A MISFIRING AND ITS TRAIL OF POOR STRATEGIC STABILITY

News: Accidental misfiring of Indian missile and the analysis of mechanisms available to avert such type of crisis.

The accidental misfiring of an Indian missile to Pakistan highlights the sorry state of bilateral mechanisms for crisis management between two nuclear adversaries. Such accidents are known as “broken arrows” (accidents that involve nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons components, but do not create the risk of nuclear war).

Why the responses from both countries were not aggressive?

Despite this lack of bilateral mechanism, both countries responded maturely to the accident. Pakistan did not allege that it was done intentionally by India and Indian sides owned up the mistake and ordered for inquiry.

This can be because in the subcontinent, unlike the Cold War, neither side keeps its nuclear forces on high alert. In case of India:

• Warheads are separated from delivery vehicles
• Nuclear weapons are de-alerted
• No presence of tactical nuclear weapons
• No pre-delegation of nuclear launch authority to local commanders, even during a crisis.

The situation in Pakistan is different i.e., there is presence of tactical weapons and reports of pre-delegation to forward commanders. However, like India, its nuclear forces are also not on high alert.

Is South Asia prepared for dealing with such accidents?

South Asia is hardly prepared for dealing with such crisis due to following reasons:

1) “Pre-Notification of Flight Testing of Ballistic Missile Agreement” is insufficient as it does not cover cruise missiles. In this incident also the missile that was misfired was a cruise missile (suspected to be BrahMos).

2) Confidence Building Measures (CBM) are weak: Two sides have not held structured meetings on nuclear and conventional CBMs for years now. There is a need to revive such dialogue mechanisms. Such as, started by Cold war adversaries after the 1962 Cuban Missile crisis.

3) Refusal of China to engage in strategic stability discussions with India and Pakistan – even though today China is involved in the Indo-Pak conflict even more.

What should be done?

1.) Setting up of Nuclear Risk Reduction Centres: These can provide a faster mechanism to communicate sensitive information during a crisis. This should have the objective of timely communication and proper implementation of already agreed mechanisms. A case in point could be ‘Permanent Indus Commission’ (Resolving disputes under Indus Water Treaty).

2.) Use of existing hotlines in case such an accident happens. In this case, the Indian Director General of Military Operations didn’t use the hotline to inform Pakistan about misfiring.

New Delhi should devise ways to provide assurances to Pakistan and to improve strategic stability between two countries.

Source: This post is created based on the article “A misfiring and its trail of poor strategic stability” published in The Hindu on 16^th March 2022.