RECENTLY, the efficacy and future relevance of nuclear deterrence have been questioned by some scholars and strategic analysts who argue that advances in conventional military capabilities and emerging technologies may reduce the role of nuclear weapons in international security. For nearly eight decades, nuclear weapons have played a vital role in achieving peace and security. Despite rapid advances in conventional military technologies, nuclear weapons remain an unparalleled instrument of power and deterrence.
Throughout history, conventional wars have generated persistent insecurity, destruction and uncertainty. Conventional deterrence has not always been sufficient to prevent conflict between adversaries. Nuclear deterrence, by contrast, introduced a fundamentally different strategic condition: the prospect that escalation could impose unacceptable costs on both sides.
Reliance on conventional power as the primary instrument of deterrence also presents significant challenges. Conventional military capabilities require continuous investment, modernization and technological adaptation. States with limited economic resources may struggle to sustain conventional parity with substantially larger adversaries. Moreover, conventional forces cannot fully replicate the retaliatory consequences associated with nuclear weapons. Nuclear capability can therefore alter the strategic calculus of a materially stronger adversary by raising the potential costs of escalation to an unacceptable level. Nuclear revolution has, thus, transformed international security by making the prospect of nuclear retaliation a powerful constraint on conventional war and escalation.
A state facing a much larger adversary may find it economically and strategically difficult to maintain conventional capabilities sufficient to offset that disparity. Emerging technologies—including artificial intelligence, cyber capabilities, autonomous systems, precision-strike weapons and space-based capabilities—may provide new opportunities to strengthen conventional deterrence, but they also create new vulnerabilities and escalation risks. They should therefore be viewed as complements to, rather than substitutes for, nuclear deterrence.
The latest report of SIPRI shows that all nuclear-armed countries are increasing their nuclear weapons capabilities, thus showing that nuclear weapons serve as the ultimate means of deterrence. All major nuclear-weapons states, such as the United States, Russia, China, France and the UK, have continued to upgrade and modernize their nuclear arsenals. This also shows that nuclear deterrence has continued to play a decisive role as the core component of deterrence despite advanced conventional weapons and new technologies possessed by most of these countries. Nuclear deterrence can also provide strategic leverage to states possessing comparatively smaller conventional forces. For instance, North Korea`s nuclear capability has significantly complicated the prospect of military action against it by increasing the potential costs and risks associated with escalation. Without the nuclear option, it would have faced invasion or conventional war, which the Kim regime may not have averted through conventional means.
The case of South Asia is different, indeed, more challenging in many ways. Pakistan and India fought several wars in the pre-nuclear period, leading to destruction, economic woes, human cost and territorial loss in 1971. Three factors make the South Asian environment especially challenging. First, geographical contiguity compresses decision-making time and increases the potential for rapid escalation. Second, the unresolved Kashmir dispute and recurrent tensions along the Line of Control continue to provide a persistent source of confrontation. Third, the substantial conventional asymmetry between India and Pakistan and India’s global ambitions, mean that it may not be interested in limiting the range of potential reductions and entering into arms-control negotiations with Pakistan.
India’s military options against Pakistan are risky and uncertain because India’s strategy to keep a conflict limited is highly doubtful, as nuclear risk is attached throughout the escalation cycle. While India has a conventional military advantage across all three services, these advantages are not decisive as assumed due to the presence of nuclear weapons. As Kenneth Waltz notes, “nuclear weapons negate the advantages of conventional superiority because escalation in the use of conventional force risks receiving a nuclear strike.” This helps explain Pakistan’s reliance on Full-Spectrum Deterrence within the broader framework of Credible Minimum Deterrence. The objective is not to compete with India weapon-for-weapon across every conventional domain, but to maintain sufficient capabilities to deter aggression at strategic, operational and tactical levels.
An effective nuclear force deters not only nuclear attack but also conventional aggression. Non-nuclear threats have become increasingly lethal, as they can be decisive in conventional terms and destabilize deterrence. The US 2022 Nuclear Posture Review warns about advanced non-nuclear threats, including cyber and space-based capabilities. Similarly, Russia’s 2022 nuclear doctrine reserves the right to use nuclear weapons if adversary actions affect critically important state or military objects whose disablement could disrupt retaliatory actions by nuclear forces. Nuclear deterrence therefore remains the bedrock of many countries’ security policies. New technologies cannot undermine its efficacy but can be used to strengthen it.
—The writer is Associate Director Research BTTN, at BUITEMs, Quetta.
