When the United Nations Secretary General makes special reference to dangers of violent conflict between two UN member states, it must mean something. Under UN protocols, any intervention by the world body, even by public statement, implies that there is a problem between the two countries in question that is approaching a possible conflagration that would be disruptive and destructive. Very often such a conflagration could affect not only those two countries but also other states in the neighbourhood, perhaps the world.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki moon last week called on Pakistan and India to reduce tensions between the two South Asian nations and begin serious moves to quieten the situation.
Certainly, another military conflagration between these two countries, the two biggest military powers in South Asia, by far, will affect the neighbourhood. How much it does so and how far that impact can spread worldwide only depends on how severe the war becomes. And in this nuclear age, the only limit is full-blown nuclear war.
Some years ago, an anti-nuclear group once analysed the military balance of power between these two countries and speculated on the possible global impact if an Indo-Pak war escalated into a nuclear war. This group speculated that, if these two countries used just 50 of the estimated 225 plus nuclear weapons these two countries possessed, both countries could suffer casualties of up to 20 million. And the dust cloud sent up by the massive explosions caused by nuclear bombs would darken much of the Earth’s atmosphere thereby reducing global surface temperatures by 1.8 degrees Celsius.
And this does not take into account the other kinds of impact in the immediate region. For example, there is always the possibility that the mutual nuclear bombardment between the two states could see some of the missiles going astray and hitting neighbouring states in South Asia. Pakistani missiles targeting centres in South India could overshoot and hit Sri Lanka. An Indian nuclear strike could overshoot and hit Iran or Afghanistan. We have already experienced such accidental impacts in our own little internal war in past decades.
In any case, the economic devastation would certainly drag the entire South Asian neighbourhood down. Even if an Indo-Pak war remained conventional, still the economic costs to the whole region will be devastating, ruining national economies and undermining social growth and living standards.
Thus, while it seemed easy to quickly cancel the annual SAARC regional summit this year because of the Indo-Pak tensions, it is precisely such tensions and the threat of regional devastation that make the holding of regional meetings imperative so that the South Asian community of nations could pressure the two antagonists to calm down.
At present the state of relations between Pakistan and India are at their worst in over a decade – since the serious military ‘stand-off’, as it became known, in the 2001-2 period following the guerrilla strike on the Indian parliament in Delhi, which India blamed on Pakistan. The Lok Sabha incident prompted an angry India to amass military formations close to the Pakistani border and ceasefire line in Kashmir. Nearly Half a million troops and heavy weapons were amassed on both sides of the Indo-Pak border and there were rumours that Pakistan had also placed its nuclear forces on alert.
In terms of conventional military power, India, with some 1.8 million personnel and nearly double the quantity of hardware in its ground armour, air force and navy, far outweighs Pakistan. Furthermore, given the country’s sheer size in population and economic capacity, India is far more capable of sustaining a conventional war.
That is precisely why Pakistan has, correctly, chosen to resort to nuclear capability. In terms of nuclear warheads and delivery capability, at present Pakistan is ahead of India, according to neutral, international estimates (both countries are reticent about actual nuclear weaponisation). This is where that classic Cold War catch phrase ‘mutually assured destruction’ (MAD) comes into play. It is a kind of Third World replay of the nuclear ‘deterrent’ stand-off between the old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and its Warsaw Pact allies against the United States of America (USA) and its NATO allies.
Both Delhi and Islamabad know that all public assurances of nuclear restraint become cosmetic at a time of actual war. India knows that Pakistan has built up its nuclear armaments precisely because it is no match to India’s enormous conventional military forces, it’s even bigger reservist strength given its vast population, its bigger economic production capacity and, the security of such capacity in a larger expanse of territory. Pakistan does not have enough long range strike aircraft to hit at all Indian military and industrial production centres.
Thus both countries will certainly have a very short time period with which to assess the other side’s aggressive intentions and the threshold of a nuclear launch. It is not a question of ‘who will go first?’ Rather, it is the reality that if the situation is one that requires very heavy conventional military action, especially by India, an escalation to nuclear level by Pakistan will be almost inevitable as the sole rational self-defence and survival strategy.
This kind of worst-case scenario must be acknowledged not just by Pakistan and India, but also by the entire neighbourhood since we are all potential victims of such a conflagration. Hence the urgent need for a viable regional consultative mechanism or, perhaps a set of consultative mechanisms.
Clearly, these matters of regional life and death cannot be left to our politicians alone. That is why SAARC has already been invaluable despite disparagement by interstate affairs analysts.
True, SAARC is yet to be developed as a functional conflict-resolution mechanism for the region. But that failure is at the official, inter-governmental level. At the civil society level SAARC has already evolved into a genuine regional community helped not least by the tremendous cross-border cultural affinities among all member countries.
Over the decades, bodies of civil society activists of all kinds have formed interactive networks and regional associations in which citizens of all SAARC states regularly and frequently gather to debate and agree on mutual interests and plans for the future. Many networks of scientists, business organisations, professionals’ bodies, labour unions, fisher people’s organisations, environmental groups, social service groups, rights activists and a whole range of other citizens’ interest groups have built up networks across the SAARC member countries.
Already the lawyers, judges, artistes, sportspeople, business people, eco-activists, journalists, as well as religious clergy, among numerous others of most, if not all, SAARC countries have built circles of friends
and networks of mutual trust as they have begun working together at a regional level. Indeed, it is possible to describe SAARC as also being a ‘regional civil society’. In fact the citizens of SAARC have already wielded strong ties of friendship leaving only the politicians to wave the flags of war and confrontation – usually with their own vote banks in mind.
The current high level of tensions in South Asia, especially the real possible of a massive Indo-Pak war (whether nuclear or conventional), renders imperative actions by South Asian civil society to begin setting up ‘Track 2’ (as opposed to the ‘Track 1’ of political leaderships) processes that enable dialogue between citizens of the antagonistic states.
There could also be peer-supported platforms of regional citizens groups that build pressure networks inside the societies of the antagonistic states that divert the focus away from the political flashpoints and focus more in long term potentials for cooperation and mutual benefit in concrete areas of social life. When the business communities of SAARC countries, for example, see eye-to-eye on matters of mutual profit and market expansion, it becomes very hard for the politicians to ignore these circles some of whom could be party donors.
India and Pakistan are both part of a great South Asian civilisation that has been a beacon to the world in many ways – in philosophy, religion, science, arts and even social service. We, in Sri Lanka, are also proud stakeholders of this regional legacy and must see ourselves as part of this community to a degree that we will do our best to ensure its continuity.