Indian Defence Review

“The world will not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’…”  Oppenheimer cited Hindu Scripture, Bhagavad Gita under the impression of the Trinity explosion.

“No man-made phenomenon of such tremendous power had ever occurred before. The lighting effects beggared description. The whole country was lighted by a searing light with the intensity many times that of the midday sun.” Brigadier General T.F. Farrell, military commander on the staff of the Manhattan Project, 16 July 1945

The Pakistani polity is like the Rhinestone Cowboy,  ‘Singing’ the same old song…..Where hustle’s the name of the game….And nice guys get washed away like the snow in the rain.’

The frenzied lot is pushing the Pak Prime Minister into a corner by clamouring to use the “Bomb” against India. For what? For the action India has democratically taken to annul a provision from its own Constitution that had isolated a state from the rest of the country for seventy years and was done just to secure India’s own sovereignty.  Pakistan is desperately trying to manipulate a narrative of an ownership of J&K. It has witnessed the shattering of its myth of proprietary rights perpetuated over the years. Its false sense of chauvinism is contributing to its irrationality.

However, it is not here that any argument on Article 370 is intended to be presented, but to present views on this casual trend to glibly threaten another country with the use of nuclear weapons.

The quotes mentioned above are by those involved in the “Trinity” – the exploding of the Atom Bomb manufactured under the Manhattan Project and these are the reactions of those who witnessed the explosion. J. Robert Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is among those who are credited with being the “father of the atomic bomb” for their role in the Manhattan Project, the World War II undertaking that developed the first nuclear weapons.

The first atomic bomb was successfully detonated on July 16, 1945. The atomic bomb was detonated 200 miles south of Los Alamos at Trinity Site on the Alamogordo Bombing Range in the Trinity test in Los Alamos County, New Mexico, USA.  That a 19 Kiloton nuclear bomb could cause such destruction was incomprehensible.

Sadly, not much later, on August 6th 1945 the first atom bomb of 20 kilotons was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. Followed by a second bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9th 1945.

The instant death toll in Hiroshima is estimated to be 60-80,000 which rose to 140,000 over the next three to four month. In Nagasaki it is estimated that the instant death toll was 40-50,000 and it swelled to 80,000 -100,000 over the next few months. The truth is that the exact figures will never be known. These casualties were all civilians – men, women and children. There were the new-borns, the young, the old and the infirm. They were all mass murdered for no fault of theirs by the decision of one man – the President of USA.

America had developed the bomb and decided to use it to bring the long war to a quick end and prevent casualties of its military men that would occur in event US was forced to capture the Japanese Islands and compel the surrender of all Japanese forces.  A study done for Secretary of War Henry Stimson’s staff by William Shockley estimated that invading Japan would cost 1.7–4 million American casualties, including 400,000–800,000 fatalities, and five to ten million Japanese fatalities.   

Thus one of the reasons for the decision to use the atom bomb was to prevent this huge number of US military casualties.

America exploded the atom bomb on a country that did not possess a nuclear weapon. So America was sure there would be no retaliation by Japan with a nuclear weapon.

Not much later during the Korean War, in an interview with President Harry Truman the following transpired:-

Q. Mr. President, I wonder if we could retrace that reference to the atom bomb? Did we understand you clearly that the use of the atomic bomb is under active consideration?
Truman: Always has been. It is one of our weapons.
Q. Does that mean, Mr. President, use against military objectives, or civilian—
Truman: It’s a matter that the military people will have to decide. I’m not a military authority that passes on those things.

On 24 December 1950, MacArthur submitted a list of “retardation targets” in Korea, Manchuria and other parts of China, for which 34 atomic bombs would be required. In June 1950, Louis Johnson released a study on the potential uses of radioactive agents. According to Major General Courtney Whitney, MacArthur considered the possibility of using radioactive wastes to seal off North Korea in December 1950, but he never submitted this to the Joint Chiefs.

It is so evident that the use of atom bombs was actively considered against countries that did not possess such weapons.  USA was thus safe as these countries could not react similarly.

Post the Second World War, an ideological segregation between USA and USSR saw the world divided between the “Free” nations led by USA and the Communists led by USSR. NATO and Warsaw Pact countries were deployed in Europe ready for another war. In this war there was an added factor – that of the profusion of nuclear tipped missiles of all hues and sizes those that could be launched from land, underwater and air. The numbers swelled to many thousands of nuclear tipped nuclear missiles held by each side. Just one missile accidentally fired would have triggered a retribution which would draw a similar retaliatory strike in larger numbers thus resulting in an uncontrolled escalatory spiral leading to an unimaginable catastrophic that would have had irreversible consequences for life on the planet.  It was a doctrinal strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction aptly abbreviated to being a MAD strategy.

In 1964, China detonated its atom bomb. Though Mao was instrumental in China acquiring the atom bomb, he dismissed it as a “Paper Tiger”. From the very start China adopted a policy of “No First Use”. Strangely, neither the US or its Allies in the NATO nor the USSR and its flock adopted a policy of “No First Use” then and that stance continues till now.  

India too acquired nuclear capability because it did not want to depend on any other country for a nuclear umbrella. Like China it was quick to pronounce its nuclear policy of “No First Use”. India and China follow a very similar approach to the issue of nuclear weapons. Both have acquired this capability to counter any nuclear blackmail by any country having nuclear weapons. Both are not indulging in any nuclear arms race.  Both have emphasised the need for nuclear free world. Both are the only nuclear power nations which have a clearly enunciated policy of “No First Use”.

This author has questioned a number of Western strategic experts on the reason as to why the western nuclear powers have not adopted a “No First Use” policy. Their arguments to support the policies of “First Use” are facile to say the least.

Pakistan has followed the West and follows a policy of “First Use”. To circumvent being accused of using a nuclear weapon on Indian soil it has developed low yield nuclear devices (also referred to as Tactical Nuclear Weapons –TNW’s). It intends to use these against Indian military forces which would have captured large swathes of Pakistani territory and threaten imminent disintegration of Pakistan. It has stated four thresholds viz. – Spatial, Military, Economic and Political circumstances under which it will use its nuclear weapons. It will use this on its own soil or on military targets in least populated areas in India to cause minimum collateral civilian damage. India has emphatically maintained that a nuclear device used anywhere will draw a massive retaliatory strike.

Some of India’s security experts have been impatient and following the NATO-Warsaw theme have advocated the development of TNW’s. They also propound that India should prepare to fight in a war in a nuclear battlefield environment. As a corollary, they also strongly advocate a revision of the nuclear Doctrine to water down the “massive retaliation” clause. However, considering India’s basic stance of working for a Nuclear Free world the government has rightly maintained its stance and does not support the views of these nuclear warfighting buffs.

Recently when Pakistani National Assembly members were clamouring for using the “Bomb” against India, they were doing so fully aware of the response from India. The representatives of the Pakistani people are in fact virtually asking their people to commit suicide and condemning them to death making the whole lot of Pakistan people jihadists!!! Do the people of Pakistan accept this verdict? How can people be forced to give their lives for a cause that has no relationship to their existence and well being? Voice of civil society in Pakistan is crushed under the weight of the Mullahs, the Army Brass which is supported by self-serving blood thirsty politicians. The Pakistan visual media has been spurring the debate by bringing on its screen loudmouth war mongers’ spewing venom and hate.

For all those nuclear buffs it would do good if they just step back and tone down their rhetoric. The only occasion when a nuclear weapon was used was when one side had a nuclear weapon and the other did not. How could the then US President justify knowingly ordering the murder of over 250,000 innocent civilians even if they were of the enemy country? In the first place they were Human Beings even if they are of the enemy nation. How is this not genocide?

Nuclear weapons cannot win any war between nuclear armed nations. USA got the message when it faced a nuclear armed USSR which forced the war to remain “Cold”. Now a nuclear Russia and a nuclear China is a challenge which makes the US think umpteen times about the viability of the use of nuclear weapons. North Korea with its most rudimentary missiles and nuclear warheads has the US President in knots. The next step the Western nuclear powers need to undertake is to adopt “No First Use” as a considered policy. Pakistan should learn from these very clear signals and abandon blackmailing India with its nuclear weapons. For taking the life of any Indian, soldier or civilian, it will have to pay a heavy price.