A New Crisis Looming On The Horizon (Daniel 8:8)

An Inevitable War

The Nuclear Crisis Nobody Mentions

Posted: 05/07/2015 12:17 pm EDT Updated: 05/07/2015 12:59 pm EDT 

 

Those congressmen beating the war drums against Iran have reached new heights of hypocrisy considering their total disregard for the more dangerous, more immediate problems created by Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. It is noteworthy and also downright strange that no one else–from any political persuasion–is paying attention.

The trouble is, Pakistan may become a failing state. We can’t know this for certain. The fact, however, that the possibility can be raised gives pause. A failing state with over a hundred nuclear weapons, building more as fast as it can, miniaturizing new weapons, and having perpetually hostile relations with its neighbor, India, also a nuclear power, presents risks far beyond regional security.
How, for example, should the world respond to a state that proliferates nuclear weapons but denies doing so and that might not even be able to control its proliferation? As a count of its nuclear arsenal edges toward several hundred, and as it increasingly deploys tactical nuclear weapons near its border, Pakistan’s government faces extraordinary challenges of command and control.

Hypothetically, suppose that during a future crisis with India a failing Pakistani government delegates control over tactical nuclear weapons to dozens of forward commanders. Suppose further one or two weapons are ‘lost.’ Conceivably, nobody we consider to be in authority would know what had happened, or would admit knowing. If later on a terrorist group obtained such a weapon they would attempt to detonate it. A smallish nuclear artillery shell, for example, could be sailed up the Thames to London on a yacht.

The point is, if Pakistan starts to ‘lose’ nuclear weapons the world has no ready response. And if a ‘loss’ produced a catastrophic event it is reasonable to think that the world would not wait for a second event before forcibly removing the threat. To be blunt, that is the war on Iran that hawks keep talking about, except much worse.

What are the odds? We can make a not unreasonable guess in terms of orders of magnitude. Over the middle term is the chance of Pakistan failing one in ten, one in a hundred, or one in a thousand? One in a thousand seems too low. One in ten (perhaps) too high. One in a hundred also seems low but among our choices it’s the best fit. Furthermore, we can assume a failing state with nuclear weapons would lose a few. But the probability regarding how many doesn’t change our order of magnitude approximation.

We routinely like to insure homes, businesses and property against damage from events with less than one in a hundred chance of happening. Surely we should do something similar about the potential danger of a nuclear weapon in the hands of terrorists.

After Pakistan’s first test detonations in 1998 the smart thing would have been to make nuclear arms control on the subcontinent a priority. That that never happened reflects badly on American leadership. Despite occasional alarms sounded by experts at the upper reaches of the national security establishment–Rolf Mowatt-Larrsen, for example, says “there is a greater possibility of a nuclear meltdown in Pakistan than anywhere else in the world”–American officials vacillate between fear of a nasty scrap and hope that the problem will just disappear.

Rationalizations for doing nothing hold sway. Washington reflexively defers to Riyadh, Pakistan’s chief ally. From the outset the Saudis, as a matter of religious zeal, have been keen for Pakistan to develop an “Islamic bomb.” And since 1991 Washington has been greatly preoccupied by the war in Afghanistan–too often finding itself at the mercy of Islamabad for assistance combating insurgents. Domestically, what purport to be well-intended incentives of arms shipments in practice create political blowback from American corporations hungry for billions in sales. The result is, leaning hard on Pakistan seems insane even if it makes perfect sense.

Nevertheless, it remains mysterious that so few in or out of government worry about the risks. It’s not as if the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons brings previously unknown tensions to the surface. In the 1980s, for example, the U.S. stationing of Pershing II missiles in Germany was perceived to be so destabilizing that it led to the Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Reykjavik and thereafter to the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. To this day the great powers find theater nuclear weapons a highly vexatious diplomatic issue. Nor are problems of command and control unfamiliar–as recently as 2007 six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles effectively went missing for a day and a half from Minot Air Force Base. The Secretary of the Air Force then resigned and a group of senior officers were disciplined. Hopes, therefore, that a substantial enlargement of Pakistan’s tactical nuclear capabilities might not increase instability has little foundation in experience or common sense.

Since the early 1990s–for more than two decades–hawks have been talking up a war against Iran. Meanwhile, barely a word is said about Pakistan. The difference may be due partly to Israel’s outsized influence. But it feels like something else is going on.

To hazard a more intuitive guess, bluster over Iran comes cheap whereas disarming Pakistan is the real deal. And if negotiations didn’t work does America go to war over the potential threat? A war that devastates Pakistan could be the result. Yet without diplomacy the very same war, the one the establishment doesn’t expect, could be the one we can’t avoid. Maybe it isn’t so surprising after all that we don’t talk about the stuff of nightmares.

It’s never too late for diplomacy but it’s imprudent to cut it so close.

Pakistan: The New Nuclear Terrorist Threat

In Pakistan, domestic threats begin to overshadow India

Pakistan’s Nuclear Terrorism

By Yelena Biberman January 6 at 8:30 AM

The Peshawar school massacre has sparked unprecedented societal and political mobilization against terrorism in Pakistan. From televised debates to private conversations, there is now an unmistakable demand for policy reorientation toward domestic sources of insecurity. However, three big questions remain: Is India still the main enemy? Is Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the perpetrator of the deadliest terrorist attack in Pakistan’s history, the only domestic militant group threatening Pakistani security? What will replace TTP in the unstable tribal region bordering Afghanistan?

For more than three generations, Pakistan’s security policy and the dominant national narrative have positioned India as the primary and existential threat to Pakistan. The two countries fought four wars (in 1947, 1965, 1971 and 1999), with the last in the shadow of nuclear missiles. Pakistan’s army built up its capacity in response to India’s military power at the expense of the country’s economic development. The very idea of Pakistan is tied to the perception that India is a dangerous place for Muslims.

The Peshawar massacre offers India and Pakistan an opportunity to recast their relationship. Following the attack, Indian schools across the country and the parliament observed silence for the victims, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached out in a 12-minute phone conversation to his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif. Nevertheless, many Pakistanis remain skeptical about the recently elected Hindu nationalist leader. They cite periodic confrontations along the Line of Control, which separates Pakistan- and India-controlled parts of Kashmir. Modi’s cancelation of August talks between the two countries’ foreign secretaries, in response to a meeting between Pakistan’s envoy in New Delhi and Kashmiri separatist leaders, also made a strong impression. Reimagining Islamist militants, and not Hindu nationalist-controlled India, as the chief threat to Pakistan after nearly 70 years of animosity between the two states is a tough sell.

Pakistan also has had a special connection to the Taliban. The latter has ostensibly allowed the former to maintain “strategic depth” in Afghanistan against India during the 1990s, after the United States withdrew from the region. The strategic depth doctrine hinges on the calculation that, in case of an enemy offensive, Pakistani military commanders would have space to withdraw, regroup and respond. After the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001, Pakistan’s intelligence agency (ISI) secretly sheltered and provided logistical support to the (Afghan) Taliban. Some of the local Pakistani Pashtun tribesmen, who spent years in the company and service of the Taliban or al-Qaeda, became radicalized. In 2007, following the Pakistani forces’ bold Lal Masjid confrontation with the Islamists, the latter joined forces under the TTP banner. The TTP’s stated goal is to oppose the NATO forces in Afghanistan and wage a defensive jihad against the Pakistani forces. However, the TTP’s active involvement in organized crime (e.g. bank robberies, kidnapping for ransom and smuggling) makes it more a criminal than an insurgent outfit. Destroying the TTP will require not only a military, but also a law enforcement solution. In addition to its involvement in organized crime, the TTP has made large investments in Karachi-based businesses.

The TTP represents the blowback effect from Pakistan’s “proxy-fication” of the Taliban. However, it is unlikely that the lesson from the Taliban will be applied to the no less powerful Kashmir-oriented militant outfits. Organizations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed are still largely viewed as the “good” jihadis. This is because, as one insider explained, they have not yet done anything against the Pakistani state. They are oriented against India. Lashkar-e-Taiba is responsible for the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, which were no less traumatic for India as was the Peshawar massacre for Pakistan. Lashkar’s sprawling compound is near Lahore, Pakistan’s cultural capital. Pakistanis often cite the United States’ extensive use of proxies. However, unlike the United States, Pakistan has employed proxies either inside or dangerously close to the country’s borders. Playing with fire so close to one’s home is far more hazardous than in someone else’s neighborhood. Or, as Hillary Clinton put it, “you can’t keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbors.” Significant gains over domestic terrorist organizations will require a more comprehensive and sober approach, one that applies to proxies the same realpolitik foresight usually reserved for other countries.

Finally, there is the question of what will replace the TTP in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) have been by and large neglected since the British colonial period. The current military crackdown on the TTP needs to be complemented with long-overdue “state-building” measures. If Pakistan does not significantly invest in the governance and economic development of the region, grievances will continue to deepen and multiply. The region will then serve as an even more fertile ground for terrorist organizations.