Obama’s no-first-use doctrine

Dr. Jassim Taqui

The US administration leaked to the US media that President Barak Obama would announce in his speech to the UN General Assembly that he would propose a no-first-use nuclear war doctrine in a bid to convince Pakistan and India to follow suit so that CTBT would be signed.

This Obama doctrine coincides with the Indian doctrine. New Delhi proposed the same doctrine to the former PPP Government in 2008 but it was rejected.

The former Prime Minister Sayed Yousef Raza Gillani rejected the proposal on the ground that it virtually rendered the Pak nuclear program redundant if accepted. Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine states that Islamabad would use nuclear tactical weapons to annihilate the Indian troops if the armed forces of Pakistan could not stop the intruding Indian troops with conventional weapons even if the tactical weapons are used inside Pak territories.

With its huge size and enormous defence budget, India has built formidable conventional weapons. These weapons are superior to that of Pakistan quantitatively and qualitatively. Therefore, Pakistan can in no case repel any Indian aggression with conventional level. But, Islamabad can definitely crush any Indian aggression using tactical weapons.

Ostensibly, the proposal of the nuclear doctrine suggests the existent of a US-Indian coordination. The floating of the no-first use of nuclear weapons is designed to  terrorize Pakistan and devastate its armed forces. However, Obama and Modi are only pushing Pakistan to go closer to China, the Russian Federation and the OSC.