Enemies Go Nuclear

By DOUGLAS WALLER/WASHINGTON

They were, in the classic metaphor of the nuclear age, like two scorpions in a bottle, eyeing each other warily, showing off their stingers, dimly aware though not properly worried that an attack by either would mean death to both. But in this case the rivalry between India and Pakistan could start the world's first nuclear war.

It's no longer just a theoretical possibility now that Pakistan has exploded its nuclear devices. Clinton Administration officials have secretly begun analyzing scenarios depicting how the two nations might stumble into an atomic exchange. It could go like this: Muslim militants in Kashmir, covertly backed by Islamabad, step up their insurgency in the disputed Himalayan territory, where several Indian and Pakistani soldiers already die each week in cross-border skirmishes. India lashes back, sending its troops across the Pakistani border to chase militants. Islamabad retaliates with heavy artillery shelling. Conventional war breaks out and quickly escalates to the point where both sides resort to their nukes, and 15-kiloton, Hiroshima-size bombs are dropped by warplanes or lofted by missiles on densely populated cities like Bombay and Karachi. Many thousands of civilians die, and deadly fallout spreads throughout the subcontinent.

Officials all over the globe hope that such a frightening specter will sober both countries into backing off their nuclear one-upmanship. But for the moment, each seems determined to match the other, bomb for bomb. After India detonated five nuclear devices two weeks ago, the question was not whether Pakistan would respond but when. At 3:30 p.m. last Thursday, the earth at the Chagai test site shook, then collapsed. Needles on seismic recorders from Australia to Sweden bounced forward to 4.9 on the Richter scale, indicating that an underground explosion with the power of 2 to 12 kilotons had discharged. "We have settled the score with India," Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif grimly announced, claiming that five nuclear bombs had been exploded. U.S. intelligence officials suspected there had been fewer. But on Saturday Pakistan conducted one more test at a nearby site to mirror India's back-to-back blasts. In an exclusive interview with TIME, Sharif said these tests would be the last "for the foreseeable future." Asked about Pakistan's actions, Sharif responded, "We were compelled to make a test. As a human being, I can tell you it was a painful decision. But we're talking about the security of a country."

The international community shuddered at the thought of where this path would end. Bill Clinton was dismayed. In just 17 days the Asian subcontinent had suddenly repeated, as he darkly put it, "the worst mistakes of the 20th century." Now would the Indian and Pakistani explosions, as some optimists suggest, bring a kind of fearful stability to the region? Could the two countries settle back into a state of mutual assured destruction (MAD), like the one that kept the superpowers from nuclear holocaust during the cold war?

Not very easily. India was driven to show off its atomic prowess by a newly aroused nationalism that will be hard to squelch and a macho sense of pride at joining the big boys in the still exclusive nuclear club. Pakistan, citing security fears, responded in kind. Neither country has in place any of the protective mechanisms that helped keep the superpower rivalry in check. Over four decades, the U.S. and the Soviet Union built spy satellites to watch each other's weapons, installed a hot line so the two leaders could communicate directly during crises, and negotiated treaties to contain their arsenals and reduce fears of a sneak attack. India and Pakistan, which have fought three wars in the past 50 years, have no such arms-control measures in place. "MAD requires a level of rationality that we may not have in this region," notes a State Department official.

Other nuclear powers, like the U.S., Britain and China, had launched intense diplomacy to dissuade Pakistan from retaliatory tests. By last Tuesday, a CIA satellite overhead had observed trucks moving away from the Chagai site and concrete being poured to seal the underground test chamber. Calculating the time it would take the cement to harden so nuclear fallout wouldn't escape, the CIA predicted that the blast could occur by early Thursday.

Shortly before midnight Wednesday, Clinton phoned Sharif for the fourth time, offering conventional weaponry and financial aid if he didn't proceed. But by then Sharif was ready to give his scientists the order to set off the bombs in less than seven hours. Islamabad was incensed by what it considered lackluster international sanctions leveled against India for its provocative tests. Polls showed that 70% of Pakistanis wanted their government to detonate its devices. At a defense seminar, an officer in Pakistan's powerful military told the Prime Minister, "The time to conduct a nuclear test is now," then projected a slide with NOW printed in large letters. And Sharif told Clinton, "I don't think I'll last in office more than two or three days if I don't make a test." As Sharif explained to TIME, "The outside world is not aware of the emotional feelings of the people of this region."

Washington's fear is that both sides will move into the next stage: threatening each other directly by placing nuclear warheads atop missiles. By week's end, the Pakistani government was denying rumors that its Ghauri missile, whose 930-mile range can reach all major cities in India, was already being capped with nuclear warheads. But both countries could probably deploy nuclear-tipped missiles within months. Since those missiles could reach their targets in 10 minutes or less, "you have a situation where either side, thinking its forces may be under attack, would launch on warning," says a Clinton aide. And without satellites to spot the other side's preparations, "the warning is not going to be all that dependable." In the old cold war parlance, it's a hair-trigger situation, in which miscalculation could easily lead to a nuclear exchange.

So how do Pakistan and India pull back? Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said his country might reach an agreement not to be the first to use nuclear weapons. Domestic opposition to his party's nuclear jingoism is starting to emerge now that cooler heads assess how much sanctions, like the World Bank's postponement of an $865 million loan, may hurt. Even some in the Indian military are urging restraint. "I don't see a warlike situation building up on either side," says General V.P. Malik, chief of staff.

For his part, Sharif told TIME, "I still feel we can make progress through bilateral negotiations and talks." Pakistani enthusiasm for a nuclear-arms race may quickly wane under the fierce bite of the same U.S. sanctions slapped on India, because Pakistan depends far more on international loans. "They are wrong to say the costs would be manageable," insists Mahbub ul Haq, a former Pakistani Finance Minister.

Washington delivered stern diplomatic notes last week warning both countries not to fit nuclear warheads on missiles. The Administration plans to press them to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and begin serious negotiations to halt production of the plutonium and highly enriched uranium that fuel their bombs. The U.S. also wants to try to mediate their long-running dispute over Kashmir.

That's a tall order. The CIA warns that Pakistan is planning another flight for its Ghauri missile. Both countries have balked at a test ban in the past and have refused to negotiate a halt to production of fissile material. India does not want U.S. meddling in Kashmir. Japan has agreed to cut its sizable economic aid, but Washington expects Europe to undercut sanctions and to trade with both countries. Even the U.S. is worried that severe economic penalties might only serve to create two basket-case countries with bombs. A costly arms race would be just as economically ruinous.

"There may be a spiraling arms race here, but we do not think it is inevitable," says Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott. The world can only hope so. Before the May explosions, the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff conducted several simulated war games to see how the U.S. might intervene to prevent a nuclear-armed India and Pakistan from using those weapons in a war over Kashmir. The games always ended the same way: the officers concluded that there was virtually nothing they could do to stop the nukes.

--With reporting by Jay Branegan/Washington, Hannah Bloch/Islamabad, Tim McGirk/New Delhi and Jaime A. FlorCruz/Beijing

With reporting by Jay Branegan/Washington, Hannah Bloch/Islamabad, Tim McGirk/New Delhi and Jaime A. FlorCruz/Beijing