By Paul D. Taylor

Monday, March 13, 2000; Page A17 

President Clinton's visit to South Asia will do much good if it only serves to focus more attention on the deep-seated and dangerous antagonism between India and Pakistan. More Americans need to be aware that experts both within and outside the government believe existing safeguards are inadequate to keep events from escalating rapidly to a nuclear exchange on the Asian subcontinent.

 Developments in South Asia last year reminded the world that the nuclear tests undertaken in 1998 by India and Pakistan had ominously increased the danger of nuclear conflict. Pakistani occupation of Indian territory in Jammu and Kashmir precipitated the fourth sustained engagement between the countries' armed forces in the 50 years since independence. It also underscored the violent potential of incompatible claims in Kashmir by the two countries.

 The October military coup d'etat in Pakistan raised questions about governance, stability and democratic pluralism in a country that has spent about half its political life since independence under military rule. Late in the year, the hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight by Pakistani militants introduced the specter of state-supported terrorism into the conflict. Together these events created the climate for the 28 percent increase in India's military budget that was recently announced.

 Shortly after the nuclear tests in May 1998, the U.S. Naval War College undertook a series of simulations and "decision events" designed to examine the consequences of the tests. The project started from the premise that the tests had increased the possibility of weaponization, deployment and use of nuclear weapons in South Asia. The Decision Strategies Department organized a series of events that convened experts from the U.S. government, academia, foreign governments, business and private voluntary and nongovernmental organizations as well as military commands.

 They were presented a scenario set in the year 2003. Some 200 experts examined the implications of a conflict in South Asia that escalates from civic unrest and terrorism to a significant exchange of tactical nuclear weapons.

 Several conclusions emerged. A scenario of violence between India and Pakistan, escalating to the point of a significant nuclear exchange, is frighteningly plausible. Moreover, the international community's ability to deal with such a crisis would be limited. Any capacity to influence events in the early stages would only grow weaker as a conflict worsened.

 If it developed into a nuclear exchange, the United States and others might wish to help ameliorate a disaster threatening millions of casualties, but to do so would require international coordination well beyond anything currently envisioned in contingency planning.

 This is why the U.S. government should act now to create a standing "consequence management" force that could be deployed to alleviate a major disaster anywhere in the world by providing both expertise and material aid. Participants in the study concluded that because the human and economic costs of a nuclear war in South Asia would be so enormous, the United States and other countries should invest efforts and resources now to reduce tensions between India and Pakistan. The financial and political costs of an ounce of prevention would be modest compared with the costs of an unlimited conflict.

 India has not welcomed outside help in resolving the dispute over Kashmir, which it considers a domestic problem. Such reservations have eventually been overcome in other trouble spots, however, such as the Middle East and Northern Ireland. But beyond that, it is worth noting that removing the causes of conflict would require a degree of engagement that is incompatible with the arms-length posture the United States has assumed with these two countries in its efforts to discourage others from imitating their nuclear initiatives.

 Moreover, for the United States to employ its full influence in the cause of keeping nuclear weapons from being used between Pakistan and India, it will have to deal with the reality that, barring an unforeseen miracle, neither country is going to abandon its status as a de facto nuclear power.
 
 

The writer, a former Foreign Service officer, chairs the Asia-Pacific Studies Group at the Naval War College.