The reaction to nuclear tests in South Asia has been more visceral than thoughtful. For the most part that reaction ranges from hysterical outrage to gmve alarm. The terrifying destructive power of nuclear weapons accounts for the reaction. The terrifying power of nuclear weapons also accounts for the determination of India and Pakistan to possess this ultimate guarantee of national security and suggests why it is unlikely that the consequences of wesponization will be those now widely anticipated. Among the more common assertions are that the two South Asian states are embarking on an arms race that will increase the risk of a devastating war, that their testing will encourage other states to go nuclear, and that in an a world of new nuclear states the United States must do more to defend itself against the threat of warheads delivered by ballistic missiles. Below, I suggest why I disagree with such arguments. 

A PAKISTANI-INDIAN ARMS RACE?

Seemingly without hesitation, observers have labeled the bilateral military dynamic in South Asia a nuclear arms race. Exactly what does this mean? Arms racing implies a competition in which the parties are trying their utmost to outdo one another, pursuing rapid and large-scale improvements in the quality and quantity of the weaponry they possess. The United States and Soviet Union engaged in a nuclear arms race after the early 1960s. Britain and Germany engaged in a naval arms race at the turn of the twentieth century. India and Pakistan will compete, but are unlikely to race in the usual sense of the term; they face interacting domestic economic and political constraints much tighter than those faced by the great powers of the past. Once the testing euphoria subsides, the South Asian governments will be hard pressed to divert much of their scarce national wealth from the challenges of development to superfluous nuclear weapons programs. In fact, shortly after their tests, both India and Pakistan clearly stated that they have no intention of pursuing the sort of nuclear buildup normally labeled an arms race. Instead, the likely scenario is that they will each make the arduous, but affordable, effort to deploy sufficient retaliatory forces. 

How much effort will they put into this competition? Best estimates are that in the near future Pakistan may deploy tens of nuclear warheads, and India perhaps more than a hundred. Over time each will continue to take the necessary stop to minimize the vulnerability of these modest arsenals (dispersal, concealment, mobility, etc.). Pakistan will most likely emphasize mobile, land-based systems (missiles and aircraft); India may well add a highly survivable sea-based component. Do such efforts constitute an arms race? The numbers envisioned (in the end perhaps a couple hundred) would seem to fall far short of the usual meaning of the term. Where nuclear weapons are the issue, absolute amounts of punishment that can be threatened are more important than relative numbers of warheads or launchers. Domestic political and bureaucratic interests may drive each to deploy more than the absolute minimum militarily necessary, but neither can afford to indulge in the foolishness that characterized the Cold War superpowers' nuclear extravagance as both engaged in a futile effort to discover ways to escape the logic of mutual deterrence. Instead, like the Cold War's economically more tightly constrained second-ranking powers (Britain, France, and China), India and Pakistan are likely to seek arsenals sufficient for the military requirements of security enhancing deterrence. But what are these requirements? Can small arsenals do the job? 

AN INDIAN-PAKISTANI NUCLEAR WAR?

Analysts who worry about the stability or the nuclear balance in South Asia worry not just about an emerging arms race, but also about the likelihood that nuclear deployments increase the chance of war. Usually the arguments emphasize the difficulty of ensuring the invulnerability of relatively small numbers of retaliatory forces, and the reciprocal fear of surprise attack (socalled use 'an or lose 'em pressures) expected to be especially intense because proximity reduces warning times. If nuclear deterrence required INVULNERABLE forces and the ability to ENSURE that retaliatory strikes can be executed, such balances would indeed be delicate and hard to preserve. But the standard is not that stringent. Where nuclear weapons are in play, deterrence requires only creating what Devin Hagerty terms "first-strike uncertainty"; one need only cause the adversary to worry that his first-strike may be less than fully successful. And unless both sides are COMPLETELY sure about the exact number and location of each others' nuclear forces and the effectiveness of one's planned attack, the fear of devastating retaliation will continue to exert a powerfully inhibiting effect on a decislon-maker contemplating the two of military force In ways that risk escalation. This excruciating uncertainty in the presence of nuclear weapons does not depend on sophisticated strategic reasoning, or empathy for the people In the territory controlled by the adversary's government Indians are likely to refrain from military operations that can escalate to the nuclear incineration of Pakistanis (and vice versa) not because they have mastered Brodie, Schelling, Waltz, and Jervis, nor because they care about their neighbors, but rather simply because they care about their own countrymen. Those who doubt the caution nuclear weapons encourage should contrast the temperate comments coming out of New Delhi and Islamabad (within days of their nuclear tests) aimed at reassuring one another that war is not in the cards and at exploring the possibilities for reducing tensions and building confidence with the nearly hysterical comments circulating In the West labeling the situation the "gravest crisis since October 1962".  In both India and Pakistan atleast, the governments have been restraining officials inclined to make reckless comments. Nuclear weapons encourage prudence and circumspection. The routine refrain about India and Pakistan having fought three wars since 1947 ought to be paired with the observation that none have been fought since the two sides became undeclared nuclear weapons states in the late 1980s. 

Some might suggest that both India and Pakistan could have continued to enjoy the benefits of deterrence Without becoming declared nuclear states. We might prefer that they had remained opaque nuclear powers, and good arguments can be made that this would have been a sensible course to follow. But it is a huge stop from arguing that opaque or "nonweaponized" nuclear deterrence would be better, to arguing that open nuclear deterrence is dangerous. In any event, India and Pakistan have to live with the consequence of their choices; for both domestic political and international political reasons they have concluded that the benefits of opacity were insufficient. 

CATALYST TO PROLIFERATION?

Some who have reacted with alarm to the South Asian nuclear tests suggest that the problem is not really what India and Pakistan have done. After all, they have simply confirmed a capability that already existed. Instead, it has been suggested that the real problem is the demonstration effect: other states Vill conclude that it's okay to develop nuclear weapons. If nuclear weapons were bell-bottom trousers and state leaders were mainly teenagers this might make sense. States, however, decide on their military postures for reasons that have little to do with fads and fashion. Those countries that am believed to have, or may someday decide to resume nuclear weapons development programs will make their decisions based on interests that have nothing to do with South Asia. None is likely to conclude that the recent tests will in anyway temper the reaction from the U.S. or others if they violate the international norm against "going nuclear." If the Irans, North Koreas, and Libyas of the world ever decide to run the risk of the pre-emptive or preventive strikes others would surely consider on the eve of deployment, the experience of India and Pakistan is unlikely to figure prominently in their calculations. Nor will the 1998 experience be the determining factor in the event the Japans, Germanies, and Ukrames of the world ever decide their security requires pursuing the nuclear option. Before and after 1998, the nonproliferation regime is what it is -- an expression of an international norm whose effectiveness depends on the incentives (economic, political and military) that each state faces. 

A REASON TO AMERICAN MISSILE DEFENSES? 

Still others have seized on the sense of alarm about South Asian nuclear testing to revive calls for the early deployment of ballistic missile defenses for the continental United States. Rushing to deploy BMDs would be an unwise response to the events of ~&y 1996. The recent tests have not changed the fact that BMDs am an inefficient approach to dealing with the foreseeable dangers that weapons of man destruction pose to the US. In the present and near future strategic setting, the standard objections apply. Deploying currently feasible BM[Ds cannot confidently protect the US from ICBM-delivered warheads, and thus would not provide much help to a US president in his decision-making against a determined nuclear rogue state or terrorist group, neither of whom should be expected to choose this nwst difficult method of delivery anyway. Against more creative methods of nuclear delivery, BMDs will be useless. M[oreover, deploying BMODs will encourage others (both Russia and China) to redouble their efforts to maintain, it not increase the size of their arsenals to ensure their ability to penetrate the defenses, making mutually beneficial agreements to downsize nuclear arsenals more difficult. The beat argument for BMDs in the near term is as a long-shot insurance policy against an accidental ballistic missile launch; against a stray warhead or two, the system might work, and even a odd chance at working might justify the insurance premium. But the benefit must be weighed against the alternative of reducing the risks of accident and inadvertence through improved command and control, and especially through reducing the size of the largest nuclear arsenals to mom manageable, yet still adequate proportions -- a process accelerating BMD deployment will complicate. In short, moving quickly beyond research and development on BMDs, even if one believes them to be a desirable insurance policy against unlikely threats, is wasteful and counterproductive until better technology becomes available. Money is not the problem. The US spends upward of 4 billion/yr. on the program. More to the point, as Richard Betts has eloquently argued, the real threats to the U.S. of weapons of mass destruction are from biological weapons employed by terrorists, and for this problem BMDs are of no help. If excessive investment in BMDs diverts resources from the sorts of programs that prepare us to cope With the biological terrorism threat, it is a bad bargain. 

President Clinton has taken the lead in chastising India and Pakistan. He, and others, claim that they do not need nuclear weapons, that on the contrary nuclear weapons will make them less secure. If nuclear weapons do not provide security, why are the existing nuclear powers, each of whom faces a less challenging international environment than India and Pakistan, determined to retain theirs? President Clinton has also stated that he can't believe that India and Pakistan are about to repeat the mistakes of the twentieth century as we begin the twenty-first. Which among the many mistakes are those? Surely he
cannot mean the deployment of nuclear deterrents. Before the great powers possessed nuclear weapons, they fought two horrific wars that enveloped the globe. After the advent of nuclear weapons, war between the world's remaining great powers became nearly unthinkable; as John Lewis Gaddis wrote, the Cold War turned out to be a Long Peace. One might wish nuclear weapons did not exist, but they do. States that conclude nuclear weapons are necessary for their security will pursue them. The causes and consequences of the spread of nuclear weapons capabilities are a serious matter demanding serious debate for which inflamed rhetoric is no substitute.