Daily Times

The following text attempts to mark the difference between symmetry, capability, deterrence and power. Through ontological demarcation among these concepts, it argues that Pakistan’s obsession like pursuit to attain and subsequently sustain the parity/symmetry in nuclear deterrence with India has weakened the overall prospects of power-equilibrium in Indo-Pak relations for an advantage to the latter against the former.

In a sharp contrast to the widely held strategic conception that Pakistan’s alleged nuclear parity with India has diminished the effectiveness of the conventional deterrence in Indo-Pak relations, the text establishes that hyper-fixation on attaining the nuclear parity with India has generated a discourse of strategic-foreclosure which perpetually remains in operation in exclusion of other possible deterrent components. Such a strategic-foreclosure has evolved a clear historical pattern of incommensurability between conventional deterrence and nuclear deterrence.

The rhetorical assertion that Pakistan has a symmetrical balance with India in the domain of nuclear deterrence, which presupposes an asymmetry in other domains of deterrence in relation to India, is precisely the assertion and its subsequent strategic execution which has caused serious damage to power equilibrium in Indo-Pak relations. By harnessing all the vital resources and subsequently channelling them to sustain the symmetrical equation of nuclear capability with India, Pakistan is increasingly drifting towards an unprecedented disturbance of equilibrium in Indo-Pak relations and the wider South Asian region.

Nuclear-deterrence as an end-in-itself rather than a means to an end:

Capabilities and deterrence are developed to pursue certain objectives of national interest, including the nuclear capability. They are means to secure the foreign policy interests. Perhaps never in another time in history than in our contemporary situation, these capabilities have been harnessed to the unprecedented degree by states to preserve the collective way of living of a group of people.

At the turn of this century, the discourse of politics took a very radical shift which goes by the name of ‘ontological-turn’, wherein the infrastructure of politics represented by state and its all corresponding tangible and intangible capabilities externally and internally seemed to be engaged in singular perpetual effort to guard the supposed collective way of living of a group of people. Keeping in view this background, these assertions constitute rather precarious singularity of the Pakistani state whose’ nuclear capability has played virtually no role in fending-off the hegemonic ambitions of different states to preserve the collective way of living of its people. In this context, the nuclear deterrence rather than being mean to an end has become an end in itself.

There is no discursive clarity regarding the ends which a mean of Pakistani nuclear deterrence is supposed to achieve other than preserving the borders of a geographical contiguous-landmass. The ends which this nuclear deterrence seeks to pursue are not ideational or value-oriented, rather these are incoherently-accumulated priorities which are seemed to be linked with some sort of geographical status-quo with India.

In this context, the vital question is: Why Pakistani nuclear deterrence has not been successful to the degree equivalent with any other nuclear deterrence in the world, in order to secure the basic end of its foreign policy (namely, a sovereign foreign policy)?

The rhetorical assertion that Pakistan has a symmetrical balance with India in nuclear deterrence, and its subsequent strategic execution is what has damaged the power equilibrium in Indo-Pak relations

The reduction of deterrence to nuclear-deterrence:

Social is the composition of infinite constituent elements in a given geographical area inhabited by a group of people. Political and its corresponding state infrastructure maximises and manages the capability of those infinite elements which constitute the social. Therefore, every constituting element of the social does have its capability, which is pooled together by the political to develop a conventional and non-conventional capability of a given state. Such a capability develops a concept of the power of a given state.

The value of every constitutive element is relative to time and the perceived others’/enemy’s corresponding, constituting elements of capability. Nuclear capability is one of the constituting elements of the social which the political harnesses to project its capability which is: therefore, relative to the time and the perceived enemy. In Pakistani case, the over-all deterrence of state has been subjugated and reduced to the nuclear deterrence at an alarming degree. It stands as a sort of incommensurable, absolute entity in relation to other constituent elements of the deterrence such as economic, cultural and political etc.

Rather than being treated as a commensurable contributory element in securing the national interest, its deterrence is perceived generally as the quintessential singular factor regarding the conduct of Pakistani foreign policy. Therefore, due to this gross sequential-imbalance among the different contributory factors to deterrence particularly the nuclear deterrence, it has caused substantial attrition to the overall balance of power in Indo-Pak relationship. In other words, to maintain symmetry in nuclear deterrence with India, Pakistan’s position in construing the alternative general power-equilibrium with India has been negatively affected by the advantage of India.

Neo-colonialism and deterrence: the contained-deterrence

To what an extent, the Pakistani nuclear deterrence is normal in comparison to other nuclear deterrence states?

By any strand of the argument or yardstick, the single differentiating variable between the nuclear deterrence of Pakistan and the nuclear deterrence of other states is the degree of effectiveness in which the efficient nuclear deterrence demonstrates the capability to deter the hegemonic ambitions of the other state. On such contrasting patterns, the degree of the effectiveness of Pakistani nuclear deterrence (by any standard of the measurement) is lower than any other state’s nuclear deterrence in the world. Pakistan has remained a neo-colonial state despite having a nuclear-capability, wherein different states or alliances of the state particularly the Anglo-American alliance after WW-II effectively influenced the domestic and foreign policy of this country.

This feature is the negative hallmark which marks the substantial difference to the degree of uniqueness of the Pakistani nuclear deterrence, in relation to any other nuclear-deterrence state. Therefore, the nuclear deterrence of Pakistan is not a normal deterrence. By this effect, this nuclear deterrence is the contained-deterrence. It means that its deterrence is managed from without rather than within. This without influence is substantial, and its operation is effective to the degree wherein its impact depletes and subsequently perpetuates this depletion of the autonomy of Pakistani nuclear deterrence.

In this backdrop, the autonomy of this Pakistani nuclear deterrence has been historically compromising since its very inception. Rather than pursuing the supposed ends of Pakistani foreign policy by harnessing this variable as a vital component of overall-capability, its own autonomy is degraded to the degree of mere-survival- level. In such a situation, the reverse is empirically appearing true in which a major goal of Pakistani foreign policy has been to restore the depleted degree of the nuclear-deterrence in order to secure parity/symmetry with Indian nuclear deterrence rather than the other way around.

Therefore, the nuclear deterrence of Pakistan needs to be democratised and pluralised so that the parity/symmetry could be incorporated and subsequently be harnessed in order to envision a viable power-equilibrium in Indo-Pak relations and the South Asian region. A holistic concept of deterrence should be developed which incorporates the nuclear deterrence also, in order to develop a regional power-equilibrium to check the regional hegemonic ambitions of India for sustainable peace.

The writer is a PhD candidate at CAU Kiel, Germany

Published in Daily Times, April 27^th 2018.