The Risk of Nuclear War Between India and Pakistan

The Most Likely Apocalypse in Our Future: An Indian-Pakistani Nuclear Exchange - J. Dana Stuster in Foreign Policy [link]

• The fuse to ignite a war has been lit before -- at Kargil in 1999, after the attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001, and most recently, after the Mumbai attacks in 2008 -- but a nuclear exchange has been prevented each time. With each of these incidents, though, the fuse has been cut shorter.
• The greatest risk for nuclear war in our time is the scenario in which a Pakistan-based terror group with ties to Inter-Services Intelligence launches another attack on India ("another Mumbai" is the catchphrase, but it won't necessarily have to be of that scale or spectacle and is widely considered a matter of when, not if) and this touches off a sequence of escalation that results in a nuclear strike and response.
• This is a global problem. "The impact on the United States is potentially larger than people realize," said Matthew Bunn, co-principal investigator for the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard University. He described studies in which nuclear war was simulated using atmospheric models developed for climate change research, "and if cities are actually burned it can cause enough soot to go up into the upper atmosphere that will stay for a long time, to seriously interfere with global agriculture."
• A journalist for the Pakistani Spectator, in worried and urgent tones, told the panel that, with the prevailing popular opinion in Pakistan, the United States is "pushing Pakistan in the corner, and they are depending more on the weapon because Pakistan is literally collapsing." It will be up to the international community, and largely the United States, to help buttress Pakistan's faltering democracy.

A Loose Circuit - David Hoffman in Foreign Policy [link]

• Remember that computer outage last October at a nuclear missile launch control center? Now, according to the Air Force Times, an investigation has pinpointed the cause.
• It was a loose circuit card. The newspaper reports the card had not been properly locked into place after maintenance work, and was knocked out of place by heat and vibration.
• The outage affected 50 nuclear-armed Minuteman III missiles at Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming, last Oct. 23. The disruption lasted 59 minutes.
• No doubt, there will be breakdowns in any complex machinery like this. It is inevitable. As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, the failure of a simple computer chip once triggered a false alarm when Jimmy Carter was president. Another time, the insertion of a training tape into a slot set off a mistaken alarm.
• But why in these times are missiles still on launch-ready alert, ready to go within four minutes of an order from the president? This is a legacy of the Cold War, and no longer makes sense. The United States and Russia should build in a delay, say a few hours or a day, before missiles could be launched. This “de-alerting” would have to be done by both sides, and would have to be verifiable. But it would give us an extra margin of safety the next time a simple computer card decides to come loose.

Global Insights: The Mystery of Iran's Slow Nuclear Pace - Richard Weitz in World Politics Review [link]

• One of the mysteries of Iran's nuclear program is the fact that, despite periodic warnings about how close Tehran is to acquiring a nuclear weapons capability, the Iranian nuclear program is proceeding at a slower speed than that of earlier nuclear weapons states. Whereas Pakistan and North Korea needed only some 10 years to develop atomic bombs, Iran has had a nuclear program for almost three decades without producing a weapon.
• Iranian leaders might still be debating their nuclear weapons options and not yet committed to pursuing a nuclear weapon or capability. Iran's nuclear activities have also been suffering from design-related technical problems, increasingly tough international sanctions and deliberate foreign sabotage.
• The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) believes that the Iranian government is deliberately moving slowly in order to avoid alarming the international community even further about its intentions, which could galvanize stronger sanctions or even a military response.
• According to media reports of congressional briefings on the most recent classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the Iranian nuclear program, the U.S. intelligence community believes Iranian leaders are divided over whether to commit to pursuing nuclear weapons. Among other factors leading to that conclusion, the NIE notes that Iran's research on designing a nuclear warhead remains hesitant and piecemeal.
• Unfortunately, while Iran is proceeding more slowly than normal along the nuclear weapons path, the balance of factors driving its program continues to result in forward progress. This is not an inevitable outcome, as illustrated by the numerous countries that have decided in the past to abandon their nuclear weapons aspirations. The key is to find a combination of pressures and incentives that convinces Iran to do the same thing.

The Shark Stops Swimming - Barbara Slavin in Foreign Policy [link]

• Last month, two former senior politicians who ran against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009 disappeared into political detention. On Tuesday, March 8, Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani -- a former president and for three decades one of Iran's most powerful politicians -- lost his post as head of the Assembly of Experts, the body of clerics that theoretically supervises the Supreme Leader of Iran and chooses his successor.
• However, by silencing so many of those who worked within Iran's complicated political system to institute reforms, Khamenei is narrowing his base of support and increasing the likelihood that Iranians will take to the streets or, at a minimum, boycott future elections and deny the regime any semblance of legitimacy.
• Over the past year and a half, Rafsanjani has tried to occupy a middle space between Khamenei and the Green Movement and encourage the supreme leader to find a political accommodation with Iranian reformers. Instead, Khamenei authorized the arrest of Mousavi and another opposition presidential candidate, Mehdi Karroubi.
• The Iranian regime has impressive powers of repression and has shown no hesitation about using them. But its growing intolerance of any semblance of dissent runs against the region's democratic wave and certainly diminishes Iran's theocratic regime as a model for the Middle East's aspiring democrats.
• Inspired by the Arab revolts, protesters returned to the streets of major Iranian cities last month for the first time in more than a year. More protests are planned in the lead-up to the Persian New Year on March 21.

Tokyo Leader Calls For Japanese Nuclear Deterrent - Global Security Newswire [link]

• Japan's No. 2 most powerful elected official called for his nation to develop a nuclear arsenal to respond to the evolving military situations in China, Russia and North Korea, the London Independent reported on Tuesday.
• Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara told the British newspaper that his country had the capacity to build a nuclear weapon in a year or less time.
• "All our enemies: China, North Korea and Russia -- all close neighbors -- have nuclear weapons. Is there another country in the world in a similar situation?" Ishihara asked.
• Tokyo publicly abides by three voluntary non-nuclear principles that bar the country from ever developing or holding nuclear weapons, or allowing their movement across its territory. Japan is the only nation to ever be attacked with nuclear bombs and has been one of the most vocal international voices calling for worldwide nuclear disarmament.