Nasr: A Product of Pakistan’s

Strategic Culture
Muhammad Umar

Abstract

[After the dismal failure of Operation Parakram, India went back to the drawing board and
developed a new limited war strategy, referred to as the Cold Start Doctrine, with the aim
of quick mobilization of their troops to Pakistan’s border, from where they could launch
conventional strikes against Pakistan and at the same time not escalate the conflict to full
scale or to the nuclear level. In response to India’s Cold Start Doctrine, Pakistan introduced
tactical nuclear weapons. To understand why Pakistan developed the tactical nuclear
weapons we must try to understand their strategic culture. The paper will argue that the Cold
Start Doctrine is in fact real and can be materialized, and for that reason Pakistan has had to
respond to the threat it poses. In this paper we will try to understand Pakistan’s response to
the Cold Start Doctrine by trying to grasp its strategic culture. – Author.]

Key Words: Operation Parakram, Cold Start Doctrine, strategic culture,

tactical nuclear weapons, Pakistan. India.

In October 2015, Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhary officially

revealed that Pakistan had made low-yield nuclear weapons in response
to India’s actions under its cold-start doctrine.1

The cold start doctrine is considered to be a pro-active military

strategy that emphasizes rapid mobilization of troops to a neighboring
country’s territory with the aim of conducting quick conventional strikes.
2
The rapid strikes as envisaged in the doctrine would have multiple battle
groups conduct an operation in Pakistan within 48 to 96 hours. India
planned the cold start doctrine taking advantage of the nuclear
deterrence gap that existed at the operational level.

Lt. Gen. (r) Khalid Kidwai, the former head of Pakistan’s Strategic
Plans Division (SPD) said that there was a general realization within the
security establishment that India felt there was space for conventional
war under the nuclear umbrella as proven by Operation Parakram in
2001, and there was a fear that the Indians could engage Pakistan in a
cold start type of limited war knowing that Pakistan would not use its
strategic nuclear weapons to respond to a conflict at the battlefield level,


The author is Assistant Professor at the School of Sciences and Humanities, National
University of Science & Technology (NUST), Islamabad.
1
Anwar Iqbal, “Pakistan has Built Low-yield Nuclear Weapons to Counter Indian
Aggression.” Dawn, October 20, 2015, accessed March 12, 2015,
http://www.dawn.com/news/1214157/pakistan-has-built-low-yield-nuclear-weapons-
to-counter-indian-aggression.
2
Walter C. Ladwig III, "A Cold Start for Hot Wars? The Indian Army's New Limited
War Doctrine," International Security 32, no. 3 (Winter 2007-08).
 Policy Perspectives

because doing so would be suicide.3 If Pakistan failed to deter the

operationalization of cold start and could not respond with its strategic
weapons, surely it would mean that Pakistan would have no option but
to accept defeat in a limited war with India.

Pakistan came up with a third option: to address this gap at the

tactical level Pakistan shored up its nuclear deterrence capability by
introducing a limited nuclear option in the form of Nasr, a solid fueled
tactical ballistic missile equipped with a sub-kiloton nuclear warhead with
the ability to reach any target at a range of 60km (37.3 mi). 4

In introducing Nasr, Pakistan has made sure that if deterrence

fails and India launches a cold start style military operation then Pakistan
can limit the damage of war by using their tactical nuclear weapons
rather than their strategic weapons. Pakistan’s attitude towards cold start
and tactical nuclear weapons is a result of its strategic culture.

From the bloodshed that claimed thousands of innocent Muslim

lives at the hands of Hindus and Sikhs during independence, to the most
recent cross border firings, Pakistan has always struggled to find space
for peace with India.5 Since independence there has been a sense of
insecurity in Pakistan.6

It is important to delve into the history of the two nations to

understand their strategic culture. Because the strategic culture of both
countries has been shaped by their religious identity, their cultural
norms, and their past experiences vis-à-vis each other, which have been
used to justify the military developments and use of force in both
countries including the cold start doctrine and the development of Nasr
as a response to that doctrine.

Pakistan’s strategic culture has been shaped by its historical

experiences, geography, and overall strategic environment. A few
months after Independence in 1948, the Indian government deployed its
troops to the Muslim majority state of Kashmir7. Taking advantage of the
fact that Pakistan had a smaller army and no real military structure at
the time, India forcefully occupied two-thirds of Kashmir. Giving birth to

3
Khalid Kidwai’s interview conducted by Peter Lavoy on March 23, 2015 at the 2015
Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference, accessed March 13, 2015,
http://carnegieendowment.org/files/03-230315carnegieKIDWAI.pdf.
4
Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Press Release No. PR94/2011-ISPR, April 19,
2011, accessed April 02, 2015, https://www.ispr.gov.pk/front/main.asp?o=t-
press_release&id=1721.
5
Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, Freedom at Midnight, (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1975).
6
Peter R. Lavoy, “Pakistan’s Strategic Culture,” Defense Threat Reduction Agency,
(October 31, 2006), accessed June 3, 2015,
http://fas.org/irp/agency/dod/dtra/pakistan.pdf.
7
Hasan Zubeida, “India in Kashmir”, Pakistan Horizon, Pakistan Institute of
International Affairs: 47–60. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41392749.
154
 NASR - A Product of Pakistan’s Strategic Culture

the Kashmir conflict, and igniting the flames of the first of two major
wars fought between the two new nations over Kashmir.

By 1971 a pattern of Indian belligerence emerged, further

shaping the strategic culture on both sides; Pakistanis lived in constant
fear of war, having established that India’s ultimate goal is the complete
disintegration of Pakistan. Their fears were realized in November 1971,
when the Indian army taking advantage of a political conflict between
East and West Pakistan, attacked East Pakistan. Although India failed to
destroy the country completely, it did succeed at splitting the nation in
half. East Pakistan was lost to Indian interference in a sovereign country
on December 16, 1971.8

On May 18, 1974, three-years after splitting Pakistan in half,

India tested their first nuclear bomb in an operation codenamed ‘Smiling
Buddha’, or Pokhran-I.9 Because of the previous experiences, and the
geographical proximity, the regional based threat of India’s nuclear
capability created a security dilemma for Pakistan.

Pokhran-I forced then Prime Minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to inform

the world that “Pakistan was exposed to a kind of "nuclear threat and
blackmail" unparalleled elsewhere (...) If the world's community failed to
provide political insurance to Pakistan and other countries against
nuclear blackmail, these countries would be constraint to launch atomic
bomb programs of their own! (…) Assurances provided by the United
Nations were not "enough!”10 The Prime Minister’s speech would set the
tone and define Pakistan’s strategic culture as well as thinking for
decades to come.

On May 11, 1998 India test exploded five nuclear bombs.

Following their tests, Indian troops fired day and night across the Line of
Control (LOC).11 These tests were conducted at a time when conflict in
Kashmir was once again escalating.12

There was an environment of insecurity all over Pakistan. This

insecurity grew on May 26, 1998 as Indian troops began fighting in the
Kel and Rajauri area of Kashmir. The fear in Pakistan was that India had
demonstrated their nuclear capability, what would now stop them from
blackmailing or bullying Pakistan in an attempt to take control of

8
Pakistan Army, “1971 War,” accessed June 2, 2015,
https://www.pakistanarmy.gov.pk/AWPReview/TextContent.aspx?pId=197&rnd=446
9
Nuclear Weapon Archive, “Smiling Buddha: 1974,” November 8, 2001, accessed
June 1, 2015, http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/India/IndiaSmiling.html.
10
Feroz Hassan Khan, Eating grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb, (Stanford,
California: Stanford University Press, 2012).
11
Lecture delivered by General Rashid Qureshi on “Kargil” at National Defence
University, Islamabad on April 21, 2015.
12
Carey Sublette, "The Long Pause: 1974–1989," Nuclear Weapon Archive, March
30, 2001, accessed June 3, 2015,
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/India/IndiaPause.html.
155
 Policy Perspectives

Kashmir: And given the past, what guarantee would Pakistan have that
India would stop at Kashmir?

The Indian explosions forced Pakistan to make a tough decision:

show restraint and not respond to India’s tests and risk Indian
aggression, possibly leading to a military confrontation, on the other
hand, respond and possibly deter any belligerent designs towards
Pakistan, ensuring peace. The answer would change Pakistan’s strategic
culture forever, and also change the strategic environment.

Strategic environment is determined by “the internal and external

context, conditions, relationships, trends, issues, threats, opportunities,
interactions, and affects that influence the success [of a state] to the
physical world, other states, and actors, chance and the possible
futures.”13

On May 28, 1998, despite a tremendous amount of international

pressure, Pakistan tested its nuclear devices as a direct response to
Indian action.14 After Pakistan’s response, there was an eerie silence in
the whole of Kashmir, with not a single shot fired across the LOC. 15

Pakistan’s response shocked India. By testing they had changed

the pattern of behavior previously observed. Pakistan had also
successfully neutralized any external or regional threat from India by
acquiring nuclear arms; this also affected the strategic environment and
gave Pakistan tremendous confidence.

The first conflict we saw following the 1998 nuclear explosion was
the Kargil Conflict.16 During the Kargil operation, Pakistani troops
successfully gained control of vacated posts on the Line of Control. The
fighting was strictly restricted to the area, and did not turn into a full-
scale war because India was deterred by Pakistan’s nuclear weapons,
which is something Pakistan counted on.

The Kargil conflict proved to India that there was room for a
conventional war under the nuclear shadow, as long as it was limited and
did not threaten Pakistan’s existence. A lesson, India chose to apply in
practice following the December 13, 2001 tragic attack on the Indian
parliament, for which the Indians wrongfully held Pakistan responsible. 17

13
Harry R. Yarger, Strategic Theory for the 21st Century: The Little Book on Big
Strategy, (Carlisle: Strategic Studies Institute (SSI), 2006): 17.
14
BBC, “Nawaz Sharif's Speech” May 28, 1998, accessed June 10, 2015,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/monitoring/102445.stm.
15
Lecture by General Rashid Qureshi, op. cit.
16
BBC, “India-Pakistan: Troubled Relations,” accessed June 10, 2015,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/south_asia/2002/india_pakistan/tim
eline/1999.stm.
17
Peter Symonds, “Attack on Indian parliament heightens danger of Indo-Pakistan
war,” WSWS, December 20, 2001, accessed June 4, 2015,
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2001/12/ind-d20.html.
156
 NASR - A Product of Pakistan’s Strategic Culture

Although India did not carry out an attack on Pakistani soil, it did
respond to the terrorist attacks by placing a massive concentration of
troops on the Pakistan border, which lasted for eleven months, in what
the Indian military referred to as Operation Parakram. The Indians
massed nearly half a million troops on the line of control, and parts of
the international border.18 After 10 months, $3.4 billion dollars, and the
loss of nearly a thousand Indian troops, the Indian army finally retreated.
19, 20, 21

Operation Parakram was a failure because by the time the Indians

mobilized their troops to the border, Pakistan had already taken up their
defensive positions, so India could not initiate a limited war without
risking escalation.

Both countries walked away with different lessons. Pakistan

walked away knowing that it was their nuclear capability that deterred
India from escalating the crisis. And the Indians learned that they needed
to reformulate their conventional military doctrine vis-à-vis Pakistan after
Operation Parakram, which meant quicker mobilization of forces to the
border for quick and limited military action against Pakistan without
risking escalation to the nuclear level.

Birth of the Cold Start Doctrine

Despite being a futile exercise, Operation Parakram taught the Indian

military a lot of tough lessons.22 The most important lesson for them was
that the Indian military had to devise a new strategy for troop
mobilization. It had taken nearly a month for India to deploy its troops
to its Western border, and that had given Pakistan enough time to take
strong defensive positions. The Indians learned through Operation
Parakram that they had to cut their troop mobilization time down
drastically for any chance at waging and winning a limited war in the

18
Rediff, “Operation Parakram was the Most Punishing Mistake,” November 4, 2011,
accessed April 7, 2015, http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-
nuclear-mindset-we-have-is-a-false-sense-of-security-admiral-sushil-
kumar/20111104.htm#1.
19
Aditi Phadnis, “Parakram Cost Put at Rs 6,500 crore,” Rediff, January 16, 2003,
accessed April 7, 2015, http://www.rediff.com/money/2003/jan/16defence.htm.
20
Pandit Rajat, “India Suffered 1,874 Casualties Without Fighting a War,” Times of
India, May 1, 2003, accessed April 7, 2015,
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-suffered-1874-casualties-without-
fighting-a-war/articleshow/45016284.cms?referral=PM.
21
Times of India, “India to Withdraw Troops from Pak Border,” October 16, 2002,
accessed April 7, 2015, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-to-withdraw-
troops-from-Pak-border/articleshow/25384627.cms.
22
Pandit Rajat, “Nuclear Weapons Only for Strategic Deterrence: Army Chief,” Times
of India, January 16, 2012, accessed April 7, 2015,
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Nuclear-weapons-only-for-strategic-
deterrence-Army-chief/articleshow/11502906.cms.
157
 Policy Perspectives

future.23 It gave them an idea for a limited war doctrine, giving birth to
the cold start doctrine.24

In 2004, the Indian army began re-evaluating its military doctrine

with the objective of being able to rapidly mobilize its troops to Pakistan’s
border, from where it could “launch and sustain multiple armored thrusts
across the border,” and at the same time “maintain a credible minimum
nuclear deterrent.”25

India’s new “pro-active” limited war doctrine, referred to as the

“Cold Start Doctrine,” increased the likelihood of nuclear war between
the two countries.26 This assessment is made based on the fact that
Pakistan has a first-use policy, and the implementation of the pro-active
military strategy meant that any military incursion by India into Pakistani
territory could be responded to by a nuclear strike.

The whole idea behind the Cold Start Doctrine was to engage
Pakistan in a limited military engagement and not let the conflict escalate
to the nuclear level. India had convinced itself that if it keeps the conflict
limited and does not threaten Pakistan’s existence, or cuts only its lines
of communications then Pakistan would not be compelled to use nuclear
weapons, and also knew that if Pakistan did use strategic nuclear
weapons, it would be committing suicide.

India had successfully proven that it had the military capability to

materialize cold start successfully. India proved it coul d rapidly mobilize
a large number of Indian troops to Pakistan’s border for quick operations
within Pakistan’s borders as envisioned in the doctrine. During Operation
Vijay Bhav India mobilized 50,000 troops to Pakistan’s border within 48
hours. The Indians refer to this kind of operation as a pro-active military
operation. No matter what they call it, it is the cold start doctrine in
action.

Pakistan’s Dilemma

Pakistan has never had the resources to match India’s conventional

capability, but they had to plug the gap in their nuclear deterrence to
deter India from pursuing their limited war doctrine, so they opted to

23
Parveen Swami, “Gen. Padmanabhan Mulls Over Lessons of Operation Parakram,”
The Hindu, February 6, 2004, accessed April 7, 2015,
http://www.thehindu.com/2004/02/06/stories/2004020604461200.htm.
24
Ladwig III, “A Cold Start for Hot Wars?”
25
Rajat, “Nuclear Weapons.”
26
Zafar Khan, “Cold Start Doctrine: The Conventional Challenge to South Asian
Stability,” Contemporary Security Policy, 33:3 (2012), 577, doi:
10.1080/13523260.2012.727685.
158
 NASR - A Product of Pakistan’s Strategic Culture

invest in a short-range battlefield ready nuclear weapon, the Nasr, a non-

conventional weapon to deter conventional war. 27

Nasr has a range of 60 kilometers and has the ability to shoot

multiple missiles carrying low-yield nuclear warheads.28 The system is
also very mobile and can quickly move to another location after launching
a missile to avoid a counter-strike from the adversary.

The introduction of India’s limited war doctrine and Pakistan’s

response to neutralize the doctrine has become an important issue for
the region and its future. It is an issue that many well-known scholars
around the world have discussed. Drawing mostly on lessons from the
Cold War, most scholars believe that NASR increases the likelihood of
nuclear war, while others believe it will have no impact on India’s
behavior, and that Pakistan should not have opted for this weapon
system.

Walter C. Ladwig lays out beautifully the pitfalls of a limited war

doctrine as envisioned by India, and warns that if India were to
implement its limited war doctrine in a crisis, the Indians risk increasing
that crisis into a full scale war. 29

Ladwig makes clear that India’s ability to rapidly deploy its troops
to Pakistan’s border in a crisis situation will now face political pressure
for such an act by political leaders in India, leading to crisis escalation.
The crisis will not escalate based solely on the rapid troop deployment
but because of a history of misperception between the two nuclear
neighbors, India’s poor intelligence, and their awkward decision making,
as experienced during Operation Parakram.

The argument that Pakistan’s tactical nuclear weapons serve no

benefits for Pakistan is made clear in Shashank Joshi’s Pakistan and
Tactical Nuclear Weapons: Déjà Vu? In the article Joshi draws on lessons
learnt from the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe during
the Cold War that existed between the United States and the former
Soviet Union (Russia). Joshi highlights the dangers associated with
tactical nuclear weapons, stating that they pose an increased risk of
nuclear war, and chance of accident, without providing any real benefits
for the Pakistan military.30

27
Manoj Joshi, “Ballistic Missile Nasr: A Bigger Threat from Pakistan,” India Today,
June 2, 2011, accessed April 7, 2015, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/pakistans-
short-range-ballistic-missile-Nasr-is-a-matter-of-concern-for-india/0/140087.html.
28
Usman Ansari, “Missile Test Firing Shows Development Complete,” Defense News,
November 6, 2013, accesses April 12, 2015,
http://www.defensenews.com/article/20131106/DEFREG03/311060029/Experts-
Missile-Test-Firing-Shows-Development-Complete.
29
Ladwig III, “A Cold Start for Hot Wars?” 158.
30
Shashank Joshi, “Pakistan’s Tactical Nuclear Nightmare: De´ja` Vu?,” The
Washington Quarterly 36, no. 3 (2013): 159-172, doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0163660X.2013.825557.
159
 Policy Perspectives

Joshi simply cannot compare Pakistan and India to the US and

the Soviet Union (Russia). The two relationships are completely different,
in nature and the purpose of Pakistan’s tactical nuclear weapons is in
complete contrast to why they were deployed under NATO during the
Cold War. Joshi provides little substance to understanding the existing
relationship between India and Pakistan, and the role of tactical nuclear
weapons in that context.

David Smith unlike Joshi tries to argue that the American

experience is relevant to Pakistan. 31 But the gap in his argument is that
whereas the Americans had deployed tactical nuclear weapons in Europe,
Pakistan has not done so as far as we know. So his conclusion that
tactical weapons were never used in Europe, so therefore Pakistan should
stop their development is illogical. Because the purpose of Pakistan’s
tactical weapons is different from that of the American weapons deployed
during the Cold War.

If we look at recent history, the answer is clear that Nasr does

not have to be deployed for it to deter India from implementing Cold
Start. This resolves many of the dangers Pakistan faces if it deploys Nasr.
By not deploying it, Pakistan does not risk accidental use, and will not
have to decide how to, or where to deploy these missiles. Pakistan views
the Nasr as a strategic weapon, so it must stay at a strategic level.

Ali Ahmed explores the lifecycle of India’s Cold Start Doctrine and
concludes that it had failed to be a useable option, and used the
aftermath of the 2008 Mumbai bombings as an example. Ahmed argues
that cold start did not address how to prevent escalation, and that was a
major flaw in the short-lived doctrine.32

Although Ahmed examines the failure of the doctrine following

the Mumbai 2008 bombings, he fails to address the American role in de-
escalating tensions following the Mumbai incident, and also fails to
examine the Indian leadership and their rationality at the time. This is a
huge gap in his study. Instead, he focuses solely on the political
challenges that cold start posed, and concludes that because of those
challenges, the doctrine failed.

India clearly has the military capability to implement the Cold

Start aimed at waging a limited against Pakistan. It has proven this
during Operation Vijay Bhav, in which India mobilized 50,000 troops to

31
David O. Smith, "The US Experience with Tactical Nuclear Weapons: Lessons for
South Asia," Stimson Center, March 04, 2013: 32, accessed April 10, 2015,
http://www.stimson.org/images/uploads/research-
pdfs/David_Smith_Tactical_Nuclear_Weapons.pdf.
32
Ali Ahmed, ”Cold Start: The Life Cycle of a Doctrine” Comparative Strategy, 31:5,
453-468, (2012) DOI: 10.1080/01495933.2012.731964
160
 NASR - A Product of Pakistan’s Strategic Culture

the Pakistani border in less than 48 hours 33, proving that the Indian
military is more than capable of successfully adopting the new pro-active
war doctrine.

Shashank Joshi also says that India’s military is capable of

implementing cold start. And like Ahmed, he argues that the doctrine
failed because of political obstacles.34 Joshi goes in greater depth than
Ahmed in outlining the political obstacles faced by the Indian military,
concluding that inter-services rivalry is a political obstacle, not
necessarily a military one.

Now that Joshi has invalidated Ahmed’s argument, it leaves us

wondering then why did India’s political leadership not authorize cold
start after the 2008 bombings? Was it because of political challenges? I
think the answer is simpler. It was the rational thinking based on the
strategic environment at the time that led to a decision to not implement
cold start, nothing more. The Vajpayee government knew that if it had
implemented cold start that it could have escalated to a full-scale war
with the possibility of nuclear weapons coming into play. This decision
was also a direct result of India’s strategic culture.

Joshi gives Pakistan’s first-use nuclear posture credit for having

effectively killed the cold start doctrine, but ignores exploring the
development of tactical nuclear weapons as a possible reason for the
failure of cold start. He investigates the idea of Pakistan reducing their
nuclear threshold, but does not specifically point to the role Nasr has
played in neutralizing cold start. This is gap in his article does not
invalidate his argument, but makes it less effective.

In addition to outlining the similarities between Pakistan and

India to the Cold War, M. Quinlan does something unique, he also
outlines the differences. He talks about nuclear deterrence from a
universal perspective and then focuses in on India and Pakistan to
address a more specific question of deterrence effectiveness. 35

In exploring for the answer: is India-Pakistan nuclear deterrence

effective? Quinlan concludes that it is too complex for a simple yes or no
answer. He urges that for deterrence to be completely effective, both
countries must resolve the Kashmir issue, and that they must do all they
can to ensure that there is no escalation of conflicts, because the
repercussions of an escalated conflict are too costly to consider.

33
Yahoo News, “Exercise 'Vijayee Bhava' to Transform Army into More Agile Force,”
May 12, 2011, accessed April 7, 2015, https://in.news.yahoo.com/exercise-vijayee-
bhava-transform-army-more-agile-force-103620797.html.
34
Shashank Joshi, “India’s Military Instrument: A Doctrine Stillborn,” Journal of
Strategic Studies 36, no. 4 (2013): 512-540, doi: 10.1080/01402390.2013.766598.
35
M. Quinlan, “How robust is India-Pakistan deterrence?,” Survival: Global Politics
and Strategy 42, no. 4 (2000): 141-154, doi: 10.1080/713660251.
161
 Policy Perspectives

The argument that Quinlan makes is an important one to

understand the strategic culture of Pakistan, which explains why Pakistan
opted for tactical nuclear weapons as a response to India’s limited war
doctrine.

Sumit Ganguly and R Harrison Wagner explore why nuclear

weapons failed to create peace in South Asia, and how they ended up
increasing the chance of conventional war instead.36 The authors argue
that nuclear weapons actually made Pakistan less fearful of India’s
conventional weapons, and that both countries understood that they
could now depend on the United States for mediation, because it was in
the American interests to avoid nuclear war. A pattern that had emerged
from past experiences and had at this time defined their strategic culture.

It is important to understand how the strategic culture in Pakistan

changed from reliance on mediation to resolve conflict to reliance on
tactical nuclear weapons to avoid it altogether. The fact of the matter is
that comments made by American policymakers had Pakistan concerned,
the Americans have made it clear that they are unlikely to come to
Pakistan’s aid in case of future crisis between India and Pakistan. 37

Many authors reviewed for this paper mask the argument of US

intervention as a solution to conflicts between India and Pakistan, and
Ganguly, and Wagner also highlight that American intervention is almost
guaranteed in case of an escalating conflict. The Americans are clearly
shifting away from Pakistan and towards India, and that has created
instability in the region, and changing the strategic culture in Pakistan in
the process. This is why it is essential for Pakistan to ensure that as a
state it can deter any conventional threat posed by India.

The Indian military adopted a pro-active military doctrine, and in

return Pakistan developed a battlefield ready nuclear weapon. This
action/reaction model is clearly identifiable with the security dilemma
model and is a clear indication of its strategic culture. Pakistan took Cold
Start seriously because it had a direct impact on Pakistan’s security. 38

Realists believe that the international system is anarchic, and that

there is no actor above the state itself. Therefore, states must regulate
their behavior and interactions on their own to maximize their power to
ensure the survival of the state. To maximize their power they must build

36
Sumit Ganguly and R Harrison Wagner, “India and Pakistan: Bargaining in the
Shadow of Nuclear War,” Journal of Strategic Studies 27, no. 3 (2004): 479-507,
accessed June 10, 2015, doi: 10.1080/1362369042000282994.
37
Ashley J. Tellis, “China, India, And Pakistan—Growing Nuclear Capabilities with no
End in Sight,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, February 25, 2015,
accessed April 11, 2015, http://carnegieendowment.org/2015/02/25/china-india-
and-pakistan-growing-nuclear-capabilities-with-no-end-in-sight/i2xz.
38
Khalid Kidwai, “2015 CEIP Remarks,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
March 23, 2015, accessed April 10, 2015,
http://carnegieendowment.org/files/General_Kidwai_Remarks.pdf.
162
 NASR - A Product of Pakistan’s Strategic Culture

up their economy, and military, which leads to a security dilemma, and

the shaping of their strategic culture, similar to the one observed in the
case of Pakistan and India.

Kenneth Waltz’s neorealism theory most aptly explains the

changing strategic culture in Pakistan and the introduction of Nasr as a
response to India’s limited war doctrine. The theory proposes that the
international system lacks central authority and therefore there is
anarchy in the international system, which means that states can go to
war at anytime, so all states must be prepared for war, if they are not
they will either be wiped out or will be forced to live at the mercy of the
stronger state.39

Rationality is the driver for this attempt at balance of power, and

now that this balance of power has been achieved, there exists space for
a tangible peace process, and stability in the region.

Conclusion

Nasr has quite literally poured “cold water on Cold Start.” 40 It was
necessary for Pakistan to develop Nasr because despite India’s behavior
following the 2008 Mumbai tragedy, similar reaction by future political
governments cannot be guaranteed.

Given the past experiences that have shaped the strategic culture
in both India and Pakistan, war seems to be inevitable, and for this fact
both nations must prepare for war. India has to devise new military
tactics, and Pakistan has to make sure it can deter India from
operationalizing those new plans or else risk living at India’s mercy or
worse face annihilation

The temporary balance of power that has been created by Nasr

has changed the strategic culture and, in turn, the strategic environment.
Nasr has created an enabling environment for a peace process to take
place; if this is taken advantage of by India, it could make war redundant
and result in a more stable and peaceful South Asia.41

39
Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics, (Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley
Publishing Company, 1979), 102.
40
Smith, “The US Experience with Tactical Nuclear Weapons.”
41
Kidwai, “2015 CEIP Remarks.”

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 Policy Perspectives

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