Nuclear building blocks

V.R. Raghavan is an Advisor at the Delhi Policy Group, New Delhi.

The creation of a Nuclear Command Authority (NCA) brings into effect a longstanding requirement. The Government has done well to announce its coming into being. It formalises what was essentially a set of unstructured arrangements among senior member of the politico-military-scientific establishment. An increasing number of doubts were being expressed about the commitment of India's leadership to effective nuclear weapons management. The announcement sets at rest some doubts over nuclear issues, reiterates the promises made by the Government internationally and incorporates doctrinal issues listed in the draft nuclear doctrine. It also falls short of answering nagging questions that continue to persist.

Nuclear weapons capability accrues to a state from a number of factors. They form the building blocks without which a reliable nuclear deterrent cannot become operative. Unless all of them are in place, the nuclear deterrent can neither be credible nor effective. If a nuclear deterrent is seen as a wall, which keeps threats out and adversarial intents under control, that edifice cannot be left incomplete for want of some building blocks. These building blocks are in the realm of technology, force structures, decision processes and doctrinal convictions. National interests do not permit complete and uninhibited transparency on all aspects of nuclear deterrent management. Nevertheless, existing arrangements must provide high levels of confidence to all segments of national security apparatus as much as to other states which have a stake in global and regional strategic stability. In the technology arena, India has a longstanding nuclear technology programme which is well linked to strategic needs. The Ministries involved are either directly or very closely managed at the Prime Minister's level. The technology-military linkages have begun to improve after the nuclear tests of 1998 and the induction of missile delivery systems into defence services. It can be safely said that in nuclear warhead and delivery system development fields, confidence levels are high. The NCA is to function at two thresholds, i.e., of political and executive councils. The former led by the Prime Minister rightly retains the full authority to decide on nuclear strikes in response to a nuclear attack. The Executive Council chaired by the National Security Adviser will provide the decision-making inputs to the Prime Minister and would execute the directives of the Political Council. Presumably, the Executive Council will comprise the Chiefs of defence services, the JIC Chairman, the Convener of the National Security Advisory Board, the Cabinet Secretary, heads of intelligence agencies, and Secretaries of Ministries represented in the CCS. There has been considerable criticism of the heavy load of work on the NSA, who is also the Principal Secretary to the PM. The new responsibility will not make that burden any lesser. The above does not in any way impact on the decision-making process in the CCS. The functioning of the existing decision-making process either during Kargil, Kandahar or post 13 December 2001 deployment of troops for war had not inspired widespread confidence.

The meshing in of the nuclear component of national security with military operations will also need a meaningful improvement. Nuclear weapons place severe limits on the possessor's ability to wage war with a nuclear adversary. This implication was apparently lost sight of during the war deployment of 2002. Assessments on the Government's ability to cope with a nuclear decision after a nuclear or biological or chemical strike has taken place on India or Indian assets would, therefore, remain uncertain at best. There would continue to be doubts on the nuclear force structure which the NCA envisages. There are no indications on what shape this would have or on its interfaces with the three defence forces. A Strategic Forces Command is to be established under a separate Commander-in-Chief. The defence services have already worked the tri-service Command in the Andaman and Nicobar. Where would the Strategic Forces Command fit in? Will it be under the Prime Minister or the NSA or the Chiefs of Staff Committee? Will the SF Command have its own forces or will its strategic regiments and squadrons remain under respective service headquarters as they are now? Will the SF Command build, train and sustain its own corpus of leadership and human resources? In other words, will the SF Command be a special entity, as it ought to be, or will it need to hang on the apron strings of the three services?

These issues are unlikely to be resolved until a Chief of Defence Staff is appointed and given the authority over the service chiefs to make the SF Command truly operative. The NCA has left this unexplained. The far from effective precedents of the National Security Council, its Security Advisory Board and the handling of major security crises during the last four years are examples of the ad hoc functioning of the national security apparatus. It is to be hoped that the critical building blocks of the nuclear deterrent are put in place more speedily and effectively. In the interim, the NCA is hopefully the sign of a new sense of purpose on what the Government calls a credible deterrent.