No first use

No first use

Welcome statement from Imran Khan, now entrench it in Pakistan’s official policy.

Negating Pakistan’s existing nuclear doctrine, Prime Minister Imran Khan has stated that Islamabad will never use nuclear weapons first. If that sounded like a welcome statement, which also corresponds with India’s no first use policy, that hope was snuffed out in hours, when Pakistan’s foreign office clarified there is no change in Pakistan’s nuclear policy. One presumes, therefore, that Khan’s statement was made for the sake of optics – as the occasion was the first international Sikh convention in Lahore.

Nevertheless, declaring no first use would certainly go a long way towards revising Pakistan’s unsavoury international reputation – which also happens to be the kiss of death for the Kashmir “cause” it champions – for the better. As of now, nuclear sabre rattling comes more easily to Khan as it does to the entire Pakistani establishment. Indeed, in an oped published by the New York Times, Khan argues that a nuclear conflict in south Asia will have consequences for the whole world, if it doesn’t heed Pakistan’s narrative on Kashmir. Since India will not use nuclear weapons first, the catastrophic nuclear exchange Khan envisions can only be initiated by Pakistan.

This is thus a thoroughly duplicitous argument, in line with the Pakistani strategy of using a nuclear umbrella to pursue sub-conventional warfare against India. It would wreak havoc with international order if nuclear powers are allowed to argue that their interpretation of disputes must prevail, on pain of all-round nuclear destruction. It’s that sort of argument that leads to the perception of Pakistan as an irresponsible, double-dealing power, in former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright’s words an “international migraine”. However, by declaring no first use, Pakistan would at one stroke transform its image into that of a responsible nuclear power. It may help that China, its principal patron and influencer, has also declared no first use.