India and Pakistan
The recent peace meetings in India resulted in a commitment to an "irreversible" peace process.
K Subrahmanyam, former head of India's National Security Advisory Board and a leading defence analyst, stated: "The Pakistan government has come to the conclusion that the use of force is no longer an option, therefore, the [peace] process can only go forward, the peace process is irreversible."
This language raises an interesting question. Is the fact that the use of force is no longer an option due to the presence of nuclear weapons in both countries? If that's true, then did nuclear proliferation lead to a commitment to peace?
So, think about a few hypotheticals. If India developed nuclear weapons but Pakistan did not. If neither country successfully tested the weapons. The imbalance of power in the first case and the lack of an impetus for peace in the second leads me to think that the countries would not have the same need to sit down at the bargaining table.
Thus a problem for the peace project. Nuclear proliferation is typically not a pro-peace stance. But here, it played at least a role in the peace process. How do we reconcile these contradictions?
posted by Sammy @ 2:19 PM
1 Comments:
Using nuclear force as deterrence is nothing new. In fact, it can be argued that the fact that both the US & the USSR had a large nuclear weapon arsenal was what prevented the Cold War from becoming "hot." Direct confrontation between the powers was less likely because of nuclear weapons. In this case, I think that nuclear weapons made India and Pakistan equals on the negotiating table, since both knew that the alternative to peaceful diplomacy was far too risky.
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