DPG Group

1. This is a perspective on nuclear deterrence from India which is not recognised under the NPT as a nuclear weapons state. Official positions of many states still hold that India should sign on to the NPT as non-nuclear weapon state. India however satisfied with being a state with nuclear weapons. It is more focused on being recognised as a responsible nuclear weapons possessor.

2. Indian perspectives on nuclear deterrence are, not surprisingly, derived from western experience of maintaining deterrence stability. India recognises, as Cimbala wrote, that the Cold War may be over but the nuclear age is not. It understands the concern of analysts like Keith Payne who refer to the Second Nuclear Age, of irrational leaders in possession of nuclear weapons. India notes the blurring of distinctions between regular and irregular conflicts, which to quote Sir Lawrence Freedman, have brought about a Revolution in Strategic Affairs.

3. Indian perspectives also take note of the centrality of nuclear weapons in the security calculations of nuclear weapons possessors. President Chirac’s January 2006 speech affirms that nuclear weapons allow France to live in a land of freedom. US Doctrines & QDRs have reiterated the need for nuclear weapons as a security asset. UK’s Select Committee on Defence's Report and the MoD's response in June 2006 reaffirm the importance of nuclear weapons in the security calculus. Proliferation of nuclear weapons, albeit unwanted, is taken as a real possibility. Stephen Rosen in Foreign Affairs (Volume 85 No5) refers to a ‘Post Proliferation World' in which the need would be of meeting the technical and political challenges of maintaining nuclear deterrence when more countries obtain such weapons.

4. Indian thinking on Nuclear Deterrence is influenced by a number of factors. These are listed below:-

That the deterrence would operate between unequal powers. China, India and Pakistan form an unequal triangle of capabilities and threats faced by each.
This has led to the conundrum of a triangular deterrence environment. There is no past example of this. A wholly new set of principles would be needed to manage this.
Two out of three players in the triangular deterrent equation are engaged in an ongoing sub-conventional armed conflict that is unlikely to end in near future.
India views nuclear weapons as politico-strategic instruments and not for war fighting.
As a consequence of above, there are no tactical weapons in the Indian arsenal. There is also no delegation of powers on warhead inventory and nuclear engagement given to the military.
There is full and comprehensive civil control over all nuclear decisions and authority.
There is a continuing search for the balance between avoiding maximum security at prohibitive costs and obtaining adequate security at affordable costs.
India has given credible nuclear assurances on test moratorium, on its willingness to join FMCT negotiations, on not transferring nuclear technology.

India has none other than being actually attacked by WMDs.
China has a similar policy.
Pakistan has put out through different sources at different times its ideas on red lines. These are territorial; economic; of domestic stability. In addition there could be a psychological red line of a leadership perception. All are ambiguous, difficult to measure, open to different interpretations.

7. The relevance of Red Lines is debatable. It is uncertain if they would work as trip wires, or, if they clarify or complicate deterrence.

8. Indian policy planners take into account the role of major powers in a situation where its nuclear deterrence would come into play. Unlike in the Cold War, where the two super powers could act unilaterally, Indian deterrence choices would have to operate under intense scrutiny, pressures and even deterrence responses of major powers and international opinion. It would amount to Indian deterrence operation under a kind of major power 'refereeing.'

War is no longer a sovereign option. The Indian Prime Minister has said war is not an option against terrorism. Indian experience in Kargil in 1999 and in the military stand off against Pakistan in 2002 showed the limits placed on military operation by the presence of nuclear presence.
A peace process with Pakistan on Kashmir has commenced and will continue. The conflict stabilisation and the future resolution of the dispute could well be attributed to deterrence operating in the region.
An extended conflict spectrum now operates in the region. Earlier, a conventional military conflict was the starting point for a possible nuclear exchange. Now an act of catastrophic terrorism can lead to a conventional military conflict and start the chain to a nuclear conflict.

10. In the ultimate analysis, nuclear deterrence remains one amongst other choices to ensure security. As Sir Michael Quinlan wrote in the Contemporary Security Policy: “Though the world has moved on from the centrality of Cold War and nuclear concentrated bilateral perception of deterrence, the underlying concept of deterrence remains valid and relevant. We need to exploit it more flexibly.... It will need to be viewed as just one amongst an array of potential approaches to protecting security." Indian deterrence thinking reflects that view.