The Pakistan Horn’s Idea Of War (Daniel 8:8)

Pakistan Develops Low-Yield Smart Nuclear Weapons

By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

21 October, 2015
Countercurrents.org

Foreign secretary of Pakistan, Aizaz Chaudhry, has confirmed that his country has made low-yield nuclear weapons to deal with India’s so-called cold-start doctrine that envisages limited war against Pakistan.

Briefing the Pakistani media on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to Washington, Chaudhary also said that Pakistan would not sign any nuclear deal with the United States during the visit. Sharif will hold a meeting with US President Barack Obama on October 22.

Under India’s Cold Start doctrine, Indian conventional forces would conduct coordinated offensive operations into Pakistan and conduct limited warfare. The Cold Start emphasizes speedy and lithe offensive incursions into Pakistan. Announced in April 2004, Cold Start represents a marked departure from the fundamentally defensive orientation of the Indian Army.

According to The Diplomat of Tokyo, “from the Pakistani perspective, battlefield use of tactical nuclear weapons would stop Indian forces dead in their tracks. Unsaid in Chaudhary’s remarks on Pakistan’s tactical weapons is the notion that Pakistan would essentially resort to nuclear weapon use on its own territory to slow down an Indian advance.”

Both India and Pakistan are self-declared nuclear powers that, ever since the two countries’ independence from Britain in 1947, have claimed control of Kashmir. This has made the area a dangerous flashpoint several times during the past seven decades.

It may be pointed out that There have been persistent reports that Pakistan was developing smart nuclear weapons. However, it is the first time that a senior Pakistani official has given an explanation of the country’s decision to make tactical nuclear weapons, renaming it as the country’s proactive strategy.

According to a July 2013 report by Terminal X (TX), Pakistan’s authoritative portal on global defense, intelligence and geopolitics:

“Over the past few years, Pakistan’s strategic forces, responsible for the country’s primary deterrence program, have been doing extensive research into the design and development of smart weapons i.e. nuclear weapons that have a dynamic and compact form, and which can easily be transported from one location to another. Although a variety of warheads already exist, especially in northern Pakistan, these enhanced productions are considered a landmark in strategic deterrence, owing to their size and power.”

Sources for Terminal X revealed that Pakistan has taken the term ‘special degree’ one step ahead by developing what they call, “the world’s smallest nuclear weapons”.

Terminal X also said that reportedly, these special weapons are about the size of a tennis ball (which can easily be hand-picked). Officials familiar with the development said that Pakistan’s Strategic Forces Command made it clear it has not signed any treaty preventing it from taking an aggressive reaction (in defense, when provoked or attacked by a hostile enemy).

Alarmingly, the Terminal X also said that if any mistake was made to initiate force aggression against Pakistan, then these ball-sized nuclear weapons will also be distributed across the Muslim world’s armed forces. In addition to these smart weapons, the Pakistani military has developed plutonium-based anti tank bullets which can prove very lethal for enemy armored vehicles, especially those of neighboring India.

U.S. dropped low-yielding nuclear devices in Afghanistan, Iraq

Tellingly, there were reports that the US has used low-yielding nuclear or Depleted Uranium (DU) devices in Afghanistan and Iraq while Israel used similar weapons during its aggression on South Lebanon in 2006.

The first detonation of a nuclear weapon against another country since 1945 took place approximately 11 miles east of Basra, sometime between February 2 and February 5, 1991during the first Gulf War, according to William Thomas, a U.S. Army veteran who wrote in 2007 under the headline, US dropped nuclear bombs on Afghanistan and Iraq. He went on to say: “With the city of Basra resounding to gigantic explosions, and engulfed in “a hellish nighttime of fires and smoke so dense that witnesses say the sun hasn’t been clearly visible for several days at a time,” a 5-kiloton GB-400 nuclear bomb exploding 11 miles away under the desert attracted no notice.”

“Under the cover of massive DU-tipped bombs that raised dirty mushroom clouds in thunderous explosions that rained radioactive dust over Jalalabad and nearby villages, the first nuclear bombs dropped since Basra in 1991 were detonated by American forces in Afghanistan beginning in March 2002. Before their field tests were concluded, United States forces would explode four 5-kiloton GBU-400 nuclear bombs in Tora Bora and other mountainous regions of Afghanistan,” Thomas added.

In his book Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War Michel Chossudovsky says the US Congress okayed the use of tactical nuclear weapons in non-conventional wars in 2003. According to congressmen it was quite “safe for civilians”.

Interestingly, in May 2015, Clark Murdock, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies wrote that the United States should develop new low-yield, tactical nuclear weapons to deter countries from seeking nuclear weapons of their own.

Murdock, the co-author of Project Atom” report, argues the Pentagon needs a more diverse suite of nuclear weapons. “In order to execute its Measured Response strategy, the nuclear forces for both deterrence and extended deterrence should have low-yield, accurate, special-effects options that can respond proportionately at the lower end of the nuclear continuum,” he writes.

“Project Atom” report of the Center for Strategic and International Studies was produced by Murdock and eight co-authors as a “zero-based, blue-sky” look at American’s nuclear arsenal.

Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the Chief Editor of the Journal of America (www.journalofamerica.net) Email: asghazali2011 (@) gmail.com.

Nuke For Nuke Against Russia Is A Really Bad Idea (Rev 15:2)

The Wrong Move: Adding Nuclear Weapons to the Russia-Ukraine Conflict

FEBRUARY 9, 2015 BY LT. GEN. ROBERT GARD GREG TERRYN

Despite the wishes of two key Congressmen, more nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe is a bad idea.
You may have missed it, but last month two key members of Congress asked the military to move additional U.S. nuclear weapons and dual-capable aircraft into Eastern Europe.

Reps. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, and Mike Turner, R-Ohio, chairman of the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee, sent a joint letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Secretary of State John Kerry advocating the addition of new sites in Eastern Europe for the deployment of additional U.S. nuclear weapons and dual-capable aircraft.

In their letter, the two chairmen extend a Russian statement claiming its sovereign “right” to deploy nuclear weapons in Crimea to an “intention” to do so. They also assert Russian “moves to deploy nuclear-capable Iskander short-range ballistic missiles as well as nuclear-capable Backfire bombers in the illegally occupied territory [Crimea].”

There is no evidence that Russia has taken or is preparing to take any of these actions; but the letter alleges that they pose a new military threat to U.S. allies and our forces in Europe, and that the U.S. must respond “to change President [Vladimir] Putin’s calculus.”

Declared U.S. policy is to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security, not to employ them in hopes of intimidating a hostile head of state.

Fortunately, nuclear weapons have played no overt role in Russia’s annexation of Crimea or its ongoing aggression in eastern Ukraine. And while the U.S. and its European allies must react, introducing a nuclear confrontation into the already dangerous situation is more likely to cause Putin to respond in kind than to change his calculus. Declared U.S. policy is to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security, not to employ them in hopes of intimidating a hostile head of state.

Russia’s possible deployment of nuclear weapons in Crimea would provide it little, if any, additional military capability. In fact, Russian dual-capable weapons in that area are not a new development; Russia’s naval fleet in the Black Sea has had a nuclear capability since well before the conclusion of the Cold War. Additionally, if Russia were to locate Backfire bombers in Crimea, which would require extensive upgrading of the Gvardiesky airbase, it would provide no additional reach to Western Europe or vicinity. Why overreact to a militarily ineffective provocation even if it should occur?

For whatever deterrent value they may provide, the U.S. already has some 200 B-61 nuclear bombs based in Europe, along with dual-capable aircraft to deliver them. Deploying additional tactical nuclear weapons to Europe would escalate tensions between NATO and Russia while providing no additional security to our allies or to U.S. forces deployed there. As noted by then-Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. James Cartwright, our tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Europe have no uniquely military function that cannot be provided by our other nuclear weapons.

Deploying additional U.S. tactical nuclear weapons to Europe would make them more vulnerable to a Russian preemptive attack, even with conventional weapons, in the event of an escalating crisis. Also, it is well-known that Russia possesses a far larger stockpile of tactical nuclear weapons than the U.S. has in its inventory. Russia could be tempted to employ its tactical nuclear weapons superiority to take out the U.S. weapons deployed in Europe in the mistaken belief that it could confine the conflict to Western Europe.

In addition, the role of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons deployed in allied NATO countries has been a topic of contention for years. Some East European allies welcome the presence of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe for symbolic assurance of their security, while some Western European allies oppose their presence as unnecessarily provocative and dangerous. Following a determination that our nuclear sites in Europe were not secure, the United Kingdom actually insisted on the removal of U.S. nuclear weapons from its territory. While Russian aggression has quieted calls for removal of U.S. nuclear weapons from Europe, the addition of more nuclear weapons to NATO countries would cause a serious split in the alliance.

Moreover, preparing additional sites in Europe to accommodate tactical nuclear weapons would require a significant financial commitment at a time of budget austerity with far higher priorities for scarce resources allocated to defense. Given the concern over budget caps and sequestration, syphoning defense dollars from conventional priorities to provide funds for this unnecessary and expensive proposal gives new meaning to the definition of “counterproductive.”

Deploying additional U.S. tactical nuclear weapons and more dual-capable aircraft in Europe provides no advantage: It would be an expensive initiative that would add nothing to our security, divert funds from higher priority defense expenditures, likely provoke Russia to deploy nuclear weapons in Crimea, increase the possibility of nuclear war, and be divisive amongst our NATO allies.

AUTHORS

Lt. Gen. Robert G. Gard, Jr., (ret.) is chairman of the board of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. Full Bio

Greg Terryn is a Scoville Fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, where his work focuses on nuclear threat reduction and nonproliferation issues.