UCalgary Political Science interviews our own Dr. Saira Bano

Dr. Saira Bano is a Sessional Instructor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Calgary

On nuclear issues in South Asia, why nuclear weapons have not solved Pakistan and India’s security challenges, the importance of global nuclear governance, the emerging anti-nuclear discourse… and the likelihood of the abolition of nuclear weapons.

 

Your doctoral work was broadly on nuclear issues in India-Pakistan relations. How did you become interested in this area?

I became interested in nuclear issues in South Asia because nuclear weapons were intended to solve Pakistan and India’s security challenges, but little had changed since both countries carried out their nuclear tests in May 1998. India developed nuclear weapons hoping to deter China and elevating its status to that of a global power. But it only provoked Pakistan to develop a nuclear deterrent that has successfully countered New Delhi’s conventional military superiority. The Pakistani nuclear program was mainly designed to balance the Indian threat, but it opened up additional security and political challenges like the safety of its nuclear weapons against terrorist organizations.

Can you tell us a bit about your main arguments and conclusions from your doctoral dissertation?

My doctoral dissertation argued that nuclear weapons have not solved Pakistan and India’s security challenges, but only created newer ones. The fundamental dynamics of the enduring India-Pakistan conflict has not changed much since the May 1998 nuclear tests. Both countries have improved the nuclear architecture that has increased the chances of nuclear war. Both countries need to be brought under global nuclear governance to have regional strategic stability. The United States brought India closer to nuclear governance by lifting nuclear sanctions against New Delhi to counterbalance China’s rise. Now Pakistan needs to be brought closer to the nuclear regime in some way.

What’s the next big thing you are planning to work on?

My next project on the nuclear ban treaty and how it is changing worldwide attitudes toward nuclear weapons from widespread acceptance to moral censure. The change was brought about not by changing material interests but by an emerging anti-nuclear discourse that is recasting nuclear weapons as inhumane. The ban treaty will forbid the development, production, testing, acquisition, stockpiling, transfer, possession, and stationing—as well as the use and threat of use—of nuclear weapons. Consequently, the decades-old doctrine of nuclear deterrence will become illegal for the signatory states.

Finally, is it possible that the states possessing nuclear weapons will give up these weapons?

It is unlikely that any of the nuclear-weapons states or their allies will sign the nuclear ban treaty and disarm themselves. This would be the case right from the beginning. Just as slavery was not abolished through the efforts of slave owners, the abolition of nuclear weapons is not expected to be accomplished by the possessors of nuclear arms. It is expected that moral pressure and global public opinion would force these states to move towards disarmament.

Thanks to Dr. Saira Bano for sharing with us!

 

Follow Dr. Saira Bano on Twitter at @sairaban1

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