Pakistan’s recent tests of its Tactical Nuclear Missiles suggest a lowering of the threshold for nuclear conflict. More portentous is the underlying assumption of Tactical Nuclear Missiles being ‘fair weapons for battle-field usage’ in conventional conflicts. If the missiles are deployed in a manner as envisioned, it would rapidly escalate tensions, also increasing the possibility of a conventional war quickly spiraling into nuclear catastrophe.

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Pakistan’s testing of the two short range nuclear-capable tactical missiles in April 2011 is a development of crucial significance for South-Asia. The Hatf IX (Nasr) missile, test-fired on April 19, is a short range ballistic missile with a range of 60 kms, capable of being used against Indian targets across Pakistan’s Eastern border. The Hatf VIII (Ra’ad), tested on April 29, is an air launched cruise missile with a range of over 350 km, and reportedly incorporates stealth characteristics and high maneuverability that enables Pakistan to achieve a greater stand-off capability on land and at sea.

No sooner had the Nasr been test-fired, Pakistani strategists and analysts hailed it as a counter to India’s Cold Start doctrine.

What makes these events critically defining is the fact of this being a rare instance of back-to-back tests to two Pakistani nuclear capable missiles that fit into the tactical weapons’ (TNW) category. While much hype in the subcontinent surrounds the testing of the long-range strategic ballistic missiles (SNWs) - India’s Agni II and Agni III; and Pakistan’s Shaheen I and Shaheen II - not much media attention seems to have been given to Pakistan’s pointed emphasis on the development of tactical missiles, seen by analysts as representing an equally ominous threat.

The testing of the Nasr is especially significant. On the eve of its testing, the Pakistan Inter-Services Agency released a press statement, describing the Nasr as a ‘Nuclear Capable’ Short-Range surface-to-surface multi-tube ballistic missile that can be tipped with nuclear warheads of appropriate yield and high accuracy. The missile, it said, is a “mobile, quick response system that addresses the need to deter evolving threats”, thus confirming Pakistan’s long-assumed tactical nuclear weapons program. Photographs of the missile system released along with the press release, showed a two-round system mounted on a Chinese-origin high-mobility truck chassis, also used by the Pakistan Army’s 300mm Multiple Launch Rocket (MRL) System. The adaptation of the MRL platform suggests that Pakistan may have developed or is acquiring nuclear warheads small enough to be placed on a missile with a much smaller diameter.

The missile system, they noted in unison, establishes that a tactical nuclear weapon can now be deployed by Pakistan very close to its eastern border with minimum reaction time to counter any armor or mechanized thrust by an enemy (read India) into Pakistani territory.

No sooner had the Nasr been test-fired, Pakistani strategists and analysts hailed it as a counter to India’s Cold Start doctrine. The missile system, they noted in unison, establishes that a tactical nuclear weapon can now be deployed by Pakistan very close to its eastern border with minimum reaction time to counter any armor or mechanized thrust by an enemy (read India) into Pakistani territory. Nasr’s diameter seems to suggest that the warhead would be less than one kilogram, and of sub-kiloton range. Such a warhead, according to Pak analysts, is suitable for battlefield use and could be used in case of a “misadventure by the Indian Army” across the border.

A Serious Threat

Nasr’s development represents a peril for India that can only be described as ‘profound’. To begin with, it is a tactical weapon that appears to be for “actual use” and not meant to pose just a “notional strategic threat”. Even though the Nasr has a much shorter range than any of Pakistan’s other small-distance nuclear capable missiles, its development is a pointer to the fact that Pakistan can now build small nuclear warheads for all kinds of delivery platforms. It also, more-or-less, confirms that Islamabad may be consolidating its plutonium reserves and would be disinclined to accept any cap in production in the foreseeable future.

Following the test of the Nasr, Pakistani security analyst Shireen Mazari in a statement said that the missile represents a tactical nuclear capability that could be used in the battlefield, and could act as a deterrent against use of mechanised conventional land forces. This was a direct allusion to the Indian Army’s Cold Start Doctrine that Ms. Mazari seemed to suggest sought to take advantage of an ambiguity in Pakistan’s missile defence capability that lacked “a short range battle field nuclear weapon”. Now that Pakistan had “plugged that loophole”, she seemed to suggest, India’s Cold Start strategy had been rendered redundant.

India’s Interceptor Missile Test

Pakistan’s scramble to test a tactical nuclear weapon seems to have been influenced by India’s test of an interceptor missile in March 2011. The air-defence missile, fired from the Chandipur test-range off the coast of Orissa, is supposed to have achieved a direct hit on an incoming “enemy” ballistic missile at an altitude of 16 kilometers.

...there will be a strong ethical constraint that India would feel while counter-attacking with a high yield strategic weapon, in response to a first Pakistani strike by a low yield TNW.

India has been working on its ballistic missile defense (BMD) program since 2006, but reportedly there has been a real sense of urgency about the program after the Mumbai attacks in 2008. Pakistani strategists have made much out of India’s BMD program. Its development and subsequent deployment, they maintain, would result in India having an assured second strike capability. BMD, according to them, despite being a defensive technology, and highly expensive (not to mention technologically ‘uncertain’) fortifies the Indian state to adopt offensive policies. India is therefore appreciated to have moved from ‘deterrence’ to ‘pre-emption’ – a move that compels Pakistan to further improve their response options in order to stabilize the strategic equation in the region.

But the fact that BMD technology is ‘defensive’, ‘expensive’ and ‘uncertain’, and is yet being pursued seriously and vigorously by India, also underscores the essential truth of India’s singular commitment to the ‘no-first use’ policy. It seems to give credence to the generally held opinion among analysts that New Delhi would probably never be the first to explore the nuclear option. Seen in reverse, this is also a clear negation of Pakistan’s underlying rationale for developing the tactical nuclear missile, as India, by a unilateral commitment, has precluded its first use of such a weapon. This enjoins upon New Delhi a greater responsibility to make sure it does not allow an indiscretion to occur that would provoke Islamabad into exploring the nuclear option – something that India has more than willingly embraced. But the Nasr’s development undermines this commitment on India’s part to reduce tensions and display greater accountability. If anything, it only serves to illustrate that Islamabad has reduced its tolerance level for any act on New Delhi’s part that it deems provocative, thereby de-incentivizing confidence building behaviour.

Complicating India’s Response Matrix

India’s responses to a nuclear strike by Pakistan are bound to be complicated by the development of tactical nuclear missiles. As well-intentioned as it purports to be, the “No First Use” principle in the Indian Nuclear Doctrine does not differentiate between tactical and strategic weapons. A nuclear attack against own forces anywhere is therefore, supposed to receive a full-fledged nuclear response. But there is, undeniably, an “ethics” and “proportionality” element to the nuclear discourse that the Indian doctrine overlooks.

Needless to say, there will be a strong ethical constraint that India would feel while counter-attacking with a high yield strategic weapon, in response to a first Pakistani strike by a low yield TNW. Regardless of the stated doctrine, it would be hard for India’s political masters to justify the annihilation of a whole Pakistani city by a SNW, in response to an attack by a 0.5 KT Pakistani TNW on an Indian Army tank division. The compulsions of not using SNWs will decidedly inhibit the supposedly automatic second strike. By plainly discounting the need for the nuclear second strike to be ‘proportional’ to the opening attack, the doctrine only succeeds in making the Indian posture appear unreasonable.

In effect, therefore, a tactical nuclear weapon, used effectively by Pakistan, can be expected to be a ‘double-whammy’ of sorts. It would hurt India by hitting hard and yet render invalid the expected Indian response by nullifying the logic of using a strategic high-yield warhead as a second strike weapon. The present Pakistani approach of developing TNMs, willy-nilly, changes the strategic equation in the subcontinent, without really affecting India’s stated doctrinal stance. One can’t help feel, this starkly ‘perverse’ reality behind Tactical Nuclear Missile usage hasn’t yet been adequately evaluated by India.