THE SHADOW OF THE CONVENTIONAL PAST: NDIA'S NUCLEAR TENSIONS WITH CHINA AND PAKISTAN.

• Author: Basrur, Rajesh

INTRODUCTION

It is commonplace to hear about the "nuclear shadow" in analyses of tensions between nuclear-armed states. (1) The imagery tells us of the ways in which the threat of cataclysmic destruction induces specific behaviors when nuclear rivals are at loggerheads. What we tend to miss is the longer shadow of the pre-nuclear past and its influence on strategic competition between hostile nuclear weapons states. That millennia-old history profoundly affects both the behavior of states and those who analyze it. The anachronistic predilections of states, as well as the discipline of international relations, facilitate the persistence of an insecure global system today. Since states--in practice, policymakers--as well as theorists draw from existing "truths" about the world around them, the essence of the problem lies in the difficulty both have in coming to terms intellectually with the nuclear revolution. We need a new explanatory framework for both. Short of this, there is every likelihood that the gap between understanding and reality will persist in a world where nuclear weapons continue to pose serious threats to stability and peace.

Below, I attempt to sketch out a framework of analysis that tackles the problem directly. I examine two nuclear dyads--one involving India and China, the other India and Pakistan--which have been prominent in the post-Cold War era. While my detailed focus will be on these, it will be readily apparent that their dynamics apply to other similar relationships spanning the Cold War and post-Cold War time frames. My argument is as follows. Hostile nuclear dyads exhibit a pattern that resembles the realist power-centric view of international politics: war-oriented contestation between insecure states. But the pattern only approximates pre-nuclear behavior and, in important ways, is fundamentally different from it. I make three central points. First, war is, generally, a viable option in the conventional world; in a nuclear world, it is (rationally) not. Yet, despite the often-repeated maxim that nuclear war is of no benefit to anyone and must never be fought, states enter into military confrontation as if war is feasible, which leads them into periodic crises. Second, and relatedly, in non-nuclear contexts, since war is a real possibility, the accumulation of military power makes sense and states rationally compete to acquire more and better weapons. In a nuclear context, the mathematics is different: nuclear balances do not (again, rationally) mean much if war is to be avoided. Nonetheless, nuclear rivals engage in arms competition, though to varying degrees. And third, in a non-nuclear environment, alliances can be useful for augmenting power against a common adversary, whereas for nuclear powers, since war is not an option, they are of limited utility. Yet states exhibit a preference for alliancelike arrangements, currently in the form of "strategic partnerships."

EXPLAINING THE VARIANCE

How do we explain this approximating behavior that seems to be based on a realist framework, but is actually not quite that? Let me begin by touching on basic theory. From a realist perspective, in an anarchic world of states, power is decisive: it enables states to defend themselves or, conversely, impose their will on others, with war in either case being the ultimate policy instrument. But this does not apply to nuclear rivals: since the invention of nuclear weapons, their possessors have never gone to war with each other. Over 11 years, nuclear-armed states have not only eschewed nuclear war; they have stopped one more threshold short and not engaged in major conventional war with each other. Realism helps to understand why states may feel the need to require nuclear arms--to deter an enemy--but the approach fails to appreciate the implications of the new logic: if war is no longer meaningful in the nuclear context, power can no longer be employed in the old way.

The balance of power, so critical in determining conflict outcomes through the ages, no longer applies. North Korea has a small nuclear arsenal, but no one seriously argues that the far greater capacity of the United States permits it to use the imbalance to its advantage. The same is true in other cases: during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the US possessed 11 times as many nuclear warheads as the Soviet Union, but could not extract significant gains from the gap. (2) Nor did the Soviet Union seek to exploit its putative nuclear advantage when its troops fought Chinese forces, backed by an infant nuclear arsenal, along their disputed border in 1969. Realist analysis, with its focus on power balances, simply does not apply. Ironically, Kenneth Waltz, the quintessential realist, did recognize that the conventional and nuclear worlds are very different and that small arsenals can balance big ones. Yet his entire neorealist theory rests on power distribution and the balance of power. (3)

This is not to deny that some critical aspects of state behavior emphasized by realists still matter. First, states are still frequently prone to favor self-interest over collective interests. Second, though purveyors of diverse models of motivation on nuclear proliferation might cavil, (4) the acquisition of nuclear weapons is more often than not driven by security concerns. (5) Third, the necessity of military restraint does not apply to confrontations where one or both states do not possess nuclear weapons. And fourth, economic power can be employed to advantage, though there are, again, strong constraints when there is economic interdependence between contending states. That said, there is still a persistent tendency to employ old forms of realist analysis in an indiscriminate fashion to what is essentially a post-realist reality imposed by nuclear weapons.

The theoretical approach that does better at explaining strategic behavior between hostile nuclear states is liberalism, in particular that facet of it which emphasizes the stabilizing effects of interdependence. An interdependent relationship is one wherein neither of the parties involved can afford to risk a breakdown owing to its high potential cost. Liberal analysts tend to focus mainly on the benefits of economic interdependence: developed capitalist states may compete, but none has an interest in allowing the integrated economic system to break down. (6) An alternative way of looking at interdependence is to think in terms of the strategic interdependence wrought by nuclear weapons: nuclear rivals depend on each other to avoid war in order to survive, or at least to avoid intolerably high costs.

However, a liberal approach does not tell us why strategically interdependent states, while eschewing war, engage in hostile behavior that conforms to a realist pattern of military confrontation, arms racing, and the building of alliance-like arrangements. We need to recognize that interdependence is not a condition that occurs uniformly across the board in different settings. Pertinent here is a distinction between immediate and general interdependence. (7) Broadly, the former exists when the breakdown of a relationship is imminent and produces a cooperative response by mutually-bound hostile actors (states, individuals, and others) to avoid costly outcomes for both. The latter exists when the certainty or near-certainty of a breakdown lies in the background, where both can anticipate disaster if a relationship between hostile actors were to deteriorate. In the latter case, there is room for choice among alternative behaviors. In the context of nuclear weapons, a crisis that brings hostile powers to the brink of major war represents immediate interdependence, under which they are compelled to cooperate in order to avoid nuclear war. But when war is not imminent, there is space for both to interact in diverse ways, including ways that are unproductive and suboptimal, such as engaging in arms racing.

Hostile nuclear-armed states tend to adopt ways of thinking and acting that are reminiscent of, but not identical to, a pre-nuclear context. They tend to behave as if they exist in a conventional world, because that is the world with which they are familiar, and practice a form of strategic behavior they are accustomed to. In thinking conventionally, they are creatures of habit, which induces "ready-made responses to the world that we execute without thinking." (8) A realist outlook represents a powerful tradition of thought, which, as traditions do, simplifies and orders a complex reality and provides us with signposts for both understanding and action. (9) Reality is to a significant degree what a structure of past thinking and behavior makes of it. As Karl Paik puts it, "As consistent beliefs and/or practices are real, the 'structure' or 'context' they present through habituation can appear 'as if real." (10) Unless catastrophe is imminent, a deeply-embedded realist worldview inclines policymakers to think conventionally about how to respond to threats. Having no experience of nuclear war, they tend to draw from familiar conceptions on how to respond to strategic threats: that is, from a "thought style" that is pre-nuclear. (11) This mode of thinking and the practices associated with it are further reinforced by the interaction between adversaries thinking and acting similarly. (12) Power in this view is usable for military purposes, which means its distribution is key to national security The shadow of the past informs the present and, in this sense, realism remains dominant in policymakers' worldview (and indeed in that of realist scholars), adhering awkwardly to a symbolic reality.

The Cold War represents a classic case of this kind of thinking and behavior, where the chief antagonists leaned repeatedly toward war, accumulated excessive weapons systems, and embedded security efforts in alliances during "normal," i.e., non-crisis, times but abandoned conventional thinking and...