Iran was bombed because it didn't have nukes—just what K Subrahmanyam warned India about

The Print

5 hours ago

Israel's acquisition of nuclear weapons is a tale of long-term planning, strategic focus, espionage, deceit, and brazen thievery. Much of it from the United States. Like all good spy stories, there is even a Hollywood character thrown into the plot. The only, and biggest, difference between the Israeli and Iranian nuclear programmes is that the former violated a treaty it had signed, whereas Tehran has yet to violate one in practice. Israel is an early signatory to the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty, which sought to put an end to atmospheric nuclear testing.
The tale of Iran and nuclear weapons is like a glass of water—half full or half empty, depending on perspective. What it certainly isn't is an account seeped in morality. Both sides of the conflict have demonstrated that repeatedly, none more so than the United States, which has been hypocritical beyond comparison when it comes to nuclear weapons in West Asia. Even as it has been the source of stolen radioactive material, it has continually condoned the only country in the region that possesses nuclear weapons: Israel.
Iran was bombed blue by Israel and the United States of America, simply because it does not have a nuclear weapon. Had Iran developed the atomic bomb, even in single digits, there is no chance that either Israel or the US would have attacked the country. This is the lesson to be drawn from the nearly two-decade-old saga of allegations against Iran, its opaque politico-technical responses, the constant shifting of goalposts by both international agencies and Tehran, and the clandestine pursuit of uranium enrichment, which is not unique to Iran or the region.
Perhaps the most striking evidence of the hypocrisy surrounding nuclear weapons, and the security umbrella they provide, is North Korea, one of the most isolated countries in the world. India's reluctant neighbour, Pakistan, has had plenty of dealings with Pyongyang. North Korea joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in the 1980s and exited in the early 2000s. Since then, it has brazenly violated nuclear protocols, provocatively tested ballistic missiles, and left nothing to perceptions or perspectives while thumbing its nose at the world. And all of it, without retaliation, because it has nuclear weapons.
Also read: Iran is learning the hard way that being a nuclear threshold state isn't safe anymore
KS Subrahmanyam knew the logic
This was precisely the theory long propounded by the doyen of modern India's strategic community, K Subrahmanyam. Following this brief West Asia crisis, one can almost imagine him looking down at us, with that peculiar glint in his thick-rimmed glasses, making his point with that trademark staccato precision, dispassionately declaring: 'To save yourself from attack, get armed with nuclear weapons.' Not a warmonger, but a realist. Subrahmanyam — KS, or K Sub to others — began advocating for India's acquisition of nuclear weapons after China's 1964 test, when he was still a civil servant.
Despite the restrictions of the civil service, KS never hesitated to push his realpolitik views, at every platform, on every occasion. But most of all, he wrote. Voraciously. And so, he made generations read. His national security thinking covered every aspect of defence planning and structure, but none more sophisticated than his nuclear power frameworks. His work displayed a finesse that often got the goat of Western, nay American, non-proliferation experts, or 'Ayatollahs of Non-proliferation' as he labelled them, for their racially selective formulation of nuclear restraint: bombs only for the whites.
In a private discussion, he once impassively explained how and why the US-led alliance would pulverise Iraq during the first Gulf War: superlative training, a seamless Revolution in Military Affairs, and, above all, the fact that Iraq did not possess nuclear weapons made it a sitting duck in an unequal war. The same fate, of course, has now befallen Iran, albeit without a ground invasion. Both episodes were driven by one certainty: that the targeted Gulf country did not possess nuclear weapons. That's also why North Korea remains untouched, despite threatening South Korea, a US military ally, and testing missiles over Japan, another ally.
Israel's possession of nuclear weapons gives it the security to enforce a monopoly in Western Asia. Iran is paying the price. The brazenness with which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked Iran is a direct function of nuclear confidence and the power it bestows. It was always clear that Iran had not yet acquired the selectively forbidden weapons, so the attacks went ahead. That they failed to meet their operational objectives wasn't immediately obvious, but now seems evident.
This is fairly predictable in any military conflict. What is not the case, and what remains virtually unheard of, is launching such an attack on a nuclear-armed state. KS predicted that, decades ago.
Manvendra Singh is a BJP leader, Editor-in-Chief of Defence & Security Alert, and Chairman of Soldier Welfare Advisory Committee, Rajasthan. He tweets @ManvendraJasol. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)