South Asia is the region of the world at highest risk of suffering a nuclear crisis due to an explosive mixture of unresolved territorial disputes, cross-border terrorism, and growing nuclear arsenals. While the Middle East will remain a focal point for international nonproliferation efforts for the foreseeable future, the United States needs to rebalance its nonproliferation priorities towards Asia. India and Pakistan are engaged in a nuclear and missile arms race that, if left unchecked, threatens regional security and the global nonproliferation regime.
While Iran has accepted strict, albeit temporary, limits on the operation of its gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facilities and heavy water reactor, India and Pakistan have continued to expand their capabilities to produce weapons-grade nuclear material using those very same technologies. India is reportedly constructing a new industrial-scale gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility, the Special Material Enrichment Facility, in Karnataka and expanding its uranium enrichment facility at the Rare Materials Project in Mysore. Pakistan recently brought online its fourth heavy water reactor at Khusab as well as a new reprocessing facility at Chashma that can extract larger quantities of weapons-grade plutonium from the spent fuel produced by these reactors.
As a result of this buildup, India is estimated to have enough plutonium and highly enriched uranium to build 75-125 nuclear weapons while Pakistan has sufficient fissile material to build 180-245 nuclear weapons. As of 2015, India was estimated to have 120 nuclear warheads while Pakistan was believed to possess 130 weapons.
Both countries have also continued to develop, test, and deploy new missiles designed to deliver nuclear warheads. Pakistan has tested seven different types of nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missiles, including the 2,750-kilometer range Shaheen-3 ballistic missile. Meanwhile, India has tested nine different types of nuclear-capable missiles, including the Agni-V intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of over 5,000 kilometers.
Since their dueling nuclear tests in 1998, India and Pakistan have fought one low-intensity war (the 1999 Kargil War) and experienced two serious crises spurred by terrorist attacks launched from Pakistan (the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament and the 2008 Mumbai attack). The next crisis in South Asia is just one assassination or mass casualty terrorist attack away. But this time both sides will each have over 100 nuclear weapons deployed on a range of delivery systems. During the next Indo-Pakistani conflict, the “fog of war” could take the shape of a mushroom cloud.
One of the most dangerous aspects of Indo-Pakistani rivalry is the introduction of tactical nuclear weapons in South Asia, such as Pakistan’s 60-kilometer range Nasr/Hatf IX ballistic missile. Tactical nuclear weapons introduce a host of new risks to South Asia. Due to their short-ranges, these types of weapons need to be deployed close to the front-lines and be ready for use at short-notice. Pakistan may feel pressure to loosen its highly centralized command and control practices and grant lower-ranking officers greater authority and capability to arm and launch nuclear weapons during a crisis. There is also the potential for a conventional conflict to escalate to the nuclear level if the commander of a forward-deployed, nuclear-armed unit finds himself in a “use it or lose it” situation and launches the nuclear weapons under his control before his unit is overrun.
These weapons are also more vulnerable to theft or terrorist takeover once they leave the security of a military garrison. The risk that terrorists could breach Pakistan’s nuclear security is magnified by the strong presence of domestic extremists and foreign jihadist groups in Pakistan, their demonstrated ability to repeatedly penetrate the security of military facilities, and evidence that these groups have infiltrated the Pakistani military and security services.
Another worrisome new development is the extension of the arms race in South Asia into the Indian Ocean. In February 2016, India announced that the INS Arihant, the first of four planned strategic missile submarines, had passed its sea trials. The submarine is set to be equipped with the 3,000-kilometer range K-4 ballistic missile that is still undergoing testing. Like Pakistan’s tactical nuclear weapons, this new nuclear system poses new challenges to nuclear stability in South Asia. Deploying nuclear-armed missiles on the Arihant would represent a break from India’s past practice of storing missiles and warheads separately, removing a vital firebreak in the escalation ladder. Moreover, unless India is confident that it will be able to maintain constant communication with its submerged missile submarines during a crisis, it may pre-delegate launch authority to the submarine commander, another disturbing change in Indian nuclear policy.
Deploying nuclear-armed ballistic missiles on submarines also poses a host of new safety issues. The United States, Soviet Union, and Russia have suffered nuclear submarine disasters, most recently with the sinking of the Kursk in August 2000. India has already had its fair share of submarine-related accidents. In August 2013, an Indian diesel-electric submarine sank after suffering an explosion and fire, killing 18 sailors. In February 2014, a fire onboard another Indian submarine killed two officers.
Finally, Pakistan will likely respond to this development with its own deployment of naval nuclear weapons, if only for reasons of prestige and a compulsion to achieve parity with India. In 2012, Pakistan unveiled a new headquarters for its Naval Strategic Forces Command. With ballistic missile submarines out of Pakistan’s reach, it is more likely to leverage its work on cruise missiles to develop a version that can be launched from a submarine.
There are a number of steps the international community can take to restrain the nuclear and missile competition between India and Pakistan and reduce the risks of crises and escalation. The international community should encourage India and Pakistan to build on the historic 1999 Lahore Declaration and Memorandum of Understanding and adopt further confidence-building measures, including limits on the development or deployment of destabilizing weapons such as tactical nuclear weapons and missile defenses; prohibitions on provocative acts such as interfering with command and control and early warning systems; and measures to verify the non-deployed and non-alert status of warheads and missiles. Once both sides make some progress on these confidence building measures, they should be included in high-level talks with the other nuclear weapon states to discuss measures that could further reduce the risks of nuclear weapons being used deliberately, by accident, or in an unauthorized manner.
The United States has already invested significant resources in reorienting its military posture and trade policy towards Asia as part of the rebalance. Now it’s time to strengthen nonproliferation and arms control in the region to protect those investments.
