State of the Union
General Khalid Kidwai, who headed the Strate gic Plans Division ( SPD) of Pakistan’s Nuclear Command Authority for 15 long years, laid out the doctrinal basis of Pakistan’s nuclear programme during an expansive interaction in Washington, DC, recently.
The General said that the rationale for developing tactical nuclear weapons, including the nuclear missile Nasr, that has a range of 37 miles, is to respond to India’s Cold Start doctrine. The ostensive Cold Start doctrine that has not been officially acknowledged by India envisages a blitzkrieg of a number of armoured battle groups simultaneously attacking Pakistan after being mobilised in 48 to 72 hours. Clearly, conceding the asymmetry between conventional forces of India and Pakistan, he preached that battlefield nuclear weapons would deter India from probing for gaps in Pakistani nuclear deterrence to find space for a conventional war under a nuclear overhang. ( After the Kargil War, a theory was propounded by Indian strategists that there is space for a conventional war with Pakistan despite the nuclear equation. That is the rationale that Pakistan extends for battlefield nuclear weapons to stop Cold Start.) If strategic nuclear weapons had kept the peace for four decades in South Asia since 1971, tactical weapons would only perpetuate it further he argued.
He further delineated that the logic of the Shaheen- III nuclear missiles, that have a range of 2,750 kilometres, was to knock out India’s second- strike capability even if it was located on the islands of Andaman and Nicobar. It would neutralise India’s bluster by conveying that any