| It's a delicate balance. Moreoever, it's one whose likely outcome, at present, would present Indian strategic planners with a small number of extremely high-value targets, at least so long as Pakistan maintains its forces in a low state of alert. And here lies the core of the security dilemma facing Pakistan. The Arihant's missiles, assuming India can engineer a 150kg warhead or boost their range slightly, offer Indian planners an opportunity for a 'splendid first strike' if they can acquire intelligence on the current location of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal. While this may not (and probably wouldn't) be a tempting option during times of low tension, as tension begins to ratchet upwards for whatever reason, Indian planners may - no, I'll say will - begin to consider that a strategic first strike might be able to minimize their danger. It's their job. Whether or not policymakers act on this option is a completely different question - but at the very least, it gives India a potential option at an early phase of a crisis which Pakistan's only real defense against is to actively deploy and/or disperse its arsenal. That action, in turn, reduces Pakistan's nuclear force security against internal threat, and depending on the state of Pakistani Command and Control, may force Pakistan to delegate release authority to remote actors - with all the risk that that entails (those who are curious about that risk are encouraged to read Bruce Blair's classic "Strategic Command and Control" for operational risk, or Scott D. Sagan's "The LImits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents and Nuclear Weapons" for organizational risk). |
