The real stimulus was perhaps India’s defeat in the Sino-Indian border war of 1962. This policy appears to have been influenced by strategic analyst Jasjit Singh’s research.
by Amjed Jaaved
In a joint statement, the UN Security Council's five permanent members (the P5) said a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought and vowed to prevent the spread of atomic weapons.
Welcoming this statement, India’s spokesperson in external-affairs ministry said that “as a responsible nuclear weapon state, India has a doctrine of maintaining a credible minimum deterrence based on a 'no first use' posture and non-use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states.
India’s fluctuating nuclear policy
“Credible minimum deterrence” and “no first-use” are hackneyed phrases in India’s statements of its nuclear policy. The truth is that India’s nuclear policy has been in a state of flux. In historical perspective, India’s attitudes towards nuclear weaponry kept changing over the years. During the 1950s, India showed strident opposition to nuclear weapons while stressing the need for harnessing atomic energy for peaceful purposes (a moralistic brand of politics).
During the 1960s, India’s attitude subtly mutated. The uncompromising opposition to nuclear weaponry caved in to accommodate nuclear weapons as an instrument of ‘high politics’ (self-conceited concern about China’s nuclear prowess).
The real stimulus was perhaps India’s defeat in the Sino-Indian border war of 1962. This policy appears to have been influenced by strategic analyst Jasjit Singh’s research.
He surveyed scores of incidents involving threat of nuclear weapons. His inference was that ‘nuclear weapons played an important political role, rather than a military one’.
Another analyst, K. Subrahmaniam, also concluded that ‘the main purpose of a Third-World arsenal is deterrence against blackmail’, rather than blackmailing one’s neighbours (as India happened to do).
Subsequently, India’s advocacy of peaceful use of nuclear energy did not obstruct its nuclear tests in any way. While India’s nuclear posture kept shifting over a continuum of five possibilities ranging from renunciation of nuclear option to maintaining a ready nuclear arsenal and operational nuclear force.
Between these two extreme options lay the following three choices: limited nuclear arms control (regional nuclear-free zone), nuclear option (no operational nuclear force) and recessed deterrence (raising operational nuclear force in a few months). Till recently, India desisted from declaring its enthusiastic preference for a ready nuclear arsenal. The underlying objective of the dormant-nuclear policy was to maintain India’s championship of global non-proliferation order.
Another tab on India’s ready-arsenal policy was India’s desire to avoid ennui of several countries, including the US. The US could have punished India’s ready-arsenal policy by scuttling India’s access to economic resources, and technological expertise.
In short, India’s dream of participating as a leader in global economy could have been shattered by a paradigm shift to the ready-arsenal nuclear policy. A cataclysmic change has now occurred in India’s policy because of the 123 Agreement and membership of the
India has embarked on ‘ready nuclear-arsenal policy’. It is no longer committed to no-first-use nuclear doctrine (nuclear strike only in response).
Its current policy is ready-arsenal ‘deterrence by punishment’ as advocated by Bharat Karnad.
By developing short-range missiles, and deploying aircraft at bases near Pakistan’s border and in far-off Tajikistan (Aeinee and Farkhor), India is trying to encircle Pakistan.
Karnad suggested that India should have a ready arsenal of 330 nuclear weapons by year 2030. However, Zia Mian and Nayyar believe that India is actually attempting to build about 400 nuclear warheads), at least four times what Pakistan currently possesses (Zia Mian, A. H. Nayyar, R. Rajaraman and M. V. Raman, ‘Fissile Materials in South Asia and the implications of the US-India nuclear deal”).
Kashmir” A nuclear tinderbox.
Kashmir remains the nuclear tinderbox. It was this dispute that triggered the past wars in 1948, 1965, 1971 and 1999, besides a quasi-war or the military standoff in the years 2001-2002.
India wants the issue to remain on back-burner, but Pakistan wants its early resolution. John Thomson, in his article 'Kashmir the most dangerous place in the world' has analysed whether it is a myth or reality to perceive Kashmir as the most dangerous place in the world (Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu, Bushra Asif and Cyrus Samii (eds), 'Kashmir New Voices, New Approaches').
He has given cogent arguments to prove that the Kashmir issue could once again spark another Indo-Pak military confrontation with concomitant risks of a nuclear war.
Most western analysts, also, do not rule out the possibility of a nuclear war because of the Kashmir dispute. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has, inter alia, pointed out that 'avoiding nuclear war in South Asia will require political breakthroughs in India-Pakistan'.
Aware that Kashmir was a ticking bomb which could mushroom into another war with India,
Pakistan’s former ambassador to the UN, Munir Akram’s fear expressed in his article ‘The winds of nuclear war’ (Dawn, Dec 24, 2017) about a nuclear war is well founded. Kashmir is a veritable nuclear tinderbox.
Bill Clinton called Kashmir a nuclear flashpoint. Several writers including Mushtaqur Rehman have elaborated why Kashmr is the most dangerous place in the world (Divided Kashmir: Old Problems, New Opportunities for India, Pakistan and the Kashmiri People, London, Lynne Reinner Publishers, London, 1996, pp. 162-163).
Concluding remarks
India’s bellicose foreign policy is contrary to advice by India’s own foreign secretaries.
No talks, no third-party mediation, is an open invitation to war, perhaps a nuclear Armageddon. Even if India wins a nuclear war, the victory would be pyrrhic.
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