India's Reactions to Nuclear Developments in Pakistan

Pakistan is pursuing a nuclear explosives development program which, if carried to the production of weapons, would be regarded by New Delhi as a direct threat to India and to its regional and global ambitions. The available evidence is insufficient to predict India's response to this threat. Prime Minister Gandhi has dealt with the problem through indirect pressure and, although that course is unlikely to be adequate over the long run, we do not believe that Gandhi has made a decision to take any direct action. India is developing contingency options for destroying Pakistan's nuclear facilities, for responding to a Pakistani nuclear test by exploding an Indian test device, and for coping with an established Pakistani nuclear weapons capability. An uncertainty in estimating what Gandhi will do about the Pakistani problem in the near term is the extent of Indian concern about US arms sales to Islamabad, particularly the F-16 aircraft. India has long exaggerated the threat posed by US arms sales to Pakistan in order to discourage the United States from providing Islamabad with sophisticated arms. The US proposal to sell F-16s to Pakistan is now being associated by New Delhi with the potential Pakistani nuclear threat. Reporting received since. 7 June, when Israel used F-16s to destroy a reactor in Iraq, indicates that high-level officials in the Indian Government are genuinely alarmed about F-16s going to Pakistan and the extent to which this limits India's options for dealing with Pakistan's nuclear activities. India fears that, with the F-16, Pakistan has the capacity to counterattack effectively against some Indian nuclear facilities. Moreover, it fears that a rearmed Pakistan backed by a US commitment will become more adventurous and hostile toward India. In the extreme case, if Indian concerns increase over the next two or three months, we believe the conditions could be ripe for a decision by Prime Minister Gandhi to instigate a military confrontation with Pakistan, primarily to provide a framework for destroying Pakistan's nuclear facilities. We judge that the sense of urgency in New Delhi is not likely to dissipate in the coming months. Over the next 12 to 24 months, our estimate nonetheless is that India will follow a wait-and-see strategy-waiting for Pakistan to conduct a nuclear test, with the intention of exploding an Indian device in response and assessing Pakistan's further ambitions. If Pakistan persists toward nuclear weapons production, or if Pakistan moves to acquire a strategic stockpile of nuclear material, then New Delhi will face a choice of accepting the high probability of a nuclear arms race or destroying Pakistan's nuclear facilities. Any final Indian decision is likely to depend critically on political and strategic circumstances prevailing at that time .