Daily Times

In a sudden escalation of nuclear rhetoric, alarming statements from Russian President Putin and US President-elect Trump suggest that the tipping point of the MAD-led, post-1950s nuclear stability era may soon be reached. Putin talked about “strengthening missile complex to penetrate missile defence systems.” Trump tweeted that the US “should strengthen and expand its nuclear capability.” Both statements lead to three fascinating questions: Will the US and Russia enter into a new arms race? Will China be sucked into the US-designed nuclear primacy game that is now being played across the globe? And finally, what will Pakistan do?

But first let us draw back the curtains of history. In 1945, the US nuclear-bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Till today, popular US press insists, and many naïve readers believe, that this was done to save American lives. The reality is more nuanced. The US and USSR, allies in the second world war but bitter enemies the day Germany surrendered, had agreed that the USSR would mobilise its armies against Japan two months after the war ended in Europe. This would have meant Japan surrendering to the USSR and becoming communist, as East Europe had done, something the US could have never countenanced. The rest is history.

Once the USSR and China achieved nuclear status, nuclear stability was assured by mutual assured destruction (appropriately abbreviated as MAD). Thus a country was welcome to launch a nuclear attack against its nuclear enemy and even destroy many of the latter’s nuclear assets. But the few left intact would be launched in a second strike to inflict an unacceptable cost upon the aggressor, thus preventing the former from launching a nuclear strike in the first place. Whether due to this brilliantly unflawed logic, or sheer good luck, the world has remained unscathed till now.

So what is new then? Alas, a new grave threat has been invented and is now being developed, tested and even deployed all over the globe, hovering over us like the darkest of man-made clouds. It was conceived as the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) under President Reagan, changed its name and even character to Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD), consisting of National and Theatre Missile Defense, and now cloaked in its current form, it is called Theatre High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD). THAAD has most recently been deployed in South Korea. It will soon be deployed in Japan.

But, many readers will ask here, are not all anti-ballistic missile systems inherently defensive in nature, only meant to take care of terrorists (Jihadis) and rogue states (North Korea)? This is what the US, South Korea and Japan incessantly tell the masses and their worried interlocutors, Russia and China. But somehow this has reassured neither Russia nor China. This is because the very “assured retaliation” logic of MAD is now being undermined, perhaps forever.

Why? Assume the US has some 7000 nuclear warheads and a reasonable capacity to destroy incoming missiles. And let us say China has some 80. I have taken these figures from published sources, but you can change them. Let us say that on one bad morning, the US launches 4000 thousand warheads to take out China’s 80. Assume some of these 80 are left intact, say 10 or 20. China launches these 10 or 20. The US anti-missile system will take out these 10 or 20 more easily than the earlier 80, in three stages – immediately on launch (helped by THAAD), then at their maximum altitude and finally on re-entry into US’ proximity zones. Game over.

What does this mean? For starters, it does make the first attack more likely. But you may say this is conjectural. Yes it is. But it also implies what the US expert on SDI told us when I was a student at Oxford, part of some Oxford international relations’ club. The expert had flown into UK for two hours from the US to address Oxford students only to fly back. In response to the same question he had noted “My job in the US at SDI is not to indulge in conjecture – my job is to create doubt in my enemy’s mind.” The enemy then was the USSR.

The above explains why China and Russia, in a joint move which was termed “rare” by none other than the leading Chinese newspaper Global Times (in terms of articles on international affairs) in October 2016 called the deployment of US anti-missile system in South Korea (THAAD) a “disrupting force.” Chinese analysts have also recently called it “a huge strategic deterrent to China and Russia,” accusing the US of having “a hidden agenda behind THAAD.” They also believe the US will use THAAD to collect “radar data of warheads and decoys of China and Russia’s strategic missiles.” And they have warned that its deployment would “intensify conflicts.”

By far the strongest statement on the above nuclear primacy game has come through a very recent editorial in the Global Times of December 24, 2016 which has urged China to “redefine (its) nuclear arsenal sufficiency” because the US already views China “its top competitor.” It also notes that it is “imperative for China to speed up the development of its nuclear weapons” and advises that China “should not be concerned about the reactions from the West” because “there is no room for hesitation on nuclear deterrence.”

If the above analysis is reasonably correct then especially China, and to some extent Russia, will be left with only two options – deploy an anti-missile system themselves or rapidly increase the number of their warheads. My worry is that if India also keeps buying, developing and deploying anti-missile systems, Pakistan will be forced into nuclear proliferation based on roughly the same logic.

Are we on the cusp of a new era of nuclear de-stability? Will the US-designed and deployed anti-missile systems sit on Russian and Chinese planners’ chests like an incubus? Will Pakistan follow Russia and China? I am afraid, yes, yes and yes.

Dr. Aamir Khan is a former Rhodes Scholar. He has worked in China as a diplomat.