I watched the Woodrow Wilson School's simulation of the US National Security Council response to an assassination attempt on Musharraf and the ensuing crisis at one of Pakistan's nuclear facilities, including the possible theft of a nuclear weapon (see here)

The discussion was on expected lines - the need to determine if the attempt on Musharraf was a military coup or a terrorist organization making a play for power and the need to support the next strongest military general in the interests of keeping the military unified and in command. A range of military options including sending US special forces to disarm Pakistani weapons at the compromised nuclear sites to stealth bombing of the sites were discussed.

What struck me as odd was the constant refrain of having to "keep India out" whether by a show of force or by appealing to common interests in the stability of Pakistan. This line of thinking presumes that India wants to go in and neutralize the emerging threat in the first place. If the panel had paused to think how the Indians would view the crisis, they would come to the conclusion that India has no such intentions of doing so whatsoever.

India has no intention of assuming responsibility for what is now the world's problem. All nuclear weapons within the control of the Pakistani military are aimed at India. A nuclear weapon outside the control of the Pakistani military is not aimed at India, it is aimed at the West. The primary responsibility for intercepting and neutralizing them lie with the West. The panel did recognize this fact in passing, but did not take the next logical step of deducing India's reaction to this fact.

By stepping aside and letting the entire world see the real nature of the Pakistani nuclear weapons program, India has everything to gain by drawing the world's attentionto even those nuclear weapons that are within the Pakistani military's control, if only to prevent such a scenario from happening again.

Another curious line of thought was the panel's assumption that Iran would be as concerned as the US and the West, at this development. This again reflects the hope that anything other than the West would be the primary target of rogue nuclear weapons. Such a hope is highly misplaced. Any rogue nuclear weapon has but one chance of being used before retaliation wipes out the Pakistani nuclear arsenal. Therefore, the target will be the most lucrative one - the United States or Britain.

Let's explore the two scenarios posited by the panel further.

A. An Islam-pasand military faction making a play for power: The primary motive would be to consolidate its political power in Pakistan and legitimize its hold on the entire Pakistani nuclear inventory. The demands they would make of the US would be less intrusion in Pakistan's internal affairs (relations with political parties, madrassa reforms, intelligence gathering, armed action in NWFP and Balochistan) and greater accomodation of its demands vis-a-vis Afghanistan and India. Ultimately, they would reach an agreement with the US for continued arms and economic support in return for less than what Musharraf is giving the US now.

B. A renegade faction of Islamists intent on securing one or more weapons for use against the West: There would be no direct negotiation with the US in this case. Indeed, in the interests of maintaining a low profile, there would have been no assassination attempt on Musharraf in the first place, which only succeeds in drawing all eyes to that part of the world.

The panel did allude to the possibility that the nuclear loss scare was a diversionary tactic to get the US on the defensive and supportive of a coup. Yet, further deliberations ignored this very real possibility and focussed on military options to neutralize the threat. I might mention in passing that the inverted scenario viz. a puppet regime in Islamabad providing the necessary cover for the theft of a nuclear weapon for use on Western targets, is too far-fetched simply because they will be the target of Western retaliation. Thus, anybody in Islamabad willing to appear in control will be very conscious of the need to prevent a loss of control over its nuclear weapons.

The biggest leverage the US has (contrary to the panel's claim that it was the willingness to hold back India!!) over its interlocuters in Islamabad is the ability to with-hold financial aid until a clearer picture of its nuclear weapons inventory emerges and the US is satisfied that no threat exists. The biggest pitfall the US must avoid is to offer unconditional support to the regime in return for "guarantees" that no nuclear weapon will leave the country. This would leave the US open to further blackmail down the line, and after the new regime has been annointed the real front-line ally in the WOT, to actually deniably allow the leakage of nuclear material outside the country.

While the panel was conservative in its ability to influence the flow of events, a former US Ambassador to Pakistan and the former head (?) of the US DNI who was in the audience, painted a more optimistic scenario of US capabilities - to mobilize support in world capitals and to identify who is the likely successor to Musharraf in the Pakistani military. He, however, did not elaborate on what the USG's likely course of action would be.