Karachi Dawn
Associated PressAugust 23, 1999
Geneva - Pakistan accused India on Thursday of planning to create a "huge arsenal" of land-based, sea-based and air-based nuclear forces, combined with a build-up of conventional arms. Pakistani Ambassador Munir Akram warned that India's "dangerous escalation" in both weapons categories would lead Islamabad to boost its own "reliance on nuclear capabilities". "Thus, although the Indian document states the purpose of a conventional arms build-up is to raise the nuclear threshold, in fact the conventional build-up will further lower the nuclear threshold and bring closer the danger of nuclear use in the Sub-Continent," Akram told the UN Conference on Disarmament.
"The Indian doctrine envisages a triad of nuclear forces - land-based, sea-based and air-based," he said. "This will be a huge arsenal." Akram's speech marked Pakistan's first official reaction to India's new draft nuclear doctrine revealed on Tuesday by the government-appointed National Security Advisory Board. His remarks to the 66-member state forum drew immediate fire from New Delhi's envoy, Savitri Kunadi, who called them "unwarranted and possibly ill-informed". "There is no change in the Indian position on the doctrine of minimum credible (nuclear) deterrence and its elements...," she declared.
On Tuesday, India's National Security Advisory Board said the doctrine of nuclear deterrence, based on aircraft, ships and mobile land-based missiles, was aimed at convincing a potential aggressor that any nuclear attack on India would result in "punitive retaliation with nuclear weapons". Akram said the doctrine indicated that India was "about to embark on a further and even more dangerous escalation in the nuclear and conventional arms build-up". "Thus, despite the best endeavours made by Pakistan for strategic restraint, India is likely to go ahead with the deployment and operationalisation of its nuclear weapons and delivery systems." He added: "Since the vast majority of India's conventional 'assets' are deployed against Pakistan, it will be obliged to respond to the Indian build-up. Moreover, the growing imbalance in conventional military capabilities will intensify Pakistan's reliance on its nuclear capabilities to deter the use or threat of aggression or domination by India."
Akram cited a recent US study which said India might possess 1,600 kilos of nuclear bomb-making fissile material, giving it a capability to develop more than 400 nuclear warheads. "This estimate and the Indian nuclear doctrine just propounded will have to be taken into account by Pakistan and all those countries likely to be threatened by India's nuclear weapons arsenal," he said. Kunadi said that as the world's largest democracy, India was committed to greater transparency in decision-making. The draft was for "purposes of public discussion and debate", she added, quipping: "Such an open transparency programme may not be familiar for the delegation of Pakistan." Akram also appeared to scoff at the United States' initial reaction to the draft Indian doctrine. "The only hope which one nuclear weapon power has expressed yesterday is that India will sign the CTBT. Its signing is hardly relevant to the scope and magnitude of instability and danger which India will provoke by deploying an inordinately large nuclear arsenal which it envisages," Akram said.
