On March 9, shortly after sunset, a cruise missile was launched from a location in India that landed in the small city in Pakistan known as Mian Channu. Pakistan said it flew more than 100 km into Pakistani airspace. It didn’t carry any warhead and didn’t cause much harm except damaging a few buildings. The total flight time of the missile was around seven minutes.   

After two days, India acknowledged that “in the course of a routine maintenance, a technical malfunction led to the accidental firing of a missile”. The missile is considered to be a Brahmos cruise missile with a range of 400 km. 

Though the Pakistani response was limited to a public ridiculing of India’s carelessness, the seriousness of the incident cannot be toned down knowing the declared nuclear status of the two countries. The March 9 incident has again revived the arguments put forward by nuclear proliferation pessimists who have warned about the dangers of a nuclear armed world. An unauthorized or accidental missile launch due to human or technical error has the potential of unleashing a crisis between two nuclear rivals.  

Missile proliferation 

Missile displays in ceremonial parades and flight tests have become a norm in South Asia. Flight tests of missiles are mainly done to convey messages to the domestic crowd, to an adversary, and to the extra-regional powers outside the subcontinent. A successful missile test wins popular domestic support for the programme. Second, it helps to establish credibility to an adversary for the delivery system which results in enhancing nuclear deterrence. Third, the public displays and flight tests produce great international concern and political repercussions. 

The Brahmos malfunction has brought into discussion a number of factors that can upset the strategic stability in the region. First, a false warning can occur due to technical failure or concocted exaggerations. Misperceptions and misreading of intentions are symptomatic of the lack of trust that exists in the relationship between India and Pakistan. In such a scenario, the entry of an Indian cruise missile into the airspace of Pakistan can be interpreted by the latter in different ways. Pakistan could have also have misperceived the missile test launch as the start of a pre-emptive attack by India on its nuclear installations. Sargodha, the core reservoir of Pakistan’s strategic resources, is just 240 km away from the site where the missile crashed.  

Communication channels

It could also have raised the false alarm of a nuclear attack by India due to the dual nature of the Brahmos missile, capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear warheads. Incidents of false alarm are not without precedence in the subcontinent. False warning messages about an imminent preventive strike by Indian and Israeli forces just before Pakistan’s nuclear tests in 1998 is an example. The warning was concocted by ISI to force Nawaz Sharif to order the tests quickly. In 1988, a massive conventional munitions explosion near Rawalpindi caused fears of an Indian attack among the decision-makers of Pakistan. 

Another issue of concern is the geographical proximity and the short flight time of missiles. The flight time of the Brahmos missile was less than seven minutes. Such a short span of time won’t allow Pakistan to accurately assess the threat of an accidental missile launch and might lead them to take disproportionate retaliatory actions. This can be avoided by keeping the channels of strategic communication open.  

In this case, Pakistan claimed that India did not provide any prior information of the missile launch through the hotline that exists between the DGMOs (Director General of Military Operations) of the two countries.  

Problem areas 

Both the Pakistanis and the Indians plan to use their missile test facilities for actual nuclear weapon launch sites during a war. This is a dangerous trend as an accidental missile launch from the testing site of one side can be perceived to be an actual missile attack by the other. Therefore, lack of trust, misperception and deliberate exaggerations can always complicate an incident involving two hostile neighbours.

Pakistan being the weaker power in terms of conventional warfare has maintained a low threshold for launching its nuclear weapons through the first-use doctrine. This has been deliberately done to thwart any attempt by India to respond to Pakistan’s strategy of proxy war and cross-border terrorism. The nuclear redlines of Pakistan have been purposely kept opaque and this uncertainty makes the situation much more complex. Islamabad's growing skepticism about assurances given by India will be reinforced.  

In future, if an Indian missile enters Pakistani airspace causing large-scale casualties or hits a civilian aircraft in its path, Islamabad will be left with little incentive to respond in a calibrated manner. With limited options due to India’s conventional superiority, Pakistan could choose to go the nuclear way. Thus, inadvertent launching of missiles due to human error or procedural lags would certainly have negative consequences for the stability of the deterrence between India and Pakistan.  

Risk reduction 

Though the policymakers of both India and Pakistan have shown great restraint to prevent any escalation of the event, the missile episode has raised a few eyebrows among those who consider South Asia to be a 'nuclear flashpoint'. There is hardly any precedent of the inadvertent launching of a missile that has crashed into the territory of a nuclear rival. India and Pakistan should stick to their mutually agreed protocols and take further risk reduction measures to lessen the possibilities of such mishaps. The command and control structures should be made more rigid.  

India did well to accept the accidental launch of the Brahmos missile and ordered an investigation of the circumstances that led to this accident. Diplomatic talks and negotiations should begin at the earliest between India and Pakistan as that helps in strengthening mutual trust and rules out the apprehensions regarding each other's intentions.

In the recent past, both sides have shown great restraint in avoiding escalation of crises - one during the 2019 Balakot strike and the other during the 2016 surgical strikes. Despite nuclear signaling in public speeches by political leaders, Indian and Pakistani actions were remarkably circumscribed. Policymakers in both countries have come to recognize that escalation in South Asia won’t follow the model of the classic escalation ladder due to the presence of contrasting nuclear doctrines and asymmetries in conventional power between India and Pakistan. De-escalation won’t be an easy task in this context. Institutionalization of long-term risk-reduction measures is the need of the hour.  

With China and the US no longer willing to play the role of mediator in South Asia, bilateral agreements should be strengthened between New Delhi and Islamabad. They should take lessons from such mishaps and work together constructively in ensuring a stable and peaceful South Asia. 

(The author is pursuing his Ph.D. at the Department of Political Science, Presidency University, Kolkata. Views are personal. He can be contacted at mukherjee.d93@gmail.com)