Suchergebnisse

1. Introduction : the making of Pakistan's post-1998 nuclear policy -- 2. Historical analysis of Pakistan's nuclear development programme -- 3. Pakistan's rationale of minimum deterrence : why the minimum? -- 4. Pakistan's policy of minimum credible deterrence : why minimum is not the minimum -- 5. Pakistan's nuclear force building -- 6. Pakistan's doctrine of nuclear first use -- 7. Pakistan's policy of arms control and disarmament : a call for arms control regime in South Asia -- 8. Conclusion : a call for an actual minimum.

This article attempts to answer the question as to how much nuclear ambiguity prevails within the broader contours of Pakistan's nuclear policy and how challenging this could be for its evolving nuclear policy. While conceptualizing the rudimentary pillars of Pakistan's evolving nuclear policy, this article implies that although nuclear ambiguity plays a central role in Pakistan's evolving nuclear policy particularly at the operational level, it remains less ambiguous at the declaratory level despite the absence of detailed official documentation. As part of the policy implication for Pakistan in general and the South Asian region in particular, this article concludes that on the one hand nuclear ambiguity helps shape the essential pillars of Pakistan's nuclear policy, but on the other hand too much nuclear ambiguity in turn could become challenging for Pakistan as its nuclear policy gradually evolves to secure a effective command and control system for newer deterrent forces, retain flexibility between the nuclear and conventional forces, and strive for nuclear legitimacy.

This article primarily focuses on how the increasing US–China competing strategies in Asia-Pacific affect the policies of South Asian rivals India and Pakistan when, on the one hand, the US as part of its offshore balancing grand strategy has been increasing its strategic partnership with India through the transfer of emerging technologies in terms of military modernization process, and on the other hand, China and Pakistan have improved their geo-economic and geostrategic partnership as part of the Chinese grand strategy via the Belt and Road Initiative while enabling Pakistan to produce effective countermeasures against its potential adversary. The article presumes that, in doing so, such competing strategies frame a quadrangle setting comprising of US and India to deter and contain China on the one hand and China and Pakistan to produce countermeasures and try to create a balance to potentially prevent the risk of conflict in South Asia out of such competing strategies at the quadrangle order conceived here. However, in fact, neither the US nor rising China would desire such a possibility of conflict otherwise unintendedly occurring from the intense US–China competing strategies while affecting the policies of the South Asian rivals. The article concludes that the shaping of this quadrangle framework may bring both opportunities and challenges for the South Asian rivals. It also concludes that the more intense the competition between the US and China becomes, the more intense its implications could be on the South Asian rivals, while the reduced tension between China and the US, although unlikely, would have reduced pressure on India and Pakistan relations as well.

Purpose
This paper aims to elaborate in a greater detail about how to manage and eventually help resolve outstanding issues, including the core issue of Kashmir between nuclear India and Pakistan. In doing so, this paper elaborates various innovative measures that could be applicable to South Asian nuclear environment that in turn could assist the South Asian nuclear leadership in understanding and managing the fragility of South Asian nuclear deterrence.


Design/methodology/approach
Innovatively, this research paper looks at the South Asian nuclear issues at three levels of analysis – understanding the prevailing dynamics of nuclear revolution and improved means of communications and promoting deterrence stability in South Asia. All three levels may be more needed than ever before in the wake of the arrival of nuclear weapons for a broader Southern Asian region.


Findings
This paper finds out that although nuclear weapons have become a reality in South Asia and these deadly weapons have prevented major wars between India and Pakistan, nuclear weapons have not prevented the crises between India and Pakistan. Therefore, both India and Pakistan have confronted a number of crises. The paper finds out that any serious crisis between India and Pakistan could further undermine the credibility of existing confidence-building measures and the same could escalate from military to nuclear level. Absent from immediate measures undertaken by the South Asian security leadership, nuclear weapons may not help prevent the war between India and Pakistan at the sub-conventional level, this paper finds out.


Originality/value
By explaining innovative measures at the three level of analysis, this papers adds to the existing literature in understanding the behavior of South Asian security leadership and how these measures could best bring positive results in preventing a major crisis that potentially bears the risk of escalation to nuclear level.

As China and India gradually rise and become the centre point of world politics in the 21st century, both these nuclear states tend to transform their strategic force postures to hide their vulnerabilities and ensure the credibility of their deterrence force. This article conceptualizes the gradual transformation of China and India's strategic force postures under the essentials of minimum deterrence. In doing so, it examines the conceptualization of minimum deterrence, doctrinal use of deterrent forces and the modernization of strategic forces, though the perceptional aspects of these three imperatives may differ between these two nuclear states. This article attempts to find out whether or not these strategic imperatives, in relation to their transformation of strategic force postures, are consistent with the essentials of minimum deterrence conceived here. This article concludes that if China and India's deterrence force modernization falls within these essential categories (i.e. modernization, accuracy, upgrades, correcting ranges, credibility, penetrability, survivability), they may be consistent with minimum deterrence. Alternatively, if both China and India go beyond the minimum deterrence that they initially conceptualized, this may remain inconsistent with the minimum deterrence conceptualized here. (J Contemp China/GIGA)