***The next few weeks are incredibly hectic, so I’m trying to keep blog posts on the shorter side. With that stipulation in mind, I was brainstorming what I could write about, and I decided to briefly return to nuclear weapons. This is in part because I know the topic well, so it’s fairly easy to bang out a piece, and in part because I just started Jayita Sarkar’s terrific new(ish) book on India’s early nuclear program, Ploughshares and Swords. The ebook version is completely free, so you should absolutely add it to your library!***
India’s nuclear program represents an interesting case due to India’s fairly unique path to nuclear acquisition as well as to its current posture and organization. The Indian case is made even more fascinating by India’s geostrategic position: It confronts two potential nuclear-armed adversaries in Pakistan and China, but the more capable “pacing threat” of China is probably less likely to come to blows with India than the conventionally inferior Pakistan. India’s complex strategic environment is made only more challenging by the ever-present threat of Pakistani-sponsored terrorism, which undermines Indo-Pakistani strategic stability and could conceivably trigger a chain of events that culminates in large-scale conflict. Given these high stakes, India’s nuclear program is not simply an interesting academic case study; it is also a consequential policy problem.
India’s Path to the Bomb
The Indians possessed a nuclear research program as early as 1947, but the development of a nuclear device was not mandated until 1964. One explanation for India’s turn toward weaponization is the growing threat China posed to India during that period, which culminated during the 1962 Indo-Chinese border skirmish and 1964 Chinese nuclear test. A decade after embarking upon its nuclear weapons program, India conducted its first test of a nuclear device in the form of a so-called peaceful nuclear explosion. However, no further tests were conducted until 1998. One explanation for Indian lethargy is that by 1974 China posed little threat, as it was internally-consumed, having just emerged from the Cultural Revolution, and was unlikely to provoke conflict due to its desire for rapprochement with the United States. Another plausible explanation for India’s slow development of further nuclear capabilities is simply that the 1974 test was conducted not for reasons of strategic security at all but rather for domestic consumption. This interpretation is bolstered by the fact that practically nobody within India’s foreign policy and military circles was consulted about, or even informed of, the test before it happened. Indira Gandhi’s low approval ratings at the time also suggest, though certainly do not irrefutably prove, that the detonation may have been a diversionary move meant to focus people’s attention on India’s nuclear prowess and thus give Gandhi a boost in the polls.
Whatever the reasons for India’s aversion to further testing, the self-imposed moratorium lasted for decades even despite Pakistani nuclear advances in the 1980s. Moreover, while India maintained its recessed posture – continuing nuclear R&D and the acquisition of nuclear capable aircraft and ballistic missiles while avoiding further tests – it also lobbied heavily for arms control treaties such as the Partial Test Ban Treaty and, later, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). India did eventually test a nuclear device again in 1998 before the CTBT was finalized, but Delhi has conducted no further tests since. And the 2006 nuclear deal it agreed with the United States, which saw India safeguard its civilian nuclear facilities, agree to stringent export controls, and commit to a testing moratorium in exchange for civil nuclear cooperation with the U.S. and full access to the Nuclear Suppliers Group, makes it exceedingly unlikely that India will restart testing in the future.
India’s Posture and Arsenal
India not only halted testing after 1998 but also declared a unilateral no first use (NFU) policy, suggesting that India was, and perhaps still is, a cautious proliferator not interested in a massive arsenal or arms racing. Delhi’s current nuclear posture also supports the view that India is uninterested in pursuing nuclear primacy. Delhi’s NFU is buttressed by the fact that the Indian government keeps its warheads demated from delivery systems and disassembled. Furthermore, India divides control of its nuclear components among three agencies: the civilian Bhabha Atomic Research Center, which controls nuclear cores, the civilian Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), which controls the firing assemblies, and the military services, which control delivery vehicles. Furthermore, and in stark contrast to neighboring Pakistan, India maintains tight, centralized control over its nuclear arsenal. The organization that overseas Indian nuclear weapons—referred to as the National Command Authority (NCA)—was established in 2003 and is comprised of the Executive Committee, chaired by the National Security Advisor and tasked with executing strikes, and the Political Committee, made up of the prime minister, senior cabinet members, and science advisors. Only the Political Committee can authorize nuclear use, ensuring strict civilian control over the military. As India continues to develop its SSBN force, this centralized control may become more difficult to maintain. As it stands, however, India relies primarily on aircraft and ballistic missiles to deliver its nuclear warheads, minimizing the need for a delegative approach toward nuclear launch authority.
Nevertheless, recent developments have raised questions about India’s long-term commitment to no first use. As Narang and Clary point out, “India is developing a suite of capabilities and increasingly making statements about preemption and counterforce that appear inconsistent with its professed strategy of assured retaliation or minimum deterrence.” This view is bolstered by recent comments by Indian officials suggesting that India is modifying its force organization to allow for the rapid assembly and launch of at least some portion of its nuclear arsenal. For example, certain rapid reaction bases now store cores, firing mechanisms, and delivery systems in close proximity. These evolving practices are largely the product of two separate trends. The first, and more recent, is the rapidly expanding Chinese nuclear arsenal, whose growth threatens to grant Beijing absolute nuclear superiority over India and thus threaten Delhi’s ability to assure retaliation. Even if China is building up its nuclear forces primarily in response to American actions, Beijing’s efforts are still generating disquiet in Delhi. The second and more enduring impetus behind India’s growing interest in counterforce capabilities is Pakistan’s continued willingness to use its nuclear arsenal as a shield under which to carry out terror attacks on Indian civilians and military forces. Many Indian policymakers seem to attribute Islamabad’s brazenness to India’s inability to credibly threaten nuclear retaliation and thus increasingly see relaxation of India’s stringent NFU as a means to combat Pakistan’s aggression.
These fears are only compounded by the fact that India’s nuclear capabilities are relatively limited when measured against Pakistan and China, its two likely adversaries. Unlike Pakistan, India does not possess tactical nuclear weapons for use on the battlefield, and its missiles lack the range of China’s. And although India purports to possess thermonuclear weapons, this is hotly disputed, with most experts estimating its warheads to have yields between 15-30 kilotons. India also has a fairly underdeveloped nuclear doctrine, relying on the threat of massive retaliation to deter nuclear use by Pakistan or China. As one Indian general put it, “I do not see the weapons as a war-fighting one. It’s like you make an expensive ornament for your wife… she wears it only once and keeps it in the vault.” This limits the likelihood of Indian employment of nuclear weapons, but it also constrains Indian flexibility when dealing with potential Pakistani tactical nuclear use. Thus, India’s current posture seems increasingly untenable.
Risks
Despite India’s seeming caution in the realm of nuclear weapons, the subcontinent remains perhaps the most likely region outside of Korea to see nuclear conflict break out. There are several reasons for this, but two stand out as particularly salient. First, India must develop capabilities to deter both China and Pakistan. And while Pakistan is clearly perceived as the more likely threat by Indian policymakers, prudent strategists in Delhi are compelled to hedge against China as well by developing capabilities to compete with the superior PLARF. While these capabilities are not being formulated and developed explicitly for use against Pakistan, India could just as easily deploy them against Pakistani forces. There is, therefore, a risk of an extended security spiral developing, where efforts by India to secure itself against China’s nuclear arsenal increase Pakistani insecurity and thus inadvertently trigger an arms race. In particular, Pakistani leaders have become increasingly concerned about Indian MIRVs, nascent BMD work, and SSBNs even though, of course, it was in fact China that first introduced these capabilities into the region.
While arms races do not automatically lead to war, they lower trust and can color leaders’ views about their adversaries’ intentions, conceivably increasing the risk of misperceptions and escalating instability. Moreover, this security dilemma exists in the conventional realm as well as in the nuclear one. As Clary points out, the relatively high Indian defense budget means that Delhi could eventually achieve massive conventional superiority over the Pakistanis, spooking leaders in Islamabad and perhaps tempting Indian policymakers to rely more heavily on military coercion. Were this to occur, Pakistan may have no choice but to employ nuclear weapons as a means of compensating for its conventional inferiority, just as NATO planned to do during the Cold War. The result could be a serious nuclear exchange on the Indian subcontinent.
This unstable dynamic also exacerbates Pakistani beliefs that India is opportunistic and destabilizing - views which were initially formed after India intervened in the Liberation War and helped Bangladesh break free from Pakistan. But it also contributes to the second point of destabilization: terrorism. Given Indian conventional superiority, Pakistan has chosen asymmetric approaches to confronting India, with support for terrorist groups and insurgencies holding pride of place. Pakistan has complemented this strategy with a nuclear doctrine calling for the quick introduction of nuclear weapons to the battlefield as a way of deterring Indian retaliatory strikes. In other words, India and Pakistan represent a prime example of the stability-instability paradox: Pakistan views escalation as unlikely because of Indian fears of nuclear escalation, so it therefore acts more aggressively at lower conflict levels. However, India has responded to the terrorism threat with its so-called “Cold Start” Doctrine, which envisions large Indian strike corps entering Pakistan after a terror attack to undertake limited, but high intensity, combat operations. It is far from obvious that this would result in a Pakistani nuclear strike, but given the stress and emotional pressure this situation would create, as well as the delegative nature of Pakistan’s arsenal, it would be dangerous to rule out the possibility of nuclear escalation.
Conclusion
India’s arsenal is highly unique in its origin and organization, and it is defined by Indian leaders’ cautious and restrained approach to nuclear strategy. The initial program seems to have been born of security concerns, but prestige and domestic considerations arguably have played a greater role at certain points in its development. India has also, at least until recently, seemed somewhat ambivalent about its arsenal, with only limited weapons testing and extremely tight civilian control over nuclear components and launch authority. Even as India has begun to diversify its arsenal and formalize its command and control infrastructure, it still does not seem to have fully grappled with and decided how best to incorporate nuclear weapons into its overall military doctrine. On the one hand, this is reassuring, as it suggests that Indian recklessness in the nuclear realm is exceedingly unlikely. But on the other hand, it suggests that India has failed to fully situate nuclear weapons within national policy, making it less prepared for certain contingencies than may be prudent.