that describe the potential impact of nuclear weapon use in South Asia as well as the various technological aspirations and acquisitions of the two countries. These include tactical nuclear weapons for use in the battlefield and ballistic missile defense systems. There also have been articles on Pakistan’s proliferation of nuclear technology, and on the risks from Islamic militant movements.
The Bulletin’s Nuclear Notebook column has tracked the nuclear arsenals of India and Pakistan. For example, in 2002, a Nuclear Notebook column listed just five types of delivery vehicles for India, two aircraft and three short- or medium-range ballistic missiles. In contrast, besides the two aircraft and the three short or medium range missiles, the 2017 update lists at least six separate land-ballistic missiles or sea-based missiles.
The future of nuclear South Asia looks bleak. In 20 years, despite crisis, war, and spiraling nuclear and conventional military forces, the two countries have failed to agree any significant measures to restrain their rivalry. The next round involves both countries putting nuclear weapons at sea. Meanwhile, broad-based peace movements have failed to take hold. The international community, for its part, has moved on to other concerns, until the next crisis.
India seemed to be preparing the ground for a nuclear test. Pakistan seemed not very concerned.
For the BJP, nuclear weapons are essential to a powerful, awe-inspiring, and militarist “Hindu India”
From various sources, we estimate that India has a stockpile of 30-35 nuclear warheads, which it is thought to be expanding.
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