India's Escalation-Resistant Nuclear Posture - The Stimson Center

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RAJESH M. BASRUR ⏐ 57
far) non-deployed arsenal. On the other, as critics have pointed out, Indian
nuclear doctrine is open-ended in its unhurried search for a range of capabilities,
notably the development of a triad and the acquisition of missile defense
capability. 2
The essential features of Indian thinking about nuclear weapons may be
outlined as follows: 1) nuclear weapons are not central to national security; 2) a
nuclear arsenal does not require large, ready-to-use forces to deter an adversary;
3) apparent imbalances in capabilities are tolerable; and 4) nuclear confidence
building and arms control are desirable if strategic stability is to be obtained.
Accordingly, in the nuclear era – which, if one excludes the 1974 test, dates
back to the late 1980s, when India began to accumulate the first of its bombs in
the basement – governments across the political spectrum in New Delhi have
sought no more than a relatively small and non-deployed capability. Nondeployment
greatly reduces the risk of crisis escalation, while tolerance of
imbalances inhibits the long-term escalatory process of arms racing. The latter is
complemented by a persistent interest in institutionalized restraint. It is notable
that, unlike the United States and the Soviet Union, which came to the brink of
nuclear war in 1962 before they began to build bridges of restraint, India and
Pakistan signed their first nuclear-related confidence-building measure (CBM)
not to attack each other’s nuclear facilities as early as 1988, when they had
scarcely crossed the Rubicon of acquiring nuclear weapons.
Might this change? As India’s nuclear edifice grows, the inconsistent
elements in its doctrine could well be subject to pressures that cause New Delhi
to drift away from nuclear minimalism to a more expansionary form of doctrine
and practice. The pulls and pushes of newly perceived threats and organizational
interests may be the drivers of change. Below, I assess the potentialities for
change in India’s choices about nuclear hardware and posture, particularly with
respect to the question of deployment. The appraisal is based on a series of
interviews with individuals closely connected to policymaking conducted
between mid-2003 and mid-2004. 3 I attempt to gauge whether policy makers
today are satisfied with national deterrence capabilities, and whether they see a
need for enhancing capabilities or changing India’s nuclear posture. Changes
such as active deployment or competitive acquisitions are likely to invite
strategic repercussions in India’s relationships with both Pakistan and China. I
follow this up by assessing the prospects for change should environmental
conditions be transformed.
2
See, e.g., P. R. Chari, “India’s Nuclear Doctrine: Confused Ambitions,” Nonproliferation Review 7,
no. 3 (Fall-Winter 2000), pp. 123-135. Notably, official doctrinal statements do not even mention
critical issues such as missile defense and the relationship between nuclear and sub-nuclear levels of
conflict.
3
Because many of the conversations were conducted in confidence, I avoid citing names, with some
exceptions. Of those that can be named, I owe thanks to Bharat Karnad, General V. P. Malik (retd),
Rajesh Rajagopalan, Arpit Rajain, and Air Commodore Jasjit Singh (retd).
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