Pakistan's Rickover

By Michael Krepon

Pakistan’s national security decisions are usually choreographed between senior active duty military officers in Rawalpindi and government officials in Islamabad. If military leaders feel strongly about a particular policy or initiative, they can usually count on the consent of politicians. Conversely, if political leaders do not have military support, their favored initiatives are likely to fail. There is usually little daylight between Rawalpindi and Islamabad with respect to Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent.

Pakistan’s nuclear program is a rare success story and a great source of national pride. Those who have been instrumental in this record of accomplishment have been given broad leeway to pursue requirements as they see fit. These requirements are set by very few individuals, almost all with military backgrounds.

Every nation’s nuclear weapon-related programs have elevated a few individuals into positions of extraordinary authority. Some have remained in the shadows, a few have become national embarrassments, and others have gained public renown. The “father” of the U.S. nuclear navy, Admiral Hyman Rickover, had such a high profile and was deemed to be so essential by his supporters on Capitol Hill that his retirement from active duty was postponed until the ripe old age of 81.

Pakistan’s closest approximation to Admiral Rickover is Lt. General (ret.) Khalid Kidwai, who presently is in his thirteenth year as the Director-General of the Strategic Plans Division at Joint Staff Headquarters. The SPD oversees strategy, doctrine, research, development, production and protection of Pakistan’s nuclear assets.

Admiral Rickover and General Kidwai could not be more dissimilar in personality or conduct. Rickover’s steel will did not brook dissent over questions of submarine design, personnel, training and related matters. Rickover would imperiously circumvent his military superiors when he suspected or opposed their judgment. General Kidwai is a man of low-key demeanor with a sense of humility who works through military channels. Like Rickover, his competence inspires the view that he is indispensable. Unlike Rickover, my sense is that General Kidwai would contest this conclusion.

General Kidwai faced retirement in 2005 because his time on active duty would extend beyond those who were about to out-rank him. At that juncture, the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, General Ehsan ul-Haq, and Chief of Army Staff (and President of Pakistan) Pervez Musharraf decided to keep General Kidwai in place at the SPD after his retirement. While many retired military officers have been given plum assignments overseeing civilian institutions in Pakistan, the appointment of a retired military officer to be in charge of the nuclear program was very unusual.

General Kidwai has a long gallery of pictures on his wall of the successful strategic modernization initiatives he has overseen. He has cleaned up the mess at the A.Q. Khan Labs. He has improved security at sensitive sites. He has set up institutional mechanisms that are sound and that can handle a baton pass.

There aren’t many more tests for General Kidwai to pass. There is one test, however, that founding fathers of nuclear programs usually flunk. It’s the test of avoiding excess.

This is not a Pakistan-specific problem. Most of the founding fathers of the U.S. and Soviet nuclear programs also flunked this test. Regardless of nationality, nuclear enclaves share a common assumption that more capability equals more security – especially when an adversary is engaged in a nuclear build-up. In this view, the more foreboding the edifice of deterrence looks, the less inclined your adversary will be to cross red lines.

There is no hard evidence to support this article of faith. A small, survivable nuclear arsenal might also be sufficiently persuasive as a deterrent, and there might well be many other reasons that induce caution in national leaders. But it’s understandably risky to take this for granted; the closer one is to the Bomb, and less risky it appears to choose more firepower. The equation of more nuclear deterrence with greater security can easily become a bedrock belief — even though the more adversaries compete, the less secure they feel.

It’s natural for nuclear enclaves facing stiff competition to reject constructs of minimum or finite deterrence in favor of additional targeting and use options. Unlike nuclear-armed states that have no reason to expect a hot war or rapid escalation, Pakistan and India are moving toward widely diversified deterrents that place greater stress on command, control, safety and security in times of crisis. Under these circumstances, weak points become distributed within the edifice as it grows. Crisis and deterrence stability become shakier.

The question, ‘How much is enough?’ becomes perversely more difficult to answer when one success follows the next, and when an adversary responds in kind. The answer to this question cannot come from outsiders. Security dilemmas and nuclear weapon requirements can only be moderated by domestic reassessments, economic imperatives, negotiations, more normal ties with a competitor, or the demise of one of the contestants.

Within Pakistan, politicians usually shy away from questioning nuclear orthodoxy, whiz kids are not welcome, and criticism, no matter how sound or well meaning, is dismissed as being pro-India. The significant expenses associated with nuclear weapons are good for just one important thing: to reinforce caution. Meanwhile, other expenses and aspects of national security are short-changed. Pakistan faces terrible economic and energy crises as its nuclear enclave gears up to go toe-to-toe against India.

Michael Krepon is co-founder of Stimson, and director of the South Asia and Space Security programs.

For more information, contact Julia Thompson at jthompson@stimson.org or 202-478-3432

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Every War Must End by Michael Krepon

Every War Must End by Michael Krepon Every war must end, but few end well. Fred Charles Iklé wrote a slim but essential book on this subject in 1971. His bottom line was that government leaders who make momentous decisions to go to war, or decisions that could lead to war, are obliged to have military and diplomatic strategies to end hostilities on favorable terms. Iklé stipulates three “musts” for US decision makers: 1. "American forces must not be committed to combat without a clear military strategy, whether for defeating the enemy of for expelling the aggressor’s forces and restoring the peace." 2. "American forces should not be sent into combat merely for the purpose of demonstrating America’s resolve and commitment. Such a ‘demonstration strategy’ is no substitute for a clear military strategy to defeat the enemy’s forces. It will not induce a determined adversary to withdraw or to cease his aggression." 3. "The United States should not enter a war based on a strategy of inflicting ‘punishment’ on the enemy by bombing or shelling targets whose destruction will not serve to defeat the enemy’s forces militarily." How might these criteria be applied to the bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites, controlling Syria’s air space, dealing with the Assad regime’s chemical weapons, or how best to respond to Kim Jong-un and his coterie of military advisors? The particulars in each case are different. One relates to proliferation prevention, the second focuses on the use of force on humanitarian grounds, and the third deals with the consequences of proliferation. Caution is a tactic, not a strategy. Caution can either help avoid dangerous, precipitous, and costly moves, or it can make a bad situation worse. The most successful strategies to date in dealing with the consequences of proliferation have been deterrence and containment, not efforts to achieve regime change. Proliferation prevention by means of bombing runs can provide short-term gains, followed by long-term costs. Combat air patrols to protect civilians from regimes that engage in mass murder can help turn the tide, but not affect the character of governance once the regime falls. None of the decisions relating to Iran, Syria and North Korea are slam dunks. What these cases have in common is the need to avoid the fallacy of the last move, and to think instead about how US military action, once undertaken, would likely play out over time. Since 1945, the United States has generally failed to end wars victoriously and decisively -- with the exception of the first Gulf war against Saddam Hussein and small-scale military operations like Grenada. Exit strategies have sometimes been embarrassing affairs in search of decent intervals. The worst of the lot was Vietnam. The image of a small helicopter air-lifting a few fortunate exit-seekers from a long line atop a building in Saigon remains a haunting coda for a war waged to demonstrate resolve and inflict punishment. Fred Iklé’s lessons were embraced by the George H.W. Bush administration in the first Gulf war, and then forgotten by the George W. Bush administration in Afghanistan and in a second war with Saddam Hussein. Bush 43’s "War on Terror" was a rallying cry, not a strategy. It violated all of Iklé’s dicta by being open-ended, geographically unbounded, and at odds with a declaration of mission accomplished. President Barack Obama wisely re-framed this contest as the disruption and defeat of the core al-Qaeda leadership -- achievable war aims. Then he muddled US objectives by extending the conflict to include al-Qaeda’s “affiliates” and “associates.” Drone strikes have become one yardstick to measure the extent to which the Obama administration has strayed from the Iklé criteria. The US exit strategy in Iraq was incomparably better than in Vietnam, but the price of regime change has been very steep, and Iraq’s future is uncertain, at best. The outcome in Afghanistan is yet to be determined, but may well look depressingly familiar. After expressing confident expectations about fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, hawkish US analysts and politicians owe their fellow citizens something more than new military action plans. For a start, they might explain how their new proposals for the use of force meet the Iklé criteria. Humanitarian interventionists who wish to place US forces in harm’s way are similarly obliged to clarify aims and projected costs. The nature of war has changed, but not so much as to make Fred Iklé’s criteria irrelevant. Michael Krepon is co-founder of the Stimson Center.

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Today, Stimson is releasing an essay by Michael Krepon on “Pakistan’s Nuclear Strategy and Deterrence Stability.” Krepon argues that it will be hard to dampen the growth of Pakistan’s considerable and growing nuclear arsenal because few individuals make these decisions and most Pakistanis view them as a rare success story. They begrudge governmental corruption and incompetence, but not money spent on the Bomb.

Acknowledging that the particulars of Rawalpindi’s targeting objectives are closely held, the author offers the speculative conclusion that Pakistan's requirements for nuclear weapons reflect a low-, medium- and high-end mix of targeting objectives. The low option may reflect selective or demonstrative use of tactical nuclear weapons. The medium option may possibly entail widespread use of tactical nuclear weapons, although this cannot yet be determined. The high-end option may entail the destruction of critical infrastructure, leadership-related targets, and cities, with the overarching objective to deny India victory in large-scale exchanges and to destroy India as a functioning society.

A small circle of military officers determine Pakistan’s stockpile and targeting requirements, including one retired officer, Lt. General Khalid Kidwai, Director-General of Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division since its inception in 2000. Gen. Kidwai’s extended tenure makes his views particularly influential.

This essay concludes by discussing the implications of ongoing nuclear modernization programs for deterrence stability in South Asia. Pakistani and Indian nuclear weapon programs have diversified and grown, with both countries now possessing capabilities that did not figure in previous crises, including tactical nuclear weapons and cruise missiles. In addition, sea-based nuclear capabilities appear likely. All of these developments raise new challenges for command and control.

What would it take to alter Pakistan’s current growth trajectory in nuclear weapon-related capabilities? Among Krepon's list of possibilities are a different orientation toward India by Pakistan’s military leaders, severe perturbations in Pakistan’s economy, and a perception-shattering event that causes nuclear advocates to re-think their assumptions. He argues that the safest route to reducing nuclear dangers remains patient, persistent, top-down efforts to normalize relations between Pakistan and India. Success in this pursuit is dependent on the recognition by Pakistan’s military leaders that they possess a sufficient arsenal to secure their objectives, that their current path does not strengthen or stabilize deterrence, and that Indian leaders seek a properly functioning Pakistan more than a submissive one.

Stimson’s analytical and prescriptive assessments on the nuclear competition in South Asia are funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and by the National Nuclear Security Administration. To access the full essay, please click here.