Lack of mechanism to prevent use of India-Pak nukes worries US

The absence of any mechanism to prevent the use of atomic weapons by India and Pakistan worries the United States, even as their nuclear arsenals make war unthinkable, a top Pentagon official has said.

"Pakistan and India, obviously, have a history of very tense relationships. Both countries possess nuclear weapons, which I know the Indian government recognises is the kind of weaponry that makes war really unthinkable, yet another reason for making it more unthinkable," said Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton B Carter. "I think the leaders on both sides recognise that," Carter told PTI in an interview.

"Therefore, our principal concern is that there not be any mechanism that could lead inadvertently to the use of nuclear weapons or resort to nuclear weapons. That's my principal worry, as was during the Cold War (the) principal worry with respect to the US and the Soviet Union," he said.  Carter said he did not think the leaders of India and Pakistan "were crazy enough or foolish enough" to use nuclear weapons against one another's people, but "there was always the possibility that this thing could get out of control".

Ahead of a visit to the region, including Afghanistan, India and Pakistan, Carter said the Obama administration is trying very hard to keep the momentum going with Pakistan which it regained about five or six months ago.

"We all need, I think, a good security relationship with Pakistan. They have internal challenges, and I think they're increasingly seeing that the internal insurgency in Pakistan is a threat to the Pakistani state," he said.

"And that, in turn, is a threat to Afghanistan, because those insurgents (come over the) border in Afghanistan, and that's a threat to India, because those groups have shown the willingness and the capability to make attacks in India." 

The US is continuing to "work very hard, including with the new Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif", on the defence relationship with Pakistan and to emphasise that "Pakistan's relations with its two neighbours are very critical, not just to Pakistan, but to the US, and obviously to India and to Afghanistan", he said.

Pakistan's ties with the US hit an all-time low after CIA contractor Raymond Davis gunned down two men in Lahore in early 2011 and Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was killed in a unilateral American raid in Abbottabad a few months later.

The CIA-operated drone campaign in Pakistan's tribal belt continues to be an irritant in bilateral ties ahead of the drawdown of foreign forces in war-torn Afghanistan. Responding to questions, Carter made it clear the US is not leaving Afghanistan at the end of 2014.

"I expect that the bilateral security agreement will be signed, which is the only sort of technical obstacle to the enduring presence, the continuing presence of American forces in Afghanistan, helping the Afghan forces to continue to grow in size, but especially in their capability," he said.

"And they're really showing it now. They're really showing it this summer."

Carter said though the campaign against terrorism in Afghanistan has fallen off the world's radar screen and out of the media, it has been successful in defeating the insurgency in many key areas and in building the Afghan security forces. "I'm very optimistic about it," he said.

"What we want is, as the Afghan security forces get more powerful, that we can slowly wind down the international coalition forces so that the sum, in any year, of Afghan power and coalition power is much greater than insurgent power," he said. 

"That's what we've had for several years now and the balance is shifting, but the fact still remains that we're defeating the insurgency. And that's going to continue to go on after 2014."

The US, Carter said, is in Afghanistan for the long run. "So I say that because some people seem to think that we're leaving at the end of 2014 or something. I know that would be a concern to India, because it would mean that there was a greater risk of instability in Afghanistan, and that's your neighbourhood." PTI LKJ RHL 09161905 NNNN