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Wednesday, November 22, 2006
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NUCLEAR RISK REDUCTION IN SOUTH ASIA
Strategic Warning Time and Missile Deployment
Dr. Abdul Majid , F ormer Chairman of Pakistan Space & Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO), Islamabad
India released Draft Nuclear Doctrine, in August 1999. A nuclear policy by India had long been practised even before it exploded its first nuclear device in 1974. It continued on the path of development of nuclear ballistic missiles and tested its nuclear devices in 1998. Concurrently ballistic missiles were also tested as delivery systems. This naturally resulted in a situation forcing Pakistan to go for the only protection against the threat i.e. nuclear deterrence.
Because of geographical proximity, both India and Pakistan will be forced to develop theatre missile defence systems to meet their strategic needs. The prohibitive cost of developing such a system which includes space based surveillance and monitoring, the ground based command and control facilities, as well as the operational complexities suggest, that the launch notification agreement signed between Pakistan and India in 1999, may have to be further developed to arrest this trend. Being the bigger power, and having unchallenged conventional forces in the region, India needs to take the initiative in this regard.
This presentation briefly covers the technical aspects of the space-based systems, and provides linkages with the ballistic missile programme of India .
Introduction
Nuclear restraint and risk reduction measures have been practiced by the nuclear powers ever since the dropping of atomic bombs over Japan in 1945. These efforts have led to agreements on measures to reduce the risk of outbreak of nuclear war and includes among others, Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty (1972); Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate Range and Shorter Range Missiles, (1987); START-I and START-II. The processes served to contain and reduce the number of nuclear weapons in possession of the nuclear‑weapon states. These states, the major nuclear powers, United States and Russia have also initiated some preliminary steps to de‑target and de‑alert their weapons.
The agreements also facilitated placement of systems of Notification of Ballistic Missile launches between Great Britain , Canada , Russia , and Norway . This served as a guideline for India and Pakistan , the two major powers in South Asia having nuclear weapons and the ballistic missiles to deliver them, to conclude an agreement, which came into force in 1999. Similarly MOUs have been signed by US and Russia in 2000 for the establishment of a joint Centre for Exchange of Data and on issuing notification of missile launches while DPRK has been persuaded to renounce developing and testing long-range ballistic missiles.
However, despite the above agreements between the major world powers to limit the spread of nuclear weapons, the spectre of nuclear wars continue to hover the world as it has done for the past 40 years or so.
Effective risk reduction measures may be better instituted if the impact of nuclear proliferation and resulting outbreak of nuclear war could be better understood by the humanity. Besides the immediate catastrophic effects of nuclear explosions bringing large scale devastation, there are linked short and long term environmental problems that must be brought to the attention of the general public and the decision makers. Some of the environmental effects which would be intensified significantly by the multiple nuclear explosions include acid rain, Ozone depletion and atmospheric turbidity. This would be especially significant in case of South Asia as the two nuclear powers are immediate neighbours and housing one sixth of humanity. The effects of acid rain or Ozone depletion may become apparent after years or only decades. The initial effect of a nuclear bomb burst would be the injection of large amounts of dust into the atmosphere, through the destruction of soil aggregates, the vaporization of soil and rock and the incorporation of existing surface dust.
The almost instantaneous injection of dust particles into the atmosphere would be augmented by the more prolonged emission of smoke and soot particles from the massive fires, which would follow the initial explosions. This would burn for several weeks in urban areas and in forests producing sufficient smoke to cause sub‑freezing temperatures even in summer. Incorporated into the atmospheric circulation, the soot and smoke will eventually blanket the entire globe. The net result of this rapid increase in atmospheric turbidity would be a severe reduction in the amount of solar radiation reaching the earth's surface.
In addition, there would be changes in the vertical temperature structure of the atmosphere. We may experience acute reduction in precipitation, despite the abundance of water vapour and condensation nuclei following the nuclear explosions and fires. The intensity of the inversion plus the persistence of pollution would also cause major changes in atmospheric circulation patterns. It is estimated that even a relatively small nuclear exchange of 100 Megatons could create a situation making the life on earth almost unbearable.
This reflects current perception of the seriousness of the problem, which I believe has not been sufficiently highlighted. Since a few members of the general public are aware of the issues involved, it is left to the media to interpret the real issues. Due to the dramatic impact of nuclear proliferation and missile deployment issues, the media is often accused of sensationalizing and misinterpreting the facts as supplied by the scientific community. It is, therefore, important that appropriate risk reduction measures are put in place, as Kashmir dispute provides a nuclear flashpoint and the general public in the two countries feel fully involved and are highly sentimental about it.
Nuclear Doctrines and Restraint Measures
The underground testing of nuclear devices by India and Pakistan in May 1998 was a matter of considerable concern for the non-proliferation regime and international peace and stability both at the regional and global levels. In the wake of these tests, India again reaffirmed its policy of utmost control on the export of sensitive technologies, equipment and commodities. It also declared that it remained committed to a speedy process of nuclear disarmament leading to total and global elimination of nuclear weapons and underlined its readiness to participate in negotiations for the conclusion of a treaty banning the production of fissile material.
Pakistan stressed that India 's test had destabilized the security balance in South Asia and that it was obliged to establish the balance of mutual deterrence by its own tests; it was not seeking nuclear weapons status. Security in South Asia must be dealt within a comprehensive way involving measures to avoid conflict and ease current tensions; steps to promote nuclear stabilization and non‑proliferation; measures to address dangers posed by the imbalance in conventional arms and forces between India and Pakistan ; and the resolution of the underlined core dispute of Kashmir . Pakistan underlined its readiness, however, to consider means for mutual restraint and greater balance in and symmetry in conventional arms capability in the region.
Since the testing, both India and Pakistan have announced unilateral moratoriums and agreed to participate in negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament on a convention banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. India also offered to enter into discussions on an agreement on the ‘No First Use’ of nuclear weapons.
Pakistan for its part has indicated readiness to formalize the moratorium and to reach agreement with India on a bilateral nuclear test ban or a wider ban involving other countries of the region.
Indian Doctrine
India has the distinction of becoming the only country to acquire nuclear weapons driven less by compulsions of security and more by hunger of ‘prestige’ and ‘status.’ What is more, the western world seems to be stooping to respectfully accept this logic. If this process of acquiescence went along unchecked, its second order consequences can be serious and alarming. There are several countries, which have technological and economic capacity much superior to India ’s, but have voluntarily forgone the nuclear option. These countries may be tempted or forced to revise their policy of self-imposed restraint. That would be a most dangerous scenario the world should be prepared to experience.
Pakistan certainly cannot be accused for importing the nuclear monster in the region. Pakistan is faced with the real threat at very close quarters and has to deal with it. The sole impulse behind Pakistan 's nuclear program is search for security at the minimum level. By going overtly Pakistan did manage to create a sort of strategic balance, both in perception and reality, in the region – a balance, which was destroyed by the Indian action of May 11, 1998 . The world had hardly recovered from the shocking events of May 1998 that India decided to launch its Draft Nuclear Doctrine.
The Draft Nuclear Doctrine of India not only provides doctrinal support to an ambitious and patently provocative nuclear programme, but it also advocates enhanced conventional military capability under the garb of ‘raising Indian threshold of nuclear tolerance.’ This would mean continued development and updating of its delivery systems, which includes missiles, ground, air and submarine launched.
Missiles Technology Development
Missiles, especially the ones capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction to any place within a few minutes have become a symbol of prestige and national pride. Missile technology, being dual use, has also benefited from developments in satellite launch vehicle technology for space exploration as well as launching of satellites for navigation, communications, surveillance, reconnaissance and scientific missions.
As missile technology developed, the world started to realize more and more clearly the risks and dangers brought about by missiles and their proliferation. These include misallocation of national resources, at the cost and risk of quality of life causing permanent damage to the society, strategic stability and peace in general.
Risk Reduction
Risk reduction measures, therefore, require to weaken motivation in favour of missile possession and proliferation thereby discouraging wasteful missile and anti‑missile race. There is therefore need to:
a. Institutionalise missile launch transparency.
b. Develop a mechanism for encouraging and rewarding the states that relinquish possession of missile weapon delivery systems.
c. Guaranty security of such states against nuclear threats.
The missile launch transparency provides for voluntary submission of information in the form of notifications, concerning launches of ballistic missiles and space launch vehicles that have been effected or are underway. Such a situation would require missile launch technical monitoring systems using ground and space based detection and tracking facilities. Such a framework does exist between India and Pakistan . However, the arrangement is highly simplistic and there is a need to put in place a comprehensive system that would ensure missile and missile technology non‑proliferation, transparency of missile use, and international monitoring.
It is ironic that the rocket technology that has created danger for the modern world, in the form of long range missiles armed with nuclear weapons has also made possible the means for reducing this threat, in the form of satellites for the verification of disarmament and arms limitation agreements limiting and reducing such missile forces. Satellites can be used to acquire information concerning deployment of military resources using imagery or by picking up electronic transmissions (electronic intelligence). Other information acquisition functions include missile launch warning, and nuclear explosion detection. Information transmission services are performed by communication and navigation satellites.
Role of Space Technology
Besides the ground based radar technologies, the above facilities would have to rely on space based detection and tracking systems, communications and monitoring for effective command and control. The problem of a safe command and control system is an almost impossibility largely because of two conflicting, directly contradictory requirements.
One requirement is the need to disperse the missiles and their command as widely as possible, and the other is to exclude unauthorized missile launches. Dispersal is easy to understand: a single bomb on the central command and control facility would knock out Pakistan 's retaliatory strike if all launch resources are centralized there. Even if this, or perhaps some other command and control centre, were somehow fortified to survive a nuclear blast in the vicinity, the electromagnetic pulse, which accompanies a nuclear blast, would destroy all normal telecommunications. Hence autonomy of dispersal mobile units is an inescapable requirement. This in turn would necessitate authorisation codes for arming and launching the nuclear weapons in its possession. The dispersal of the authority, while it enhances survivability, correspondingly increases the probability of unauthorised launch.
Strategic Warning Time & Nuclear Posture
Strategic Warning Time is a complex function, which depends on the nuclear posture that incorporates:
a. Policies governing the deployment, targeting and conditions for the use of nuclear weapons.
b. Diplomatic policy governing existing and future international agreements constraining the testing, deployment, and dismantlement of nuclear weapons and the testing and deployment of missile defences by Pakistan and India .
Risk reduction would be substantially improved by adopting a nuclear posture declaring that the nuclear weapon’s programme is to deter and, if necessary respond to the use of nuclear weapons against it.
For a weaker state such as Pakistan , which cannot match India in even conventional warfare, nuclear deterrence is the only effective deterrence against nuclear threat as well as conventional attack. On the other hand, for India to adopt role beyond deterrence of nuclear attack, is both unnecessary and counter‑productive. Additionally, it would undermine the over riding goal of preventing the proliferation and use of nuclear weapons. If India , with established conventional superiority, treat the nuclear weapons as multipurpose, then countries such as Pakistan have no choice but to rely on nuclear weapons to protect themselves. Such a situation makes launch‑on‑warning and launch‑under‑attack plausible proposition and would demand flexibility in deployment practices for the launch of counter attack.
The SWT (Strategic Warning Time) period of a solid fuelled missile of range 100 km ‑ 4000 km lies somewhere between 5 ‑ 20 minutes.
To maintain the above capability it is important to protect launch‑on-warning capability with minimum risk of unauthorized or accidental launch. This would also necessitate a fully secured command and control system and availability of sufficient nuclear weapons on land and on submarines.
Text courtesy: Excerpts from author's article in IPRI Publication, Islamabad . Pakistan Embassy Kathmandu-ed.
Governance
Binu S Thomas, Former senior Correspondent-Business World, India
Governance is the new buzzword in development discourse. The World Bank and other international financial institutions identify public sector management, transparency, legal framework, accountability and information as the key components of governance. In a country like India, which has the largest number of poor people in the world and also ranks high on the list of most-corrupt nations, good governance involves fighting corruption, improving bureaucratic and political accountability and promoting people’s participation and public-private partnerships. No single term has come to dominate development discourse in the new millennium as much as governance. From good governance to corporate governance and more recently e governance, the term has gained in popular usage. Yet, to date, there is no well-accepted definition of what governance means.
The concept first emerged in the mid-1980s as governability with the emphasis on adherence to the rule of law. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the term governance came to be used to define the reinventing of public administration, particularly in developing countries, to make it more receptive to the needs of globalization. Thus good governance came to be associated with policies and practices of deregulation, liberalization and opening up the economy to foreign competition.
The international financial institutions, most notably the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, were in the forefront of pushing good governance as part of their aid packages. “By governance we mean the manner in which power is exercised in the management of a country’s social and economic reforms,” was how the World Bank defined governance in the mid-1990s. The Bank identified public sector management, transparency legal framework, accountability and information as the key components of governance. While these components undoubtedly had benefits for the public at large in developing countries, they were specially relevant to the interests of trans-national companies seeking to do business in developing countries where the prevailing rules of doing business favored local players.
In response to widespread criticism over the narrow economic definition of governance relied on by the World Bank and the IMF to explain difficulties with the Structural Adjustment Programmes, the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD formed a Working Group on Participatory Development and Good Governance. This Committee linked good governance to participatory development, human rights and democratization, and identified the rule of law, public sector management, controlling corruption and reducing excessive military expenditure as important dimensions of good governance.
The problem of corruption
Widespread corruption is the most-quoted example of poor governance in India . Corruption is generally defined as the use of public office for private gain. Contrary to popular perception, corruption was quite rampant even in pre-independence India when the controls and shortages caused by the Second World War resulted in huge illegal profits for bureaucrats and forced the colonial government to pass the Prevention of Corruption Act in 1947. “The scope for bribery and corruption of public servants had been enormously increased by war conditions and though the war is now over, opportunities for corrupt practice will remain for a considerable time to come,” said the government, just if the passing of the new Act.
The planned model of development pursued since the 1950s, which vested vast discretionary powers in bureaucrats and created the license permit raj, further aggravated the corruption problem. To move files even at the lowest levels of bureaucracy required speed money. In an economy where licenses were required for producing virtually any thing, shortages became the order of the day and this created even more opportunities to demand and receive bribes. The poor were particularly badly affected as they often did not have the money to grease the palms of corrupt government servants without which they were unable to access even the most basic necessities of life such as food, employment, health care or education.
As corruption flourished successive governments took various measures to try and stem the problem. The Anti-Corruption Laws (Amendment) Act 1964 was enacted with a view to make the anti-corruption laws more effective and to ensure speedy trial of cases. The Central Vigilance Commission came into being in 1964. Conduct Rules of public servants were reviewed and loopholes plugged. A Prevention of Corruption Act was enacted in 1988 incorporating various corruption-related provisions of the Indian Penal Code. Lok Ayuktas were set up in different states to address the corruption problems at the state level.
Despite these measures and substantial economic reforms to eliminate the license permit raj, India remains one of the most corrupt countries in the world. In 2002, India ranked as the 71st most corrupt country among 102 countries surveyed by Transparency International. India ’s score of 2.7 out of 10 was even lower than the 2.9 in 1999, indicating that the corruption problem is only getting worse.
Corporate governance
There are many who feel that restricting governance to the domain of government policies and practices is wholly inadequate. The string of highly publicized corporate scandals such as Enron, Worldcom etc. have brought to the fore the importance of good corporate governance. With companies increasingly becoming larger than most governments in terms of the resources they command and the impact they have on people’s lives, it could be argued that corporate governance practices require as much attention from the public as that of government. To a lesser extent the discussion on governance has also extended to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and their policies and practices inasmuch as they have a bearing on public life.
Organizational structures of governance
One of the more comprehensive definitions of governance is from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). According to UNDP, governance is “the exercise of political, economic and administrative authority to manage a society’s affairs. It is a broad concept that encompasses the organizational structures and activities of central, regional and local government, the parliament and the judiciary and the institutions, organisations and individuals that comprise civil society and the private sector insofar as they actively participate and influence the shaping of public policy that affect people’s lives.”
As a parliamentary democracy India has some of the finest organizational structures of governance. It has two houses of parliament, legislatures in different states and over 200,000 local self-governing institutions. These bodies direct and oversee the functioning of the executive at different levels and geographies. There is an independent judiciary and a free press that provides the checks and balances necessary to ensure accountability.
Yet the problems of poor governance are all too plain to see. The numerous public bodies that are mandated to carry out various programmes and spend public funds perform poorly. Laws that are among the finest in the world are often not enforced. Public audits carried out by bodies such as the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (GAG) routinely point out glaring examples of wastage of public funds and corruption. Yet, no action follows. Commissions of inquiry are set up to investigate everything from riots to financial scandals only for the reports to gather dust.
Accountability, of which there appears to be so little in India , is a core element of governance as are equity, transparency, participation and adherence to the rule of law. Above all in a country like India , which has the largest number of poor people in the world, good governance has to mean being pro-poor and gender conscious. It involves improving bureaucratic and political accountability, fighting corruption, promoting people’s participation and making effective and efficient use of the nation’s resources.
Initiatives in good governance
In recent years the government, both at the central and state levels, has tried to improve the quality of governance. Andhra Pradesh has set up a Centre for Good Governance with the effort being to use information technology to improve the quality of ser vices particularly for the poor and the marginalized. This followed the Conference of Chief Secretaries held in November 1996, which adopted “an agenda for an effective and responsive administration”. The action plan included initiatives to make administration accountable and citizen-friendly, ensuring transparency and right to information, and taking measures to cleanse and motivate the civil services.
One of the important initiatives in this regard has been the publishing of citizens' charters by a large number of government departments and enterprises. These charters, modeled on what the UK government under John Major did, seek to provide citizens with information on the service they can expect from a government department and the redressal mechanisms that are avail able to them in case of grievances. But often these charters have been prepared in a top- down fashion with little involvement of staff within the department. As a result government employees are by and large ignorant of what these charters are all about. The departments have also not taken steps to publicize these charters with the result that citizens are not able to use them in any useful manner. For instance more than 30 nationalized banks have published citizens' charters but copies of these are not available to the public on demand.
Local self-government
The 73rd and 74th amendments to the Indian Constitution in 1992 were also important steps to improve governance through greater people’s participation and accountability These amendments which gave legal sanction to the establishment and functioning of local bodies like panchayats, bringing them under the control of village councils or gram sabhas, have helped poorer sections of society demand greater accountability of government service providers. The reservation of one-third seats for women in panchayati raj institutions has enabled even women in areas with strong feudal traditions to have a voice in decision-making. This is not to suggest that panchayati raj has been a success throughout the country in terms of enforcing greater public accountability. States like Kerala, which have higher rank in terms of social development, have clearly been able to use panchayati raj to benefit its poorer citizens more than backward states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar .
E-governance
More recently, the spread of e-governance initiatives have had a positive impact on the quality of governance though their number and spread is still limited. In the Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh, some 30 info-kiosks run by local soochaks, or operators, make avail able over a dozen government services, records and certificates to people in around 600 villages. The villagers pay between Rs 5-20 for the service, a pittance compared to the cost, time and bribes that would have been necessary to obtain the records from the district headquarters. Similarly, the computerization of land records in several states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh has made it easier for people to obtain key documents with ease.
Public-private partnerships
The latest initiative of the government to improve the quality of governance appears to be the promotion of greater public-private partnerships. Since the 1980s various NGOs have been involved in efforts to improve the quality of public services by mobilizing the community to participate in and demand a greater say in the delivery of government services. Often, international lending institutions such as the World Bank have made such NGO participation mandatory for extending financial support to government schemes. But now the government, in keeping with the prevailing spirit of promoting private enterprise, is seeking to redefine the nature of public-private partnerships by giving a much bigger role to private entrepreneurs in the delivery of government services.
In January 2003, the Pr1 Minister’s Office, issued a directive to a large number of ministries asking them to buy services from the private sector. For instance, in the case of education, instead of utilizing scarce funds to construct a single school building, the government will spend the same amount in leasing several buildings for schools to be run by the private sector, with the fees for students being paid by the government to the private service provider. Similarly, in the case of health, the government will provide vouchers to households below the poverty line to allow them to avail of services from empanelled health care organisations run by the private sector, including NGOs. According to The Economic Survey 2002-03, “there is considerable scope for improving the delivery of social services, such as health care, by promoting community and private sector participation. What is required is a change in the paradigm of the public sector ‘providing’ public goods and services, with out necessarily ‘producing’ them itself.”
Innovative as this approach may be, it remains to be seen if it could improve the quality of governance. Unless widespread problems like corruption are tackled, there is every possibility that the same problems that plagued the delivery of services by the public sector could impair the functioning of public-private partnerships.
Several new laws also have in-built provisions to increase the scope of citizen participation in governance. The Electricity Act of 2003 provides for consultations to be held with citizens groups on regulatory reforms including tariff fixation. Similarly the Consumer Protection Act of 1986 provides for the active participation of consumer groups in enforcing the provisions of the Act. The end objective of these provisions remains the improvement of transparency and account ability in decision-making.
In recent years, a number of civil society initiatives have used a variety of tools to try and improve the quality of governance. As a result of both government and non- government efforts to improve the quality of governance, there is a slow but definite change for the better. The pace of change will depend a lot on the pressure that people are able to bring on the system to change. After all, as the old saying goes, people get the government they deserve.
(Reproduced from Info Change News & Features, September 2003; The author is former senior correspondent — Business World, Kuala Lumpur-based Bureau Chief of Time Inc AsiaWeek and former Associate Editor — Education World. Text courtesy: DIALOGUE, FES Publication, New Delhi-ed.
