Date

Jan 1, 1983

Description

Based on a contract study prepared by University of Illinois political scientist (presently affiliated with Brookings) Stephen P. Cohen, after he had made three visits to Pakistan, this report focuses on the Pakistani military's approach to deterrence. While the Pakistani military had once emphasized the value of using force first, the danger of war with India has produced a strategic doctrine that stresses the "use of military force to deter an Indian attack." This doctrinal shift was creating a consensus in the military on the value of a "modest, ‘limited' [nuclear] weapons program." Pakistani military leaders did not like nuclear weapons, but they believed that they would "enable them to do what their armored divisions and air force can no longer" do in conventional terms: "punish an Indian attack so severely that it will be deterred to begin with."

On the problem of Pakistani command-and-control over nuclear weapons, the summary of Cohen's report observed that "Pakistan's military has done self-destructive things in the past, and one cannot assume that it will not do them in the future." Yet with greater professionalism in the Army, it was not "likely to make [decisions on nuclear weapons] any more irresponsibility than other states confronted with the same perplexing set of security constraints." Cohen did not believe that Washington could do much to reverse nuclearization in South Asia, but U.S. influence could help ensure that proliferation did not lead to greater instability, for example, by limiting the buildup of stockpiles and supporting regional "mutual balanced force reductions" arrangements.

Source

Department of State FOIA release, copy courtesy of Jeffrey Richelson

Document published in following posting(s):

New Documents Spotlight Reagan-era Tensions over Pakistani Nuclear Program

Apr 27, 2012

"Punish an Indian Attack So Severely that it will be Deterred to Begin With". Bureau of Intelligence and Research, U.S. Department of State, "Pakistan: Security Planning and the Nuclear Option," Report 83-AR, 1983 [full date cut off copy], Limited Official Use