In October-November 1962, the world witnessed two crises unfold and how, in each case, one side managed to control the escalation and de-escalation, while the other side grossly underestimated the opponent’s response.
In 1962, the Soviet Union, having a very limited capability to strike mainland US with nuclear weapons, decided to base nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles in Cuba. The Soviet Union underestimated the American response. At about the same time, Chinese claims to Indian territory led to a major miscalculation by India, that the Chinese would not attack India, so an ill-prepared, ill-equipped Indian Army was ordered to send small groups of soldiers, dressed in summer clothes to occupy the disputed high mountain areas, where freezing winter cold greeted the troops. The Indian government had earlier disregarded a 1960 written document (Exercise “Lal Qila”) by Lt. Gen. S.P.P. Thorat, which had warned of the Chinese threat by 1962. A similar warning in 1959 by the then Army Chief Gen. Thimmaya was also disregarded.
As the Americans and Soviets got involved in the 1962 crisis, the well-prepared Chinese, led by war veteran Chairman Mao, seized the opportunity to “teach India a lesson”. On October 20, 1962, the Chinese launched a massive attack across the disputed 4,000 km Sino-India border and inflicted on India its only military defeat since Independence in 1947.
On October 22, 1962, the US announced the Cuban blockade, secure in the knowledge that they had an overwhelming nuclear and maritime superiority over the USSR — three of the four Soviet conventional submarines on patrol off Cuba were forced to surface by the American Navy. The Soviets backed down and the crisis was over on November 20, 1962, forcing the USSR to build a global Soviet Navy and strategic deterrence capability over the next 20 years during which the USSR went bankrupt and eventually disintegrated in 1991.
The Chinese, who had almost reached the plains of Assam, declared a unilateral ceasefire on November 21, 1962, and also announced their intention to withdraw to the positions they held before hostilities broke out on October 20, 1962. The reason for this was the overstretched Chinese logistics chain in the winter months and the strong possibility of US military intervention, as India had approached the West for urgent help.
We now come to the present-day nuclear age when a miscalculation by one side can result in a disastrous nuclear war. The problem arises with two of China’s nuclear-armed allies, North Korea and Pakistan, beating the war drums on the slightest pretext while China does the same in the Asia-Pacific Region (APR).
North Korea is bankrupt and dependent for its food, energy and defence needs on China. It is reported to have about 10 nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, which can reach all nations of the APR. It has also tested an ICBM (Taepondong-2), which, theoretically, can carry a nuclear weapon to some parts of the US.
The other nuclear ally of China, i.e. Pakistan, is also dependent on aid from China (and the US), while it gets military equipment from China at “friendship prices”. The internal turmoil in Pakistan is well known and enough has been written on international worries about Pakistan’s stockpile of 110 nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists. In all the four wars fought with India since 1947, Pakistan has either underestimated or miscalculated the likely Indian response and resolve. Fortunately, those were conventional wars. In the nuclear age, any miscalculations could have disastrous outcome.
Apart from its India-centric first use nuclear doctrine, Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is a cause for worry for the following reasons:
w The Pakistan Army, which controls the nuclear button and also foreign relations with India, apparently believes that it can fight a sub-conventional war with India “under a nuclear overhang” and also that it can use tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs) against any Indian Army formation entering Pakistani territory for a punitive strike as a retaliation for a major terror strike on Indian soil by Pakistani state-sponsored terrorists. The General Headquarters, Rawalpindi, seems convinced that India’s indecisive civilian leadership will not retaliate with nuclear weapons.
w Faced with an economic meltdown and internal turmoil, Pakistan, in the last 16 years, built four unsafeguarded “indigenous” natural uranium-heavy water power plants in Khusab district of Punjab, along with three reprocessing plants to annually extract 45 to 60 kgs of weapon-grade plutonium for its TNWs (a plutonium bomb is much smaller than a uranium bomb but has a higher “explosive yield”). This plutonium is sufficient to make 10 to 15 nuclear bombs annually. Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is reported to be growing at the rate of about 10 bombs annually. Pakistan’s arsenal of about 110 nuclear bombs will be augmented by another 150 to 300 plutonium bombs in the next 15 to 30 years, making Pakistan the fourth largest nuclear weapons state in the world, after the US, Russia and China.
w In addition to the 60-km short-range Nasr (Hatf 9) ballistic missile, fighter aircraft and ballistic missiles of the Hatf1 to Hatf6 series (ranging from 150 to 2,000 kms), Pakistan is building about 500 Chinese-designed Babur (Hatf7) sub-sonic cruise missiles with a range of about 700 kms and capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. These low-flying cruise missiles will complement the high trajectory ballastic missiles and saturate any potential Indian missile defence systems (non-existent at present despite tall claims by the Defence Research and Development Organisation). In addition, Pakistan is reported to be inducting six Chinese Yuan-class conventional submarines capable of firing nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.
It is obvious that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, though at present India-centric, is building a capability well beyond deterring India. Could the American 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden have prompted Pakistan to emulate North Korea and choose a path where its nuclear weapons are meant to deter real or imagined foes well beyond India, i.e. Israel and the US?
Pakistan (and North Korea) needs to remember that 30,000 nuclear weapons could not save the former USSR from disintegration. The real threat to Pakistan’s (and North Korea’s) existence comes from within. Clearly, the world, at present focused on China, needs to look more closely at China’s two nuclear-armed proxies (North Korea and Pakistan) while India needs to internalise some hard lessons from the two crises of 1962.

The writer, a former vice-admiral, retired as Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Eastern Naval Command, Visakhapatnam