Do Nuclear Weapons Stabilize South Asian Militarized Crises? Evidence from the 1990 Case

Abstract

Scholars have claimed that nuclear weapons help to stabilize South Asia by preventing Indo-Pakistani militarized crises from escalating to the level of all-out conventional war. This article argues that while nuclear weapons have had cautionary effects on Indian and Pakistani decision makers, proliferation also has played a role in fomenting some of the very crises that scholars credit nuclear weapons with defusing. Moreover, nuclear deterrence was not always essential to preventing these crises from escalating to the level of outright war. The article illustrates its argument with evidence from the Indo-Pakistani militarized crisis of 1990.

Leading scholars and analysts have argued that nuclear weapons help to prevent South Asian militarized crises from escalating to the level of all-out conventional war. ¹ 1. See, e.g., Sumit Ganguly, Conflict Unending: India-Pakistan Tensions Since 1947 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 109–110; Devin Hagerty, The Consequences of Nuclear Proliferation: Lessons from South Asia (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998), pp. 133–170; Kenneth N. Waltz, “For Better,” in Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed (New York: Norton, 2003), pp. 109–124; K. Subrahmanyam, “India and the International Nuclear Order,” in D. R. SarDesai and G. C. Raju Thomas, eds., Nuclear India in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2002), pp. 63–84, at pp. 82–83; Raja Menon, A Nuclear Strategy for India (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2000), pp. 197–198. A considerable literature exists regarding nuclear weapons’ general effects on the South Asian security environment. Scholars optimistic that nuclear weapons will help to pacify South Asia include Waltz, “For Better”; Hagerty, The Consequences of Nuclear Proliferation; John J. Mearsheimer, “Here We Go Again,” New York Times, May 17, 1998; Subrahmanyam, “India and the International Nuclear Order”; Bharat Karnad, Nuclear Weapons and Indian Security: The Realist Foundations of Strategy (New Delhi: Macmillan India, 2002). Scholars pessimistic as to nuclear weapons’ likely effects on the regional security environment include Scott D. Sagan, “For the Worse: Till Death Do Us Part,” in Sagan and Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons; P. R. Chari, “Nuclear Restraint, Nuclear Risk Reduction, and the Security–Insecurity Paradox in South Asia,” in Michael Krepon and Chris Gagné, eds., The Stability–Instability Paradox: Nuclear Weapons and Brinksmanship in South Asia (Washington, DC: The Stimson Center, 2001), pp. 15–36; Kanti Bajpai, “The Fallacy of an Indian Deterrent,” in Amitabh Mattoo, ed., India’s Nuclear Deterrent: Pokhran II and Beyond (New Delhi: HarAnand, 1999); Samina Ahmed, “Security Dilemmas of Nuclear-Armed Pakistan,” Third World Quarterly Vol. 21, No. 5 (October 2000), pp. 781–793; S. R. Valluri, “Lest We Forget: The Futility and Irrelevance of Nuclear Weapons for India,” in Raju G.C. Thomas and Amit Gupta, eds., India’s Nuclear Security (United States: Lynne Rienner, 2000), pp. 263–273. This claim has important implications for the regional security environment and beyond. Given the volatile nature of Indo-Pakistani relations, reducing the likelihood of crisis escalation would make the subcontinent significantly safer. The claim also suggests that nuclear weapons could lower the probability of war in crisis-prone conflict dyads elsewhere in the world.

This article takes a less sanguine view of nuclear weapons’ impact on South Asian militarized crises. It argues that while nuclear weapons have at times had important cautionary effects on Indian and Pakistani decision makers, proliferation has played a role in fomenting a number of the very crises that scholars credit nuclear weapons with defusing. Moreover, it is not clear that nuclear deterrence was essential to preventing some of these crises from escalating to the level of outright war. I illustrate my argument with evidence from the period when India and Pakistan were acquiring nascent nuclear weapons capabilities. I show that during the late 1980s, Pakistan’s emerging nuclear capacity emboldened Pakistani decision makers to provide extensive support to the emerging insurgency against Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir. In early 1990, India responded with large-scale force deployments along the Line of Control and International Border, in an attempt to stem militant infiltration into Indian territory, and potentially to intimidate Pakistan into abandoning its Kashmir policy. Pakistan countered with large deployments of its own, and the result was a major Indo-Pakistani militarized standoff. Although scholars have credited Pakistani nuclear weapons with deterring India from attacking Pakistan during this crisis, the preponderance of available evidence suggests that Indian leaders never seriously considered striking Pakistan, and therefore were not in fact deterred from launching a war in 1990. Thus nuclear weapons played an important role in fomenting a major Indo-Pakistani crisis during this period, but probably were not instrumental in preventing the crisis from escalating to the level of outright war.

Below, I briefly describe the emergence of the Kashmir insurgency. I then explain how Pakistan’s nuclear capacity encouraged it to support the uprising. Next, I show how conflict between Pakistan-supported guerillas and Indian security forces in Kashmir drove a spiral of tension between the two countries, which led to a stand-off between Indian and Pakistani armed forces in early 1990. Finally, I discuss the end of the 1990 crisis, and address the role that nuclear weapons played in its peaceful deescalation.     

Review: India's political economy

Abstract

Though this is an extremely important study from one of the most perceptive of U.S. scholars of India, it is not, despite its title, a study of India's “political economy.” That would require a much fuller analysis of Indian relations of production and their contradictions-including those of class, caste, gender, and nationality—within the framework of the world capitalist system. Instead, it is basically a detailed analysis of Indian government economic policy since independence, with a discussion of economic dilemmas and rural class-caste contradictions as a backdrop.     

Agrarian transition in the southern Philippines: more than poverty,dispossession, and violence

ABSTRACT

On the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, scholars have documented a precarious land tenure, livelihood, and security situation for many smallholders. Agrarian political economy studies provide insightful analyses of the underlying causes of much poverty and violence on the island. Less attention has been given to cases of smallholder success. This article proposes that conditions for smallholder farming, even among ethnic minority groups, are more varied across the island than the literature suggests. In upland villages of north-central Mindanao, agrarian transition is a multi-directional process that produces different outcomes among households, kin groups, and villages. The main case study is a thriving mixed swidden and fixed field Maranao-Muslim farming village. Almost all the households in the village have successfully claimed land as their own and diversified and improved their livelihoods in recent times. To explain these positive outcomes, the article uses a relational approach and draws on anthropological literature on kinship, land tenure, and place to assess the bargaining power of smallholders in land deals. A stronger cross-fertilization of key insights in agrarian political economy and anthropological literature on kinship enriches the debate on agrarian transition in the southern Philippines.     

Thaksin's Achilles' Heel: The failure of Hawkish approaches in the Thai South

Abstract

Many scholars voice approval for the political strategies and approaches that businessman-turned-politician Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has borrowed from the business world. His CEO management style is regarded as a key political asset. Moreover, his populist policies such as the “one village–one tambon” village fund and the “bank for the poor” show him to be full of concern for grass-roots Thais. In this article I argue that Thaksin's handling of the South reveals another side of his character, his preference for the use of violence to tackle problems and his disdain for “softer” methods such as discussion and negotiations. Thaksin pays very little attention to peaceful solutions offered by academics, the National Human Right Commission, and even the government-appointed National Reconciliation Commission. Unfortunately, this hawkish approach has widened distrust and discrimination among Thais and non-Thais. Thaksin's draconian methods have had serious consequences both on himself and the country. The volatile conflict in Thailand's far South is Thaksin's Achilles' heel.     

China's industrial revolution: Politics,planning and management, 1949 to the present,by Stephen Andors

Abstract

The study of Chinese industrial development has come a long way since the 1969 publication of Barry Richman's Industrial Society in Communist China (New York: Random House, 1969). Richman recognized that China had begun to “organize conscientiously and vigorously for industrial progress since the beginning of the 1950's.” Unlike some of his predecessors, he did not explain China's industrial growth in terms of mass coercion or swarms of “blue ants” instead, he warned the reader that “in order to understand more fully how Chinese management and Chinese organization function, it is essential to have an understanding of Chinese ideology.” His examples of the use of ideology-e.g., the study of Mao's On Contradiction to help resolve a problem of cost vs. quality in bicycle production-were refreshingly concrete and useful.     

The Initiation of the Sino-Indian rivalry

ABSTRACT

Sino-Indian interactions after the mid-19th century had a causal influence on Chinese and Indian elite perceptions. Modern China encountered modern India as an agent of British imperialism. China perceived India as an “imperial” power in the late 1940s by resorting to the availability heuristic while doubting India’s intentions in Tibet/Southeast Asia. By contrast, India viewed China as a fellow victim of colonialism that had sought India’s help during World War II. Consequently, India perceived China as a “partner” in postwar/postcolonial Asia. This interpretation was based on confirmation bias after 1947, despite contradictory Chinese signals. India’s image of China changed only after the 1950–51 invasion/annexation of Tibet. India then ascribed the image of an “expansionist/hegemonic” power to China based on historical analogy. Nevertheless, they carefully calibrated their strategies towards each other in consonance with these images until the 1959 Lhasa Uprising, thereby preventing their relationship from descending into militarized hostilities.     

Representing Women in Chinese Village Self-Government: A New Perspective on Gender,Representation, and Democracy

ABSTRACT

Recent feminist debate about how to achieve the substantive representation of women in government has been conducted largely in relation to national parliaments in democratic states. This article brings a new perspective by examining grassroots rural government in contemporary China – an authoritarian state, which, however, began implementing village “self-government,” including elections, in 1987. The article draws on qualitative fieldwork in the Chinese provinces of Zhejiang and Yunnan. The authors went into this fieldwork with an understanding that women's substantive representation, democracy, and gender equality are mutually constituted and with an expectation that village self-government might make a much-needed contribution to the achievement of all three. However, we ran into trouble with this analytical framework. First, there were marked variations in villagers’ practices and understandings of “representation.” Second, we found that democracy was not a prerequisite for substantive representation. Third, most villagers we talked with claimed that “men and women are equal” and there was little conception of villagers’ interests diverging by gender. This article explores our analytical “trouble,” with a view to advancing scholarship on constraints to democracy in authoritarian states and suggesting fruitful directions for feminist theorists interested in the relationship between gender, representation and democracy.     

“Bribery with Chinese characteristics” and the use of guanxi to obtain admission to prestigious secondary schools in urban China

Some scholars have attempted to find ways to distinguish guanxi from bribery, which can be difficult due to the role played by four traditional Chinese concepts and practices. First, people value the renqing ethic more than law, making it hard to judge whether a relation has “improper inducements.” Second, some interaction rituals used in bribery guanxi are a type of moral performance, undertaken to justify immoral practice – this mixes together guanxi practice with bribery. Third, some of the “ganqing” (affection) and esteem expressed in bribery guanxi results from this moral performance, rather than from genuine affection and esteem. Fourth, some people try to embody their relationship as an enduring guanxi, rather than one-off bribery, which exacerbates the difficulty in distinguishing guanxi from bribery. Because of the moralizing culture and the custom of mixing together renqinq and bribery, it can be difficult to distinguish bribery from guanxi by attempting to judge whether an action is purely based on esteem or coercion, on an enduring relationship or a one-off exchange, on improper inducement or proper conduct, or other such formal distinctions.     

The Kerala model of development A debate (Part 1)

Abstract

BCAS has invited noted Kerala scholars to comment on the critical position regarding the “Kerala model of development” that Joseph Tharamangalam articulated in his article in the January-March 1998 issue of the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars (Vol. 30, No. 1), “The Perils of Social Development without Economic Growth: The Development Debacle of Kerala, India,” The responses will be published in two installments. Part 1 appears below; part 2 will appear in the October-December 1998 issue of the Bulletin.     

Ambush at Kamikaze Pass

Abstract

“I was visiting an Indian school and a movie was being shown in the auditorium about the cavalry and the Indians. The cavalry was, of course, outnumbered and holding an impossible position where the Indians had chased them into the rocks. The Indians, attempting to sneak up on the cavalry, were being killed, one every shot. When it finally appeared that the Indians were going to overrun the army position the ubiquitous cavalry appeared on the far horizon with their bugle blowing, and charged to save the beleaguered few. The whole auditorium full of Indian students cheered.” Our Brother's Keeper: The Indian in White America.     

Jhagrapur: Poor peasants and women in a Bangladesh Village

Abstract

In the opening pages of Jhagrapur: Poor Peasants and Women in a Bangladesh Village, Dutch authors Jenneke Arens and Jos van Beurden comment that it would take “academic acrobats” to understand Bangladesh village life from a distance. The same holds true for the international experts and government bureaucrats who design development strategies for the country. Too often their ideas, incubated far from the villages, gloss over such basic dynamics of village life as conflicts between classes, the struggle over land and the subjugation of women. But ignorance is bliss for those who seek technical solutions to social problems, so it was not surprising that the Catholic volunteer aid agency (Christian Organization for Relief and Rehabilitation) which commissioned Jhagrapur refused to publish it when they read the results. It was simply too controversial.     

Dalits and Dispossession: A Comparison

ABSTRACT

Widespread “land wars” in contemporary India have rekindled older debates over the implications of capitalism for caste, with some arguing that land dispossession for new economy projects may be liberating for Dalits. We assess this argument through comparative ethnographic and survey research into the consequences of dispossession for Dalits in the cases of two Special Economic Zones built during the 2000s. We advance three arguments. The first, methodological, is that approaching this question requires systematically comparing the outcomes of dispossession for Dalits relative to upper castes. The second, based on such an assessment, is that the interaction between exclusionary growth and caste-based agrarian inequalities has in both cases expanded socio-economic inequalities between upper and lower castes and left most dispossessed Dalits worse off in absolute terms. Third, the cases demonstrate important qualitative differences across generally bad outcomes for Dalits, which derive from the combination of project characteristics and pre-existing agrarian inequalities. While demonstrating how the exclusionary growth driving dispossession in contemporary India is generally unpromising for Dalits, we underscore the importance of comparative ethnographic research into the interaction between different forms of dispossession and specific agrarian social structures.     

Circles of esteem,standard works,and Euphoric couplets

Abstract

Indonesian Studies as a field is strongly influenced by its own social character as a community of competing and cooperating scholars. Outside individual universities, the dominant social form is not the powerful professor, but rather the “circle of esteem,” a cluster of scholars who respect each other, cite each other's work, push each other's ideas into the academic marketplace, and, occasionally, rise to each other's defense. Circles of esteem arise because academic work has less to do with the industrial production of knowledge than with a constant search for novelty, which may arise from new sources or new uses of sources. Although novelty is prized, the value of new work is hard to judge, and it will be more easily accepted when backed by a circle of esteem. There are two effective ways to gain academic prestige outside a circle of esteem. The first is to write a standard work, a conservative strategy to create a work that will become citation fodder for others. The second way is to coin a “euphoric couplet,” which is an unexpected adjective-noun combination encapsulating a previously elusive analytical truth. Euphoric couplets are easy to remember, dissociated from theory, and intriguingly ambiguous.     

Discourses of the Vanishing: Modernity,Phantasm, Japan by Marilyn Ivy

Abstract

Discourses of the Vanishing has been anticipated for several years now; it won't disappoint. Despite the rising number of authors who seek to “explain” Japan or attack its essentialism, Ivy is one of the few who have the understanding of modernity and the methodological tools to excavate the celebration (Japanese and American) of Japan's “uniqueness.” Discourses is by far one of the most sophisticated inquiries into what Ivy calls—properly I believe—the “Japanese thing.” The juxtaposition between the singular, thing, and plural, discourses, suggests her overall theme: to discuss the always incomplete reconfigurations of the many pasts that have existed within the archipelago into a singular ideology of Japan.     

Producing and Reproducing the 1992 Consensus: The Sociolinguistic Construction of the Political Economy of China-Taiwan Relations

Abstract

In the study of China-Taiwan relations, scholars view the so-called “1992 consensus” as essential to economic ties across the Taiwan Strait. However, such an argument overlooks the fact that the 1992 consensus was initially coined as a political formula concerning what “one China” meant. It was not until after 2008 that an economic logic was attached in a sociolinguistic way to the 1992 consensus by proponents of the 1992 consensus. Specifically, “1992ers” argued that China might sever cross-Strait economic ties should Taiwan reject the 1992 consensus. I thus argue that scholarly understandings about cross-Strait politics and/or economics are not unaffected by 1992ers’ interpretations. When 1992ers (re)interpret the 1992 consensus in economic terms, their discursive practices may change the intersubjective understandings about the cross-Strait political economy.     

Class conflict in Chinese socialism,by Richard Curt Kraus. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981, $22.50

Abstract

One notion of a bureaucratic class in a socialist society has been put forward by Milovan Djilas. According to Djilas, although under socialism there is no longer private ownership of the means of production, a small group of people in the government bureaucracy exercise effective economic control and can use this control to extract a surplus. The bureaucracy which gains control of society's economic surplus maintains the alienated condition of the working class and becomes a ruling class in Marxian terms. In Class Conflict in Chinese Socialism, Richard Kraus’ thesis is that Mao Zedong was aware of, and actively opposed, the beginnings of such a class in modem China. Kraus traces the evolution of Mao's theory of class to show the richness of Mao's theory and to document the influence which that theory had on post-1949 China. Kraus does not adhere strictly to Djilas’ definition of a bureaucratic class, however, nor does he explicitly develop one of his own. Rather, he lacks rigor in his use of such terms as “class” and “class struggle,” making his analysis unclear and the evidence for his thesis weak.     

The historian's quest: Joseph R. Levenson

Abstract

Ever since Confucius remarked that he would not discuss the strange and supernatural, Chinese scholars have delighted in jotting down sensational and unusual events. This is such a favorite pastime that at least two books with the title Zibuyu (What the master refused to say) appeared in imperial times. The one by Yuan Mei (1916–97) has become a biji (jottings) classic. There are several editions published in recent years both in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China. This collection is full of ghost stories and strange tales, including records of “shrimp man,” “ape man,” and so on. Yuan Mei, while not particularly known for his moral rectitude, was nevertheless firmly rooted in the Confucian tradition.     

Landlords,sharecroppers and agricultural labourers: Changing labour relations in Rural Java

It has mainlv been the large landowners in Gondosari who have been in a position to take advantage of the modernisasi of agricultural production. Long before the seventies they enjoyed a dominant economic, social and political position in the village. Closely linked by family ties,⁷ they have occupied all the important positions (such as village head and members of the village administration) since the end of the last century. In this way they have been able to maintain and enlarge their economic power. Although several of them attempted to engage in commercial farming in the past, particularly in the twenties, until recently such efforts did not always meet with success. The cultivation of cash crops such as peanuts and kapok was practically under their complete control, but because profit margins were narrow, this did not lead to accumulation on a large scale. In the period 1930 to 1950, when monetized trade practically disappeared as a consequence of economic depression, war and revolution, commercial production was rather unattractive. Although the Indonesian government tried to create an “agricultural middle class” in the first years of independence, the efforts soon failed in Gondosari because of monetary inflation and the lack of an adequate economic infrastructure (roads, marketing) on the one hand and the political mobilization of small peasants and landless on the other. It was not until after a second major effort was made to increase commercial rice production through the Bimas programme in the wake of the 1965 military coup that the large owners in Gondosari could make the transition to “rural capitalism”. Capital investments were shown to bear fruit provided that production costs could be reduced by limiting the number of labourers and by cutting down wage in cash or in kind. Given its virtual monopoly of land ownership, the government support it has received, the growing number of landless households and the destruction of the peasants' unions, the village élite was able to carry its strategy into effect without too much opposition. The landlords are becoming “entrepreneurs” not only in agriculture, but also outside it. In Gondosari and some other villages they have introduced new rice hullers; purchased ‘Colts’ (pick-ups adapted for public transport) that visit all the main villages in the district; acquired diesel-powered generators, the electricity from which they sell to other villagers; and engaged in trade in agricultural produce (peanuts, chillies, cloves and citrus fruits). On the other hand, it is also they who purchase the imported luxury goods such as televisions, radios, motorbikes, cassette-recorders and amplifiers. In the houses of the village élite these have become common status symbols in recent years.

The agricultural labourers have seen only the negative effects of this transition to rural capitalism, namely a drastic decrease in employment as the rationalization of rice and peanut production on the lands of the large landowners where they used to work has gradually resulted in the expulsion of their “superfluous labour”. In the absence of any other employment prospects they are increasingly driven into the marginal sectors of the village economy such as petty trade, various forms of handicrafts and cottage-industry and the illegal felling and selling of teak wood from the government forest. Such forms of activity generally provide much lower returns on labour.

For the sharecroppers, commercialization of agriculture has led not to a decrease in employment, but ironically to its very opposite. Sharecroppers are now expected to make a greater financial and physical contribution to production for a proportionately smaller share in the harvest. The mode of production debate in India has shown that a developing rural capitalism does not necessarily put an end to precapitalist relations of production, but sometimes reinforces them (McEachern, 1976: 453). The case of Gondosari also shows that sharecropping for the large landowners is the most profitable relationship and is therefore also maintained in a commercial context.     

DIALOGUE WITH THE WEST

Abstract

This portrayal of China by one of the most respected intellectuals ever to emerge from the shadowy labyrinth of the American diplomatic establishment mirrors twenty years of concentrated work by American China scholars. Not every China expert would accept all of Kennan's assumptions or express them in such strident form. Yet over the last two decades the China profession has evolved a style of thought, a mode of asking questions, which has largely substantiated such views in both the public and scholarly worlds. The majority of China watchers have pleaded for “tolerance” and “patience” towards the People's Republic as she gradually learns, aided by a flexible American containment policy, to “adjust” to the “international community of nations” and the “rationalizing” qualities implicit in the “modernization” process. While protesting against certain aspects of America's foreign policy toward China, however, their thought and work has reinforced, at times deepened, the ideological justifications that support America's role in Asia and her attitudes towards China.     

Reflections on the implications of the Vietnam Caucus

Abstract

It is revealing that a Vietnam Caucus held in March 1968 should end its meeting by beginning an evaluation of the professional “conscience” of Asian scholars. That it took this war to raise the latent problems in the profession is itself a depressing commentary on the state of the field. But the desire on the part of some individuals to create a nationwide inter-university student-faculty Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars to pose and then seek to resolve these problems fulfills one of the organizers' hopes.