1 00:00:00,070 --> 00:00:02,500 The following content is provided under a Creative 2 00:00:02,500 --> 00:00:04,019 Commons license. 3 00:00:04,019 --> 00:00:06,360 Your support will help MIT OpenCourseWare 4 00:00:06,360 --> 00:00:10,730 continue to offer high quality educational resources for free. 5 00:00:10,730 --> 00:00:13,340 To make a donation or view additional materials 6 00:00:13,340 --> 00:00:17,236 from hundreds of MIT courses, visit MIT OpenCourseWare 7 00:00:17,236 --> 00:00:17,861 at ocw.mit.edu. 8 00:00:21,610 --> 00:00:25,560 PROFESSOR: So we have organized three lectures. 9 00:00:25,560 --> 00:00:29,520 And the basic idea of the lectures 10 00:00:29,520 --> 00:00:35,120 are to cover some of the major current issues 11 00:00:35,120 --> 00:00:39,940 in nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. 12 00:00:39,940 --> 00:00:47,020 So we have the first lecture today on India and Pakistan, 13 00:00:47,020 --> 00:00:53,170 which is one of the world's possible flash points, 14 00:00:53,170 --> 00:01:00,380 meaning that there's a path to a possible nuclear war, which 15 00:01:00,380 --> 00:01:05,190 I won't go into Vipin Narang will certainly spell out 16 00:01:05,190 --> 00:01:06,440 the case. 17 00:01:06,440 --> 00:01:12,170 But in my view in trying to decide what to talk about, 18 00:01:12,170 --> 00:01:15,630 this was a golden opportunity because Vipin is here, 19 00:01:15,630 --> 00:01:19,700 and he's an expert on these issues. 20 00:01:19,700 --> 00:01:24,440 And I consider this, as I say, one of the possible flash 21 00:01:24,440 --> 00:01:29,860 points in the world, one of the possible conceivable paths. 22 00:01:29,860 --> 00:01:34,610 No path is super likely, if you want to put it that way. 23 00:01:34,610 --> 00:01:37,740 But the effects of a nuclear exchange 24 00:01:37,740 --> 00:01:43,080 are catastrophic both for the people who get hit, obviously, 25 00:01:43,080 --> 00:01:46,350 because a nuclear weapon-- I don't have to tell you-- 26 00:01:46,350 --> 00:01:48,690 is incredibly destructive. 27 00:01:48,690 --> 00:01:53,260 In Hiroshima, something like 40% of the population 28 00:01:53,260 --> 00:01:57,480 was killed, more or less instantly, burns or blasts. 29 00:01:57,480 --> 00:02:00,890 And probably another 20%, 30% died 30 00:02:00,890 --> 00:02:03,480 within a year of radiation. 31 00:02:03,480 --> 00:02:07,250 So in addition, people have realized 32 00:02:07,250 --> 00:02:13,260 that there are severe climate effects of a nuclear exchange. 33 00:02:13,260 --> 00:02:16,330 One of the things that happens with all the burning that 34 00:02:16,330 --> 00:02:22,800 goes on is that soot is emitted into the atmosphere. 35 00:02:22,800 --> 00:02:25,950 This is the opposite of global warming. 36 00:02:25,950 --> 00:02:28,290 This is global cooling. 37 00:02:28,290 --> 00:02:31,410 This is like a volcanic explosion. 38 00:02:31,410 --> 00:02:38,030 And in about 1815, 1816, there was a volcanic explosion 39 00:02:38,030 --> 00:02:39,460 in Asia. 40 00:02:39,460 --> 00:02:43,380 And there was a winter without-- there 41 00:02:43,380 --> 00:02:47,320 was a summer-- excuse me-- there was a summer without crops 42 00:02:47,320 --> 00:02:49,560 in Europe. 43 00:02:49,560 --> 00:02:52,380 And there was actually starvation in Europe 44 00:02:52,380 --> 00:02:54,155 due to this explosion. 45 00:02:54,155 --> 00:02:57,170 It was a one time thing. 46 00:02:57,170 --> 00:03:03,060 The climate models, for even a limited nuclear war 47 00:03:03,060 --> 00:03:07,370 in Southeast Asia, show that this effect would probably 48 00:03:07,370 --> 00:03:12,870 last 5 to 10 years and be global, 49 00:03:12,870 --> 00:03:15,810 from roughly 100 nuclear weapons. 50 00:03:15,810 --> 00:03:16,760 So there are papers. 51 00:03:16,760 --> 00:03:20,260 I can give people references if they want. 52 00:03:20,260 --> 00:03:21,970 There is a paper in Physics Today 53 00:03:21,970 --> 00:03:24,470 a few years ago about this. 54 00:03:24,470 --> 00:03:28,370 But there are many papers on the subject. 55 00:03:28,370 --> 00:03:33,400 So one of the things I want to say-- so the second lecture 56 00:03:33,400 --> 00:03:39,850 will be on proliferation and uranium enrichment 57 00:03:39,850 --> 00:03:41,140 and the implications. 58 00:03:41,140 --> 00:03:46,310 So these lectures will combine both technology and policy. 59 00:03:46,310 --> 00:03:49,420 And finally, the last lecture I will give-- 60 00:03:49,420 --> 00:03:53,320 and it's kind of an overview of where we stand on nuclear arms 61 00:03:53,320 --> 00:03:55,120 control and proliferation-- I'll try 62 00:03:55,120 --> 00:03:57,230 to fill in some of the gaps. 63 00:03:57,230 --> 00:04:00,440 I'll talk about the nonproliferation review that's 64 00:04:00,440 --> 00:04:03,260 coming up at the UN next spring. 65 00:04:03,260 --> 00:04:08,033 I'll talk about the outlook for arms control as I see it. 66 00:04:10,650 --> 00:04:14,990 I want to talk a few minutes to the students 67 00:04:14,990 --> 00:04:18,769 because one of the things that's happened over 68 00:04:18,769 --> 00:04:22,660 the last few decades, since the collapse of the Soviet 69 00:04:22,660 --> 00:04:28,560 Union in about 1990, people stopped worrying 70 00:04:28,560 --> 00:04:31,090 about the bomb, so to speak. 71 00:04:31,090 --> 00:04:35,810 Before that, there was a lot of concern. 72 00:04:35,810 --> 00:04:39,080 Students were asked to duck under their desks and things 73 00:04:39,080 --> 00:04:42,780 like that to protect themselves, which, of course, was totally 74 00:04:42,780 --> 00:04:44,666 ridiculous. 75 00:04:44,666 --> 00:04:50,700 A wooden desk wouldn't do you much good in a nuclear war 76 00:04:50,700 --> 00:04:51,700 as you can well imagine. 77 00:04:54,370 --> 00:04:58,880 It'll just probably knock you on the head with something. 78 00:04:58,880 --> 00:05:00,504 God knows what it would do. 79 00:05:03,990 --> 00:05:07,510 But the issue has fallen off the table. 80 00:05:07,510 --> 00:05:09,840 And the thing that concerns people 81 00:05:09,840 --> 00:05:13,450 more on campus when-- if they think about global issues, 82 00:05:13,450 --> 00:05:17,740 is climate change and global warming. 83 00:05:17,740 --> 00:05:21,750 But this is an issue which has not gone away. 84 00:05:21,750 --> 00:05:25,950 If anything, the probability of a nuclear exchange 85 00:05:25,950 --> 00:05:31,420 is higher now than a decade ago unfortunately. 86 00:05:31,420 --> 00:05:34,300 And we have not solved these problems. 87 00:05:34,300 --> 00:05:39,170 And there are political and economic problems. 88 00:05:39,170 --> 00:05:41,130 And I just want to say a few words 89 00:05:41,130 --> 00:05:45,950 about some of the intellectual problems that 90 00:05:45,950 --> 00:05:47,910 need to be solved. 91 00:05:47,910 --> 00:05:50,550 For example, on a technical basis, 92 00:05:50,550 --> 00:05:54,220 there are inspection issues. 93 00:05:54,220 --> 00:05:59,850 For example, how do you inspect whether or not 94 00:05:59,850 --> 00:06:05,080 a country is cheating on its nonproliferation obligations? 95 00:06:05,080 --> 00:06:08,080 How do you look for weapons production 96 00:06:08,080 --> 00:06:10,680 or enrichment production? 97 00:06:10,680 --> 00:06:14,940 These are very difficult issue, and they're very difficult 98 00:06:14,940 --> 00:06:17,380 technical issues. 99 00:06:17,380 --> 00:06:20,350 And then there are issues in which 100 00:06:20,350 --> 00:06:23,460 you have to combine technical issues with policy. 101 00:06:23,460 --> 00:06:25,850 For example, if we're going to go down 102 00:06:25,850 --> 00:06:28,720 to a very small number of weapons-- 103 00:06:28,720 --> 00:06:31,110 as you want to do for nuclear arms 104 00:06:31,110 --> 00:06:35,934 control-- then cheating with a small number-- 105 00:06:35,934 --> 00:06:37,350 particularly if you're going to go 106 00:06:37,350 --> 00:06:43,310 to 0-- cheating with a small number becomes a bigger issue. 107 00:06:43,310 --> 00:06:47,620 So verification issues are very important, reinventing 108 00:06:47,620 --> 00:06:50,730 the bomb, if you really want to zero. 109 00:06:50,730 --> 00:06:55,020 So there are all kinds of intellectual issues 110 00:06:55,020 --> 00:07:00,410 that need to be worked out, both historical, technical, 111 00:07:00,410 --> 00:07:01,950 and political. 112 00:07:01,950 --> 00:07:07,370 And there are many opportunities for research in these areas, 113 00:07:07,370 --> 00:07:09,190 UROP, some theses. 114 00:07:09,190 --> 00:07:11,060 So I just want to point that out. 115 00:07:11,060 --> 00:07:15,470 And there are also positions in government and NGOs. 116 00:07:15,470 --> 00:07:19,860 In the last semester, we had several major arms 117 00:07:19,860 --> 00:07:23,870 control negotiators in the US government, 118 00:07:23,870 --> 00:07:26,300 including Rose Gottemoeller who was 119 00:07:26,300 --> 00:07:32,880 the chief negotiator on the US side for the New START Treaty, 120 00:07:32,880 --> 00:07:37,110 said she was particularly excited to give a talk at MIT 121 00:07:37,110 --> 00:07:41,810 because we really needed a generation of technically 122 00:07:41,810 --> 00:07:45,410 trained people to go into nuclear arms control. 123 00:07:45,410 --> 00:07:50,960 And she made a special plea, so I want to pass that along. 124 00:07:50,960 --> 00:07:58,110 So I'm going to get to today's lecture. 125 00:07:58,110 --> 00:08:04,110 Vipin Narang, he's a professor at the MIT political science 126 00:08:04,110 --> 00:08:07,960 department and the Security Studies program. 127 00:08:07,960 --> 00:08:12,760 He's got a BS and MS in chemical engineering. 128 00:08:12,760 --> 00:08:15,120 He's got a degree from Balliol College, 129 00:08:15,120 --> 00:08:21,250 where I spent a very happy semester at Oxford. 130 00:08:21,250 --> 00:08:29,517 And he's written extensively on nonproliferation and issues 131 00:08:29,517 --> 00:08:35,740 of arms control, deterrence, particularly with respect 132 00:08:35,740 --> 00:08:37,179 to Southeast Asia. 133 00:08:37,179 --> 00:08:40,049 And he's got a book recently published 134 00:08:40,049 --> 00:08:43,720 on regional powers and international conflict. 135 00:08:43,720 --> 00:08:45,677 So Vipin? 136 00:08:45,677 --> 00:08:46,510 VIPIN NARANG: Great. 137 00:08:46,510 --> 00:08:47,051 Thanks Aaron. 138 00:08:47,051 --> 00:08:51,400 Thanks for the kind introduction and for organizing this. 139 00:08:51,400 --> 00:08:52,880 So as Aaron said, I'm a professor 140 00:08:52,880 --> 00:08:54,830 at the political science department, 141 00:08:54,830 --> 00:08:58,270 and I work primarily on nuclear strategy and proliferation. 142 00:08:58,270 --> 00:09:02,310 And so what I thought I'd do today 143 00:09:02,310 --> 00:09:04,480 was talk about-- give an overview 144 00:09:04,480 --> 00:09:09,810 of nuclear proliferation and the consequences of proliferation 145 00:09:09,810 --> 00:09:12,030 in South Asia, between India and Pakistan, which 146 00:09:12,030 --> 00:09:16,030 is-- as Aaron mentioned-- an active and ongoing conflict 147 00:09:16,030 --> 00:09:19,560 where the threat of conventional war is persistent. 148 00:09:19,560 --> 00:09:22,920 And there are periodic militarized crises 149 00:09:22,920 --> 00:09:28,260 between India and Pakistan that put both countries 150 00:09:28,260 --> 00:09:31,290 at a risk of conventional conflict every now and then. 151 00:09:31,290 --> 00:09:35,160 And now that both sides, both states, have nuclear weapons, 152 00:09:35,160 --> 00:09:38,680 the question is what the likelihood of escalation 153 00:09:38,680 --> 00:09:41,740 to nuclear level is. 154 00:09:41,740 --> 00:09:44,810 Just as a preview of my own thinking and writing 155 00:09:44,810 --> 00:09:48,010 on the subject, I think India and Pakistan have so far 156 00:09:48,010 --> 00:09:51,470 been lucky in that the conventional conflict is not 157 00:09:51,470 --> 00:09:53,020 yet escalated to the nuclear level. 158 00:09:53,020 --> 00:09:55,160 But that's not a foregone conclusion going forward. 159 00:09:55,160 --> 00:09:57,440 I'll talk a little bit about that. 160 00:09:57,440 --> 00:09:59,100 And it's one of the regions where 161 00:09:59,100 --> 00:10:01,130 there is still active arms racing 162 00:10:01,130 --> 00:10:03,194 between India and Pakistan. 163 00:10:03,194 --> 00:10:04,860 And so I'll talk a little bit about that 164 00:10:04,860 --> 00:10:07,550 and what the dynamics have been with the nuclear strategies 165 00:10:07,550 --> 00:10:10,640 and what the effects on the relationship between India 166 00:10:10,640 --> 00:10:11,400 and Pakistan are. 167 00:10:11,400 --> 00:10:14,010 If you have any questions at all during lecture, 168 00:10:14,010 --> 00:10:15,461 don't hesitate to stop me. 169 00:10:15,461 --> 00:10:17,210 I know there are diverse backgrounds here, 170 00:10:17,210 --> 00:10:19,410 people from different departments, undergraduates, 171 00:10:19,410 --> 00:10:21,250 graduate students. 172 00:10:21,250 --> 00:10:26,420 I'll go through some basic theoretical material first. 173 00:10:26,420 --> 00:10:30,072 If everybody's OK with that, we can 174 00:10:30,072 --> 00:10:31,780 move through that pretty quickly and talk 175 00:10:31,780 --> 00:10:33,417 about India and Pakistan. 176 00:10:33,417 --> 00:10:35,750 So as I said, India and Pakistan are both in the process 177 00:10:35,750 --> 00:10:39,560 of building up their nuclear delivery systems 178 00:10:39,560 --> 00:10:41,190 and their nuclear arsenals. 179 00:10:41,190 --> 00:10:43,670 This is a picture of a Shaheen missile, which 180 00:10:43,670 --> 00:10:46,860 is a Pakistani long-- it's a medium range ballistic missile 181 00:10:46,860 --> 00:10:48,740 in the Pakistani inventory. 182 00:10:48,740 --> 00:10:51,910 And it's based off of a Chinese export missile, the M-class 183 00:10:51,910 --> 00:10:54,320 exports. 184 00:10:54,320 --> 00:10:59,490 And both are actively testing short and long range cruise 185 00:10:59,490 --> 00:11:03,420 and ballistic missiles as their inventories are growing. 186 00:11:03,420 --> 00:11:05,750 And that is one of the concerns, I think, 187 00:11:05,750 --> 00:11:07,790 as we talk about South Asia. 188 00:11:07,790 --> 00:11:10,720 The basic puzzle though is-- does anyone 189 00:11:10,720 --> 00:11:12,900 know what these pictures are from. 190 00:11:12,900 --> 00:11:17,672 So in November, November 26, 2008-- two weeks 191 00:11:17,672 --> 00:11:19,380 before my wife and I got married in Delhi 192 00:11:19,380 --> 00:11:24,615 actually-- a group nominally a sponsored and based 193 00:11:24,615 --> 00:11:27,250 in Pakistan, the Lashkar-e-Taiba, 194 00:11:27,250 --> 00:11:31,890 orchestrated a pretty daring sea-launch attack 195 00:11:31,890 --> 00:11:37,760 against Bombay where about a dozen militants, led by the one 196 00:11:37,760 --> 00:11:44,790 survivor from the militant group Ajmal Kasab pictured here, 197 00:11:44,790 --> 00:11:50,410 sieged the Taj Hotel, the Oberoi Hotel, the Chabad 198 00:11:50,410 --> 00:11:57,000 House in Bombay and killed over 170 Indians and Westerners. 199 00:11:57,000 --> 00:12:00,012 And the Indian government was faced with the decision 200 00:12:00,012 --> 00:12:01,220 about how to respond to this. 201 00:12:01,220 --> 00:12:04,200 This was the third provocation that the Indian government 202 00:12:04,200 --> 00:12:07,400 believe was sponsored by Pakistan since 1998, 203 00:12:07,400 --> 00:12:10,080 the year in which they tested nuclear weapons. 204 00:12:10,080 --> 00:12:13,390 And the question facing Indian leaders, 205 00:12:13,390 --> 00:12:15,200 how do we respond to a state that 206 00:12:15,200 --> 00:12:19,130 sponsors militant attacks against our metropolitan-- 207 00:12:19,130 --> 00:12:22,450 or metropoles, targets our hotels 208 00:12:22,450 --> 00:12:26,497 and our financial center, when they have nuclear weapons? 209 00:12:26,497 --> 00:12:28,080 And the worry in the Indian government 210 00:12:28,080 --> 00:12:30,790 was that nuclear weapons had emboldened Pakistan to sponsor 211 00:12:30,790 --> 00:12:33,320 these groups who were perpetrating more daring 212 00:12:33,320 --> 00:12:35,840 and audacious attacks against India. 213 00:12:35,840 --> 00:12:37,650 And because Pakistan had nuclear weapons, 214 00:12:37,650 --> 00:12:41,649 India didn't have a conventional retaliatory option 215 00:12:41,649 --> 00:12:43,190 to punish Pakistan for these attacks. 216 00:12:43,190 --> 00:12:45,024 And so the Indian government, for a decade, 217 00:12:45,024 --> 00:12:46,940 has been trying to deal with what they believe 218 00:12:46,940 --> 00:12:52,580 is a policy paralysis about dealing with a Pakistan that 219 00:12:52,580 --> 00:12:56,390 is more willing to support militant organizations 220 00:12:56,390 --> 00:12:59,752 to attack India now that it has nuclear weapons. 221 00:12:59,752 --> 00:13:00,960 So brief outline of the talk. 222 00:13:00,960 --> 00:13:03,290 I'll talk a little bit about basic deterrence theory. 223 00:13:03,290 --> 00:13:06,530 In political science and in economics, 224 00:13:06,530 --> 00:13:10,385 the core of nuclear strategy, both in the Cold War and now, 225 00:13:10,385 --> 00:13:11,260 is deterrence theory. 226 00:13:11,260 --> 00:13:12,843 So we'll talk a little bit about that. 227 00:13:12,843 --> 00:13:14,450 Hopefully, it's not too basic. 228 00:13:14,450 --> 00:13:16,280 I don't need to talk about the basics of nuclear weapons 229 00:13:16,280 --> 00:13:17,010 to a physics audience. 230 00:13:17,010 --> 00:13:18,160 We'll go through it really briefly, 231 00:13:18,160 --> 00:13:20,060 and some of the choices states have to make 232 00:13:20,060 --> 00:13:22,059 and how they operationalize their arsenal, which 233 00:13:22,059 --> 00:13:24,700 are really important in the India and Pakistan context. 234 00:13:24,700 --> 00:13:27,010 I'll talk about the causes of and the process 235 00:13:27,010 --> 00:13:29,930 of nuclearization in South Asia, how and why India and Pakistan 236 00:13:29,930 --> 00:13:31,542 acquired nuclear weapons. 237 00:13:31,542 --> 00:13:33,250 And then I'll close with the consequences 238 00:13:33,250 --> 00:13:36,860 and where we are today, focusing mostly 239 00:13:36,860 --> 00:13:39,260 on the period since 1990. 240 00:13:39,260 --> 00:13:42,140 May 1998 is the break point in the India, Pakistan 241 00:13:42,140 --> 00:13:43,290 nuclear equation. 242 00:13:43,290 --> 00:13:47,510 That's when India, led by the then BJP government, 243 00:13:47,510 --> 00:13:50,010 tested nuclear weapons, followed three weeks later 244 00:13:50,010 --> 00:13:52,696 by the Pakistani government. 245 00:13:52,696 --> 00:13:54,070 I'll close with some conclusions. 246 00:13:54,070 --> 00:13:56,280 So basic deterrence theory. 247 00:13:56,280 --> 00:13:58,552 The definition of deterrence, very simple-- 248 00:13:58,552 --> 00:14:00,010 this is a definition of deterrence. 249 00:14:00,010 --> 00:14:03,340 This is all inspired by guys like Tom Schelling, Herman 250 00:14:03,340 --> 00:14:04,860 Kahn, Albert Wohstetter. 251 00:14:04,860 --> 00:14:06,860 Anybody familiar with Cold War nuclear strategy, 252 00:14:06,860 --> 00:14:08,068 this will be familiar to you. 253 00:14:08,068 --> 00:14:11,420 So basic deterrence theory, in any context, 254 00:14:11,420 --> 00:14:13,040 is trying to preserve the status quo 255 00:14:13,040 --> 00:14:16,680 by threatening unacceptable cost to an opponent or an adversary 256 00:14:16,680 --> 00:14:19,710 if they do x, some specified action. 257 00:14:19,710 --> 00:14:22,240 So if you do x, I will do y. 258 00:14:22,240 --> 00:14:24,320 And the idea is we preserve the status quo. 259 00:14:24,320 --> 00:14:28,460 And the idea is that y, the punishment that you impose 260 00:14:28,460 --> 00:14:32,210 on your adversary opponent, should 261 00:14:32,210 --> 00:14:37,250 be greater than the benefits of them achieving whatever 262 00:14:37,250 --> 00:14:39,380 their objective is, x, such that they 263 00:14:39,380 --> 00:14:41,590 are deterred from undertaking the action. 264 00:14:41,590 --> 00:14:45,150 Tom Schelling used to love examples with children. 265 00:14:45,150 --> 00:14:48,330 So I have an 18-month-old son myself, 266 00:14:48,330 --> 00:14:51,190 and he's starting to understand things. 267 00:14:51,190 --> 00:14:56,310 And as children get older, deterrence 268 00:14:56,310 --> 00:14:59,810 by punishment example that Tom Schelling used 269 00:14:59,810 --> 00:15:04,070 was if your child does something bad, 270 00:15:04,070 --> 00:15:06,480 you punish them by sending to their room, 271 00:15:06,480 --> 00:15:09,420 denying them dinner, time out. 272 00:15:09,420 --> 00:15:14,640 So there's some punishment after the fact if they do x. 273 00:15:14,640 --> 00:15:21,760 In another example is if you hit me, I will kill your mother. 274 00:15:21,760 --> 00:15:27,230 So there's a punitive aspect to the deterrence threat 275 00:15:27,230 --> 00:15:32,370 such that the punishment exceeds the benefit of whatever am 276 00:15:32,370 --> 00:15:34,950 adversary's objective would be. 277 00:15:34,950 --> 00:15:37,470 So in the Cold War, the deterrence by denial threat 278 00:15:37,470 --> 00:15:39,080 was counterforce. 279 00:15:39,080 --> 00:15:43,179 We were going to disarm and target their own nuclear forces 280 00:15:43,179 --> 00:15:44,970 to make it impossible for them to carry out 281 00:15:44,970 --> 00:15:46,920 their first strike. 282 00:15:46,920 --> 00:15:48,792 So in a case where somebody's attacking me, 283 00:15:48,792 --> 00:15:50,250 a deterrence by denial threat would 284 00:15:50,250 --> 00:15:51,666 be instead of killing your mother, 285 00:15:51,666 --> 00:15:54,290 I cut you're arm off so you can't attack me. 286 00:15:54,290 --> 00:15:57,040 And presumably, the cost of cutting your arm off, 287 00:15:57,040 --> 00:16:01,042 so you cannot achieve your objective in the first place, 288 00:16:01,042 --> 00:16:03,000 is sufficient to deter you from undertaking it. 289 00:16:03,000 --> 00:16:06,280 So a good way to think about this deterrence by punishment 290 00:16:06,280 --> 00:16:10,660 is we will punish you with such severe cost, 291 00:16:10,660 --> 00:16:14,987 after you undertake the action, such that you'll 292 00:16:14,987 --> 00:16:16,570 have no incentive-- rational incentive 293 00:16:16,570 --> 00:16:20,280 to do so verses we will ratchet up the costs 294 00:16:20,280 --> 00:16:22,760 while you try to achieve the objective such that you won't 295 00:16:22,760 --> 00:16:24,950 be able to in the first place. 296 00:16:24,950 --> 00:16:26,825 So I think it's an important distinction when 297 00:16:26,825 --> 00:16:30,040 we think about nuclear strategy even in the South Asia case. 298 00:16:30,040 --> 00:16:31,540 But in the Cold War, the distinction 299 00:16:31,540 --> 00:16:33,840 was counterforce versus countervalue. 300 00:16:33,840 --> 00:16:37,530 So for those familiar with Cold War nuclear strategy, 301 00:16:37,530 --> 00:16:40,060 when we threatened to target Soviet cities 302 00:16:40,060 --> 00:16:43,080 or their economic or industrial capacity, 303 00:16:43,080 --> 00:16:45,900 that was largely a deterrence by punishment strategy. 304 00:16:45,900 --> 00:16:47,590 So in the event that they launched 305 00:16:47,590 --> 00:16:50,380 a conventional or a first nuclear strike against us, 306 00:16:50,380 --> 00:16:52,844 we would retaliate against their cities. 307 00:16:52,844 --> 00:16:54,760 The alternative was, and this was a big debate 308 00:16:54,760 --> 00:16:58,250 early in the Cold War, in a case of a conventional conflict, 309 00:16:58,250 --> 00:17:01,312 we would launch nuclear weapons at their nuclear weapons 310 00:17:01,312 --> 00:17:03,020 such that they would not have the ability 311 00:17:03,020 --> 00:17:06,630 to launch those weapons at the United States or its allies. 312 00:17:06,630 --> 00:17:12,459 So the deterrence theory has several basic requirements. 313 00:17:12,459 --> 00:17:15,490 We call them the three C's. 314 00:17:15,490 --> 00:17:18,030 So you need to have the capability 315 00:17:18,030 --> 00:17:21,010 to impose the threat that you're promising. 316 00:17:21,010 --> 00:17:27,562 So if you're threatening to destroy an adversary's cities 317 00:17:27,562 --> 00:17:29,020 in the event they do something, you 318 00:17:29,020 --> 00:17:30,519 need to have the capability do that. 319 00:17:30,519 --> 00:17:33,460 So you need some explosive capability, 320 00:17:33,460 --> 00:17:35,720 but you also, most importantly, in the nuclear sense, 321 00:17:35,720 --> 00:17:36,844 need a delivery capability. 322 00:17:36,844 --> 00:17:38,920 You need to be able to hit their cities. 323 00:17:38,920 --> 00:17:43,502 And it needs to be transparent to the adversary. 324 00:17:43,502 --> 00:17:45,790 It needs to be credible. 325 00:17:45,790 --> 00:17:49,500 And this term credibility and the concept of credibility 326 00:17:49,500 --> 00:17:53,470 is what dogged Cold War strategy and still dogs nuclear strategy 327 00:17:53,470 --> 00:17:54,910 today. 328 00:17:54,910 --> 00:17:56,730 Credibility is the hardest part of this. 329 00:17:56,730 --> 00:18:02,840 How could you threaten what was tantamount to mutual suicide 330 00:18:02,840 --> 00:18:05,000 and have it be credible by your adversary? 331 00:18:05,000 --> 00:18:11,400 So in the event of-- so in the Cold War, a good example 332 00:18:11,400 --> 00:18:17,975 is if the Soviet Union took West Berlin, 333 00:18:17,975 --> 00:18:20,100 was it really credible that the United States would 334 00:18:20,100 --> 00:18:22,210 threaten to launch hundreds of nuclear weapons 335 00:18:22,210 --> 00:18:25,640 at Soviet cities? 336 00:18:25,640 --> 00:18:28,837 The Soviet Union probably didn't think so. 337 00:18:28,837 --> 00:18:30,920 So in a deterrence by punishment versus deterrence 338 00:18:30,920 --> 00:18:35,260 by denial trade off, which one do you think is more credible? 339 00:18:35,260 --> 00:18:37,530 So in the case where an attacker is coming at you, 340 00:18:37,530 --> 00:18:39,154 is it more credible to threaten to kill 341 00:18:39,154 --> 00:18:43,180 their mother in response or to cut off their arm? 342 00:18:43,180 --> 00:18:46,030 What is an attacker more likely to believe? 343 00:18:46,030 --> 00:18:48,940 It is disproportionate to threaten 344 00:18:48,940 --> 00:18:52,600 certain punitive action, and so it is often more credible-- 345 00:18:52,600 --> 00:18:55,560 and this is where the trade off between-- the debate early 346 00:18:55,560 --> 00:18:59,230 in the Cold War about deterrence by punishment versus deterrence 347 00:18:59,230 --> 00:19:01,660 by denial turned on the credibility differences 348 00:19:01,660 --> 00:19:02,717 between the two. 349 00:19:02,717 --> 00:19:05,105 That deterrence by denial seemed to be more credible. 350 00:19:05,105 --> 00:19:06,730 The adversary is more likely to believe 351 00:19:06,730 --> 00:19:09,620 that you would try to stop them from achieving their objectives 352 00:19:09,620 --> 00:19:11,680 than to kill millions of innocent civilians 353 00:19:11,680 --> 00:19:14,310 that had nothing to do with the fight in the first place 354 00:19:14,310 --> 00:19:16,810 after something had already happened. 355 00:19:16,810 --> 00:19:19,500 And so the United States ended up threatening both. 356 00:19:22,570 --> 00:19:26,650 And part of it was that the size of the US arsenal 357 00:19:26,650 --> 00:19:30,030 made it possible to threaten both. 358 00:19:30,030 --> 00:19:32,042 But I think there were many strategists who 359 00:19:32,042 --> 00:19:34,000 believed that the deterrence by denial missions 360 00:19:34,000 --> 00:19:37,100 were still more credible to the adversary. 361 00:19:37,100 --> 00:19:40,845 But at the heart of deterrence is this issue of credibility. 362 00:19:40,845 --> 00:19:42,220 And the third C is communication. 363 00:19:42,220 --> 00:19:43,720 The adversary needs to know that you 364 00:19:43,720 --> 00:19:46,540 have the capability and the credibility 365 00:19:46,540 --> 00:19:51,990 to threaten the punishment or deterrence by denial threat 366 00:19:51,990 --> 00:19:53,852 that you make. 367 00:19:53,852 --> 00:19:55,060 So you have to make a threat. 368 00:19:55,060 --> 00:19:55,945 IT has to be public. 369 00:19:55,945 --> 00:19:58,170 The adversary has to know what the threat is. 370 00:19:58,170 --> 00:20:02,390 The adversary needs to know what objective 371 00:20:02,390 --> 00:20:05,451 you are laying a red line down for and that you 372 00:20:05,451 --> 00:20:07,700 have the capability to inflict the punishment that you 373 00:20:07,700 --> 00:20:08,200 threaten. 374 00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:11,030 So there's a huge amount of transparency 375 00:20:11,030 --> 00:20:13,650 that is required for deterrence to operate. 376 00:20:13,650 --> 00:20:16,520 Has anyone seen Dr. Strangelove, the movie? 377 00:20:16,520 --> 00:20:18,410 What's the problem with the doomsday 378 00:20:18,410 --> 00:20:20,840 machine in Dr. Strangelove? 379 00:20:20,840 --> 00:20:21,846 There's a great line. 380 00:20:21,846 --> 00:20:23,720 What's the point of a doomsday machine if you 381 00:20:23,720 --> 00:20:26,850 don't tell anybody about it. 382 00:20:26,850 --> 00:20:30,790 The adversary needs to know that undertaking certain actions 383 00:20:30,790 --> 00:20:35,220 will result in some punishment for deterrence to operate. 384 00:20:35,220 --> 00:20:39,190 So nuclear weapons and-- deterrence, as a concept, 385 00:20:39,190 --> 00:20:40,969 pre-dated nuclear weapons. 386 00:20:40,969 --> 00:20:42,510 The concept of ratcheting up the cost 387 00:20:42,510 --> 00:20:46,000 to trying to deter an adversary predates nuclear weapons 388 00:20:46,000 --> 00:20:50,640 by centuries, since the dawn of warfare. 389 00:20:50,640 --> 00:20:52,470 But nuclear weapons fundamentally 390 00:20:52,470 --> 00:20:55,690 alter deterrence equations for several reasons. 391 00:20:55,690 --> 00:20:58,040 One, the explosive yields, and as Aaron mentioned, 392 00:20:58,040 --> 00:21:01,540 even the Hiroshima bomb, 20 kilotons 393 00:21:01,540 --> 00:21:03,130 could kill 100,000 people. 394 00:21:03,130 --> 00:21:10,760 You could kill cities, entire cities, with a single warhead. 395 00:21:10,760 --> 00:21:13,430 But more than that, the missile age really 396 00:21:13,430 --> 00:21:17,020 changed how deterrence could operate because, prior 397 00:21:17,020 --> 00:21:19,000 to nuclear weapons, what was the most 398 00:21:19,000 --> 00:21:24,810 destructive military technology in States' inventory? 399 00:21:24,810 --> 00:21:26,210 Does anyone know? 400 00:21:26,210 --> 00:21:28,140 Before nuclear weapons in World War II, 401 00:21:28,140 --> 00:21:31,214 how did the United States and Allies and Germany attack? 402 00:21:31,214 --> 00:21:32,380 AUDIENCE: Strategic bombing. 403 00:21:32,380 --> 00:21:34,570 VIPIN NARANG: Strategic bombing and fire bombing, right? 404 00:21:34,570 --> 00:21:37,153 And the problem was that you had to send hundreds of airplanes 405 00:21:37,153 --> 00:21:42,350 and sorties into enemy territory to inflict that kind of damage. 406 00:21:42,350 --> 00:21:44,460 So your own pilots and air force was a risk. 407 00:21:44,460 --> 00:21:46,543 Now, with the missile age, you can launch warheads 408 00:21:46,543 --> 00:21:49,350 at no risk to your pilots. 409 00:21:49,350 --> 00:21:51,910 The numbers that you were required 410 00:21:51,910 --> 00:21:56,530 to destroy entire cities were much smaller. 411 00:21:56,530 --> 00:21:59,080 So you could ratchet up the cost really quickly 412 00:21:59,080 --> 00:22:01,810 without incurring much cost yourself in the way 413 00:22:01,810 --> 00:22:05,850 the strategic bombing and fire bombing required of a state 414 00:22:05,850 --> 00:22:08,617 prior to the advent of the nuclear age. 415 00:22:08,617 --> 00:22:10,950 And one shouldn't underestimate the psychological impact 416 00:22:10,950 --> 00:22:13,320 of an adversary being able to destroy entire cities 417 00:22:13,320 --> 00:22:16,250 with a single warhead, from afar, 418 00:22:16,250 --> 00:22:18,850 at very low risk to itself. 419 00:22:18,850 --> 00:22:21,930 So nuclear weapons ratchet up the ease 420 00:22:21,930 --> 00:22:24,500 of imposing punishment in ways that didn't 421 00:22:24,500 --> 00:22:25,970 exist prior to the nuclear age. 422 00:22:25,970 --> 00:22:28,553 So nuclear weapons fundamentally changed deterrence equations. 423 00:22:30,830 --> 00:22:32,970 Is everyone familiar with the basics of uranium, 424 00:22:32,970 --> 00:22:34,053 plutonium nuclear weapons? 425 00:22:34,053 --> 00:22:36,060 So I don't need to go through enriched uranium. 426 00:22:36,060 --> 00:22:38,682 plutonium from reprocessing. 427 00:22:38,682 --> 00:22:41,140 Those are basic fission weapons and boosted fission weapon. 428 00:22:41,140 --> 00:22:43,660 So what is important, I think, is 429 00:22:43,660 --> 00:22:49,190 most regional powers are operating-- so India, Pakistan, 430 00:22:49,190 --> 00:22:51,215 South Africa when they had nuclear weapons. 431 00:22:51,215 --> 00:22:52,590 A little known fact, South Africa 432 00:22:52,590 --> 00:22:57,760 had nuclear weapons from 1979 to about 1991. 433 00:22:57,760 --> 00:23:01,010 Most states start with fission weapons, move 434 00:23:01,010 --> 00:23:02,175 to boosted fission weapons. 435 00:23:05,880 --> 00:23:08,220 The advanced nuclear powers have fusion weapons. 436 00:23:08,220 --> 00:23:12,700 Most of the United States' nuclear inventory 437 00:23:12,700 --> 00:23:16,430 is composed of thermo-- these are thermonuclear weapons. 438 00:23:16,430 --> 00:23:19,090 So when you think of the A-bomb, that's 439 00:23:19,090 --> 00:23:20,590 fission and boosted fission weapons. 440 00:23:20,590 --> 00:23:25,220 The H--bomb are fusion weapons. 441 00:23:25,220 --> 00:23:28,100 The United States has extremely advanced dial up, dial down 442 00:23:28,100 --> 00:23:29,890 yield nuclear weapons. 443 00:23:29,890 --> 00:23:32,170 But they're all thermonuclear weapons 444 00:23:32,170 --> 00:23:35,720 where there's a primary that ignites a fusion secondary. 445 00:23:35,720 --> 00:23:38,360 But most regional powers are operating here. 446 00:23:38,360 --> 00:23:43,030 So North Korea, India, Pakistan. 447 00:23:43,030 --> 00:23:46,250 Israel is assumed to have boosted fission devices. 448 00:23:46,250 --> 00:23:48,369 But it's possible they have fusion weapons. 449 00:23:48,369 --> 00:23:48,910 It's unknown. 450 00:23:48,910 --> 00:23:50,493 They have never tested or acknowledged 451 00:23:50,493 --> 00:23:51,525 their nuclear forces. 452 00:23:54,995 --> 00:23:56,786 Well, Britain is basically an adjunct force 453 00:23:56,786 --> 00:23:57,660 of the United States. 454 00:23:57,660 --> 00:23:59,450 They lease their weapons from the United 455 00:23:59,450 --> 00:24:05,080 States for their tridents, so those are basically US weapons. 456 00:24:05,080 --> 00:24:07,700 The French have fusion weapons. 457 00:24:07,700 --> 00:24:11,330 But India and Pakistan are operating in boosted fission 458 00:24:11,330 --> 00:24:12,000 range. 459 00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:13,000 I mean that's important. 460 00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:14,459 When you can get to megaton yields, 461 00:24:14,459 --> 00:24:16,541 you are talking about characteristically different 462 00:24:16,541 --> 00:24:17,150 weapons. 463 00:24:17,150 --> 00:24:18,525 The number that would be required 464 00:24:18,525 --> 00:24:20,712 to destroy an entire city are much lower 465 00:24:20,712 --> 00:24:21,920 once you have fusion weapons. 466 00:24:21,920 --> 00:24:24,650 But obviously, a fission or boosted fission device 467 00:24:24,650 --> 00:24:27,160 could do a lot of damage as well. 468 00:24:27,160 --> 00:24:31,350 But once you have nuclear warheads, 469 00:24:31,350 --> 00:24:33,784 you're only halfway there in terms of operationalizing 470 00:24:33,784 --> 00:24:34,450 nuclear arsenal. 471 00:24:34,450 --> 00:24:35,949 I think this is often forgotten when 472 00:24:35,949 --> 00:24:38,230 we talk about the proliferation process. 473 00:24:38,230 --> 00:24:40,380 States need more than just nuclear weapons 474 00:24:40,380 --> 00:24:42,517 and warheads-- functional and reliable warheads-- 475 00:24:42,517 --> 00:24:43,600 to have a nuclear arsenal. 476 00:24:43,600 --> 00:24:45,330 They need delivery capabilities, right? 477 00:24:45,330 --> 00:24:47,560 So the first question you have is, 478 00:24:47,560 --> 00:24:49,980 how many and what type of nuclear weapons 479 00:24:49,980 --> 00:24:50,892 do I want to have? 480 00:24:50,892 --> 00:24:53,100 India and Pakistan are still answering this question. 481 00:24:53,100 --> 00:24:56,190 It is unclear how much is enough for India and Pakistan. 482 00:24:56,190 --> 00:24:58,060 It is unclear how much is enough for China. 483 00:24:58,060 --> 00:25:03,320 China has about-- it's estimated in the 200 to 400 484 00:25:03,320 --> 00:25:08,170 thermonuclear weapon range arsenal size. 485 00:25:08,170 --> 00:25:11,560 But faced with US missile defenses, 486 00:25:11,560 --> 00:25:13,550 conventional counterforce capabilities, 487 00:25:13,550 --> 00:25:15,300 it's unclear how much is enough for China. 488 00:25:15,300 --> 00:25:18,400 You need to be able to-- a big piece of answering 489 00:25:18,400 --> 00:25:22,730 this question is-- a big concept in the Cold War 490 00:25:22,730 --> 00:25:25,459 was secure second strike capability. 491 00:25:25,459 --> 00:25:27,000 So we were worried about-- the United 492 00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:28,860 States was worried about a bolt out of the blue first strike. 493 00:25:28,860 --> 00:25:30,500 You would lose n number of weapons. 494 00:25:30,500 --> 00:25:33,830 You needed to have enough that would be able to survive that 495 00:25:33,830 --> 00:25:38,034 not only in terms of numbers, but in deployment modes, 496 00:25:38,034 --> 00:25:39,950 where they were based and how they were based, 497 00:25:39,950 --> 00:25:43,060 to be able to retaliate back with certainty 498 00:25:43,060 --> 00:25:46,260 against the Soviet Union such that it deterred the Soviet 499 00:25:46,260 --> 00:25:48,590 from trying to undertake what is known 500 00:25:48,590 --> 00:25:50,590 as the splendid first strike in the first place. 501 00:25:50,590 --> 00:25:54,070 A splendid first strike being the ability to fully wipe out 502 00:25:54,070 --> 00:25:55,660 your nuclear arsenal. 503 00:25:55,660 --> 00:25:59,070 So secure second strike capability for states is when 504 00:25:59,070 --> 00:26:02,620 they achieve a level of numbers and deployment modes such that 505 00:26:02,620 --> 00:26:06,880 an adversary cannot be confident that it could fully disarm that 506 00:26:06,880 --> 00:26:08,280 state's nuclear arsenal. 507 00:26:12,570 --> 00:26:15,440 Other question is, how do you deliver them? 508 00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:17,930 So most states start with aircraft. 509 00:26:17,930 --> 00:26:19,230 You've got aircraft. 510 00:26:19,230 --> 00:26:21,390 You rig them to carry nuclear weapons. 511 00:26:21,390 --> 00:26:24,855 But what's the problem with aircrafts as a nuclear delivery 512 00:26:24,855 --> 00:26:25,355 capability? 513 00:26:28,805 --> 00:26:30,138 AUDIENCE: You have to get inside 514 00:26:30,138 --> 00:26:30,950 VIPIN NARANG: Yeah. 515 00:26:30,950 --> 00:26:33,280 You have to penetrate enemy defenses, right? 516 00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:35,196 You're not going to get there without a fight. 517 00:26:35,196 --> 00:26:38,710 And so it's not the ideal type of delivery capability. 518 00:26:38,710 --> 00:26:41,140 We have strategic bombers with huge complements 519 00:26:41,140 --> 00:26:43,400 of escort aircraft. 520 00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:45,310 They were not survivable. 521 00:26:45,310 --> 00:26:48,820 The advantage to aircraft is you can recall them. 522 00:26:48,820 --> 00:26:51,540 They're piloted so you can bring them back. 523 00:26:51,540 --> 00:26:54,570 The disadvantage is they still have to penetrate enemy air 524 00:26:54,570 --> 00:26:56,170 forces-- air defenses. 525 00:26:56,170 --> 00:26:57,530 Sorry. 526 00:26:57,530 --> 00:27:00,800 So then the United States and most regional powers 527 00:27:00,800 --> 00:27:03,319 are attracted to ballistic missiles of various types. 528 00:27:03,319 --> 00:27:04,860 Ballistic missiles have the advantage 529 00:27:04,860 --> 00:27:07,840 that you can launch them from afar. 530 00:27:07,840 --> 00:27:13,730 They have different ranges, liquid fuel, solid fuel. 531 00:27:13,730 --> 00:27:17,000 It's not risky for the user. 532 00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:19,522 They can't be recalled though. 533 00:27:19,522 --> 00:27:20,980 But they're different basing modes, 534 00:27:20,980 --> 00:27:23,580 so you can have land-based ballistic missiles. 535 00:27:23,580 --> 00:27:29,072 We have ICBM silos in Wyoming and North Dakota. 536 00:27:29,072 --> 00:27:31,030 You can have mobile ballistic missiles on land. 537 00:27:35,130 --> 00:27:36,630 The United States moved quickly to 538 00:27:36,630 --> 00:27:40,610 sea-based ballistic missiles, SLBMs. 539 00:27:40,610 --> 00:27:41,110 Why? 540 00:27:41,110 --> 00:27:43,190 Why do you think sea-based is attractive, 541 00:27:43,190 --> 00:27:45,690 at least for the United States? 542 00:27:45,690 --> 00:27:47,820 AUDIENCE: The enemy can't find them hopefully. 543 00:27:47,820 --> 00:27:53,530 VIPIN NARANG: So in theory, if your subs are quiet enough, 544 00:27:53,530 --> 00:27:57,230 they are virtually 100% survivable 545 00:27:57,230 --> 00:27:59,070 because they're very difficult to track 546 00:27:59,070 --> 00:28:02,320 if your subs are quiet enough. 547 00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:04,700 And this was something-- there's an assumption 548 00:28:04,700 --> 00:28:07,980 that once a state acquires a sea-based capability, 549 00:28:07,980 --> 00:28:12,360 it has a survivable second strike force. 550 00:28:12,360 --> 00:28:13,950 That's true probably in the US case, 551 00:28:13,950 --> 00:28:22,060 but other states' SSBNs, the sea-based ballistic missile 552 00:28:22,060 --> 00:28:24,687 nuclear submarines, are not quiet as the United States is. 553 00:28:24,687 --> 00:28:27,020 There is increasing evidence to show that we were pretty 554 00:28:27,020 --> 00:28:29,330 good at tracking Soviet SSBNs. 555 00:28:29,330 --> 00:28:32,394 We're pretty good at tracking subs during the Cold War. 556 00:28:32,394 --> 00:28:34,060 I don't know how much we track them now. 557 00:28:34,060 --> 00:28:37,900 I mean you have to assume-- Soviet SSBNs, 558 00:28:37,900 --> 00:28:41,272 as the later generations became quieter, 559 00:28:41,272 --> 00:28:43,230 and we're still pretty good at attracting them. 560 00:28:43,230 --> 00:28:46,980 You can imagine first generation Chinese SSBNs, 561 00:28:46,980 --> 00:28:49,499 Indian SSBNs are going to be so loud. 562 00:28:49,499 --> 00:28:51,040 Some of them are not nuclear powered. 563 00:28:51,040 --> 00:28:52,360 They're diesel powered, which actually 564 00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:53,651 helps with the noise signature. 565 00:28:53,651 --> 00:28:57,825 But it is not necessarily the case 566 00:28:57,825 --> 00:28:59,950 that all states that acquire sea-based capabilities 567 00:28:59,950 --> 00:29:01,741 are going to have survivable second strike. 568 00:29:01,741 --> 00:29:06,080 But this is the attraction of a sea-based force. 569 00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:09,190 A submarine-based nuclear force is 570 00:29:09,190 --> 00:29:11,950 more survivable than land-based force because land-based force, 571 00:29:11,950 --> 00:29:14,200 with all the [INAUDIBLE] out there now, 572 00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:17,170 you can track-- you know where launch sites might be, 573 00:29:17,170 --> 00:29:19,270 where they may flush out land-based forces, 574 00:29:19,270 --> 00:29:22,900 so then you can target them. 575 00:29:22,900 --> 00:29:25,954 Increasingly, some states led by the United States 576 00:29:25,954 --> 00:29:28,120 are attracted to cruise missiles as nuclear delivery 577 00:29:28,120 --> 00:29:29,530 capabilities, Tomahawks. 578 00:29:29,530 --> 00:29:36,320 We have a Tomahawk land and air-based nuclear version. 579 00:29:36,320 --> 00:29:39,820 The French have an air launched cruise missile, 580 00:29:39,820 --> 00:29:43,130 which is a mainstay of their nuclear force structure. 581 00:29:43,130 --> 00:29:46,240 India and Pakistan are also looking at cruise missiles 582 00:29:46,240 --> 00:29:50,210 because they can-- what's the advantage of cruise missiles? 583 00:29:50,210 --> 00:29:55,689 What's the worry now with ballistic missiles? 584 00:29:55,689 --> 00:29:57,230 AUDIENCE: They might shoot them down. 585 00:29:57,230 --> 00:29:59,230 VIPIN NARANG: So missile defenses and the advent 586 00:29:59,230 --> 00:30:01,820 of missile defenses is starting to threaten the survivability 587 00:30:01,820 --> 00:30:04,130 of ballistic missiles, so one shift 588 00:30:04,130 --> 00:30:09,060 is to cruise missiles, which fly-- 589 00:30:09,060 --> 00:30:12,420 they have lower altitudes. 590 00:30:12,420 --> 00:30:14,410 They can be more easily controlled, 591 00:30:14,410 --> 00:30:17,037 so there's more recallability, I think, 592 00:30:17,037 --> 00:30:19,120 with cruise missiles than with ballistic missiles, 593 00:30:19,120 --> 00:30:20,828 but primarily to defeat missile defenses. 594 00:30:23,150 --> 00:30:25,140 Third question is, how do you manage them? 595 00:30:25,140 --> 00:30:28,920 Some states put their nuclear forces under military control. 596 00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:31,996 Some states put them under very firm civilian control. 597 00:30:31,996 --> 00:30:33,870 This is a question the United States wrestled 598 00:30:33,870 --> 00:30:35,510 with during the Cold War. 599 00:30:35,510 --> 00:30:40,300 Initially, the Department of Atomic Energy 600 00:30:40,300 --> 00:30:42,744 managed the nuclear pits in the United States. 601 00:30:42,744 --> 00:30:44,410 It was under very firm civilian control. 602 00:30:44,410 --> 00:30:47,530 And then as it became clear that the United States would 603 00:30:47,530 --> 00:30:51,960 have to delegate some actual nuclear forces to the Army 604 00:30:51,960 --> 00:30:56,390 in Western Europe for tactical nuclear weapons, 605 00:30:56,390 --> 00:31:01,630 the US arsenal came under military management, 606 00:31:01,630 --> 00:31:04,890 but still under civilian authority. 607 00:31:04,890 --> 00:31:07,040 Other states like Pakistan are completely 608 00:31:07,040 --> 00:31:08,414 under military control, and we'll 609 00:31:08,414 --> 00:31:11,070 talk a little bit about that. 610 00:31:11,070 --> 00:31:14,100 But fundamentally, the question that regional powers 611 00:31:14,100 --> 00:31:15,920 in particular have to face, in ways 612 00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:17,920 that the superpowers didn't as much as, 613 00:31:17,920 --> 00:31:21,270 is what are you trying to deter with nuclear weapons? 614 00:31:21,270 --> 00:31:23,260 Why are you attracting nuclear weapons, 615 00:31:23,260 --> 00:31:26,370 and what are you using them for in your larger 616 00:31:26,370 --> 00:31:28,450 strategic policy? 617 00:31:28,450 --> 00:31:30,570 So some states need nuclear weapons 618 00:31:30,570 --> 00:31:33,150 just to deter nuclear use against them. 619 00:31:33,150 --> 00:31:37,320 States, like China for example, which have huge geographies, 620 00:31:37,320 --> 00:31:41,210 3 million men under arms, defense in depth strategy 621 00:31:41,210 --> 00:31:44,230 aren't really facing conventional threats 622 00:31:44,230 --> 00:31:48,380 on land the way that the US and Soviet Union were facing off 623 00:31:48,380 --> 00:31:49,870 in Western Europe. 624 00:31:49,870 --> 00:31:53,019 So China and India both primarily 625 00:31:53,019 --> 00:31:55,310 have nuclear weapons to deter nuclear use against them. 626 00:31:55,310 --> 00:31:57,030 So you are worried about a nuclear armed adversary. 627 00:31:57,030 --> 00:31:59,620 You don't want your adversary to have nuclear weapons 628 00:31:59,620 --> 00:32:01,732 and you not have the ability to retaliate. 629 00:32:01,732 --> 00:32:03,190 You're really using nuclear weapons 630 00:32:03,190 --> 00:32:04,900 to deter nuclear use against you. 631 00:32:04,900 --> 00:32:08,550 You can then rely on what we call an assured retaliation 632 00:32:08,550 --> 00:32:09,980 strategy. 633 00:32:09,980 --> 00:32:12,352 You just need to be able survive what 634 00:32:12,352 --> 00:32:13,810 might be a first strike against you 635 00:32:13,810 --> 00:32:15,226 and retaliate with nuclear weapons 636 00:32:15,226 --> 00:32:18,680 against your adversaries population centers. 637 00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:21,200 This is your classic deterrence by punishment strategy. 638 00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:25,232 Nuclear weapons don't need to be on high alert. 639 00:32:25,232 --> 00:32:26,940 Retaliation doesn't need to be immediate. 640 00:32:26,940 --> 00:32:30,452 It just needs to be certain, and you 641 00:32:30,452 --> 00:32:31,910 don't need tactical nuclear weapons 642 00:32:31,910 --> 00:32:35,820 because you're not using nuclear weapons on conventional forces 643 00:32:35,820 --> 00:32:38,000 that might be attacking you. 644 00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:40,380 So this allows for much more centralized, recessed 645 00:32:40,380 --> 00:32:43,860 management if that's your aim. 646 00:32:43,860 --> 00:32:47,060 If your aim is to deter conventional aggression-- 647 00:32:47,060 --> 00:32:50,290 this was the US and NATO during the Cold War. 648 00:32:50,290 --> 00:32:53,080 We had conventional inferiority in Europe. 649 00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:57,130 In order to offset the conventional capability 650 00:32:57,130 --> 00:33:02,050 of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, 651 00:33:02,050 --> 00:33:04,270 the United States needed nuclear weapons-- 652 00:33:04,270 --> 00:33:06,140 the threat of tactical nuclear weapons 653 00:33:06,140 --> 00:33:09,379 to offset that differential. 654 00:33:09,379 --> 00:33:11,670 And we needed to threaten to use nuclear weapons first. 655 00:33:11,670 --> 00:33:14,314 If Warsaw Pact nuclear conventional forces 656 00:33:14,314 --> 00:33:15,730 came crashing in a Western Europe, 657 00:33:15,730 --> 00:33:17,781 the United States very explicitly 658 00:33:17,781 --> 00:33:19,530 threatened to use tactical nuclear weapons 659 00:33:19,530 --> 00:33:23,860 against advancing Warsaw Pact forces. 660 00:33:23,860 --> 00:33:25,540 Unlike in the assured retaliation case, 661 00:33:25,540 --> 00:33:27,220 you can say, look, I have a no first use policy. 662 00:33:27,220 --> 00:33:29,178 I won't use nuclear weapons unless you use them 663 00:33:29,178 --> 00:33:34,370 against me, primarily strategic weapons, compared to here 664 00:33:34,370 --> 00:33:38,280 you have a very forward, aggressive tactical nuclear 665 00:33:38,280 --> 00:33:40,034 weapons capability where you have 666 00:33:40,034 --> 00:33:41,700 to threaten to use nuclear weapons first 667 00:33:41,700 --> 00:33:44,074 right because you're trying to deter conventional attacks 668 00:33:44,074 --> 00:33:46,040 against you. 669 00:33:46,040 --> 00:33:47,890 And it looks like a denial and punishment 670 00:33:47,890 --> 00:33:49,605 mission at the same time. 671 00:33:49,605 --> 00:33:51,980 And now regional powers are faced with the same question. 672 00:33:51,980 --> 00:33:54,575 Now, can anyone guess where India falls? 673 00:33:58,370 --> 00:33:59,620 Did I say it already? 674 00:33:59,620 --> 00:34:00,850 Yeah. 675 00:34:00,850 --> 00:34:02,460 Assured retaliation. 676 00:34:02,460 --> 00:34:04,695 They have conventional superiority against Pakistan. 677 00:34:04,695 --> 00:34:06,278 They're not really worried about China 678 00:34:06,278 --> 00:34:08,780 invading India and marching all the way to Delhi. 679 00:34:08,780 --> 00:34:10,670 They're primarily trying to deter nuclear use 680 00:34:10,670 --> 00:34:15,269 against its own cities. 681 00:34:15,269 --> 00:34:16,310 Where does Pakistan fall? 682 00:34:16,310 --> 00:34:17,949 What is Pakistan worried about? 683 00:34:17,949 --> 00:34:21,429 So Pakistan is primarily worried about Indian conventional 684 00:34:21,429 --> 00:34:22,420 superiority. 685 00:34:22,420 --> 00:34:25,500 And having been at the receiving end of dismemberment 686 00:34:25,500 --> 00:34:28,300 from India in 1971, which I'll talk about, 687 00:34:28,300 --> 00:34:29,909 Pakistan has operationalized a posture 688 00:34:29,909 --> 00:34:34,830 that is very aggressive, very oriented towards battlefield 689 00:34:34,830 --> 00:34:37,530 nuclear weapons against any conventional forces that might 690 00:34:37,530 --> 00:34:39,260 cross the international border. 691 00:34:39,260 --> 00:34:43,310 And so they have a first use-- I call it asymmetric escalation 692 00:34:43,310 --> 00:34:44,075 doctrine. 693 00:34:44,075 --> 00:34:46,116 They threaten to escalate a conventional conflict 694 00:34:46,116 --> 00:34:52,520 to the nuclear very quickly because-- or earlier than India 695 00:34:52,520 --> 00:34:55,570 would-- before any other nuclear weapons are used 696 00:34:55,570 --> 00:34:59,760 because they're worried about Indian conventional superiority 697 00:34:59,760 --> 00:35:00,920 against it. 698 00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:04,590 Pakistan actually started its nuclear program 699 00:35:04,590 --> 00:35:08,720 before India tested the so-called PNE in 1974 700 00:35:08,720 --> 00:35:10,720 because on the heels of the 1974-- 701 00:35:10,720 --> 00:35:13,160 I'll talk about this, actually, right now. 702 00:35:13,160 --> 00:35:16,190 So India security environment, historically, so it 703 00:35:16,190 --> 00:35:18,970 has the 1962 war with China in which 704 00:35:18,970 --> 00:35:27,527 its conventional performance shocked even the Indian army 705 00:35:27,527 --> 00:35:28,610 and the Indian leadership. 706 00:35:32,350 --> 00:35:35,100 The Chinese performed so much better than the Indians 707 00:35:35,100 --> 00:35:38,810 in the '62 war, and India decisively lost the '62 war. 708 00:35:38,810 --> 00:35:43,260 Two years later, China tested its nuclear weapons. 709 00:35:43,260 --> 00:35:49,530 So the Indian military program gets its motivation, initially, 710 00:35:49,530 --> 00:35:54,230 from its experiences in '62 and '64 with China. 711 00:35:54,230 --> 00:35:59,760 And to avoid nuclear coercion in the future against China, 712 00:35:59,760 --> 00:36:01,870 India hedges under the Nehru years 713 00:36:01,870 --> 00:36:05,940 and then the subsequent leadership under Indira Ghandi. 714 00:36:05,940 --> 00:36:09,320 It does also have these persistent wars with Pakistan. 715 00:36:09,320 --> 00:36:12,390 But it has conventional superiority, 716 00:36:12,390 --> 00:36:14,730 and there was really never any talk 717 00:36:14,730 --> 00:36:17,720 about needing nuclear weapons to deter the Pakistanis. 718 00:36:20,580 --> 00:36:22,450 So India had a civilian nuclear program. 719 00:36:22,450 --> 00:36:23,860 It got a CANDU reactor Canada. 720 00:36:23,860 --> 00:36:27,590 Some of the heavy waters was supplied by the United States, 721 00:36:27,590 --> 00:36:31,570 and 54 reprocessing facilities in '64. 722 00:36:31,570 --> 00:36:35,870 And then in 1974, Indira Ghandi authorizes 723 00:36:35,870 --> 00:36:38,480 what's known at the time-- under the Atoms for Peace program, 724 00:36:38,480 --> 00:36:42,570 there was a category known as a Peaceful Nuclear Explosion, 725 00:36:42,570 --> 00:36:49,230 which was-- I mean there are legitimate uses, it 726 00:36:49,230 --> 00:36:51,710 was believed at the time, for nuclear. 727 00:36:51,710 --> 00:36:53,900 Like, if you needed to clear large swaths of land 728 00:36:53,900 --> 00:36:56,190 for dams for example. 729 00:36:56,190 --> 00:37:01,654 And India had some potential uses for this, 730 00:37:01,654 --> 00:37:03,070 but it didn't really fool-- I mean 731 00:37:03,070 --> 00:37:05,486 a peaceful nuclear explosion is still a nuclear explosion. 732 00:37:05,486 --> 00:37:06,970 It wasn't, however, a warhead. 733 00:37:06,970 --> 00:37:09,300 I mean this thing was a rickety-- 734 00:37:09,300 --> 00:37:12,000 I think was it was eight meters in diameter device. 735 00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:18,211 I mean it was a hulking, unstable, rickety fission 736 00:37:18,211 --> 00:37:19,710 device that they tested in 1974-- it 737 00:37:19,710 --> 00:37:21,610 wasn't suitable for a military program. 738 00:37:21,610 --> 00:37:22,850 It wasn't miniaturized. 739 00:37:22,850 --> 00:37:28,600 It didn't have-- it was even suitable for delivery 740 00:37:28,600 --> 00:37:29,280 by aircraft. 741 00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:34,010 You'd have to throw it out the back of a cargo plane. 742 00:37:34,010 --> 00:37:35,960 I mean it still gave them, certainly, 743 00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:44,610 the physics of being able to sustain fission and have 744 00:37:44,610 --> 00:37:45,770 spherical compression. 745 00:37:45,770 --> 00:37:48,330 All of that was-- and it was a plutonium device, 746 00:37:48,330 --> 00:37:51,630 so it wasn't trivial. 747 00:37:51,630 --> 00:37:55,210 But it wasn't a nuclear weapon in the sense of the way 748 00:37:55,210 --> 00:37:56,550 that we think of. 749 00:37:56,550 --> 00:37:59,000 So a lot of work was still yet to be done after 1974, 750 00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:01,790 but it demonstrated that Indian scientists had the ability 751 00:38:01,790 --> 00:38:04,797 to at least design rudimentary nuclear weapons. 752 00:38:04,797 --> 00:38:06,380 There are several explanations for why 753 00:38:06,380 --> 00:38:08,840 it tested in '74, as a general security 754 00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:11,160 environment-- I talked about China-- persistent wars 755 00:38:11,160 --> 00:38:11,743 with Pakistan. 756 00:38:11,743 --> 00:38:15,630 They had just won the 1970 war with Pakistan-- 1971 war 757 00:38:15,630 --> 00:38:17,696 with Pakistan, which split Pakistan in two. 758 00:38:17,696 --> 00:38:18,570 I'll talk about that. 759 00:38:18,570 --> 00:38:21,340 That was the real motivation for the Pakistani program. 760 00:38:21,340 --> 00:38:23,230 But the real explanation is a combination 761 00:38:23,230 --> 00:38:25,750 of domestic politics and the power 762 00:38:25,750 --> 00:38:27,210 of the scientists in India. 763 00:38:27,210 --> 00:38:30,330 So Indira Ghandi was facing a potential series 764 00:38:30,330 --> 00:38:33,120 of losses in state governments. 765 00:38:33,120 --> 00:38:36,350 She wanted a big win. 766 00:38:36,350 --> 00:38:41,000 There were several very prominent Indian physicists 767 00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:48,200 and engineers who promised a big boost in her electoral fortunes 768 00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:50,777 if she tested a nuclear weapon, and they really 769 00:38:50,777 --> 00:38:52,610 wanted to test a nuclear weapon because they 770 00:38:52,610 --> 00:38:53,526 had bee working on it. 771 00:38:53,526 --> 00:38:55,740 Scientists like to test the things that they work on. 772 00:38:55,740 --> 00:38:58,740 And they had been doing this persistently for several years. 773 00:38:58,740 --> 00:39:01,910 And she then found her opportunity in 1974 774 00:39:01,910 --> 00:39:04,250 when, right before a series of state elections, 775 00:39:04,250 --> 00:39:05,290 she authorized the test. 776 00:39:08,120 --> 00:39:10,920 Empirically, the test didn't actually 777 00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:14,400 help her that much electorally, but there was a belief 778 00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:15,712 that it might. 779 00:39:15,712 --> 00:39:17,920 And so that was some of the motivations for the test. 780 00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:22,310 From 1974 until about 1989, for about 15 years, 781 00:39:22,310 --> 00:39:25,770 India's nuclear program went into effective dormancy. 782 00:39:25,770 --> 00:39:27,480 There was no high level authorization 783 00:39:27,480 --> 00:39:31,890 from Indira Gandhi, or her son who later became prime minister 784 00:39:31,890 --> 00:39:35,800 after her assassination in 1984, for the militarization 785 00:39:35,800 --> 00:39:37,150 of the program. 786 00:39:37,150 --> 00:39:42,130 So India's scientists worked on some of the-- 787 00:39:42,130 --> 00:39:45,760 did some of the theoretical work for miniaturization, 788 00:39:45,760 --> 00:39:48,930 getting India in a place where if it had to militarize 789 00:39:48,930 --> 00:39:50,270 a program, it could. 790 00:39:50,270 --> 00:39:56,740 But there was no actual physical worked done on that after 1974. 791 00:39:56,740 --> 00:39:59,610 Pakistan faced a somewhat different security environment. 792 00:39:59,610 --> 00:40:02,610 So where as India lost the '62 war and then 793 00:40:02,610 --> 00:40:05,130 faced China's nuclear test-- but never really faced 794 00:40:05,130 --> 00:40:07,430 the threat of a massive conventional invasion 795 00:40:07,430 --> 00:40:09,470 from China, really wanting nuclear weapons 796 00:40:09,470 --> 00:40:12,510 to deter the Chinese nuclear threat, not 797 00:40:12,510 --> 00:40:14,230 the Chinese conventional threat-- 798 00:40:14,230 --> 00:40:17,750 Pakistan was really scarred by the 1971 war. 799 00:40:17,750 --> 00:40:26,010 So the 1971 war was the war in which East Pakistan 800 00:40:26,010 --> 00:40:27,590 was birthed into Bangladesh. 801 00:40:27,590 --> 00:40:29,750 So there was a refugee crisis the West Pakistan 802 00:40:29,750 --> 00:40:33,410 and East-- so Pakistan at birth, in 1947, 803 00:40:33,410 --> 00:40:36,790 was split non-contiguous with India in the middle. 804 00:40:36,790 --> 00:40:38,130 You had East and West Pakistan. 805 00:40:38,130 --> 00:40:40,065 West Pakistan was dominated by Punjab. 806 00:40:40,065 --> 00:40:43,150 East Pakistan was dominated by Bangladeshis-- Bengalis. 807 00:40:43,150 --> 00:40:44,780 Sorry. 808 00:40:44,780 --> 00:40:45,670 Later Bangladeshis. 809 00:40:45,670 --> 00:40:46,490 Bengalis. 810 00:40:46,490 --> 00:40:51,020 So there was ethnic tension between Punjabis and Bengalis. 811 00:40:51,020 --> 00:40:53,390 The Punjabis dominated the politics of Pakistan. 812 00:40:53,390 --> 00:40:55,640 Bengalis felt like they were second class 813 00:40:55,640 --> 00:40:56,550 citizens in Pakistan. 814 00:40:56,550 --> 00:40:58,450 That created political tension. 815 00:40:58,450 --> 00:41:00,870 And there was an uprising in 1971. 816 00:41:00,870 --> 00:41:03,810 India intervened on behalf of the Bengalis 817 00:41:03,810 --> 00:41:06,370 to split East Pakistan off of a West Pakistan. 818 00:41:06,370 --> 00:41:10,090 Now, if you're India, this is a huge strategic victory, right? 819 00:41:10,090 --> 00:41:13,950 You had two flanks of Pakistan surrounding you, 820 00:41:13,950 --> 00:41:19,650 and you were able to make them two independent countries 821 00:41:19,650 --> 00:41:25,090 with the benefit that you helped birth Bangladesh from Pakistan. 822 00:41:25,090 --> 00:41:29,590 So it's not like they would be allies 823 00:41:29,590 --> 00:41:31,730 against you in a conflict. 824 00:41:31,730 --> 00:41:35,080 So strategically this worked out pretty well for India. 825 00:41:35,080 --> 00:41:38,060 But for West Pakistan, now present day Pakistan, 826 00:41:38,060 --> 00:41:40,420 this was a pretty scary moment. 827 00:41:40,420 --> 00:41:45,580 Your east wing is amputated, and it was 828 00:41:45,580 --> 00:41:47,360 at the hands of the Indians. 829 00:41:47,360 --> 00:41:50,830 So as early as 1965, when it became clear 830 00:41:50,830 --> 00:41:54,239 that India might look at nuclear weapons because of China, 831 00:41:54,239 --> 00:41:56,780 Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was the prime minister that ended up 832 00:41:56,780 --> 00:42:00,780 authorizing the program through the 1970s, 833 00:42:00,780 --> 00:42:03,032 said "we will eat grass or leaves or even go hungry, 834 00:42:03,032 --> 00:42:04,490 but we will get a bomb of our own." 835 00:42:04,490 --> 00:42:05,739 It's one of his famous quotes. 836 00:42:05,739 --> 00:42:08,920 Remember, this was said as early as 1965. 837 00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:12,030 But after the 1971 war-- in January 1972, 838 00:42:12,030 --> 00:42:16,380 so right after 1971 war, Bhutto authorizes the nuclear weapons 839 00:42:16,380 --> 00:42:19,450 program with express intent of a militarized nuclear weapons 840 00:42:19,450 --> 00:42:22,520 program to deter Indian conventional power. 841 00:42:22,520 --> 00:42:29,460 So it wasn't because of the Indian PNE, which was 1974. 842 00:42:29,460 --> 00:42:31,760 Pakistan's nuclear weapons program 843 00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:34,830 predates India's 1974 test. 844 00:42:34,830 --> 00:42:37,530 The real motivation was the 1971 war. 845 00:42:37,530 --> 00:42:40,040 Pakistan could not suffer the conventional defeat 846 00:42:40,040 --> 00:42:44,550 at the hands of the Indians again. 847 00:42:44,550 --> 00:42:48,080 And so Pakistan's nuclear program was triggered. 848 00:42:48,080 --> 00:42:52,780 For a state that was essentially desperate for nuclear weapons, 849 00:42:52,780 --> 00:42:55,030 Pakistan tried all possible avenues. 850 00:42:55,030 --> 00:42:58,985 So you had the uranium pathway, which was led by AQ Khan. 851 00:42:58,985 --> 00:43:00,360 Everyone's familiar with AQ Khan? 852 00:43:00,360 --> 00:43:02,670 Yes we Khan? 853 00:43:02,670 --> 00:43:03,880 Horrible, horrible joke. 854 00:43:03,880 --> 00:43:05,640 I apologize. 855 00:43:05,640 --> 00:43:08,130 So he essentially stole the URENCO designs. 856 00:43:08,130 --> 00:43:09,850 URENCO is a European consortium. 857 00:43:12,830 --> 00:43:14,480 He stole it from the Netherlands. 858 00:43:14,480 --> 00:43:15,520 He worked at URENCO. 859 00:43:15,520 --> 00:43:17,186 From the inside, he stole the blueprints 860 00:43:17,186 --> 00:43:20,210 for what ended up being the P1. 861 00:43:20,210 --> 00:43:22,390 And then he modified it later to be P2 designs. 862 00:43:22,390 --> 00:43:24,170 So he stole the URENCO centrifuge 863 00:43:24,170 --> 00:43:29,207 designs from URENCO itself where he was an employee. 864 00:43:29,207 --> 00:43:30,790 He went back to Bhutto and said, look, 865 00:43:30,790 --> 00:43:35,590 I can deliver a nuclear weapons program. 866 00:43:35,590 --> 00:43:42,270 And they set up cascades of the P1s at Kahuta, 867 00:43:42,270 --> 00:43:45,180 which Pakistan would deny through the 1980s, 868 00:43:45,180 --> 00:43:47,510 was a uranium enrichment facility. 869 00:43:47,510 --> 00:43:51,640 The then president, General Zia, referred to it 870 00:43:51,640 --> 00:43:55,300 as a goat shed repeatedly in interactions with the United 871 00:43:55,300 --> 00:43:57,230 States. 872 00:43:57,230 --> 00:44:03,160 The problem was what happened in 1979? 873 00:44:03,160 --> 00:44:05,866 Charlie Wilson's War, anyone? 874 00:44:05,866 --> 00:44:06,850 AUDIENCE: Iran. 875 00:44:06,850 --> 00:44:08,100 VIPIN NARANG: Well, also Iran. 876 00:44:08,100 --> 00:44:10,025 OK, that's true. 877 00:44:10,025 --> 00:44:12,876 You had the Iran Hostage Crisis and the revolution in Iran. 878 00:44:12,876 --> 00:44:16,947 But you also had what else, December 1979? 879 00:44:16,947 --> 00:44:18,030 AUDIENCE: Soviet invasion. 880 00:44:18,030 --> 00:44:19,730 VIPIN NARANG: Yes, Christmas invasion. 881 00:44:19,730 --> 00:44:22,810 So the Soviets invade Afghanistan. 882 00:44:22,810 --> 00:44:27,080 And all of a sudden, Pakistan is America's-- one of the most 883 00:44:27,080 --> 00:44:30,930 useful countries in the world for the United States 884 00:44:30,930 --> 00:44:33,590 because the United States decides to supply 885 00:44:33,590 --> 00:44:35,950 the mujahideen in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. 886 00:44:35,950 --> 00:44:37,810 How do you get supplies to the mujahideen? 887 00:44:37,810 --> 00:44:39,520 You have to route them through Pakistan. 888 00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:42,420 That's when the relationship between Pakistan and the United 889 00:44:42,420 --> 00:44:46,320 States flourished because we really had no option. 890 00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:48,840 History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. 891 00:44:48,840 --> 00:44:51,210 We did the exact same thing in the 2000s. 892 00:44:51,210 --> 00:44:55,880 And when we were at war in Afghanistan, 893 00:44:55,880 --> 00:44:59,790 we needed the ground lines of communication through Pakistan. 894 00:44:59,790 --> 00:45:05,487 And the relationship between the ISI and the CIA in the 1980s, 895 00:45:05,487 --> 00:45:07,070 because of the US role in Afghanistan, 896 00:45:07,070 --> 00:45:13,270 became-- what's the right word for it-- blossomed. 897 00:45:13,270 --> 00:45:16,340 But there was always tension in that relationship. 898 00:45:16,340 --> 00:45:23,570 But due to US nonproliferation legislation in Congress, 899 00:45:23,570 --> 00:45:26,720 the United States would have been obligated 900 00:45:26,720 --> 00:45:29,750 to sanction Pakistan and cut off all aid 901 00:45:29,750 --> 00:45:32,934 if Pakistan were to assemble a nuclear weapon. 902 00:45:32,934 --> 00:45:34,350 Remember, Pakistan and India never 903 00:45:34,350 --> 00:45:36,870 signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. 904 00:45:36,870 --> 00:45:40,660 US legislation required that a state that was not 905 00:45:40,660 --> 00:45:43,070 a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty 906 00:45:43,070 --> 00:45:48,950 found with nuclear weapons-- or who had nuclear weapons, 907 00:45:48,950 --> 00:45:51,740 would face immediate sanctions cut off of US aid. 908 00:45:51,740 --> 00:45:54,700 But that threatened US operations in Afghanistan, 909 00:45:54,700 --> 00:45:56,180 so that couldn't happen. 910 00:45:56,180 --> 00:45:59,470 So there was a lot of tension between the nonproliferation 911 00:45:59,470 --> 00:46:02,690 hawks at the state department and the executive. 912 00:46:02,690 --> 00:46:07,090 So the Reagan administration went to great lengths 913 00:46:07,090 --> 00:46:10,430 to play fast and loose on where Pakistan 914 00:46:10,430 --> 00:46:12,580 was with its nuclear program. 915 00:46:12,580 --> 00:46:16,230 Everybody knew that Pakistan had a nuclear weapons program. 916 00:46:16,230 --> 00:46:18,930 But the wording of the language of the legislation 917 00:46:18,930 --> 00:46:22,930 required-- and it later embodied in what 918 00:46:22,930 --> 00:46:24,490 was known as the Solarz Amendment 919 00:46:24,490 --> 00:46:26,560 that the US presence certify that Pakistan 920 00:46:26,560 --> 00:46:29,610 doesn't have nuclear weapons. 921 00:46:29,610 --> 00:46:32,920 So as long as the executive-- and the executive 922 00:46:32,920 --> 00:46:37,030 defined nuclear weapons as the assembly of a nuclear weapon. 923 00:46:37,030 --> 00:46:40,760 So as long as Pakistan did not cross that line, 924 00:46:40,760 --> 00:46:42,640 the executive could certify that Pakistan 925 00:46:42,640 --> 00:46:45,000 was a non-nuclear weapon state. 926 00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:49,140 And therefore, the aid and the relationship between the US 927 00:46:49,140 --> 00:46:51,340 and Pakistan could continue. 928 00:46:51,340 --> 00:46:54,630 AUDIENCE: When you say Pakistan, is this so east 929 00:46:54,630 --> 00:46:56,830 and west are actually separate countries? 930 00:46:56,830 --> 00:46:57,890 VIPIN NARANG: So Bangladesh, at this point, 931 00:46:57,890 --> 00:47:00,431 is an independent country after 1970-- so this is west-- this 932 00:47:00,431 --> 00:47:02,460 is Pakistan, Pakistan, present day Pakistan. 933 00:47:02,460 --> 00:47:03,860 And this is with Zia. 934 00:47:03,860 --> 00:47:05,960 Zia is the president general. 935 00:47:05,960 --> 00:47:11,740 He executed Bhutto in 1979 I think also, '77 or '79. 936 00:47:11,740 --> 00:47:17,240 And he's the present of Pakistan during the 1980s. 937 00:47:17,240 --> 00:47:20,070 And we'll get through the-- there's a slow march 938 00:47:20,070 --> 00:47:22,250 to nuclearization So '83, there's 939 00:47:22,250 --> 00:47:25,100 some Chinese assistance to the Pakistani nuclear program. 940 00:47:25,100 --> 00:47:28,530 In fact, on precedent, I think, in the annals of proliferation, 941 00:47:28,530 --> 00:47:33,070 China transferred-- is now, I think, out 942 00:47:33,070 --> 00:47:38,177 in declassified documents, the United States believes, 943 00:47:38,177 --> 00:47:40,510 and i think Pakistan has admitted, that they received 50 944 00:47:40,510 --> 00:47:44,610 kilograms of HEU from Pakistan. 945 00:47:44,610 --> 00:47:49,230 That's effectively two bombs worth of HEU. 946 00:47:49,230 --> 00:47:54,110 Assuming 25 kilograms a per bomb-- 947 00:47:54,110 --> 00:47:57,900 two bombs worth of HEU from China plus the design 948 00:47:57,900 --> 00:48:04,300 for uranium core warhead, known as CHIC-4 design. 949 00:48:04,300 --> 00:48:06,800 It was the fourth test in the Chinese test series. 950 00:48:06,800 --> 00:48:08,510 So that's 1983. 951 00:48:08,510 --> 00:48:11,370 By 1986, the US is essentially convinced 952 00:48:11,370 --> 00:48:13,555 that Pakistan is a nuclear capable state. 953 00:48:13,555 --> 00:48:14,930 But remember, it had it certified 954 00:48:14,930 --> 00:48:17,150 as a non-nuclear weapons state. 955 00:48:17,150 --> 00:48:19,410 So they were two screwdriver turns away, 956 00:48:19,410 --> 00:48:21,660 you could certify them as a non-nuclear weapons state. 957 00:48:21,660 --> 00:48:25,420 And the executive continued to do that. 958 00:48:25,420 --> 00:48:27,269 In March 1987, Zia complicates all 959 00:48:27,269 --> 00:48:29,560 of this when he claims that Pakistan has the capability 960 00:48:29,560 --> 00:48:32,910 to make a bomb in Time magazine. 961 00:48:32,910 --> 00:48:36,790 So all of the nonproliferation hawks go nuts. 962 00:48:36,790 --> 00:48:38,950 Here, you have the president of Pakistan 963 00:48:38,950 --> 00:48:43,810 saying to Time magazine that Pakistan-- he literally said, 964 00:48:43,810 --> 00:48:46,360 you could write Pakistan has the capability to make a bomb, 965 00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:47,360 and they did. 966 00:48:47,360 --> 00:48:52,450 And it was then that congressman Stephen Solarz 967 00:48:52,450 --> 00:48:54,854 passed the Solarz amendment where 968 00:48:54,854 --> 00:48:56,770 the president had to actually certify Pakistan 969 00:48:56,770 --> 00:48:57,670 not a nuclear weapon state. 970 00:48:57,670 --> 00:48:59,290 But the language he put in there made 971 00:48:59,290 --> 00:49:03,310 it easier for the president to be able to say that and not 972 00:49:03,310 --> 00:49:07,404 be lying because the language is basically nuclear device. 973 00:49:07,404 --> 00:49:08,820 So if the device wasn't assembled, 974 00:49:08,820 --> 00:49:12,750 the executive could legitimately claim that Pakistan did not 975 00:49:12,750 --> 00:49:14,550 have a nuclear weapon. 976 00:49:14,550 --> 00:49:16,360 Even though it had the pit over there, 977 00:49:16,360 --> 00:49:20,480 the explosive package over here, the assembly over here, 978 00:49:20,480 --> 00:49:23,210 but it would all be on three sides of the room. 979 00:49:23,210 --> 00:49:25,670 But you could certify that it wasn't assembled, 980 00:49:25,670 --> 00:49:29,250 so it wasn't a nuclear weapon. 981 00:49:29,250 --> 00:49:32,380 And so by 1988, the nonproliferation hawks 982 00:49:32,380 --> 00:49:35,930 had given up, and Solarz quipped that it had a Saturday 983 00:49:35,930 --> 00:49:37,760 night special capability. 984 00:49:37,760 --> 00:49:42,610 It may not be elegant, but it'll do the job. 985 00:49:42,610 --> 00:49:46,410 And one of the advantages to the Pakistani nuclear weapons 986 00:49:46,410 --> 00:49:47,980 program was, given the fact that they 987 00:49:47,980 --> 00:49:50,550 had a tested design from the Chinese, 988 00:49:50,550 --> 00:49:52,810 they conducted a series of cold tests in the 1980s. 989 00:49:52,810 --> 00:49:55,060 But they didn't have to necessarily conduct a hot test 990 00:49:55,060 --> 00:49:57,390 to know that their weapons would work, 991 00:49:57,390 --> 00:50:00,070 unlike the Indians who were indigenously designing 992 00:50:00,070 --> 00:50:02,202 their plutonium devices. 993 00:50:02,202 --> 00:50:04,660 So by the late 1980s, Pakistan is a nuclear weapons capable 994 00:50:04,660 --> 00:50:05,160 state. 995 00:50:05,160 --> 00:50:11,010 In fact, the War in Afghanistan ends around 1989, 1990. 996 00:50:11,010 --> 00:50:13,810 President George H W Bush is president. 997 00:50:13,810 --> 00:50:19,210 And as soon as the US stops-- as soon as the Cold War 998 00:50:19,210 --> 00:50:22,980 collapse-- sorry-- the Soviet Union collapses, 999 00:50:22,980 --> 00:50:25,640 President H W Bush refuse to certify 1000 00:50:25,640 --> 00:50:27,640 Pakistan as a non-nuclear weapon states anymore. 1001 00:50:27,640 --> 00:50:29,955 AUDIENCE: You talk a out cold test. 1002 00:50:29,955 --> 00:50:31,394 What constitutes a cold test? 1003 00:50:31,394 --> 00:50:33,810 VIPIN NARANG: A cold test is without the fissile material. 1004 00:50:33,810 --> 00:50:35,160 So you-- 1005 00:50:35,160 --> 00:50:37,760 AUDIENCE: Do they really know that it works? 1006 00:50:37,760 --> 00:50:39,450 VIPIN NARANG: Especially in this case, 1007 00:50:39,450 --> 00:50:41,477 it's a spherical compression. 1008 00:50:41,477 --> 00:50:44,060 So they wanted to, as they were testing the explosive charges, 1009 00:50:44,060 --> 00:50:46,965 make sure they get a uniform compression wave. 1010 00:50:46,965 --> 00:50:49,090 Because they weren't using-- it's a uranium device, 1011 00:50:49,090 --> 00:50:51,790 but they weren't designing contact devices. 1012 00:50:51,790 --> 00:50:53,205 It was still an implosion. 1013 00:50:53,205 --> 00:50:55,610 It was a uranium implosion device. 1014 00:50:55,610 --> 00:50:59,190 And so you could do a cold test without the fissile material 1015 00:50:59,190 --> 00:51:01,230 to make sure that you had a uniform compression. 1016 00:51:01,230 --> 00:51:04,842 So you can do a sufficient number of tests 1017 00:51:04,842 --> 00:51:06,050 without the fissile material. 1018 00:51:06,050 --> 00:51:12,400 And since the design itself was tested in a hot test, 1019 00:51:12,400 --> 00:51:14,210 I think the Pakistanis were quite confident 1020 00:51:14,210 --> 00:51:17,687 that once they had enough fissile material in the design, 1021 00:51:17,687 --> 00:51:18,270 it would work. 1022 00:51:20,940 --> 00:51:25,080 So in this period, remember, India is in dormancy. 1023 00:51:25,080 --> 00:51:30,920 But there's a-- in response to Zia's claim in Time magazine 1024 00:51:30,920 --> 00:51:35,820 and several other statements, India brings its program out 1025 00:51:35,820 --> 00:51:37,740 of dormancy in response, actually, 1026 00:51:37,740 --> 00:51:38,720 to Pakistan's program. 1027 00:51:38,720 --> 00:51:41,630 So there's a narrative-- the conventional wisdom 1028 00:51:41,630 --> 00:51:45,740 is that India's nuclear program beget 1029 00:51:45,740 --> 00:51:47,710 Pakistan's nuclear program. 1030 00:51:47,710 --> 00:51:49,110 But it's the other way around. 1031 00:51:49,110 --> 00:51:50,710 So Pakistan's program is triggered 1032 00:51:50,710 --> 00:51:52,920 by Indian conventional power. 1033 00:51:52,920 --> 00:51:56,780 India has this rudimentary nuclear hedging program 1034 00:51:56,780 --> 00:51:58,300 in the 1970s. 1035 00:51:58,300 --> 00:52:01,030 It was only when Pakistan claimed publicly 1036 00:52:01,030 --> 00:52:04,010 that it had a nuclear weapons capability that India brings 1037 00:52:04,010 --> 00:52:05,620 its program out of dormancy. 1038 00:52:05,620 --> 00:52:09,550 So it was only in 1988, 1989-- it was actually winter of 1989. 1039 00:52:09,550 --> 00:52:11,780 Then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi orders 1040 00:52:11,780 --> 00:52:15,170 work on weaponization, miniaturization, production 1041 00:52:15,170 --> 00:52:17,940 line, all the things you need to have a military program. 1042 00:52:17,940 --> 00:52:20,470 And India only is starting then, at that point, racing 1043 00:52:20,470 --> 00:52:21,940 to develop delivery capability. 1044 00:52:21,940 --> 00:52:24,380 So they had indigenous missiles, the Agni 1045 00:52:24,380 --> 00:52:26,170 and the Prithvi missile. 1046 00:52:26,170 --> 00:52:30,479 And so India was playing from behind in this period. 1047 00:52:30,479 --> 00:52:32,520 So it would take India another four or five years 1048 00:52:32,520 --> 00:52:35,210 before they would have a militarized program 1049 00:52:35,210 --> 00:52:38,480 that they could test. 1050 00:52:38,480 --> 00:52:40,540 Once they reached that point, there 1051 00:52:40,540 --> 00:52:42,030 were several aborted tests. 1052 00:52:42,030 --> 00:52:46,180 1995, Prime Minister Rao of the Congress Party, 1053 00:52:46,180 --> 00:52:47,710 he is on the brink of tests. 1054 00:52:47,710 --> 00:52:50,090 And the US Ambassador, Frank Wisner 1055 00:52:50,090 --> 00:52:53,912 goes to Prime Minister Rao and says, 1056 00:52:53,912 --> 00:52:55,120 we know you're about to test. 1057 00:52:55,120 --> 00:52:56,142 Don't do it. 1058 00:52:56,142 --> 00:52:58,100 The weight of American sanctions will kill you, 1059 00:52:58,100 --> 00:53:01,151 and Rao backs off. 1060 00:53:01,151 --> 00:53:04,310 A couple months later, the BJP, which is the opposition 1061 00:53:04,310 --> 00:53:06,700 party-- the main opposition party at the time, 1062 00:53:06,700 --> 00:53:08,222 when's office for the first time. 1063 00:53:08,222 --> 00:53:09,680 They're in office for only 13 days, 1064 00:53:09,680 --> 00:53:11,305 so they have to pull back from the test 1065 00:53:11,305 --> 00:53:13,270 that they were planning to conduct. 1066 00:53:13,270 --> 00:53:15,060 When they return to power in May 1998, 1067 00:53:15,060 --> 00:53:16,930 the BJP, in its manifesto, says it's 1068 00:53:16,930 --> 00:53:19,100 going to test nuclear weapons. 1069 00:53:19,100 --> 00:53:20,850 Yet the CIA claims it was caught off guard 1070 00:53:20,850 --> 00:53:22,475 when they came back to power after they 1071 00:53:22,475 --> 00:53:24,420 had ordered tests in 1996. 1072 00:53:24,420 --> 00:53:26,690 Everyone claims that the CIA was caught off guard 1073 00:53:26,690 --> 00:53:28,550 by the May 1998 test. 1074 00:53:28,550 --> 00:53:31,595 But the BJP had said it publicly that if they came into office, 1075 00:53:31,595 --> 00:53:33,780 they were going to test nuclear weapons again. 1076 00:53:33,780 --> 00:53:36,210 And they did take steps to camouflage 1077 00:53:36,210 --> 00:53:38,450 the activity in the test sites. 1078 00:53:38,450 --> 00:53:41,730 But as soon as they come back to office, two months after they 1079 00:53:41,730 --> 00:53:46,457 win office in a permanent majority, 1080 00:53:46,457 --> 00:53:47,540 they test nuclear weapons. 1081 00:53:47,540 --> 00:53:50,830 It was five fission devices. 1082 00:53:50,830 --> 00:53:52,330 They cited everything under the sun, 1083 00:53:52,330 --> 00:53:53,480 but primarily, China's the reason 1084 00:53:53,480 --> 00:53:54,646 for testing nuclear weapons. 1085 00:53:57,300 --> 00:53:59,674 And then the question was, how does India, now 1086 00:53:59,674 --> 00:54:01,340 that they overly tested nuclear weapons, 1087 00:54:01,340 --> 00:54:03,120 operationalize its nuclear capabilities? 1088 00:54:03,120 --> 00:54:07,250 As I mentioned before, India has an assured retaliation posture. 1089 00:54:07,250 --> 00:54:08,800 So it tested nuclear weapons in 1998, 1090 00:54:08,800 --> 00:54:11,210 and then the question is, how do we manage these things? 1091 00:54:11,210 --> 00:54:14,650 India very quickly decided to have a no first use policy. 1092 00:54:14,650 --> 00:54:17,240 And they were going to have a very assertive management 1093 00:54:17,240 --> 00:54:20,460 of their nuclear forces and rely on an assured retaliation 1094 00:54:20,460 --> 00:54:22,960 capability, so no tactical nuclear weapons, just 1095 00:54:22,960 --> 00:54:26,160 strategic weapons. 1096 00:54:26,160 --> 00:54:28,680 The capability is under civilian custody, 1097 00:54:28,680 --> 00:54:30,960 and the aim of their doctrine is to deter nuclear use 1098 00:54:30,960 --> 00:54:32,789 against Indian population centers. 1099 00:54:32,789 --> 00:54:34,580 So it's a deterrent by punishment strategy. 1100 00:54:34,580 --> 00:54:38,794 And they have long range ballistic missiles. 1101 00:54:38,794 --> 00:54:40,210 They had some aircraft capability, 1102 00:54:40,210 --> 00:54:42,900 but they're primarily moving a missile capability now. 1103 00:54:42,900 --> 00:54:46,300 And they have very recessed posture, 1104 00:54:46,300 --> 00:54:48,490 very few weapons on alert. 1105 00:54:48,490 --> 00:54:52,336 Most of the arsenal is actually disassembled during peace time. 1106 00:54:52,336 --> 00:54:54,210 Some subset is at higher states of readiness, 1107 00:54:54,210 --> 00:54:58,129 but it's primarily-- it would take several steps 1108 00:54:58,129 --> 00:55:00,170 up the alert ladder before India is in a position 1109 00:55:00,170 --> 00:55:01,128 to use nuclear weapons. 1110 00:55:01,128 --> 00:55:05,160 So they're not on hair trigger alert 1111 00:55:05,160 --> 00:55:07,970 as American and Soviet weapons were. 1112 00:55:07,970 --> 00:55:13,020 Pakistan, on the other hand-- so it tests shortly after India. 1113 00:55:13,020 --> 00:55:15,660 They have moved away from uranium enrichment 1114 00:55:15,660 --> 00:55:16,457 to plutonium. 1115 00:55:16,457 --> 00:55:18,915 For the physicists here, what's the advantage of plutonium? 1116 00:55:23,880 --> 00:55:25,712 Plutonium weapons. 1117 00:55:25,712 --> 00:55:27,107 AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] 1118 00:55:27,107 --> 00:55:27,940 VIPIN NARANG: Right. 1119 00:55:27,940 --> 00:55:29,773 So the yield-to-weight ratio is much better. 1120 00:55:29,773 --> 00:55:34,190 So if you want battlefield nuclear weapons or higher yield 1121 00:55:34,190 --> 00:55:37,770 strategic weapons, and you have payload constraints-- 1122 00:55:37,770 --> 00:55:39,820 you're trading off range for payload, 1123 00:55:39,820 --> 00:55:43,760 so a plutonium gets you much better yield-to-weight ratios. 1124 00:55:43,760 --> 00:55:47,630 So it is about 4 to 1 advantage. 1125 00:55:47,630 --> 00:55:51,520 And once they had the uranium devices, 1126 00:55:51,520 --> 00:55:53,320 they're worried-- Pakistan was always 1127 00:55:53,320 --> 00:55:56,780 worried that India would attack its nuclear facilities. 1128 00:55:56,780 --> 00:55:58,840 Once it acquired basic nuclear weapons capability 1129 00:55:58,840 --> 00:56:02,264 through the uranium pathway, now it doesn't fear that as much. 1130 00:56:02,264 --> 00:56:04,680 And so most of the plutonium production is out in the open 1131 00:56:04,680 --> 00:56:05,626 and with Chinese help. 1132 00:56:05,626 --> 00:56:07,250 So there are series of Chinese reactors 1133 00:56:07,250 --> 00:56:10,170 and reprocessing facilities that are coming on line. 1134 00:56:10,170 --> 00:56:13,850 And Pakistan is shifting to plutonium production, 1135 00:56:13,850 --> 00:56:17,392 primarily for its battlefield nuclear weapons capability. 1136 00:56:17,392 --> 00:56:19,100 It's delivery capabilities were initially 1137 00:56:19,100 --> 00:56:21,020 bought from China and North Korea, 1138 00:56:21,020 --> 00:56:24,000 so there were missiles for uranium enrichment capability 1139 00:56:24,000 --> 00:56:26,800 trade that Pakistan had with China-- sorry-- with North 1140 00:56:26,800 --> 00:56:28,721 Korea. 1141 00:56:28,721 --> 00:56:30,720 So it got the No-Dong missiles from North Korea. 1142 00:56:30,720 --> 00:56:33,430 In exchange, North Korea got some basis 1143 00:56:33,430 --> 00:56:37,670 for its uranium enrichment capability that it now has. 1144 00:56:37,670 --> 00:56:44,390 And China also sold Pakistan some MX-4 missiles, 1145 00:56:44,390 --> 00:56:48,137 which are the Shaheen and Gaznavi missiles for Pakistan. 1146 00:56:48,137 --> 00:56:50,553 AUDIENCE: What's the motivation for China to sell and give 1147 00:56:50,553 --> 00:56:52,110 this aid to Pakistan? 1148 00:56:52,110 --> 00:56:54,026 VIPIN NARANG: Well, so if you're China, what's 1149 00:56:54,026 --> 00:56:55,920 the advantage of having Pakistan be nuclear 1150 00:56:55,920 --> 00:56:58,220 and-- who's in the middle? 1151 00:56:58,220 --> 00:57:01,920 Look at thee-- They can sandwich India, right? 1152 00:57:01,920 --> 00:57:05,610 So the enemy of my enemy is my friend. 1153 00:57:05,610 --> 00:57:08,485 AUDIENCE: I mean it seams China had their own nuclear weapons, 1154 00:57:08,485 --> 00:57:11,922 so anything from Pakistan would be trivial. 1155 00:57:11,922 --> 00:57:13,395 Pakistan's a little unstable. 1156 00:57:13,395 --> 00:57:17,570 You never quite know if the government collapses, what 1157 00:57:17,570 --> 00:57:18,820 might happen to those weapons. 1158 00:57:18,820 --> 00:57:20,430 VIPIN NARANG: No, I mean these are all reasonable questions. 1159 00:57:20,430 --> 00:57:22,430 And I think they're raised of the Chinese a lot. 1160 00:57:22,430 --> 00:57:25,530 Like that you provide a state a nuclear capability 1161 00:57:25,530 --> 00:57:29,320 or assist them, but you don't want to take responsibility 1162 00:57:29,320 --> 00:57:33,250 if there's a fracture in the state and nuclear weapons 1163 00:57:33,250 --> 00:57:35,350 fall into extremist hands. 1164 00:57:35,350 --> 00:57:37,050 And the Chinese will always-- you 1165 00:57:37,050 --> 00:57:39,330 go to some of these Track IIs and China has always 1166 00:57:39,330 --> 00:57:40,800 washed their hands of it. 1167 00:57:40,800 --> 00:57:42,787 But you can think from a strategic perspective 1168 00:57:42,787 --> 00:57:45,370 why it makes sense for them to have India focused on Pakistan, 1169 00:57:45,370 --> 00:57:46,453 and this is one way to do. 1170 00:57:46,453 --> 00:57:50,090 And I think that's the Chinese motivation. 1171 00:57:50,090 --> 00:57:54,010 So Pakistan, because it is trying 1172 00:57:54,010 --> 00:57:56,120 to deter Indian conventional power, 1173 00:57:56,120 --> 00:57:59,510 has an explicit first use doctrine. 1174 00:57:59,510 --> 00:58:04,460 And this has evolved in the past 15, 16 years. 1175 00:58:04,460 --> 00:58:07,635 First of all, it's credible because all 1176 00:58:07,635 --> 00:58:10,290 of Pakistan's nuclear weapons are under military custody. 1177 00:58:10,290 --> 00:58:12,450 Unlike India where the civilian custody and control 1178 00:58:12,450 --> 00:58:15,340 of nuclear weapons, Pakistan is a de facto praetorian state. 1179 00:58:15,340 --> 00:58:18,300 The Army is a dominant decision making body. 1180 00:58:18,300 --> 00:58:21,010 And so all the nuclear weapons program, from cradle to grave, 1181 00:58:21,010 --> 00:58:23,060 is under army management. 1182 00:58:23,060 --> 00:58:24,910 So they control the nuclear weapons program. 1183 00:58:24,910 --> 00:58:27,870 There's been a shift to battlefield nuclear weapons. 1184 00:58:27,870 --> 00:58:30,460 There's a capability known as the NASR missile. 1185 00:58:30,460 --> 00:58:34,650 If anyone's been following this, it's a 60 kilometer, 1186 00:58:34,650 --> 00:58:40,340 short range nuclear weapon system 1187 00:58:40,340 --> 00:58:42,965 that will be fielded at the rear edge of battle that 1188 00:58:42,965 --> 00:58:44,970 would target Indian forces if they 1189 00:58:44,970 --> 00:58:46,772 cross the international border. 1190 00:58:46,772 --> 00:58:48,980 They have a series of cruise missiles, which are also 1191 00:58:48,980 --> 00:58:51,188 designed to be battlefield nuclear weapons, the Ra'ad 1192 00:58:51,188 --> 00:58:51,880 and the Babur. 1193 00:58:51,880 --> 00:58:54,435 And they have an explicitly deterrence by denial mission. 1194 00:58:54,435 --> 00:58:56,560 They're trying to deter Indian conventional attacks 1195 00:58:56,560 --> 00:58:58,270 across the international border. 1196 00:59:03,220 --> 00:59:06,690 So there are some-- any questions 1197 00:59:06,690 --> 00:59:11,770 about where we are in terms of how India and Pakistan think 1198 00:59:11,770 --> 00:59:13,870 about nuclear weapons in their force postures? 1199 00:59:13,870 --> 00:59:14,160 Yeah? 1200 00:59:14,160 --> 00:59:16,435 AUDIENCE: Around that time was India suggesting at all 1201 00:59:16,435 --> 00:59:19,454 that that they were interested in traditional war 1202 00:59:19,454 --> 00:59:20,110 with Pakistan? 1203 00:59:20,110 --> 00:59:20,970 VIPIN NARANG: So this is an excellent question. 1204 00:59:20,970 --> 00:59:23,660 Why would Pakistan-- I'll skip through some of this 1205 00:59:23,660 --> 00:59:28,480 because the crux of the problem now is India 1206 00:59:28,480 --> 00:59:31,040 doesn't have any territorial designs on Pakistan. 1207 00:59:31,040 --> 00:59:34,320 Why would India want to dismember Pakistani further? 1208 00:59:34,320 --> 00:59:36,410 It prefers a stable Pakistan. 1209 00:59:36,410 --> 00:59:38,400 It has no territorial ambitions in Pakistan. 1210 00:59:38,400 --> 00:59:41,230 There are some-- Kashmir is a disputed-- there's 1211 00:59:41,230 --> 00:59:42,610 a dispute over Kashmir. 1212 00:59:42,610 --> 00:59:45,540 But frankly, the line of control on both sides 1213 00:59:45,540 --> 00:59:47,860 is effectively the de facto border. 1214 00:59:47,860 --> 00:59:51,171 There won't be much territorial revision over Kashmir. 1215 00:59:51,171 --> 00:59:53,670 And certainly, if you're worried about a conventional attack 1216 00:59:53,670 --> 00:59:58,180 across the international border, how do you get there? 1217 00:59:58,180 --> 01:00:02,290 I'll get to that in one second after very quickly talking 1218 01:00:02,290 --> 01:00:05,080 about, in the nuclear sense, what 1219 01:00:05,080 --> 01:00:07,640 the difference is between South Asian the Cold War. 1220 01:00:07,640 --> 01:00:09,810 So both sides now have nuclear weapons. 1221 01:00:09,810 --> 01:00:12,200 Some of the key differences between India, Pakistan, 1222 01:00:12,200 --> 01:00:13,990 and the United States and the Soviet Union 1223 01:00:13,990 --> 01:00:18,300 are, one, rudimentary capabilities still, 1224 01:00:18,300 --> 01:00:19,860 organizational command and control 1225 01:00:19,860 --> 01:00:22,830 is not as mature in either country as in the Cold 1226 01:00:22,830 --> 01:00:27,630 War, especially in the later years the Cold War obviously. 1227 01:00:27,630 --> 01:00:30,540 But the other big difference is they border each other. 1228 01:00:30,540 --> 01:00:33,500 So the flight times between India and Pakistan 1229 01:00:33,500 --> 01:00:36,700 is on the order of a couple minutes. 1230 01:00:36,700 --> 01:00:38,990 The US and Soviet Union was 30 minutes. 1231 01:00:38,990 --> 01:00:42,504 So you had a half hour to figure what was going on. 1232 01:00:42,504 --> 01:00:45,540 In India and Pakistan, you have two minutes-- 1233 01:00:45,540 --> 01:00:48,040 if you had any early warning-- and early warning systems are 1234 01:00:48,040 --> 01:00:49,720 very rudimentary-- if you had any early warning, 1235 01:00:49,720 --> 01:00:51,610 or indication that the other side is launching 1236 01:00:51,610 --> 01:00:53,160 a potential nuclear strike, you have two minutes 1237 01:00:53,160 --> 01:00:54,800 before that thing is going to hit. 1238 01:00:54,800 --> 01:00:57,860 So your reaction times have to be much quicker. 1239 01:00:57,860 --> 01:00:59,790 The other big difference is-- I'm going 1240 01:00:59,790 --> 01:01:02,800 to skip through this here. 1241 01:01:02,800 --> 01:01:07,380 The other big difference is, as you mentioned, 1242 01:01:07,380 --> 01:01:10,820 why would India be interested in conventional attacks 1243 01:01:10,820 --> 01:01:12,154 against Pakistan? 1244 01:01:12,154 --> 01:01:13,820 Well, it wouldn't be ab-- it wouldn't be 1245 01:01:13,820 --> 01:01:15,180 the first to initiate conflict. 1246 01:01:15,180 --> 01:01:17,070 The Indian problem right now is it 1247 01:01:17,070 --> 01:01:21,580 is facing a Pakistan that is more aggressively emboldened 1248 01:01:21,580 --> 01:01:24,880 to launch militant attacks in India using organization-- 1249 01:01:24,880 --> 01:01:26,990 proxy organization sponsored by the state-- 1250 01:01:26,990 --> 01:01:28,830 or believed to be sponsored by the state, 1251 01:01:28,830 --> 01:01:31,340 like Lushkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed. 1252 01:01:31,340 --> 01:01:33,722 And the strategy has changed since Pakistan 1253 01:01:33,722 --> 01:01:34,680 tested nuclear weapons. 1254 01:01:34,680 --> 01:01:40,020 Prior to 1998, Pakistan-- there was a strategy, 1255 01:01:40,020 --> 01:01:43,410 coined by Zia and General Aslam Baig, 1256 01:01:43,410 --> 01:01:46,040 known as bleeding India by 1,000 cuts. 1257 01:01:46,040 --> 01:01:48,730 So there's a strategy of cutting India at the periphery. 1258 01:01:48,730 --> 01:01:51,495 In the line of control in Jammu Kashmir in the mountains, 1259 01:01:51,495 --> 01:01:53,370 you couldn't have a real conventional battle, 1260 01:01:53,370 --> 01:01:55,120 but you could have terrorist infiltration. 1261 01:01:55,120 --> 01:01:59,800 There would be some attacks and just small cuts. 1262 01:01:59,800 --> 01:02:02,720 But the strategy has shifted since 1998, it seems. 1263 01:02:02,720 --> 01:02:05,860 The frequency of over infiltration 1264 01:02:05,860 --> 01:02:09,250 by regular forces in the Kargil War in 1999 1265 01:02:09,250 --> 01:02:13,200 and then multiple attacks on Indian metropolitan cities 1266 01:02:13,200 --> 01:02:16,892 with these Pakistan-based militant organizations. 1267 01:02:16,892 --> 01:02:18,350 It leads to a condition where India 1268 01:02:18,350 --> 01:02:20,820 wouldn't be starting a war, but it would be retaliating. 1269 01:02:20,820 --> 01:02:23,620 So India's mainstay threat prior to nuclearization 1270 01:02:23,620 --> 01:02:27,512 was if you try the strategy of bleeding us by a thousand cuts, 1271 01:02:27,512 --> 01:02:29,220 we're going to punish you where it hurts. 1272 01:02:29,220 --> 01:02:30,720 We're going to destroy your army. 1273 01:02:30,720 --> 01:02:34,169 If you're an army led state, an army controlled state, 1274 01:02:34,169 --> 01:02:35,710 we'll cross the international border, 1275 01:02:35,710 --> 01:02:37,890 and we will attrit your army. 1276 01:02:37,890 --> 01:02:39,609 And that will punish Pakistan. 1277 01:02:39,609 --> 01:02:41,650 So that was the deterrence by punishment strategy 1278 01:02:41,650 --> 01:02:45,050 India had at the conventional level prior to nuclearization. 1279 01:02:45,050 --> 01:02:48,520 But post-nuclearization now Pakistan is doing what? 1280 01:02:48,520 --> 01:02:51,530 It threatens-- well, it's going to stand and fight for a while. 1281 01:02:51,530 --> 01:02:54,290 But in extreme, it threatens tactical nuclear use 1282 01:02:54,290 --> 01:02:56,780 on Indian forces if India tries to retaliate 1283 01:02:56,780 --> 01:02:58,570 across the international border. 1284 01:02:58,570 --> 01:03:00,900 And so that's the scenario that India finds itself now. 1285 01:03:00,900 --> 01:03:02,310 And that's the scenario in which India 1286 01:03:02,310 --> 01:03:04,560 would think about conventional conflict with Pakistan. 1287 01:03:04,560 --> 01:03:06,129 It's not for territorial ambition 1288 01:03:06,129 --> 01:03:07,170 or any territorial gains. 1289 01:03:07,170 --> 01:03:10,810 It would be for retaliation after a provocation. 1290 01:03:10,810 --> 01:03:14,070 So there are a couple examples. 1291 01:03:14,070 --> 01:03:15,470 The first is the Kargil War. 1292 01:03:15,470 --> 01:03:18,450 Does anyone remember this, May 1999? 1293 01:03:18,450 --> 01:03:24,320 So this was a year after they tested nuclear weapons. 1294 01:03:24,320 --> 01:03:29,920 General Pervez Musharraf, who ended up being president 1295 01:03:29,920 --> 01:03:32,630 during the first phase of the Afghan war in 2000-- this 1296 01:03:32,630 --> 01:03:36,540 was right before September-- two years before September 11. 1297 01:03:36,540 --> 01:03:38,760 Nawaz Sharif-- man history does repeat itself. 1298 01:03:38,760 --> 01:03:41,190 Nawaz Sharif was then the prime minister. 1299 01:03:41,190 --> 01:03:46,230 He is again the prime minister today by the way. 1300 01:03:46,230 --> 01:03:48,230 He claims he had no knowledge of this operation. 1301 01:03:48,230 --> 01:03:50,040 But then General Pervez Musharraf, 1302 01:03:50,040 --> 01:03:52,750 who was the chief of army staff, orchestrated an operation 1303 01:03:52,750 --> 01:03:56,780 where un-uniformed regular Pakistan forces, known 1304 01:03:56,780 --> 01:03:59,610 as the Northern Light Infiltry-- the Northern Light Infantry, 1305 01:03:59,610 --> 01:04:04,190 infiltrated into several sectors in to Indian held Kashmir, 1306 01:04:04,190 --> 01:04:05,240 into Indian territory. 1307 01:04:05,240 --> 01:04:09,610 And India responded with trying to dislodge 1308 01:04:09,610 --> 01:04:11,460 the Pakistani forces. 1309 01:04:11,460 --> 01:04:15,800 Previously, this exact operation had been attempted in 1965. 1310 01:04:15,800 --> 01:04:18,070 India launched air strikes across the line of control 1311 01:04:18,070 --> 01:04:21,270 and opened a second front across the international border. 1312 01:04:21,270 --> 01:04:25,850 This, time the BJP responded very differently. 1313 01:04:25,850 --> 01:04:28,870 Because of Pakistan's nuclearization, 1314 01:04:28,870 --> 01:04:32,510 the BJP was much more restrained and sustained heavier losses 1315 01:04:32,510 --> 01:04:36,510 because the threat of escalating the conflict 1316 01:04:36,510 --> 01:04:39,920 deterred the BJP from the same kind of response 1317 01:04:39,920 --> 01:04:42,230 that it had in 1965-- that India had. 1318 01:04:42,230 --> 01:04:44,950 So it refused to allow air operations 1319 01:04:44,950 --> 01:04:46,650 across the line of control. 1320 01:04:46,650 --> 01:04:49,860 So Indian aircraft could not cross the line of control 1321 01:04:49,860 --> 01:04:53,064 in hot pursuit of Pakistsani infiltrators. 1322 01:04:53,064 --> 01:04:54,480 And most importantly, they did not 1323 01:04:54,480 --> 01:04:56,021 threaten to open up the second front. 1324 01:04:56,021 --> 01:04:59,990 The place where India's conventional advantage really 1325 01:04:59,990 --> 01:05:05,496 comes to bear is on the international border, here. 1326 01:05:05,496 --> 01:05:06,870 So most of the fighting was here. 1327 01:05:06,870 --> 01:05:08,760 This was where the infiltration was. 1328 01:05:08,760 --> 01:05:11,350 But India has a huge advantage in this plane sector, which 1329 01:05:11,350 --> 01:05:12,516 is the international border. 1330 01:05:12,516 --> 01:05:14,842 So any time there has been a previous provocation, 1331 01:05:14,842 --> 01:05:17,050 India has always mobilized forces here and threatened 1332 01:05:17,050 --> 01:05:18,925 to open up a second front where it can really 1333 01:05:18,925 --> 01:05:21,080 bring its conventional power to bear on Pakistan. 1334 01:05:21,080 --> 01:05:24,570 This time, the BJP refused to threaten 1335 01:05:24,570 --> 01:05:26,150 to open-- it did not mobilize any 1336 01:05:26,150 --> 01:05:27,820 of its mainstay conventional forces 1337 01:05:27,820 --> 01:05:29,915 on the international border and didn't threaten 1338 01:05:29,915 --> 01:05:31,120 to open up a second front. 1339 01:05:31,120 --> 01:05:33,620 And so it took Indian forces a lot longer, 1340 01:05:33,620 --> 01:05:36,630 and they sustained much heavier losses in the Kargil War, 1341 01:05:36,630 --> 01:05:41,460 because they had to expel Pakistani forces symmetrically. 1342 01:05:41,460 --> 01:05:44,840 So they didn't have the virtue of air power hitting 1343 01:05:44,840 --> 01:05:46,510 behind Pakistani lines. 1344 01:05:46,510 --> 01:05:52,250 And there wasn't any ability to take pressure off of this front 1345 01:05:52,250 --> 01:05:56,200 by opening up a second front in the international border. 1346 01:05:56,200 --> 01:05:58,740 So already you can see India's response is restrained 1347 01:05:58,740 --> 01:06:02,190 because Pakistan was a nuclear power. 1348 01:06:02,190 --> 01:06:06,380 So shortly after September 11 here, two months later-- 1349 01:06:06,380 --> 01:06:09,740 three months later, there was an attack 1350 01:06:09,740 --> 01:06:10,920 on the Indian parliament. 1351 01:06:10,920 --> 01:06:14,294 So you had about half a dozen gunman break 1352 01:06:14,294 --> 01:06:16,460 through the barriers of the Indian Parliament house. 1353 01:06:16,460 --> 01:06:18,670 I mean imagine an attack on Congress here. 1354 01:06:18,670 --> 01:06:19,800 It would be the equivalent. 1355 01:06:19,800 --> 01:06:26,510 So you had Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lushkar-e-Taiba joint attack 1356 01:06:26,510 --> 01:06:28,530 on the Indian parliament in Delhi. 1357 01:06:28,530 --> 01:06:31,780 Never heard of before that they-- these militant groups, 1358 01:06:31,780 --> 01:06:35,280 which are nominally supported by the Pakistani state, 1359 01:06:35,280 --> 01:06:38,150 would attack the Indian capital. 1360 01:06:38,150 --> 01:06:40,380 So you had this attack in December. 1361 01:06:40,380 --> 01:06:42,381 The BJP is furious. 1362 01:06:42,381 --> 01:06:43,880 Imagine what the United States would 1363 01:06:43,880 --> 01:06:48,680 do if a militant organization attacked the US Congress. 1364 01:06:48,680 --> 01:06:51,670 So you can imagine the outrage in India at the time. 1365 01:06:51,670 --> 01:06:55,000 So the BJP contemplates limited war here 1366 01:06:55,000 --> 01:06:59,320 across the line of control, so destroying terrorist camps 1367 01:06:59,320 --> 01:07:01,720 across the line of control. 1368 01:07:01,720 --> 01:07:03,675 Under a lot of pressure from the US government 1369 01:07:03,675 --> 01:07:05,050 because remember what's happened? 1370 01:07:05,050 --> 01:07:07,492 We were mobilizing for war on Afghanistan at this point. 1371 01:07:07,492 --> 01:07:08,200 We need Pakistan. 1372 01:07:08,200 --> 01:07:11,210 The United States needs General Musharraf 1373 01:07:11,210 --> 01:07:14,080 to not be distracted by a conventional war with India. 1374 01:07:14,080 --> 01:07:16,690 Can you imagine how that would have affected the US 1375 01:07:16,690 --> 01:07:18,571 war in Afghanistan if India and Pakistan got 1376 01:07:18,571 --> 01:07:20,070 into a conventional war at the time. 1377 01:07:20,070 --> 01:07:23,000 So a lot of pressure on both sides to not go to war. 1378 01:07:23,000 --> 01:07:26,051 So Deputy Secretary of State at the time, Dick Armitage, 1379 01:07:26,051 --> 01:07:26,800 gets on the phone. 1380 01:07:26,800 --> 01:07:30,710 He's on the phone, he said, twice a day with the BJP 1381 01:07:30,710 --> 01:07:33,690 urging them to show restraint. 1382 01:07:33,690 --> 01:07:36,250 And India backs off actually for a while. 1383 01:07:36,250 --> 01:07:38,940 But then there's a secondary attack 1384 01:07:38,940 --> 01:07:42,390 in a small town called Kaluchack in Jammu, 1385 01:07:42,390 --> 01:07:43,440 which is an army town. 1386 01:07:43,440 --> 01:07:47,670 And the Jaish militants killed 36 Indian army families. 1387 01:07:47,670 --> 01:07:49,480 And so the BJP, at this point-- this 1388 01:07:49,480 --> 01:07:52,049 is the second peak of the crisis. 1389 01:07:52,049 --> 01:07:53,590 And so the BJP says enough is enough. 1390 01:07:53,590 --> 01:07:57,730 So they mobilize India's three-- they call them the three Strike 1391 01:07:57,730 --> 01:07:58,640 Corps. 1392 01:07:58,640 --> 01:08:01,560 These are the main offensive components of the Indian army. 1393 01:08:01,560 --> 01:08:03,940 800,000 forces in total. 1394 01:08:03,940 --> 01:08:06,430 And they're mobilized in their assembly boxes, which 1395 01:08:06,430 --> 01:08:10,490 are much larger than shown here, 60 kilometer breadth, 1396 01:08:10,490 --> 01:08:13,960 in these three positions, poised for attacks 1397 01:08:13,960 --> 01:08:15,863 across the international border. 1398 01:08:15,863 --> 01:08:17,279 So this is where the threat of war 1399 01:08:17,279 --> 01:08:19,660 becomes real for South Asia. 1400 01:08:19,660 --> 01:08:24,520 SO the BJP, you don't mobilize these forces just as a bluff. 1401 01:08:24,520 --> 01:08:26,870 And so there's a real concern that the BJP 1402 01:08:26,870 --> 01:08:29,040 would authorize attacks. 1403 01:08:29,040 --> 01:08:30,829 And at this point, Pakistan engages 1404 01:08:30,829 --> 01:08:32,120 in some serious nuclear signal. 1405 01:08:32,120 --> 01:08:34,520 They test three nuclear capable missiles, 1406 01:08:34,520 --> 01:08:37,910 without the warheads of course. 1407 01:08:37,910 --> 01:08:40,240 President Musharraf makes very explicit nuclear threats 1408 01:08:40,240 --> 01:08:42,656 to the Indians that if they cross the international border 1409 01:08:42,656 --> 01:08:45,810 that Pakistan may have no option but to use nuclear weapons. 1410 01:08:45,810 --> 01:08:48,500 The US and the United Kingdom evacuate 1411 01:08:48,500 --> 01:08:50,640 their nonessential personnel from India. 1412 01:08:50,640 --> 01:08:52,348 I mean it was very serious at this point. 1413 01:08:58,529 --> 01:09:01,330 After these nuclear threats, and again, 1414 01:09:01,330 --> 01:09:05,140 a lot of pressure from the United States on India, 1415 01:09:05,140 --> 01:09:08,529 Prime Minister Vajpayee orders, several months later, 1416 01:09:08,529 --> 01:09:11,210 the Strike Corps back to their peacetime cantonments, which 1417 01:09:11,210 --> 01:09:12,970 are in the interior of India. 1418 01:09:12,970 --> 01:09:15,910 And later on, he said, look, I don't 1419 01:09:15,910 --> 01:09:17,660 think that a risk of nuclear war was high, 1420 01:09:17,660 --> 01:09:20,200 but I didn't want to be responsible for starting one. 1421 01:09:20,200 --> 01:09:21,881 And so there was a real palpable threat 1422 01:09:21,881 --> 01:09:24,380 that if India engaged in this kind of conventional operation 1423 01:09:24,380 --> 01:09:26,840 against Pakistan and defeated the Pakistan army, 1424 01:09:26,840 --> 01:09:29,340 that there's a real risk that nuclear weapons would be used. 1425 01:09:35,600 --> 01:09:37,650 The third instance was the Bombay attack in 2008 1426 01:09:37,650 --> 01:09:40,270 that we already talked about at the beginning. 1427 01:09:40,270 --> 01:09:45,040 So here, this was even more audacious, in some ways, 1428 01:09:45,040 --> 01:09:46,439 than the parliament attack. 1429 01:09:46,439 --> 01:09:49,880 This wasn't a ragtag group of six guys in a car. 1430 01:09:49,880 --> 01:09:52,689 This was a dozen well-trained, heavily armed militants coming 1431 01:09:52,689 --> 01:09:56,140 by sea from Karachi, quarterbacked-- it now turns 1432 01:09:56,140 --> 01:10:02,480 out-- by retired ISI handlers. 1433 01:10:02,480 --> 01:10:05,830 The United States picked up signals intelligence 1434 01:10:05,830 --> 01:10:10,320 and intercepts between handlers in Pakistan 1435 01:10:10,320 --> 01:10:14,560 who were former ISI officers quarterbacking the operation 1436 01:10:14,560 --> 01:10:17,090 as they attacked Bombay. 1437 01:10:17,090 --> 01:10:19,680 And it killed 170 civilians. 1438 01:10:19,680 --> 01:10:25,580 So the media tends to downplay the number of Westerners that 1439 01:10:25,580 --> 01:10:29,600 were deliberately targeted by the militant-- 1440 01:10:29,600 --> 01:10:33,640 by the LeT militants. 1441 01:10:33,640 --> 01:10:39,530 And India was justifiably outraged at this attack. 1442 01:10:39,530 --> 01:10:42,022 But the government was again paralyzed. 1443 01:10:42,022 --> 01:10:43,730 So this time it's the Congress government 1444 01:10:43,730 --> 01:10:46,210 not the BJP government that's making decisions. 1445 01:10:46,210 --> 01:10:48,270 And it doesn't mobilize forces this time. 1446 01:10:48,270 --> 01:10:49,900 The prime minister, Mahmud Hussein, 1447 01:10:49,900 --> 01:10:53,660 said he did not want a repeat of 2001, 2002. 1448 01:10:53,660 --> 01:10:56,080 We don't want to mobilize forces and not do anything. 1449 01:10:56,080 --> 01:10:57,560 So what do we do? 1450 01:10:57,560 --> 01:11:01,230 And here we have the paralysis that the Indian policy 1451 01:11:01,230 --> 01:11:05,609 community faces is any serious conventional retaliation risks 1452 01:11:05,609 --> 01:11:06,400 nuclear escalation. 1453 01:11:06,400 --> 01:11:09,320 I think this is where India finds itself. 1454 01:11:09,320 --> 01:11:12,520 And this is from a cabinet meeting. 1455 01:11:12,520 --> 01:11:14,460 So this is a report from the cabinet meeting 1456 01:11:14,460 --> 01:11:16,950 where the prime minister and the defense 1457 01:11:16,950 --> 01:11:21,090 minister, foreign minister, finance minister, home minister 1458 01:11:21,090 --> 01:11:22,710 are meeting. 1459 01:11:22,710 --> 01:11:24,810 And the conclusion was, when the dust settled, 1460 01:11:24,810 --> 01:11:26,660 all the principles agreed that the unpredictability 1461 01:11:26,660 --> 01:11:28,610 on the Pakistan side and the fear that its decision-makers 1462 01:11:28,610 --> 01:11:30,900 could offer a disproportionate response, including 1463 01:11:30,900 --> 01:11:33,260 the nuclear option, stymied any possible chance 1464 01:11:33,260 --> 01:11:37,630 of military action on India'a behalf after-- 26/11 is their-- 1465 01:11:37,630 --> 01:11:39,310 is what they call the Bombay attacks. 1466 01:11:39,310 --> 01:11:43,270 It happened on the 26th of November. 1467 01:11:43,270 --> 01:11:47,180 So there's real paralysis now about how 1468 01:11:47,180 --> 01:11:50,150 do you deter-- see nuclear weapons can't 1469 01:11:50,150 --> 01:11:52,929 deter militant attacks against the Indian state. 1470 01:11:52,929 --> 01:11:54,470 But you lost your conventional option 1471 01:11:54,470 --> 01:11:56,261 to punish Pakistan, which was how you tried 1472 01:11:56,261 --> 01:11:58,370 to deter it in the first place. 1473 01:11:58,370 --> 01:12:01,460 And Pakistan has successfully deterred 1474 01:12:01,460 --> 01:12:04,700 Indian a conventional power by lowering the nuclear threshold, 1475 01:12:04,700 --> 01:12:08,100 taking a play right out of the NATO playbook, 1476 01:12:08,100 --> 01:12:11,335 threatening early nuclear use if Indian forces threaten to cross 1477 01:12:11,335 --> 01:12:14,170 the international border. 1478 01:12:14,170 --> 01:12:16,260 So now, after nuclearization 1998, 1479 01:12:16,260 --> 01:12:18,320 what we have is more frequent and intense 1480 01:12:18,320 --> 01:12:21,024 crises triggered by Pakistan. 1481 01:12:21,024 --> 01:12:22,690 There's a belief that they're emboldened 1482 01:12:22,690 --> 01:12:25,740 by the shield of early nuclear use, 1483 01:12:25,740 --> 01:12:30,087 knowing that India can't really retaliate with ground power. 1484 01:12:30,087 --> 01:12:32,170 We can get into-- we have some time for questions. 1485 01:12:32,170 --> 01:12:35,130 We can get into why India hasn't tried to develop an air strike 1486 01:12:35,130 --> 01:12:36,074 option. 1487 01:12:36,074 --> 01:12:38,240 That gets into the politics of the Indian military-- 1488 01:12:38,240 --> 01:12:41,020 the service rivalries that India has. 1489 01:12:41,020 --> 01:12:47,360 The Air Force has always refused to think about options 1490 01:12:47,360 --> 01:12:49,710 that don't involve the army mobilizing 1491 01:12:49,710 --> 01:12:52,630 because the belief is that Pakistan would retaliate 1492 01:12:52,630 --> 01:12:53,610 on the ground. 1493 01:12:53,610 --> 01:12:57,030 And so the Air Force doesn't believe that standalone air 1494 01:12:57,030 --> 01:13:00,590 options are possible without a ground option being mobilized. 1495 01:13:00,590 --> 01:13:02,115 AUDIENCE: So what is Pakistan trying 1496 01:13:02,115 --> 01:13:03,366 to achieve with these attacks? 1497 01:13:03,366 --> 01:13:05,823 VIPIN NARANG: So this is an interesting strategic question. 1498 01:13:05,823 --> 01:13:07,830 What does Pakistan hope-- so if your Pakistan, 1499 01:13:07,830 --> 01:13:09,371 you're facing a conventional-- you're 1500 01:13:09,371 --> 01:13:11,720 facing massive conventional inferiority, which is only 1501 01:13:11,720 --> 01:13:14,180 growing because the size and growth rates of the two 1502 01:13:14,180 --> 01:13:16,460 countries are so disproportionate that India's 1503 01:13:16,460 --> 01:13:18,420 gap is just going-- it's going to be a yawning 1504 01:13:18,420 --> 01:13:20,130 gap at this point. 1505 01:13:20,130 --> 01:13:23,130 So going forward, how do you slow India down? 1506 01:13:23,130 --> 01:13:25,580 So there's one theory out there, which 1507 01:13:25,580 --> 01:13:30,400 is these periodic attacks on India's financial and political 1508 01:13:30,400 --> 01:13:34,690 hubs create these periodic crises to get 1509 01:13:34,690 --> 01:13:36,900 foreign investors skittish. 1510 01:13:36,900 --> 01:13:39,210 So you get periodic slowdowns being triggered by this, 1511 01:13:39,210 --> 01:13:41,730 and you can slow down India's economic growth 1512 01:13:41,730 --> 01:13:44,609 potential if you make it risky to invest in India. 1513 01:13:44,609 --> 01:13:45,900 So that's one theory out there. 1514 01:13:45,900 --> 01:13:50,030 The other theory is Pakistan has always had crazies 1515 01:13:50,030 --> 01:13:51,870 that is trained to attack. 1516 01:13:51,870 --> 01:13:53,680 Good crazies kill Indians. 1517 01:13:53,680 --> 01:13:55,430 Bad crazies kill Pakistanis. 1518 01:13:55,430 --> 01:13:58,017 And so they need-- there's a safety valve theory. 1519 01:13:58,017 --> 01:13:59,600 And they've always had a safety valve. 1520 01:13:59,600 --> 01:14:01,020 Before it was Kashmir. 1521 01:14:01,020 --> 01:14:03,310 Now, Kashmir is locked down because Indian army 1522 01:14:03,310 --> 01:14:06,387 knows how to prevent infiltration at Kashmir. 1523 01:14:06,387 --> 01:14:07,720 For a while, it was Afghanistan. 1524 01:14:10,827 --> 01:14:13,160 US military has to be asked, why are these guys speaking 1525 01:14:13,160 --> 01:14:14,320 Punjabi in Afghanistan? 1526 01:14:14,320 --> 01:14:17,410 Because these are the Punjabi trained militants, the LeT, 1527 01:14:17,410 --> 01:14:20,420 that have gone now to Afghanistan to fight, 1528 01:14:20,420 --> 01:14:21,860 and they're killing Americans. 1529 01:14:21,860 --> 01:14:24,690 And now if you can turn them against the Indian state, 1530 01:14:24,690 --> 01:14:26,611 great. 1531 01:14:26,611 --> 01:14:28,360 As long as they're not killing Pakistanis, 1532 01:14:28,360 --> 01:14:29,360 they are good militants. 1533 01:14:29,360 --> 01:14:31,600 And so there's one theory out there 1534 01:14:31,600 --> 01:14:37,400 that the Pakistan state still views these militant groups 1535 01:14:37,400 --> 01:14:40,100 as strategic assets of the states 1536 01:14:40,100 --> 01:14:44,160 to perpetually attack and bleed India by 1,000 cuts. 1537 01:14:44,160 --> 01:14:47,920 And if you can't get in through Kashmir, 1538 01:14:47,920 --> 01:14:51,740 if you could infiltrate by sea to Bombay, great. 1539 01:14:51,740 --> 01:14:54,170 If you can hit Delhi, great. 1540 01:14:54,170 --> 01:14:56,460 Before nuclear weapons, hitting Bombay or Delhi 1541 01:14:56,460 --> 01:14:59,389 really risked serious conventional retaliation. 1542 01:14:59,389 --> 01:15:00,930 But now that you have nuclear weapons 1543 01:15:00,930 --> 01:15:03,000 and operational nuclear capability 1544 01:15:03,000 --> 01:15:04,960 and tactical nuclear weapons to deter 1545 01:15:04,960 --> 01:15:07,650 that conventional retaliation, those kinds 1546 01:15:07,650 --> 01:15:09,820 of audacious attacks are more possible. 1547 01:15:09,820 --> 01:15:12,070 And so these are the two kind of theories out there, 1548 01:15:12,070 --> 01:15:13,560 and they're not mutually exclusive. 1549 01:15:13,560 --> 01:15:18,286 AUDIENCE: What [INAUDIBLE] in Afghanistan. 1550 01:15:18,286 --> 01:15:20,161 What are they called the thieves, the rebels, 1551 01:15:20,161 --> 01:15:24,369 or whatever-- they were fighting [INAUDIBLE] in Afghanistan? 1552 01:15:24,369 --> 01:15:26,660 VIPIN NARANG: I mean I think that there are people here 1553 01:15:26,660 --> 01:15:28,749 who can say more about this who had 1554 01:15:28,749 --> 01:15:30,040 firsthand experience with this. 1555 01:15:30,040 --> 01:15:34,410 But there are a lot of reports that you had Punjabi speaking. 1556 01:15:34,410 --> 01:15:40,670 I mean most of the Afghan mujahideen are Pashto speaking. 1557 01:15:40,670 --> 01:15:42,050 There's a Haqqani network. 1558 01:15:42,050 --> 01:15:46,140 A lot of these networks predate 9/11. 1559 01:15:46,140 --> 01:15:50,160 And they were supported, funded, and there 1560 01:15:50,160 --> 01:15:53,120 are strong relationships between the ISI 1561 01:15:53,120 --> 01:15:56,227 and some of the mujahideen groups in Afghanistan that 1562 01:15:56,227 --> 01:15:58,310 ended up being the Taliban-- remember the only two 1563 01:15:58,310 --> 01:15:59,935 states that recognized the Taliban were 1564 01:15:59,935 --> 01:16:01,500 Pakistan, Saudi Arabia. 1565 01:16:01,500 --> 01:16:04,900 So the networks that Pakistan had in Afghanistan 1566 01:16:04,900 --> 01:16:05,880 were very strong. 1567 01:16:05,880 --> 01:16:07,870 And they had these other groups also, 1568 01:16:07,870 --> 01:16:11,800 so if they needed militants to go help fight what ended up 1569 01:16:11,800 --> 01:16:14,750 being the Americans as well as Karzai's ANA, 1570 01:16:14,750 --> 01:16:19,100 it would be the LeT and the Jaish-e-Mohammeds. 1571 01:16:19,100 --> 01:16:21,490 So there were reports of Punjabi speaking militants, 1572 01:16:21,490 --> 01:16:24,480 well-trained Punjabi speaking militants, 1573 01:16:24,480 --> 01:16:26,420 fighting in Afghanistan alongside Pashto 1574 01:16:26,420 --> 01:16:29,290 speaking Haqqani network militants. 1575 01:16:29,290 --> 01:16:32,180 So that was a safety valve for a while. 1576 01:16:32,180 --> 01:16:35,230 And now, I think this is why Pakistan 1577 01:16:35,230 --> 01:16:36,727 may have an incentive for a fight 1578 01:16:36,727 --> 01:16:38,310 to continue in Afghanistan for a while 1579 01:16:38,310 --> 01:16:40,477 so it has someplace to send its crazies. 1580 01:16:40,477 --> 01:16:41,810 It's a safety valve for a while. 1581 01:16:41,810 --> 01:16:44,185 And they're worried about Indian influence in Afghanistan 1582 01:16:44,185 --> 01:16:47,600 so that there would be-- those militants 1583 01:16:47,600 --> 01:16:49,870 would be boxed into Pakistan. 1584 01:16:49,870 --> 01:16:51,250 On the one hand, Pakistan faces-- 1585 01:16:51,250 --> 01:16:55,730 there was this awful school attack recently. 1586 01:16:55,730 --> 01:16:58,775 There's a real terrorist problem in Pakistan also. 1587 01:16:58,775 --> 01:17:00,150 So bad militants kill Pakistanis. 1588 01:17:00,150 --> 01:17:01,405 Good militants kill Indians and Americans. 1589 01:17:01,405 --> 01:17:01,905 Steph? 1590 01:17:01,905 --> 01:17:04,100 AUDIENCE: I was going to ask that question as 1591 01:17:04,100 --> 01:17:06,980 to whether [INAUDIBLE] are all bad. 1592 01:17:06,980 --> 01:17:09,380 But initially, that comes out maybe 1593 01:17:09,380 --> 01:17:11,670 to supporting the militants out there. 1594 01:17:11,670 --> 01:17:16,576 Do you think that that is-- that initial rhetoric is 1595 01:17:16,576 --> 01:17:17,310 going to stick? 1596 01:17:17,310 --> 01:17:19,337 Or do you think they will then go back 1597 01:17:19,337 --> 01:17:20,803 to what they've always done which 1598 01:17:20,803 --> 01:17:23,002 is we're going to support whoever destablizes people 1599 01:17:23,002 --> 01:17:23,350 we don't like? 1600 01:17:23,350 --> 01:17:25,766 VIPIN NARANG: So I think the evidence suggests the latter. 1601 01:17:25,766 --> 01:17:32,200 I mean it is remarkable that the LeT-- so after 2001, 2000, 1602 01:17:32,200 --> 01:17:35,180 the LeT was nominally banned. 1603 01:17:35,180 --> 01:17:37,490 But they just renamed themselves to Jamaat-ud-Dawa. 1604 01:17:37,490 --> 01:17:41,780 And Hafiz Saeed who is the head of the LeT lives 1605 01:17:41,780 --> 01:17:43,930 openly, not out in the tribal areas. 1606 01:17:43,930 --> 01:17:46,070 He lives outside Lahore in a town called Muridke. 1607 01:17:46,070 --> 01:17:47,484 Everybody knows where they are. 1608 01:17:47,484 --> 01:17:48,650 They're openly fund-raising. 1609 01:17:48,650 --> 01:17:54,330 He goes on TV calling for the death of Indians openly. 1610 01:17:54,330 --> 01:17:58,720 And the fact that he-- it's an open question 1611 01:17:58,720 --> 01:18:01,880 whether it's active support or passive support. 1612 01:18:01,880 --> 01:18:04,930 But at least the evidence suggest-- the evidence suggests 1613 01:18:04,930 --> 01:18:06,425 at least passive support. 1614 01:18:06,425 --> 01:18:08,920 He is allowed to freely operate. 1615 01:18:08,920 --> 01:18:11,240 He is allowed to freely raise funds. 1616 01:18:11,240 --> 01:18:12,240 The organization exists. 1617 01:18:12,240 --> 01:18:13,340 It could be shut down very easily. 1618 01:18:13,340 --> 01:18:14,790 It's in the heart of Pakistan. 1619 01:18:14,790 --> 01:18:17,450 It's like 30 kilometers from the Indian border. 1620 01:18:17,450 --> 01:18:19,060 The Indians could hit it. 1621 01:18:19,060 --> 01:18:21,610 But they have refrained from doing so. 1622 01:18:21,610 --> 01:18:24,724 But the network is allowed to recruit and operate openly. 1623 01:18:24,724 --> 01:18:27,390 And we're not talking about like the Northwest Front, the Khyber 1624 01:18:27,390 --> 01:18:30,180 Pakhtunkhwa, the tribal areas. 1625 01:18:30,180 --> 01:18:32,220 This is the heartland of Pakistan. 1626 01:18:32,220 --> 01:18:41,210 And so it offends credibility to think that it's not-- 1627 01:18:41,210 --> 01:18:45,670 there isn't some state policy to allow certain groups to operate 1628 01:18:45,670 --> 01:18:49,179 to some extent while thinking you could target the rest. 1629 01:18:49,179 --> 01:18:51,720 But there's also that suggests these guys were different hats 1630 01:18:51,720 --> 01:18:53,210 on different days. 1631 01:18:53,210 --> 01:18:57,580 But the sectarian groups, I think, are allowed to operate. 1632 01:18:57,580 --> 01:18:59,980 Those are the ones that-- the other good militants seem 1633 01:18:59,980 --> 01:19:01,105 to be those that kill Shia. 1634 01:19:01,105 --> 01:19:03,170 As long as they don't kill Sunni, it's fine. 1635 01:19:03,170 --> 01:19:05,960 So some of those groups have been very, very fierce 1636 01:19:05,960 --> 01:19:08,590 and are allowed to operate still. 1637 01:19:08,590 --> 01:19:11,890 In the Haqqani network and the LeT, 1638 01:19:11,890 --> 01:19:14,780 as long as they're not killing Sunnis in Punjab, 1639 01:19:14,780 --> 01:19:16,540 it seems like the Pakistani state 1640 01:19:16,540 --> 01:19:19,929 is willing to tolerate their existence. 1641 01:19:19,929 --> 01:19:21,470 And so that's an active state policy. 1642 01:19:21,470 --> 01:19:22,920 And this is different from the Cold War. 1643 01:19:22,920 --> 01:19:24,670 We didn't have-- I don't think the United States 1644 01:19:24,670 --> 01:19:27,390 and the Soviet Union had to deal with that kind of proxy level 1645 01:19:27,390 --> 01:19:29,412 militancy where you have two strategic assets. 1646 01:19:29,412 --> 01:19:30,870 You have the militant organizations 1647 01:19:30,870 --> 01:19:33,119 to try and weaken the other state plus nuclear weapons 1648 01:19:33,119 --> 01:19:34,989 to deter the retaliation. 1649 01:19:34,989 --> 01:19:36,530 So that combination is, I think, what 1650 01:19:36,530 --> 01:19:41,090 makes it particularly dangerous, which is what I conclude here. 1651 01:19:41,090 --> 01:19:44,970 So you have-- India is extremely frustrated. 1652 01:19:44,970 --> 01:19:46,770 And I think the worry in the United States 1653 01:19:46,770 --> 01:19:49,070 is that if there's another mass casualty terrorist 1654 01:19:49,070 --> 01:19:53,180 attack in India, how will the BJP-- now 1655 01:19:53,180 --> 01:19:56,740 you have a new prime minister who is, by all accounts, 1656 01:19:56,740 --> 01:19:59,890 a little more aggressive than his predecessors, a little more 1657 01:19:59,890 --> 01:20:01,200 hawkish. 1658 01:20:01,200 --> 01:20:06,100 And right now, the stability in South Asia 1659 01:20:06,100 --> 01:20:08,230 is predicated on Indian restraint following 1660 01:20:08,230 --> 01:20:10,530 one of these mass casualty terrorist attacks. 1661 01:20:10,530 --> 01:20:14,625 So if there's another Bombay, how will the BJP respond? 1662 01:20:16,609 --> 01:20:18,650 We can talk-- if anybody has heard of Cold Start, 1663 01:20:18,650 --> 01:20:19,330 we talk about that. 1664 01:20:19,330 --> 01:20:21,246 You guys can all email me if anyone ever wants 1665 01:20:21,246 --> 01:20:22,510 to get into some of the weeds. 1666 01:20:22,510 --> 01:20:27,840 But the basic idea is India has conventional superiority. 1667 01:20:27,840 --> 01:20:30,510 It has not used it yet. 1668 01:20:30,510 --> 01:20:33,370 There's some belief that Pakistan's nuclear threat is 1669 01:20:33,370 --> 01:20:35,760 a bluff and that India could execute 1670 01:20:35,760 --> 01:20:38,990 certain conventional objectives below the nuclear threshold. 1671 01:20:38,990 --> 01:20:39,830 Maybe, maybe not. 1672 01:20:39,830 --> 01:20:40,800 It's pretty risky. 1673 01:20:40,800 --> 01:20:43,030 Particularly, we talk about tactical nuclear weapons 1674 01:20:43,030 --> 01:20:44,488 that would, at least at some point, 1675 01:20:44,488 --> 01:20:48,540 be devolved to the brigadier level maybe. 1676 01:20:48,540 --> 01:20:52,920 And so you'll have-- it's not just one nuclear threshold, 1677 01:20:52,920 --> 01:20:54,590 but nine. 1678 01:20:54,590 --> 01:20:56,187 And so you have to worry about one 1679 01:20:56,187 --> 01:20:57,770 of them deciding that this is the end, 1680 01:20:57,770 --> 01:20:59,370 and they use nuclear weapons. 1681 01:20:59,370 --> 01:21:03,430 I think the Pakistani strategy is actually quite rational. 1682 01:21:03,430 --> 01:21:06,089 It's deterring with the rational threatened 1683 01:21:06,089 --> 01:21:07,880 that we might use tactical nuclear weapons, 1684 01:21:07,880 --> 01:21:09,535 but also through a madman mechanism. 1685 01:21:09,535 --> 01:21:11,160 We're going to develop nuclear weapons, 1686 01:21:11,160 --> 01:21:13,576 and hey, one of our brigadiers might use them if you come. 1687 01:21:13,576 --> 01:21:17,770 And that reinforces the rational deterrent threat as well. 1688 01:21:17,770 --> 01:21:22,860 And so, so far, both in Kargil-- sorry. 1689 01:21:22,860 --> 01:21:27,460 In three instances, Kargil, Parakram, and Bombay, 1690 01:21:27,460 --> 01:21:30,470 India has relatively restrained its conventional retaliation 1691 01:21:30,470 --> 01:21:31,800 and its response. 1692 01:21:31,800 --> 01:21:36,300 And so far, that has taken India and Pakistan 1693 01:21:36,300 --> 01:21:38,504 off the escalatory highway. 1694 01:21:38,504 --> 01:21:40,920 But it's no guarantee that that'll continue going forward. 1695 01:21:40,920 --> 01:21:45,400 I think the emotions in India are running very high vis-a-vis 1696 01:21:45,400 --> 01:21:46,420 Pakistan. 1697 01:21:46,420 --> 01:21:48,260 Particularly, there's increased shelling 1698 01:21:48,260 --> 01:21:51,330 across the line of control in the past several months. 1699 01:21:51,330 --> 01:21:54,940 And if there's a significant attack in a major city that 1700 01:21:54,940 --> 01:21:57,660 involves the death of many Indian civilians, 1701 01:21:57,660 --> 01:22:00,830 there'll be a lot of pressure on Prime Minister Modi 1702 01:22:00,830 --> 01:22:02,690 to do something about it. 1703 01:22:02,690 --> 01:22:05,030 And then all bets are off because you'll 1704 01:22:05,030 --> 01:22:06,640 have nuclear weapons potentially mixed 1705 01:22:06,640 --> 01:22:08,849 with conventional conflict, and that 1706 01:22:08,849 --> 01:22:10,140 would be the escalation ladder. 1707 01:22:10,140 --> 01:22:11,598 I think that's something that we're 1708 01:22:11,598 --> 01:22:14,415 likely-- it's this element of terrorist attack mass casualty 1709 01:22:14,415 --> 01:22:16,790 terrorist attacks that didn't exist in the Cold War, that 1710 01:22:16,790 --> 01:22:19,510 makes South Asia quite different, I think, 1711 01:22:19,510 --> 01:22:22,520 from the US and Soviet balance. 1712 01:22:22,520 --> 01:22:24,480 And so it's that combination of proxy forces 1713 01:22:24,480 --> 01:22:28,870 and the arms race that, I think, makes it particularly unstable. 1714 01:22:28,870 --> 01:22:30,010 So I'm going to stop there. 1715 01:22:30,010 --> 01:22:31,300 We are almost out of time, but I'm 1716 01:22:31,300 --> 01:22:32,570 happy to take questions for a while 1717 01:22:32,570 --> 01:22:34,100 if anybody has any further thoughts or anything. 1718 01:22:34,100 --> 01:22:34,420 Yeah? 1719 01:22:34,420 --> 01:22:36,586 AUDIENCE: Does Pakistan have strategic weapons aimed 1720 01:22:36,586 --> 01:22:37,494 at Indian cities or-- 1721 01:22:37,494 --> 01:22:38,410 VIPIN NARANG: It does. 1722 01:22:38,410 --> 01:22:39,050 Yeah. 1723 01:22:39,050 --> 01:22:41,039 AUDIENCE: --weapon also reach [INAUDIBLE]. 1724 01:22:41,039 --> 01:22:41,830 VIPIN NARANG: Yeah. 1725 01:22:41,830 --> 01:22:46,650 So this gets into a concept known as escalation dominance. 1726 01:22:46,650 --> 01:22:50,360 Pakistan also has strategic weapons 1727 01:22:50,360 --> 01:22:54,120 that put most of India's matrices in reach. 1728 01:22:54,120 --> 01:22:57,330 The idea being that that deters Indian retaliation 1729 01:22:57,330 --> 01:22:59,065 for tactical nuclear-- so Pakistan 1730 01:22:59,065 --> 01:23:01,420 views tactical nuclear use as a war terminating 1731 01:23:01,420 --> 01:23:03,430 strategy because of the strategic weapons. 1732 01:23:03,430 --> 01:23:05,180 So the idea is if any conventional forces 1733 01:23:05,180 --> 01:23:07,740 attack, Pakistan stands and fights conventionally. 1734 01:23:07,740 --> 01:23:08,240 Fine. 1735 01:23:08,240 --> 01:23:08,690 They start losing. 1736 01:23:08,690 --> 01:23:10,980 They use tactical nuclear weapons on Indian forces. 1737 01:23:10,980 --> 01:23:12,980 But now I have a secure second strike capability 1738 01:23:12,980 --> 01:23:14,210 also if I'm Pakistan. 1739 01:23:14,210 --> 01:23:17,750 So India has no incentive to use its strategic nuclear weapons 1740 01:23:17,750 --> 01:23:23,770 against Pakistani cities because nuclear use on your forces 1741 01:23:23,770 --> 01:23:26,680 operating on Pakistani soil, that's already happened. 1742 01:23:26,680 --> 01:23:29,630 Am I willing to risk Delhi and Bombay for retaliating. 1743 01:23:29,630 --> 01:23:30,624 Probably not. 1744 01:23:30,624 --> 01:23:32,790 Now absent the strategic capabilities, you're right. 1745 01:23:32,790 --> 01:23:34,950 Then, India could easily retaliate, 1746 01:23:34,950 --> 01:23:38,062 and there would be no reciprocation from Pakistan. 1747 01:23:38,062 --> 01:23:39,520 But Pakistan is trying to establish 1748 01:23:39,520 --> 01:23:42,237 what it calls escalation dominance so that it could 1749 01:23:42,237 --> 01:23:43,820 use tactical nuclear weapons, and that 1750 01:23:43,820 --> 01:23:44,778 would be the end of it. 1751 01:23:44,778 --> 01:23:46,760 So India would have no incentive to retaliate 1752 01:23:46,760 --> 01:23:48,950 with strategic nuclear weapons against Pakistan. 1753 01:23:48,950 --> 01:23:50,658 There is some belief that India's looking 1754 01:23:50,658 --> 01:23:53,350 at lower order use options. 1755 01:23:53,350 --> 01:23:55,371 India has no tactical nuclear weapons itself. 1756 01:23:55,371 --> 01:23:56,870 But there are some capabilities that 1757 01:23:56,870 --> 01:24:01,370 could be used for softer targets than just cities. 1758 01:24:01,370 --> 01:24:04,510 And it may be that India tries to develop 1759 01:24:04,510 --> 01:24:05,900 tit-for-tat capabilities. 1760 01:24:05,900 --> 01:24:11,580 And then that's basically your escalation ladder as well. 1761 01:24:11,580 --> 01:24:12,290 In the back? 1762 01:24:12,290 --> 01:24:14,250 AUDIENCE: So if India is so paralyzed 1763 01:24:14,250 --> 01:24:18,170 and Pakistan realizes this, why hasn't Pakistan 1764 01:24:18,170 --> 01:24:20,587 increase the frequency of attack? 1765 01:24:20,587 --> 01:24:23,170 VIPIN NARANG: I think part of it is you can't do it too often. 1766 01:24:23,170 --> 01:24:25,500 You do it too often, and then the core world opinion-- 1767 01:24:25,500 --> 01:24:29,110 I think there's a limit to how often you can do it. 1768 01:24:29,110 --> 01:24:32,460 But once every two, three years is not nothing. 1769 01:24:32,460 --> 01:24:34,830 And there's always chatter. 1770 01:24:34,830 --> 01:24:37,687 There have been several instances where the Indian home 1771 01:24:37,687 --> 01:24:40,270 ministry claims-- now, I don't know how good the evidence is-- 1772 01:24:40,270 --> 01:24:46,400 that they've disrupted several attacks by LeT on Indians-- 1773 01:24:46,400 --> 01:24:48,720 on India. 1774 01:24:48,720 --> 01:24:54,350 But every several years, I think that's not nothing. 1775 01:24:54,350 --> 01:25:01,900 And they also choose relatively strategic moments to do it. 1776 01:25:01,900 --> 01:25:08,130 So if you look at the timing of the attack on the parliament, 1777 01:25:08,130 --> 01:25:11,410 two months after 9/11, just as the Pakistani US relationship 1778 01:25:11,410 --> 01:25:12,665 is growing again. 1779 01:25:12,665 --> 01:25:14,290 Maybe there's a belief you can get away 1780 01:25:14,290 --> 01:25:18,300 with it because the US is going to protect you. 1781 01:25:18,300 --> 01:25:25,460 The Bombay attack was just as then President Musharraf 1782 01:25:25,460 --> 01:25:28,740 was-- there was discussion of concluding a back channel 1783 01:25:28,740 --> 01:25:31,380 final agreement over Kashmir. 1784 01:25:31,380 --> 01:25:35,290 And the LeT and the India-focused militants 1785 01:25:35,290 --> 01:25:38,160 acted as veto players, as spoilers. 1786 01:25:38,160 --> 01:25:40,930 And so there was a comp-- something 1787 01:25:40,930 --> 01:25:43,260 known as the composite dialogue ongoing between India 1788 01:25:43,260 --> 01:25:47,470 and Pakistan in 2008 where literally everybody knew 1789 01:25:47,470 --> 01:25:50,700 what the final solution peace deal between India and Pakistan 1790 01:25:50,700 --> 01:25:51,200 would like. 1791 01:25:51,200 --> 01:25:54,010 And President Musharraf was very serious about it. 1792 01:25:54,010 --> 01:25:56,754 This was spoilers within Pakistan vetoing that deal 1793 01:25:56,754 --> 01:25:57,920 and disrupting the dialogue. 1794 01:25:57,920 --> 01:25:59,880 So India had no option but to terminate 1795 01:25:59,880 --> 01:26:02,230 the composite dialogue after Bombay. 1796 01:26:02,230 --> 01:26:03,860 And it hasn't really restarted. 1797 01:26:03,860 --> 01:26:06,800 And so those strategic moments, I think, 1798 01:26:06,800 --> 01:26:13,380 are chosen by Pakistani militants to attack India. 1799 01:26:13,380 --> 01:26:13,880 Yes, sir? 1800 01:26:13,880 --> 01:26:17,544 So what's the story-- I've heard bits and pieces about Khan. 1801 01:26:17,544 --> 01:26:18,414 How did he evolve? 1802 01:26:18,414 --> 01:26:19,372 Where did he come from? 1803 01:26:19,372 --> 01:26:21,140 What was-- 1804 01:26:21,140 --> 01:26:29,176 VIPIN NARANG: Yes, so that's a whole other-- AQ Khan, 1805 01:26:29,176 --> 01:26:30,050 he stole the designs. 1806 01:26:30,050 --> 01:26:32,240 He provided the uranium enrichment capability 1807 01:26:32,240 --> 01:26:34,180 to Pakistan. 1808 01:26:34,180 --> 01:26:39,180 He orchestrated a network of global suppliers 1809 01:26:39,180 --> 01:26:40,940 for the components for the centrifuges, 1810 01:26:40,940 --> 01:26:43,710 which he then leveraged for both state policy. 1811 01:26:43,710 --> 01:26:47,100 So he used that network to get North Korea 1812 01:26:47,100 --> 01:26:50,640 its centrifuge capability. 1813 01:26:50,640 --> 01:26:55,190 But whether, with complicit state support or acting 1814 01:26:55,190 --> 01:26:57,650 on his own, he also decided to make 1815 01:26:57,650 --> 01:27:01,070 some money by moonlighting, maybe, with Iran and Libya. 1816 01:27:01,070 --> 01:27:03,262 And there's believed to be a fourth customer. 1817 01:27:03,262 --> 01:27:04,220 Don't know who that is. 1818 01:27:04,220 --> 01:27:07,650 But there's a big debate also in the Pakistan nuclear community 1819 01:27:07,650 --> 01:27:09,930 about how influential AQ Khan really was. 1820 01:27:09,930 --> 01:27:13,280 I mean they're moving to the plutonium designs anyway. 1821 01:27:13,280 --> 01:27:17,450 PAEC, which is the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. 1822 01:27:17,450 --> 01:27:22,500 They're responsible for plutonium production pathway. 1823 01:27:22,500 --> 01:27:27,210 They're competing for designs and for ownership 1824 01:27:27,210 --> 01:27:28,320 of the Pakistani program. 1825 01:27:28,320 --> 01:27:31,936 So in Pakistan, he still-- he claims 1826 01:27:31,936 --> 01:27:33,560 to be the father of the Pakistani bomb. 1827 01:27:33,560 --> 01:27:34,476 That's up for dispute. 1828 01:27:34,476 --> 01:27:39,767 But some of the proliferation activities, it 1829 01:27:39,767 --> 01:27:41,600 is unclear whether they were state sponsored 1830 01:27:41,600 --> 01:27:43,800 or whether there was some state complicity, 1831 01:27:43,800 --> 01:27:46,258 and he just acted on his own or whether he acted completely 1832 01:27:46,258 --> 01:27:46,974 on his own. 1833 01:27:46,974 --> 01:27:49,522 AUDIENCE: But he served this thing, I mean is it true? 1834 01:27:49,522 --> 01:27:52,366 I mean did he have this business that basically 1835 01:27:52,366 --> 01:27:56,039 sells nuclear technology to anyone who will pay the money? 1836 01:27:56,039 --> 01:27:57,580 VIPIN NARANG: I mean, like I said-- I 1837 01:27:57,580 --> 01:28:02,230 mean he-- there was a catalog. 1838 01:28:02,230 --> 01:28:05,280 You could get a brochure for-- yeah. 1839 01:28:05,280 --> 01:28:10,370 And so it is true that there was-- 1840 01:28:10,370 --> 01:28:14,060 he definitely had really significant dealings 1841 01:28:14,060 --> 01:28:17,230 with Iran, which is interesting because Iran and Pakistan 1842 01:28:17,230 --> 01:28:19,870 aren't natural allies-- are the ones who made Shia, 1843 01:28:19,870 --> 01:28:26,060 Sunni-- they're not natural. 1844 01:28:26,060 --> 01:28:29,845 Iran has also been involved with the Balochistan insurgency 1845 01:28:29,845 --> 01:28:30,800 in Pakistan. 1846 01:28:30,800 --> 01:28:33,590 So that he would sell centrifuges to Iran 1847 01:28:33,590 --> 01:28:34,590 seems a little puzzling. 1848 01:28:34,590 --> 01:28:36,673 May be it was for-- seems like personal gain would 1849 01:28:36,673 --> 01:28:38,590 be a very strong explanation. 1850 01:28:41,370 --> 01:28:44,050 There's some evidence that he approached Iraq 1851 01:28:44,050 --> 01:28:49,150 in the late 1980s to see if they're interested in uranium 1852 01:28:49,150 --> 01:28:49,740 enrichment. 1853 01:28:49,740 --> 01:28:53,600 Saddam Hussein thought it was a trap, so he passed on it. 1854 01:28:53,600 --> 01:28:55,660 But, yeah, I mean there's no question 1855 01:28:55,660 --> 01:28:58,276 that there was-- this is a big nonproliferation failure. 1856 01:28:58,276 --> 01:28:59,776 AUDIENCE: I can't remember if I read 1857 01:28:59,776 --> 01:29:05,958 about it on [INAUDIBLE] media or [INAUDIBLE], 1858 01:29:05,958 --> 01:29:07,422 but I remember reading about this. 1859 01:29:07,422 --> 01:29:11,330 And what they said was that he was doing it for personal gain. 1860 01:29:11,330 --> 01:29:12,530 VIPIN NARANG: Yeah, there's no question he made a lot of money 1861 01:29:12,530 --> 01:29:12,650 from it. 1862 01:29:12,650 --> 01:29:14,400 But you would have to leverage some assets 1863 01:29:14,400 --> 01:29:16,676 from Pakistan military to do some of this stuff. 1864 01:29:16,676 --> 01:29:18,550 There's no way that they didn't-- some people 1865 01:29:18,550 --> 01:29:20,980 didn't know about unless they were in on the take, 1866 01:29:20,980 --> 01:29:22,669 which is entirely possible. 1867 01:29:22,669 --> 01:29:24,460 I mean I find it hard-- certainly the North 1868 01:29:24,460 --> 01:29:27,200 Korean deal, I mean they flew Pakistani C-17, 1869 01:29:27,200 --> 01:29:31,704 so it was military transport that took the first centrifuge 1870 01:29:31,704 --> 01:29:32,870 cascade over to North Korea. 1871 01:29:32,870 --> 01:29:34,370 So that was definitely state to state. 1872 01:29:34,370 --> 01:29:35,953 Some of the other stuff is just really 1873 01:29:35,953 --> 01:29:37,810 murky as to the level of state complicity. 1874 01:29:37,810 --> 01:29:38,900 Were there people in the Pakistan government 1875 01:29:38,900 --> 01:29:39,910 who knew he was doing it. 1876 01:29:39,910 --> 01:29:41,630 I'd probably-- it would be hard for me to believe that they 1877 01:29:41,630 --> 01:29:42,520 didn't. 1878 01:29:42,520 --> 01:29:45,990 But it may not have been state policy. 1879 01:29:45,990 --> 01:29:46,850 Yes, sir? 1880 01:29:46,850 --> 01:29:48,706 Last question, I think, then we got to-- 1881 01:29:48,706 --> 01:29:52,650 So I think that the influence of the US support 1882 01:29:52,650 --> 01:29:54,129 is, perhaps, understated. 1883 01:29:54,129 --> 01:29:59,552 If we ignored Pakistan, didn't like them anymore, 1884 01:29:59,552 --> 01:30:03,496 and the entire international community turned on them, 1885 01:30:03,496 --> 01:30:05,961 it might be devastating for them, especially 1886 01:30:05,961 --> 01:30:08,679 economic sanctions [INAUDIBLE]. 1887 01:30:08,679 --> 01:30:10,720 VIPIN NARANG: So we imposed sanctions after 1998. 1888 01:30:10,720 --> 01:30:14,000 But then after September 11, we needed Pakistan. 1889 01:30:14,000 --> 01:30:15,920 AUDIENCE: How long will we need them? 1890 01:30:15,920 --> 01:30:17,745 [INAUDIBLE] 1891 01:30:17,745 --> 01:30:19,870 VIPIN NARANG: There are a couple good books on this 1892 01:30:19,870 --> 01:30:20,490 out recently. 1893 01:30:20,490 --> 01:30:21,590 I'm not a Pakistan expert. 1894 01:30:21,590 --> 01:30:25,220 And this gets into very like-- the empirical evidence 1895 01:30:25,220 --> 01:30:29,017 for this is-- we don't know. 1896 01:30:29,017 --> 01:30:30,600 But Pakistan could be very vulnerable. 1897 01:30:30,600 --> 01:30:34,740 I mean I think a nontrivial proportion of their revenue 1898 01:30:34,740 --> 01:30:37,370 comes from US and international aid. 1899 01:30:37,370 --> 01:30:43,480 But on the other hand, given the militancy problem, 1900 01:30:43,480 --> 01:30:46,910 I think most countries prefer a stable Pakistan 1901 01:30:46,910 --> 01:30:48,000 to an unstable Pakistan. 1902 01:30:48,000 --> 01:30:51,210 And heavy sanctions could really disrupt 1903 01:30:51,210 --> 01:30:52,320 the fabric of that state. 1904 01:30:52,320 --> 01:30:56,434 And say so it's a very thin line you walk. 1905 01:30:56,434 --> 01:30:58,850 And part of it is, I think the opportunity that the United 1906 01:30:58,850 --> 01:31:00,720 States had was in the 1980s. 1907 01:31:00,720 --> 01:31:01,995 And there was a belief in the Reagan administration 1908 01:31:01,995 --> 01:31:03,203 that it was one or the other. 1909 01:31:03,203 --> 01:31:06,740 It was either we needed to Pakistan against the Sovs 1910 01:31:06,740 --> 01:31:07,930 or it's the nuclear program. 1911 01:31:07,930 --> 01:31:10,640 But we couldn't deal with both at the same time. 1912 01:31:10,640 --> 01:31:12,432 The United states wasn't happy. 1913 01:31:12,432 --> 01:31:14,890 It wasn't like the US was happy about the Pakistani nuclear 1914 01:31:14,890 --> 01:31:16,790 program. 1915 01:31:16,790 --> 01:31:19,220 But it is certainly true that the executive 1916 01:31:19,220 --> 01:31:20,687 was willing to look the other way 1917 01:31:20,687 --> 01:31:22,520 and tolerate certain movement up to a point, 1918 01:31:22,520 --> 01:31:23,930 probably on the belief that it was inevitable. 1919 01:31:23,930 --> 01:31:25,510 There's nothing much you can do about it. 1920 01:31:25,510 --> 01:31:26,280 I'm not sure if that's true. 1921 01:31:26,280 --> 01:31:28,560 I actually think that there were a lot of leverage points we-- 1922 01:31:28,560 --> 01:31:30,454 the United States could have had in the 1980s 1923 01:31:30,454 --> 01:31:31,870 and didn't take advantage of them. 1924 01:31:31,870 --> 01:31:34,530 But that's also-- an administration 1925 01:31:34,530 --> 01:31:36,780 fighting this war may not believe it has the bandwidth 1926 01:31:36,780 --> 01:31:38,080 to deal with both. 1927 01:31:38,080 --> 01:31:39,712 And I think that's where they ended up. 1928 01:31:39,712 --> 01:31:42,170 But if there was ever a point, it was probably in the 1980s 1929 01:31:42,170 --> 01:31:44,849 to stop Pakistan from becoming a nuclear state 1930 01:31:44,849 --> 01:31:45,640 in the first place. 1931 01:31:45,640 --> 01:31:47,640 But now that they are, it's really hard 1932 01:31:47,640 --> 01:31:49,272 to see what we can do. 1933 01:31:49,272 --> 01:31:51,150 Aaron, yeah? 1934 01:31:51,150 --> 01:31:56,100 AUDIENCE: There is an overall question here, which is tough. 1935 01:31:56,100 --> 01:31:59,070 I mean it's a very unstable situation 1936 01:31:59,070 --> 01:32:02,040 between India and Pakistan. 1937 01:32:02,040 --> 01:32:05,505 And you either keep going from them 1938 01:32:05,505 --> 01:32:09,960 leading the way it has been going, or you take a big step. 1939 01:32:09,960 --> 01:32:13,425 And the big step is either you're 1940 01:32:13,425 --> 01:32:17,649 going to do something war-like or peace-like. 1941 01:32:17,649 --> 01:32:20,094 And there is a peace-like thing which 1942 01:32:20,094 --> 01:32:24,495 never seems to surface, which is, look, 1943 01:32:24,495 --> 01:32:29,063 if you can't solve this by war-like steps, 1944 01:32:29,063 --> 01:32:31,839 then you have to solve it by eliminating 1945 01:32:31,839 --> 01:32:34,284 the political tension. 1946 01:32:34,284 --> 01:32:38,685 And that doesn't seem to be possible in India. 1947 01:32:38,685 --> 01:32:44,553 India is this world power, and why don't they stand up-- 1948 01:32:44,553 --> 01:32:46,020 what's your analysis? 1949 01:32:46,020 --> 01:32:48,220 Why don't they stand up and say, we're 1950 01:32:48,220 --> 01:32:51,245 not going to solve this militarily so we better-- 1951 01:32:51,245 --> 01:32:53,620 VIPIN NARANG: I think there was a real golden opportunity 1952 01:32:53,620 --> 01:32:54,460 in 2008. 1953 01:32:54,460 --> 01:32:57,360 I think Manmohan Singh and then foreign secretary Shivshankar 1954 01:32:57,360 --> 01:32:59,510 Menon who's going to be at MIT actually 1955 01:32:59,510 --> 01:33:04,440 in February at the Center for National Studies with us, 1956 01:33:04,440 --> 01:33:06,070 he can give more insight on this. 1957 01:33:06,070 --> 01:33:12,100 But I believe India was ready to do that in 2008. 1958 01:33:12,100 --> 01:33:16,520 And Musharraf was ready to do this in 2008. 1959 01:33:16,520 --> 01:33:21,620 Certain elements of the Pakistani security services 1960 01:33:21,620 --> 01:33:24,130 and their proxy forces and the LeT were not. 1961 01:33:24,130 --> 01:33:27,070 And so it was just politically untenable, 1962 01:33:27,070 --> 01:33:30,790 after the Bombay attack, for the Indian political leadership. 1963 01:33:30,790 --> 01:33:32,984 And so the spoilers-- the spoilers spoiled. 1964 01:33:32,984 --> 01:33:34,650 AUDIENCE: They spoiled it, but the point 1965 01:33:34,650 --> 01:33:37,830 is that that was the point to stand up, 1966 01:33:37,830 --> 01:33:43,289 and probably again because you're in a bind. 1967 01:33:43,289 --> 01:33:45,080 VIPIN NARANG: But I mean the politics of it 1968 01:33:45,080 --> 01:33:46,000 was just too-- I mean there's just 1969 01:33:46,000 --> 01:33:47,455 no way that that government could 1970 01:33:47,455 --> 01:33:51,640 have survived if it continued with a composite dialogue. 1971 01:33:51,640 --> 01:33:57,150 And it was also a case where there were facing-- 1972 01:33:57,150 --> 01:33:59,550 elections were the next year. 1973 01:33:59,550 --> 01:34:01,740 There was no way that the composite dialogue could 1974 01:34:01,740 --> 01:34:02,560 have continued after bombing. 1975 01:34:02,560 --> 01:34:03,601 No country could do that. 1976 01:34:03,601 --> 01:34:04,900 No political leadership could. 1977 01:34:04,900 --> 01:34:07,540 It's just unfortunate-- the unfortunate nature of politics. 1978 01:34:07,540 --> 01:34:09,960 And I think the LeT knew that. 1979 01:34:09,960 --> 01:34:11,510 You perpetrate this attack, and you 1980 01:34:11,510 --> 01:34:13,968 will kill the composite dialogue and the back channel talk. 1981 01:34:13,968 --> 01:34:16,220 And that's exactly what happened. 1982 01:34:16,220 --> 01:34:18,880 It may be-- it's interesting because sometimes you 1983 01:34:18,880 --> 01:34:21,890 need a Nixon and China moment, and Modi 1984 01:34:21,890 --> 01:34:24,315 who is hawkish in the BJP, he has the credibility 1985 01:34:24,315 --> 01:34:27,207 to get the right on his side. 1986 01:34:27,207 --> 01:34:29,290 He's protect on his right flank, which often tends 1987 01:34:29,290 --> 01:34:31,110 to be the spoiler in India. 1988 01:34:31,110 --> 01:34:32,667 So he has an opportunity, I think. 1989 01:34:32,667 --> 01:34:35,250 And I wouldn't be surprised if there's some movement toward it 1990 01:34:35,250 --> 01:34:38,160 in the administration provided there are no other attacks. 1991 01:34:38,160 --> 01:34:39,795 So I think you're right. 1992 01:34:39,795 --> 01:34:41,170 All the piecess-- everybody knows 1993 01:34:41,170 --> 01:34:43,150 what the final deal looks like. 1994 01:34:46,480 --> 01:34:48,240 There's one hiccup about whether it's 1995 01:34:48,240 --> 01:34:50,950 sequential or simultaneous demilitarization 1996 01:34:50,950 --> 01:34:53,090 of the Siachen [INAUDIBLE] or like minor things. 1997 01:34:53,090 --> 01:34:54,190 I mean those are solvable. 1998 01:34:54,190 --> 01:34:55,280 But everything else, the line of control 1999 01:34:55,280 --> 01:34:57,210 becomes a de facto national border. 2000 01:34:57,210 --> 01:34:59,690 Everything else gets adjudicated. 2001 01:34:59,690 --> 01:35:03,681 And maybe-- Modi has five years, so it's possible. 2002 01:35:03,681 --> 01:35:05,222 If anyone in India can do it, I think 2003 01:35:05,222 --> 01:35:06,825 it has to be somebody from the right. 2004 01:35:06,825 --> 01:35:08,950 The question is whether there's a willing partner-- 2005 01:35:08,950 --> 01:35:09,250 [INTERPOSING VOICES] 2006 01:35:09,250 --> 01:35:11,125 VIPIN NARANG: --willing partners on Pakistan. 2007 01:35:11,125 --> 01:35:12,890 Exactly. 2008 01:35:12,890 --> 01:35:14,336 OK, I think we're over time. 2009 01:35:14,336 --> 01:35:16,460 So we should-- I gotta pick up my kid from daycare, 2010 01:35:16,460 --> 01:35:19,650 so thank you guys. 2011 01:35:19,650 --> 01:35:21,200 Thanks!