Chained to the Nuclear Rock

There are many mythological tales warning of the dangers of hubris, the arrogance of seeking godlike power. In one such Greek myth, the Titan Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to humankind. An angry Zeus chained Prometheus to a rock and each day sent an eagle to tear open his abdomen. To punish humans for receiving the fire, Zeus created the deceitful Pandora. He gave her a box containing all the travails that could plague humankind and sent her to live in the household of the brother of Prometheus. There Pandora succumbed the human trait of seeking the unknown despite its risks. She opened the box-- evil escaped to bedevil the world.

There are echoes of this fable in the development of atomic energy and weapons. It is a tragic tale about the folly and hubris that led humans to develop the atomic fire that has given them the god-like power to destroy the Earth and all of its creatures and that has left the world unable to escape the nuclear rock that could be the site of humanity's final agony. In the modern replay of the hubris and agony of Prometheus and the folly of Pandora, the box was opened with the first atomic blast at Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945. Humankind now possessed the atomic fire-- humankind has arguably been chained to the rock of potential nuclear destruction ever since.

After that first detonation, the number of tests, like the ominous cloud that symbolizes them, kept mushrooming, peaking in 1962 at 171 blasts. Then the flood tide of testing began to ebb in response to the negotiation of a number of treaties restricting testing (see Table 13.2), a declining need to test, and unilateral restraints.

By the early 1990s, the number of nuclear weapons tests had declined to the point where they were unusual. Moreover, when tests did occur, they were greeted with rancor. France detonated four underground nuclear blasts in 1995 on uninhabited atolls in the South Pacific and set off an explosion of criticism. "Lamentable and detestable," charged Argentina's president. ¹ "An act of stupidity," thundered the prime minister of Australia. "Crazy," was the word chosen by Japan's finance minister.² A resolution in the UN condemning the French tests garnered the support of 95 countries, with only 2 opposed (others abstained). Even the people of France said "non". A poll by Le Monde found that 60 percent of the French people opposed the test.

The following year China, contending that it, too, needed tests to modernize its weapons, exploded two bombs at its test facility under Lop Nor. They were the world's 2,044th and 2,045th nuclear weapons tests. Once again, the world was dismayed.

The total rose to 2,050 after India conducted five underground tests in May 1998. The largest explosion had a yield equivalent to 25 kilotons, nearly twice the size of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. The blast left a crater that was seven stories deep and several hundred yards wide, bearing mute testimony to the continuance of nuclear proliferation and testing.

India argued that the tests were needed for national security. A particular concern is China, which India's defense minister termed his country's "potential number one enemy."³ This reasoning was rejected by many observers. "There has been no major change in the disposition of Chinese or Pakistani force in at least two years," said a Western military attach in New Delhi. "India's making the bomb has nothing to do with military needs."⁴ An alternative explanation is that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was trying to shore up his shaky governing coalition by whipping up nationalist fervor. Yet other theories were more visceral. One line of thought attributed India's tests to the religious-traditionalist-ultranationalist orientation of Vajpayee and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). This is reviewed in the box Hindutva and the Bomb in Chapter 7. And some critics implied that the urge to nuclear power was a derivative of aggressive male impulses, as discussed in Chapter 5. "Made with Viagra," is how one editorial cartoon in India labeled the bomb.⁵

Prime Minister Vajpayee rejected the outside criticism as hypocritical. "Some of the countries which have- criticized our action have themselves not only conducted far more nuclear tests than we have done, but they have also built huge stockpiles of nuclear weapons and delivery systems," Vajpayee argued accurately.⁶

Whatever the reasons for India's decision to acquire nuclear weapons, it is debatable whether India's security improved. One U.S. expert commented that the region running from China to Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Israel and Egypt "is a nuclear powder keg, and India just lit the fuse. All those countries are connected. They all have, want to have, or have thought about having nuclear weapons programs."⁷ That observation was rapidly confirmed when, on May 28, Pakistan began its own series of tests, the largest of which measured about 12 kilotons. "Today we have evened the score with India," Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif declared.⁸ When the dust settled, the total read 2,056 tests.

What comes next is extremely important. One scenario includes more tests, more countries with nuclear arms and, perhaps, nuclear war. Many experts believe that we will witness a nuclear arms race in Asia, with both India and Pakistan testing to improve their weapons and China joining in to maintain its existing superiority. "The logic of nuclear weapons does not respect minimalists," warns retired Indian general V. R. Raghavan.⁹

The tests may also encourage further proliferation. Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen was almost certainly correct when he told a U.S. Senate committee that "there will be other countries that see this [testing] as an open invitation to try to acquire [nuclear weapons] technology. We have a real proliferation problem that's taking place globally. This is only going to contribute to that."¹⁰ If India and Pakistan have the bomb, will Iran and others soon follow? The urge will be strong. Libya's leader, Muammar Qaddafi, once thought, "We should be like the Chinese poor and riding donkeys, but respected and possessing an atom bomb." He is now almost certainly recalling those words (Manning, 1998.75).

The darkest part of the scenario is nuclear war. Analysts point out correctly that the ability of the United States and the Soviet Union to avoid nuclear war despite intense antagonism does not mean India and Pakistan can do the same. One reason is that the two superpowers did not share a common border- India and Pakistan do. Second, the two superpowers never fought one another; India and Pakistan have had three wars (1948, 1965, 1971). Third, U.S. and Soviet-Russian territory are so far apart that a sneak nuclear attack would be difficult, and there is time to check and dismiss or verify warnings of an incoming attack. By contrast, the decision/response time between neighboring India and Pakistan will be almost nil, thereby vastly increasing the chance of inadvertent war. Fourth, the superpowers took decades to develop a sophisticated command and control system; there is no evidence that either India or Pakistan has one. When one reporter asked a ranking military officer how prepared India was to be a nuclear power, he replied, "On the record we are working on it and I've no doubt we will rise to the occasion." Then he added disconcertingly, "Off the record, we are totally unprepared."¹¹ These factors have persuaded one expert that if both India and Pakistan were to deploy their nuclear weapons, "I think it would almost certainly lead to a nuclear exchange in combat."¹² With India and Pakistan each having enough nuclear material to make 50 or more nuclear weapons, and with that number growing, the outcome of such an exchange would be cataclysmic.

It did not take long for the rivalry of nuclear India and nuclear Pakistan to flare anew. Attacks by Pakistani-backed Muslim rebels in Kashmir in 1999 brought a strong military reaction from India. The two countries teetered on the brink of war. American intelligence officials reportedly told the White House that the chance of war between India and Pakistan was in the "50-50 range," and that if war did break out, "there is a serious threat" that it could escalate to a nuclear exchange.¹³ Reflecting that view, President Clinton described the region as "perhaps the most dangerous place in the world today because of tensions over Kashmir and the possession of nuclear weapons."¹⁴ War was averted, but the issue of Kashmir remains an open sore that, unless settled, will almost certainly once again bring India and Pakistan to or into the abyss in the most dangerous region in the world.

A less gloomy scenario is that having assuaged whatever drove them to acquire nuclear weapons, India and Pakistan will not unleash a nuclear holocaust on one another, will join the effort to make the NPT fully effective, and will ratify the CTBT. In September 1998, the prime ministers of India and Pakistan both announced they might soon sign the CTBT, but two year later that had not occurred. Prime minister Vajpayee told President Clinton during his trip to the region in March 2000 that India would not conduct further tests. That remains to be seen. In Greek mythology, the agony of Prometheus ends when Hercules frees him from his chains. Perhaps the world will one day escape its nuclear rock, but no modern-day Hercules is likely to come to the rescue. Perhaps the best path is to follow the wisdom of Gandhi- "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

Notes

1. New York Times, September 7, 1995, p. A9.

2. The Keating and Takemura quotes are from Time, September 18, 1995, p. 85.

3. New York Times, May 16, 1998, p. A5.

4. Newsweek, May 25, 1998, p. 32C.

5. Newsweek, May 25, 1998, p. 32B.

6. New York Times, May 16, 1998, p. A15.

7. New York Times, May 17, 1998, p. WK2. The scholar was Joseph Cirincione, director of the Nonproliferation Project of the Carnegie Endowment.

8. New York Times, May 29, 1998, p. A1.

9. New York Times, July 26, 1998, p. A3.

10. New York Times, May 17, 1998, p. WK2.

11. New York Times, July 26, 1998, p. A3.

12. New York Times, July 12, 1998, p. WK18. The expert was Joseph Cirincione, director of the Nonproliferation Project of the Carnegie Endowment.

13. New York Times , August 8, 2000.

14. CNN, March 20, 2000 on the Web at: http://www.cnn.com/2000/ASIANOW/south/03/19/india.pakistan.02/.