Deterrence Instability WEB

Deterrence Instability and Nuclear Weapons in South Asia
EN C E
TE R R L I T Y
E
D STA B I S OU TH A S IA
IN N S IN
R W E AP O
CLE A
&NU
EDITED BY
Michael Krepon
Joshua T. White
Julia Thompson
Shane Mason
1

This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government [DOE Contract
No. DE-NA0002456]. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, or any of their employees, makes any
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Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise,
does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any
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Government or any agency thereof.
DETERRENCE
INSTABILITY
& NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN SOUTH ASIA
APRIL 2015

© Copyright 2015 by the Stimson Center.

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CONTENTS
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Ellen Laipson
Key Terms and Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Michael Krepon
The Myth of Deterrence Stability Between Nuclear-Armed Rivals . . . . . . . . . 15

Michael Krepon
The Credibility of India’s Nuclear Deterrent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Manoj Joshi
An Evolving Indian Nuclear Doctrine? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Shashank Joshi
Pakistan’s Strategic Culture and Deterrence Stability on the Subcontinent . . 95

Rasul Bakhsh Rais
India’s Strategic Culture and Deterrence Stability on the Subcontinent . . . . 119

Sarang Shidore
Pakistan’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons: Operational Myths and Realities . . . . 149

Jeffrey D. McCausland
Dependent Trajectories:
India’s MIRV Program and Deterrence Stability in South Asia . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Joshua T. White and Kyle Deming
Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Contents
6
PREFACE
I am pleased to present the latest publication of the Stimson Center’s South Asia
program. Our new monograph, like the last, Deterrence Stability and Escalation
Control in South Asia, will hopefully become a standard reference for academic
courses as well as essential reading for government officials, military officers,
and nongovernmental experts.
Stimson is a thought-leader in the dynamics of deterrence, escalation, crisis
management, and nuclear competition on the subcontinent. For more than 25
years, the Stimson Center has examined the threat of conflict in South Asia,
ways to mitigate tensions between India and Pakistan, and means to reduce
nuclear risks.
During the past year, Stimson has convened workshops at which some of the
authors in this volume have presented their works in progress. Feedback from
these workshops and from project advisors is reflected in this collection.
I’d also like to call your attention to related activities from our South Asia pro-
gram that contribute to our ability to be a valued resource on this vital region.
In 2013, Stimson launched a new website, South Asian Voices (www.southasian-
voices.org), to give voice to a rising generation of strategic analysts and to fa-
cilitate cross-border dialogue. In 2015, Stimson will launch a ground-breaking,
open online course on nuclear issues in South Asia that will give thousands of
students the chance to study this important topic free of charge.
I wish to express gratitude to the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the John
D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the National Nuclear Security
Administration for their support of Stimson’s programming on nuclear issues
in South Asia. The editors also wish to thank Stimson’s communications team
— Jim Baird, Greg Lachapelle, and Lita Ledesma — copy editor Jenny Moore,
and interns Sanaa Anwar, Kyle Deming, Leslie Glotzer, Siddharth Ravishankar,
and Elizabeth Whitfield.
Sincerely,
Ellen Laipson
President and CEO, Stimson Center
7
Preface
8
KEY TERMS AND ACRONYMS
AFAP Artillery-fired Atomic Projectile

BMD Ballistic Missile Defense
CBM Confidence-building Measure
CMD Credible Minimum Deterrence
CTBT Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty
DAE Department of Atomic Energy (India)
DRDO Defence Research and Development Organisation
FMCT Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty
IAF Indian Air Force
ICBM Intercontinental Ballistic Missile
IRBM Intermediate-range Ballistic Missile
ISI Inter-Services Intelligence
ISR Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance
LeT Lashkar-e-Taiba
LNO Limited Nuclear Options
LoAC Line of Actual Control
LoC Line of Control
MIRV Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicle
MOD Ministry of Defence
MRBM Medium-range Ballistic Missile
NCA Nuclear Command Authority (India)
NCA National Command Authority (Pakistan)
NFU No First Use
NRRM Nuclear Risk Reduction Measure
NSA National Security Advisor (India)
PAL Permissive Action Link
SFC Strategic Forces Command (India)
SLBM Submarine-launched Ballistic Missile
SPD Strategic Plans Division (Pakistan)
TNW Tactical Nuclear Weapon
9
Key Terms and Acronyms
10
INTRODUCTION
Michael Krepon
Deterrence between India and Pakistan is becoming less stable with the passage
of time and the increase in nuclear weapon capabilities. India and Pakistan
have not addressed basic issues in dispute, nor have they agreed to set them
aside. Direct trade and other means of connectivity remain purposefully cir-
cumscribed. Spoilers who oppose Pakistan’s rapprochement with India remain
in place and are poorly constrained. The last massive, deadly acts of violence
against India took place in 2008, directed against iconic targets in Mumbai.
These terrorist acts effectively nullified efforts by Indian and Pakistani leaders
to improve relations. Seven years earlier, another spectacular act of extremist
violence directed against the Indian Parliament building brought India and
Pakistan to the brink of war.
In 2015, seven years after the Mumbai attacks, India and Pakistan are no closer
to resolving their differences. Instead, backsliding is painfully evident. The
issue of the disputed Kashmir border, which remained mostly quiet from 2003
to 2013, has heated up again. Pakistan and India continue to diversify their nu-
clear weapon capabilities in ways that make deterrence stability more difficult.
Two kinds of delivery vehicles — short-range systems that must operate close to
the frontlines, and sea-based systems — are especially problematic when com-
mand and control is maturing and when operational safeguards are opaque.
These conditions now apply to Pakistan’s investments in short-range systems
to counter Indian conventional military advantages, and to India’s sea-based
nuclear capabilities that are coming online.
Deterrence stability can be secured most readily when states have no reason
to fight — or if they do, when nuclear and conventional capabilities are bal-
anced and national trajectories are commensurate. Nuclear capabilities are
roughly equal on the subcontinent, but disparities in national power are great
and growing. The advent of new military technologies and resource advantag-
es will further extend India’s lead over Pakistan in conventional capabilities,
while providing India the capacity to outpace Pakistan in nuclear capabilities.
Pakistan’s security managers are making headway to reclaim the writ of the
state against violent extremists — but not against those who are dead-set
against more normal ties with India. Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities continue
to grow as social and economic conditions languish. Nuclear postures are
11
Introduction
evolving in ways that fuel requirements for more weapons that will, in turn,
exacerbate security dilemmas.
The essays in this volume assess nuclear dynamics in South Asia. The chapters
by Manoj Joshi and Shashank Joshi assess Indian nuclear posture and its po-
tential evolution. Key elements of Indian and Pakistani strategic culture in-
tersect at times in negative, reinforcing ways, as analyzed in chapters by Rasul
Bakhsh Rais and Sarang Shidore. Pakistan’s national security managers have
decided that the risks involved with inducting short-range nuclear-capable
systems are worth the benefits of deterring Indian ground forces. A chapter
in this volume by Jeffrey D. McCausland suggests a far different risk-benefit
equation. New technologies beckon India and China that could take their
nuclear competition to a higher level, raising more dilemmas for Pakistan.
Joshua T. White and Kyle Deming’s chapter looks into this uncertain future.
Taken together, these chapters point to serious challenges to deterrence sta-
bility unless leaders in India and Pakistan try to resolve their grievances,
or consider dampening measures to mitigate their costly and risky strategic
competition. If not, I argue in my chapter, deterrence stability will elude India
and Pakistan, and difficult times lie ahead.
My essay, “The Myth of Deterrence Stability Between Nuclear-Armed Rivals,”
argues that nuclear arsenals did not help stabilize the Cold War competition
between the United States and the Soviet Union — even when both had ac-
quired secure second-strike forces. In my view, offsetting nuclear capabilities
are also unlikely to stabilize relations between India and Pakistan. Instead,
I argue that stabilizing the nuclear competition will be even harder for India
and Pakistan than it was for the United States and the Soviet Union.
In “The Credibility of India’s Nuclear Deterrent,” Manoj Joshi analyzes key
conditions driving possible changes in India’s nuclear doctrine — domestic
politics, the nature of political leadership, the imperatives of command and
control, civil-military relations, and external factors. He focuses in particular
on pressures regarding India’s no first use (NFU) doctrine and its declaratory
posture of massive retaliation.
Shashank Joshi also focuses on the doctrinal precepts of NFU and massive re-
taliation in his essay “An Evolving Indian Nuclear Doctrine?” Joshi concludes
that India is unlikely to break sharply from current doctrine, particularly
with respect to NFU. He views a nuanced change to India’s massive retaliation
pledge as much more likely.
12
In “Pakistan’s Strategic Culture and Deterrence Stability on the Subcontinent,”

Rasul Bakhsh Rais argues that Pakistan’s strategic culture has mixed character-
istics of malleability and hardiness. He identifies the core elements of Pakistan’s
strategic culture as countering Indian dominance, the primacy of national secu-
rity, pride in Muslim sovereignty, and reliance on a proactive means of national
defense. Bakhsh Rais concludes that these key aspects of strategic culture are
adaptable, but have had an enduring influence in Pakistan’s dealings with India,
contributing to instability, uncertainty, and the potential for another clash.
Sarang Shidore’s essay, “India’s Strategic Culture and Deterrence Stability on
the Subcontinent,” explores the evolution of India’s strategic culture and its
implications for deterrence stability in South Asia. Shidore argues that two
core operational aspects of India’s strategic culture — nuclear minimalism
and strategic restraint — are increasingly under stress, and that modifica-
tions of these precepts are likely to increase deterrence instability. He con-
cludes that the rise of realism in Indian national security policy will challenge
India’s strategic restraint.
In “Pakistan’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons: Operational Myths and Realities,”
Jeffrey D. McCausland compares Pakistan’s embrace of short-range nuclear-ca-
pable systems to that of NATO’s during the Cold War. He explores the enor-
mous operational and practical challenges that US and NATO military plan-
ners faced — which were never resolved — and argues that Pakistani military
planners will likely fare no better. McCausland concludes that the induction of
short-range nuclear-capable delivery vehicles on the subcontinent — particu-
larly if deployed at scale — is both dangerous and problematic.
Joshua T. White and Kyle Deming argue in “Dependent Trajectories: India’s
MIRV Program and Deterrence Stability in South Asia” that India’s develop-
ment of MIRV (i.e., multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle) capa-
bilities may unintentionally presage movement toward a counterforce nuclear
posture and doctrine. They review the probable drivers of India’s pursuit of
MIRV technology, and contend that this effort is likely influenced by tech-
nological path-dependence as much as an assessment of India’s nuclear force
requirements. White and Deming argue that given the particularly potent
signaling risks associated with the simultaneous development of MIRVs and
ballistic missile defense (BMD), India’s political leadership would do well to
proceed cautiously in the years ahead.
Taken together, these essays highlight how doctrinal, strategic, and technolog-
ical developments contribute to growing deterrence instability in South Asia.
13
Introduction
14
THE MYTH OF DETERRENCE STABILITY

BETWEEN NUCLEAR-ARMED RIVALS
Michael Krepon
During the Cold War, deterrence strategists and arms controllers sought to sta-
bilize the dangerous nuclear competition between the United States and Soviet
Union. The goal of deterrence stability proved to be elusive. This essay looks
back at the superpower competition and forward to nuclear dynamics between
India and Pakistan.1 I argue that nuclear deterrence has had limited, but import-
ant, utility in hard cases by preventing large-scale conventional war and by fos-
tering cautionary behavior in severe crises. Offsetting nuclear arsenals were not,
however, a stabilizing feature during the Cold War. Just as deterrence stability
eluded the nuclear superpowers, it will be similarly elusive on the subcontinent.
Despite differences in the scale and circumstances of these nuclear competi-
tions, both pairings have in common an interactive strategic competition com-
pounded by conventional force imbalances and contentious issues that could
lead to conflict. Under these circumstances, I argue that deterrence stability
between nuclear-armed adversaries is a mirage. Instead, deterrence stability has
proven feasible only when nuclear-armed states have little or nothing to fight
about, when they address their security concerns through diplomatic means,
when they agree to set them aside, or when one of the rivals collapses. Cases in
which a modicum of deterrence stability has been achieved are noted only in
passing, below. The bulk of this essay focuses on two very hard cases.
Strategic modernization programs in hard cases are deemed necessary to dissuade
and deter, but they do not generate conditions of deterrence stability. Instead,
they result in a greater sense of insecurity as contentious issues are magnified
by the growth of offsetting nuclear capabilities. Diplomacy to reduce tensions
is an essential path to increased security that can be buttressed by arms con-
trol agreements, confidence-building, transparency, and nuclear risk-reduction
measures (NRRMs). But unless these useful steps are accompanied by a broader
resolution of security concerns, they will not suffice to provide deterrence sta-
bility between rivals with disparate conventional capabilities and severe security
concerns. Deterrence stability between the superpowers was not assured until the
Cold War ended with the Soviet Union’s demise. It is unlikely to be achieved on
the subcontinent as long as India and Pakistan remain at loggerheads.
15
The Myth of Deterrence Stability between Nuclear-Armed Rivals
Deterrence Instability Between the Superpowers

States decide to acquire nuclear weapons when they believe that severe security
dilemmas cannot be addressed in other ways. Possessing these weapons against
a similarly armed foe or against an adversary with stronger conventional ca-
pabilities provides for some measure of deterrence, dissuasion, and national
assurance. During the Cold War nuclear weapons helped to keep border skir-
mishes limited, to prevent large-scale conventional war between major powers,
and to foster cautionary behavior in severe crises. These were — and remain
— significant accomplishments, but none can be credited to conditions of de-
terrence stability. Instead, these accomplishments occurred during periods of
greatly disparate nuclear capabilities, the advent of significant technological
advances in war-fighting capabilities, and an accelerated arms competition. A
mutual sense of deterrence stability did not account for the nonuse of nuclear
weapons during the Cold War; this accomplishment was instead due to wise
decision-making, cautionary behavior, and good fortune.
The United States and the Soviet Union could not feel safe without nuclear
weapons. Nor did they feel safe with nuclear weapons. Offsetting nuclear capa-
bilities generated security concerns as well as benefits. They diminished security
by fostering risky behavior under the nuclear threshold and by intensifying
crises. The possession of nuclear weapons during the Cold War did not deter
limited border clashes between the Soviet Union and China; conventional wars
with non-nuclear weapon states (the United Kingdom and Argentina); proxy
wars (Vietnam, Afghanistan); and major crises (Berlin, Cuba, the Middle East).
Security dilemmas were not stabilized by the presence of nuclear weapons; they
were exacerbated instead.
The possession of assured retaliatory capabilities, even in significant numbers,
did not result in deterrence stability. Instead, assurance eroded as the accuracy
of delivering warheads improved, enabling the superpowers to move beyond
countervalue and “soft” counterforce. Prompt, hard-target kill capabilities di-
minished mutual security by lending credence to concerns that nuclear postures
were attuned to war-fighting. Deterrence stability between the superpowers
was not achievable in an advanced, interactive nuclear competition driven by
significant security concerns and conventional force imbalances.
The dilemmas of deterrence theory led Western strategists to advance the con-
cepts of deterrence and strategic stability — terms that were and are often used
interchangeably. This essay defines strategic stability as a general equilibrium
derived from all components of national power. Deterrence stability is defined
16
here as a subset of strategic stability in which both adversaries feel that offsetting
nuclear capabilities are generally balanced and stably configured, thereby pro-
viding assurance against a nuclear attack or the damaging use of conventional
military capabilities.
At the outset of the Atomic Age, those trying to construct a stable international
order and avoid a nuclear Armageddon faced the choice of trying to put the genie
back in the bottle — a Sisyphean task — or to somehow leverage the Bomb’s awe-
some destructive powers to try to create conditions of stability. Conceptualization
predated the Soviet Union’s first atomic test. Western strategists assumed that it
would only be a matter of time before the Soviet Union matched US technologi-
cal achievements. Even more unsettling, as Bernard Brodie forecast in 1946, “No
adequate defense against the bomb exists, and the possibilities of its existence in
the future are exceedingly remote.”2 Brodie concluded that, “If the atomic bomb
can be used without fear of substantial retaliation in kind, it will clearly encourage
aggression. So much the more reason, therefore, to take all possible steps to as-
sure … that the aggressor who uses the bomb will have it used against him.”3 The
construction of a belief system in deterrence stability and the elements required
to sustain it in the United States reflected a hope born of necessity.
Very early on, the requirement for an assured retaliatory capability became the
bedrock foundation of deterrence theory. When retaliatory capabilities were
deemed deficient and basing modes seen as too vulnerable, more capability and
diversity were called for. Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft summarized
decades of thinking about stable deterrence as “maintaining strategic forces of
sufficient size and composition that a first strike cannot reduce retaliation to a
level acceptable to the aggressor.”4 This formulation was concise and clear, but
its operationalization was always steeped in complexity, borrowing, of necessity,
the “prisoner’s dilemma” concept and other abstractions from game theory. As
Lawrence Freedman noted,
There were no analogous situations to draw from. Human imagination
or intuition was inadequate to cope. The abstractions of Game Theory
and similar devices were useful as much because of the lack of suitable
alternatives than anything else.
The success of formal strategists was in providing a rationale for a policy
of stable deterrence based on secure second-strike forces. It was a policy
determined to a large extent by technology, but the strategists made the
abandonment of a first-strike option a source of satisfaction rather than
a disappointment.5
17
Kenneth Waltz argued that exacting, outsized calculations of nuclear deterrence

requirements were a waste of intellectual effort and defense expenditures. He
asserted that nuclear deterrence was relatively easy to contrive:
Indeed, in an important sense, nuclear weapons eliminate strategy.
If one thinks of strategies as being designed for defending national
objectives or for gaining them by military force and as implying a
choice about how major wars will be fought, nuclear weapons make
strategy obsolete.6
Waltz was always an outlier, but early on his thinking about constructing stable
nuclear deterrence in relatively cost-effective ways seemed feasible. After all,
how much investment would be required for secure second-strike capabilities?
Here’s how Henry Kissinger addressed the problem of deterrence stability in
Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy:
With modern weapons, even an inferior retaliatory capability may de-
ter, not because it can inflict unacceptable damage, but because it can
inflict unacceptable losses … And when weapons can be made of any
desired degree of destructiveness, a point will be reached at which addi-
tional increments of destructive power yield diminishing returns. What
is the sense in developing a weapon that can destroy a city twice over?7
Kissinger modified his views when the extent of Soviet nuclear exertions be-
came apparent. Falling behind in this competition was not an option because
these weapons were totems of national power and indicators of superpower
standing. They were also accorded significant powers to prevent direct con-
flicts between the superpowers from crossing the nuclear threshold in proxy
wars, limited wars, or crises. To utilize the leverage that nuclear capabili-
ties were thought to provide, they could not be inferior to one’s adversary.
Conversely, the more superior nuclear capabilities were, the more leverage one
might hope to derive from them. A strenuous nuclear competition resulted
from these concepts, and from the domestic constituencies that believed in
them. Requirements became open-ended, even when deterrence stability was
stripped of its larger, illusionary strategic objectives, and even when arsenals
rose to previously unimagined heights.
In between inferior and superior nuclear capabilities lay rough or essential
equivalence in offsetting nuclear deterrents. The Nixon administration’s public
declarations of intent to seek such equivalence were deemed a precondition to the
pursuit of strategic arms limitation. Otherwise, how could negotiations between
superpowers succeed if one were accorded strategic superiority? Equivalence
18
was, however, quite difficult to determine because modernization programs

were ongoing and force structures differed. Advantage or disadvantage lay in
the eye of the beholder. Those most skeptical of an adversary’s intentions found
ready confirmation in strategic modernization programs and force structure.
Those skeptical of the value of nuclear weapons found comfort in strategic
sufficiency. Treaties to place constraints on the most powerful weapons and
delivery vehicles ever devised were negotiated with heroic effort. The essential
equivalence and deterrence stability that treaties sought to codify had to with-
stand changing superpower fortunes, the vicissitudes of bilateral ties, and the
dynamism of technological developments. This proved to be a very tall order.
Deterrence has always been about psychology as well as nuclear capabilities;
psychology was malleable as nuclear capabilities grew. Thomas Schelling de-
scribed the essence of deterrence as being “the threat that leaves something to
chance.”8 The element of chance — that deterrence might fail and that the nucle-
ar threshold might be crossed — was supposed to prompt caution in situations
of utmost danger. Kenneth Boulding turned this argument on its head, noting
that deterrence could “be stable in the short run, but there must be a positive
probability of it failing; otherwise it would cease to deter.”9 Boulding’s insight
motivated doves to seek détente and treaties to prevent catastrophic outcomes,
while hawks sought more counterforce and damage-limiting capabilities to
deter and deal with worst cases.
During the Cold War, stability rested more on the state of US-Soviet rela-
tions than on offsetting nuclear weapon capabilities. After harrowing crises
in Berlin and Cuba, Washington and Moscow tacitly agreed not to play with
fire in each other’s most sensitive zones. They agreed to accept the status
quo in a divided Europe. They negotiated, with extraordinary effort, trea-
ties that constrained nuclear testing and limited, then reduced, and even
eliminated deployed nuclear forces. Even so, deterrence stability remained
elusive. Détente lasted for brief periods, interrupted by adverse developments
in the Middle East and in Africa. Despite treaties limiting nuclear testing and
strategic arms, the superpower nuclear competition proved hard to control.
Strategic modernization programs received an impetus after treaty signings
to mollify domestic skeptics and prove that neither superpower was letting
down its guard. Failure to compete generated opposition at home and doubts
abroad. The choreography of competition became institutionalized, driven by
powerful domestic constituencies.
19
Confidence-building, transparency, and NRRMs helped to keep the Cold War

from becoming hot. Negotiations helped clarify ways of thinking, and treaties
provided contours for the strategic competition. Even so, treaties channeled that
competition in ways both stabilizing (e.g., strict limitations on national ballis-
tic missile defenses) and destabilizing (e.g., multiple independently targetable
re-entry vehicles, or MIRVs). Diplomacy provided channels of communication,
and treaties helped to prevent backsliding during hard times. Still, deterrence
stability between the United States and Soviet Union proved elusive until the
Cold War was ending.
None of the brilliant conceptualizers of deterrence theory imagined that steps
to enhance deterrence would lead to arsenals numbering in the tens of thou-
sands. But one move led inexorably to the next, an interactive process that
became known as the action-reaction syndrome. Secretary of Defense Robert
McNamara used these words in a deeply conflicted speech in 1967 at which he
railed at the nuclear arms race while endorsing a limited missile defense system:
The Soviet Union and the United States mutually influence one an-
other’s strategic plans. Whatever be their intentions, whatever be our
intentions, actions … on either side relating to the buildup of nuclear
forces, be they either offensive or defensive weapons, necessarily trigger
reactions on the other side. It is this action-reaction phenomenon that
fuels an arms race.10
Deterrence strategists chafed at McNamara’s formulation because it pointed
to the futility of an extended competition while implying a reluctance to
compete. Albert Wohlstetter labeled it a “portentous tautology.”11 But the re-
ality of the action-reaction syndrome was undeniable; domestic arguments,
reflected by Wohlstetter’s caustic essays, revolved around the contention that
the United States wasn’t reacting energetically enough to Soviet strategic mod-
ernization programs.
Whether one accepted or took issue with the action-reaction syndrome, the
superpower strategic competition undermined deterrence stability with the
advent of improved accuracy for long-range missiles and MIRVs. The strategic
competition fed on itself, nourished by generously funded, competing nucle-
ar laboratories and production complexes. Deterrence strategists concluded
that there had to be some method behind this madness; explanations keyed
to domestic and bureaucratic impulses alone were found wanting. Paul H.
Nitze, a “master of the game” of diplomacy as well as deterrence, argued in
“Assuring Strategic Stability in an Era of Détente” that the Soviet buildup had
20
to be understood as the pursuit of “a nuclear superiority that is not merely

quantitative but designed to produce a theoretical war-winning capability.”12
If not countered, the United States would unwittingly “undermine the present
détente situation, with results that could only resurrect the danger of nucle-
ar confrontation or, alternatively, increase the prospect of Soviet expansion
through other means of pressure.”13
Nitze, Wohlstetter, James Schlesinger, and other deterrence strategists had their
analogues in the Soviet Union who believed that additional increments of US
nuclear capability had to reflect a malevolent strategic purpose that needed to
be countered. This shift from countervalue and soft counterforce to prompt,
hard-target kill capabilities vastly increased requirements. Cruise missiles sup-
plemented ballistic missiles. Triads were built out. Warhead designs were not
built to last; newer versions were always in the pipeline. In all, US and Soviet
production complexes churned out more than 100,000 nuclear warheads.
“Strengthening” deterrence in these ways increased security concerns rather
than deterrence stability. The superpower competition ended only when both
countries were led by risk-taking leaders who rejected nuclear orthodoxy. The
odd couple of Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan broke the back of the
nuclear arms race by negotiating the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF)
Treaty, which eliminated nuclear weapon delivery systems on several rungs of
the escalation ladder deemed essential by deterrence strategists. Deep cuts in
strategic nuclear delivery vehicles followed. Gorbachev was clearly motivated by
his country’s bleak economic prospects. While spending in excess of 20 percent
of the national budget on its military, the Soviet Empire collapsed as a result
of internal political weaknesses and economic distress. Nuclear excess provid-
ed no help in countering these disabilities. Deterrence stability was achieved
only when the strategic arms race died alongside the Soviet Union. When the
Cold War ended, Washington and Moscow had nothing to fight about and the
Kremlin was in no position to reassert itself.
The limitations of nuclear deterrence reappeared as the Russian Federation
revived. The conflicts of interest now glaringly evident between Washington
and Moscow come at a time when the United States and the Russian Federation
retain very large and roughly equivalent nuclear deterrents, with each possess-
ing secure second-strike capabilities. Despite these conditions, which would
seem conducive to the promise of deterrence stability, a revanchist Kremlin
has annexed Crimea and is violating the sovereignty of Georgia, Moldova, and
Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin continues to equate Moscow’s standing
21
with its nuclear weapon capabilities, especially when Russia’s demographic and
economic prospects look poor.
As with the old US-Soviet competition, the benefits of nuclear deterrence in
the current US-Russian relationship are of limited scope. Offsetting nuclear
capabilities at high levels has not ensured stability in bilateral relations, and has
not foreclosed significant conflicts of interest. As was the case during the Cold
War, increased military operations in the air and at sea accompany heightened
tensions, increasing the risks of accidents with escalatory potential. The risk of
a nuclear confrontation between the United States and Russia remains limited
because the issues in contention pale in comparison to those during the Cold
War; a history of restraint in prior crises played out under the nuclear shadow;
and common interests remain in place despite heightened tensions.
Currently, as during the Cold War, deterrence stability remains elusive. Strategic
modernization programs are well underway in Russia and are ramping up in
the United States. Replacing US systems can be justified on two grounds — that
they are aging, and that the Kremlin is unlikely to be convinced to pursue an-
other round of verifiable reductions without plans for replacements. Arguments
for replacing US strategic bombers, submarines, and missiles based on the ra-
tionales of “strengthening” deterrence and “assuring” deterrence stability lack
credibility. Deterrence by means of strategic modernization programs will not
be strengthened as long as Washington and Moscow remain at loggerheads.
Nuclear weapons deter only a small but critically important subset of adversar-
ial moves — not the ones that are most likely or already evident in places such
as eastern Ukraine. For these contingencies, more prosaic countersteps, such as
sanctions and help to beleaguered states, have far greater value.
Other Cases
Other nuclear-armed states have managed to avoid interactive arms racing,
thereby avoiding deterrence instability because of extenuating circumstances,
especially the presence of a superpower ally and the absence of contentious is-
sues that could lead to warfare. The brief sketches that follow are offered to serve
as a contrast to the US-Soviet and India-Pakistan cases.
The UK and France each pursued nuclear arsenals during a time of heightened
strategic competition and harrowing Cold War flashpoints. Both were able to
establish finite requirements for nuclear deterrence with some degree of con-
fidence because both were allied to a nuclear superpower. In France’s case, a
significant measure of strategic autonomy was still deemed essential, while the
22
UK chose to collaborate intensively with the United States. Although target sets
were adequately covered by US nuclear forces, for both France and the UK the
possession of their own credible minimum deterrents suited each nation’s secu-
rity interests as well as the desire for a sense of place in the international order.
While the United States shouldered the risks and costs of arms racing, NATO
allies more directly in the line of fire in the event of a land war in Central Europe
assumed the burdens of basing tactical nuclear weapons and nuclear-capable
aircraft on their soil. When deterrence stability seemed particularly at risk
in the 1980s, five NATO partners — the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, West
Germany, and Italy — agreed to counter Soviet moves by hosting intermedi-
ate-range nuclear forces. After the INF Treaty was ratified and implemented,
only a few hundred tactical nuclear weapons remained in place, serving a pur-
pose that was more symbolic than military.
The key condition for deterrence stability — the absence of something to fight
about — has dissipated over time for the UK and France. The earliest Cold War
flashpoint over Berlin, when the UK and France deployed ground forces, came
before their acquisition of nuclear weapons. Their midsized deterrents remained
at the ready during the roller-coaster ride of the Cold War so as not to be utterly
dependent on Washington’s actions. Moscow tried for a time to include British
and French nuclear forces in the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, but dropped
the effort. The most significant potential source of contention with a major
power for the UK was resolved with London’s 1984 agreement with Beijing to
transfer Hong Kong. This accord, which was reached during an intense period
of superpower tensions, was finalized in 1997.
Given extenuating circumstances and budget constraints, Paris and London
remained largely immune from the action-reaction syndrome. Finite deterrence
provided a sense of status along with sunk costs; recapitalization costs, as in oth-
er countries with sluggish economies, will likely come at the painful expense of
conventional military capabilities. The UK and France have not seemed overly
concerned by a sense of deterrence instability from the modest pace of China’s
strategic modernization programs or from the Kremlin’s revanchist tendencies.
These conditions lend support for maintaining nuclear capabilities, but not for
competing with Beijing or Moscow.
The most remarkable case of avoiding the pitfalls of the action-reaction syn-
drome and accepting disparities in nuclear capabilities has — so far — been
China. Beijing was content with minimum nuclear deterrence during the Cold
War when faced with not one but two superpower adversaries. Acceptance of
23
nuclear disparity against a stronger foe still did not provide for deterrence sta-
bility, as was evident when China fought a very confined border war with the
Soviet Union in 1969, shortly after it acquired rudimentary nuclear capabilities.
These skirmishes along the Ussuri River provided a foretaste of another limited
war between two newly armed nuclear-weapon states 30 years later. But unlike
the Kargil conflict between Pakistan and India, which added impetus to their
nuclear programs, Beijing continued to adhere to a very relaxed pace of strate-
gic modernization even after the Sino-Soviet clash. Economic duress, domestic
turmoil, and then a remarkable period that focused on economic development
might help explain Beijing’s uncommon restraint over a period of decades. For
whatever reason, Chinese leaders have so far remained immune from Cold War
nuclear orthodoxy.
Beijing still officially adheres to its nuclear doctrine of no first use, and contin-
ues to rely on strategic forces that project retaliatory rather than war-fighting
capabilities. China has relied on basing modes for its long-range missiles that
provide assurance against preemption, and, after an exceptionally long gestation
period, it has now begun serial production of second-generation nuclear-pow-
ered submarines armed with new long-range sea-based ballistic missiles. The
flight-testing of techniques suitable for the placement of multiple warheads atop
ballistic missiles has reportedly begun, five long decades after the first Chinese
nuclear test.14 The extent and pacing of these deployments will provide indica-
tors as to whether Chinese leaders are changing their deterrence requirements.
Deterrence stability between the United States and China has never been a
given. The Korean War provided the first graphic lesson that the Bomb did not
trump an adversary’s conventional order of battle and regional security inter-
ests. China was on the receiving end of nuclear threats by the United States,
especially during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, which helped
propel Beijing’s nuclear weapons program. Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy
sparred with Beijing over offshore islands whose names — Matsu and Quemoy
— have long been forgotten. The United States and China seemed quite capable
of coming to blows over Taiwan until the thaw in Taiwan-mainland relations.
Over the past decade, Washington has focused with good reason on potential
challenges from Beijing in the global commons of sea and space. Disputes over
islands and rock outcroppings between China and its neighbors could also lead
to military incidents and crises.
Deterrence stability between Washington and Beijing has been reinforced by
significant economic interdependencies — a factor entirely absent in US-Soviet
competition. The gap between Washington and Beijing’s nuclear capabilities
24
remains great, but this in itself does not ensure deterrence stability, as was ev-
ident in the Sino-Soviet border clashes. More helpful in this regard is Beijing’s
apparent commitment to basing modes for its land- and sea-based deterrents
that are aligned with its declared doctrine of no first use of nuclear weapons
in a crisis, confrontation, or war. Chinese leaders can, however, change their
nuclear doctrine as their strategic capabilities advance. Severe crises between
Washington and Beijing could also ratchet up strategic modernization pro-
grams, as could significant increases in forward-based and national US missile
defense programs.
To date, China and India have adopted similar nuclear postures. Both have is-
sued no first use declarations, both have focused on economic metrics of nation-
al influence, and both have acted in ways that seem to reflect appreciation for
the limited utility of nuclear weapons to achieve national goals.15 These parallel
nuclear postures are all the more remarkable because Beijing and New Delhi
fought a limited war over a long-standing border dispute that flares periodically
as a result of encroachment by border patrols. Unlike the India-Pakistan border
dispute over Kashmir, however, India and China do not exchange fire when
encroachments occur.
The continued strategic restraint of these two rising powers is far from assured.
China and India have not tried hard to resolve their border dispute in the past,
and overlapping interests could produce friction elsewhere, particularly at sea.
Parallel nuclear modernization programs continue, albeit at a modest pace.
Both rising powers are moving toward multiple warheads atop some of their
ballistic missiles and are contemplating limited ballistic missile defense capa-
bilities. The nuclear superpowers reached this critical juncture in the late 1960s.
The advent of MIRVs and greater accuracy facilitated prompt, hard-target kill
capabilities, greatly diminishing prospects for deterrence stability between the
superpowers, even without national ballistic missile defenses.
MIRV and missile-defense technologies now beckon for Beijing and New Delhi.
Will they follow in the footsteps of Washington and Moscow, albeit at a much
more modest scale and pace? At every crucial juncture in the past — after the
India-China border war in 1962, after China tested atomic and hydrogen bombs
in 1964 and 1967, when New Delhi tested a nuclear device in 1974 and acquired
nuclear weapon capabilities in the late 1980s, and then in 1998, when New Delhi
tested these devices — Indian and Chinese leaders have chosen not to emulate
the nuclear superpowers.
25
The advent of technological capabilities for MIRVs and missile defenses are
likely to increase the pace and scope of the nuclear competition between China
and India. The extent of this increase would depend on the extent of deploy-
ments. National missile defenses for both countries are an unlikely and hugely
expensive prospect; even limited defenses of a few major cities pose immense
technical challenges while diverting funds from other military projects with
stronger constituencies. Multiple warheads atop ballistic missiles would ratch-
et up numbers, but might be limited in number and need not connote nu-
clear-war-fighting capabilities unless accompanied by other accoutrements,
including increased missile accuracy and doctrinal changes embracing coun-
terforce targeting.16
The key determinant of deterrence stability between China and India remains
whether they can successfully manage or resolve their border dispute while grow-
ing bilateral trade and investment. If Asia’s rising powers remain on this path,
perturbations related to the measured growth of their nuclear capabilities can be
managed. Since 1962, Beijing and New Delhi have demonstrated that the avoid-
ance of a border war is mutually preferable, and possible, while in the last decade
bilateral trade has grown appreciably. In the future, China and India might be-
come another very hard case of deterrence instability, but this seems avoidable.
For now, India and Pakistan provide the most prominent demonstration of the
chimerical pursuit of deterrence stability between nuclear-armed rivals.
Deterrence Instability on the Subcontinent

The strategic competition on the subcontinent is in many respects unique. India
and Pakistan have a long-standing border dispute. They have fought wars, in-
cluding a limited war shortly after both carried out underground nuclear tests
in 1998. India has used military force to carve up Pakistan. Pakistan has used
unconventional warfare to tie down and punish Indian forces and noncomba-
tants in Kashmir. Violent extremist groups based in Pakistan have carried out
spectacular acts of terrorism in New Delhi, Mumbai, and other Indian cities.
Pakistan is the only nuclear-armed state that does not have a monopoly on the
use of force within or across its borders.17 Some of the violent extremist groups
based in Pakistan are now acting autonomously and in opposition to the organs
of the state that once nurtured them.
The United States and the Soviet Union were unable to stabilize their nuclear
competition in the absence of complicating factors such as these. Nor did the su-
perpowers succeed in stabilizing their nuclear competition during brief periods
26
of détente. The periods of détente between India and Pakistan have also been
short-lived. National leaders on the subcontinent rarely seek reconciliation; the
wounds of partition remain raw and are easily salted. Pakistani political leaders
cannot take the lead in resolving contentious bilateral issues because they do not
wish to be labeled as supplicants and because they will be badly weakened by
failure. Even when they follow Indian leaders who seek normal ties, Pakistan’s
civilian leaders can expect significant domestic challenges. Furthermore, India
rarely leads. New Delhi is wary of pursuing reconciliation that ends abruptly
with spectacular acts of terrorism on Indian soil or, as in the heights over Kargil,
dangerous military brinkmanship. Indifference toward Pakistan has become a
default position for many in India — until a crisis occurs.
As was the case during the Cold War, conventional force imbalances challenge
deterrence stability in South Asia. Disparities in air and naval power are grow-
ing between India and Pakistan, and will also grow over time with respect to
ground forces.18 As was the case during the Cold War, stabilization between
India and Pakistan has been foiled by crises, worrying military developments,
disparate conventional capabilities, and incongruent national fortunes. The
superpower nuclear competition was about ideology and geopolitics. The India-
Pakistan nuclear competition is about religion, inheritance, geography, and
regional security, as well as subconventional and limited conventional warfare.
As hard as it was for the United States and the Soviet Union to stabilize their
nuclear competition, it will be harder still for India and Pakistan — even though
they are competing modestly in comparison to the nuclear superpowers.
The quest for deterrence stability on the subcontinent is further complicated by a
third party, China, which helps Pakistan counterbalance India. While Rawalpindi
measures its strategic requirements against India, New Delhi calculates its re-
quirements against both its nuclear-armed neighbors. Conceptually, stabilization
is conceivable when two sides of a triangular competition are roughly equal in
national power and the third, least-powerful side remains equidistant from the
stronger contestants. It is also possible to conceptualize a stabilized triangular
competition when the added power of two sides roughly equals that of the third.
Even then, stabilization would require roughly equivalent strategic modernization
programs, conventional capabilities, and national fortunes. These requirements
are daunting, which helps explain why triangular nuclear competitions are harder
to stabilize than bilateral ones — and the triangular competition in southern Asia
does not begin to meet these stabilizing conditions.
27
Triangular nuclear competitions are not novel. The most prominent prior case —
the United States, the Soviet Union, and China during the Cold War — featured
nuclear collusion and then antagonism between the Soviet Union and China, after
which China effectively dropped out of the competition. Another triangular com-
petition is emerging among the United States, China, and Russia. Russia is helping
China to compete, even though Moscow understands that ultimately Beijing is
likely to pose as much of a future strategic concern as the United States. Shifting
allegiances during the Cold War affected strategic fortunes without enhancing
deterrence stability; instead, these shifts placed greater burdens on deterrence.
In southern Asia, shifting allegiances seem unlikely. China and Pakistan will
remain “all-weather friends,” with Beijing picking up some of the slackening US-
Pakistan relationship — including arms sales — as Washington gravitates more
toward New Delhi. China-India relations, on the other hand, will remain com-
petitive alongside growing trade and investment, with India enlisting the United
States and Russia to help with arms sales. Pakistan’s side of the triangle will shrink
along with its social cohesion and economic performance, while the Chinese and
Indian sides will lengthen, though unevenly. This geometric construction does
not lend itself to deterrence stability because the three sides have unequal national
power, because the most and least powerful states line up against the middle pow-
er, and because two of the sides might engage in conflict if India again experiences
dramatic acts of terrorism that can be traced back to Pakistan.
These unstable dynamics preceded the induction of nuclear weapons on the
subcontinent, and were reinforced soon afterward. Immediately after India and
Pakistan both tested nuclear devices in 1998, a sense of optimism pervaded offi-
cial statements and strategic commentary. Prime ministers A. B. Vajpayee and
Nawaz Sharif sought to assuage international concerns by declaring adherence
to minimum requirements for credible deterrence — a concept championed by
Western arms controllers and completely disregarded by US and Soviet deter-
rence strategists. In a statement delivered to the Indian Parliament on May 27,
1998, Prime Minister Vajpayee declared, “We do not intend to engage in an arms
race.”19 In his first interview with a Western newspaper, Vajpayee reinforced
and expanded on this assurance, saying, “We have no intention of engaging in
a nuclear arms race and building huge arsenals as we have seen other nuclear
weapons states do, because their doctrines were predicated on nuclear war.”20
Writing in Foreign Affairs, Jaswant Singh, then a senior adviser to Vajpayee,
elaborated further, pledging that India would not “subscribe to or reinvent the
sterile doctrines of the Cold War.”21
28
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif made his first statement after the 1998
tests in Urdu, assuring his countrymen that Pakistan had “settled a score” while
blocking Indian designs. Sharif also offered assuring messages to international
audiences, promising, “We are prepared to resume Pakistan-India dialogue to
address all outstanding issues, including the core issue of Jammu and Kashmir,
as well as peace and security. These should include urgent steps for mutual re-
straint and equitable measures for nuclear stabilization.”22 In a subsequent arti-
cle prepared for Foreign Affairs, Pakistan Foreign Secretary Shamshad Ahmad
wrote that “it is in both sides’ fundamental interest to avert a nuclear arms
race.”23 Singh, then India’s external affairs minister, similarly told The Hindu on
November 29, 1999, that “India will not engage in any arms race. We shall not,
therefore, pursue an open-ended program.”24
These optimistic projections were reinforced by outside analysts who foresaw a
relaxed competition that offered the prospect of offsetting, stabilizing nuclear
postures. Ashley Tellis, who has written about the strategic dynamics of the
subcontinent at considerable length and depth, predicted an “arms crawl” rather
than a vigorous nuclear arms competition between India and Pakistan.25 Many
other leading strategic analysts in both countries were just as optimistic. Soon
after the 1998 tests, retired Air Commodore Jasjit Singh predicted that
[I]t is difficult to visualize an arsenal with anything more than a dou-
ble-digit quantum of warheads. It may be prudent even to plan on the
basis of a lower end figure of say 2-3 dozen nuclear warheads by the end
of 10-15 years.26
Likewise, before the tests, Air Chief Marshal Zulfikar Ali Khan postulated
that “Even the possession of a few nuclear weapons will provide Pakistan, still
a relatively small player in regional terms, with a strategic equalizer against
the conventional superiority of India and a countervailing deterrent against its
nuclear arsenal.”27
Within a year of testing nuclear devices in 1998, optimistic appraisals of de-
terrence stability began to wane. Pakistan Army Chief Pervez Musharraf and
a small circle of generals responded to a conciliatory visit to Lahore by Indian
Prime Minister Vajpayee with a misconceived gambit to seize the high ground
across the Kashmir divide. The resulting Kargil War in 1999, followed by the
2001-2002 “Twin Peaks” crisis (sparked by a brazen attack against the Indian
Parliament building by extremists based in Pakistan), shook the foundations
of nuclear minimalism. These events clarified beyond doubt that the advent of
nuclear weapons would not usher in a new era of deterrence stability. Instead,
29
risk-taking by Pakistan lent credence to another construct of Western deter-

rence strategists — the stability-instability paradox.28 One of the first to antici-
pate the downside risks of offsetting nuclear deterrents was Glenn Snyder, who
accurately predicted disconnects between nuclear deterrence and stability by
observing that “a range of minor ventures” might be undertaken with impunity
under the nuclear threshold.29 Likewise, Robert Jervis wrote, “To the extent that
the military balance is stable at the level of all-out nuclear war, it will become
less stable at lower levels of violence.”30
Jervis’ presumption of a stable military balance “at the level of all-out nuclear
war” was overly generous, since neither superpower equated nuclear overkill with
stability. Instead, growing increments of nuclear capability were perceived to be
associated with war-fighting plans, which exacerbated instabilities related to con-
ventional force imbalances and deeply held grievances. The stability-instability
paradox reappeared on the subcontinent with a new feature — subconventional
warfare. Pakistan’s military and intelligence services heated up a proxy war across
the Kashmir divide after helping to drive Soviet troops out of Afghanistan and
when covert nuclear capabilities were in hand. The 1999 Kargil War followed hot
tests of nuclear devices. Dramatic acts of terrorism directed against iconic targets
in major Indian cities added elements to the stability-instability paradox that were
entirely unanticipated by Western deterrence strategists.
Chastened by their inability to respond quickly to the incursion above Kargil and
to dramatic acts of terrorism emanating from Pakistan, Indian military leaders
took a hard look at force mobilization and structure. The Indian army proposed
ways to mobilize more quickly; defense bureaucrats and political leaders balked;
and the army, air force, and navy continued to go their own ways. But Pakistan’s
military planners took seriously India’s aspirational goals for ground campaigns
to punish Pakistan quickly after grievous acts of terrorism, before international
crisis management could be employed. In order to offset Indian conventional
power, Rawalpindi embraced short-range nuclear-capable systems.
Optimistic Indian and Pakistani estimates of deterrence stability and nuclear
minimalism were soon amended with qualifiers. Jaswant Singh clarified that
nuclear requirements could not be viewed as a “fixity;” instead it was a “vari-
able,” dependent on technological developments and threat levels.31 The August
17, 1999 “draft report” of India’s nuclear doctrine from the National Security
Advisory Board, publicly released by National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra,
linked the formulation of “credible minimum nuclear deterrence” to the pos-
session of “effective, enduring, diverse, flexible and responsive” capabilities.32
A trio of well-connected Pakistani strategic analysts — including Zulfikar Ali
30
Khan, who prior to the 1998 tests defined requirements in minimalist terms —
concluded that the practical result of India’s draft doctrine would be “a massive
expansion” of strategic capabilities “in the guise of ‘credible minimum deter-
rence.’” The three authors concluded that “Obviously, our deterrence force will
have to be upgraded in proportion to the heightened threat of preemption and
[ballistic missile] interception.”33
The subsequent pursuit of credible deterrence between these two mismatched
adversaries was destabilizing, even though it was less unequal than might be
expected. Pakistan’s nuclear programing was methodical and purposeful, re-
flecting its control by military officers who took nuclear requirements seriously.
Faced with the projection of growing conventional force imbalances, the mil-
itary stewards of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal naturally focused on credibility,
not minimalism. The infrastructure is now in place for open-ended, steady,
incremental growth in Pakistani nuclear capabilities.
Increases in India’s nuclear arsenal have proceeded at a leisurely pace relative
to production capacity, reflecting a program overseen by political leaders and
civil servants who view nuclear weapons in political rather than military terms.
Dysfunctional habits in India’s civil service, military, and defense technology
sectors have proven hard to break. Overly ambitious plans championed by de-
fense scientists experienced extended bottlenecks while political leaders seemed
genuinely disinterested.34
As Pakistan punched above, and India punched below, their respective weight
classes, a vigorous nuclear competition ensued with familiar political, military,
and technical dynamics. What happened on the subcontinent during the first
15 years of overt nuclear deterrence was a scaled-down version of the Cold War
competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. A relatively re-
laxed Indian and relatively concerted Pakistani nuclear interaction generated
flight-testing of no less than 17 new types of ballistic and cruise missiles between
1998 and 2013.35 Both countries are now in the process of supplementing ballistic
missiles with cruise missiles. Both are publicly committed to a triad of land-,
air-, and sea-based nuclear-deterrent capacity. India’s first indigenously built
nuclear-powered submarine is undergoing sea trials.
Deterrence stability has been weakened on the subcontinent with offsetting in-
crements of nuclear capability. These dynamics have been explored in depth and
are now thoroughly familiar.36 There are no signs of a plateau in Pakistani and
Indian nuclear requirements, and much evidence of a continued competition.
31
Familiar domestic, political, and institutional impulses to compete are present,

and new technologies beckon.37 Strategic anxieties will continue to be fueled by
asymmetric conventional military capabilities and force structure. Other exac-
erbating factors mentioned above — triangular competitive dynamics, disputed
borders, a history of limited conventional and subconventional warfare, as well
as the potential for nuclear-tinged crises on the subcontinent — remain present.
The interactive features of this nuclear competition belie the promise of stability
that nuclear weapons were once thought to offer. The competition continues and
is picking up momentum. Neither side feels it can afford not to compete, since a
relaxed view of the competition might be perceived as a sign of weakness and an
invitation to adventurism. For Pakistan, this calculation applies only to India.
For India, it applies to both Pakistan and China.
Stabilizing Mechanisms for Southern Asia

This essay argues that deterrence stability is feasible only when nuclear-armed
states have little or nothing to fight about, when they address their security
concerns through diplomatic means, when they agree to set them aside, or when
one of the rivals collapses. One of these pathways to deterrence stability — set-
ting aside disputes while normalizing ties via bilateral trade and investment —
has been pursued by China and India. This pathway, however, can be derailed
by increased friction along their disputed border, and undermined by strategic
modernization programs.
A resolution of the disputed India-China border awaits bold leadership.
Lethargic talks between Indian and Chinese officials have been held since Rajiv
Gandhi’s meeting with Deng Xiaoping in Beijing in 1988. Subsequent leaders
in both countries have been content to play a long game rather than to make
evident trade-offs. Inconclusive high-level discussions have now been accom-
panied by headline-generating (in India, not China), overaggressive patrolling
along the disputed border.
Chinese and Indian leaders have agreed to significantly increase direct trade
while deferring settlement of their border dispute — a course of action that
Chinese President Jiang Zemin urged Pakistanis to pursue with regard to
Kashmir in a December 1996 speech before Pakistan’s National Assembly,
without success.38 Trade provides a basis for normalization over time, but
will occur alongside the growth of nuclear capabilities. Deterrence stability
would be improved by a nuclear dialogue that Chinese leaders resist. New
Delhi would be willing to engage in discussions leading to confidence-build-
32
ing measures (CBMs) and NRRMs, but not in the role of a demandeur who is
rejected or as a supplicant.
Despite the projected growth of nuclear capabilities and the absence of substan-
tive dialogue on nuclear issues, it remains possible for Beijing and New Delhi
to establish conditions for deterrence stability by means of speeding up the
timetable for a border settlement or deferring its resolution while continuing to
increase bilateral trade and investment. Much, however, depends on the pace
and scope of their strategic modernization programs, especially their commit-
ment to MIRVs and counterforce targeting, and whether they deploy missile
defenses (discussed below).
Pathways to deterrence stability between India and Pakistan seem remote.
Prospects for a resolution of the Kashmir dispute or mutual agreement to set
this issue aside appear modest, at best. Diplomatic choreography to normalize
ties between India and Pakistan has been as difficult as with US-Soviet relations.
When one leader appears willing or strong enough to try, the other is typically
reluctant or weak. Windows for pursuing a resolution of the Kashmir issue
or agreeing to set this issue aside have been rarely open, and soon closed, by
explosions carried out by groups linked to Pakistan’s military and intelligence
services and by domestic political pressures.
New Delhi has deemed as untrustworthy those military governments in Pakistan
that are strong enough to reach or publicly defer a Kashmir settlement, while
viewing weak civilian Pakistani governments as not befitting heavy diplomatic
investment. Kashmir remains a significant political issue in Pakistan. Since
2013, periodic firing along the Line of Control dividing the old Princely State has
replaced an almost decade-long moratorium. Stephen Cohen aptly concluded
that “India cannot make peace. Pakistan cannot make war.”39 The reverse is no
less true: India cannot make conventional war except on a very limited scale,
and Pakistan cannot make peace with India until military leaders decide that
their country’s fortunes depend on it. Under these circumstances, instability
seems endemic to the India-Pakistan relationship.
Pakistan’s demise could lead to deterrence stability, but only at the cost of great-
ly increased nuclear dangers associated with theft, nuclear terrorism, and un-
authorized military use of nuclear weapons. Pakistan faces sustained and sys-
temic economic weaknesses, even though it possesses a well-functioning, black
economy. Economic collapse seems unlikely, but absent fundamental reforms,
including revenue generation, Pakistan’s economic indicators will continue to
be anemic. Pakistan’s military leaders understand that their country cannot be
33
strong if their society is riven with divisions, social services and educational
opportunities are diminishing, foreign direct investment is dwindling, and
economic indicators fall behind population growth. Nonetheless, the military’s
share of the national budget continues to be outsized, and roughly equal in
percentage terms to the Soviet military’s share of the national budget prior to
the dissolution of the Soviet Union.40
While bureaucratic, institutional, and political constraints within India have
been important moderators of the nuclear competition, checks and balances on
Pakistani military expenditures — and even more so, on nuclear-weapon-re-
lated expenditures — are weak. The defense budget is not scrutinized in detail
by legislators, and few would dare suggest cuts in outlays for national security.
No information has been published on the nuclear budget. The stewards of
Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal argue that sunk costs have not been substantial and
that nuclear expenditures constitute a small fraction of the defense burden.
Very few Pakistani commentators offer critiques of Pakistan’s commitment of
resources toward nuclear weapons and their means of delivery. To do so could
run afoul of the authorities and could be subject to stinging rebuttal, as pos-
session of the Bomb is widely viewed as a source of national prowess and pride.
If domestic brakes are applied to the nuclear competition, it will most likely
be because of more pressing military needs or because Pakistan’s economic
decline and the perceived need to assuage domestic discontent curtails defense
spending across the board.
Conceptually, treaties to limit the most unsettling nuclear and conventional
military capabilities could ameliorate security concerns in southern Asia. A
negotiating process toward these ends could also increase mutual understand-
ing, build confidence, and provide a degree of transparency necessary to reach
more ambitious agreements. The nuclear superpowers went down this path
and achieved much of value. These arms limitation treaties did not, however,
succeed in codifying deterrence stability, because they were accompanied by
modernization programs authorized to alleviate concerns raised by diplomat-
ic engagement and to strengthen the hands of negotiators. The result was an
eventual capping of nuclear force structure alongside further refinements of
counterforce capabilities. It was not until the advent of two unorthodox leaders,
Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev — the latter facing grave economic and
societal problems — that the superpower nuclear arms competition was broken
and deterrence stability achieved.
34
Trilateral or bilateral treaty arrangements are an unlikely pathway to deterrence

stability in southern Asia. China, India, and Pakistan are unequal in strength
and national capacity, and likely to remain that way. Deterrence stability also
requires transparency, and all three nuclear-armed states in southern Asia are
neuralgic about transparency measures. They do not possess equal “national
technical means” to monitor agreed constraints, nor are they likely to rely on
outsiders to monitor compliance with arms-control compacts. Two multilateral
treaties already negotiated could help with deterrence stability in southern Asia,
but India and Pakistan are not ready to sign and ratify the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty, and Pakistan continues to veto the start of what might well be pro-
longed negotiations for a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty.
As deterrence instability grows alongside nuclear capabilities, CBMs, transpar-
ency measures, and NRRMs could help India, Pakistan, and China to improve
ties and demonstrate responsible nuclear stewardship. These measures could
also provide modest offsets to deterrence instability in the absence of treaties
and serious, sustained efforts to resolve disputes. CBMs and NRRMs proved
their worth in US-Soviet relations, opening channels of communication, estab-
lishing habits of cooperation, clarifying — and to some extent preventing —
dangerous military practices, and increasing transparency in stabilizing ways.
Nonetheless, CBMs and NRRMs will not provide a safety net for deterrence
stability during serious crises. Instead, US crisis management has provided this
safety net in past crises.
Chinese, Indian, and Pakistani leaders have not seriously pursued CBMs and
NRRMs to mitigate deterrence instability. Agreements between India and
Pakistan have been few in number, often reached after crises to mollify for-
eign audiences. Since the early 1990s, the record of negotiating new CBMs
and NRRMs has been sparse. In 2005, the Agreement on Pre-Notification of
Flight Testing of Ballistic Missiles was finalized, followed two years later by the
Agreement on Reducing the Risk from Accidents Relating to Nuclear Weapons,
for which protocols have yet to be enumerated. No bilateral military-related
CBMs and NRRMs have been finalized since the 2008 attacks in Mumbai.
Beijing has yet to deign to negotiate NRRMs with New Delhi.
The most promising way to address deterrence instability, absent a mutual com-
mitment to resolve disputes, is through tacit agreements. The most important
tacit agreement that could be reached is not to play with fire in extremely sensi-
tive locales. For example, the nuclear superpowers reached tacit understandings
not to change the status quo in Berlin or in Cuba after extremely dangerous cri-
ses. Tacit agreements can also lead to formal accords; Washington and Moscow
35
tacitly agreed to accept the division of Europe into two blocks during the Cold
War, which was subsequently codified in the 1975 Helsinki Final Act.
The most important tacit agreement available to China and India would be to
dispense with provocative patrolling along their disputed border. The most im-
portant tacit agreement that India and Pakistan could reach relates to refraining
from inserting or supporting militants in Kashmir and Balochistan. Tacit agree-
ments not to play with fire in these disaffected regions would still not reduce the
risk of conflict if jihadi groups based in Pakistan were to carry out spectacular
acts of terrorism against iconic Indian targets outside of Kashmir. India and
Pakistan could share intelligence regarding extremist groups — agreed to in
principle but poorly implemented in practice — which could help prevent nu-
clear-tinged crises and military clashes.
Tacit agreements are also possible with respect to nuclear-weapons-related pro-
grams. India and China will most assuredly continue to increase their nuclear
arsenals. As noted above, the pacing and scope of these increments, particularly
with respect to MIRVed missiles, as well as doctrinal changes away from no
first use and toward war-fighting capabilities, will help determine how much
deterrence instability is engendered by advancing technological capabilities. The
absence of limited national ballistic-missile deployments could have a dampen-
ing effect, but as was evident in the US-Soviet nuclear competition, deterrence
instability could grow because of strategic modernization programs even if na-
tional missile defenses are limited or absent. If limited national missile defenses
are deployed alongside offensive upgrades, the level of deterrence instability
between China and India will grow further.
It might be possible for Beijing and New Delhi to arrive at separate but mutually
reinforcing national decisions that deploying limited national missile defenses
are not worth their expense. If this is not possible, then tacit agreements to
constrain missile defense deployments could also help.41 As for the deployment
of MIRVs, the resulting increase in deterrence instability would be greatly com-
pounded if Beijing and New Delhi decided to pursue improvements in missile
accuracy and embrace counterforce targeting — both well within their tech-
nological capabilities. A tacit agreement not to invest in nuclear war-fighting
capabilities and to adhere to well-established, nonoffensive nuclear postures
could dampen deterrence instability amid strategic modernization programs.
Conversely, if Beijing and New Delhi move on to counterforce targeting, they
will greatly compound issues of deterrence instability.
36
China and India have ample resources for the growth of their nuclear capabili-
ties. Pakistan does not. The wisest choice of the weakest competitor, as the Soviet
Union demonstrated during the Cold War, is not to engage in a nuclear competi-
tion. Pakistan will fall further and further behind in a nuclear competition with
an India that is more inclined to compete. Rawalpindi could, however, decide to
invest even more in infrastructure for fissile-material production and production
lines — but even this would not alter prospective disparities in nuclear capabilities
with India. MIRVs and counterforce capabilities for longer-range systems are not
an option for Pakistan, nor are ballistic missile defense deployments.
For Pakistan, as a state with profound internal and economic weaknesses, it is
essential that its military leaders wrestle with the question of how much nucle-
ar capability is enough against a major power. Because of prior investments,
Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal will continue to grow, and it may exceed the arsenals
of the UK and France. This growth will greatly increase deterrence instability to
the extent that the stewards of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal decide to place nuclear
weapons at sea or along the forward edge of potential battlefields.
Even if Pakistan were to decide to reduce its expenditures for nuclear weapons
and their delivery vehicles, or to voluntarily drop out of its nuclear competition
with India, deterrence stability will remain elusive if relations remain deeply
adversarial. Whatever the size of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, deterrence stability
will be elusive unless Pakistan’s military leaders endorse normal relations with
India. This would entail resolving or publicly setting aside the Kashmir dispute
and opening up direct trade and investment. As long as a settlement or defer-
ment of the Kashmir issue is unlikely, and as long as jihadi groups that can carry
out sophisticated terrorist acts against India remain in place, the subcontinent
will face conditions of significant deterrence instability.
Conclusion
This essay has argued that deterrence stability is elusive when nuclear-armed
states have security dilemmas that could lead to warfare, especially when these
dilemmas are heightened by imbalances in conventional military capabilities.
Confidence in the sufficiency in nuclear deterrence against another nucle-
ar-armed state is achievable only in cases where these pairings have very little,
if anything, to fight about or when one of the contestants collapses. Conversely,
nuclear-armed rivals engaged in an interactive nuclear competition alongside
disparities in conventional forces will find the quest for deterrence stability to be
chimerical. The more offsetting nuclear capabilities grow under these circum-
37
stances — especially when rivals with serious security concerns embrace coun-
terforce targeting — the harder it will become to realize deterrence stability.
The United States and the Soviet Union were unable to achieve deterrence sta-
bility during the Cold War, even when their nuclear arsenals grew to massive
proportions. India and Pakistan are also unlikely to achieve deterrence stability
by means of nuclear modernization programs. Instead, added increments of nu-
clear capabilities will result in less security unless national leaders resolve their
disputes or agree to set them aside in order to normalize ties. China and India
might be able to achieve deterrence stability by setting aside their border dispute
and increasing cross-border trade and investment. This pathway is, however, far
from assured, and can be impeded by nuclear modernization programs.
38
Endnotes
1. The author is grateful to Linton Brooks, Vipin Narang, George Perkovich, and Joshua White for
helpful comments and critiques of this essay.
2. Bernard Brodie, “War in the Atomic Age,” in The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and World
Order, ed. Bernard Brodie (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1946), 28.
3. Bernard Brodie, “Implications for Military Policy,” in The Absolute Weapon, ed. Brodie, 75.
4. Henry A. Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft, “Nuclear Weapon Reduction Must Be Part of Strategic
Analysis,” Washington Post, April 22, 2012, http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/nucle-
ar-weapon-reductions-must-be-part-of-strategic-analysis/2012/04/22/gIQAKG4iaT_print.html.
5. Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (New York: St. Martin’s, 1981), 185.
6. Kenneth N. Waltz, “Nuclear Myths and Political Realities,” American Political Science Review
84, no. 5 (September 1990): 738.
7. Henry A. Kissinger, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957), 56, 60.
8. Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1960), 203.
9. Kenneth E. Boulding, excerpt from American Association for the Advancement of Science
presidential address, San Francisco, 1980, cited in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 36, no. 4
(March 1980).
10. “Remarks by Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, September 18, 1967,” Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists 23, no. 10 (December 1967): 28.
11. Albert Wohlstetter, “Is there a Strategic Arms Race?” Foreign Policy no. 15 (Summer 1974): 12.
12. This was the title of Strobe Talbott’s part-biography, part-first draft of diplomatic history, The
Master of the Game: Paul Nitze and the Nuclear Peace (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988).
13. Paul H. Nitze, “Assuring Strategic Stability in an Era of Détente,” Foreign Affairs 54, no. 2
(January 1976): 207.
14. Bill Gertz, “China Tests ICBM With Multiple Warheads,” Washington Free Beacon, December
18, 2014, http://freebeacon.com/national-security/china-tests-icbm-with-multiple-warheads/.
15. See, for example, Vipin Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era; Regional Powers and
International Conflict (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014), 94-153.
16. See Joshua T. White and Kyle Deming, “Dependent Trajectories: India’s MIRV Program and
Deterrence Stability in South Asia,” in this volume.
17. George Perkovich, “The Non-unitary Model and Deterrence Stability in South Asia,” in
Deterrence Stability and Escalation Control in South Asia, ed. Michael Krepon and Julia
Thompson (Washington, DC: Stimson Center, 2013).
18. See Christopher Clary, “Deterrence Stability and the Conventional Balance of Forces in South
Asia,” in Deterrence Stability and Escalation Control in South Asia, ed. Krepon and Thompson.
19. “Suo Motu Statement by Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Parliament,” speech to
Indian Parliament, May 27, 1998, http://fas.org/news/india/1998/05/980527-india-pm.htm.
20. Kenneth J. Cooper, “Leader Says India Has A ‘Credible’ Deterrent; Vajpayee: Nation
Won’t Engage in Arms Race,” Washington Post, June 17, 1998, http://www.highbeam.com/
doc/1P2-652490.html.
39
21. Jaswant Singh, “Against Nuclear Apartheid,” Foreign Affairs, September/October 1998, 50.
22. John Ward Anderson and Kamran Khan, “Pakistan Sets Off Nuclear Blasts,” Washington
Post, May 29, 1998, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/southasia/stories/
pakistan052998.htm; Nawaz Sharif, press conference, May 29, 1998, http://nuclearweaponarchive.
org/Pakistan/SharifAnnounce.txt.
23. Shamshad Ahmad, “The Nuclear Subcontinent: Bringing Stability to South Asia,” Foreign
Affairs 78, no. 4 (July/August 1999): 124.
24. Jaswant Singh, November 29, 1999, interview in The Hindu, https://www.armscontrol.org/
act/1999_12/jsde99.
25. Ashley J. Tellis, India’s Emerging Nuclear Posture: Between Recessed Deterrent and Ready
Arsenal (Santa Monica, CA: the Rand Corporation, 2001), 731.
26. Jasjit Singh, “A Nuclear Strategy for India,” in Nuclear India, ed. Jasjit Singh (New Delhi:
Knowledge World, 1998), 315.
27. Zulfikar Ali Khan, “Pakistan’s Security and Nuclear Option,” in Nuclear Issues in South Asia,
Islamabad Council of World Affairs, Spring 1995.
28. See Michael Krepon, “The Stability-Instability Paradox, Misperception, and Escalation
Control in South Asia,” in Escalation Control and the Nuclear Option in South Asia, ed. Michael
Krepon, Rodney W. Jones, and Ziad Haider (Washington, DC: Stimson Center, 2004), 1-24; P. R.
Chari, “Nuclear Restraint, Risk Reduction, and the Security-Insecurity Paradox in South Asia,”
in Nuclear Risk Reduction in South Asia, ed. Michael Krepon (New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2004), 19-42; and Michael Krepon, “Is Cold War Experience Applicable to Southern Asia?” in
Nuclear Risk Reduction in South Asia, ed. Krepon, 7-18.
29. Glenn Snyder, Deterrence and Defense (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961), 226.
30. Robert Jervis, The Illogic of American Nuclear Strategy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1984), 31.
31. See Bharat Karnad, India’s Nuclear Policy (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008), 89.
32. “Draft Report of National Security Advisory Board on Indian Nuclear Doctrine,” full text,
August 17, 1999, http://www.armscontrol.org/act/1999_07-08/ffja99.
33. Agha Shahi, Zulfikar Ali Khan, and Abdul Sattar, “Securing Nuclear Peace,” The News,
October 5, 1999.
34. Christopher Clary and Vipin Narang, “Doctrine, Capabilities, and (In)Stability in South
Asia,” in Deterrence Stability and Escalation Control in South Asia, ed. Krepon and Thompson.
35. Michael Krepon and Julia Thompson, “Introduction,” in Deterrence Stability and Escalation
Control in South Asia, ed. Krepon and Thompson, 14.
36. For the Stimson Center’s work on these subjects, see publications Escalation Control and the
Nuclear Option in South Asia, ed. Krepon, Jones, and Haider, 2004; Polly Nayak and Michael
Krepon, US Crisis Management in South Asia’s Twin Peaks Crisis, 2006; Polly Nayak and
Michael Krepon, The Unfinished Crisis: US Crisis Management after the 2008 Mumbai Attacks,
2012; Deterrence Stability and Escalation Control in South Asia, ed. Krepon and Thompson, 2013.
37. See White and Deming, “Independent Trajectories: India’s MIRV Program and Deterrence
Stability in South Asia,” in this volume.
40
38. C. Raja Mohan, “Indo-Pak Ties and the ‘China Model,’” April 4, 2005, http://archives.dailytimes.
com.pk/editorial/04-Apr-2005/delhi-durbar-indo-pak-ties-and-the-china-model-c-raja-mohan.
39. Stephen P. Cohen, ed., Nuclear Proliferation in South Asia: The Prospects for Arms Control
(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991), 15.
40. According to the Pakistani government, the country’s total expenditures for FY 2013-2014
was $31.14 billion. Its defense budget was $6.13 billion, or 19.9 percent of total expenditures.
This appears to reflect a narrow definition of what constitutes defense budget expenditures. See
“Federal Budget 2014-2015: Budget in Brief,” Pakistan’s Ministry of Finance, 2 and 6, http://www.
finance.gov.pk/budget/Budget_in_Brief_2014_15.pdf. For analysis of Soviet defense spending
see Franklyn D. Holzman, “Politics and Guesswork: CIA and DIA Estimates of Soviet Military
Spending,” International Security 14, no. 2 (Fall 1989): 101-113, and Noel E. Firth and James H.
Noren, Soviet Defense Spending: A History of CIA Estimates, 1950-1990 (College Station, TX:
Texas A&M University Press, 1998).
41. See White and Deming, “Dependent Trajectories: India’s MIRV Program and Deterrence
Stability in South Asia,” in this volume.
41
An Evolving Indian Nuclear Doctrine?
42
THE CREDIBILITY OF INDIA’S NUCLEAR DETERRENT

Manoj Joshi
Two aspects of Indian nuclear doctrine are increasingly questioned — New

Delhi’s commitment to no first use (NFU) and massive retaliation — even
though India has been slowly but steadily strengthening its arsenal of nuclear
weapons. Indian missiles are developing a longer reach, and India’s first ballistic
missile submarine will be commissioned soon, albeit initially with missiles of
a limited range. The overwhelming victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
in the 2014 general election, after running on a manifesto that called for revi-
sions and updates to India’s nuclear doctrine “to make it relevant to challenges
of current times,” has heightened interest in whether Indian nuclear doctrine
might indeed change.1
This essay analyzes four dynamics that drive Indian domestic debate — the
need to revise the doctrine, poor political leadership of national security and its
effects on nuclear command and control, civil-military relations, and domestic
perceptions of security. It concludes with an important paradox: although India
remains quite secure, it might respond to concerns about the credibility of its
nuclear deterrent in counterproductive ways.
Antecedents
Following the nuclear tests of May 1998, the government of India released lim-
ited summations of its nuclear doctrine in 1999 and 2003, announcing that it
would be built around “credible minimum deterrence,” and that it would adhere
to the principle of NFU.2 In April 2014, the BJP’s election manifesto floated the
idea of revising this long-standing doctrine. In view of the BJP’s election man-
ifesto in 1998, which presaged nuclear testing, the 2014 manifesto generated
considerable attention in promising to study India’s nuclear doctrine “in detail”
and “revise and update it to make it relevant to challenges of current times.” The
manifesto went on to add that the BJP was committed to maintaining a “credible
minimum deterrent” that was “in tune with changing geostrategic realities,”
clearly leaving the door open for future change.3
Immediately following the release of the manifesto, however, BJP prime min-
isterial candidate Narendra Modi declared in an April 2014 interview that “No
first use was a great initiative of Atal Bihari Vajpayee — there is no compro-
43
The Credibility of India’s Nuclear Deterrent
mise on that. We are very clear. No first use is a reflection of our cultural in-
heritance.”4 Then, on the eve of Prime Minister Modi’s August 2014 visit to
Japan, with whom India wished to negotiate a civil nuclear deal, Modi offered
a carefully nuanced position to a group of Japanese journalists, saying: “While
every government naturally takes into account the latest assessment of strategic
scenarios and makes adjustments as necessary, there is a tradition of national
consensus and continuity on such issues. I can tell you that currently, we are not
taking any initiative for a review of our nuclear doctrine.”5
Yet another nuance can be picked up from a speech made by the new National
Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit K. Doval in October 2014 to the 6th Munich
Security Conference Core Group in New Delhi, where he said “that India
is shifting its posture from credible minimum deterrence to credible deter-
rence.”6 As the NSA, Doval heads the executive council of India’s national
Nuclear Command Authority.
The BJP has long been an advocate of muscular nationalism, and seems set now
to be guiding India’s destiny for the foreseeable future. The party may also be
reflecting concerns within sections of India’s strategic community, which in-
clude members of the armed forces, that India’s nuclear deterrent and doctrine
may no longer be viewed as credible.
Some circles within India do not believe that the country has a rugged and
credible nuclear force that can survive a nuclear first strike and retaliate with
certainty.7 Nor do they believe that if Pakistan uses a singular nuclear detona-
tion for signalling purposes, a massive retaliatory response is likely or, indeed,
in India’s security interest. Much has happened since the last, abbreviated public
summation of the Indian nuclear doctrine was issued in January 2003.
India’s dilemmas regarding the credibility of its deterrent threats arose soon
after the 1998 tests in the wake of the Kargil War. Rawalpindi’s use of the “nu-
clear overhang” to pursue its revisionist foreign policy agenda led military and
political leaders like Army Chief General V. P. Malik and Defence Minister
George Fernandes to articulate the need to be ready to fight a limited war
under this overhang. Delays in mobilization in response to the Parliament
House attack in 2001 exacerbated concerns over credibility, leading some to
advocate a Cold Start doctrine in 2004 to punish Pakistan through rapid,
limited conventional responses.8
Cold Start was never implemented, as was evident by the lack of an Indian mili-
tary response in the wake of the November 2008 Mumbai attacks. Nonetheless,
Pakistani military strategists, working on the assumption that their deterrent
44
needed strengthening, began testing short-range missiles, advertised as being

capable of carrying low-yield nuclear weapons, to target Indian military forma-
tions trying to break through into Pakistan.
Another destabilizing element has been India’s flight-tests of ballistic missile de-
fense (BMD) interceptors. Despite extravagant claims by the Defence Research
and Development Organisation, at present such systems might have a degree
of efficacy only against shorter-range ballistic missiles.9 While there has been
no indication that even limited BMD will be deployed, let alone adequately
tested, the prospect of such deployments has added impetus to the expansion
of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.
A third issue creating turbulence is the complete lack of any kind of discussion
between India and Pakistan over their respective force postures and nuclear doc-
trines. India may offer a universal NFU pledge, but Pakistan’s doctrine is India-
specific and has a first use option aimed at blunting India’s conventional military
capabilities. While the two sides have a number of confidence-building measures
in place to reduce the risk of conventional conflict, they have little or no transfer-
ence to the nuclear weapons standoff. In February 1999, the two sides had agreed
through the Lahore Declaration to “take immediate steps for reducing the risk
of accidental or unauthorised use of nuclear weapons and discuss concepts and
doctrines with a view to elaborating measures for confidence building in the nu-
clear and conventional fields, aimed at prevention of conflict.” However, little has
occurred by way of implementing this understanding since then.10
The bottom line is that although the Indian nuclear arsenal and missile capa-
bilities have grown, New Delhi has found itself self-deterred from undertaking
even limited conventional responses to Pakistan-backed terrorist activity, such
as the attack on India’s Parliament in 2001, the Mumbai commuter train blasts
of 2006, or even the Mumbai assault of 2008, where there was clear evidence of
official Pakistani complicity. India has learned hard lessons about the limited
utility of nuclear weapons. While useful in deterring the use of such weapons by
adversaries, nuclear weapons have not deterred a limited war like that in Kargil
in 1999, or prevented crises such as the 2001-02 “Twin Peaks” crisis, when India
and Pakistan mobilized their armies in the wake of the terrorist attack on the
Indian Parliament, let alone the “subconventional” Pakistani offensive.
The combination of factors listed above has led to the questioning of India’s
nuclear doctrine across a wide spectrum of opinion. Former Indian Foreign
Minister Jaswant Singh, who helped articulate key tenets of India’s nuclear poli-
cy in the early 1990s, argued before the Lok Sabha in 2011 that “the situation that
45
warranted the enunciation of [the current nuclear doctrine] … has long been
overtaken by events.” He added, “You cannot continue to sit in yesterday’s poli-
cy.”11 Rajesh Basrur, who has in the past supported minimal nuclear deterrence,
has raised questions relating to what is “credible,” suggesting another review
of requirements.12 Manpreet Sethi observed that Pakistan doubted not Indian
capability “but its political will in mounting retaliation.”13
Doubts have clearly arisen within government, as well. Writing in Force mag-
azine in June 2014, former Strategic Forces Commander Lt. Gen. (ret.) B. S.
Nagal spoke of the need for “a dispassionate and critical evaluation of the
[nuclear] doctrine.” He then expressed support for some elements, including
the concept of a “credible minimum deterrent.” But in his view, NFU was
problematic and virtually tantamount to inviting “large scale destruction in
own country.” Instead, Nagal called for a doctrine of ambiguity, covering the
range from possible “first use, to launch on warning, launch on launch and
NFU.”14 A former official, P. R. Chari, who is an advocate of normalization of
ties between India and Pakistan, has suggested that perhaps “India’s commit-
ment to a no first use posture has encouraged Pakistan to adopt its present
adventurist strategy.” He has also laid out other limitations such as its failure
to address the issue of non-state actors.15
Another important issue critics have raised is the credibility of the Indian com-
mitment to massive retaliation against what could well be a one-off and limited
strike by a low-yield weapon against Indian forces on Pakistani soil.16 In April
2014, as Indian general elections got underway, Satish Chandra, the former
deputy to the NSA who had worked for the BJP-led government from 1999 to
2004, noted that “an important element behind the call for revisiting our nu-
clear doctrine emanates from a lack of confidence in our deterrent and in our
willingness to resort to the use of nuclear weapons in a massive second strike
in response to an attack on us with tactical weapons.”17
The draft nuclear doctrine unveiled by the BJP-led government in 1999 spoke
of “punitive retaliation” and “unacceptable damage” to an attacker. The official
policy announced in January 2003 said that India’s retaliation to “a first strike
will be massive and designed to inflict unacceptable damage.” It also added a
rider that this would be operational not just against a nuclear attack on India,
but “on Indian forces anywhere.”
The words “massive retaliation” carry heavy freight in strategic literature, hav-
ing been used momentarily by the Eisenhower administration and quickly
modified.18 Most strategic analysts question the credibility of this deterrent
46
threat, if only for the simple reason that any attacker likely to suffer massive
retaliation may well be tempted to strike massively if any use of nuclear weapons
were anticipated.
Other issues of credibility arise. Would India really destroy Lahore with nuclear
detonations if a single army brigade that has entered Pakistani territory were to
be struck by a single, low-yield nuclear weapon? A country that did not retaliate
after the Mumbai terror attack in 2008 is unlikely to destroy a city of 6 million
people. Moreover, a massive retaliatory strike could invite needless and massive
destruction on India itself.19 Manpreet Sethi has also wondered whether India,
“with its culture of military restraint,” would find it “prudent, and more impor-
tantly, morally acceptable” to inflict punitive damage on Pakistan.20
A related, mostly unspoken, issue here is the success, or lack thereof, of India’s
thermonuclear test in 1998. By definition and doctrine, massive retaliation con-
cepts rely on large-yield, city-busting weapons. Question marks about India’s
thermonuclear capability carry over to the credibility of what has been a central
Indian doctrinal thrust.21
Nonetheless, New Delhi’s commitment to massive retaliation received confir-
mation of sorts in April 2013 by the chairman of the National Security Advisory
Board, Shyam Saran. In response to the development and advertisement of
short-range nuclear-capable delivery vehicles by Pakistan, Saran suggested in
a well-publicized speech — which despite his disclaimer almost certainly had
official sanction — that India would not be the first to use nuclear weapons,
but that, regardless of the size of the attack, Indian retaliation “will be massive
and designed to inflict unacceptable damage on the adversary.” He added that
“the label on a nuclear weapon used for attacking India, strategic or tactical, is
irrelevant from the Indian perspective.”22
Dysfunctional Defense Management

The doctrinal incoherence that hobbles many of India’s national security pol-
icies can be traced to significant structural shortcomings in its defense man-
agement. The problem of higher management of national security begins at
the conceptual level. India has no overarching national security doctrine and,
flowing from it, no national security strategy that has a formal and considered
approval of the political authorities.23
After conducting its nuclear tests, India created the National Security Council
system, but the inadequacy of follow-up reforms — most importantly, the ones
that would integrate the three arms of the military with the civilian ministry
47
of defense — have prevented the emergence of a coherent national security

doctrine and strategy that would bind the entire national structure. Indeed,
the armed forces headquarters remain outside the apex of government deci-
sion-making structures.
What passes for a national doctrine and strategy are various declaratory state-
ments and cabinet decisions that are usually limited in scope, as they are related
to specific issues and crises. In addition, the defence minister gives operation-
al directives to the three military service arms, but these are classified. One
directive, which goes back to the mid-1980s, enjoins the army to be able to
maintain a posture of “dissuasive deterrence” vis-à-vis Pakistan and one of “de-
fensive deterrence” with regard to China.24 Translated into operational terms,
this directive requires Indian forces to be able to strike into Pakistani territory,
whereas in the case of China the intention is to hold ground against a Chinese
attack. More recent iterations of this operational directive have become more
detailed, requiring the three services to prepare for a possible two-front war. It
is not known whether particular directives with regard to Pakistan and China
have changed — though the Indian buildup, including its new Mountain Strike
Corps, suggests a shift with regard to China, perhaps a contemplation of the
possibility of a military offensive into Chinese territory.25
In addition, there is no harmonization of the doctrines of the three military
services. As Walter Ladwig has noted, Indian army doctrine has sought to lever-
age “advanced technology to fight short duration limited conflicts in a nuclear
environment,” while the Indian navy has laid out its blue water ambitions and
the Indian air force has said that its air power doctrine will “focus on extending
its strategic reach from the Persian Gulf to the Straits of Malacca.”26 In many
ways, all of these objectives are aspirational, given that all three services are se-
riously behind in their modernization plans, and therefore lack, at present, the
wherewithal to execute war plans on the basis of their doctrines.
The fact that that there is no integrated command of the armed forces, which
leads each branch to define its own priorities and which can move them in
separate directions in the planning of war and its conduct, further muddles the
coherence of Indian nuclear doctrine. This was manifested most clearly in the
Kargil War, when the army fought the war as Operation Vijay, the air force as
Safed Sagar, and the navy as Operation Talwar.
A significant problem that arises here is the lack of political vetting for any of
the service doctrines. The old Sundarji plan — using Soviet-supplied armor
and infantry combat vehicles to conduct a massive strike to cut Pakistan in two
48
— triggered its own crisis when Operation Brasstacks, aimed at validating the
idea, was undertaken in 1986-1987.27 Another slow-mobilization odyssey came
in the wake of the attack on Parliament House in December 2001 triggering the
“Twin Peaks” crisis. This led Indian planners to pursue more agile plans, known
variously as Cold Start or “proactive operations.” However, a severe mismatch
exists between these concepts and the dysfunctional behaviors noted above.
Discussion of ways to mobilize more quickly may, in turn, have prompted the
development of Pakistani short-range nuclear-capable systems that have under-
mined the deterrence stability between the two countries.
Even as the Indian armed forces were shaping up the Cold Start doctrine through
a series of military exercises, government officials engaged in a comprehensive dia-
logue aimed at the normalization of relations between the two countries. These talks
culminated in a cease-fire along the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir in November
2003, and agreement to pursue a comprehensive dialogue in January 2004. Bilateral
dialogue amid confusion regarding nuclear doctrine will not produce clarity. At
one level, the Indian system believes that nuclear weapons are purely a means of
deterring nuclear use or threat of use against India. To state the obvious, they are
not weapons of war in the conventional sense. India self-consciously separates its
conventional and nuclear war plans, but the secrecy with which New Delhi handles
its deterrent capacity is an important factor in promoting Pakistan’s sense of insecu-
rity. Little is known about the size of the Indian arsenal, its disposition, or the nature
of its command and control systems. As Raja Menon has noted, “India’s penchant
for secrecy is ill-suited to conveying the stabilising threat of nuclear deterrence.”28
There has been a perception that the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance
(UPA), which formed the government from 2004 through May 2014, not only
failed to effectively manage national security but also allowed the country’s
conventional war-fighting potential to degrade, doing little to undertake the
reforms and restructuring needed to provide India with effective, battle-win-
ning organizations. In light of these deficiencies, concerns have arisen that the
nuclear component, too, must also be poorly managed, and in need of modern-
ization, expansion, and doctrinal revision.29 In some ways, Saran’s 2013 speech
was aimed at responding to these critics. He not only emphasized that under
the government, “a sustained and systematic drive to operationalise various
components of the nuclear deterrent” had taken place, but that India had a ro-
bust command and control system and operational nuclear doctrine in place.30
Reform and restructuring of the national security machinery in India have been
stymied by poor political leadership and chronically one-sided civil-military
relations in favor of the political leadership and civilian bureaucracy, resulting
49
in failures to properly modernize India’s armed forces. An associated problem,

insofar as public perceptions go, is the persistence of corruption in defense deals
that serves to undermine confidence in the national security establishment.
These issues have been highlighted by alarmist reports of Chinese transgres-
sions across the Line of Actual Control (LoAC), and incidents of violence along
the LoC with Pakistan that divides Kashmir.
The role of the Indian bureaucracy has undermined efforts to reform India’s
dysfunctional national security system. Principally, this has been manifested
in its opposition to any effort to integrate the armed forces headquarters with
the Ministry of Defence by utilizing a system of cross-staffing senior positions
between uniformed and civilian personnel. It is also played out in its more
covert opposition to the appointment of a Chief of Defence Staff who would be
the principal military advisor to the government and would head the Strategic
Forces Command. As Stephen Cohen and Sunil Dasgupta have noted, “The
bureaucracy that functions as the secretariat for the political leaders comprises
generalists with little practical knowledge of military matters, but this group
lobbies powerfully to preserve its position against military encroachment.”31
Once again, it was left to Saran to insist that the military was indeed involved
in the strategic decision-making process, though he obliquely admitted to a
problem when he noted that “one could certainly encourage better civil-military
relations and coordination.”32
A Long-Standing Civil-Military Divide

The civil administration and the intelligence community have deepened the
civil-military divide. The first instance of poor civil-military relations in India
came in eliminating the post of commander-in-chief and making all three mil-
itary service chiefs equals in 1955. While this appeared to be a process of ratio-
nalization, it was clear that the effort was to whittle away at the perceived power
of the armed forces. Underlying this decision may have been concerns over a
military coup, as this was not uncommon in the developing world in the 1950s.
In several instances in the 1950s and 1960s, politicians disclosed their insecurities
in relation to the armed forces. In one incident, rumors began when Gen. K. S.
Thimayya retired as army chief in 1961. The train of events — which began with
Thimayya’s resignation in August 1959, its withdrawal under pressure from Prime
Minister Nehru, and the appointment of Gen. P. N. Thapar as his successor — led
to rumors of a coup, which even had a specific date, January 30, 1961. These events
are detailed by S. S. Khera, who was India’s defense secretary between 1963-67.
50
Khera noted that in January 1961, Nehru and Home Minister G. B. Pant had
sought information on some military movements and then countermanded the
orders authorizing them.33 Apurba Kundu, who has also looked at these events,
notes that “the stories [of the alleged coups] may be dismissed as unfounded.”34
Later, after the debacle of the border war with China, Nehru expressed his con-
cerns about the military in a letter to philosopher Bertrand Russell.35
Another incident — which has not been cited by any writer, but was widely
current within the Indian army at the time — occurred when the Intelligence
Bureau reported to the authorities about the movement of military personnel in
the wake of Nehru’s death in May 1964. In fact, then Army Chief General J. N.
Chaudhuri had ordered the movement because he thought the military would
be needed to help handle the crowds that would gather during the funeral.
A half century after the contretemps of the Thimayya “coup,” New Delhi was rocked
by yet another newspaper story hinting at a coup attempt in January 2012. A report
in the Indian Express claimed that unusual movements of the army had occurred
on the night of January 16.36 The alleged trigger here was the contested tenure of
then Army Chief V. K. Singh, who filed a writ on that date in the Supreme Court
challenging the refusal of the Ministry of Defence to accept his case that his date
of birth had been wrongly recorded. The newspaper report said that the “central
intelligence agencies” had detected “an unexpected (and non-notified) movement by
a key military unit … in the direction of the capital.” Subsequently, another similar
movement was detected involving a parachute unit. An alarm was raised in New
Delhi, and the defense minister ordered a halt to these movements and a return of
the units to their original locations. Subsequently the Ministry of Defence’s “con-
sidered view” was that the tempest in January was “a false alarm.” The Ministry’s
official spokesman denied the report as being “baseless.”37
Remarkably, these sensitivities continue in the highest levels of the Indian polit-
ical system today. Many observers believe that the refusal of the political system
to appoint a Chief of Defence Staff or similar figure stems from their worries
over “the man on the horseback.”38
Reform Attempts
Following the Kargil mini-war in 1999, the Indian government set up a com-
mission to assess perceived intelligence failures and military shortcomings. The
Kargil Review Commission recommended a holistic look at the entire national
security apparatus. In 2001, the government asked the home, external affairs,
defence, and finance ministers to take up the issue. This Group of Ministers
51
(GOM) in turn set up specialist task forces, whose recommendations were ap-
proved by the Cabinet Committee on Security, which consisted of essentially
the same set of ministers as well as the Prime Minister.
The GOM’s 2001 report on reforming the national security system constituted
the most extensive set of reform proposals in the country’s history. The new
procedures and structures created were aimed, among other things, to “an-
ticipate current and emerging security threats,” including nuclear and missile
developments.39 The GOM also attempted to deal with the issue of dysfunc-
tional civil-military relations as well as the exclusion of the military from deci-
sion-making related to the country’s security.
The GOM’s most dramatic recommendation was the integration of the Service
(i.e., armed forces) Headquarters into the Ministry of Defence (MOD). While
the Headquarters has been renamed the Integrated Headquarters of the MOD,
little else has changed. This is because no responsibility has been given to the
armed forces chiefs in the MOD’s allocation of business rules (AOBR), which
gives the Department of Defence the responsibility for the “defence of India and
every part thereof including preparation for defence and all such acts as may be
conducive in times of war to its prosecution.” The accompanying transaction of
business rules (TOBR) makes it clear that the “secretary” of the MOD “shall be
the administrative head thereof and shall be responsible for the proper trans-
action of business.”40
While the allocation rules do mention the army, navy, and air force, the trans-
action rules have nothing to say about the responsibilities of the chiefs of the
three services. When it comes to “the proper transaction of business” of the
MOD, only the civilian defence secretary is deemed as the responsible authority.
Admiral Arun Prakash, who served as chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee
(CoSC), has noted that India’s nuclear weapons program was completely led by
civilian scientists, to the exclusion of military personnel. Upon this are layered
civil-military tensions arising from “India’s unique policy of sequestering the
military from national security decision-making.”41
Despite recommendations of various committees and task forces, the MOD and
the armed forces headquarters remain as separate entities. The armed forces are
seldom involved in strategic planning, and while they may be consulted by the
Cabinet Committee on Security — India’s highest decision-making body — it
may be only to respond to specific questions, rather than in an institutionalized
fashion as with the CoSC.
52
In 2009, reviewing the government’s response to its earlier reports examining

the issue of integration of the armed forces headquarters with the MOD, the
Standing Committee of the MOD noted that “the required level of interface
between the Ministry of Defence and the Armed Forces is still missing.” It
also noted that the cross-staffing of civilians and uniformed personnel to the
additional security level had yet to be implemented, deeming the placement of
nonuniformed officers in the Integrated Defence Staff (IDS) to be insufficient:
The Committee fails to understand how the cross-staffing pattern in
the structure of HQ IDS can address to the recommendation of the
Committee which relate to the appointment of Armed Forces personnel
in the Ministry of Defence. While emphasizing the need for effective
interface between the MoD and the different services, the Committee
would like to reiterate their earlier recommendation and expect the
Ministry to take action on the suggested lines.42
India’s next security shock — the Mumbai attack of November 2008 — led to
the establishment of another commission that would advance the recommenda-
tions of the GOM report. Subsequently in 2011, the Congress-led UPA govern-
ment set up a commission headed by former Cabinet Secretary Naresh Chandra.
The Naresh Chandra Committee (NCC) specifically focused on the need to
change the AOBR and TOBR, observing that the change of nomenclature of
the Service Headquarters to “integrated HQ of MoD” resulted in “no substan-
tial delegation of authority to the Services Chiefs.” In the prevailing situation
the minister continued to run the MOD and the civilian secretary remained
responsible “for the proper transaction of business” of the ministry. The NCC
called for suitable amendments to the AOBR and TOBR to reflect the respon-
sibilities of the new permanent chairman CoSC (one of its principal recom-
mendations) and the service chiefs, “insofar as their command functions, the
defence of India and the conduct of war are concerned.”43
The committee reiterated the recommendation of the Standing Committee
of the MOD on cross-staffing, which would place military personnel in the
chain of command of the defence secretary’s office and civilian officers in the
Integrated Headquarters, observing that the defence secretary “needs to have
a good mix of uniformed personnel and civilians at all verticals. Preferably a
special cadre of defense specialists should be introduced into the civil service
to ensure knowledge buildup among the civilian staff.”44
The reforms described above have still not been carried out, reportedly because
of resistance from the MOD’s civilian bureaucracy.45 The failure to act on de-
53
fense reforms is one of the clearer manifestations of the poor state of civil-mil-
itary relations that plague India’s national security system, suggesting that the
civilian elites have learned nothing from past crises.
The Conventional-Nuclear Interface

The command and control of nuclear weapons and the interface between con-
ventional and nuclear weapons are different in China, Pakistan, and India. In
China, the 2nd Artillery Corps holds both conventional and nuclear-tipped mis-
siles. In Pakistan, nuclear weapons are in the custody of the military. In India,
nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles are reportedly kept de-mated in the
control of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and
the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), while the Strategic Forces Command
(SFC) handles the delivery system — in other words, civilian scientists are em-
bedded into the command and control system.46
India has steadfastly refused to integrate its nuclear weapons into its conven-
tional security strategy. This does not necessarily mean projecting nuclear
weapons as a means of war-fighting, as in the case of Pakistan’s advertisements
of the possible use of detonations from short-range systems to counter an Indian
conventional advance. Instead, there is a requirement for India’s conventional
war-fighting plans to be informed by the fact that India possesses nuclear weap-
ons, and under certain circumstances these plans could trigger a response from
similarly armed adversaries. Indian civilian decision-makers must very clearly
understand the links between the plans of the conventional force command-
ers and the redlines of nuclear-armed adversaries. The best example of this is
the initiation of Cold Start-like military operations and their implications for
Pakistani redlines. Another aspect of this comes from the possibility that Indian
air force (IAF) plans, such as precision conventional air strikes against Pakistani
or Chinese storage facilities, could lead to a crossing of the nuclear threshold or
an accidental nuclear event.
In the wake of the Mumbai attack in November 2008, various military respons-
es were discussed. The IAF was prepared to strike specified targets in Pakistan
using weapons such as the Israeli Popeye missile and the American Paveway
laser-guided bombs. Indeed, the IAF commander who would have led the oper-
ation went on record saying that as many as 5,000 targets had been designated in
the event of an all-out war.47 Some of these targets could well have been nuclear
or missile storage facilities. If the IAF strikes were effective, they could have
prompted Pakistan to choose between using or losing these assets. The IAF,
54
like the other branches of the Indian armed forces, is firewalled from the SFC.
While the SFC comprises elements of all three services, and their facilities are
embedded in those of the armed forces, its command and control flows from the
Nuclear Command Authority (NCA). The NCA consists of a Political Council
(headed by the Prime Minister) and an Executive Council (chaired by the NSA),
and thence to the SFC.
The conventional-nuclear interface also resides in BMD technologies being
developed by the DRDO. As of now, there is no indication that this activity is
anything but a technology demonstration project, but statements by advocates
suggesting that the “missile shield” is ready for deployment have triggered alarm
in Pakistan.48 No doubt the BMD project has been an element, though not the
only one, in the expansion of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal.
The two levels of dysfunction — one between the political leadership and the
defense system, and the other within the defense setup between the civilian
and uniformed personnel — constitute a serious risk for the country’s security,
especially in relation to nuclear weapons. While operational matters are strictly
the domain of uniformed personnel, civilian defense leadership needs to have a
far better appreciation of operational imperatives than it has today. In an ideal
framework, the politician who must make decisions would have expert advice
available from the military as well as from expert civilian officials. However, in
the current situation the politician leaves all operational aspects to the military
and receives little or no expert advice from the civilian bureaucrat. In this case,
the response to a crisis could be an underreaction, as in the past, or could well
be an overreaction in the future. Former Chairman CoSC and Navy Chief Arun
Prakash has pointed out that “the reassurance that we derive from our large
conventional forces and nuclear arsenal may be illusory,” and that corrective
steps will not be possible unless we recognize that “civil military dissonance
constitutes a primary fault line.”49
As Indian nuclear capabilities grow, other fault lines will appear. The political
system shows little or no effort to vet military doctrines and align them to the
country’s higher strategic purposes. This leaves room for misunderstandings
and misperceptions that can have negative consequences for crisis stability.
Associated with this is the problem of the interface between conventional and
nuclear weapons use. Notwithstanding India’s belief that nuclear weapons are
merely for retaliation and have nothing to do with Indian war planning, the
reality is that other countries hold different views on their employment. Further,
the use of conventional weapons can potentially degrade the capabilities of an
adversary, compelling first use of nuclear weapons. India lacks the effective
55
military institution of a Chief of Defence Staff to help effectively control the es-
calation ladder or manage the conventional-nuclear interface. All this is layered
upon the structural and operational weaknesses of the Indian nuclear arsenal
arising from the civil-military dissonance.
New Escalation Pathways to an Unstable Future

Terrorist strikes on India, with footprints leading to Pakistan, constitute the
oldest and newest escalation pathway to an unstable future. The audacious
Mumbai attack of November 2008 was a watershed of sorts, hardening Indian
attitudes toward Pakistan.50 In October 2013, a South Asian stability workshop
organized by the US Naval Postgraduate School simulated the scenarios that
could arise out of a major terrorist attack on Indian soil by suspected Pakistani
terrorists. Participants found that in every scenario that was played out, “the
Indian and Pakistani teams escalated to a full scale war.”51 By the end of the
third move, the Pakistani side was “preparing to release warheads to its SFCs
and readying its missile launchers.” According to a report of the simulation, “the
notion that a limited war can be fought and won in South Asia, and concluded
on one’s terms, is dubious and has dangerous implications.”52
Another mass-casualty attack in India that can be traced back to Pakistan is
more likely to force the government’s hand, especially a government led by
a self-professed nationalist party. So far, the Indian responses have been ar-
my-centric, moving up the escalation ladder from a possible commando raid on
a camp in Pakistan, a cross-LoC operation, or a full-scale attack on Pakistan.
India does have other options, however, which include strikes by aircraft or
cruise missiles. New systems, such as BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles or
the KH-59 series of guided aerial bombs, can deliver aerial strikes on targets in
Pakistan from Indian territory or from the high seas. These have been gamed
and are no longer in the realm of the theoretical. In 2002, India used its Mirage
fighter jets and laser-designated bombs to attack a Pakistani squad attempting
to capture an Indian observation post on the LoC. The location of the post was
such that a ground assault was deemed too costly.53
The use of air power would be a new doctrinal innovation. India did not use air
power in its 1962 war against China. In the 1965 India-Pakistan War, the Indian
army famously went across the border toward Lahore without any air support
or even informing the Indian air force. In 1999, the IAF refused to intervene
against Pakistani intrusions in Kargil until it received cabinet approval.54 If
India were to conduct air strikes against Pakistani targets, retaliation from the
56
Pakistani side would be almost certain; anything less than a retaliatory response
would be seen as a defeat for Pakistan. The two sides could well engage in tit-
for-tat responses with inherent dangers of an escalatory spiral toward the use
of nuclear weapons. However, the simulation exercise described above did note
that if India limited its response to “one-off air strikes against terrorist targets”
in “Azad” Kashmir, “the crisis may have remained limited.”55
In its 2014 election manifesto, the BJP called for a “zero tolerance” line on ter-
rorism. Indeed, as a prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi criticized the
Congress party home minister for merely talking and not doing enough to bring
Dawood Ibrahim, the gangster wanted in India for the Mumbai blasts of 1993
and other acts of terror, to justice.56 An assessment of the situation in November
2014 timed to the anniversary of the Mumbai attack revealed that the danger of
terrorist strikes has, in fact, increased in the recent period.57
The Modi government has since adopted a tough stance against Pakistan, and
this has led to increased tension between the two countries, as well as a great-
er intensity of cross-LoC firing. This could presage a more aggressive stance
against Pakistan, possibly through the medium of covert operations. Since 1991,
India has followed a policy of engaging Pakistan, regardless of Islamabad’s sup-
port for separatists and terrorists. As part of this it has avoided tit-for-tat oper-
ations, even though Pakistan alleges that India is supporting Baloch separatists
and conducting various acts of terrorism on its soil.58 Revisiting the option of
responding in kind to Pakistan’s use of subconventional warfare runs its own
risks of escalation and instability.
The China Factor

Concerns about the credibility of India’s deterrent vis-à-vis China are partic-
ularly acute. Since 1998, when India cited China as a factor for conducting its
nuclear tests, Beijing’s comprehensive national power — relative not just to
India but the world — has grown. India has a very real sense of worry created
by the sharp and perceptible gap between India’s and China’s military capabil-
ities. From the nuclear point of view, for many years the Sino-Indian situation
was seen as stable because China maintained an NFU policy and a minimalist
nuclear posture. But new developments are now in play. China’s military has
exhibited greater assertiveness in the South China Sea and the Indian border.
The PLA has carried out important anti-satellite (ASAT) tests as well as tested
a hypersonic vehicle that can effectively breach missile defenses.59 In mid-2014,
there were reports of Chinese deployments of the DF-41 intercontinental ballis-
57
tic missile and tests of the road-mobile DF 31B, as well as the possible develop-
ment of multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle (MIRV) capability
in Chinese missiles.60
India is not standing still. Its arsenal is growing, and capabilities with longer
reach, such as the Agni V missile and the Arihant nuclear-powered ballistic
missile submarine, are coming on line. But the Chinese surge is much stronger,
with the growth of new capabilities in a wide range of areas.61 While the mod-
ernization of China’s nuclear deterrent applies primarily to the United States, it
has implications for India. As of now, both India and China formally adhere to
NFU and possess, in their own terms, “minimum deterrents.” If Beijing decides
to modify or change its nuclear posture in response to perceived increases in US
capabilities, this could have immediate repercussions for India.
The Indian Paradox

India is more secure than it ever has been in its post-independence history, yet
it suffers from a sharp sense of insecurity. India is, first and foremost, a state
possessing nuclear weapons. It should be immune to nuclear threats by major
powers. Slowly, but steadily, its nuclear capabilities and reach are growing. Its
military modernization programs have been retarded by dysfunction and in-
competence, but these constraints can be fixed. India has absorbed Pakistan’s
subconventional warfare; it has grown stronger while Pakistan is weaker than
ever before, even though it, too, is a nuclear-armed state. In terms of convention-
al capabilities, particularly in the case of air and naval power, India is steadily
pulling ahead of Pakistan.
Even with regard to China, India’s border defenses are improving, whether in
terms of manpower, equipment, or logistics. New all-weather roads will link up
far-flung outposts. Beijing has reason to feel insecure in relation to its standing
in Tibet and Xinjiang — China has not successfully assimilated the Tibetan
people, and in Xinjiang, the Uighur population is restive. The emergence of a
government friendly to India’s interests in Bangladesh has been a huge benefit.
In Nepal, New Delhi has successfully neutralized a Maoist insurgency through
diplomacy and covert action. In Sri Lanka, the January 2015 elections resulted
in a surprising defeat for Mahinda Rajapaksa, which will likely lead to India’s
regaining the leverage in Sri Lankan politics that it lost by adopting a hands-
off attitude in the final battle between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or
Tamil Tigers, and the Sri Lankan army.
58
India’s internal security picture has also improved. It has neutralized the ma-
jor Islamist terrorist group the Indian Mujahideen, through the arrest of key
leaders in 2014. India has bought a cease-fire with most of the armed groups
in the northeast, and has used its classical strategies of saam (suasion), daam
(purchase), dand (punishment), and bhed (sow divisions) to neutralize many
separatist insurgencies and movements. The Maoists remain a problem, but
are confined to a forested and poor part of India, with little or no chance that a
Maoist insurgency will spread to other parts of the country.
Despite the improvement in India’s overall security situation, public opinion
remains concerned about internal security and terrorism. One reason for this is
the generalized anxieties arising out of urbanization and the breakdown of the
old social order. Another is the magnifying role that the media plays in trans-
forming small incidents and events into major crises. Among average Indians,
Pakistan remains a major focus of concern, while China is less so. This is borne
out by polls, as well as by government policy, which seeks engagement and com-
petition with China despite the disputed border with Beijing and China’s role
in propping up Pakistan. Only in the past has New Delhi focused on enhancing
India’s conventional and nuclear capabilities vis-à-vis China. Despite the 1987
Sino-Indian crisis, border infrastructure in relation to China was neglected.
Likewise, most military expenditure was directed toward contingencies involv-
ing Pakistan. During this period, New Delhi pursued a number of diplomatic
moves toward Beijing, including the signing of the 2005 Agreement on Political
Parameters and Agreed Guidelines of Settling the Border Dispute. Only after
the setback in relations during 2008-2010 did India begin to focus on China,
speeding up the construction of border infrastructure, shifting high-perfor-
mance combat jets to bases adjacent to its border with China, and dusting off
plans to create a new mountain strike corps.
Now, domestic national security debates focus on China as well as Pakistan.
Nuclear dangers emerging from Pakistan’s internal difficulties are seen to pose
a more evident threat than China’s strategic modernization programs. There
has been scarcely any discussion of China’s hypersonic missile vehicle, WU-14
or ASAT weapons tests, or the implications of China’s nuclear-force moderniza-
tion. By contrast, there is a veritable torrent of writings on the implications of
Pakistan’s tactical nuclear weapons. A Pew Attitudes poll released in early 2014
revealed that Indians are in a sour mood:
Apart from economic, political and ethical challenges facing Indian so-
ciety, the public is quite worried about homeland security. Nearly nine-
in-ten (88%) say that terrorism is a very big problem. Roughly two-thirds
59
say the domestic-based Maoist Naxalite movement is a very serious

threat to the country, and a similar proportion views Lashkar-e-Taiba,
a Pakistani-based terrorist group, as a dangerous menace.62
Nearly half (47 percent) of the respondents felt that Pakistan was the biggest
threat, with another 20 percent specifically noting Lashkar-e-Taiba and 19 per-
cent saying Maoists. Just 6 percent named China.63
The national mood is affected by perceptions as well as ground realities. The
true sources of Indian insecurity are probably domestic and societal, but they
feed into the always noisy and even hysterical responses to externally driven
situations, such as incursions across the contested border with China or inci-
dents on the LoC. The social dynamics of India, especially its urbanization and
under-policing, promote a personal sense of insecurity and desire for safety. At
some point these jump the rails and influence perceptions of national security,
with obvious implications for nuclear security. Underlying these dynamics are
real dangers of terrorist strikes still hovering over India.
One source of insecurity and crisis instability is the role of the media. No sinis-
ter media barons in India are striving to start a war in the manner of William
Randolph Hearst’s media empire prior to the Spanish-American War. But there
will be no shortage of Indian media outlets in a lucrative and competitive field
calling for military action in the event of another terrorist strike against India.
The Indian media displays little professional competence in such circumstances.
Insufficient resources have been devoted to quality reporting and editing, es-
pecially on foreign issues. The number of media correspondents posted abroad
can be counted literally on the fingers of one hand. The default mode of the
Indian media is to wrap the flag around itself in the event of any external cri-
sis. Television coverage frames issues in a binary “for or against” manner by
focusing on studio discussions in the place of field reporting. Not surprisingly,
when national security issues are discussed, they are framed in a manner that
promotes nationalistic and even jingoist responses.
Conclusion
This essay has analyzed dynamics driving the Indian domestic debate on na-
tional security, including the call to revise the nuclear doctrine, poor political
leadership on national security, its effects on nuclear command and control,
civil-military relations, and domestic perceptions of security. Some combina-
tion of these factors, along with triggering events, can produce change in Indian
security policies during the uncertain period ahead. With the BJP winning the
60
2014 general elections and subsequently consolidating itself through a string of

victories in important state assembly elections, there are no domestic political
impediments to the party’s adopting a more assertive stance on issues that it
considers important.
The matters of poor political leadership of national security and its effects
on command and control of the nuclear arsenal are, to an extent, subjective.
Assessments are made through how national security institutions function un-
der a particular government and how they survive the test of an actual crisis. As
the first government since 1989 to have its own majority in the Lok Sabha, the
Modi government is much stronger than its predecessor, or any government that
has led India since the test of nuclear devices in 1998. Modi himself is viewed as
a strong leader who runs a tight ship. The current Minister of Defence, Manohar
Parrikar, is a successful former chief minister of Goa, who was formally trained
as an engineer. The Modi government has not been tested by a crisis of the scale
of the New Year hijacking of 1999, the Parliament attack of December 2001, or
the Mumbai attack of November 2008.
There has been little or no change in civil-military relations because this would
require structural change in the ways that the military relates to the Ministry
of Defence (MoD) and to civilian decision-making. In addition, it requires lon-
ger-term measures to transform the MOD’s civilian bureaucracy and provide it
with the expertise needed to address India’s security challenges in partnership
with the uniformed military. The new government has signaled its desire for
change, but specifics have not yet been spelled out. In any case, the task is enor-
mous, and its effects would only be visible over a decade.
So far, there are no indications that the Modi government assigns a high priority
to the need to revise India’s nuclear doctrine. However, the Prime Minister’s
statement that India was not “currently” thinking of a review of the nuclear
doctrine does not rule out the possibility of change based on developments with
regard to Pakistan, doctrinal shifts toward China, or subjective pressures arising
from the political dynamics of the country. Of course, this relates only to public
enunciations of the doctrine. Other areas, such as increasing the number of nu-
clear weapons in the Indian arsenal to meet the requirements of a “minimum
credible deterrent,” are outside the public domain.
The future is, by definition, uncertain. Developments in Asia are in flux. Change,
both benign and otherwise, is occurring at a rapid pace. The rise of China is
upending traditional power equations. In South Asia, China has already altered
the strategic balance by its nuclear and missile proliferation relationship with
61
Pakistan. The dynamism of the Chinese economy, and China’s development and
military assistance in countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, have heightened
China’s influence, much to the discomfiture of India.
The development of Chinese roads and rail lines in Tibet has implications for
India’s defense of its disputed border with China. Other factors, too, could
affect the equation. A sharp enhancement of China’s capabilities compared to
the United States would have a destabilizing effect on India’s nuclear posture,
which has so far rested in reasonable comfort with China’s own limited nuclear
capabilities and its NFU status.
Pakistan remains an area of concern. Despite Pakistan’s internal decline, India
worries about its capabilities and the intentions of its multiple actors, especially
the most lethal terrorist group it has confronted, the Lashkar-e-Taiba — whose
leader, Hafiz Saeed, lives openly in Pakistan and organizes huge political ral-
lies. The planner of the 2008 Mumbai operation, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, was
released on bail by a Pakistani court in April 2015.64 Indeed, for New Delhi, the
present Pakistani operation in Waziristan brings little comfort if groups like
Lashkar-e-Taiba operate freely.
Indian nuclear posture could change along with the political paradigm toward
a more muscular nationalism espoused by the BJP. This could, ironically, be
aided by a reform and restructuring of the national security machinery, and an
improvement of the problematic civil-military relationship. On the other hand,
the nuclear posture could be affected by unrelated issues arising from political
instability, social and communal strife that accentuate a sense of insecurity, and
external developments. India must expect an enhanced nuclear challenge from
both its nuclear neighbors.
An uncertain future invites India to take some corrective measures — modify-
ing its doctrine, boosting the quality of the political leadership of the national
security system, addressing civil-military issues, and enhancing the capabilities
of its conventional and nuclear forces.65 In doing so, India could undertake real-
istic conversations with its principal adversaries, Pakistan and China, to lessen
the threat of a nuclear holocaust. All this suggests that India’s ambivalent ap-
proach to nuclear weapons, rooted in its advocacy of nuclear disarmament and
its embrace of minimum deterrence and NFU, may be shifting. India could well
be headed toward becoming another nuclear weapon state, not a special one.
62
Endnotes
1. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), “Election Manifesto 2014,” April 4, 2014, 39, http://bjpelection-
manifesto.com/pdf/manifesto2014.pdf. The calls for change got an early riposte from the out-
going government when the chairman of the National Security Advisory Board, Shyam Saran,
wrote an article questioning the call to revise the nuclear doctrine. (See “The Dangers of Nuclear
Revisionism,” Business Standard, April 22, 2014, http://www.business-standard.com/article/opin-
ion/shyam-saran-the-dangers-of-nuclear-revisionism-114042201335_1.html.)
2. “Draft Report of National Security Advisory Board on Indian Nuclear Doctrine,”
Ministry of External Affairs, August 17, 1999, http://mea.gov.in/in-focus-article.htm?18916/
Draft+Report+of+National+Security+Advisory+Board+on+Indian+Nuclear+Doctrine; Prime
Minister’s Office, “Cabinet Committee on Security Reviews Progress in Operationalizing India’s
Nuclear Doctrine,” press release, January 4, 2003, http://pib.nic.in/archieve/lreleng/lyr2003/
rjan2003/04012003/r040120033.html.
3. See “BJP Election Manifesto 2014.”
4. Douglas Busvine, “Modi Says Committed to No First Use of Nuclear Weapons,” Reuters,
April 17, 2014, http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/04/16/uk-india-election-nuclear-idINKBN0D-
20QB20140416. Prior to the manifesto’s release, the one recorded statement of Narendra Modi
himself, made on the occasion of the Palkhivala lecture in Chennai in October 2013, was explicit
in backing no first use, in the manner that it had been upheld by the Vajpayee government of 1998-
2004: “The world has accepted that the next century will be Asia’s but we must make sure that the
next century is India’s century!” (Narendramodi.in, October 18, 2013, http://www.narendramodi.
in/the-world-has-accepted-that-the-next-century-will-be-asia%E2%80%99s-but-we-must-make-
sure-that-the-next-century-is-india%E2%80%99s-century/.)
5. Indrani Bagchi, “India Not Revisiting Its Nuclear Doctrine, Modi Assures Japan,” Times of
India, August 30, 2014, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-not-revisiting-its-nuclear-
doctrine-Modi-assures-Japan/articleshow/41231521.cms.
6. The speech was not released as Doval was speaking from notes, but comes through a report in a
newspaper by a scholar who attended the event. (Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, “Era of Effective Deterrence,”
the Pioneer, October 31, 2014, http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/oped/era-of-effective-de-
terrence.html.)
7. An example is Raja Menon, “A Mismatch of Nuclear Doctrines,” The Hindu, January 22, 2014,
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/a-mismatch-of-nuclear-doctrines/article5602609.ece.
8. Ali Ahmed, India’s Doctrine Puzzle: Limiting War in South Asia (New Delhi: Routledge, 2014),
52-60.
9. Pravin Sawhney, “False Claims on the BMD Programme Are Detrimental to India’s Security,”
Force, April 2011, http://www.forceindia.net/StrategicBMD.aspx; Manoj Joshi, “Government
Baffled over DRDO Chief’s Claim on Missile Shield,” Mail Today, July 18, 2012.
10. Lahore Declaration, February 1999, http://mea.gov.in/in-focus-article.htm?18997/
Lahore+Declaration+February+1999. While India has not so far had a discussion with China on
the nuclear issue, the fact that both countries are committed to NFU and a minimal arsenal, at
least as of now, makes for a more stable relationship.
11. Jaswant Singh, “Transcript of Lok Sabha Debate, Fifteenth Series, Vol. XVI, Seventh Session,”
March 15, 2011, 114, http://164.100.47.132/debatestext/15/VII/z1503-Final.pdf.
63
12. Rajesh Basrur, “Deterrence, Second Strike and Credibility: Revising India’s Nuclear Strategy
Debate,” issue brief no. 255, Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, July 2014.
13. Manpreet Sethi, “Counter Pak Nuke Tactics,” New Indian Express, July 24, 2014 http://www.
newindianexpress.com/columns/Counter-Pak-Nuke-Tactics/2014/07/24/article2345369.ece.
14. B. S. Nagal, “Checks and Balances,” Force, June 2014, 12-17.
15. P. R. Chari, “India’s Nuclear Doctrine: Stirrings of Change,” Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace, June 4, 2014, http://carnegieendowment.org/2014/06/04/
india-s-nuclear-doctrine-stirrings-of-change/hcks.
16. See R. Rajaraman, “Minimum Deterrent and Large Arsenal,” The Hindu, July 2, 2014.
17. Satish Chandra, “Revisiting India’s Nuclear Doctrine: Is It Necessary?,” issue brief, Institute for
Defence Studies and Analyses, April 30, 2014.
18. See Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2003), 72-86.
19. Shyam Saran noted, “It is true, indeed, that with Lahore being just 50 km away as the crow
flies, the definitions of what is tactical and what is strategic, lose meaning.” See Saran, “The
Dangers of Nuclear Revisionism.”
20. Sethi, “Counter Pak Nuke Tactics.”
21. Sachin Parashar, “Pokhran II Not Fully Successful: Scientist,” Times of India, August
29, 2009, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/india/Pokhran-II-not-fully-successful-
Scientist/articleshow/4938610.cms. See also K. Santhanam and Ashok Parthasarthi, “Pokhran-II
Thermonuclear Test, A Failure,” The Hindu, July 9, 2011, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-
ed/pokhranii-thermonuclear-test-a-failure/article21311.ece. Santhanam was the Defence Research
and Development Organisation official who coordinated the Indian nuclear program from the
mid-1980s to its culmination in the tests of May 1998.
22. Shyam Saran, “Is India’s Nuclear Doctrine Credible?,” speech at the India Habitat Centre, New
Delhi, April 24, 2013, http://krepon.armscontrolwonk.com/files/2013/05/Final-Is-Indias-Nuclear-
Deterrent-Credible-rev1-2-1-3.pdf. Saran’s speech provided certain additional information about
India’s nuclear posture, confirming the existence of an alternative Nuclear Command Authority
and redundant command and control systems. He also revealed the existence of a Strategy
Programme Staff and a Strategic Armament Safety Authority that assisted the Nuclear Command
Authority in its tasks. Further he noted that access to armaments and delivery systems worked
through a two-person rule.
23. The National Security Advisory Board has authored some Strategic Defence Reviews over the
last decade and earlier, but none have been put in the public domain.
24. Based on author’s privileged access to a document in 1989.
25. Rajat Pandit, “Army Reworks War Doctrine for Pakistan, China,” Times of India, December
30, 2009, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Army-reworks-war-doctrine-for-Pakistan-
China/articleshow/5392683.cms.
26. Walter Ladwig, “The Challenge of Changing Indian Military Doctrine,” Seminar no. 599, July
2009.
27. Ali Ahmed, India’s Doctrine Puzzle, 44. The exercise and the crisis it triggered are well-cov-
ered in a 1999 interview given by the former General Officer Commanding-in-Chief Western
Command Lt Gen P.N. Hoon, http://www.rediff.com/news/1999/aug/05hoon.htm.
64
28. Menon, “A Mismatch of Nuclear Doctrines.”

29. Verghese Koithara has argued that the Indian arsenal was aimed at “political and technologi-
cal prestige” and that the government had not adequately “operationalized” the nuclear deterrent,
in Managing India’s Nuclear Forces (London: Routledge, 2012), 2, 176.
30. Shyam Saran, “Is India’s Nuclear Doctrine Credible?”
31. Stephen P. Cohen and Sunil Dasgupta, Arming Without Aiming: India’s Military
Modernisation (New Delhi: Penguin/Viking, 2010), 5.
32. Shyam Saran, “Is India’s Nuclear Doctrine Credible?”
33. See S. S. Khera, India’s Defence Problem (Bombay: Orient Longmans, 1968), 73-74. Chapter 3
of Khera’s book is titled “Coups,” though his conclusion was that the chances of an outright coup
were low if not impossible in India.
34. Apurba Kundu, Militarism in India: The Army and Civil Society in Consensus (New Delhi:
Viva Books, 1998), 110-112.
35. Neville Maxwell, India’s China War (Dehra Dun: Natraj, 2013), 502.
36. See Shekhar Gupta, “The January Night Raisina Hill Was Spooked: Two Key Army Units
Moved towards Delhi Without Notifying Govt,” The Indian Express, September 20, 2013, http://
archive.indianexpress.com/news/the-january-night-raisina-hill-was-spooked-two-key-army-
units-moved-towards-delhi-without-notifying-govt/932328/; and General V. K. Singh with Kunal
Verma, Courage and Conviction: An Autobiography (New Delhi: Aleph, 2013), 336.
37. Shekhar Gupta, “The January Night Raisina Hill Was Spooked: Two Key Army Units Moved
towards Delhi Without Notifying Govt.”
38. The author was told by a former National Security Advisor that the principal opposition to
the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) in the UPA government came from Sonia Gandhi, who raised
worries about the possibility of a coup were a CDS-like figure appointed.
39. Government of India, “Group of Ministers’ Report on ‘Reforming the National Security System,’”
press release, http://pib.nic.in/archieve/lreleng/lyr2001/rmay2001/23052001/r2305200110.html.
40. Ibid.
41. Arun Prakash, “India’s Nuclear Deterrent: The More Things Change…,” policy report, S.
Rajaratnam School of International Studies, March 2014, 3.
42. Standing Committee on Defence 2009-2010, 15th Lok Sabha, Ministry of Defence, action
taken on recommendations in the 36th report (14th Lok Sabha), “Status and Implementation of
Unified Command for Armed Forces,” Second Report, presented on December 16, 2009, 3-4.
43. Manoj Joshi, “Policy Report: The Unending Quest to Reform India’s National Security
System,” S. Rajaratham School of International Studies, March 2014, 3, http://www.rsis.edu.sg/
wp-content/uploads/2014/09/PR140301_The_Unending_Quest_to_Reform_India_National_
Security_System.pdf.
44. Ibid.
45. Manoj Joshi, “Shutting His Ears to Change,” Mail Today, November 21, 2013, http://indiatoday.
intoday.in/story/national-security-naresh-chandra-gom-manmohan-singh-cabinet-commit-
tee-on-security-ministry-of-defence-chandra-committee-iaf-army/1/325970.html.
46. How India will deal with technology-driven imperatives when a nuclear-propelled submarine
and canisterized missiles join its arsenal is a question that remains to be determined.
65
47. Sujan Dutta and Guwahati Bureau, “ Unguided Missiles in War of Words,” The Telegraph,
December 25, 2008, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081225/jsp/frontpage/story_10299108.jsp
48. Jawed Naqvi, “Indian Defence Shield Ready,” Dawn, May 6, 2012, http://www.dawn.com/
news/716240/indian-missile-defence-shield-ready.
49. Arun Prakash, “Civil-Military Dissonance: The Bane of India’s National Security,” Maritime
Affairs: The Journal of the National Maritime Foundation of India, 2014, 9-10.
50. Press Trust of India, “‘Strong Response’ Needed to Counter Terror Attacks: Manohar
Parrikar,” December 12, 2014, http://ibnlive.in.com/news/strong-response-needed-to-counter-ter-
ror-attacks-manohar-parrikar/517818-3.html.
51. Feroz H. Khan and Ryan W. French, “South Asian Stability Workshop: A Crisis Simulation
Exercise,” report no. 2013-008, Project on Advanced Systems and Concepts for Countering
Weapons of Mass Destruction, NPS, October 2013, 11, http://www.nps.edu/Academics/Centers/
CCC/PASCC/Publications/2013/2013%20008%20South%20Asian%20Stability%20Workshop.pdf.
52. Ibid.
53. This is based on information from a privileged source, though the incident is well-known in
armed forces circles.
54. Benjamin S. Lambeth, Airpower at 18,000’: The Indian Air Force in the Kargil War,
(Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2012), 13, http://carnegieendow-
ment.org/files/kargil.pdf.
55. Khan and French, “South Asian Stability Workshop,” 12.
56. Rahi Gaikwad, “Modi: Why Is India Not Able to Get Dawood?” The Hindu, April 27, 2014,
http://www.thehindu.com/elections/loksabha2014/modi-why-is-india-not-able-to-get-dawood/
article5951842.ece. Interestingly, the issue of the Dawood gang (also known as D Company)
figures for the first time in the India-US joint statement following Prime Minister Modi’s visit to
Washington, DC, in September 2014.
57. Jason Burke, “Terror Threat to India Rising Again Six Years After the Mumbai Attack,”
The Guardian, November 26, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/nov/26/
india-terror-threat-mumbai-attacks.
58. See Praveen Swami, “India’s New Language of Killing,” The Hindu, May 1, 2014, http://www.
thehindu.com/opinion/lead/indias-new-language-of-killing/article5963505.ece?homepage=true.
59. Lora Saalman, “China’s Evolution on Ballistic Missile Defence,” Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, August 23, 2012, http://carnegieendowment.org/2012/08/23/china-s-evolu-
tion-on-ballistic-missile-defense/dkpj. In a recent paper Saalman has said that China is doing
substantial work on “countering and developing, hypersonic, precision guidance, and boost-glide
technologies.” (See Saalman, “Prompt Global Strike, China and the Spear,” Asia-Pacific Center
for Security Studies, April 2014, http://www.apcss.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/APCSS_
Saalman_PGS_China_Apr2014.pdf.)
60. “China Reveals 12,000-km Long Range Intercontinental Ballistic Missile,” IBN Live,
August 2, 2014, http://ibnlive.in.com/news/china-reveals-12000km-long-range-inter-
continental-ballistic-missile/489905-2.html; and “US State Department: China Tested
Anti-satellite Weapon,” Space News, July 28, 2014, http://www.spacenews.com/article/
military-space/41413us-state-department-china-tested-anti-satellite-weapon.
61. See US Department of Defense, Annual Report to the Congress: Military and Security
Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China (Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of
66
Defense, 2014), 6-7. See also Baohui Zhang, “The Modernisation of Chinese Nuclear Forces and Its
Impact on Sino-US Relations,” Asian Affairs: An American Review 34 no. 2: 87-100.
62. “Indians Reflect on Their Country & the World,” Pew Research Center, March 31, 2014, 11,
http://www.pewglobal.org/files/2014/03/Pew_Research_Center_Global_Attitudes_Project_India_
Full_Release_FINAL_March_31_2014.pdf.
63. Ibid. 6.
64. Salman Masood and Declan Walsh, “Pakistani Militant Leader Tied to 2008 Mumbai Attacks
Is Freed on Bail,” New York Times, April 10, 2015.
65. Rajaraman has suggested that the nuclear situation could become somewhat more stable
were India to drop the formulation “Indian forces anywhere” from its massive retaliation pledge
(Rajaraman, “Minimum Deterrence and Large Arsenal,”); Ali Ahmed has suggested the excision
of the word “massive” from the doctrine and an assumption of a posture of flexible retaliation
(Ahmed, India’s Doctrine Puzzle, 205-6).
67
68
AN EVOLVING INDIAN NUCLEAR DOCTRINE?

Shashank Joshi
Nuclear deterrence in South Asia is typically analyzed with reference to nuclear

posture or force structure, as indicated by tangible capabilities such as warhead
numbers, missile ranges, and delivery systems. Intangible factors can be just
as important to a state’s nuclear orientation. Nuclear doctrine refers to the way
a state privately and publicly articulates its thinking about the threatened or
actual use of nuclear weapons. There is an interactive relationship between pos-
ture and doctrine; changes in one will invariably influence the other. In recent
years, Indian doctrine has appeared to change at a far slower pace than posture.
However, two of India’s doctrinal precepts — no first use (NFU) and massive
retaliation — have become subject to greater contestation, with calls for their
dilution or modification in a more assertive direction.
One significant example of ongoing trends is the manifesto commitment of the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), victorious in India’s 2014 national elections, to
“revise and update” India’s nuclear doctrine “to make it relevant to challenges
of current times.”1 Although Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi swiftly and
explicitly ruled out changes to India’s NFU policy, the manifesto commitment
did reflect a broader process whereby constituent parts of India’s nuclear doc-
trine are increasingly scrutinized, debated, and criticized in Indian publications
and institutions.
This debate is open-ended and riven with civil-military, inter-service, and in-
ter-departmental rivalries.2 It is not a rupture with the past, but rather the con-
tinuation of a process that has been ongoing since at least 1998. This debate
provides clues about possible future changes and insights into how some Indian
elites view nuclear challenges. To be sure, the most vocal participants are rarely
the most influential. It is too early to conclude that NFU or massive retaliation
will be diluted. If changes are forthcoming, they will be more likely with regard
to massive retaliation than to a dilution of the NFU pledge.
Doctrinal Debates
India subscribes to “credible minimum deterrence” (CMD), but definitions of
what constitutes minimalism vary. For some, minimum deterrence rests on the
view that achieving and maintaining deterrence is a relatively simple task, such
69
that “technical details don’t matter very much at all.”3 In this view, minimum
deterrence corresponds to a force posture of “small, highly survivable, and
non-hair-trigger nuclear weapons arsenals.”4 In 2000, the former Indian civil
servant and nuclear strategist P. R. Chari observed that “the concept of credible
minimum deterrence has been imbued with almost mystical qualities in India.”5
With this mysticism comes ambiguity, opacity, and elasticity.
All three qualities were embodied in India’s first draft nuclear doctrine, a semi-
official document released shortly after the nuclear tests of 1998, partly in re-
sponse to pressure from the United States.6 Although it was later disowned, with
India’s foreign minister telling a US interlocutor that “it was just a set of recom-
mendations” with “no imprimatur from the government,” its ideas nevertheless
formed the basis of later doctrinal statements.7 The draft doctrine echoed some
traditional Indian nuclear precepts, such as global nuclear disarmament, but
revised and stretched others, such as an emphasis on the importance of usability
and resolve in making minimum nuclear deterrence credible. In keeping with
ambiguity and opacity, the draft eschewed what it called “details of policy and
strategy” and said these would be “laid down separately.” Most importantly, the
draft acknowledged that CMD was “a dynamic concept related to the strategic
environment, technological imperatives and the needs of national security.”8
Strobe Talbott, then US deputy secretary of state, noted that this was “the worst
possible answer to the question of how India intended to define” CMD, and “if
implemented, it could give India an arsenal not just equal to but bigger than
either Britain’s or France’s.”9 That built-in elasticity was exploited in the next
iteration of the nuclear doctrine, a terse official statement issued in 2003.10
Scott Sagan has argued that these revisions, when read alongside ministers’
statements and broader Indian debates, amounted to “significant shifts” toward
“more complex and flexible nuclear-use doctrines,” including preemption and
prevention, increasingly at odds with minimalism.11 In contrast, Vipin Narang
has argued that “the striking feature of India’s nuclear posture has been the
consistency with which it has adopted an assured retaliation orientation,” which
corresponds to important parts of minimalism, despite the tweaks.12 These are
not mutually exclusive assessments, but they reflect the interpretive challenge
in grasping such a fluid, moveable target.
The purpose of this essay is not to trace the details of India’s doctrinal devel-
opment in the 15 years since its first public formulation, a task performed well
elsewhere. Rather, it is to ask how the elasticity of CMD manifests itself today
and affects the drivers of possible change. What are the specific arguments
employed by proponents of change, and what are the counterarguments they
70
face? What are the most salient dimensions of change? Whereas most early
assessments of India’s nuclear trajectory focused on the prospect of arms rac-
ing and rapid growth in warhead numbers, this essay will focus on doctrine
rather than capabilities.13
Mapping Arguments
The following mapping of doctrinal arguments comes with a caveat: arguments
are described here not necessarily because they are uniquely persuasive, in-
fluential, or likely to be decisive, but because their occurrence and intensity
matters. The content of these arguments may come to acquire importance if
the environment for doctrinal change becomes more permissive, as is explored
later. In many cases, the identity of the advocates is also relevant: arguments
advanced by senior political or military figures who have had extensive dealings
with India’s nuclear weapons program are of special significance. Though their
arguments for doctrinal change may be flawed or fanciful — in some cases,
they are clearly so — the fact that individuals of such institutional stature and
experience would publicly make such critical arguments is noteworthy in itself.
Even where these arguments may presuppose politically or technologically un-
realistic actions — such as India’s acquiring the means of successful nuclear
preemption, or political leaders authorizing such preemption — they can still
affect the Indian debate by weakening the case for the status quo and creating
space for change. For these reasons, it would be unwise to dismiss the relevance
of these writers on the basis of the merits (or otherwise) of their arguments.
No First Use
Two pillars of India’s 2003 nuclear doctrine were NFU and massive retaliation
(which had evolved from merely “punitive retaliation” in the 1999 draft), but
both were shaky from the start. Nevertheless, despite the pressures described
below, NFU is unlikely to change in the near term. In April 2014, outgoing Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh, at a seminar convened by a government-funded
think tank, the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), proposed “the
establishment of global no first use norm.”14 Less than a week later, the drafters
of the manifesto of the then opposition BJP promised to “revise and update”
Indian nuclear doctrine in light of “challenges of current times.” Reportedly,
they specifically sought to reconsider NFU because of the growing threat of
Pakistan’s nuclear-capable, short-range delivery vehicles, although they gave no
explanation of how modifying NFU might mitigate the threat. But in response
to press reports of this reasoning, then BJP candidate and now Prime Minister
71
Narendra Modi clarified in response that “No First Use was a great initiative of
[former BJP Prime Minister] Atal Bihari Vajpayee — there is no compromise
on that. We are very clear. [NFU] is a reflection of our cultural inheritance.”15
The political feasibility of the arguments outlined below must be considered in
light of such outright and explicit opposition from the preceding and incumbent
heads of government. This does not mean, however, that arguments against
NFU can be ignored; rather, they might translate into pressure on other parts
of Indian doctrine or on nuclear posture, whether in the life of the current gov-
ernment or a subsequent one.
NFU has been an important component of Indian nuclear thinking long before
India’s overt nuclearization, but has always been subject to various pressures.16
This section first groups these pressures into four categories, then briefly sum-
marizes past modifications in NFU, and finally summarizes more recent argu-
ments in favor of further revision.
In the Indian debate, one can observe at least four rationales for modify-
ing — usually diluting or weakening — NFU. The first rationale is mimicry:
isomorphic pressures on India to conform to other nuclear-armed states’
doctrines or to reject a “weaker” stance than other major powers, particularly
the United States and China.17 The second rationale is the desire to respond to
nuclear advances by adversaries through an act of nuclear assertion, whether
or not that act is in the same “currency” as the adversary’s initial action or
directly combats it. The third rationale is to deter non-nuclear aggression by
adversaries, such as the use of chemical or biological weapons. The fourth
rationale is to threaten or legitimate nuclear preemption, thereby introducing
greater uncertainty into adversaries’ calculations with the intention of more
effectively deterring them.
These four rationales are neither mutually exclusive nor, usually, articulated
explicitly. The first and third — mimicry, and deterrence of non-nuclear aggres-
sion — were operative in the immediate aftermath of the 1998 tests. That year,
just months after the tests, the Indian Prime Minister stated to the Lok Sabha,
India’s lower house of Parliament, that “there remains no basis for [nuclear] use
against countries which do not have nuclear weapons.”18
That statement was then caveated almost immediately in the following year’s
draft doctrine, in which non-nuclear states “aligned with nuclear weapon pow-
ers” were exempted from coverage.19 This undercut claims that the pledge was
“unconditional.”20 In 2003, India further modified the pledge by arrogating
to itself the right to use nuclear weapons in response to a “major attack” with
72
chemical or biological weapons (CBW), possibly mimicking the “calculated

ambiguity” of US nuclear posture.21
Rajesh Rajagopalan, drawing on interviews with Indian policymakers, argues
that these changes were designed not just to address the perceived risk of CBW
use against Indian soil or Indian interests, but also to respond to domestic polit-
ical pressure on the Indian government in the aftermath of the 2001-2002 India-
Pakistan standoff, which itself followed a terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament
building.22 Domestic political pressure in the aftermath of this attack was coinci-
dent with pressure from within the national security elite for even more drastic
change in NFU, reinforcing Rajagopalan’s interpretation. Previously, in December
2002, India’s National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) — the same para-govern-
mental institution that had produced the 1998 draft nuclear doctrine — recom-
mended to the Indian government that it abjure NFU entirely, on the basis that
“all five nuclear weapon states […] reserve the right to launch nuclear weapons
first. Then why should India not do so?”23 Their particular argument was less about
nuclear strategy and more about putting India on equal footing with permanent
members of the UN Security Council — India’s peers.
The NSAB’s recommendation was not taken up. But echoes of its isomorphic
logic — “if they do it, India should do it” — can be observed in more recent
arguments. One example is furnished by a senior fellow from the Vivekananda
International Foundation (a right-leaning Indian think tank whose director, Ajit
Doval, was appointed National Security Advisor for the Modi government), who
urged India to “review her own strategic nuclear doctrine [by] revising the no-
first use pledge” as a direct response to China’s own alleged dilution of NFU.24
This argument, whose premise continues to be repeated by a variety of Indian ana-
lysts, is based on a probable misreading of China’s biannual white paper on defense
— a misreading that was not confined to India.25 The key point here is that India’s
own assessment of the value of NFU is shaped by perceptions, however skewed, of
how other major powers view the NFU pledge.26 Whether this is a visceral reaction
to a sense of unequal status, or a reaction based on a technical deterrent calculus, is
unclear. Nonetheless, the sensitivity of Indian doctrine to external stimuli should
not surprise us: it is precisely what was signaled in the 1999 NSAB draft with its
promised responsiveness to “the strategic environment.”
What constitutes “the strategic environment” to which India’s nuclear forces
must be responsive? Nearly everything, it would seem. A wide range of nuclear
advances by Indian adversaries — whether related to those adversaries’ NFU
policies or not — have been invoked as catalysts for Indian doctrinal change.
73
This phenomenon pertains to the second rationale explained above. To better il-
lustrate this phenomenon, consider the remarks of Jaswant Singh in 2011. Singh,
India’s former external affairs, defence, and finance minister, and a crucial fig-
ure in the US-India arms control discussions that followed the 1998 tests, was
addressing the lower house of India’s Parliament on what he called “the most
important question that concerns us all globally”:
I am of the view that the policy framework that the NDA [i.e., the BJP-led
coalition government in which Singh served] devised in 1998 is very great-
ly in need of revision because the situation that warranted the enunciation
of the policy of “no-first-use” or “non-use against non-nuclear weapons
[states],” “credible deterrence with minimum force”, etc. has long been
overtaken by events. You cannot continue to sit in yesterday’s policy. We
need to re-address it. Therefore, I ask you to please hold broader consul-
tations, with whosoever you want but do revise this policy.27
This reassessment and blunt recommendation is significant, coming as it does
from a former senior minister who as foreign minister was the most prominent
public champion of India’s NFU commitment and who, in a September 1999
speech to the UN General Assembly, exhorted the established nuclear powers
to pledge likewise.28 Tellingly, Singh did not explain in his 2011 speech why,
exactly, reserving the right to use nuclear weapons first would increase Indian
security or address the problems he had earlier identified, such as a growing
perceived disparity between Indian and Pakistani warhead numbers. He ex-
plicitly declined a request to elaborate on his logic.29 This suggests (though we
can hardly be certain) that Singh’s interest in modifying NFU arose more from
a generalized desire for nuclear assertiveness as a response to perceived adverse
shifts in India’s security and nuclear environment, rather than some specific
deterrent benefits of potential first use.
As with the 2003 doctrinal revision, part of what drives these anti-NFU ar-
guments is therefore likely symbolic and political as much as operational: an
assertion of, say, greater Pakistani nuclear capabilities on one nuclear dimen-
sion, such as warhead numbers, is seen to require an assertive, serious, or pur-
poseful Indian response, whether or not that fundamentally alters the deterrent
relationship. There are, of course, a number of ways to demonstrate nuclear
assertiveness, seriousness, or purposefulness other than by changes in doctrine,
upon which Indian governments have hitherto relied, but many arguments for
revising India’s NFU pledge are rooted in perception — both of adverse nuclear
trends and of the value of greater assertiveness.
74
Some opponents of NFU have gone further, and set out operational and strategic
rationales for dropping NFU. For example, D. Suba Chandran, director of the
Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS), a prominent Indian think tank,
advocated jettisoning NFU in a June 2010 essay, on the threefold basis that the
pledge (1) prioritized survivability, and therefore necessitated a larger arsenal
than was consistent with minimalism, and so increased the risk of arms-racing;
(2) was disbelieved by Pakistan; and (3) being disbelieved, encouraged Pakistan
to conduct subconventional and proxy warfare under India’s nuclear threshold.30
The second of Chandran’s arguments, that NFU pledges are noncredible, is a
long-standing one, familiar to observers of the Cold War. As the late British
civil servant and nuclear strategist Michael Quinlan argued, “The idea of NFU
promises [rests] ultimately on sand, as an attempt to pre-empt and alter by
peacetime declaration the harsh realities of what would be immensely stressful
and demanding situations, with huge interests at stake.”31
P.R. Chari drew on this logic in admitting, a year after the draft nuclear doctrine
was released, that NFU
is unlikely to impress Pakistan, is basically redundant vis-à-vis China,
and is irrelevant against India’s non-nuclear neighbors … it is possible
to conclude that mention of [NFU] in the nuclear doctrine only makes
a political statement; it will not be taken seriously by anyone abroad
or in India.32
Indeed, retired Pakistani officials Agha Shahi, Zulfiqar Ali Khan, and Abdul
Sattar have labeled India’s NFU “a cost-free exercise in sanctimonious pro-
paganda.”33 Chandran and other Indian skeptics therefore argue that NFU
contributes little to mutual restraint and diminishes Pakistani assessments
of Indian resolve.
A different conclusion might, however, be reached. In response to those who
share Chari’s view that Pakistan disbelieves NFU, it might be argued that India’s
declaratory commitment yields diplomatic benefits without sacrificing deter-
rent effect.34 Why change NFU if doing so, as many Indian writers have argued,
brings diplomatic opprobrium and changes nothing in the eyes of the state
being deterred?35 Others argue that some in Pakistan do have confidence in
India’s NFU pledge, and therefore conduct their planning free from the threat
of preemption (for more on this, see below) and free from the prospect that
non-nuclear provocations might be met with nuclear responses. Chari has ar-
gued in this vein: “This policy articulation frees Pakistan of the uncertainty and
angst that India might contemplate the preemptive use of nuclear weapons to
75
deal with terrorist attacks or limited conventional strikes by Pakistan,” and “the
adoption of a deliberately vague policy in regard to nuclear retaliation by India,
instead of the certitude of a no-first-use declaration, might have better served
India’s overall strategic ends.”36
These arguments represent serious challenges to CMD as well as NFU. At the
heart of minimum deterrence is the idea that, as Jeffrey Lewis puts it, “an enemy
who can be deterred, will be deterred by the prospect of a counterattack, even
if it consists of only a few nuclear weapons.”37 Under such a definition, India
should, in theory, have little reason to be concerned by Pakistani first use since
Indian analysts surely believe that India would retain retaliatory capabilities
under Lewis’ criterion even after absorbing preemptive strikes. Yet few Indian
analysts express such confidence.38
One of the most interesting and instructive recent statements of an anti-NFU
position was a 2012 publication by the IPCS of “an alternative blueprint” of India’s
nuclear doctrine. The proposed doctrine emerged from a task force of experts
from across India’s governmental and nongovernmental strategic community,
chaired by P.R. Chari.39 The most important part of the alternative blueprint was
clause 4.3, which read: “in adherence to a policy of no first use, India will not ini-
tiate a nuclear strike.”40 The use of the term “strike” was unhelpfully ambiguous,
because the term has a specific meaning in orthodox deterrence theory, usually re-
ferring to a subset of nuclear first use, viz., preemptive counterforce.41 It is unlikely
that the IPCS’ proposed doctrine (or, for that matter, India’s 2003 clarification of
doctrine, which also used the term) intended to make this distinction, e.g., ruling
out a preemptive first strike but not first use. More importantly, an annex to the
blueprint issues a peculiar clarification of the terminology, in which
‘initiation’ covers the process leading up to the actual use of a nuclear
weapon by an adversary. This would include mating component sys-
tems and deploying warheads with the intent of using them if required.
This [definition] will enable the Prime Minister to gain the flexibility
to decide upon an appropriate response. This formulation also avoids
the constraints placed on the NFU policy in regard to using the nuclear
deterrent against WMDs adopted in the 2003 CCS [Cabinet Committee
on Security] decision [i.e., the 2003 statement of doctrine].42
This is a tenuous, confusing, but nonetheless far-reaching reinterpretation of nu-
clear initiation — to the point of absurdity. It suggests that if, in a crisis, Pakistan
were to be perceived as mating warheads to missiles, or even co-locating previ-
ously dispersed nuclear pits and warheads, in order to increase readiness and
76
therefore survivability, this might reasonably be interpreted, by India, as Pakistan

having formally “initiated” a nuclear strike. This, in turn, would permit India to
launch nuclear weapons first while claiming that it had adhered to NFU.
It is difficult to see the purpose behind this particular interpretation of NFU
other than permitting — and therefore, importantly, threatening — preemptive
(rather than retaliatory) nuclear strikes. There appear to be three distinct ratio-
nales at work here: first, to deter Pakistani limited nuclear use; second, to limit
damage to India resulting from any nuclear strike; and third, to avoid Indian
vulnerability to a first strike that would put at risk India’s second-strike capa-
bility. The political and military feasibility of doctrines associated with these
rationales is questionable, as explored later.
The first rationale is to deter what would presumably be Pakistani limited nucle-
ar use against India.43 Take, for example, one of the lowest rungs of the escala-
tion ladder, which might be the singular use of a short-range missile fitted with
a low-yield warhead against Indian military formations on Pakistani soil. If
New Delhi were to seek to deter very limited nuclear use by Pakistan by moving
away from its NFU pledge through limited preemption, then Pakistani author-
ities might feel compelled to escalate from the outset and use nuclear weapons
on a larger scale — one that is not subject to Indian preemption.44 However,
since such larger-scale Pakistani first use would be a starker transgression of
the nuclear taboo and an obviously more escalatory act, the threat of Indian
massive retaliation might become more credible once more — and thus defeat
the original purpose of Pakistani limited first use. In this reading, the threat of
preemption serves much the same purpose as ballistic missile defense: to under-
cut the workability of limited nuclear use, in turn forcing Pakistani escalation,
restoring Indian proportionality and therefore credibility, and, ultimately, de-
terring Pakistani authorities from escalating in the first place.
Satish Chandra, former secretary to the National Security Council Secretariat
and deputy national security advisor, has noted that opposition to the NFU
pledge was mooted within the NSAB over a decade ago, but that “what is new
about the increased opposition to the NFU posture is that it arises in part from
increasing evidence of Pakistan’s proclivity to use tactical nuclear weapons
against us.”45 Although Chandra does not himself favor modifying NFU, his
comments demonstrate that traction for revision is growing.
The second rationale on behalf of revising India’s NFU pledge concerns New
Delhi’s desire to limit the aggregate damage in the expectation of prompt esca-
lation or a full strategic exchange by degrading Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal earlier
77
on. This rationale was explored and dismissed by Ashley Tellis in 2001 on the
basis of conversations with K. Subrahmanyam.46 Pakistan’s growing arsenal and
heightened ability to inflict destruction on Indian cities might renew interest
amongst anti-NFU advocates. This rationale does not figure prominently in
recent Indian writings,47 and for good reason: the growth of Pakistan’s arsenal
would make it even harder to achieve damage limitation through preemption,
and any attempt to prepare to do so could be counterproductive, fueling even
more growth in Pakistan’s arsenal. It should also be noted that the targeting
requirements for preemptive use are considerably greater than those for “pro-
portional” use. The second rationale for revisiting India’s NFU pledge therefore
places, in all probability, unrealistic demands on Indian nuclear posture.48
The third rationale emerges from Indian concerns over the strategic nuclear
balance with China — and perhaps, to a lesser extent, with Pakistan — and
resultant uncertainty over India’s ability to absorb a first strike. This is closely
associated with twin perceptions of growing Chinese capabilities vis-à-vis India
and mistrust in China’s NFU pledge.49 Manoj Joshi, a defense journalist and
former NSAB member, notes that “some Indians” are worried that NFU “can
leave them vulnerable to a surprise first strike,” and raises the prospect of future
conventional technology that might increase India’s nuclear vulnerability in
this regard.50 Brig. (ret.) Arun Sahgal, a former army officer with experience in
nuclear policy, argues that the “Chinese penchant against surprise might push
them to launch a first strike.”51 These concerns are amplified by China’s refusal
to “acknowledge” India’s nuclear capabilities and explicitly accept a construct
of mutual strategic vulnerability52 — echoing the US debate over whether to
“accept” mutual vulnerability with China.53
Bringing together the second and third rationales is no less a figure than Lt.
Gen. (ret.) B. S. Nagal, commander of India’s Strategic Forces Command (SFC)
between 2008 and 2011, and head of the nuclear-focused Strategic Programme
Staff under the National Security Advisor (NSA) thereafter. In a June 2014 arti-
cle in India’s Force magazine, Nagal notes that the “NFU policy cannot conduct
a first strike on the adversary’s counterforce targets, thus allowing the adversary
full capability to attrite own capability.” He argues in favor of replacing NFU
with a policy of “ambiguity” that “does not allow destruction of the nation and
strategic forces at the outset; hence the arsenal is intact for use. It provides a
better range of options to launch decapitating and/or disarming strikes to deal
with the adversary leadership/ arsenal.”54 In a more abstruse essay for the same
journal, in October 2014, Nagal argues that India’s doctrine already permits
“flexibility and rationality” as well as “elements of ambiguity”; he makes no
78
mention of more radical options, like decapitation.55 One might speculate that
Nagal felt it prudent — or was told — to temper his views between the summer
and fall. However, another former SFC commander, Vice Admiral (ret.) Vijay
Shankar, has also argued that Indian forces require “select conventional hard-
ware that tracks and targets [adversary] nuclear forces” to “provide the pre-emp-
tive teeth to a deterrent relationship that leans so heavily on NFU.”56 His precise
meaning is unclear: it may indicate a preference for preemptive strikes using
conventional weapons, or the acquisition and use of intelligence, surveillance,
and reconnaissance (ISR) to render nuclear preemption feasible. In either case,
it indicates concern over India’s second-strike capability.
These are striking words, all the more so coming from individuals who have
served at the apex of India’s nuclear weapons program. Nagal and Shankar’s
arguments do not mean that the balance of elite opinion is shifting against NFU;
indeed, the public nature of their comments might well indicate that they were
unable to make headway while in office. Notwithstanding the infeasibility of
their proposals — India lacks the means to disarm or decapitate, as explored in
the subsequent section on massive retaliation — their critiques matter, as they
reflect genuine concerns that India’s NFU pledge diminishes deterrent threats,
and an inclination toward Bruno Tertrais’ observation that “the first-use option
induces a fundamental uncertainty in the adversary’s mind.”57
NFU, Assured Retaliation, and Preemption

Pledges of NFU are associated with a corresponding posture, one “relying on
a small but secure and survivable nuclear force arrayed for an assured retalia-
tory strike against their primary opponents’ strategic and/or soft counterforce
targets.”58 The operative word is “retaliatory.” As Rajesh Rajagopalan explains,
“leaders appear content to wait until an attack has already landed on Indian
soil before considering retaliation. In other words, there are no declaratory
or operational indicators to suggest that India might adopt either a launch-
on-warning (LOW) or a launch-under-attack (LUA) posture for its nuclear
force.”59 India does not presently possess the real-time monitoring capabilities
that would provide it with warning of an adversary’s launch preparation. The
United States was only able to implement such a posture in the 1960s and 70s
after deploying early warning satellites; India presently has no plans to acquire
equivalent technology, and purchasing it from foreign suppliers would be ex-
tremely difficult.60 India would also face institutional barriers to more complex
first use doctrines, because they would require that more powers be vested in
the military. Although India’s military has enjoyed considerable operational
79
independence since the 1962 war with China, nuclear use would be viewed as a
political and not an operational issue.61 Civilian leaders would wish to maintain
strong positive control over nuclear forces and deliberations over their use. This
would clash with the timelines demanded by preemption.
Consequently, the threat of preemption is not credible at present, and will re-
main so for some time to come. Future improvements in India’s ISR and preci-
sion-strike technologies, often for conventional war-fighting purposes but with
inevitable ramifications for potential nuclear targeting, might make it slightly less
so.62 Effective ISR would underpin all limited nuclear options (LNO), including
counterforce strikes, whether at the forward edge of the battlefield or eventually
in deeper-lying areas.63 Even when space-based capabilities are eventually in place,
the proximity of India and Pakistan and the correspondingly short missile flight
times mean that India may still lack the forewarning required for preemption.
Furthermore, different types of preemption have different technological require-
ments: decapitating an adversary by targeting command and control is easier than
targeting the entirety of their nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles. Targeting
command and control can still be extremely difficult against an adversary such
as Pakistan, which takes such matters seriously.64
One further point is worth elaborating: preemption can be pursued through
conventional as well as nuclear means. If by the former, India could pur-
sue preemptive capabilities without changing nuclear doctrine — although
this would be subject to the same ISR demands as nuclear preemption. Some
senior Indian army officers speak in private of the preemptive promise of
thermobaric (fuel-air) weaponry in combination with more accurate delivery
systems and target acquisition platforms.65 These excursions also presume
extraordinary conventional capabilities and unrealistic foreknowledge of the
disposition of Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities to have any prospect of suc-
cess. As one study of purported US interest in preemptive strikes against
China concluded, “conventional strikes by advanced precision-guided prompt
global strike weapons that are developed or proposed to be developed have
little chance of eliminating theater nuclear forces of a medium-sized nuclear
adversary.”66 If this is true for the United States, it is far truer still for India.
In any case, as James Acton has noted, “there is very little evidence that the
US government is considering CPGS [conventional prompt global strike] for
strikes against Russia or Chinese nuclear forces.”67
Smaller-scale preemption, such as that directed against forward-deployed
delivery vehicles for short-range nuclear-capable systems, might be seen as
more feasible. As Narang has observed, “India’s conventional operators con-
80
sider any fixed nuclear target or any mobile missile launcher, in the field or
on a base, as legitimate targets which they could strike without prior political
clearance,” and in many cases they “may not be able to, or may not care to, de-
termine whether the systems they are targeting are nuclear or conventional.68
As Christopher Clary writes, “repeatedly in Track 1.5 and Track 2 forums, re-
tired Indian military personnel attest that missile launchers in the battlefield
would and should be targeted in the context of a full-scale conflict because
such launchers could be performing a conventional mission.”69 An interest
in tracking and targeting missile launchers under wartime conditions would
reinforce those who favor limited preemptive use of conventional capabilities
against nuclear-capable systems.
Massive Retaliation
A second pillar of Indian doctrine — massive retaliation — has also been sub-
ject to criticism. It is ironic that the stronger party in a potential conflict on the
subcontinent (India, in relation to Pakistan) should find itself debating the value
of flexible nuclear-use doctrines or massive retaliation, when such pressures
normally fall on the weaker conventional party.
India’s 1999 draft doctrine promised only “punitive” retaliation, mentioned
thrice in the document, a pliable term consistent with both limited and ex-
tensive nuclear use. Four years later, a publicly released summary of India’s
nuclear doctrine stated, “Nuclear retaliation to a first strike will be massive and
designed to inflict unacceptable damage.”70 It is unclear what the reasoning was
behind this change. The 1999 draft was never an official document, and different
personnel were involved in the drafting of each doctrine. If careful thought was
given to the choice of the word “massive” — perhaps emulating Cold War termi-
nology — and if the corresponding reasoning is elaborated in the still-classified
full text of the doctrine and associated documents, then this word choice may
be enduring. If, on the other hand, this choice of wording was less purposeful,
and if perceived drawbacks were not fully considered, then future doctrinal
reviews might lead to revision.
Qualification of the formulation of massive retaliation has been registered. G.
Balachandran and Kapil Patil argue that massive retaliation is promised only in
response to a “first strike,” and that this term ought to be interpreted in the or-
thodox sense, of a disarming counterforce strike, explained earlier in this chap-
ter.71 This is an unusual reading of the 2003 statement of doctrine, and so is not
considered further here. More trenchant Indian concerns over the credibility of
a massive retaliation doctrine relate to proportionality and credibility. These cri-
81
tiques are long-standing, but have sharpened in recent years because of Pakistan’s
reported cultivation of short-range nuclear-capable systems.72 A “massive” Indian
nuclear response to limited battlefield use by Pakistan — as promised by India’s
2003 clarification of nuclear doctrine — would be neither a proportional nor cred-
ible response to a much smaller attack that had avoided Indian population centers.
In nuclear strategy, focal points matter.73 As Nagal argues in his aforementioned
Force essay, “response to a few or one tactical nuclear weapon … should not be
disproportionate which could result in an all-out nuclear war.”74 The alternative
nuclear blueprint promoted by the IPCS likewise notes that:
Ethically, the punishing of a whole population for the decisions of its
leadership is unsustainable. Moreover, executing massive retaliation
would expose India to risking international isolation. There is also the
operational consideration, that territories captured or in dispute will be
destroyed and rendered uninhabitable for a long time. The suggested
alternate wording provides flexibility, while a doctrine based on reflex
massive response curtails India’s options.75
The collective effort by the IPCS recommends dropping the words “punitive”
and “massive” altogether, stating simply that “protecting the Indian state, from
the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons by any state or entity, is the raison
d’être of India’s nuclear deterrent,” although an appendix reaffirms the drafters’
intention to echo the wording in the 1999 draft.76
India’s strategic dilemma, as Gaurav Kampani has written, is to prepare for lim-
ited war while “massive retaliation proposes a war with unlimited means for
unlimited ends.”77 In limited war, the logic of punishment must be subordinate
to the logic of war termination.78 Kampani cites senior Indian military leaders as
favoring “highly calibrated Indian counter-response to terminate war at the low-
est possible level of nuclear exchange.”79 Others, like former Ambassador Jayant
Prasad, strongly object to the feasibility of fine-tuned escalation control.80
Indian policymakers have publicly emphasized that they would not be self-de-
terred from adhering to the letter of their nuclear doctrine, even if Pakistan’s
initial nuclear use were minimal and on Pakistani soil. In an important speech
in New Delhi in April 2013, former Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran, presumably
speaking with some degree of official sanction, defended India’s nuclear doc-
trine and posture from a variety of criticisms:
[If India] is attacked with such weapons, it would engage in nuclear
retaliation which will be massive and designed to inflict unacceptable
damage on the adversary. As I have pointed out earlier, the label on a
82
nuclear weapon used for attacking India, strategic or tactical, is irrele-

vant from the Indian perspective. A limited nuclear war is a contradic-
tion in terms. Any nuclear exchange, once initiated, would swiftly and
inexorably escalate to the strategic level. Pakistan would be prudent not
to assume otherwise as it sometimes appears to do, most recently by
developing and perhaps deploying theatre nuclear weapons.81
Elsewhere, Saran has insisted that “escalation to a strategic nuclear exchange is
virtually inevitable.”82 But Saran’s protestations are not taken entirely seriously
even within the various branches of India’s nuclear establishment. As Rear
Admiral Raja Menon, former chairman of the task force on Net Assessment and
Simulation for India’s National Security Council, wrote in The Hindu in January
2014, “the ideational systems that will ensure the ‘massive’ retaliation promised
in [India’s] doctrine are being increasingly questioned by scholars and analysts
worldwide.” He added that “Pakistani observers cannot help but be swayed and
dangerously influenced by such literature, thereby inducing them to think the
unthinkable.”83 Menon later argued that India should replace “massive” with
“punitive,” with the aim of signaling India’s “readiness to fight an escalatory
nuclear war.”84
Detailed discussions of LNOs preceded India’s nuclear tests in 1998. General
K. Sundarji, for example, advocated proportionate responses to lower-level
Pakistani nuclear strikes in an essay published in 1996.85 Tellis also anticipated
much of this debate over a decade ago, noting that “it is reasonable to expect
that India’s nuclear doctrine will eventually incorporate … the capacity for
more flexible responses.”86 But the issue of Pakistani use of nuclear weapons on
short-range systems in the course of a limited war has reanimated this issue.87
In an overview of Indian nuclear forces published in 2012, Verghese Koithara,
a retired senior naval officer, in his excellent overview of India’s nuclear forces,
questioned whether public and private doctrines were in alignment:
Whether top-level Indian thinking corresponds to the public position
of massive retaliation to any kind of nuclear use is not known. Probably
it does not, because it is unlikely that India, even with external assis-
tance, will be able to take out totally Pakistan’s residual [i.e., surviving]
capability which at that time will have assumed its most survivable
posture. Whatever weight India might choose for its first retaliatory
strike it should think carefully what that strike must seek to achieve.
Revenge seeking and venting rage can have no place in this decision
matrix. The primary objective at that point should be to stop nuclear
strikes immediately.88
83
Bharat Karnad, a proponent of a much more ambitious nuclear posture than

Koithara, argues likewise:
However loudly the doctrine of massive retaliation is proclaimed, it is pos-
sible that when faced with going maximal in response to, say, Pakistan’s
nuclear tactical bombing of an Indian tank squadron inside its territory
where the loss of life is perceived to be small, the Indian Prime Minister will,
to start with, only approve a tit-for-tat strike on Pakistani forces.89
A targeting strategy of assured retaliation has simple advantages: the scale, se-
quence, form, and timing of any nuclear retaliation is discretionary. Nuclear use
could be geared toward a high degree of positive control over survivable nuclear
forces rather than toward readiness to execute large, complex targeting plans.
Massive retaliation, lying at the extremity of assured retaliation, is somewhat
more complicated, because it requires forces ready to deliver a greater degree
of destruction with much higher aggregate yield. This is primarily an issue of
hardware — warheads, delivery systems, and penetrativity. LNOs, on the other
hand, are more complicated. As Koithara argues,
India’s employment policy can be simpler than that of many [Nuclear
Weapon States], but it cannot be as simple as some commentators
imagine it can be. A single, all out retaliatory strike posture will not
be credible…India’s [command and control] system must, there-fore,
be capable of multiple, time-spaced strikes, and should also be able to
maintain its effectiveness after absorbing enemy strikes…Accuracy of
delivery is important to ensure that the maximum possible destruc-
tion is achieved on a targeted city. This will require not only that the
aim point or aim points within a city are carefully chosen, but also
that bombs and warheads are delivered close to the aim points. If more
than one weapon is to be delivered on one city, then aim points should
be spaced optimally in relation to the target perimeter, population
distribution and topography.90
Koithara is referring to high-yield weapons and countervalue targeting. Lower-
yield weapons and counterforce targeting, whether by LNOs or massive re-
taliation, pose more exacting requirements. Some of these targets might be
hardened (e.g., military sites), some might be moving across diverse terrain
(e.g., Pakistani armored units), and some co-located with Indian military units
actively engaged in combat.91 Acquiring real-time and continuous battle damage
assessment and command and control for LNOs or massive retaliation would
be a significant challenge.92
84
The exceptional difficulties associated with flexible nuclear use are rarely rec-
ognized in Indian discourse. The most recent historical scholarship on the de-
velopment of US nuclear doctrine during the Cold War suggests that, despite
ostensibly shifting to “flexible response” in the 1960s, the Pentagon remained
wedded to “preprogrammed attack packages” through most of the decade.
Francis Gavin explains that “graduated” and “controlled” nuclear responses
were problematic throughout the Kennedy and Johnson presidencies.93 In the
Nixon administration, the Pentagon acknowledged that the United States had
the “number and types of weapons” but not the “planning and command and
control capability” to respond with anything other than a “large, preplanned
assault,” and that it would take until 1975-1976 before such LNOs would become
feasible.94 These constraints were not confined — although they were particu-
larly applicable — to tactical nuclear weapons. The Pentagon never was able to
figure out how to integrate nuclear weapons into ground campaigns.95 The em-
ployment of longer-range nuclear weapon delivery vehicles in what Tellis calls
“operationally creative ways” could pose similar dilemmas.96
If the Pentagon found it difficult to plan for credible and granular LNOs for two
decades after it first deployed nuclear weapons, it is exceedingly unlikely that
New Delhi, which institutionalized its command and control arrangements
only in 2003 and which possesses limited ISR capabilities, will have progressed
very far in this regard.97 Among the challenges that would face India’s leader-
ship if they were to embrace LNOs would be maintaining exceptionally strong
positive control and dealing with greater calls for military involvement in the
formulation of nuclear policies.98 Even modest steps toward LNOs would chal-
lenge Indian decision-makers to rethink their fundamental view of nuclear
weapons as political rather than military instruments.
Conclusion
This essay has described and analyzed a series of arguments for revising Indian
doctrine regarding NFU and massive retaliation. These arguments rest on gen-
eralized anxiety regarding the credibility of India’s deterrence, stemming from
Pakistan’s growing nuclear capabilities; the slow, incremental nature of Indian
modernization programs; China’s advancing nuclear and conventional capabil-
ities; and an uncertain regional security environment elsewhere along India’s
periphery. The opacity surrounding India’s nuclear affairs exacerbates nuclear
anxieties. Notwithstanding these anxieties, New Delhi is unlikely to modify
India’s NFU pledge in the near term. Three consecutive prime ministers have
reaffirmed this pledge, and the incumbent has ruled out its elimination.
85
Those who advocate diluting or eliminating India’s NFU pledge have a variety
of reasons for doing so. Arguments in favor of threatened first use are also di-
verse, ranging from decapitation to limited or extensive counterforce strikes.
Arguments favoring threatened first use rely on highly unrealistic improve-
ments in India’s capabilities, particularly in ISR, command and control, and
civil-military relations. Some of the underlying concerns driving anti-NFU sen-
timent, such as the perceived vulnerability of India’s nuclear arsenal, are being
addressed through other means, including improved survivability provided by
mobile missiles and by improvements in command and control. These modern-
ization programs reinforce deterrence and carry no negative ramifications, as
would further modifications or withdrawal of India’s NFU pledge.
India’s historically cautious, incremental, and political vision of nuclear weap-
ons remains a powerful constraint on doctrinal change.99 Indian civilian, po-
litical, and bureaucratic elites are likely to resist changes to doctrine that ren-
der nuclear weapons more usable, particularly if such changes undermine or
seriously complicate traditional civilian and political authority over the use of
nuclear weapons. Changes in doctrine will require corresponding changes in
political understandings of what the bomb is about, and this could take years,
if not decades, to come about.
India is therefore unlikely to reword its NFU pledge in the near term. Even
most proponents of diluting this pledge concede the importance of maintain-
ing formal adherence for cosmetic reasons, and there is dissension among
critics on the reasons for modification. In the medium term, India will contin-
ue to rely on assured retaliation to deter nuclear attack, and on conventional
capabilities to deter lesser threats. In the longer term, the NFU pledge could
be revisited if this posture fails to deter, if China were to publicly disavow
NFU, or if Indian decision-makers were to have serious doubts about the
survivability of their deterrent.100
An Indian rejection of NFU makes little operational or strategic sense, but a
dilution of this pledge could still occur. Indeed, many of the anti-NFU argu-
ments do not rest on operational or strategic rationales, but on more generalized
concerns over signals conveyed by the NFU pledge. Moreover, unrealistic argu-
ments over elaborate preemption targeting plans could still have empirical force,
especially when conveyed by analysts of repute. A dilution of the NFU pledge in
favor of ambiguity, as Nagal and others advocate, might be seen to deliver politi-
cal and symbolic gains without committing India to a more aggressive stance in
the event that the Indian government feels compelled to adopt a more assertive
posture in the future. New Delhi also retains the option of allowing NFU, or
86
perceptions thereof, to be weakened by default, through continued growth in

capabilities that would facilitate various types of first use. Given these pathways
to ambiguity and the diplomatic costs of further modifications to the NFU
pledge, it is likely that other forms of nuclear assertiveness would be preferred.
Massive retaliation is a more realistic candidate for modification than NFU.
First, the core argument against it — the disproportionality, and therefore
non-credibility, of a massive response to an adversary’s limited nuclear use — is
more coherent and persuasive, particularly in the context of growing Pakistani
reliance on short-range nuclear-capable systems. Second, massive retaliation
is widely disbelieved, even among Indian elites. Third, India has experience
with an alternative formulation — “punitive” rather than “massive” retaliation
— that would subsume a wider range of options. Fourth, such a shift would be
seen as less of an aggressive move, internationally, than a dilution in NFU. Fifth,
political leaders are likely to be more amenable to policies that give them a wider
range of options in extremis.
While India’s strategic community is far from unified with regard to doctri-
nal issues, the realization appears to be growing that deterring Pakistani and
Chinese capabilities requires more than minimalism and less than a maximalist
commitment to massive retaliation. Sooner or later, revising or amending the
massive retaliation pledge in favor of greater ambiguity and therefore flexibility
— perhaps even a reversion to pre-2003 language — appears likely.
87
Endnotes
1. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), “Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat: Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas [One India,
Great India: With All, Development for All]: Election Manifesto 2014,” March 26, 2014, 39, http://
www.bjp.org/images/pdf_2014/full_manifesto_english_07.04.20 14.pdf.
2. Frank O’Donnell and Harsh V. Pant, “Evolution of India’s Agni-V Missile: Bureaucratic Politics
and Nuclear Ambiguity,” Asian Survey 54, no. 3 (June 2014): 584–610. On civil-military relations, see
Sunil Dasgupta, “India: The New Militaries,” in Coercion and Governance: The Declining Political
Role of the Military in Asia, ed. Muthiah Alagappa (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001);
Srinath Raghavan, “Soldiers, Statesmen and Strategy,” Seminar, July 2010, http://www.indiaseminar.
com/2010/611/611_srinath_raghavan.htm; Anit Mukherjee, “Failing to Deliver: Post-Crises Defence
Reforms in India, 1998-2010,” occasional paper, Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis [IDSA],
March 2011; Shashank Joshi, “The Indian Mutiny That Wasn’t,” Foreign Policy, April 5, 2012 http://
www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/04/05/the_indian_mutinythat_wasn’t.
3. Jeffrey G. Lewis, “Minimum Deterrence,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, August 2008, http://
www.newamerica.net/publications/articles/2008/minimum_deterrence_7552; Herman Kahn, On
Thermonuclear War (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2011), 7–13.
4. Stephen J. Cimbala, The Past and Future of Nuclear Deterrence (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1998), 20.
5. P. R. Chari, “India’s Nuclear Doctrine: Confused Ambitions,” The Nonproliferation Review 7, no. 3
(2000): 133.
6. Strobe Talbott, Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy, and the Bomb (Washington, DC:
Brookings Institution Press, 2004), 99–100.
7. Ibid., 172–173.
8. “Draft Report of National Security Advisory Board on Indian Nuclear Doctrine,” clause
2.3, Ministry of External Affairs, August 17, 1999, http://mea.gov.in/in-focusarticle.htm?18916/
Draft+Report+of+National+Security+Advisory+Board+on+Indian+Nuclear+Doctrine.
9. Talbott, Engaging India, 171.
10. Scott Douglas Sagan, “The Evolution of Pakistani and Indian Nuclear Doctrine,” in Inside
Nuclear South Asia, ed. Scott Douglas Sagan (Stanford, CA: Stanford Security Studies, 2009),
245–251.
11. Ibid., 245–246.
12. Vipin Narang, “Did India Change Its Nuclear Doctrine?: Much Ado about Nothing,”
IDSA, March 1, 2011, http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/DidIndiaChangeitsNuclearDoctrine_
vnarang_010311.
13. As a representative example of an early assessment, see Michael Quinlan, “How Robust Is India-
Pakistan Deterrence?,” Survival 42, no. 4 (2000): 152.
14. “Prime Minister Proposes No-first Use of Nuclear Weapons,” Indian Express, April 2, 2014,
indianexpress.com/article/india/indiaothers/prime-minister-proposes-no-first-use-of-nuclear-
weapons/.
15. Douglas Busvine, “Modi Says Committed to No First Use of Nuclear Weapons,” Reuters, April 17,
2014, http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/04/16/uk-india-election-nuclearidINKBN0D20QB20140416;
Manoj Joshi, “Modi’s Prime Ministerial Tone Makes Him a Promising Future Leader,” Daily Mail,
April 29, 2014, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2615170/THEBIGGER-
PICTURE-Modis-prime-ministerial-tone-makes-promising-futureleader.html.
88
16. For example, V. K. Nair, Nuclear India (New Delhi: Lancer, 1992), 236.
17. For more on isomorphism, see Theo Farrell, “World Culture and Military Power,” Security
Studies 14, no. 3 (2005): 454.
18. Lok Sabha, August 4, 1998.
19. “Draft Report of National Security Advisory Board on Indian Nuclear Doctrine,” clause
2.5, Ministry of External Affairs, August 17, 1999, http://mea.gov.in/in-focusarticle.htm?18916/
20. Brajesh Mishra, “Opening Remarks by National Security Adviser Mr. Brajesh Mishra at the
Release of Draft Indian Nuclear Doctrine,” in Selected Documents On Nuclear Disarmament, ed. K.
R. Gupta, vol. 1 (New Delhi: Atlantic, 2000), 117.
21. Sagan, “The Evolution of Pakistani and Indian Nuclear Doctrine,” 249; Scott D. Sagan, “The
Commitment Trap: Why the United States Should Not Use Nuclear Threats to Deter Biological and
Chemical Weapons Attacks,” International Security 24, no. 4 (April 1, 2000): 85.
22. Rajesh Rajagopalan, “India’s Nuclear Policy,” in Major Power’s Nuclear Policies and International
Order in the 21st Century (Tokyo: National Institute for Defense Studies, 2010), 100–101.
23. Sujan Datta, “Rethink on No-First-Use Doctrine,” The Telegraph, January 13, 2003, http://www.
telegraphindia.com/1030114/asp/nation/story_1571767.asp; unnamed NSAB member quoted in Scott
D. Sagan, “The Case for No 33 First Use,” Survival 51, no. 3 (2009): 176.
24. A. Adityankee, “No First Use Nuclear Doctrine with ‘Chinese Characteristics,’” Vivekananda
International Foundation (VIF), May 2, 2013, http://www.vifindia.org/article/2013/may/02/no-first-
usenuclear-doctrine-with-chinese-characteristics.
25. M. Taylor Fravel, “China Has Not (Yet) Changed Its Position on Nuclear Weapons,” The
Diplomat, April 22, 2013, http://thediplomat.com/2013/04/22/china-has-not-yet-changed-itsposition-
on-nuclear-weapons/.
26. For examples of Indian skepticism over Chinese NFU, see P. K. Singh,“Thinking Beyond Nuclear
Doctrine and Strategy: The View from India,” in The China-India Nuclear Crossroads: China, India,
and the New Paradigm, ed. Lora Saalman (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, 2012), 31; Srikanth Kondapalli, “Revisiting No First Use and Minimum Deterrence: The View
from India,” in The China-India Nuclear Crossroads, ed. Saalman, 59; Lora Saalman, “Conclusion:
Comparing the Comparable,” in The China-India Nuclear Crossroads, ed. Saalman, 173–174; Arun
Vishwanathan, “Nuclear Signals in South Asia,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, August 9, 2013,
http://thebulletin.org/nuclear-signalssouth-asia.
27. Jaswant Singh, “Transcript of Lok Sabha Debate, Fifteenth Series, Vol. XVI, Seventh Session,”
March 15, 2011, 114, http://164.100.47.132/debatestext/15/VII/z1503-Final.pdf.
28. K. R. Gupta, ed., Selected Documents On Nuclear Disarmament, vol. 1 (New Delhi: Atlantic,
2000), xvii.
29. Private correspondence via email, July 2014.
30. D. Suba Chandran, Should India Give up Its NFU Doctrine? (New Delhi: Institute of Peace and
Conflict Studies, June 24, 2010), http://www.ipcs.org/article/india/should-india-give-up-its-nfu-
doctrine-3169.html.
31. Michael Quinlan, Thinking About Nuclear Weapons: Principles, Problems, Prospects (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2009), 99–100.
32. Chari, “India’s Nuclear Doctrine: Confused Ambitions,” 2000, 132.
89
33. Michael Krepon, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Strategy and Deterrence Stability”(Washington, DC:
Stimson Center, December 2012), 16, http://www.stimson.org/images/uploads/research-pdfs/
Krepon_-_Pakistan_Nuclear_Strategy_and_Deterrence_Stability.pdf; Christopher Clary, “The
Future of Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons Program,” in Strategic Asia 2013-14: Asia in the Second Nuclear
Age, ed. Ashley J. Tellis, Abraham M. Denmark, and Travis Tanner (Washington, DC: National
Bureau of Asian Research, 2013), 140.
34. I am grateful to Michael Krepon for raising this point.
35. Jayanth Jacob, “BJP Manifesto: ‘No-First-Use Policy to Continue,’” The Hindustan Times, April 8,
2014, http://www.hindustantimes.com/elections2014/election-beat/no-firstuse-policy-to-continue/
article1-1205874.aspx.
36. P. R. Chari, “India’s Nuclear Doctrine: Stirrings of Change,” Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, June 4, 2014, http://carnegieendowment.org/2014/06/04/india-s-nuclear-
doctrinestirrings-of-change/hcks.
37. Lewis, “Minimum Deterrence.”
38. Harsh V. Pant, Contemporary Debates in Indian Foreign and Security Policy: India Negotiates Its
Rise in the International System, 1st ed. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 82.
39. Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, “India’s Nuclear Doctrine: An Alternative Blueprint,”
2012, http://www.ipcs.org/Indias-Nuclear-Doctrine.pdf.
40. Ibid., 5.
41. Quinlan, Thinking About Nuclear Weapons, 17.
42. Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, “India’s Nuclear Doctrine: An Alternative Blueprint,” 6.
43. Shyam Saran, “Is India’s Nuclear Deterrent Credible?,” India Habitat Centre, April 24, 2013,
13–14; Chari, “India’s Nuclear Doctrine: Stirrings of Change,” June 4, 2014.
44. Tellis alluded to strands of this argument seven years ago, in Ashley J. Tellis, “The Evolution of
US-Indian Ties: Missile Defense in an Emerging Strategic Relationship,” International Security 30,
no. 4 (April 1, 2006): 141.
45. Satish Chandra, “Revisiting India’s Nuclear Doctrine: Is It Necessary?,” IDSA, April 30, 2014,
http://idsa.in/issuebrief/RevisitingIndiasNuclearDoctrine_schandra_300414.
46. Ashley J. Tellis, India’s Emerging Nuclear Posture: Between Recessed Deterrent and Ready Arsenal
(Santa Monica, CA: the Rand Corporation, 2001), 311–312.
47. Jasjit Singh, Air Power and Joint Operations (New Delhi: Knowledge World, 2003), 125; V. R.
Raghavan, “Limited War and Nuclear Escalation in South Asia,” The Nonproliferation Review 8, no. 3
(2001): 14.
48. I am grateful to Joshua White for helping to clarify this point.
49. Saalman, “Conclusion: Comparing the Comparable,” 173.
50. Manoj Joshi, “India Dozes as China Modernises Military,” India Today, August 18, 2014, http://
indiatoday.intoday.in/story/india-dozes-aschina-
modernises-military/1/377539.html.
51. Arun Sahgal, “China–India Military Balance” (New Delhi: Observer Research Foundation, n.d.),
9, 13, http://www.observerindia.com/cms/export/orfonline/documents/report/china-imb.pdf.
52. Arun Prakash, “Bridging Historical Nuclear Gaps,” in The China-India Nuclear Crossroads, ed.
Saalman, 20.
90
53. Linton Brooks and Keith Payne, “PONI Debates the Issues: US-China Mutual Vulnerability,”
presentation at the Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI), Center for Strategic and International
Security, April 16, 2012, http://csis.org/event/poni-debates-issues-us-china-mutual-vulnerability-1;
Jeffrey Lewis, “The Fifty-Megaton Elephant in the Room,” Foreign Policy, September 19, 2012, http://
www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/09/19/the_fifty_megaton_elephant_in_the_room; Jan Lodal et
al., “Second Strike: Is the US Nuclear Arsenal Outmoded,” Foreign Affairs 89 (2010): 145.
54. B. S. Nagal, “Checks and Balances,” Force, June 2014, http://www.forceindia.net/Checks_and_
Balances.aspx.
55. B. S. Nagal, “Perception and Reality,” Force, October 2014.
56. Vijay Shankar, “Strategic Non-Nuclear Weapons: An Essential Consort to a Doctrine of No First
Use,” Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, January 13, 2014, http://www.ipcs.org/columnist/vice-
admiral-vijay-shankar/.
57. Ibid., 25.
58. Vipin Narang, “Posturing for Peace? Pakistan’s Nuclear Postures and South Asian Stability,”
International Security 34, no. 3 (January 1, 2010): 44.
59. Rajagopalan, “India’s Nuclear Policy,” 102.
60. Bruce G. Blair, The Logic of Accidental Nuclear War (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution
Press, 1993), 173.
61. John H. Gill, “Military Operations in the Kargil Conflict,” in Asymmetric Warfare in South Asia:
The Causes and Consequences of the Kargil Conflict, ed. Peter R. Lavoy (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2009), 106–108; Benjamin Lambeth, Airpower at 18,000’: The Indian Air Force in
the Kargil War (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 2012),
25–26.
62. Ashley J. Tellis, Dogfight! India’s Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft Competition Decision
(Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, January 2011), 50–51; Jay P. Dewan,
“How Will the Indian Military’s Upgrade and Modernization of Its ISR, Precision Strike, and Missile
Defense Affect the Stability in South Asia?” (Monterey, CA: Naval Postgraduate School, 2005),
52–54, 57–60; Vivek Kapur, “Precision Weapons in Aerial Warfare,” issue brief, IDSA, May 8, 2012,
9, http://idsa.in/system/files/IB_WeaponsinAerialwarfare.pdf; T. V. Paul et al., eds., “Complexity of
Deterrence among New Nuclear States: The India Pakistan Case,” in Complex Deterrence: Strategy in
the Global Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 196.
63. Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, “The New Era of Nuclear Weapons, Deterrence, and
Conflict,” Strategic Studies Quarterly, Spring 2013, 3–4.
64. Feroz Khan, Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb (Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press, 2012), chap. 17; Sébastien Miraglia, “Deadly or Impotent? Nuclear Command and Control in
Pakistan,” Journal of Strategic Studies 36, no. 6 (2013): 841–866.
65. Private information. On the potential counterforce roles of thermobaric weapons, see
Barry R. Schneider, Counterforce Targeting Capabilities and Challenges, Future Warfare Series,
Counterproliferation Papers (MaxwellAir Force Base, AL: Air University, August 2004), 1–12, 24–27.
66. Tong Zhao, “Conventional Counterforce Strike: An Option for Damage Limitation in Conflicts
with Nuclear-Armed Adversaries?,” Science & Global Security Current Issue 19, no. 3 (2011): 29.
67. James M. Acton, Silver Bullet? Asking the Right Questions about Conventional Prompt Global
Strike (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2013), 15.
68. Vipin Narang, “Five Myths about India’s Nuclear Posture,” The Washington Quarterly, Summer
91
2013, 151.
69. Clary, “The Future of Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons Program,” 140.
70. “Cabinet Committee on Security Reviews Progress in Operationalizing India’s Nuclear
Doctrine,” press release, Prime Minister’s Office, January 4, 2003, http://pib.nic.in/archieve/lreleng/
lyr2003/rjan2003/04012003/r040120033.html.
71. G. Balachandran and Kapil Patil, “Revisiting India’s Nuclear Doctrine,” IDSA, June 20, 2014,
http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/RevisitingIndiasNuclearDoctrine_gbalachandran_200614.html.
72. Although Pakistan does not use the term tactical nuclear weapons, its alternate terms, such as
“battlefield weapon system,” are euphemisms for the same concept. See Shashank Joshi, “Pakistan’s
Tactical Nuclear Nightmare: Déjà Vu?,” The Washington Quarterly 36, no. 3 (Summer 2013): 161.
73. For example, “there is a legalistic or diplomatic, perhaps a casuistic, propensity to keep things
connected, to keep the threat and the demand [or provocation] in the same currency, to do what
seems reasonable, ” in Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1966), 87, cf. also 56–59.
74. Nagal, “Checks and Balances.”
75. Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, “India’s Nuclear Doctrine: An Alternative Blueprint,” 7.
76. Ibid., 4.
77. Gaurav Kampani, “India: The Challenges of Nuclear Operationalization and Strategic Stability,”
in Strategic Asia 2013-14: Asia in the Second Nuclear Age, ed. Ashley J. Tellis, Abraham M. Denmark,
and Travis Tanner (Washington, DC: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2013), 118.
78. Tellis, India’s Emerging Nuclear Posture, 364–366.
79. Kampani, “India: The Challenges of Nuclear Operationalization and Strategic Stability,” 119.
80. Jayant Prasad, “For a Clear Nuclear Doctrine,” The Hindu, May 6, 2014, http://www.thehindu.
com/opinion/lead/for-a-clear-nucleardoctrine/article5979229.ece.
81. Saran, “Is India’s Nuclear Deterrent Credible?,” 16.
82. Shyam Saran, “Shyam Saran: The Dangers of Nuclear Revisionism,” Business Standard India,
April 22, 2014, http://www.businessstandard.com/article/opinion/shyam-saran-the-dangers-of-nucle
arrevisionism-114042201335_1.html.
83. Raja Menon, “A Mismatch of Nuclear Doctrines,” The Hindu, January 22, 2014.
84. Raja Menon, “Boxed in by Pakistan,” Indian Express, September 8, 2014.
85. K. Sundarji, “India’s Nuclear Weapons Policy,” in Nuclear Rivalry and International Order, ed.
Jørn Gjelstad and Olav Njølstad (New Delhi: Sage, 1996), 186–190.
86. Tellis, India’s Emerging Nuclear Posture, 366.
87. Chandra, “Revisiting India’s Nuclear Doctrine: Is It Necessary?”
88. Verghese Koithara, Managing India’s Nuclear Forces (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution
Press, 2012), 245.
89. Bharat Karnad, India’s Nuclear Policy (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2008), 123.
90. Koithara, Managing India’s Nuclear Forces, 105, 153.
91. Krepon, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Strategy and Deterrence Stability,” 19–20.
92. Koithara, Managing India’s Nuclear Forces, 78–81; Leon Sigal, “The Case for Eliminating
92
Battlefield Nuclear Weapons,” in Battlefield Nuclear Weapons: Issues and Options, ed. Stephen D.
Biddle and Peter D. Feaver (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1989), 47–49.
93. Francis J. Gavin, Nuclear Statecraft: History and Strategy in America’s Atomic Age (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 2012), 33–41.
94. Ibid., 34.
95. See Jeffrey McCausland, “Pakistan’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons: Operational Myths and Realities,”
in this volume.
96. Tellis, India’s Emerging Nuclear Posture, 364.
97. Harsh V. Pant, “India’s Nuclear Doctrine and Command Structure: Implications for Civil-
Military Relations in India,” Armed Forces & Society 33, no. 2 (January 1, 2007): 238–64; Karnad,
India’s Nuclear Policy, 97–99.
98. Arun Prakash, India’s Nuclear Deterrent: The More Things Change... (Singapore: S. Rajaratnam
School of International Studies, March 2014), http://www.rsis.edu.sg/rsis-publication/idss/indias-
nucleardeterrent/#.VS2BCvnF-gY.
99. Ravi Kaul, India’s Nuclear Spin-Off (Allahabad: Chanakya, 1974), 130; Amitabh Mattoo, India’s
Nuclear Deterrent: Pokhran II and beyond (New Delhi: Har-Anand, 1999), 91; M. L. Sondhi, Nuclear
Weapons and India’s National Security (New Delhi: Har-Anand, 2000), 101; Gurmeet Kanwal,
Nuclear Defence: Shaping the Arsenal (New Delhi: Knowledge World and IDSA, 2001), 51; M. S.
Mamik, “Formal and Non-Formal Nuclear Threats,” in Weapons of Mass Destruction: Options for
India, ed. Raja Menon (New Delhi: Sage, 2004), 65–66; Karnad, India’s Nuclear Policy, 128; Gurmeet
Kanwal, “Military Dimensions of the 2002 India-Pakistan Standoff — Planning and Preparation for
Land Operations,” in The India-Pakistan Military Standoff: Crisis and Escalation in South Asia, ed.
Zachary S. Davis (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 73.
100. Joshi, “Pakistan’s Tactical Nuclear Nightmare: Déjà Vu?,” 159–172; Clary, “The Future of
Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons Program”; Narang, “Posturing for Peace?”
93
94
PAKISTAN’S STRATEGIC CULTURE AND

DETERRENCE STABILITY ON THE SUBCONTINENT
Rasul Bakhsh Rais
Strategic culture affects broader issues of national security and strategy, includ-
ing perceptions of reality and responses to these perceptions. Strategic culture
might be defined as the cumulative representation of attitudes toward security
problems. These attitudes then shape policy formulation, options, and choices.
Pakistan’s strategic culture has mixed characteristics of malleability and hardi-
ness. Its central elements include countering Indian dominance, supporting the
primacy of national security, taking pride in Muslim sovereignty, and relying
on proactive means of national defense.
This essay begins by discussing the concept of strategic culture and how the key
elements of Pakistan’s strategic culture have affected national discourse and
actions. Next, I review writings on Pakistani strategic culture, and then explore
key elements of the culture, along with their adaptability and durability. Finally,
I turn to the implications of the key elements of Pakistan’s strategic culture on
deterrence stability on the subcontinent.
Theory and Concept

The concept of strategic culture is rooted in the study of political culture, wheth-
er or not political culture has any bearing on the development of democracy;
the promotion of social capital; and, more importantly, whether there are links
between culture, economic development, and modernization.1 There exists
a conservative, deterministic view of how strategic culture shapes thinking
with regard to security policy choices. In this generalized view, culture, having
evolved over a long period of time, defines the attitudes of people, leaders, and
institutions toward politics, power relations, and the world at large.2 From this
perspective, “culture matters” in terms of economic and political outcomes, a
society’s successes, failures, achievements, or collective decline.3
An alternative view holds that culture is not an independent factor but is mallea-
ble, reflecting varying influences during given points of time. Strategic culture
can retain familiar elements and incorporate new dimensions as circumstances
and the politics of a country evolve. In this view, culture influences politics less
than politics shape the culture of a society.4 This liberal view of the relationship
95
Pakistan’s Strategic Culture and Deterrence Stability on the Subcontinent
between culture and politics, including military strategy, makes politics an in-
strument of change. Political vision for the state can result in use of the requisite
material and resources to move policy and society toward that vision, for every
modernized country is a consequence of political vision and national mobili-
zation.5 Culture can evolve over time with material changes via the politics of
social and economic change.
One key question is whether cultural attitudes and the national imagination or
vision of the state and society facilitate or pose barriers to positive change. No
clear boundary exists between culture and politics to show when and whether
a distinctive change in strategic thinking has taken place. In Pakistan, strategic
culture has remained fairly static, although the potential for change is present.
Only determined charismatic leadership, consistent policies, and public support
toward such an enterprise can modify persistent elements of strategic culture.
Change is possible, but it will not be easy or dramatic. Instead, changing the
key elements of Pakistan’s strategic culture, if it changes at all, will be an incre-
mental process. Furthermore, Pakistan’s strategic culture will retain primary
characteristics that are embedded in the civilizational stream within which they
have evolved. History, tradition, religion, and national narratives are deeply
woven into Pakistan’s strategic culture.
Pakistan’s strategic culture therefore has mixed characteristics of malleability and
hardiness. Its resilience comes from the civilization within which it has grown,
giving Pakistanis self-assurance, pride, and the ownership of lives lived in some
conformity with value and belief systems. Since cultures have evolved within civ-
ilizational contexts, this path-dependency makes them durable. Change occurs in
a highly interactive, globalizing world, while culture retains essential features and
identity markers. Strategic culture changes in a continuum, in partial and incre-
mental ways over generations. Strategic culture also has amorphous qualities with
many complex elements. Change-oriented leaders can bring and have brought
into play those elements to advance political, narrow, or national policy goals.6
Strategic culture affects broader issues of national security and strategy, includ-
ing perceptions of reality and responses to these perceptions. Strategic culture
might be defined as the cumulative representation of attitudes, belief systems,
values, thinking, and behavior of a country’s security community toward secu-
rity problems, challenges, strategic environment, threats, and perceptions of an
adversary or adversaries. These factors shape policy formulation, options, and
choices. Our understanding of strategic culture also is informed by academic
literature.7 Early writings on strategic culture dwell on patterns of strategic
thinking by those who interact with the strategic environment and make secu-
96
rity decisions.8 Assumptions about an adversary’s identity and intentions, what

capabilities it possesses, and the choice of appropriate strategic responses are
essential elements of strategic culture.
What forces shape strategic culture? How is strategic culture retained and how
does it evolve over time? How closely does strategic culture reflect reality? How
is reality blurred by the interplay of domestic and international factors? First
and foremost, strategic culture is influenced by the history of interaction with
the state or states that constitute the main focus of national strategy. Strategic
culture is situated on an amity-enmity spectrum, where historical events, con-
tentious issues, and incidents intersect. The strategic thought and behavior of
states reflects their cumulative experience; experience defines national security
goals and threat perceptions. This history of interactions constitutes a dense
profile of attitudes that override sporadic or ordinary events. Not all hostile
events have the same intensity or leave equally deep marks on the national psy-
che. Wars and territorial disputes with zero-sum stakes leave the deepest marks,
reinforced by the durability of hostile interactions. Under these circumstances,
change in hardened attitudes may require transformative change in one of the
states, reconciliation through a political settlement, a new salience of economic
realism, and/or the subordination of emotional issues to urgent, practical needs.
Apart from the basic, perhaps more enduring principles of political realism — a
convergence of interests — the pull and push of civilizational factors cannot be
discounted. Patterns can change through interactions with a culturally differ-
entiated and divided world. The “march of civilization” is a composite historical
process in which many religious streams, histories, traditions, and cultures play
out. Samuel Huntington’s well-debated thesis on the “clash of civilizations” is
far too simplistic.9 For instance, how much is Pakistan historically a part of an
Islamic civilization, and how is it part of the Indo-Islamic civilization rooted
on the subcontinent? The idea of Pakistan does not reflect its composite roots.
Instead, it is the sum total of a nationalist narrative and nationalist history
writing projects. Equally important are factors that include self-imagining, se-
lective rejection of the past, and the search for new relational points on the basis
of a common religion or civilization. The balance of power, or its absence, the
correlation of forces, and the approximate strategic environment are constant
factors that weigh heavily on the minds of security communities. Dyadic power
relations with disproportionate capabilities reinforce inferences drawn from
negative experiences for the weaker state.
What perpetuates a specific strategic culture, and can strategic culture change?
The most important influence in either case involves organizational factors. The
97
key institutions within the state — the military, foreign office, and the political
executive — exert the greatest influence, although in varying degrees. Over
time, security organizations develop an institutional interest to authenticate
and perpetuate key elements of strategic culture. Organizational cultures, worl-
dviews, and dispositions toward adversaries perceived as posing clear and im-
mediate threats do not change easily. Change might require shifts in the balance
of power within the decision-making process. Given the history of civil-military
relations in Pakistan, this may appear unlikely.
The gap between a strategic culture’s depiction of reality and reality itself is
an important issue that has been debated in the scholarship on international
politics.10 The larger the gap, the more likely it is to result in placing the wrong
emphasis on certain policies and in making utterly bad choices with disastrous
consequences for a nation’s polity and security. Mistakes are replicated because
the strategic culture mindset may not be receptive to or may misinterpret pos-
itive signals from an “adversary.”
Literature on Pakistan’s Strategic Culture

The literature on Pakistan’s strategic culture is limited, and generally focuses on
institutional influences on shaping, retaining, and defending national security
policy. The security community in Pakistan is dominated by the military. The
literature on Pakistan’s security is naturally focused on relations with India,
wars, nuclear weapons, deterrence, and deterrence stability. This literature pro-
vides a sound foundation to explore strategic beliefs, security challenges, actors,
and institutions shaping strategic discourses and thinking.11
One of the first works on strategic culture in Pakistan is an essay by Hasan-
Askari Rizvi in an edited volume, South Asia in 2020: Future Strategic Balances
and Alliances.12 Rizvi identifies five key influences: troubled relations and a deep
sense of insecurity with respect to Afghanistan and India, distrust of India, op-
position to Indian domination of the region, Pakistan’s search for security, and
the connection between Islam and strategic thinking. These influences can be
reduced to only three: strong perception of a hostile regional environment, the
imbalance of power with India, and the roots of Pakistan’s strategic thinking in
Islam. Rizvi argues that “emphasis on strategic culture doesn’t totally exclude
the role of other considerations, such as realism, professionalism and organiza-
tional imperatives.”13 These factors are intrinsically tied to the cognitive process
through which the core aspect of national strategic culture emerges. Rizvi does
not address the relative weight and influence of different national actors, con-
98
stituencies, and institutions on Pakistan’s perceptions. India has remained at

the center of Pakistani security narratives, and not just in military circles. This
view has a wide ownership, including the major political parties, the media, and
dominant intellectual elites.
Muhammad Tehsin writes about two sources of Pakistan’s strategic culture. The
first emanates from Islamic identity and disposition of the elite, the society, and
political actors in the society. This manifests in support for Islamic causes such
as the liberation of Kashmir and aiding Palestinians in their struggle against
Israel. The second important source for Tehsin is Pakistan’s geopolitical envi-
ronment and threat perceptions from India and Afghanistan.14 A major contri-
bution on this subject comes from Feroz Hassan Khan. He explains Pakistan’s
strategic culture by examining a different slate of factors. In his view, historical
experience, image of the self, image of the adversary, experience with strategic
alliances, and the role of nuclear weapons have greatly influenced the strategic
thinking in Pakistan.15
Western writers have also analyzed Pakistan’s strategic culture. The most prom-
inent and prolific among them is Stephen P. Cohen, who wrote the first compre-
hensive study of the Pakistan army. His pioneering work focuses on the coun-
try’s British heritage, institutions, thought processes, connections with Islam
and society, and how these elements have influenced the strategic thinking of
military leaders.16 He argues that “distrust of India is a fundamental assump-
tion, no more subject to question than is the very existence of Pakistan” among
military officers.17 In his view, Pakistan’s security dilemma is complex because of
troubles with neighbors, notably India, which is many times its size and power.
Pakistan has sought to counter India by entering into alliances with the West.
Finding that protection inadequate, it developed nuclear weapons.18 While em-
bracing Western theories of war and deterrence, Pakistan has integrated them
with Islamic ideas and symbols, a trend Cohen finds more pronounced in the
third generation of Pakistani military officers.19 In Cohen’s view, three elements
are central to Pakistan’s strategy: offensive defense, internationalizing disputes
with India, and strategic defense or deterrence.20
Peter Lavoy, another outstanding scholar of security and defense issues, identi-
fies similar themes. He considers the key elements of Pakistan’s strategic culture
to be opposition to Indian hegemony, primacy of defense requirements, nuclear
deterrence, acceptance — but not reliance — on outside assistance, and identi-
fication with conservative Islamic causes.21
99
Christine Fair’s Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War adopts a
highly reductionist approach to the complex factors that have shaped the iden-
tity, power structure, internal imbalances, and view of India as a hostile power.
In Fair’s judgment, Pakistan’s strategic culture is the sum total of the military’s
view of itself as the “defender of the ideological frontiers” of Pakistan. Fair ar-
gues that the strategic culture of Pakistan military is driven by ideological con-
siderations, not by security. In her view, Pakistan’s military holds an unalterable
“revisionist” approach to India. 22 Her thesis is too mono-causal, however; no
single institution or factor determines a country’s strategic culture.
Key Elements of Pakistan’s Strategic Culture

Most Pakistani writers have drawn from Rizvi’s essay and have endorsed his
view of the core elements of Pakistan’s strategic culture, somewhat modifying or
paraphrasing his list.23 These central elements might be characterized as coun-
tering Indian dominance; supporting the primacy of national security; taking
pride in and harboring grievances regarding Muslim sovereignty; and relying
on a proactive defense posture, most recently manifested in Pakistani nuclear
posture. Each of these is discussed below.
Countering the Indian Threat

India has remained at the center of Pakistan’s security thinking since the erup-
tion of the Kashmir conflict after the establishment of the independent states of
Pakistan and India. When Muhammad Ali Jinnah pressed his demand for an
independent Pakistan, he sounded optimistic about relations with India, saying,
“We join together as good friends and neighbors and say to the world, ‘Hands off
India.’” He even contemplated proclamation of a “Monroe Doctrine” to protect
the subcontinent against “all outsiders.”24 Jinnah’s vision of cordial relations
with India was effectively interred when India annexed the larger part of the
princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, including the Muslim-majority Kashmir
Valley.25 After independence, communal violence, the transmigration of mil-
lions of people from both sides on the basis of religion, and untellable atrocities
committed during the exchange of populations sealed adversary images.26 The
partition of British India drew “lines of fire and blood,”27 leaving deep wounds
that have shaped the foreign and national security policies on both sides.
Pakistan’s narrative of India is one of injustice over Kashmir, non-reconcilia-
tion with the idea of a sovereign Muslim state, and unending hostility because
Pakistan separated itself from India.28 These ideas run deep in the society within
which political leaders, army officers, and the bureaucrats are raised to assume
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important roles in decision-making. The wars over Kashmir in 1948 and 1965 as
well as Indian military intervention in East Pakistan in 1971 have deeply affected
the socialization process in Pakistan, painting India as an imminent threat to
Pakistan’s existence. The East Pakistan tragedy (in which the Pakistan military
and major political leaders, along with a state-building process that ignored re-
gional peculiarities and legitimate aspirations, played significant roles) is offered
as a proof of “evil” Indian intentions.29 Pakistan’s national outlook toward the
outside world is built around the concept of India as an unalterably hostile enemy.
The dominant discourse in Pakistan is that of a fundamental contest with an
India that seeks paramountcy or regional hegemony, leaving Pakistan with
no other option but resistance and strategic defiance.30 The outcome of this
rivalry remains unsettled. India has not been able to compel Pakistan to accept
facts on the ground and the status quo in the disputed region of Kashmir. Nor
has Pakistan been able to weaken India’s growing power or the status quo in
Kashmir. Pakistan has moved away from a centuries-old view of itself as con-
nected to India, gravitating toward an identity that in civilizational terms is
more Islamic than territorial or Indo-Islamic. Pakistan’s Islamic identity now
sustains its efforts to counterbalance India. In addition, Pakistan’s Islamic iden-
tity allows for openings to India’s large Muslim population.
How long will Pakistan be able to counterbalance the Indian quest for region-
al domination? The costs of Pakistan’s counter-Indian-domination policy are
growing alongside internal security concerns, and as geopolitics, economics,
and military capabilities tilt in India’s favor. Pakistan’s enmity with India faces
growing shortfalls in capacity and resources, and the anti-India focus does not
help Pakistan in confronting serious social and economic challenges to stabilize
democracy and win what appears to be a costly and long war on terror.
Strategic culture is based on perceptions and values with a deep historical tra-
jectory; it adjusts slowly when harsh realities come into conflict with elemental
assumptions. Pakistan’s security planners continue to view India through the
prism of past wars. They have an exaggerated sense of optimism about meet-
ing the India challenge at high cost and by all means. At the root of this raw
determination is a unique sense of the nation’s destiny as a powerful, sovereign
Muslim state in which Pakistanis take great pride. The idea of Pakistan as a
proud, sovereign Muslim state need not, however, be incompatible with power
imbalances, which exist in all other regions. Compatibility would increase with
constructive diplomacy, direct economic trade, and pragmatism on both sides
of the Wagah border.
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Primacy of National Security

When the dust of partition settled, it found India uncompromising on the
Kashmir dispute, the distribution of financial resources, the flow of canal waters
to the Punjab, and the delivery of Pakistan’s share of the inheritance of military
hardware from the British Raj.31 Pakistan faced multiple challenges of state- and
nation-building without the infrastructure of the state, except for elements of
British bureaucracy, army, judiciary, and laws. While groaning under the weight
of economic problems and political instability, Pakistan’s leaders had reason to
believe that India was not reconciled to the idea of an independent Pakistan,
and would like to see Pakistan fail.
Given the outcome of partition, Pakistani leaders grudgingly acknowledged
political realism. They had no reason to expect benign behavior from India. Nor
could they find countervailing support from Muslim lands, from Afghanistan
to the larger Middle East. Pakistan could survive only by giving primacy to
national security. Otherwise, the constituent regions and diversity of the state
could not coalesce. National security and national integrity were indivisible.
Many other postcolonial states faced similar challenges, but few of them achieved
independence out of such chaotic conditions, bloodshed, and collective national
trauma as Pakistan experienced. Pakistan’s set of challenges included holding
the two distant parts of the country together as one state under institutional
arrangements that would be acceptable to both, and securing itself against a
threatening neighbor with vastly more powerful military potential.32 Owing to
these complex linkages between state formation and the regional threat envi-
ronment, Pakistan was forced to look for patrons as a balancing mechanism.
The onset of the Cold War and America’s search for allies fit too well with
Pakistan’s security needs: Pakistan’s state formation and its institutional struc-
turing, marked by an imbalance between the civilian power and the rise of the
armed forces, were stunted by alliances with Washington.
The evolution of Pakistan’s national strategic culture was based on the foun-
dation of perceived or real hostility by India and grievances over Kashmir.
Insecurity had domestic causes as well. Internal political developments, insta-
bility, the absence of consensus on a constitution, disarray among the political
forces, and regional, religious, and ethnic tensions crippled the ability of the
new state to develop sound political-military relations and constitutional de-
mocracy.33 In political chaos, the civilian-military elites empowered by ties to
the United States captured the power of the state. The narrative of security was
no longer the business of the representatives of the people. It was the military,
102
under the leadership of Pakistan’s first Martial Law Administrator, and later
President Muhammad Ayub Khan, that made the most important decisions to
determine the destiny of the country. These decisions encompassed not only
military matters but also domestic politics, economics, and foreign policy.
Pakistan’s military leaders have always had domestic allies; the country has
never had a pure military regime. The military cultivated a significant part
of the traditional elite into the political order. As a result of Pakistan’s com-
plex political heritage of democracy, authoritarianism, and the social power
of the land-owning and tribal elites, a hybrid system of governance evolved in
which the military leader, like the vice-regal system in in colonial days, directed
policies from the top. The rise of the military as a powerful institution in the
country emerged as an important factor in determining the primacy of national
security and the broader contours of the national strategic culture.
Those concerned with establishing and strengthening civilian supremacy over
the military in the power structure of Pakistan have shown greater willingness
to settle issues with India, including the Kashmir problem. Such initiatives
have also come from military rulers. Under very different circumstances, Ayub
Khan and Pervez Musharraf engaged with India to settle the Kashmir issue on
mutually acceptable terms. Musharraf went beyond any former civilian or mil-
itary leader in making an argument for a “nonterritorial” solution.34 However,
no single party, leader, or institution in either country is capable of building
a national consensus to resolve this dispute. Pakistan will find it difficult to
make any solution palatable to the public that has for decades regarded India as
the usurper of Muslim regions that rightfully belong to Pakistan — or at least
be given the right to self-determination. Absent significant moves to improve
relations with India, the primacy of national security and the means to ensure
it will remain fixed.
Pride in Muslim Sovereignty

Strategic culture is not exclusively defined by any objective military balance
or imbalance, or strategic considerations alone. In the shaping of strategic
thought, invisible forces of culture and the character of the society, and the
general thought process of the dominant elites, have significant impact. The idea
of Pakistan as a sovereign Muslim state is deeply rooted in historical memory.
The movement for the creation of Pakistan — the two-nation theory — reflected
the fusion of nationalism and Islam. How does this define the cultural base of
Pakistan’s strategic thinking?
103
Pakistanis take great pride in seven centuries of Muslim rule over the sub-
continent. They have honored Muslim conquerors, whether Arabs, Afghans,
or Central Asian Turks, in the writing of national history. In social discourse,
Pakistanis venerate figures like Babur, Ghauri, and Ghaznavi, as well as Arab
invaders like Muhammad Bin Qasim and symbols of the early period of Islam
in Arabia. Pakistani educators carefully preserve and celebrate their conquest of
the subcontinent by giving them prominent space in history books. Generations
of Pakistani schoolchildren have been socialized to learn about their authentic
heroes. Pakistan has named its nuclear-capable missiles after these Muslim
heroes and symbols of Islamic power, sending the message that it owns the
heritage of their power and accomplishments in the subcontinent. They were
victors — and so would Pakistan be in the event these weapons were fired.
The cultural and strategic thinkers behind these ideas have for decades tried
to define Pakistan’s identity as a Muslim power apart from India, rather than
as an integral civilizational, geographic, and cultural part of the subcontinent.
The concept of separation has been advanced by Aitzaz Ahsan, a secular law-
yer-intellectual who has never been part of Pakistan’s security establishment. He
makes the point that the civilization of the Indus region has never been part of
modern-day India beyond the Wagah border.35 Historians may reject the assertion
that the Indus civilizational area has ultimately defined the boundaries of the two
post-colonial states, but the theme of separation resonates in Pakistan. It reflects
popular beliefs about what Pakistan is and who the Pakistanis are. Cultural and
historical separation has followed the geographical separation from India.
Pakistan’s self-image as a proud, sovereign Muslim state reflects the confluence
of three streams of thought. First, there is an idealistic stream — of standing up
against injustice with a religious resolve and determination when it comes to
supporting struggles against the occupation of Muslim lands. This takes expres-
sion most strongly in opposition to India’s annexation of parts of the old princely
state of Jammu and Kashmir, which is regarded as unjust, unfair, and against the
principle of self-determination of the peoples of that region.36 Pakistan has also
supported the Palestinian cause against Israel and has supported Indonesians
against the Netherlands, Algerians against France, and many other Muslim
peoples in their respective quests for independence. Most importantly, this ele-
ment of Pakistan’s strategic culture fueled the struggle to evict Soviet forces from
Afghanistan. Pan-Islamic sentiments among the Muslims of the subcontinent
play a great role in shaping and sustaining this faith.
A second wellspring of pride is fostered by an optimistic view of Pakistan as
a “pivotal” Muslim state occupying a very strategic location at the junction of
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three regions — South Asia, Central Asia, and Southwest Asia.37 In contem-
porary times, Pakistan sees itself as a corridor or gateway to Central Asia and
China. Pakistanis take pride in their armed forces, the largest among Muslim
countries; their nuclear weapons; and their status as the second-most populous
Muslim country. In this imagining, Pakistan has a role to play well beyond the
subcontinent to the broader Muslim world. Despite limitations of resources and
many dependencies, Pakistan continues to entertain this ambition, which is most
evident by its partnering with pro-Western Muslim states in the Middle East.
The third wellspring of pride is projected culturally and politically as an expres-
sion of divine will. This pride is considered both a culmination of the struggle
of Muslims from creating a strong self-belief as a separate community within
India, a nation within a nation; and also a miracle, given the hardships of inde-
pendence. Pakistan is often referred to as a Mumlaqat-e-Khudadad—a divine
gift of power and sovereignty to the peoples of the constituent regions. These
ideas greatly feed into the strategic culture of Pakistan, making defense of the
country equivalent to a religious duty that transcends secular sentiments of
territoriality and territorial nationalism — which stands in contrast to many
other countries.
Reliance on Proactive Means of National Defense

As the weaker state against an adversary with far greater military capacity,
Pakistan’s national security posture has been structured so as not to allow India
to dictate the terms of military engagement. Instead, a good offense has been
viewed as the best means of national defense. This key element of Pakistan’s
strategic culture — adopting a proactive defense posture — has been manifested
in conventional military plans and the utilization of nonstate actors. Pakistan’s
approach to nuclear deterrence also reflects the imperative of not allowing a
conventionally advantaged India to compel Pakistan to take unwanted actions
or to defeat it in warfare.
Pakistan maintains a costly, robust, conventional war-fighting capability de-
signed to counter Indian conventional military advantages. To deny the Indian
army incursions into territory where major cities, defense infrastructure, and
lines of communication are situated close to the Indian border, Pakistan de-
pends on agility and quicker mobilization timelines. Pakistan has adopted a
three-pronged strategy of “offensive defense.” First, it seeks to enable quick and
formidable deployment of forces to the border with the capacity to strike first
with massive force. Second, to effectuate this strategy, Pakistan has continu-
ously upgraded, and indigenized, conventional arms production to reduce reli-
105
ance on foreign equipment. Third, it incorporates tactical nuclear weapons with

conventional capabilities. Pakistan’s conventional military posture of offensive
defense consumes a large share of the country’s budgetary outlays.38
Subconventional warfare — such as insurgencies, low-intensity warfare through
proxies and nonstate actors, armed struggles by ideological and social groups,
and guerrilla warfare — are another means of offensive defense. Pakistan, like
other states in the region and around the world, has incorporated low-intensity
warfare doctrines to strain the military resources of an adversary. The struggle
to evict the Soviet Union was premised on raising the cost of remaining in place
to an unacceptable level. This strategy worked, but not without serious blowback
effects on Pakistan and regional security. Pakistan’s security managers then
replicated these tactics in Kashmir, taking advantage of post-Afghan jihadi
culture to keep a significant number of Indian forces tied down in counter-
insurgency operations. India responded with a strategy of overkill, alienating
Kashmiris further by human rights violations, draconian anti-terror laws, and
disappearances. Although India has kept firm control over the Kashmir Valley,
an atmosphere of uncertainty and unease continues to prevail. Pakistan has
paid a heavier price than India for aligning with and sponsoring militant groups
in support of its strategic objectives toward Afghanistan and India.
The imperative of counterbalancing India’s natural advantages with a strategy of
offensive defense carries over to Pakistan’s nuclear posture. Pakistan’s acquisition
of nuclear weapons is viewed as a matter of necessity and circumstance: A vastly
more powerful India in conventional war-fighting capability, with superior eco-
nomic and technological resources, could only be deterred by nuclear weapons.
Pakistan had to be defended at any cost against India, and once nuclear capabil-
ities were within reach they were deemed critical to compensating for growing
conventional imbalances and unchanging threat perceptions. The lowest point in
Pakistan’s history — the loss of East Pakistan in the 1971 war with India, when
90,000 soldiers were taken as prisoners — would never be repeated.
Pakistan’s alliance with the United States did not prevent the dismembering
of the country. Its friends in the Muslim world and international institutions
were also of no help. Political realism dictated the necessity of self-reliance, and
the most powerful means of self-reliance was nuclear weapons and their means
of delivery. All of the key elements of Pakistan’s strategic culture converged
on the necessity of nuclear deterrence and a nuclear posture that would keep
Indian leaders off-balance. Pakistan’s nuclear posture manifests the primacy of
national security, pride in Muslim sovereignty, reliance on proactive means of
national defense, and opposition to Indian dominance.
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Nuclear weapons are a core identifier for Pakistan. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto rhe-
torically defended the pursuit of the Bomb as a civilizational right for Islam.
No symbol of power is more powerful for Pakistan, and Pakistan’s military
stewards have pursued nuclear capabilities with a clear sense of purpose. These
weapons are now integral to defense planning.39 The acquisition of nuclear ca-
pabilities has taken on a dynamic character, embracing full spectrum deter-
rence and tactical nuclear weapons. The latter are declared to be for use against
Indian conventional formations when they are employed offensively — even
inside Pakistani territory, if necessary. Ambiguity about choices, capacity, and
employment doctrine are maintained to keep the adversary guessing.
Possession of nuclear weapons, tactical capability to deploy such weapons in
battlefield situations, and maintaining the first-strike option are important in-
gredients of Pakistan’s strategic deterrence: These postulates reflect Pakistan’s
reliance on offensive defense in the nuclear domain.
Strategic Culture and Deterrence Stability

In South Asia, the “prisoner’s dilemma” has been accentuated by other dilem-
mas. Deterrence stability between Pakistan and India is challenging because
of asymmetries of power, close proximity, a record of misreading each other’s
intentions, and a history of war and crises. Deterrence stability is even harder
to achieve because of the key elements of Pakistan’s strategic culture.
Rivalry between India and Pakistan has been endemic, resulting in wars, proxy
wars, border clashes, and crises. Pakistan has devoted significant national, tech-
nological, and scientific resources to achieve security equilibrium with India
and to deter India from taking aggressive actions. This strategic competition has
had destabilizing effects on Pakistan, straining its resources and heightening
internal security dilemmas. The conventional military imbalance with India is
growing, leaving two options to reinforce an offensive defense posture. One —
reliance on subconventional warfare — has proven to do more harm than good
for Pakistan. The other — strengthening nuclear deterrence — will remain a
big challenge for Pakistan.
Nuclear deterrence works — until it fails. On the subcontinent, it could fail cat-
astrophically if India’s leaders miscalculated and if Pakistan’s nuclear bluff was
called. Nor is the balancing of weapon system by weapon system an affordable
option for Pakistan. The widening gap in conventional capabilities will call into
question the credibility of Pakistan’s nuclear posture, since the first use of nu-
clear weapons will pose an existential threat to both combatants. Pakistan will
107
be placed in an untenable position if it uses nuclear weapons first in a military

confrontation triggered by subconventional warfare against India.
Pakistan’s nuclear posture of offensive defense poses serious problems of de-
terrence stability. The integration of tactical or short-range nuclear-capable
delivery systems into a conventional defense of Pakistan adds serious problems
of horizontal and vertical escalation. The probability that Pakistan will use
nuclear weapons is commensurate to the size of a concentrated Indian armed
attack against vital territorial space. The loss of command and control, the risks
of unauthorized use, and the probability of accidents grow as nuclear weapons
are situated closer to combatants.40
Unlike the superpower rivals during the Cold War, India and Pakistan continue
to avoid nuclear stabilization talks — India more than Pakistan. For its part,
Pakistan links nuclear risk-reduction measures to the conventional military
balance, a linkage that India is unlikely to accept. Nuclear confidence-building
measures are no substitute for strategic stabilization talks that have never been
seriously pursued. The measures so far negotiated are minimal, and arms con-
trol negotiations are hard to envision. Indian strategic culture seems to believe
in bleeding Pakistan white; Pakistani strategic culture believes it can afford a
strategic competition. Under these circumstances, the strategic environment of
South Asia will be characterized by uncertainty and instability.
The rivalry of the subcontinent, as between the superpowers, has been played
out in proxy wars. Nuclear capabilities provide the backdrop to subconventional
conflicts. Pakistan maintains thick dossiers of evidence of Indian involvement
in the East Pakistan crisis and Balochistan. India can provide equally strong
evidence of Pakistani hand in northeastern states, and notably in the Kashmir
valley. Strategic cultures that value putting one’s adversary on the defensive
present many destabilizing challenges. Low-intensity conflicts can intensify and
expand to direct confrontation, as was the case during the “Twin Peaks” crisis
of 2001-02. These tactics cede state control to nonstate actors, as is evident in
how Pakistan’s erstwhile allies in Afghanistan have taken up arms against the
state. These tactics have kept the strategic environment on the boil, resulting
in a hardening of attitudes and continuous feeding into the climate of rivalry.41
They invite uncontrolled escalation.
In the case of Pakistan, the strategy of defending Muslim sovereignty has generat-
ed a religious zeal that makes accommodation difficult without major concessions
from India over Kashmir, which is unlikely. The quest for a Kashmir settlement
and the failure to achieve one reinforce jihadi sentiment. The fusion of religious
108
and national sentiment cultivates a sentiment of self-sacrifice and fosters a private

jihadi culture with boomerang effects on Pakistan’s internal security.
Durability and Adaptation of Strategic Culture

Jeffrey Lantis argues that strategic culture is subject to change under two condi-
tions. In his view, external shocks can test traditional worldviews and modes of
thinking. Objective realities can also challenge long-held beliefs when security
managers conclude that key elements of strategic culture have lost relevance
for national purposes.42 The 1971 war had a profound impact on Pakistan’s stra-
tegic thinking — reinforcing India’s enemy image and prompting a search of
security independence by means of nuclear weapons. The American-led war in
Afghanistan has also had profound effects on Pakistan — first by the embrace
of jihadi groups by national security managers to dislodge Soviet forces, then
by their redirection to punish India, followed by the recognition of the harm
these groups have done to the state and society. These examples suggest that
the key elements of Pakistan’s strategic culture may have durability, but that
adaptation is possible.
Belief systems are also at work in the way Pakistan is viewed externally. Pakistan
watchers have a hard time accepting two major shifts in security policy — re-
ducing covert support to Kashmiri militants and jettisoning the construct of
“strategic depth” in Afghanistan. As a consequence of this shift, the Afghan
Taliban are no longer receiving backing from Rawalpindi. A third major shift
— combating the Pakistani Taliban — is beyond dispute.
Pakistan’s strategic culture and threat perceptions are evolving. The hierarchy of
threats has been re-ranked in light of objective security conditions in Pakistan
since 2007, when military action was taken against the Lal Masjid and acts of
violent extremism within the country spiked. A review conducted by Pakistan’s
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) concluded — for the first time since indepen-
dence — that domestic militants posed a two-thirds-greater threat than India.43
This assessment preceded the June 2014 Taliban attack on the Karachi airport
and the massacre of schoolchildren in Peshawar in December 2014.
Public opinion and strategic thinking in Pakistan underwent a paradigm shift
particularly after the Peshawar massacre. Anxieties about India have not dis-
sipated and could readily grow, but public opinion in Pakistan now considers
the Taliban to be a greater threat (52 percent) than India (45 percent).44 Army
Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani signaled this shift in his Independence
Day speech on August 14, 2012, declaring that “the fight against extremism and
109
terrorism is our own war and we are right in fighting it.”45 His successor, Gen.
Raheel Sharif, reiterated this shift by taking the fight into North Waziristan and
by stating, after the Peshawar school massacre, that the Pakistan Taliban had “hit
at the heart of the nation….our resolve to fight terror has taken a new height.”46
Three key elements of Pakistan’s strategic culture — the primacy of national se-
curity, pride in Muslim sovereignty, and reliance on proactive means of national
defense — remain unchanged; they are now being applied to internal security
threats in a more concerted fashion. This shift is a result of the objective reality
that Pakistan is in a long war against religious extremism and terrorism. Its
armed forces have been fighting a war in the northwest frontier for almost a de-
cade. Pakistan has suffered more than 20,000 civilian casualties and more than
6,000 security personnel casualties between 2003 and 2015.47 At issue is what
kind of state Pakistan wants to become. Its social and economic fate depend on
the outcome of this reconstruction project.
The fourth key element — countering Indian dominance — hasn’t gone away,
as is evident from Pakistan’s nuclear modernization programs. This fourth ele-
ment is, however, being gradually displaced by internal security and economic
concerns. The process of displacement can be accentuated or stymied depend-
ing on how India deals with Pakistan.
Another major change is Pakistani strategic thinking toward Afghanistan,
which has been greatly facilitated by the change in leadership from Hamid
Karzai to Ashraf Ghani. This, too, has been little appreciated in the West.
Pakistan’s security managers have concluded that a Taliban government
in Afghanistan would not be in Pakistan’s security interests. The return of
an Afghan Taliban regime would likely result in cross-border miseries for
Pakistan, while stoking the Pakistan Taliban militancy within Pakistan it-
self. Pakistan’s national security managers understand that its armed forces
cannot defeat and destroy the Pakistani Taliban operating from safe havens
in Afghanistan without the cooperation of Kabul.48 Consequently, Pakistan
is dealing directly and negotiating with a new sense of purpose with Kabul,
and no longer views the Taliban insurgency as a lever of influence against the
Kabul government. Pakistani policy encourages the Afghan Taliban lead-
ership to negotiate with Kabul, and has encouraged national reconciliation
by means of a peaceful settlement with the Taliban. The statement by Chief
of Army Staff Raheel Sharif that “Afghanistan’s enemy is Pakistan’s enemy”
reflects this shift from Pakistan’s approach.49 Once again, three of Pakistan’s
key elements of strategic culture — the primacy of national security, pride in
Muslim sovereignty, and reliance on proactive means of national defense —
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remain unchanged, but they are now being applied in a more effective manner
toward Afghanistan in response to pressing internal security threats.
What about the fourth key element of Pakistan’s strategic culture — countering
the Indian threat? Will Pakistan’s traditional outlook toward India change?
Other traditional adversaries, especially in Europe, have become close economic
and security partners. Three pivotal states on the subcontinent — Bangladesh,
India, and Pakistan — were once part of the same empire and the same Indo-
Islamic civilization. Mohammad Iqbal, the poet philosopher and dreamer of
Pakistan, wrote powerful poetry about Hindustan as a patriotic Indian. Can
sovereign independent states manage to re-weave strands of common heritage
to forge more normal ties? Changes will be slow, but they are possible with a
high degree of statesmanship.
Changing the dynamics of Pakistan’s strategic culture toward India will require a
historic agreement over the disputed Jammu and Kashmir region that is accept-
able to both countries as well as to the Kashmiris themselves. Previous efforts
toward this end have been halting and easily sidetracked. If a settlement can be
reached, it will have to address Pakistan’s insistence that the status quo is unac-
ceptable and India’s insistence that territories not change hands.50 Two govern-
ments in Pakistan — one led by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (1997-1999) and the
second by his rival, Gen. Pervez Musharraf (1999-2008) — attempted to negotiate
“out of the box” settlements with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government.51
A renewal of the pursuit of a Kashmir settlement will depend on political courage.
Progress can be facilitated by small trust-building measures, including the further
opening of trade and creating a web of economic interdependencies. So far, stub-
born strategic beliefs have taken primacy over pragmatic economic thinking. A
Kashmir settlement awaits transformative changes in Pakistan’s strategic think-
ing and concomitant changes in the Indian outlook toward Pakistan.
Pakistan has adapted to the vastly changed regional and international security
climate after the 9/11 terrorist attacks against iconic US targets. It will, however,
be much harder for Pakistan’s security managers to apply the same techniques
to India as are now being applied to Afghanistan. Slight changes are nonethe-
less apparent. Pakistan’s security managers are moving slowly away from giv-
ing material support to Kashmiri militants or allowing militants to cross the
Kashmir divide. They recognize that the old strategy of supporting proxies has
had devastating repercussions in the spread of jihadi culture and the loss of state
control. The extent to which these lessons learned apply to Kashmir remains
unsettled.52 Indian threat perceptions have not diminished as internal security
threat perceptions have grown.
111
Conclusion
India believes it can bleed Pakistan in a nuclear arms competition, while Pakistan
thinks no price is too high for national defense. Pakistan’s security managers
assert that the country’s nuclear weapons are not only affordable but also cost-ef-
fective, and that sunk costs have not broken the back of the economy. These as-
sertions are not persuasive. A nuclear arms competition with a more powerful
adversary is not a winnable option for Pakistan, especially in light of the growing
Indian strategic partnership with the United States. The credibility of Pakistan’s
nuclear deterrent with second-strike capability is an achievable goal in the near-
and mid-terms, but some options to strengthen deterrence, such as nuclear weap-
ons delivered by short-range and sea-based systems, add serious risks as well as
costs.53 Confidence-building and nuclear risk-reduction measures are insufficient.
Progress on the composite dialogue is halting, even when talks are underway.
Neither side appears ready to tackle major issues in dispute.
Both countries have fought proxy, secret wars using separatists and insurgents
to do their bidding. Pakistani officials cite good evidence of Indian involve-
ment in the 1971 East Pakistan crisis and in Balochistan. Indian officials ac-
cuse Pakistan of fueling unrest and insurgencies in the Kashmir Valley and
in other trouble spots. Nuclear weapons have exacerbated these grievances.
Subconventional, low-intensity warfare can escalate to direct confrontation.
Proxy wars are dangerous as they cede the control of the state to nonstate actors,
further widening the gulf between India and Pakistan, hardening attitudes, and
feeding the rivalry.54
At present, strategic competition is a geopolitical fact of life between India and
Pakistan. Neither the forces of globalization nor economic realism have reduced
the salience or primacy of Pakistan’s security imperatives.55 Defiance against
India is rooted in Pakistan’s regional outlook and strategic thinking. Significant
resources have been devoted to building indigenous defense infrastructure and
nuclear capacity for this purpose, as have partnerships with the United States
and China.56
The key elements of Pakistan’s strategic culture have had enduring influence in
its dealings with India, contributing to instability, uncertainty, and the potential
for another clash. To balance the Indian threat and to defend Muslim sover-
eignty, Pakistan has entered into alliances and strategic partnerships with the
United States and China. These partnerships have helped Pakistan raise its level
of defense preparedness, modernize its defense forces, and create a better sense
of national security. Despite cautionary messages from its partners, Pakistan
112
still pursued a proactive defense strategy of employing subconventional warfare

against India. Proactive defense is now reflected in a nuclear posture that gives
credence to the first use of nuclear weapons. Pakistan’s nuclear capability gives
it a sense of national pride and self-assurance, at the cost of greater instability
and an accelerated nuclear competition.
The essential elements that constitute the strategic culture of Pakistan are dura-
ble but also adaptable. Factors that might lead to adaptation include economic
imperatives, the cost of competition with India (both externally and internally),
and the realization of the escalatory risks associated with a growing dependen-
cy on nuclear weapons to counterbalance India. A political settlement of the
Kashmir dispute — if and when that is conceivable — could have the greatest
impact on changing Pakistan’s strategic culture.
113
Endnotes
1. Samuel P. Huntington, Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic and Political
Change in Forty-Three Societies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997).
2. Lawrence E. Harrison, Who Prospers? How Cultural Values Shape Economic and Political
Success (New York: Basic Books, 1992).
3. Ronald Inglehart, “Culture and Democracy,” in Culture Matters, ed. Lawrence Harrison and
Samuel Huntington (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 79-80.
4. Daniel P. Moynihan et al., “Poverty: Culture Versus Class,” Comparative Politics 4, no. 4 (1972):
589-605.
5. Jose Nun, “Democracy and Modernization, Thirty Years Later,” Latin American Perspectives 20,
no. 4 (Autumn 1993): 7-27.
6. Fareed Zakaria, “Culture is Destiny: A Conversation with Lee Kuan Yew,” Foreign Affairs 7,
no. 6 (November/December 1994).
7. Harrison and Huntington, eds., Culture Matters.
8. Michael C. Desch, “Culture Clash,” International Security 23, no.1 (Summer 1998): 141-170.
9. Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs 72, no. 3 (Summer 1993): 22-
49, http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/pnorris/Acrobat/Huntington_Clash.pdf.
10. See, for instance, John C. Farrell and Asa P. Smith, eds., Images and Reality in World
Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968); Kenneth Boulding, “National Images
and International Systems,” in Comparative Foreign Policy: Theoretical Essays, ed. Wolfram
Hannrieder (New York: David McKay, 1971); Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in
International Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976).
11. Stephen P. Cohen, The Pakistan Army (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984);
Hasan-Askari Rizvi, Pakistan and the Geostrategic Environment (New York: St. Martin’s, 1993).
12. Hasan-Askari Rizvi, “Pakistan’s Strategic Culture,” in South Asia in 2020: Future Strategic
Balances and Alliances, ed. Michael R. Chambers (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US
Army War College, November 2002), 325.
13. Ibid.
14. Muhammad Tehsin, Pakistan Strategic Culture: Formulation of Counterterrorism Policy
(Albuquerque, NM: Cooperative Monitoring Center, Sandia National Laboratories, April 2014),
13-16.
15. Feroz Hassan Khan, “Comparative Strategic Culture: The Case of Pakistan,” Strategic Insights,
6, no. 10 (November 2005).
16. Stephen P. Cohen, The Pakistan Army (New Delhi: Himalayan Books, 1984).
17. Ibid., 60.
18. Stephen P. Cohen, The Idea of Pakistan (Lahore: Vanguard Books, 2005), 114-124.
19. Cohen, The Pakistan Army, 99.
20. Ibid., 44-45.
21. Peter R. Lavoy, “Pakistan’s Strategic Culture: A Theoretical Excursion,” Strategic Insights 4, no.
10 (October 2005), 5.
114
22. C. Christine Fair, Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War (Karachi: Oxford
University Press, 2014), 4-7.
23. Peter Lavoy, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Posture: Security and Survivability,” Nonproliferation Policy
Education Center, January 2007, http://www.npolicy.org/article.php?aid=291&rid=6.
24. S. M. Burke, Pakistan’s Foreign Policy: An Historical Analysis (Karachi: Oxford University
Press, 1973), 55.
25. See, for instance, K. Sarwar Hasan, ed., The Kashmir Question: Documents on the Foreign
Policy of Pakistan (Karachi: Pakistan Institute of International Affairs, 1966).
26. See, for instance, Larry Collins and Daminique Lapierre, Freedom at Midnight (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1975).
27. Stanley Wolpert, Shameful Flight: The Last Years of the British Empire in India (Karachi:
Oxford University Press, 2006), 11.
28. For instance, G. W. Choudhury, Pakistan’s Relations with India, 1947-66 (London: Pall Mall
Press, 1968); Z. A. Bhutto, The Myth of Independence (London: Oxford University Press, 1969); S.
M. Burke, The Mainsprings of Indian and Pakistani Foreign Policy (Karachi: Oxford University
Press, 1975); M. Attiqur Rahman, Our Defence Cause (London: White Lion, 1976).
29. Government of Pakistan, The Report of the Hamoodur Rehman Commission of Inquiry into the
1971 War, declassified (Lahore: Vanguard, n.d.), 131-137.
30. Rais Ahmad Khan et al., eds., South Asia: Military Power and Regional Politics (Islamabad:
Islamabad Council of World Affairs, 1989); Mohammed Ayoob, “India In South Asia: The Quest
for Regional Predominance,” World Policy Journal 7, no. 1 (Winter 1989-90): 107-133; Mohammed
Ayoob, “India as Regional Hegemon: External Opportunities and Internal Constraints,”
International Journal 66 (Summer 1991): 420-448.
31. Burke, Pakistan’s Foreign Policy: An Historical Analysis, 1-55.
32. Aslam Siddiqi, Pakistan Seeks Security (Lahore: Longmans, Green, 1960); Pervaiz Iqbal
Cheema, Pakistan’s Defence Policy, 1954-58 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1990).
33. Jalal Ayesha, The State of Martial Rule: The Origins of Pakistan’s Political Economy of Defense
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
34. “Musharraf Offers Kashmir ‘Solution,’” The Guardian December 5, 2006, http://www.
theguardian.com/world/2006/dec/05/pakistan.india.
35. Aitzaz Ahsan, The Indus Saga and the Making of Pakistan (Lahore: Nehr Ghar Publications,
2001).
36. M. Akbar Khan, Raiders in Kashmir (Karachi: Pak Publishers, 1970).
37. Hasan Askari, “Pakistan,” in The Pivotal States: A New Framework for US Policy in the
Developing World, ed. Paul Kennedy (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 64-87.
38. Ismail Sheikh and Kamran Yousaf, “Budget 2014: Govt Announces 700bn Defence Budget,”
Dawn, June 3, 2014.
39. Ashok Kapur, Pakistan’s Nuclear Development (London: Croom Helm, 1987), 107-174.
40. See, for instance, Christopher Clay and Vipin Narang, “Doctrine, Capabilities, and (In)
Stability in South Asia,” in Deterrence Stability and Escalation Control in South Asia, ed. Michael
Krepon and Julia Thompson (Washington, DC: Stimson Center, 2013), 93-106.
115
41. Lavoy, “Pakistan’s Strategic Culture: A Theoretical Excursion,” 5.

42. Jeffrey S. Lantis, “Strategic Culture and National Security Policy,” International Studies
Review 4, no. 3 (Fall 2002): 87-113.
43. Tom Wright and Siobhan Gorman, “Militants Overtake India as Top Threat, Says Pakistan’s
ISI,” Wall Street Journal, August 16, 2010.
44. Dennis Ross, “Ross: Taliban Bigger Threat to Pakistan than India,” USA Today, December 17,
2014, http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/12/16/pakistan-taliban-school-massacre-den-
nis-ross-column/20502987/; “Majority of Pakistanis (52%) Believe that Taliban Are a Greater
Threat to Pakistan than India,” Gallup Pakistan, January 12, 2015, http://www.gallup.com.pk/
pollsshow.php?id=2015-01-12.
45. Baqir Sajjad Syed, “Kayani Renews Army’s Resolve to Eradicate Militancy,” Dawn, August 14,
2012, http://www.dawn.com/news/742053/kayani-renews-armys-resolve-to-eradicate-militancy.
46. “Army Chief Signs Death Warrants of Six Terrorists,” Dawn, December 18, 2014, http://www.
dawn.com/news/1151645/army-chief-signs-death-warrants-of-six-terrorists.
47. These numbers are from the South Asia Terrorism Portal, South Asia Intelligence Review,
http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/pakistan/database/casualties.htm.
48. Najamuddin A. Shaikh, “Lessons from the Peshawar Tragedy,” Express Tribune, December 22,
2014.
49. General Raheel Sharif said this standing with the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in
his second visit to Kabul in two months. Mateen Haider, “Afghanistan’s enemy is Pakistan’s
enemy, says army chief,” Dawn, February 17, 2015, http://www.dawn.com/news/1164189/
afghanistans-enemy-is-pakistans-enemy-says-army-chief.
50. These are some of the assumptions in the “four point” proposed solution of Pervez Musharraf.
“Musharraf offers Kashmir ‘solution,’” The Guardian, December 5, 2006, http://www.theguardian.
com/world/2006/dec/05/pakistan.india.
51. Imran Khan, leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), quotes Shah Mahmud Qureshi, a
former foreign minister of Pakistan, on this, in “Solution to Kashmir Issue Only Way Forward:
Imran Khan,” Pakistan Today, December 7, 2013, http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2013/12/07/
national/resolving-kashmir-issue-will-settle-all-india-pakistan-problems-imran-khan/.
52. “Pakistan Needs to Incite Those Fighting in Kashmir: Musharraf,”
Express Tribune, October 16, 2014, http://tribune.com.pk/story/776475/
pakistan-needs-to-incite-those-fighting-in-kashmir-musharraf/.
53. See, for instance, Clay and Narang, “Doctrine, Capabilities, and (In)Stability in South Asia,”
in Deterrence Stability and Escalation Control in South Asia, ed. Krepon and Thompson, 93-106.
55. Feroz Hassan Khan, “Comparative Strategic Culture: The Case of Pakistan.”
116
117
118
INDIA’S STRATEGIC CULTURE AND DETERRENCE

STABILITY ON THE SUBCONTINENT
Sarang Shidore
India and Pakistan have been engaged in a crisis-prone rivalry ever since their
independence from British rule in 1947. The injection of nuclear weapons into
this rivalry has introduced the dynamic of nuclear deterrence to the region,
giving it several characteristics resembling the US-Soviet Cold War.1 Deterrence
theory was developed during the Cold War based on rational actor models of
behavior. This work added important insights by including the impact of cul-
tural variables. A key such variable is strategic culture.
The aim of this essay is to delineate key aspects of Indian strategic culture and
explore their impact on deterrence stability on the subcontinent.2 It seeks to
answer the following questions: What are the key components that best describe
Indian strategic culture? Is Indian strategic culture immutable, and if not, how
and why is it changing? What implications do the answers to these questions
have on deterrence stability on the subcontinent?
The essay begins by summarizing existing work on Indian strategic culture,
including specific contributions in the nuclear weapons realm. I argue that
India possesses a distinctive strategic culture consisting of three ideational
frameworks that constitute its central strategic paradigm, and five core elements
at the operational level with respect to nuclear weapons and security relations
with Pakistan. The three ideational frameworks are realism, moralism, and
liberal globalism, while the five operational strategic elements can be described
as nuclear minimalism, firm civilian control over the military, preservation of
the territorial status quo, strategic restraint, and strategic autonomy. Moreover,
Indian strategic culture is not static but possesses a dynamic characteristic. The
relative strength of each of its strategic paradigms has changed over time, and
these shifts have manifested themselves in two of the core operational elements
relevant to Pakistan: nuclear minimalism and strategic restraint. These devel-
opments are likely to negatively impact deterrence stability in the region.
119
India’s Strategic Culture and Deterrence Stability on the Subcontinent
Strategic Culture: History and Theory

Strategic culture is a variable encompassing a set of beliefs and modes of think-
ing among the policymakers and strategic elite of a state that shape its response
to security challenges and threats. It is therefore a variable that is ideational
rather than material, and domestic rather than emanating from the structure
of the international system. As beliefs and modes of thinking are influenced by
experience and events, strategic culture is also historically shaped.
The concept of strategic culture can be traced to Jack Snyder in his influential
study of Soviet nuclear strategy.3 Snyder and other so-called “first generation”
strategic culture scholars4 were a part of the neorealist tradition, which gave
primacy to the structure of the international system. They introduced strategic
culture as an intervening variable, rooted in the deep history and formative
experiences of a state, that modified the state’s behavior, thereby leading to
suboptimal responses to changes in the structure of the international system.
They also treated strategic culture as “semipermanent” — effectively constant
during the period of interest. Although strategic culture was seen by the first
generation as supplementing, not supplanting, neorealism, the introduction
of an ideational variable was a significant departure in a neorealist theoretical
tradition that had until then almost exclusively focused on material variables.5
The constructivist contributions to international relations theory led to a pro-
liferation of literature in ideational drivers of security.6 The constructivists were
particularly interested in state identity as a key variable. They argued that the
interests of states are not a given, but prefigured by identity. Identity is not seen
in essentialist terms; instead it is constructed through a process of socializa-
tion.7 The dynamics of the socialization process, argued to have the potential
to transform actor identities and interests, was a major theoretical innovation,
and a departure from a neorealist understanding of interests as an exogenously
imposed constant.
Several influential case studies of military organization and practice utilizing
the constructivist lens, for example by Jeffrey Legro8 and Elizabeth Kier,9 in-
corporated strategic culture as the core explanatory variable. In a key depar-
ture from Alastair Iain Johnston’s approach, many constructivists saw strategic
culture of a state as being not semipermanent but subject to change through
recent history and contingency. This treatment introduced a certain temporal
dynamism into the concept of strategic culture, which, while rejecting the es-
sentialist tinge of first-generation studies, also avoided treating strategic culture
as simply an instrumental product of elite interests.
120
Johnston, in a seminal study of Chinese military doctrine, contributed a new

rigor in the analysis of strategic culture.10 He attempted to locate Chinese stra-
tegic culture through a deep analysis of classic texts to which elites and strategic
thinkers had been exposed throughout much of Chinese history. Analyzing
Ming China, Johnston came to the conclusion that two Chinese strategic para-
digms existed, one of them dominant in practice and the other an idealization.
Johnston’s work was marked by several noteworthy methodological charac-
teristics.11 First, he departed significantly from the first generation by treating
strategic culture as an independent (rather than intervening) variable, separable
from material variables, whose existence could be proven independently of state
behavior — thus addressing the problem of tautology in first-generation studies.
Second, he viewed strategic culture as generating a set of ranked preferences to
guide choice. However, Johnston continued to treat strategic culture as semiper-
manent, rooted in the deep history of a state, as the first generation had done.
This essay takes Johnston’s definition of strategic culture as a basis for its argu-
ments, but also incorporates constructivist insights with regard to processes of
ideational change. Johnston defines strategic culture as follows.
Strategic culture is an integrated system of symbols (i.e., argumentation
structures, languages, analogies, metaphors, etc.) that acts to establish
pervasive and long-lasting grand strategic preferences by formulating
concepts of the role and efficacy of force in interstate political affairs,
and by clothing these assumptions with such an aura of factuality that
the strategic preferences seem uniquely realistic and efficacious.12
Johnston further divides strategic culture into two levels.13 The first consists of
the central strategic paradigm, embodying core assumptions about the strategic
environment along three axes — the role of war (inevitable or an aberration),
the nature of an adversary and its threat (zero-sum or variable-sum), and the
efficacy of the use of force. More than one central strategic paradigm can exist
in a given state. The second level is the operational level, which embodies the
choice of grand strategies to meet defined threats in the environment; in other
words, high-level policy preferences, such as offense over defense, that drive a
state’s behavior. The symbolic and linguistic element in strategic culture is key,
as these are the means through which meaning and preferences are communi-
cated across time and space and contribute to its persistence.
121
India’s Strategic Culture: Contemporary Debates

Several scholars and practitioners have investigated Indian strategic culture
over the past few decades. Notably, some have cast doubt on whether India has
a strategic culture in the first place. George Tanham, in an essentialist-orient-
ed essay, famously asserted that India lacked a strategic culture as a result of
its deep-rooted Hindu worldview of “life cycles and repetitions.”14 Other ana-
lysts have made arguments in a broadly similar vein. Sandy Gordon wrote that
the Hindu caste system inhibited coordination and planning, and stymied the
development of a strategic culture.15 Former India Foreign Minister Jaswant
Singh blamed Hindu pacifism, Gandhi’s nonviolence, and a lack of territorial
consciousness to explain why, in his view, independent India “abandoned the
centrality of strategic culture.”16 K. Subrahmanyam, among the foremost Indian
strategic analysts, argued that “our government ... has had no strategic culture,
and has never thought and planned ahead and never offensively.”17 Popular
commentary in international news magazines has also agonized over the alleged
lack of a strategic culture in India that inhibits robust military responses to
Chinese and Pakistani threats.18
A more voluminous body of literature, however, holds the view that India, like
most states, has indeed been characterized by a strategic culture. Several investi-
gations have examined deep history to excavate strategic practices of the Indian
state. Swarna Rajagopalan examined the influence of the great Hindu epics
Ramayana and Mahabharata on Indian grand strategy, and observed echoes of
the ancient concept of dharma, or right and proper conduct, in modern India’s
propensity for framing itself in moral terms in international affairs.19 Dharma,
however, was not a strict moral code, but a context-sensitive concept that de-
pended on the time and the individual in question.
Other researchers analyzed the work of ancient political theorist Kautilya and
its relationship to the modern Indian state.20 The Kautilyan concept of raja-
mandala approximates in some form strategies of power and balances that are
the focus of neorealist theorizing. Stephen Rosen’s work on the causal effects
of Indian social structures on its military efficacy and readiness argued that
deep divisions in Indian society have carried over to the Indian military and
have thereby limited its capacity for generating military force and project-
ing power.21 An analysis of Mughal India’s strategic behavior under Emperor
Akbar saw the predominance of accommodationist strategies to expand the
Mughal imperium, although coercive strategies were more prominent in re-
gions distant from the capital.22 The existence of two strategies in ancient
122
India was noted: a realist one following the Kautilya, and a moralist one cen-
tered on the concept of dharma.
While these civilizational analyses are insightful from a historical standpoint, it
is doubtful whether they apply to modern India. The territory of the present-day
Indian republic has been politically unified only episodically in its history.
India’s history has also been subject to major political discontinuities. There is
little evidence that Chanakya or the ancient Hindu epics were read and followed
by, for example, Mughal or British strategists.
Scholarship that has interrogated the formative era of the independence move-
ment and the foundation of the republic in the 20th century may therefore be
more relevant to gaining an insight into Indian strategic thought.
Stephen Cohen, in analyzing the Indian strategic worldview, wrote of a
Nehruvian consensus in the early decades after Indian independence charac-
terized by a strong idealism with a dash of realism.23 This “moderate Nehruvian”
consensus broke down after the trauma of defeat in the 1962 war with China,
and was replaced with the “militant Nehruvianism” of Indira Gandhi with its
Kautilyan elements. Other strands of Indian strategic thought also became
more prominent from the 1980s onwards, including realism.
A simultaneous examination of formative history of the republic and more re-
cent trends has characterized the work of some strategic culture scholars. Kanti
Bajpai’s work identified six major strands in India’s strategic thought, the more
influential ones being Nehruvian, neoliberal, and hyperrealist.24 Nehruvians,
according to Bajpai, are mainly distinguished by an emphasis on communica-
tion and contact as a means of transforming adversaries into allies, and a strong
commitment to keeping great powers out of the affairs of the subcontinent.
Neoliberals see trade and economic liberalization as a means to pragmatically
improve conflictual relations with neighbors and welcome the role of one par-
ticular great power — the United States — as an Indian partner, aiding India’s
rise on the global stage. Hyperrealists take the most nationalistic stance of the
three, believing that force and balance of power have significant roles in Indian
foreign policy, and that India should ultimately aim to become a great power
itself through a conscious process of militarization and assertion of its national
interests. Bajpai also contended that neoliberals had the upper hand in current
Indian strategic practice. Bajpai’s analysis was illuminating in that it was among
the first to clearly identify broad schools of thought in the Indian state in con-
temporary times. However, it did not focus on linking these schools of thought
specifically to behavior.
123
Other scholars also saw neoliberal frameworks as being influential in more con-
temporary Indian grand strategy. Raja Mohan argued that India was moving
away from nonalignment, and beginning to establish closer relationships with
western countries, particularly the United States.25 He argued that the end of
the Cold War had given both states the opportunity to realize that they shared
democratic values, and had convergent interests in certain strategic areas. This de-
velopment, he claimed, “constituted a fundamental change of course” for India.26
In my analysis of the post-Cold War India-Iran relationship, I saw the growing
influence of neoliberal thinking in Indian grand strategy, with its origins in the
abandonment of economic autarky starting in the early 1990s.27 I argued that this
shift in orientation, though partial and limited, had begun to challenge older
Nehruvian narratives in spheres beyond the economic.
Two recent studies, rather than theorizing the totality of Indian strategic culture,
have instead focused on its specific facets. Vipin Narang and Paul Staniland ex-
amined the endurance of strategic autonomy in the discourse of Indian leaders
since Nehru.28 The study argued that this principle was one way to guard against
a historically validated risk of an alliance turning into domination, and retained
a strong presence in Indian strategic culture. Sunil Dasgupta and Stephen Cohen
argued that a deeply held doctrine of strategic restraint exists in Indian security
policy, with its roots in the worldview of the Indian independence movement.29
They pointed to several pieces of evidence demonstrating strategic restraint —
including the long delay between its first nuclear test and overt weaponization,
and the lack of a military response after the 2008 Mumbai attacks. They conclud-
ed that India’s strategic restraint was likely to be preserved, in spite of continuing
pressures from the fraught relationship with Pakistan.
India’s Strategic Culture: The Nuclear Dimension

Five noted studies have attempted to link the evolution of Indian strategic
culture to nuclear deterrence. Bajpai argued for three contending schools of
thought among those in India who supported the 1998 tests and have embraced
the logic of deterrence, whom he called rejectionists, pragmatists, and maxi-
malists.30 These schools closely shadowed the three streams of Indian strategic
culture he had proposed earlier, the Nehruvian, neoliberal, and hyperrealist
(noted above). Bajpai saw the pragmatist school ascendant, with its relaxed ap-
proach to deterrence emphasizing uncertainty, advocacy of no first use, strong
backing for arms control over disarmament, commitment to a moratorium on
further testing, embrace of Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) negotiations,
and export controls. However, Bajpai also indicated that Indian policy could
veer in the preferred direction of the maximalists in the future.
124
Rajesh Basrur conducted a perceptive theoretical and empirical analyses of

Indian nuclear policies through the framework of strategic culture, which uti-
lized an examination of written texts and oral interviews of key Indian mil-
itary and civilian elite.31 He made a case for strong continuity in a policy of
nuclear restraint since independence, a continuity that had persisted despite
an increasingly adverse external environment, and strong domestic pressures
for escalation of the nuclear program. Basrur’s historical investigation, aided
by the work of prior authors,32 led him to argue that Indian leaders took only
small, incremental steps toward eventually embracing nuclear deterrence, when
neorealist theory predicts that they would have nuclearized much faster. The lag
could be best explained, according to Basrur, as being due to an Indian strategic
culture on nuclear weapons that he termed “nuclear minimalism.”
Nuclear minimalism framed nuclear weapons as nonusable and only relevant as
a political tool for ensuring Indian security, and displayed a high tolerance for
policy ambiguity. Basrur emphasized, as further pointers to nuclear minimal-
ism, the nondeployed nature of India’s arsenal and the initiation of arms-control
agreements with Pakistan preceding official weaponization in both countries.
In her examination of India’s nuclear policy through a lens of strategic culture,
Deepa Ollapally argued that a fundamental Indian dilemma has been a major
mismatch between its desired ends and limited means.33 As a fragile and poor
state, newly independent India’s rational choice would have been to align itself
with one of the superpowers, given that it would come with a security umbrel-
la and financial largesse. However, Indian idealism in seeking the third way
of nonalignment was considerably driven by a strategic culture rooted in the
uniqueness of its freedom struggle. This had a direct impact on Indian nuclear
policies, which, in confronting an increasingly adverse and nuclear-armed se-
curity environment after the mid-1960s, displayed an “ambiguity rather than
clear-cut choices” and “a tolerance for contradictions.”34 The resultant Indian
understanding of nuclear weapons, according to Ollapally, was framed in po-
litical rather than military terms.
Itty Abraham argued that Indian defense and nuclear scientists specifically have
exerted inordinate pressure on nuclear policy. He called this group the “strategic
enclave.”35 The strategic enclave works in a culture of high secrecy and minimal
accountability, and has had a disproportionate influence on the creation of capabil-
ities for weapons and delivery vehicles. Some of these arguments are also found in
George Perkovich’s work on the history of the Indian nuclear weapons program.36
Perkovich contended that the drivers for Indian weaponization were found less in
external security threats than in domestic politics and a desire for global status.
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India’s Strategic Culture: A New Understanding

Departing from Tanham and Singh, I propose that there is clear evidence in Indian
security thinking and practice, particularly relating to the nuclear program, of an
identifiable, distinct Indian strategic culture. The factors that shape India’s stra-
tegic culture include, but are not limited to, the foundational ideas of the Indian
freedom movement, the trauma of the 1962 China war, the continuing tense rival-
ry with Pakistan, and international pressures on nuclear nonproliferation.
Taking Johnston’s approach as the point of departure, I argue below that Indian
strategic culture is constituted at two levels. The first is a central strategic paradigm,
formed by three ideational frameworks — moralism, realism, and liberal globalism.
The second is at the operational level, consisting of five core elements of grand strat-
egy — nuclear minimalism, firm civilian control over the military, preservation of
the territorial status quo, strategic restraint, and strategic autonomy.
Table 1: India’s Three Central Strategic Paradigms

Moralism Realism Liberal
Globalism
Rare and only Common structural
Occasional and
Role of War under extreme feature of interna-
limited
circumstances tional system
Nature of
Nonzero sum Zero sum Nonzero sum
adversary
Ineffective and Effective in some
Often effective if
Efficacy of use of counterpro- bounded cir-
means and ends
force ductive in most cumstances as a
are coherent
circumstances deterrent
Grand Strategy
Values Hard Power Economics
Emphasis
Philosophical
Optimistic Pessimistic Utilitarian
orientation
Modern-
Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel, P. V. Narasimha Rao,
day Norm
Mahatma Gandhi Indira Gandhi Manmohan Singh
Entrepreneurs
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Central Strategic Paradigm

The central strategic paradigm forms the ideational bedrock of a strategic cul-
ture. It provides a coherent set of assumptions about the strategic environment
by answering three questions: What is the role of war? What is the nature of an
adversary and its threat? How efficacious is the use of force? Evidence for the
presence of a central paradigm ought not to rest on behavior (to avoid repeating
the errors of tautology of the first-generation analysts37), but is to be deduced
from the discourse of the members of the strategic elite and norm entrepre-
neurs. Three central strategic paradigms can be discerned in the Indian strate-
gic discourse — moralism, realism, and liberal globalism (see Table 1).
Moralism
Moralism is the foundational paradigm of the Indian state, rooted in its civ-
ilizational ethos and anti-colonial, nonviolent independence struggle.38 This
worldview lays stress on principles rather than power politics, is reluctant to
use force, and has historically tended to back causes that favor the Global South.
Moralism as a strategic culture element has a long history in Indian discourse
and action. Jawaharlal Nehru was the key norm entrepreneur who laid the foun-
dations of Indian moralism.39 Nehru’s extensive writings regarding colonialism
and the lopsided world order, his concept of nonalignment as an ideational
response to the Cold War, and his championing of nuclear disarmament laid
the foundation of moralism in independent India’s foreign policy. Subsequent
Indian leaders continued to support many of these causes, at least in rhetoric.
Modern-day Indian moralism is predicated on a strong pride in the greatness
of India’s ancient civilization, a continuing identification with causes related
to equitable global development, adherence to no first use (NFU) status, and
continuing rhetoric on global nuclear disarmament.
Indian moralism is also strongly wedded to the idea of state sovereignty, a con-
cept that traditionally has been associated with realism. Thus contemporary
moralist themes in the United States and the European Union such as the re-
sponsibility to protect have found few sympathizers among Indian policymak-
ers across the political spectrum.
Realism
A tradition of realism is also salient in Indian thinking.40 It sees India as a
great-power-in-the-making, and readily contemplates the use of force in order
to ensure security in a dangerous neighborhood. The influence of realism was
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evident even during moralism’s apogee in the Nehruvian era. India’s military
actions in Kashmir, Hyderabad, Junagadh, and Goa were evidence of New Delhi
not hesitating to use force when the situation was seen to demand it.
The difference between offensive and defensive versions of realism can be found
in the Indian debate.41 Offensive realism in India, focused on power maximiza-
tion and dismissive of international institutions, emphasizes state sovereignty
and decisional autonomy, and is generally opposed to the international nonpro-
liferation regime.42 Defensive realism, however, adopts a more internationalist
lens, and looks favorably toward the United States as a possible force-multiplier
aiding India’s rise. Defensive realism argues that strategic autonomy ought to
be replaced with the concept of responsibility in order for India to gain influ-
ence in the global order.43 It also embraces soft power, such as international aid
programs, as a means for expanding Indian influence.
Offensive realists are more inclined to respond punitively to any terrorist
acts originating in Pakistan. Defensive realists, while not skittish about using
military power, are more inclined toward reaching an accommodation with
Pakistan through the use of economic tools, with their overarching strategic
goal for India to emerge as a great power beyond the constraints of South Asia.
In broadening its understanding of power to include economic power, defensive
realism often finds common cause with liberal globalism.
Liberal Globalism
Liberal globalism in the Indian context44 is rooted in the salience attached to
economic growth. It places a high priority on integration with global and re-
gional regimes of trade and capital. It sees furthering trade and investment as
vital means to increase national influence and reduce the risk of conflict. The
roots of liberal globalism lie in economic policy, specifically a major transfor-
mation of India since the early 1990s from a state focused on an autarkic model
of import substitution and economic self-reliance to one eager to integrate with
global regimes of trade and capital.45 Liberal globalism’s high priority on global
integration means that it sees state security predominantly through the lens of
(and often subservient to) economic security.46
Liberal globalism’s framing of Pakistan is distinctly utilitarian. It sees the cur-
rent minimal economic interdependence between the two countries as a factor
in the continuation of subcontinental tensions. It strongly supports initiatives
such as reducing tariffs and eliminating nontariff barriers, opening up energy
and service sectors, instituting a liberal visa regime for ease of business, and
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accelerating two-way trade by as much as an order of magnitude from current

levels.47 More broadly, liberal globalists see the security problem with Pakistan
as a subset of a wider failure of regional integration in South Asia.
Central strategic paradigms manifest themselves by generating, strengthening,
or weakening operational elements, or changing their preference ranking in a
state’s menu of behavioral choices. The clear tensions between India’s three cen-
tral strategic paradigms raise the question as to their relative influence on the
operational elements of grand strategy. There is no a priori reason for assuming
any one of the three paradigms outlined above is always dominant in driving
Indian grand strategy at all times. The constructivist lens alerts us to the possi-
bility that history and contingency may enhance or retard the influence of each
at different times. There is also the possibility that a subset of these paradigms
exists only at an idealistic level, and has little impact on operational elements.48
Operational Elements
The three central strategic paradigms outlined above find their expression in
actual state behavior through their core operational elements. Core elements are
embodiments of the grand strategic principles of the state.49 They represent the
means by which the central paradigms are put into practice.
Five core elements constitute the operational level of Indian strategic culture
with respect to nuclear weapons and Pakistan — nuclear minimalism, firm
civilian control over the military, preservation of the territorial status quo, stra-
tegic restraint, and strategic autonomy. These core elements reflect influences
from one or more of the central strategic paradigms.
Nuclear Minimalism
Nuclear minimalism encapsulates the idea that India is a reluctant nuclear
power that sees nuclear weapons in predominantly political terms that signal its
emerging great-power status and ensure stable deterrence against adversaries.
It does not see nuclear weapons as tools for war-fighting.
At its outset, India was implacably opposed to nuclear weapons, and nuclear
disarmament emerged as a key focus of Indian diplomacy during the earliest
years of the independent republic. However, the crushing Indian defeat in the
1962 war and the six Chinese nuclear tests during 1964-1967 rattled India, and
presented it with a severe security challenge. While an embrace of rapid weap-
onization would be the prediction of standard deterrence theory, India agonized
over the response, and initially focused on getting security guarantees from
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existing nuclear powers other than China.50 When the United States tied secu-
rity guarantees to a disavowal of nonalignment, India abandoned seeking such
guarantees — but it did not weaponize either, though an incremental step was
taken toward a nuclear weapons program.
The first nuclear test in this reluctant nuclear journey came only in 1974. Yet India
avoided labeling its test as a weapons test, and stopped short of overt or covert
weaponization. It took roughly another 15 years for India to actually manufacture
a weapon51 and another 24 years to conduct meaningful tests as an overt nuclear
power. After overt weaponization, India showed little urgency for setting up a
nuclear command, which was constituted only after another five years.
India continues to maintain a de-mated posture, provides an NFU guarantee,
has not inducted tactical nuclear weapons, and generally emphasizes the deter-
rent nature of its weapons rather than their potential use as a means to actually
fight and win a nuclear war. India’s nuclear doctrine includes a “massive retali-
ation” clause in response to any nuclear attack. Since massive retaliation would
be of questionable credibility in response to, say, the use of a small battlefield
weapon by Pakistan against Indian troops on Pakistani soil, India’s continued
and stubborn adherence to no first use reiterates an underlying assumption
that Indian escalation dominance and Pakistan’s geographic vulnerability give
India the deterrence it needs with respect to that neighbor’s nuclear threat. This
effectively rules out any war-fighting utility of the Indian deterrent in the event
of an actual conflict. Hence there is no need to spell out a more granular series
of responses in the doctrine in the event of a use.
India’s nuclear minimalism is largely a product of the central strategic par-
adigm of moralism. It represents the contemporary version of independent
India’s championing of nuclear disarmament — a moralist idea that serves as
a powerful symbol for Indian strategic thought transmitted over decades in
Indian discourse. This symbol remains persistent to this day — for example,
India’s draft nuclear doctrine dedicates a significant portion of its text to the
issue.52 Moralism is also a driver for India’s NFU guarantee, support for a Fissile
Material Cut-off Treaty, and the post-1998 de facto moratorium on nuclear test-
ing. However, India’s eventual embrace of nuclear weapons is also an example
of the paradigm of realism at work in adapting national security policy to a
difficult external security environment.
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Firm Civilian Control over the Military

Firm civilian control over the military has been a strongly enduring feature
of India’s security architecture. There is a wide consensus in India that the
military, while providing valued inputs, ought not to make the final calls on
key nuclear and national security decisions. The military’s role in security and
nuclear decision-making is minimal, limited to operational aspects.
Nehru instituted the nuclear energy program as a civilian initiative, with the
scientists of the Atomic Energy Commission solely in charge. The weapons
initiative was an offshoot of the energy program, and to this date remains firm-
ly out of the hands of the military. The civilian role in the nuclear weapons
program is divided between the defense and nuclear scientists (the strategic
enclave), bureaucrats, and the political leadership, with the military only in
control of the physical delivery vehicles.53 However, this power is concentrated
in the executive branch — the Parliament has been virtually absent on nuclear
questions, having debated the topic only four times since independence.54
The overwhelming dominance of civilians in Indian security policy probably
has its roots in the lack of an armed component in the Indian independence
movement, Nehru’s deep distrust of the military, and his heightened wariness
toward its role after the 1958 military coup in Pakistan.55 The resultant security
governance structures set in place by Nehru largely persist to this day, and ex-
clude the military from security policymaking.56 Nuclear warheads are under
the control of the strategic enclave of nuclear and defense scientists, while civil-
ian bureaucrats at the Ministry of Defense have a significant say in conventional
defense policy.
Though there is no question that the strategic enclave is highly influential in
creating capabilities, evidence indicates that all critical steps in India’s nuclear
pathway were taken as a result of decisions by the political leadership.57 This in-
cludes the decision to keep the nuclear door open by Nehru; the nuclear tests in
1974 and 1998 by Indira Gandhi and Atal Vajpayee, respectively; the decision to
restart the weapons program in the early 1980s by Indira Gandhi; actual weap-
onization in the late 1980s by Rajiv Gandhi; and the veto of the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) by a politically weak Prime Minister Deve Gowda.
Political leaders also made decisions not to take certain steps along this path-
way, in the teeth of opposition from the strategic enclave — most notably Indira
Gandhi’s decision to refrain from weaponization or further testing after 1974,
and Narasimha Rao’s cancellation of a planned test in 1995. In some of these
cases, prime ministers were relatively isolated as both defense scientists and
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bureaucrats had opposing preferences. Nevertheless, the final call was always
made by the prime minister, sometimes aided by a very small number of hand-
picked civilian advisors.
Civilian control in India also extends to key decisions on conventional use
of force, which in the Indian-Pakistani context are potentially prime triggers
for escalation to nuclear use. For example, Atal Vajpayee ordered the massive
Indian troop buildup (Operation Parakram) in 2001-2002 and instructed the
military to prepare for war, without consulting the military on the decision. He
ultimately ordered a demobilization, in spite of the military’s deep opposition,
even though many of India’s stated demands had not been met by Pakistan.
Moralism’s imprints can clearly be seen in the importance India attaches to
civilian control over the military and security policy in general. The sanctity
of civilian control springs from a democratic culture established in the earliest
years of the republic, in which elected representatives are seen as paramount,
and any military seizure of power is viewed as a threat to the core values of the
state and society.
Preservation of the Territorial Status Quo

India is fundamentally a territorially satisfied state. Although it has contested
borders with Pakistan, it does not actively seek the annexation of new territory,
and the preservation of the status quo on its borders has been a key element
of its grand strategy.58 One marker of this is India’s attitude toward the Line
of Control (LoC) that divides Kashmir. India has been largely unassertive in
pursuing its claims on the Pakistani-administered portion of Kashmir (with a
quarter of undivided Kashmir’s population). New Delhi has done very little to
regain what it considers a part of its territory, as contrasted to Pakistan’s hercu-
lean efforts at regaining the Kashmir Valley from Indian control.
A complete military victory in the 1971 war did not lead India to annex all or
part of Pakistani-administered Kashmir. Another indicator is the Kargil crisis in
1999, when Pakistani troops intruded deep into Indian-held territory in northern
Kashmir.59 The goal of the Indian military and political response was to restore the
sanctity of the LoC. India did not attempt any incursions of its own into Pakistani
territory. Once the status quo ante had been restored through a combination of
military and diplomatic means, Indian forces ceased action.
India’s focus on preserving the territorial status quo aids its military’s generally
defensive posture. It discourages the pursuit of strategies of “offensive defense”
and “offensive offense.” This is further aided by the nuclear deterrent, which
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is seen as an insurance policy against any Pakistani adventurism or coercive

strategies in the conventional plane.
The influence of moralism is evident in India’s emphasis on preserving the
territorial status quo and its lack of interest in annexing new territory held
by Pakistan. However, the realist paradigm has also been present in Indian
thinking on territorial integrity. Shortly after independence, Vallabhbhai Patel,
a realist thinker and the second-most powerful Indian politician after Nehru,
was instrumental in forging military action taken in the crises over amalgamat-
ing the kingdoms of Hyderabad and Junagadh (whose rulers were presumed to
have affinities toward Pakistan), thus creating a territorially contiguous India.
In contemporary times, realism engenders a fierce resistance to making any
territorial trade-offs or concessions with Pakistan. This has been a factor in the
failure of past attempts for the resolution of territorial disputes such as Siachen
in Kashmir or Sir Creek on the Gujarat-Sindh border.
Strategic Restraint
Strategic restraint in Indian security policy is largely borne out by the empirical
record with respect to Pakistan. India’s response to point provocations such as
terrorist attacks has traditionally been overwhelmingly diplomatic rather than
military. Repeated provocations through subconventional attacks by militants
backed by Pakistan have not yet led to offensive, punitive Indian military action.
India has also been restrained in its conduct of war, seeking defeat of the ene-
my but not its destruction. Military action is generally undertaken only when
circumstances are strongly favorable.
Aspects of the 1971 war with Pakistan demonstrate an offensive streak in
Indian strategy.60 On the other hand, in the aftermath of what was a total and
decisive military victory, India withdrew all its troops from the former East
Pakistan, quickly released all Pakistani prisoners of war, initiated peace talks
with Pakistan at Shimla, and refrained from pressing its advantage by annexing
a part or all of Pakistani-held Kashmir. In 1983, Indira Gandhi refused to ap-
prove an airstrike aimed to destroy the nascent Pakistani nuclear program after
she was presented with plans to do so by the Indian military, at a time when a
Pakistan-backed insurgency was raging in the state of Punjab.61
The Kargil War in 1999 was an excellent example of restraint. Although India
upped the ante by deploying air power, cross-LoC air operations were not ini-
tiated to dislodge Pakistani troops from the heights they were occupying even
though they would have substantially reduced Indian casualties.62 During the
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conflict, India also resisted the temptation to expand the war horizontally, across
the LoC or to the International Border.63 The next major incident, the hijack-
ing of an Indian civilian airliner by Pakistani militants to Taliban-controlled
Afghanistan in December 1999, ended with the extraordinary spectacle of the
Indian foreign minister personally escorting three top militants previously in
Indian jails to Kandahar in order to trade them with the airplane passengers.64
There was no Indian retaliation after a massive wave of bombings on com-
muter trains in Mumbai in 2006, though India blamed the Pakistani group
Lashkar-e-Taiba. In the aftermath of the 2008 Mumbai attacks carried out by
Pakistan-based militants, which lasted four days and killed 163 people, there
is no evidence that the Cabinet Committee on Security seriously considered a
military response.65 During the border clashes on the LoC in 2013, initial Indian
government statements demonstrated de-escalatory intent by implying that
the attacks on Indian troops were led by Kashmiri militants rather than actual
Pakistani troops.66
Three cases, however, raise questions about Indian restraint with respect to
Pakistan — Operation Brasstacks in 1986-87, India’s nuclear tests in May 1998,
and Operation Parakram in 2001-2002 — and require a more detailed discus-
sion. Operation Brasstacks was a massive military exercise ordered by Indian
Army Chief Gen. K. Sundarji in 1986, during the height of the Pakistani-aided
insurgency in Punjab. Pakistan interpreted it as a cover for a massive Indian
invasion. Then commander of India’s western front, Gen. P. N. Hoon, wrote in
his memoirs that Brasstacks was aimed to start a fourth war with Pakistan. Yet
an exhaustive study of the crisis concluded that the exercise was not meant to
start a war but to send a warning.67 It may be concluded that Brasstacks included
an element of a coercive strategy, but restraint remained the key Indian mode
of dealing with a serious Pakistan-backed militancy.
India caught most of the world off-guard when it tested five nuclear devices in
May 1998. The tests came only two years after 158 members of the UN General
Assembly approved the CTBT, and Indian policymakers were aware that a new
round of testing would trigger US economic sanctions. Many observers there-
fore perceived the tests as an exemplar of a new Indian assertiveness.
However, the nuclear tests and the associated declaratory status came as many
as 34 years after China’s overt detonations in the wake of India’s devastating
defeat in the 1962 war, and approximately 15 years after India concluded that
Pakistan had inducted nuclear weapons into its arsenal. Thus the more perti-
nent question is not so much why India tested in 1998,68 but rather why it took
134
so long for India to respond to major, adverse shifts in its strategic environment,
when conventional deterrence theory would predict a far quicker nucleariza-
tion pathway. From this standpoint, India’s long delays in testing and an overt
embrace of a deterrent are in fact a marker of strategic restraint as a persistent
element in its grand strategy.
After a major terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001, India
ordered Operation Parakram, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of troops on
the Pakistani border, explicitly threatening war. India eventually stood down 10
months later, in spite of Pakistan not acceding to most of its demands. Though
other factors such as nuclear deterrence, the slowness of the Indian buildup, and
US intervention probably played a critical part in Indian decision-making, there
is also evidence that India was prepared to initiate hostilities.69 Again, however,
the Indian strategy of compellence through armed buildup stopped short of
actual military action.
Although some of India’s actions such as Parakram and Brasstacks represent
a flirtation with the abandonment of strategic restraint toward Pakistan, they
have not, as yet, led to any actual punitive military action that involves Indian
troops crossing the LoC or the International Border. Indian strategic restraint
at least partly explains the fact that Pakistan has had a consistent, well-funded
policy of arming and training subconventional actors such as Lashkar-e-Taiba
against a nuclear India, even as there is no evidence that India currently uses
the same tactic against a nuclear Pakistan. India also has shown a consis-
tent behavior of returning to negotiations after each crisis with Pakistan. In
weighing all of the above evidence, the broad conclusion that can be drawn is
that India has generally practiced strategic restraint on the subcontinent with
respect to Pakistan.70
Moralism has traditionally been a prominent driver in India’s strategic re-
straint doctrine. Nehruvian ideas of resolution of conflict through communi-
cation influenced the defining of Indian restraint. However, in recent decades,
liberal globalism is also a driver for the continued persistence of India’s stra-
tegic restraint policy even after multiple provocations such as the Mumbai
attacks. The sustained high-growth phase of the Indian economy through
enhanced foreign trade and investment, and the highest priority accorded
across the political spectrum for maintaining this growth, has led to a view
that a major conflict with Pakistan carries unacceptable risks to India’s pros-
pects for development and security.
135
Strategic Autonomy
The principle of strategic autonomy has been a consistent strain in Indian stra-
tegic thought ever since the founding of the republic. It is repeatedly invoked by
Indian leaders, enjoys wide support across the political spectrum, and is stated
unambiguously in the draft nuclear doctrine. The principle owes its genesis to
the independence movement and the historical experience of colonialism, when
pacts signed by Indian rulers with European powers to aid them against their
local enemies turned into a means for their domination and annexation by the
very same powers. The grand strategic expression of the principle of strategic
autonomy during the Cold War was nonalignment, articulated as a policy of
staying clear of the two opposing superpower blocs.
Yet nonalignment did not preclude India from seeking US military aid in the
wake of the 1962 China war, or from forging a partnership with a security com-
ponent with the Soviet Union in 1971. One interpretation of these events is that
India effectively abandoned strategic autonomy as a doctrine in the wake of
the defeat at the hands of China. A more complex view might be that strategic
autonomy was never an absolute principle in the way it has been claimed — it
did not rule out tilts in favor of one great power or another when core security
interests were threatened. However, it did rule out binding military commit-
ments of the kind exemplified by NATO or the US-Japan security pact.
The recent report “Nonalignment 2.0,” authored by a group of prominent Indian
strategic analysts, has addressed the strategic autonomy question in some de-
tail.71 The report contains a perceptive description of India’s strategic environ-
ment with Pakistan and, to a large extent, China, defined in adversarial terms.
It makes a strong case for economic interdependence and deeper integration
into the US-led global marketplace as a strategic imperative. However, it rejects
military alliances as a means for ensuring Indian security with respect to its
adversaries. It also expresses wariness on embracing preferential partnerships
in any form that require explicit or implied military coordination aimed at a
third power, instead placing its emphasis on internal balancing and acting as a
bridge player between the great powers. Thus “Nonalignment 2.0” serves as an
exemplar of the continued reluctance in Indian strategic thought of abandoning
autonomy in decision-making through a treaty alliance or accepting the role of
a junior military partner.72
A second facet of Indian strategic autonomy, tied to internal balancing strate-
gies, is a consistent goal of defense technology indigenization since the earliest
days of the republic. This has historically led to large expenditures in defense
136
research and development, though deliverable successes in this effort have

been limited and mainly confined to nuclear, space, and missile programs.
Nevertheless, India continues to stress technology transfer while negotiating
arms deals, maintains a large network of laboratories and defense production
plants at home, and has thus far prevented the entry of foreign players as con-
trolling entities in the defense sector.
Thus it may be concluded that strategic autonomy in the Indian context implies
that New Delhi is opposed to being a part of a treaty alliance led by a foreign
power. Additionally, military self-reliance and technology indigenization are
major Indian strategic priorities. Defined in this manner, strategic autonomy
is strongly validated as a core operational element of Indian strategic culture.
India’s strategic autonomy doctrine is a product of two of its central strategic
paradigms — moralism and realism. Indian moralism, with its roots in the
struggle for independence and emphasis on self-reliance, accords the highest
priority to retaining decisional autonomy and defense technology indigeniza-
tion. Indian realism, especially offensive realism, emphasizes India’s aspirations
for great-power status with strategic autonomy as a key means of achieving this
goal. Defense indigenization is an integral part of this worldview.
India’s strategic autonomy is not absolute, however, and is limited by two fac-
tors. The first is a continued reliance on arms imports for much of its military
capabilities as a result of the limited success of its efforts toward technology
indigenization. The second has emerged more recently through the influence
of liberal globalism, and pertains to India’s increased and growing interdepen-
dence with major trading nations as a means to fuel its economic growth.
How Dynamic Are India’s Strategic Paradigms?

Recall that the strategic culture of a state is not fixed but rather subject to evo-
lution through history and contingency. Nevertheless, the strong effects of
path-dependence imply that any changes in strategic culture must of necessity
be slow and measured. Breaking down the strategic culture of a state in terms
of its constituent components at two levels, as this essay has attempted to do,
allows us to examine this evolution at a more granular level, thus gaining a
better understanding of the dynamic processes at work.
The long-term trend that best describes the evolution of India’s strategic cul-
ture since independence is a decline of the foundational Indian paradigm of
moralism and the concomitant rise of realism and liberal globalism. These
changes have been slow and not always monotonic, but their overall direc-
137
tion is unmistakable. Three types of factors explain these shifts — systemic,

regional, and domestic. Additionally, advances in technology have acted as
facilitators for the shifts.
At the systemic level, the end of the Cold War delivered a shock to the Indian
worldview. The collapse of bipolarity raised major questions about the relevance
of nonalignment in a unipolar world. Even as the East-West divide dissolved,
major changes were also underway in the North-South dynamic. Three decades
after decolonization, with regionalism and developmental differentiation gaining
in prominence, the idea of a unified Global South no longer appeared to match
global political realities. Moreover, new threats such as international terrorism
and ethnic conflict were not easily addressed by traditional Indian moralism.
Even as the international system experienced a rupture in the late 1980s, India’s
regional strategic situation had been steadily growing more difficult. The key
contingency in this regard was the shock of the 1962 defeat against China, which
energized Indian realist voices for the first time and led to the country’s first
major military modernization effort. This shock was followed by the Chinese
nuclear tests of 1964. Meanwhile, in the aftermath of its defeat in 1971, Pakistan
embarked upon a program of nuclearization. By the 1980s India was confronted
with two nuclear powers at its doorstep, and major Pakistan-backed insurgen-
cies raging in Punjab and Kashmir. The 1990s brought the rise of terrorism
targeted beyond Kashmir, culminating in the Mumbai attacks of 2008. Indian
strategy was seen as having generally failed to deter Pakistan’s nuclearization
and its use of subconventional tools.
Finally, important domestic failures opened the door to changes in Indian
strategic thinking. India experienced a growth stall in the mid-1960s that
lasted for nearly two decades, even as East Asian economies achieved rapid
economic prosperity through export-led policies. Meanwhile, large Indian
diasporic communities in the United States transmitted new norms of entre-
preneurship and global integration back home that contributed to making
economic self-reliance and a suspicion of the US-led international order dis-
tinctly unfashionable by the 1990s.
Another factor contributing to the evolution of strategic paradigms was the
advance in technology, which (as discussed in the next section) facilitated a
less symbolic and more operational view of the Indian nuclear deterrent. The
communications revolution also facilitated the evolution of Indian strategic
culture by generating denser and faster connectivities for the transmission of
global norms to India. Technological advance was not a direct driver in shifts in
138
Indian thinking, but made operationalizing some of these shifts easier. Realism
experienced a net gain in this evolutionary process. India now thinks of itself
much more as an actor exclusively pursuing its own interests rather than serving
universal causes. Along with a pursuit of self-interest has come a more con-
ventional view of the path to get there — expanding its military and economic
reach, and its openness to the use of force. Realism’s imprint is seen in several
of India’s operational elements of grand strategy toward Pakistan. However,
realism has thus far acted more to weaken or modify existing elements than
engender a coherent and distinct operational element of its own.73
Liberal globalism came into its own with the process of economic liberaliza-
tion and deregulation in domestic politics, the implications of which spilled
into the strategic arena. It is difficult to foresee the return of an autarkic state
emphasizing import-substitution and withdrawal from the global integration
process. However, liberal globalism’s rise as a strategic paradigm has thus far
had only a limited effect on policies toward Pakistan. India’s use of preferential
terms of trade as a tool to reduce tensions is one of the few examples. India ex-
tended most-favored-nation status to Pakistan in 1996, and consistently pushed
for reciprocal arrangements in return. India also promoted the Iran-Pakistan-
India gas pipeline. The 2008 Mumbai attacks put on hold a number of planned
projects of economic integration.
Though moralism is clearly the biggest loser from the shifts in Indian think-
ing underway over the past few decades, it is too early to proclaim its demise.
Moralism is reflected in practically all of the grand strategic elements discussed
above, and the paradigm retains its strength among a number of constituencies
in Indian politics. India’s strong self-image of an ancient, unique civilization
also tends to buttress moralist arguments in Indian discourse.
Conclusion
The decline of moralism, and the increased strength of realism and, to a lesser
extent, liberal globalism are reconfiguring the core elements of Indian grand
strategy toward Pakistan. Specifically, nuclear minimalism and strategic re-
straint are eroding slowly but steadily, even as the other three core elements
broadly maintain their strength.
Nuclear minimalism, with its view of nuclear weapons as strictly a political tool,
is among those strategic cultural elements under the greatest stress.74 One sign of
this weakening was India’s decision in 2003 to dilute its original NFU guarantee
by allowing for first-use against chemical or biological attack. Some members of
139
the strategic elite from the realist camp have also suggested an abandonment of
NFU altogether, most prominently former Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh in
2011.75 Since then, this debate has gone through periodic revivals.76
One measure of nuclear minimalism is the size and nature of the deterrent.
India is committed to a doctrine of “credible minimum deterrence” but has not
precisely defined “minimum.” In any case, it is clear that India’s nuclear arsenal
is growing steadily. India has also reportedly built a new uranium enrichment
plant near Mysore, the goal of which appears to be to significantly expand its
deterrent capabilities.77
Moreover, certain technological developments in South Asia, by qualitatively
and quantitatively improving the capabilities and operational modes of nucle-
ar weapons and delivery systems, have facilitated changes in Indian strategic
thinking. For instance, India is committed to inducting a complete nuclear
triad, with the activation of its sea-based leg scheduled for 2017. Nuclear war-
heads must necessarily be mated with sea-launched ballistic missiles while at
sea, which implies a deployed status. Another advance in India’s ballistic missile
technology, known as “encapsulation” or “canisterization,” in which “the war-
head is likely pre-mated to the delivery vehicle,” implies a shift to a near-de-
ployed or deployed state.78 Though these developments do not by themselves
amount to a wholesale abandonment of nuclear minimalism, they do indicate
a movement away from a strictly political or symbolic interpretation of the
Indian deterrent.
Two other indications of the weakening of nuclear minimalism can be seen
in highly ambitious Indian plans for a ballistic missile defense (BMD) system,
still at a very early stage, and the potential induction of multiple independently
targetable re-entry vehicle (MIRV) capabilities. India is currently building a
BMD system with Israeli and Russian assistance.79 BMD shields are perceived
to eliminate the threat of mutual destruction, thus generating the belief of a
“foolproof” missile defense, which in turn can present first-strike temptations.
India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation has recently an-
nounced that the Agni-VI missile will contain three independently targetable
warheads.80 Though any actual deployment of some of these technologies is
probably decades into the future, the announcements themselves send a signal
of weakening nuclear minimalism.
The slow but steady ascendancy of realist thought in India has also put consider-
able stress on the element of strategic restraint. Some strategists, observing the
approach of a “defensive defense” as largely having failed to deter Pakistani be-
140
havior, are advocating a greater offensive component in Indian security strate-

gies.81 Although India has not carried out punitive action involving crossing the
LoC or the International Border since 1971, the threat of war during Operation
Parakram and the increased tendency of taking a more proactive stance toward
Pakistani infiltration of militants across the border mark a process of weaken-
ing in strategic restraint. In the event of a major terrorist attack on Indian soil
or an escalating border clash in Kashmir, this will increasingly facilitate direct
punitive action by India against Pakistan.
With nuclear minimalism also eroding, the pathways of any subsequent esca-
lation will be easier, especially with high uncertainties about the leverage that
can be exercised by the international community. Keeping in mind that stability
and instability can be induced by a number of factors beyond strategic culture,
these developments nevertheless make for a pessimistic prognosis for deterrence
stability in South Asia in the foreseeable future.
141
Endnotes
1. For an analysis of the rivalry through the framework of a cold war see Rajesh Basrur, South
Asia’s Cold War: Nuclear Weapons and Conflict from a Comparative Perspective (London:
Routledge, 2008).
2. The author would like to acknowledge Professor Kanti Bajpai, Rear Admiral Raja Menon,
Professor E. Sridharan, and four former senior Indian officials who wish to remain anonymous
who kindly made themselves available for interviews.
3. Jack Snyder, “The Soviet Strategic Culture: Implications for Nuclear Options,” R-2154-AF (Santa
Monica, CA: the Rand Corporation, 1977).
4. See Barry R. Posen, Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain And Germany Between The
World Wars (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984), and Colin Gray, “National Styles,”
Strategic Power: USA/USSR, ed. Carl G. Jacobsen (London: St. Martin’s, 1990).
5. Other clusters of theoreticians are represented by Gramscians and poststructuralists. These
scholars denied any causal link between strategic culture and state practice, seeing practice at any
moment as being driven by material interests of domestic elites rather than a historically shaped
repository of beliefs or practices.
6. Two of the most influential works in this arena are Alexander Wendt, The Social Theory of
International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), and Peter Katzenstein, ed.,
The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1996).
7. R. Jepperson, A. Wendt, and P. Katzenstein, “Norms, Identity, and Culture in National
Security,” The Culture of National Security, ed. Katzenstein.
8. Jeffrey Legro, Cooperation Under Fire: Anglo-German Restraint During World War II (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 1995).
9. Elizabeth Kier, “Culture and French Military Doctrine Before World War II,” The Culture of
National Security, ed. Katzenstein.
10. Alastair Iain Johnston, Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese
History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).
11. Alastair Iain Johnston, “Thinking About Strategic Culture,” International Security 19, no. 4 (1995).
12. Alastair Iain Johnston, Cultural Realism, 36.
13. Alastair Iain Johnston, “Thinking About Strategic Culture,” 46.
14. George K. Tanham, Indian Strategic Thought: An Interpretive Essay (Santa Monica, CA: the
Rand Corporation, 1992).
15. Sandy Gordon, India’s Rise to Power (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995).
16. Jaswant Singh, India at Risk: Mistakes, Misconceptions, and Misadventures of Security Policy
(New Delhi: Rupa Publications, 2013), 8, 236, 237.
17. K. Subrahmanyam with A. Monteiro, Shedding Shibboleths: India’s Evolving Strategic Outlook
(New Delhi: Wordsmiths, 2005), 3.
18. For example, see “Know Your Own Strength: India as a Great Power,” The Economist, March
30, 2013, 27.
142
19. Swarna Rajagopalan, “‘Grand Strategic Thought’ in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata,”
India’s Grand Strategy: History, Theory, Cases, ed. Kanti Bajpai, Saira Basit, and V. Krishnappa
(New Delhi: Routledge, 2014), 31-62.
20. George Modelski, “Kautilya: Foreign Policy and International System in the Ancient Hindu
World,” American Political Science Review 58 no. 3 (1964): 549-60; Michael Liebig, “Kautilya’s
Relevance for India Today,” India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs 69 no. 2 (2013): 99-116.
21. Stephen Rosen, Societies and Military Power: India and its Armies (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1997).
22. Jayashree Vivekanandan, Interrogating International Relations: India’s Strategic Practice and
the Return of History (New Delhi: Routledge, 2011).
23. Stephen Cohen, “The Worldview of India’s Strategic Elite,” India: Emerging Power
(Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2001).
24. Kanti Bajpai, “Indian Grand Strategy: Six Schools of Thought,” India’s Grand Strategy:
History, Theory, Cases, ed. Bajpai, Basit, and Krishnappa, 113-150. Also see Kanti Bajpai, “Indian
Strategic Culture,” South Asia in 2020: Future Strategic Balances and Alliances, ed. M. R.
Chambers (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2002), 245-303, http://www.strategicstudiesin-
stitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB108.pdf.
25. C. Raja Mohan, Crossing the Rubicon: The Shaping of India’s New Foreign Policy (New Delhi:
Viking, 2003), and Impossible Allies: Nuclear India, the United States, and the Global Order (New
Delhi: India Research Press, 2006).
26. C. Raja Mohan, Crossing the Rubicon, 263.
27. Sarang Shidore, “Collateral Damage: Iran in a Reconfigured Indian Grand Strategy,” India’s
Grand Strategy: History, Theory, Cases, ed. Bajpai, Basit, and Krishnappa, 412-448.
28. Vipin Narang and Paul Staniland, “Institutions and Worldviews in Indian Foreign Security
Policy,” India Review 11 no. 2 (2012): 76-94.
29. Sunil Dasgupta and Stephen Cohen, “Is India Ending Its Strategic Restraint Doctrine?,”
Washington Quarterly 34 no. 2 (Spring 2011): 163-177.
30. Kanti Bajpai, “India’s Nuclear Posture After Pokhran-II,” International Studies 37 no. 4 (2000):
267-301.
31. Rajesh Basrur, “Nuclear Weapons and Indian Strategic Culture,” Journal of Peace Research 38
no. 2 (March 2001): 181-198. Also see Rajesh Basrur, “India’s Escalation-Resistant Nuclear Posture,”
Escalation Control and the Nuclear Option in South Asia, ed. Michael Krepon, Rodney W. Jones,
and Ziad Haider (Washington, DC: Stimson Center, 2004).
32. See especially Raj Chengappa, Weapons of Peace: The Secret Quest for India’s Quest to Be a
Nuclear Power (New Delhi: Harper Collins, 2000).
33. Deepa Ollapally, “Mixed Motives in India’s Search for Nuclear Status,” Asian Survey 41, no. 6
(Nov-Dec 2001): 925-942.
34. Deepa Ollapally, “Mixed Motives in India’s Search for Nuclear Status,” 932.
35. Itty Abraham, “India’s Strategic Enclave: Civilian Scientists and Military Technologies,”
Armed Forces & Society 18 (1992): 231-252. Also see Itty Abraham, The Making of the Indian Atomic
Bomb: Science, Secrecy, and the Postcolonial State (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1999), and M. V.
Ramana, “India’s Nuclear Enclave and the Practice of Secrecy,” South Asian Cultures of the Bomb:
143
Atomic Publics and the State in India and Pakistan, ed. Itty Abraham (Bloomington: Indiana
36. George Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Non-proliferation (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 1999).
37. Alastair Iain Johnston, “Thinking About Strategic Culture,” 42.
38. The extensive writings of Jawaharlal Nehru are the best source for understanding Indian
moralism. Mani Shankar Aiyar and Siddharth Varadarajan are two current analysts articulating
aspects of contemporary moralist thought.
39. Although some of India’s strategic behavior during his leadership was consistent with realism
(see note 40).
40. Indian realism is not the product of a single overarching figure. India’s first home minis-
ter, Vallabhbhai Patel, can be seen as an early realist. In contemporary times, the writings of
K. Subrahmanyam, Bharat Karnad, Raja Menon, Brahma Chellaney, C. Raja Mohan, Rajesh
Rajagopalan, and Jaswant Singh provide insights into Indian realism.
41. Deepa Ollapally, “India: Foreign Policy Perspectives of an Ambiguous Power,” Worldviews of
Aspiring Powers, ed. Henry Nau and Deepa Ollapally (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013),
73-113.
42. Brahma Chellaney, “Nuclear Deal: Elusive Benefits, Tangible Costs,” The Hindu, August
19, 2010, http://www.hindu.com/2010/08/19/stories/2010081952111300.htm. Also see Brahma
Chellaney, “The Wages of the Nuclear Deal,” Mint, August 15, 2010; and Bharat Karnad, India’s
Nuclear Policy (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2008).
43. C. Raja Mohan, “Rising India: Partner in Shaping the Global Commons,” Washington
Quarterly 33, no. 3 (July 2010): 133-148.
44. Liberal globalism has been articulated in several speeches of former Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh, but also the writings of prominent analysts such as Shyam Saran, Kanti
Bajpai, Shashi Tharoor, Shekhar Gupta, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, and much of the work of two New-
Delhi-based think tanks, the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations
(ICRIER) and the Center for Policy Research.
45. The roots of this transformation lie in the Rajiv Gandhi era of the mid-1980s. See Atul
Kohli, “State, Business, and Economic Growth in India,” Studies in Comparative International
Development 42 (2007): 87-114.
46. C. Raja Mohan, “India’s Economic Diplomacy,” The Hindu, August 14, 2003, http://www.
hindu.com/thehindu/2003/08/14/stories/2003081401251000.htm.
47. See, for example, ICRIER, “Normalizing India-Pakistan Trade,” working paper no. 267, 2014,
http://www.icrier.org/pdf/working_paper_267.pdf.
48. Johnston’s study found strong evidence for two central paradigms in Chinese strategic
culture: Confucian-Mencian and offensive realist. He concluded that one of them existed only
at a level of rhetoric with no appreciable impact on grand strategy. He nevertheless left open the
possibility of more than one active central paradigm in non-Chinese strategic cultures.
49. Grand strategy is typically defined as the harnessing of all elements of national power (mil-
itary, political, and economic) to achieve security. See Alastair Iain Johnston, Cultural Realism,
36, and Paul Kennedy, “Grand Strategy in War and Peace: Toward a Broader Definition,” Grand
Strategies in War and Peace, ed. Paul Kennedy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991), 1-10.
50. A. G. Noorani, “India’s Quest for a Nuclear Guarantee,” Asian Survey 7 no. 7 (1967): 490-502.
144
51. Raj Chengappa, Weapons of Peace.

52. The Indian draft nuclear doctrine is avail-
able at http://www.mea.gov.in/in-focus-article.htm?18916/
53. Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu, “India,” Governing the Bomb: Civilian Control and
Democratic Accountability of Nuclear Weapons, ed. Hans Born, Bates Gill, and Heiner Hanggi
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
54. Ibid., 186.
55. Verghese Koithara, Managing India’s Nuclear Forces (New Delhi: Routledge, 2012), 180.
56. Ibid., 179-193, for a detailed description of India’s defense management system.
57. See Vipin Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
58. India also has a major border dispute with China, in which it has been somewhat more
assertive in pursuing its claims — for example, Jawaharlal Nehru’s “forward policy.”
59. There are numerous analyses of the Kargil crisis. Three good examples are Kargil Review
Committee, From Surprise to Reckoning (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2000); Praveen
Swami, The Kargil War (New Delhi: Leftword Books, 1999); and Peter Lavoy, Asymmetric
Warfare in South Asia: The Causes and Consequences of the Kargil Conflict (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2009).
60. Such as India’s arming and training of East Pakistan’s Bengali insurgents, known as the
Mukti Bahini.
61. W. P. S. Sidhu, “India’s Nuclear Use Doctrine,” Planning the Unthinkable, ed. Peter Lavoy,
Scott Sagan, and James Wirtz (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000), 133. Also see
Sumit Ganguly and Devin Hagerty, Fearful Symmetry: India-Pakistan Crises in the Shadow of
Nuclear Weapons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), chap. 3.
62. Jaswant Singh, India at Risk, 183.
63. See Peter Lavoy, Asymmetric Warfare in South Asia, 174.
64. One of the released militants, Masood Azhar, went on to found Jaish-e-Mohammed, a
militant outfit responsible for multiple attacks in Kashmir. Another militant, Omar Saeed
Sheikh, was responsible for the murder of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl in
2002.
65. Author’s interview with Rear Admiral Raja Menon.
66. K. Balchand, “Furore as Antony Blames It on Terrorists,” The Hindu, August 7, 2013,
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/furore-as-antony-blames-it-on-terrorists/arti-
cle4995836.ece.
67. Kanti P. Bajpai, P. R. Chari, Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema, Stephen P. Cohen, Sumit Ganguly,
Brasstacks and Beyond: Perception and the Management of Crisis in South Asia (New Delhi:
Manohar Books, 1995). Also see S. Paul Kapur, Dangerous Deterrent: Nuclear Weapons
Proliferation and Conflict in South Asia (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007).
68. India did conduct a single nuclear detonation in 1974, but it was still a full 10 years after
the Chinese tests. The 1974 test was not billed as a weapons test, did not change India’s declar-
atory status, and did not lead to the actual building of nuclear warheads for a further 14 years.
145
69. For a detailed argument that nuclear deterrence was not decisive in ending the 2001-2002
standoff, see Dinshaw Mistry, “Tempering Optimism about Nuclear Deterrence in South
Asia,” Security Studies 18 (2009): 148-182. For a robust debate between deterrence optimist and
pessimist points of view in South Asian crises that does not rely on arguments of restraint,
see Sumit Ganguly and S. Paul Kapur, India, Pakistan, and the Bomb: Debating Nuclear
Stability in South Asia (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2010).
70. Restraint has not always been part of Indian doctrine with respect to the rest of South
Asia. India’s introduction of troops into Sri Lanka in 1987 quickly turned into a bloody coun-
terinsurgency campaign against Tamil militants. India used military force in the Maldives
to reverse a coup in 1988, and did not hesitate to use a strategy of compellence against Nepal
through an economic blockade in 1989. These actions were undertaken in the era of Rajiv
Gandhi, whose tenure was marked by an uncharacteristically interventionist Indian policy.
71. Sunil Khilnani, Rajiv Kumar, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Prakash Menon, Nandan Nilekani,
Srinath Raghavan, Shyam Saran, and Siddharth Varadarajan, Nonalignment 2.0: A Foreign
and Strategic Policy for India in the Twenty-First Century (New Delhi: Center for Policy
Research, 2012).
72. India’s offer to the US in the wake of the September 2001 attacks of the use of its military
bases can be read as a puzzling departure from the strategic autonomy doctrine. However,
this offer came at an extraordinary moment of acute stress in international politics. Also, the
offer was not in the form of a formal military treaty, but rather was limited to any operations
against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which India saw in strongly adversarial terms
after the 1999 hijacking of an Indian airliner to Kandahar.
73. A Cold-Start-style limited war doctrine, which allegedly forms an integral part of Indian
grand strategy, could conceivably be such an element, but its current existence in Indian
military planning remains in doubt. Unless such a doctrine is actually operationalized, it
would be challenging to identify it as a new core element of Indian grand strategy. See Walter
C. Ladwig III, “A Cold Start for Hot Wars? The Indian Army’s New Limited War Doctrine,”
International Security 32, no. 3 (Winter 2007/08), and Shashank Joshi, “India’s Military
Instrument: A Doctrine Stillborn,” Journal of Strategic Studies 36, no. 4, 512-540.
74. Nuclear minimalism is itself a transmutation of what had previously been a norm of
disarmament followed by that of “recessed deterrence.” This evolution is an early marker of
Indian realism.
75. Jaswant Singh, “Revise ‘No First Use’ Nuke Policy: Jaswant,” Economic
Times, March 16, 2011, http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-03-16/
news/28697754_1_nuke-policy-nuclear-policy-warheads.
76. See B. S. Nagal, “Checks and Balances,” Force, June 2014; Vipin Narang, “Why India Must
Stay the Nuclear Hand,” Indian Express, April 12, 2014; Gurmeet Kanwal, “India’s Nuclear
Doctrine: Reviewing NFU and Massive Retaliation,” Institute of Peace and Conf lict Studies,
January 15, 2015; and Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, “India’s Nuclear Imposture,” New York Times, May
11, 2014.
77. See summary by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, http://www.sipri.org/
research/armaments/nuclear-forces/india.
78. Vipin Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era, 103.
79. Frank O’Donnell and Yogesh Joshi, “India’s Missile Defense: Is the Game Worth the
Candle?” The Diplomat, August 2, 2013.
146
80. T. S. Subramanian, “Agni-VI All Set to Take Shape,” The Hindu, February 5, 2014, http://
www.thehindu.com/news/national/agnivi-all-set-to-take-shape/article4379416.ece.
81. Rajesh Rajagopalan, “Fearing Nuclear Escalation, India Limits Its Response to Pakistan’s
Provocations,” Economic Times, August 9, 2013, http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.
com/2013-08-09/news/41240657_1_indian-army-pakistan-islamabad.
147
148
PAKISTAN’S TACTICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS:

OPERATIONAL MYTHS AND REALITIES
Jeffrey D. McCausland
In April 2011 Pakistan conducted a test of a new nuclear-capable short-range

missile, the Hatf-IX (also referred to as the Nasr). Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public
Relations Directorate described the Nasr as a “quick response system”1 designed
to support “full spectrum deterrence” by countering India’s growing conven-
tional force advantages.2 The Nasr is reported to have a range of 60 km3 as well as
a terminal guidance system for improved accuracy.4 The development of short-
range nuclear-capable systems such as the Nasr might entail parallel efforts to
build small nuclear warheads that could be employed by a variety of new and
existing platforms, possibly including cruise missiles and artillery, against ad-
vancing Indian conventional forces. Some argue that notwithstanding the small
diameter of the Nasr — roughly 1 foot — Pakistan might be pursuing boosted
fission, subkiloton-yield devices suitable for use on the battlefield. To have high
confidence in such yields, Pakistan might have to resume nuclear testing.5
Some might argue that the introduction of short-range ballistic missiles is simply
the latest manifestation of an ongoing, but largely stable, arms competition in
South Asia. Indeed, India and Pakistan have managed to avoid major convention-
al or nuclear war in the past decade while doubling the size of their nuclear arse-
nals. Over time, however, Pakistan’s efforts to develop and produce short-range
nuclear-capable systems will seriously undermine deterrence stability and escala-
tion control on the subcontinent. The introduction of short-range nuclear-capable
systems will also make crisis management more challenging and more imperative
than ever. For the United States, given its historic role as crisis-manager in South
Asia and its enduring interest in preventing the use of nuclear weapons, concerns
about Pakistani nuclear weapons remain substantial. In a 2011 review, the Obama
administration concluded that the stability of Pakistan’s nuclear stockpile is one
of two long-term strategic objectives in South Asia, along with the defeat of al
Qaeda.6 The danger posed by Pakistan’s growing nuclear arsenal, especially its
short-range systems, is amplified by Pakistan’s growing weaknesses in gover-
nance, persistent internal instability, and the potential for clashes with India.
During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union defined land-
based strategic nuclear delivery vehicles (SNDVs) as those with ranges greater
149
Pakistan’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons: Operational Myths and Realities
than 5,500 km. Nuclear warheads atop SNDVs could span oceans and threaten
urban populations and targetable strategic forces. Weapons systems with much
shorter ranges were defined variously as “battlefield,” “nonstrategic,” or “tacti-
cal” nuclear weapons. Both India and Pakistan reject this classification system
for the subcontinent. Government officials in both countries have stated that
the use of any nuclear weapon, regardless of the range of its delivery vehicle,
will have strategic consequences.
This essay uses the term “tactical nuclear weapons” (TNW) to describe weapons
systems, such as the Nasr, that are designed with a limited range and small ex-
plosive yield for use against an opponent’s conventional forces. Their purpose is
to deter an attack by a conventionally stronger force, or to destroy those forces
should deterrence fail.7 Shyam Saran, the head of the Indian National Security
Advisory Board, observed that Pakistan’s decision to develop TNWs “mimics
the binary nuclear equation between the US and Soviet Union which prevailed
during the Cold War.”8 Senior Pakistani military officers have privately ac-
knowledged that they have examined the NATO experience as they continue
their development of a national military strategy, doctrine, and associated force
structure that includes tactical nuclear weapons.9 Consequently, this analysis
considers the historical experiences of the US and Soviet deployment of TNWs
during the Cold War, and also builds on new analysis that marshals important
insights from Cold-War-era military journals and other publications.
In addition, this essay focuses on the operational complexities and risks asso-
ciated with deploying TNWs in proximity or as part of conventional-maneu-
ver warfare. It examines how TNWs are likely to increase pressure to escalate
during any future crisis. The essay also demonstrates that assumptions regard-
ing the use of TNWs to compensate for perceived conventional shortcomings
are misguided. Finally, a review of the American experience during the Cold
War highlights the practical and operational challenges to implementing a strat-
egy that relies on TNWs.
Pakistan’s Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons

Pakistan’s desire to become a nuclear-armed state is rooted in a conviction to
respond to strategic developments in India. The nuclear program evolved into
“the most significant symbol of national determination and a central element
of Pakistan’s identity.”10 It is estimated that Islamabad maintains a stockpile in
excess of 100 warheads.11 For safety and security reasons, all of its weapons are
believed to be stored in various locations throughout the country rather than
150
directly with delivery vehicles. In recent years, efforts to expand the nation’s nu-
clear arsenal have included the construction of two additional plutonium-pro-
ducing nuclear reactors at the Khushab nuclear complex to ensure an adequate
supply of nuclear material for weapon production.12 Pakistan already had two
production facilities at this site that produced an estimated 22 kilograms of plu-
tonium annually, which is roughly the amount required for up to four nuclear
weapons.13 Peter Lavoy, former US national intelligence officer for South Asia,
observed in 2008 that “despite pending economic catastrophe, Pakistan is pro-
ducing nuclear weapons at a faster rate than any other country in the world.”14
Most observers trace Pakistan’s decision to produce TNWs to developments
following the 1999 Kargil War. Units of the Pakistani Army’s Northern Light
Infantry regiment achieved an element of surprise when its forces crossed the
Kashmir divide into the Kargil-Dras sector. This provocative infiltration was
detected by India in early May, and resulted in a limited war that only ended
after intense pressure was placed on Pakistan by the United States to withdrawal
its forces. In many ways this crisis was a watershed in Indo-Pakistani security
relations because it demonstrated that even the presence of nuclear weapons on
both sides did not dampen the possibility of conflicts.15
During the Kargil War, Indian military officials were frustrated by their inability
to rapidly deploy large-scale conventional forces along their border in response to
this incursion. Two years after Kargil, the Indian army was again embarrassed by
the largely futile Operation Parakram in 2001-2002. The mobilization of massive
Indian conventional forces along its western front in the aftermath of the terrorist
attack against the Parliament in December 2001 took nearly a month. By then the
United States had prevailed on the government in New Delhi to show restraint,
and Pakistan had significantly improved its defenses.16
Its inability to mount a conventional military response against Pakistan in
1999 and 2001-2002 prompted the Indian army to consider a new strategy to
improve its ability to deploy forces quickly and take advantage of its conven-
tional advantages over Pakistan. In 2004, advocates within India made public
references to a new military concept, which was labeled Cold Start or “proactive
operations.”17 These advocates sought a reorganization of the Indian army into
smaller integrated battle groups that would be prepared to launch rapid simulta-
neous conventional attacks against Pakistan along multiple avenues of advance.
Following two major exercises (Vijayee Bhava and Sudarshan Shakti), then
Indian Chief of Army Staff Gen. V. K. Singh argued in early 2012 that what had
taken the Indian army 15 days to accomplish in 2001 could now be done in seven
days. He further asserted that by 2014 the army’s aim was to reduce that time
151
to three days.18 Advocates of these shifts in Indian military posture argued that
agile conventional campaigns could be fought under the nuclear threshold, even
when operations were carried out 50 km to 80 km inside Pakistani territory.19
There is considerable skepticism in India about these plans. In the decade since
it was proposed, Cold Start has faced serious conceptual, logistical, and politi-
cal challenges.20 India has not enacted necessary defense procurement reforms
needed to equip Cold Start, and chronic inter-service rivalries within the mil-
itary render joint operations aspirational at best. Most importantly, Cold Start
does not appear to have the political support required for it ever to be autho-
rized. The government of India did not respond militarily to the 2008 Mumbai
attacks, and Singh claimed in 2010 that “there’s no such thing as Cold Start.”21
Despite the evident difficulties in implementing Cold Start, the prospect of a
limited war combined with New Delhi’s growing conventional force advan-
tages, interest in developing ballistic missile defense capabilities, and poten-
tial to achieve air superiority create serious security dilemmas for Rawalpindi.
Pakistan’s military views Cold Start as a goal that New Delhi intends to achieve
over the next several years and to which Rawalpindi must find and deploy a re-
sponse. Pakistan’s operational challenges during a crisis would be complicated
by its need to reposition forces from its western frontier to counter an Indian
attack. These forces would have to be transported by rail, a challenging prospect
as their movement would be vulnerable to attack by increasingly capable Indian
aircraft or special operations forces. Pakistan’s security interests in Afghanistan
and the security challenge posed by the Pakistani Taliban in the Federally
Administered Tribal Areas and Waziristan, particularly after the departure of
US forces from Afghanistan by 2016, will demand resources from the Pakistani
military to be deployed in the western part of the country that would normally
be positioned along the border with India. Rawalpindi’s security concerns also
extend to Balochistan, where India is allegedly fomenting unrest.
Pakistan’s perceived need for TNWs is rooted in these challenges, which are
all magnified by growing Indian conventional capabilities.22 As one general
explained to this author, “the wider the conventional asymmetry, the lower
the nuclear threshold.”23 The perceived need for TNWs is rooted in a “deter-
rence gap” below the strategic threshold. Without TNWs, Pakistan faces the
“grim option of either calling for a massive and suicidal nuclear attack against
Indian cities in response to India’s limited conventional aggression or surren-
dering.”24 TNWs therefore offer the prospect of “throwing cold water on Cold
Start.”25 Stephen Cohen observed that Pakistani military exposure to “Western
nuclear strategizing” has resulted in current nuclear planning and doctrine
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that “very much resembles American thinking with its acceptance of first-
use and the tactical use of nuclear weapons against onrushing conventional
forces.”26 As was the case during the Cold War, the production of TNWs in
Pakistan will likely precede the formulation of associated military doctrine
and operational planning.
Downside Risks
A relationship exists between the types of nuclear weapon delivery vehicles in
a nation’s arsenal and the impact they have on crisis stability and escalation
control. If the nuclear forces of India and Pakistan are designed and postured
for a reliable, second-strike capability, then the addition of new weapon systems
or the replacement of older systems need not alter overall deterrence stability.
The acquisition of TNWs, however, could increase the likelihood for rapid es-
calation during a crisis or war and disrupt deterrence stability.27 Some Pakistani
strategists have acknowledged that the introduction of TNWs into the ongoing
competition with India “taxes the strategic stability and thereby could jeopar-
dize deterrence stability.”28
Deterrence is the power to prevent, discourage, or dissuade a potential adver-
sary from taking a particular course of action. It can be summarized by the
following equation:
Deterrence = Capability x Credibility
The capability residing in nuclear weapons also requires command and con-
trol networks to convey nuclear orders, ensure security of the weapon systems
prior to use, and run associated launchers, communications, intelligence gath-
ering, and target analysis modeling. Missile testing and the public announce-
ment of national security strategies, redlines, training exercises, and military
doctrines are essential aspects of the “credibility” portion of this equation.
Pakistan’s decision to develop and produce TNWs could, therefore, represent a
shift in deterrence thinking away from one focused on a doomsday or massive
retaliation approach to a more nuanced targeting strategy and threat analysis.
This could be construed as a shift from a deterrence strategy focused on “de-
terrence through punishment,” which holds Indian cities hostage in time of
crisis. It could also imply a strategy of “deterrence through denial,” which might
attempt to convey to Indian military leaders that a conventional attack would
be futile. Pakistani spokespersons have begun using the formulation of “full
spectrum deterrence” and “flexible deterrence options” to describe their nuclear
153
posture.29 Some experts believe this now portends a shift from Pakistan’s “mini-
mum credible deterrence” to one that actually considers nuclear war-fighting.30
In formulating a deterrence strategy that includes the possible use of TNWs,
Pakistan has determined that, given growing Indian advantage in convention-
al forces, Islamabad cannot commit itself to a no first use policy for nuclear
weapons.31 Instead, Pakistan has maintained doctrinal ambiguity to engender
uncertainty in the minds of Indian decision-makers. General Khalid Kidwai,
former director general of Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division, came the closest
to articulating an official nuclear-use doctrine for Pakistan when, in an in-
terview with Italian researchers in 2002, he outlined the following as nuclear
redlines in a conflict with India:
• India attacks Pakistan and conquers a large part of its
territory (space threshold).
• India destroys a large part of either Pakistan’s land or air
forces (military threshold).
• India proceeds to the economic strangulation of Pakistan
(economic threshold).
• India pushes Pakistan in political destabilization or creates a
large-scale internal subversion in Pakistan (domestic destabilization).”32
Lessons from the Cold War

The development of TNWs by Pakistan to confront India’s growing convention-
al superiority is similar, but not identical, to the challenge that confronted the
United States during the Cold War. The US military sought to develop its own
stockpile of TNWs as well as associated doctrines and operational plans to blunt
a Soviet conventional offensive in Central Europe. Over time, many if not most
American military planners realized the enormous operational and practical
challenges associated with the effort to integrate nuclear fire-planning and op-
erational maneuvers in an effort to enhance deterrence. Pakistani leaders and
military planners might usefully consider these problems when contemplating
the impact such weapons have on stability, particularly during a crisis.
While analogies are useful analytical tools, they are by definition imperfect,
and it is important to point out the differences between the US-Soviet Cold
War experiences as compared to the India-Pakistan context in the 21st century.
First, India and Pakistan have no intervening terrain between them, whereas
the United States and Soviet Union were planning the use of TNWs largely on
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the territory of East and West Germany. Second, the United States ostensibly
planned to consult with its NATO partners prior to initiating the use of such
weapons, and actually deployed a significant number of TNWs to American
“custodial detachments.” These were relatively small units stationed with allied
delivery units. Upon the receipt of duly authenticated nuclear command orders
they would have transferred weapons to an allied delivery unit. By contrast,
no such system of allied collaboration exists in South Asia. Third, the United
States and the Soviet Union never fought a direct war with each other during
the Cold War, though they were involved in several “proxy” conflicts. India
and Pakistan have fought four wars since independence, one since acquiring
nuclear weapons.
Fourth, the United States and the Soviet Union did not use extremist groups to
conduct attacks on each other’s soil. Pakistan has employed these tactics against
India, and claims that India has used them as well. Some analysts have concluded
that Pakistani military leaders rely on their nuclear deterrent as a cover for waging
low-intensity warfare against New Delhi in Kashmir and elsewhere.33 During the
Cold War, leaders in the United States and Soviet Union fully understood that it
would be folly to “contract out” the use of violence to extremist groups that might
not be controllable. This has not been the case in Pakistan, where a dramatic
attack on Indian soil by groups that have found safe haven in Pakistan might
well result in an Indian conventional retaliation, which in turn could trigger a
Pakistani decision to resort to nuclear weapons. In the South Asian context non-
state actors have profound implications for managing deterrence.
Comparing and contrasting Cold War experience with South Asian dilemmas
with regard to TNWs might be particularly useful in three areas: military doc-
trine, operational aspects, and peacetime stockpile safety/survivability.
Military Doctrine
Doctrine refers to how armed forces are to fight tactically; how tactics and weap-
on systems are to be integrated; and how forces are to be trained, deployed, and
employed in combat. Doctrine is not absolute or rigid, but must be continuously
reevaluated in light of improvements in technology and changes in the threat
environment. From a military standpoint, doctrine for the use of TNWs must
be operationally credible so as to enhance deterrence. Consequently, it is logical
to believe that any professional military force would proceed in an analytical
fashion to integrate a new system (such as TNWs) into its overall operational
planning. Such an analysis would seek to maximize the capability and credibil-
ity portions of the deterrent equation. In the case of American Cold War think-
155
ing, the employment of TNWs was to be considered when one or more of the
following conditions existed: (1) reinforcements, combat support, and combat
service support were not available to sustain the force, (2) survivability of the
force was in question, including via nuclear weapons and delivery systems attri-
tion, (3) there was evidence of an impending nuclear strike by the enemy, and (4)
future operations required the additional combat power of nuclear weapons.34
Some experts argued that several if not all of these conditions would have ex-
isted at the very onset of any conflict between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
Likewise, Western military strategists were almost unanimous in their view
that the use of TNWs, if necessary, would have had to occur prior to the point
where NATO conventional forces had been excessively attrited.35 Consequently,
it was widely believed by US defense experts that NATO could not lose conven-
tionally and expect to win with nuclear weapons.36 This “use them or lose them”
dilemma clearly placed increased pressure on escalation during the Cold War,
and would also be the case in any crisis involving India and Pakistan.
The need to initiate battlefield nuclear use prior to the collapse of the defense
is, therefore, important for two primary reasons. First, the defense must still be
strong enough so that an attacker is forced to mass his forces in order to have
any hope of breaching the defense — thus presenting large, profitable targets.37
Second, the military significance of the use of nuclear weapons on the battlefield
must be related to the defender’s ability to then exploit their detonation to re-
store the situation to at least the status quo ante. In NATO’s case, this meant, at
a minimum, the restoration of the international border. Consequently, NATO’s
employment of TNWs was not intended to be simply a “signal flare” in the event
that the conventional defense was totally lost. Instead, the use of TNWs was sup-
posed to result in concrete and finite gains on the battlefield. Such an outcome
was unlikely during the Cold War. If Pakistan’s use of TNWs is not intended as
a signal flare, and instead is designed to achieve military gains, this outcome is
as unlikely in contemporary South Asia as it was during the Cold War.
In 1973 the US Army published a new policy for the limited use of nuclear weap-
ons, which attempted to incorporate NATO’s “flexible response” doctrine and
the provisional guidelines for the employment of nuclear weapons on which
the alliance had agreed. It distinguished five general categories for the con-
strained use of nuclear weapons by the US Army: (1) demonstration, (2) limited
defensive use, (3) restricted battle area use, (4) extended battle area use, and (5)
theater-wide use.38 Planning for these contingencies was largely conducted at
the Army’s corps headquarters level.
156
In the event of a US-Soviet nuclear crisis, once a corps commander decided that
his situation was rapidly deteriorating, and many (if not all) of the criteria pre-
viously outlined had either occurred or were about to occur, he was to initiate a
request for the release of nuclear weapons. This request would be passed to the
National Command Authority (NCA). The issuance of a request presented an
enormous problem for the development of doctrine, since the timing of such a
request was dependent on a commander’s ability to foresee the future course of
battle so that the request for release could be made far enough in advance of the
actual necessity to employ nuclear weapons.
Models were created during the Cold War to illustrate the request-release se-
quence. These models consistently failed to provide a sound depiction of the
required complex operation. Many experts believed this was due to a lack of
understanding of how tactical nuclear war would actually progress.39 Even the
best operational modeling concepts did not allow for the introduction of devel-
opments that could possibly or likely occur. The process between the NCA and
tactical echelons (even when political factors were ignored) was seldom modeled
dynamically with respect to the ground battle. During Cold War exercises some
prior release was normally assumed, so escalation was not included as part of
decision-making as conventional war unfolded. Nontechnical effects of TNWs,
especially regarding command, control, and communications, as well as tactical
unit integrity, were also not depicted.40 Furthermore, the effect of catastrophic
damage to an intermediate headquarters on overall operational cohesiveness
was rarely if ever examined.
Prior to their actual use, positive control of nuclear weapons — the assurance
that nuclear weapons would be used when ordered by a designated officer or
official — was maintained by a series of mechanical/electronic devices (referred
to as permissive action links, or PALs) and established security procedures.
Release, or the authority to use nuclear weapons, would be conveyed from the
NCA for all weapons through the operational chain of command. This was
accomplished by the use of the nuclear release authentication system. This sys-
tem comprised an established set of guidelines for operations, and a means of
authenticating messages by use of codebooks and/or sealed authenticators to
alter a unit’s nuclear-readiness posture. Trained operators were assigned at all
intermediate levels to receive, act, and relay message traffic.41
Negative control—the assurance that weapons would not be used prior to re-
lease by the NCA—was also maintained by the use of the “two-man rule” and
the presence of PALs on all tactical nuclear warheads. The two-man rule was a
command directive that any time access to nuclear weapons or control orders
157
was authorized, at least two individuals properly cleared and trained in the
task being performed needed to be present to ensure that no unauthorized act
took place. PALs were mechanical or electromechanical devices which, when
installed on the warhead, positively disabled the weapon by interrupting the
assembly or firing sequence. A warhead equipped with PALs could only be
used by enabling the device or by applying the correct combination to the lock
and removing it from the warhead.42 All of the steps in the command chain
were deemed necessary to ensure adequate control and maintain the maximum
possible degree of security against accidental or unauthorized use. This process
could greatly slow down and complicate the effective employment of TNWs
when deemed necessary.
During the Cold War, American doctrine for TNW release was designed to
seek approval for the employment of a discrete number, or package, of weapons.
The package was to be employed for a specified period of time, at particular
geographic locations, in accordance with any other additional constraints es-
tablished by the NCA in consultation with other alliance members. Additional
constraints could include placing limits on the maximum yield that could be
used or adjusting targets to avoid damaging population centers.43 While little
is known about Pakistan’s operational planning, it would not be surprising if
Pakistan followed similar procedures.
The package was the creation of the corps Fire Support Element (FSE). It
included best efforts to plan for the use of weapons on certain targets that
presented themselves (likely enemy locations) or avenues of approach. The
FSE served as the focal point in performing the mission of fire-planning (or
target selection) and the additional mission of weapons employment (or the
calculation of which weapon to use on a selected target). Packages were de-
signed to “contain enough weapons to achieve a desired objective,” and the
objective was to change the tactical situation decisively.44 Such planning for
TNW use had to include procedures to warn friendly units about impending
nuclear employment and to make efforts to maintain accurate, up-to-date
information on the civilian population so as to preclude collateral damage to
populated areas to the maximum degree possible.
For these reasons, American military planners realized that nuclear-fire planning
had to be integrated very closely with the conventional scheme of ground maneu-
ver.45 Five variables were critical in this effort. First, the maneuver commander
had to ensure that the weapons to be employed were the right type, number, and
size. They also had to have been transferred to the delivery units (missile or artil-
lery batteries) that could execute the package after authority to employ them had
158
been granted. This would likely require repositioning nuclear weapons and associ-
ated launchers throughout the corps sector to ensure mission responsiveness once
release was granted. Second, targets had to be prioritized. If additional restraints
were placed on the total number of weapons that could be employed, the most
important targets would be the ones that were struck first.46 Third, fire-planning
had to be sensitive to the survivability of the entire fire-support system (target ac-
quisition, target employment, planning, coordination, and poststrike analysis).47
Fourth, all efforts had to be made, as noted above, to preclude “excessive damage
to population centers while employing the largest yields on probable enemy loca-
tions within the remaining areas.”48 Thus there was a need for continuously avail-
able information about the flow of refugees and the creation of evacuation centers.
Fifth, the fire-planning process had to consider that release might not be granted
in time to be consistent with other tactical plans, or could be denied entirely.
Tactical operations could not be solely dependent on the availability of nuclear fire
support,49 and non-nuclear strike operations had to be planned. During repeated
field training exercises throughout the Cold War, American military planners
discovered significant problems with this doctrinal process that would have only
been exacerbated by the chaos of combat.
Weapons employment pertains to the selection of the proper system for a pre-
scribed target. The weapon selected has to accomplish the desired effect while
limiting collateral damage and staying within prescribed constraints. If the use
of TNWs is designed to achieve tactical advantages, the maneuver command-
er’s guidance to his staff is vital. This guidance should include a statement of
desired results from the employment and defeat criteria (that is, the specified
damage desired for the target).50 It should further include any subsequent use if
the initial effort did not accomplish the desired result, as well as the level of risk
authorized with respect to friendly units, collateral damage preclusion criteria,
and guidance for intelligence collection/target acquisition.51
Cold War models for weapons employment named radiation as the primary
producer of casualties from tactical weapons. Consequently, the defeat criteria,
or the level of casualties and damage required, was established in terms of the
amount of radiation derived from an attack, which also had to consider the
target “posture” (e.g., target troops in the open or armored formations). US
nuclear fire-planning for integrated combat sought to subject frontline enemy
forces to 3,000 rads to 8,000 rads,52 and enemy forces to the rear to 650 rads to
3,000 rads; and to avoid more than 100 rads to friendly forces.53 It was believed
that this was necessary either to blunt an enemy attack immediately and/or to
pave the way for subsequent counteroffensive operations.
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During the Cold War, military planners discovered that operational difficulties
with the fire-support system and the calculation of appropriate-weapons yield
served to decrease overall effectiveness. For example, since a Soviet/Warsaw Pact
armored offensive was the most likely scenario, the tactical requirement to achieve
immediate transient incapacitation of enemy personnel in tanks would necessitate
a minimum of 3,000 rads over the radius of the target.54 Any weapon’s capability to
expose an enemy armored force to this amount of radiation would be reduced as a
result of the shielding provided by the tank.55 Consequently, a larger-yield weapon
would be required to achieve the same effects as opposed to an unprotected target
(i.e., troops dispersed in the open).56 Some American military experts argued that
this made “small-yield” weapons ineffective, as most employment scenarios em-
phasized the use of TNWs to blunt Soviet armor advances. Furthermore, since the
model encouraged the selection of higher-yield weapons, this naturally conflicted
with the need to protect friendly troops and avoid unnecessary collateral damage
that might obstruct a maneuver or a counterattack.
In 1982 the US Army announced a new war-fighting doctrine called AirLand
Battle, which emphasized close coordination between ground and air forces.
AirLand Battle acknowledged that any use of TNWs on the battlefield had to
be done at an early phase in a conflict if it was to produce any tangible results.
Available studies on the integration of nuclear weapons and AirLand Battle under-
scored the following principles for when TNWs might be used on the battlefield:
• To exploit an attack.
• As an economy force.
• To decisively alter combat ratios.
• To attain the commander’s purpose or objective.
• In a timely manner — achieving surprise over the enemy.
• As a reserve.57
In applying these principles, one of the primary missions was “interdiction,”

or the destruction or disruption of enemy forces before they could formally be
introduced into battle. AirLand doctrine assumed the Soviet use of echelon for-
mations. However, many experts believed it was highly questionable that these
targets could be acquired and the information processed promptly because of
their range. For example, while the range of the US Lance missile was roughly
120 km (twice that of the Pakistani Nasr), it would only be able to strike targets
up to 80 km into enemy territory as a result of the fact that launchers were
normally planned to be positioned so that only two-thirds of their range was
beyond the frontline of friendly troops (FLOT).
160
Pakistani military experts have also suggested that they would seek to em-
ploy the Nasr against Indian follow-on forces and logistics. Consequently, they
would be confronted with the operational challenges that are inherent in em-
ploying such weapons in an interdiction role. If the Nasr were positioned 20
km (roughly one-third of its range) back from the FLOT, it would only be able
to strike targets 40 km beyond frontline forces. If the decision were made to
move the launcher closer to the FLOT to expand its range, then its survivability
would be placed at greater risk. Furthermore, the closer to the FLOT a launcher
were positioned, the higher the corresponding requirement to avoid terrain
with friendly forces in determining where the launcher could and should be
positioned. Moreover, positioning systems closer to the FLOT could increase
security concerns as interaction between Pakistan’s Strategic Forces Command
and conventional units increased.
The US AirLand Battle doctrine further envisioned a use of TNWs against
close-in targets.58 Pakistani military planners might also be forced to consider
this option in order to halt an Indian armored breakthrough. The use of TNWs
in this manner would require immediate relay of targeting information from
intelligence assets to the planning headquarters for target refinements, and
then to the units that would actually employ the weapons. This would further
assume that the decision to release nuclear weapons had already been made, in a
fashion that allowed for maximum flexibility. Furthermore, TNWs would have
to be properly distributed so that weapons of the right variety were positioned
in appropriate locations. All of this would have to be accomplished in an area of
use that would encompass the maximum number of constraints — protection of
friendly troops, avoidance of obstacles that might preclude effective exploitation
of the attack, preclusion of unnecessary collateral damage, and limited civilian
casualties — during a period of maximum chaos and confusion.
Furthermore, the likely fire-planning models employed by Pakistan might not
provide a full depiction of other results, or the so-called bonus effects result-
ing from the use of TNWs. These include the electromagnetic pulse (EMP)
generated by any weapon that could damage friendly as well as enemy com-
mand and control. In addition, emphasis on radiation as the governing effect
for damage calculation does not permit the model to predict with any accu-
racy the thermal effects (i.e., fires), low-level and residual radiation, casing
radiation, or dazzle effects.59 These weapon effects would be critical, especially
if the weapons were employed prior to the commencement of counteroffensive
action. Furthermore, bonus effects demand close coordination between the
ground and air commanders to ensure that friendly aircraft as well as front-
161
line troops are not endangered by the blasts, radiation, EMP or dazzle-effect
associated with TNW employment.
The Pakistan military is confronted with very similar doctrinal challenges as it
seeks an arsenal of tactical nuclear arsenal for use beyond very limited demon-
stration effect. If, instead, Pakistan’s military seeks TNWs for military effects
and to better synergize the employment of such weapons with its convention-
al defense posture, Rawalpindi will face the same dilemmas as the US Army,
which decided it would be better off without them. Pakistan’s Inter-Services
Public Relations announced a revised military doctrine in 2012, but this press
release provides very little detail on military thinking about the integration of
nuclear weapons with conventional defense. It does note that Pakistan’s “nucle-
ar capability is aimed at complementing comprehensive deterrence.” It further
argues that this effort must reinforce the “combat potential of conventional
forces, dis-incentivizing aggressiveness, inflicting unacceptable losses on the ag-
gressor in case of a misadventure, war termination and post-war bargaining.”60
It appears that the Strategic Plans Division’s doctrinal development process
is proceeding in a similar fashion to the US Cold War experience: one senior
Pakistani general described their development of a doctrine for the use of nucle-
ar weapons as well as the associated means to analyze targets as “a work in prog-
ress.” He observed that the army had yet to consider how to conduct integrated
military operations involving both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons.61
In summary, the doctrinal aspects of TNW use during the Cold War were
plagued by a paradox that would also confront the Pakistani military today. US
planning required the greatest degree of flexibility to belong to the corps com-
mander because of the massive coordination effort necessary for effective use.
But it also demanded maximum central control at the highest political level in
order to control escalation and crisis management. This paradox results in three
general problem areas that Pakistani military planners would have to resolve.
First is the challenge of refining targets quickly, which would be extremely
difficult, if not impossible. During the Cold War, an American expert argued
that in fact the doctrine assumed two sine qua non conditions — the existence
of a worthwhile target (i.e., a sufficiently large and concentrated formation to
justify the use of a TNW); and a certain permanence of the target in order to
permit its identification, its pinpointing, the transmitting of necessary data,
and the final engagement.”62 Second, an implicit requirement existed to main-
tain three plans — one nuclear, one conventional, and one integrated — while
the request-release process would be ongoing (making the prospects of success
seem even more remote). Third, it demanded that all necessary coordination to
162
employ TNWs be done in a manner consistent with conventional fire-planning

and tactical maneuvers. This paradox and the resulting problem areas were
endemic during the Cold War, and would also be true for any future doctrinal
concept Pakistan might apply to the use of TNWs.
Pakistan would be confronted not only with all of these problems, but also se-
rious geographic challenges. The distance from Islamabad to the international
border is less than 300 kilometers, and Lahore is 25 kilometers from the border
between Pakistan and India. Consequently, Pakistani forces have little space to
withdraw during the conventional phase of hostilities before deciding to esca-
late to the use of TNWs. This is further complicated by the relative short range
of systems like the Nasr. As a result, it is very likely that any employment of
TNWs by Pakistan would have to come either at the very onset of hostilities or
would have a high probability of striking Pakistani territory. Pakistani military
and political leaders will likely be faced with the classic dilemma of “using” its
TNWs very early in order to stem an Indian conventional assault, or “losing”
them as a result of their outright destruction or by detonating nuclear weapons
on Pakistani soil.
Operational Aspects
If doctrine explains how to do an activity, then operations are the actual im-
plementation of that prescription.63 Operational difficulties in implementing a
doctrine of TNW employment are derivatives of the fire-support system (target
acquisition, information processing, weapon availability, and employment) and
command, control, and communications, which is the exercise of authority by
a properly designated commander over forces assigned to accomplish a stated
mission. According to C. M. Herzfeld in a study done for the International
Institute for Strategic Studies during the Cold War, command and control func-
tions are performed through an arrangement of personnel, equipment, commu-
nications facilities, and procedures which are employed by the commander in
planning, direction, and controlling his forces.64
“Responsive” communications were deemed to be a critical factor in nuclear
operation during the Cold War.65 Serious communications delays in the passage
of nuclear command and control orders were considered likely, however, since
tactical headquarters involved in tactical nuclear employment might be attrited
during the conventional phase of hostilities.66
Military experts have learned that the demands on the communications sys-
tem always exceed its capability.67 Henry Rowen concluded that this was a
163
natural result of the necessity for dispersal, concealment, and mobility in

weapons systems, which increased the necessity for control but diminished
its likelihood.68 In sum, increased information flows and concentrated arrival
points can increase delays. Any system for the use of TNWs demands a level
of precision and timing that will almost certainly be seriously degraded by
communications delays.
Ensuring timely and continuous communications on the nuclear battlefield
was critically important to the United States during the Cold War. Special
care was exercised during Cold War planning and exercises to ensure that
friendly unit communications equipment was not degraded or destroyed by
EMP effects. Disruption of communications systems as a result of friendly use
of nuclear weapons was cause for great concern within NATO — and would
be for Pakistan as well. This was especially true since most scenarios for the
use of TNWs occurred at a time (such as prior to the commencement of a
counterattack) when the demand for tactical communications would be the
greatest. Consequently, a doctrine that depends on reliable communications
for coordination of both fire support and maneuvers may be ineffective due
to the effects of EMP.69
The necessity of adequate command and control for TNWs employment makes
it a high priority for attack by either conventional means or by electronic war-
fare. The Soviet General Staff understood well that combating NATO’s nuclear
means of attack included the neutralization of command and control as well as
the physical destruction of weapons and launchers before they could be used.
They referred to this as “command and control disruption” (narusheniye up-
ravleniyal).70 The key task in this effort is to destroy or disrupt command and
control in order to gain time and slow an opponent’s decision-making cycle.71
During the Cold War, a large part of the command and control disruption
mission was performed by electronic warfare, and Indian military plans would
likely employ similar efforts. Electronic warfare consists of efforts to destroy or
degrade an adversary’s ability to communicate by denying use of the electro-
magnetic spectrum; and acquisition of an enemy’s location from the use of com-
munication direction-finding equipment that could then be passed on to more
conventional means to attack and destroy (e.g., ground troops, indirect fire
assets, or aircraft). The Soviet Union expanded these capabilities dramatically
throughout the Cold War,72 with NATO nuclear-capable units its first priority.
Soviet efforts to degrade NATO’s command and control capability could have
reduced “battlefield communications to that of 1916,” according to one expert.73
There can be little doubt that India would seek to degrade Pakistan’s command
164
and control networks through the use of electronic warfare, perhaps even prior
to the onset of hostilities. This could be further exacerbated by the advent of
cyberweapons that could degrade Pakistani command and control networks.
In addition, Soviet special operations forces were designed to operate behind
NATO lines with the mission of locating and destroying command and control
assets or nuclear-capable units.74
The Pakistani military will be confronted with similar operational issues as it
seeks to prepare the necessary plans for implementation of tactical nuclear use.
It must take into account that command and control systems will be subject to
degradation due to EMP effects following any employment of nuclear weap-
ons. In addition, Indian forces are likely to employ both electronic warfare
and cyberattacks to undermine Pakistan’s command and control networks.
Finally, the actual tactical nuclear forces as well as command and control facil-
ities should expect assaults by Indian special operations units during a crisis or
the initial phase of hostilities between the two countries.
In 2006, Kidwai reportedly acknowledged that Pakistan employs at least “the
functional equivalent” of the two-man rule when dealing with nuclear weap-
ons. He had previously suggested in 2002 that Pakistan might use a “three-man
rule,” but this has never been confirmed.75 If Pakistan does employ a three-man
rule, it could include a launch team commander, a representative from the
Strategic Plans Division, and a head technician.
It is also widely believed that Pakistan employs some combination of technical
measures to deny access to unauthorized personnel. Pakistani officials, however,
have largely been reluctant to discuss details regarding PALs for their weapons
systems. Former Pakistani nuclear scientist Samar Mubarakmand stated in a
2004 television interview that every nuclear warhead was fitted with a “code-
lock device,” which requires a proper code to enable the weapon.76 Still, it is
unclear whether PAL devices, if employed by Pakistan, are merely locks or
more sophisticated devices that two personnel must implement in concert with
prescribed release procedures.
In summary, NATO’s command and control network was highly vulnerable
to disruption and attack, and would have been degraded during the conven-
tional phase of any conflict, and weapons were stored in vulnerable fixed sites
to prevent unauthorized access. All of these problems are a modern version of
Clausewitz’s “friction of war” — that is, even the easiest task becomes difficult in
warfare. Although efforts to model the command and control sequencing were
always deemed to be incomplete, most experts were in agreement that 24 hours
165
from request to release was grossly optimistic. The Pakistani military and the
NCA would be confronted with all of these problems in times of crisis or war.
Peacetime Stockpile Security

In addition to the disruption of NATO command and control and the destruction
of nuclear-capable units during combat, Soviet or East German special operations
attacks against NATO nuclear storage sites were considered very likely during pe-
riods of crisis. During one mock exercise, five- to eight-member American Special
Forces teams (simluating Soviet “spetsnaz” forces or terrorist groups) stormed the
fences of several sites, overwhelmed the guards, and claimed possession of the
nuclear warheads in less than 30 minutes.77 A 1978 CIA report identified these
nuclear storage depots as “the most vulnerable and, therefore, most likely targets
for future terrorist activity.”78 There were numerous actual terrorist threats against
such sites during the Cold War.79 For example, in January 1977 the Red Army
Faction conducted an attack against a NATO nuclear storage site in Giessen,
Germany. The group’s leadership later described their desire to destroy or capture
a nuclear weapon, but the attack failed when the group’s plans went awry.80
Securing TNWs and their delivery vehicles pose greater problems than stra-
tegic weapons systems because of their relatively small size and portability.
Furthermore, an inherent contradiction exists between the requirement for
ensuring warhead security in peacetime and survivability in a crisis, and pro-
viding operational availability in wartime. This posed a monumental dilemma
to NATO force planners. Efforts to upgrade site security that are largely di-
rected against a peacetime terrorist threat hinder the rapid evacuation of sites
during a crisis or war. As the NATO tactical nuclear stockpile grew, there was
a corresponding need for more storage sites to disperse the weapons in order to
preclude them from being destroyed in the initial Soviet onslaught.
Finally, the decision to evacuate nuclear weapons from their peacetime storage lo-
cations could be delayed during a crisis as a result of concerns that such a decision
would be viewed as escalatory. American military experts during the Cold War
believed that an order to disperse NATO’s tactical nuclear forces during a crisis
to ensure their survivability would have been regarded by the Soviet Union as a
highly escalatory step, which, given the vulnerability of NATO’s peacetime posture,
would have likely prompted Soviet preemption.81 As Jeffrey Record has written in
NATO’s Theater Nuclear Force Modernization Program: The Real Issues, a decision
to disperse NATO nuclear forces in time of crisis could have triggered a “Sarajevo
moment.” It would “be tantamount to an act of war similar in consequence to army
mobilization orders that rippled through Europe in the summer of 1914.”82
166
Pakistan faces many of the same challenges when it comes to pre-delegation and
nuclear security, especially if Indian military and political leaders believe that
authority to employ nuclear weapons would likely be pre-delegated to Pakistani
military commanders during a crisis or war. In addition, Indian special opera-
tions forces and indigenous groups disaffected from the Pakistani government
or interested in sparking a war could pose clear threats to Pakistan’s control
over its most portable nuclear assets. The South Asia Intelligence Review has
estimated on its terrorism portal that there are 46 domestic and transnational
terrorist organizations based or operating in Pakistan.83
Pakistani leaders have steadfastly argued that no plans exist for the pre-delega-
tion of authority to use nuclear weapons to local military commanders.84 Despite
these assurances, Indian military and political leaders might assume that release
authority had been provided to the delivery unit commander once the weapons
were removed from storage and transferred to using units during a crisis or war.
Furthermore, it seems reasonable to assume that Indian forces would seek to target
Pakistani command and control nodes at the onset of any conflict. Furthermore,
there is some uncertainty as to whether Pakistan would employ sophisticated PAL
devices and how the “two-man rule” would be operationalized. If sophisticated
PAL devices were employed, they would technically prevent the use of weapons
absent nuclear control orders being transmitted from higher authority. But if ac-
cess were only barred by procedural restrictions such as the two-man rule, then
it would appear likely that a local commander would be provided pre-delegated
authority and could decide to employ TNWs.85
Published reports of uncertain accuracy estimate that Pakistan maintains 15 or
more sites around the country where nuclear weapons are stored. Some may be
dummy nuclear storage sites to confuse a potential adversary.86 Whatever the
number of storage sites, they are heavily guarded, and Pakistan appears to de-
pend on absolute secrecy as one of its primary means to protect these weapons.
Pakistani officials have repeatedly offered assurances that their nuclear weapons
are absolutely secure, safe, and virtually immune to any risk of unauthorized or
inadvertent use.87 Nonetheless, there have been a number of attacks by extremist
groups against heavily guarded military sites, including some that have taken
many hours to quell. A Pakistani air base at Kamra was attacked in 2007, 2009,
and in August 2012, when eight Taliban stormed the facility with rocket propelled
grenades (RPGs) and automatic weapons.88 A subsequent threat at Dera Ghazi
Khan in September 2012 resulted in the deployment of three divisions in southern
Punjab to deter the attack and crack down on banned militant groups.89
167
Consequently, Pakistan faces significant challenges with respect to the safety

and security of its TNWs in peacetime — let alone in crisis or wartime. Efforts
to safeguard weapons from any and all threats will further complicate the crit-
ical transition from crisis to war. During a crisis, pressure would increase to
move nuclear weapons from fixed storage sites to field storage or delivery units
to ensure their survivability. This transition would also raise serious questions
about the pre-delegation of authority to employ such weapons, which would
place additional challenges on escalation control.
Conclusion
This essay has analyzed operational issues relating to TNWs during the Cold
War, and applied these insights to contemporary South Asia. If US and Soviet
Cold War experience is any indication, Pakistani military planners and frontline
soldiers will find battlefield nuclear weapons to be a logistical nightmare. Indeed,
the unanticipated challenges that arise with the forward deployment and use of
TNWs — incorporating nuclear fire-planning with conventional maneuver op-
erations, maintaining a clear chain of command in crisis scenarios where nuclear
weapons are being used, and hardening communications against EMP blasts,
among other dilemmas — offset the deterrent value these systems are purported
to provide. Pakistani military authorities appear inclined to make many of the
same miscalculations as US and Soviet ground forces did during the Cold War.
There is a widespread assumption in Pakistan that the development and deploy-
ment of TNWs is a cost-effective way to make up for its growing conventional
inferiority to India. Those who have studied Cold War nuclear doctrine for
TNWs would disagree. Alain Enthoven and Wayne Smith observed in their cel-
ebrated 1971 book, How Much Is Enough?, that TNWs were not a replacement for
conventional forces, and would not have guaranteed success against a massed
Soviet attack.90 Enthoven, who served as US assistant secretary of defense for
systems analysis, once wrote that “TNWs cannot defend Western Europe; they
can only destroy it. ... There is no such thing as tactical nuclear war in the sense
of sustained, purposive military operations.”91
The nuclear-capable short-range Nasr raises all of the dilemmas discussed
above. An even more destabilizing approach would be for Pakistan to develop
artillery-fired atomic projectiles (AFAPs) for its force of 155 mm and 203 mm
howitzers, or to consider the development of such things as atomic demolition
munitions. The United States employed some of these platforms for the potential
delivery of AFAPs, as did the Soviet Union for its 152 mm and 203 mm howitzers.
This would appear to be technologically feasible if Pakistan could miniaturize
168
the nuclear components for AFAPs.92 Cost consequences would be reduced

as platforms already exist, and there are well-trained crews for the operation
of the howitzers. AFAPs would provide lower-yield weapons unless Pakistani
scientists are able to master enhanced radiation warheads, as the United States
attempted to produce and deploy to Europe in the 1980s. Such weapons would
be delivered by dual-capable (conventional and nuclear) units, which would
enhance their survivability. They would, however, have substantially shorter
ranges (probably less than 30 km), and this would limit their effectiveness to
interdict follow-on Indian conventional forces.
Pakistani leaders appear to believe that the “signals” conveyed by their actions
during a confrontation with India with respect to their tactical nuclear forces (i.e.,
movement of the stockpile from storage and movement of delivery vehicles in the
field) would be interpreted clearly by Washington and New Delhi, and that risks for
escalation would be manageable. It would be wise for Pakistani leaders to carefully
consider how any actions in a crisis would influence the leadership in New Delhi,
what assumptions they might make, and whether New Delhi would read these mes-
sages as intended — that is, as signaling deterrence rather than war preparations.
Pakistani military leaders might assume that India will not seek to blunt the de-
terrence value of developing and advertising TNW capabilities by responding in
kind. So far, New Delhi has not expressed interest in developing such weapons, as
Indian force developers are focused on improved conventional capabilities, a sea-
based deterrent, and a family of cruise missiles. India could employ longer-range
systems against targets near the FLOT, use conventional air power, or employ
short-range missiles such as the 60-km-range Prahaar. While Indian defense
scientists have publicly noted that the Prahaar could carry “different types of war-
heads,”93 Pakistani officials claim the Nasr is a response to the Prahaar. Currently,
there is no clear evidence that New Delhi is interested in developing TNWs.
The belief held by some Pakistani military leaders that the development, produc-
tion, and induction of TNWs would cancel out Indian conventional advantages
while facilitating “subconventional” warfare is both dangerous and problematic.
It assumes that, even after the Mumbai attacks, Indian leaders would continue to
show restraint in the event of a large-scale terrorist attack in Indian territory. This
may turn out to be true, but it seems less likely following the election of Prime
Minister Narendra Modi, who has called for a more muscular approach to India’s
national security policies. With reference to the 2008 Mumbai attacks, he pointed-
ly criticized the previous government led by Manmohan Singh by observing that
“Indians died and they did nothing. … Talk to Pakistan in Pakistan’s language
because it won’t learn lessons until then.”94
169
The development and production of TNWs is not simply a continuation of

existing nuclear trends in Pakistan. Instead, TNWs pose new and more severe
dilemmas. The presence of TNWs will naturally result in increased pressure on
both India and Pakistan to escalate during any future crisis. Pakistan and India
would do well to consider measures to reduce nuclear risks and create channels
for crisis management.
Pakistan might also reconsider the practical and operational risks and chal-
lenges regarding TNWs, particularly the difference in risk profiles between a
small number of systems and widespread numbers readied for deployment.
Perhaps the most important takeaway from a historical analysis of the Cold
War is that the challenges faced by US and Soviet planners and frontline oper-
ators grew exponentially, rather than linearly, as TNWs were deployed at scale.
Communication, coordination, planning, and incorporation into conventional
units became manifestly more difficult as arsenals of TNWs grew. This unset-
tling conclusion might give pause to Pakistani military planners as they con-
sider what portion of their ever-increasing stockpile of fissile material they can
afford to dedicate to a class of nuclear weapons that may present more problems
than solutions.
170
Endnotes
1. Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), press release no. PR94/2011, April 19, 2011, https://www.
ispr.gov.pk/front/main.asp?o=t-press_release&id=1721.
2. ISPR, press release no. PR133/2013, September 5, 2013, https://www.ispr.gov.pk/front/main.
asp?o=t-press_release&id=2361.
3. ISPR, press release no. PR94/2011.
4. Tamir Eshel, “Pakistan Tests HATF IX Nuclear-Capable Short Range Tactical Guidance
Weapon,” Defense Update, April 27, 2011; Strategic Weapons Systems, Hatf 9 (Nasr), February 10, 2015.
5. Jeffrey Lewis, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Artillery?” Arms Control Wonk, December 12, 2011, http://
lewis.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/4866/pakistans-nuclear-artillery.
6. Karen DeYoung, “New Estimates Put Pakistan’s Nuclear Arsenal at More Than
100,” Washington Post, January 30, 2011, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/new-esti-
mates-put-pakistans-nuclear-arsenal-at-more-than-100/2011/01/30/ABNNG6Q_story.html.
7. Michael Krepon, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Strategy and Deterrence Stability,” in Deterrence Stability
and Escalation Control in South Asia, ed. Michael Krepon and Julia Thompson (Washington, DC:
Stimson Center, 2013), 65-92.
8. Indrani Bagchi, “Strike by Even a Midget Nuke Will Invite Massive Response, India Warns
Pak,” Times of India, April 30, 2013, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Strike-by-even-a-
midget-nuke-will-invite-massive-response-India-warns-Pak/articleshow/19793847.cms.
9. Author’s discussions with senior Pakistani military leaders.
10. Feorz Hassan Khan, Eating Grass — The Making of the Pakistani Bomb (Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press, 2012), 2.
11. SIPRI Yearbook 2014 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), http://www.sipri.org/research/
armaments/nuclear-forces.
12. “Khushab Complex,” Nuclear Threat Initiative, http://www.nti.org/facilities/940/.
13. Peter Crail, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Buildup Vexes FMCT Talks,” Arms Control Today, March 2011,
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2011_03/Pakistan.
14. Karen DeYoung, “New Estimates Put Pakistan’s Nuclear Arsenal at More Than 100.”
15. Bejamin Lambeth, Airpower at 18,000’: The Indian Air Force in the Kargil War (Washington,
DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 2012), http://carnegieendowment.
org/2012/09/20/airpower-at-18-000-indian-air-force-in-kargil-war.
16. Raja Pandit, “Cold Start in Focus, But Does It Exist?,” Times of India, December 2, 2010, http://
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Cold-Start-in-focus-but-does-it-exist/articleshow/7025745.cms.
17. “Indian Army Commanders Discuss ‘Cold Start,’” Daily Times, April 16, 2004. http://archives.
dailytimes.com.pk/main/16-Apr-2004/indian-army-commanders-discuss-cold-start.
18. “Nuclear Weapons Only for Strategic Deterrence: Army Chief,” Economic Times of India,
January 16, 2012, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/nuclear-weap-
ons-only-for-strategic-deterrence-army-chief/articleshow/11508541.cms.
19. See, for example, Gurmeet Kanwal, “India’s Cold Start Doctrine and Strategic Stability,” com-
ment, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, June 1, 2010, http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/
IndiasColdStartDoctrineandStrategicStability_gkanwal_010610.
171
20. See, for example, Shashank Joshi, “India’s Military Instrument: A Doctrine Stillborn,” The
Journal of Strategic Studies 36, no. 4 (2013): 512–540.
21. “India Has No ‘Cold Start’ Doctrine: Army Chief,” Economic Times of India,
December 2, 2010, http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2010-12-02/
news/28400780_1_indian-army-doctrine-army-chief.
22. Toby Dalton and Jaclyn Tandler, Understanding the Arms ‘Race’ in South Asia (Washington,
DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 2012), http://carnegieendowment.
org/2012/09/13/understanding-arms-race-in-south-asia/dtj0.
23. Author’s multiple conversations with Pakistani senior officers; Mark Fitzpatrick, Overcoming
Pakistan’s Nuclear Dangers (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2014), 32.
24. Zafar Nawaz Jaspal, “Tactical Nuclear Weapons: Deterrence Stability between India and Pakistan,”
http://www.nps.edu/Academics/Centers/CCC/PASCC/Publications/2012/2012_002_Jaspal.pdf.
25. Author’s multiple conversations with Pakistani senior officers.
26. Stephen Philip Cohen, The Idea of Pakistan (Lahore: Vanguard Books, 2005), 102.
27. Charles L. Glaser, Analyzing Strategic Nuclear Policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1990), 46.
28. See, for example, Jaspal, “Tactical Nuclear Weapons,” 2.
29. For an example where “full spectrum deterrence” is officially used to describe Pakistan’s
nuclear posture, see ISPR, No. PR133/2013-ISPR, press release, September 5, 2013, https://www.
ispr.gov.pk/front/t-press_release.asp?id=2361&print=1. “Flexible deterrence options” was used
in a paper by Adil Sultan, currently a director in Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division, “Pakistan’s
emerging nuclear posture: impact of drivers and technology on nuclear doctrine,” Institute of
Strategic Studies Islamabad, vols. 31 and 32 (Winter 2011 and Spring 2012): 160, http://issi.org.pk/
wp-content/uploads/2014/06/1340000409_86108059.pdf.
30. Michael Krepon, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Strategy and Deterrence Stability,” in Deterrence
Stability and Escalation Control in South Asia, ed. Krepon and Thompson, 44; and Shashank Joshi,
“Pakistan’s Tactical Nuclear Nightmare: Déjà Vu?,” Washington Quarterly 36, no. 3 (2013): 159-172.
31. Rifaat Hussain, Nuclear Doctrines in South Asia (London: South Asian Strategic Stability
Unit, 2005), 14; “Kayani Doesn’t Back Zardari’s ‘No-First-Use’ Nuclear-Policy: WikiLeaks,” Times
of India, May 6, 2011, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/Kayani-doesnt-back-
Zardaris-no-first-use-nuclear-policy-WikiLeaks/articleshow/8179491.cms.
32. Paulo Cotta-Ramusino and Maurizio Martellini, “Nuclear Safety, Nuclear Stability and
Nuclear Strategy in Pakistan,” January 21, 2002, http://www.centrovolta.it/landau/content/binary/
pakistan%20Januray%202002.pdf; Christopher Clary, Thinking about Pakistan’s Nuclear Security
in Peacetime, Crisis, and War (New Delhi: Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, August
2010), 28. See also Rajaram Nagappa, Arun Vishwanathan, and Aditi Malhotra, Hatf-IX/NASR
— Pakistan’s Tactical Nuclear Weapon: Implications for Indo-Pak Deterrence (Bangalore: National
Institute of Advanced Studies, July 2013).
33. Stephen P. Cohen, Shooting for a Century: The India-Pakistan Conundrum (Washington, DC:
Brookings Institution, 2013), 103; S. Paul Kapur, “India and Pakistan’s Unstable Peace: Why Nuclear
South Asia Is Not Like Cold War Europe,” International Security 30, no. 2 (Fall 2005), 127–152.
34. US Department of the Army, FM 6-20 Fire Support in Combined Operations (Washington, DC:
US Printing Office, 1977), 6-17.
172
35. NATO Information Service, The North Atlantic Treaty Organization — Facts and Figures
(Brussels: NATO Information Service, 1981), 139.
36. General Sir Robert Close, Europe Without Defense? (New York: Pergamon Press, 1979), 27. See
also Johan Holst, ed., Beyond Nuclear Deterrence (New York: Crane, Russak and Co.), 1977, 279.
37. John M. Collin, US-Soviet Military Balance (New York: Pergamon Press, 1980), 320.
38. US Department of the Army, Deployment and Employment Policy for Tactical Nuclear
Weapons (Washington, DC: Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans, April 25,
1973), cited in Jean D. Reed, NATO’s Theater Nuclear Forces (Washington, DC: National Defense
University, 1983), 41.
39. Lawrence Dondero, Theater Force Mix Issues (McLean, VA: General Research Corporation, 1976), 8.
40. Ibid., 72.
41. US Department of the Army, Coordinating Draft of TC 6-50-2 Nuclear Operations (Fort Sill,
OK: US Army Field Artillery School, 1981), 4-7. See also LTC William M. Carrington (USAF),
“Limited Defense Options,” Field Artillery Journal, April 1977, 40.
42. US Department of the Army, FM 100-50 Operations for Nuclear Capable Units (Fort Monroe,
VA: US Army Training and Doctrine Command, 1979), 3-1 to 3-3.
43. US Department of the Army, FM 100-5 Operations (Washington, DC: US Government
Printing Office, 1982), 10-7 to 10-9.
44. Ibid., 6-10.
45. US Department of the Army, FM 6-42 Field Artillery Battalion Lance (Fort Sill, OK: US Army
Field Artillery School, 1983), 9-2.
46. US Field Artillery School, Field Artillery Division 86 Historical Report (Fort Sill, OK: US Army
Field Artillery School, 1979), 4A4-1.
47. US Field Artillery School, Fire Support in Integrated Operations (Fort Sill, OK: US Army Field
Artillery School, 1980), 2.
48. US Department of the Army, FM 6-42 Field Artillery Battalion Lance (Fort Sill, OK: US Army
Field Artillery School, 1983), 9-2.
49. US Army Field Artillery School, Fire Support in Integrated Operations, 2 and 15.
50. US Department of the Army, FM 6-20 Fire Support in Combined Operations, 6-9.
51. US Department of the Army, FM 101-31-1 Nuclear Weapons Employment Doctrine and
Procedures (Washington, DC: Headquarters Department of the Army, 1982), 9.
52. According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a rad (radiation-absorbed dose) is “one of
the two units used to measure the amount of radiation absorbed by an object or person, known as
the ‘absorbed dose,’ which reflects the amount of energy that radioactive sources deposit in ma-
terials through which they pass. The radiation-absorbed dose (rad) is the amount of energy (from
any type of ionizing radiation) deposited in any medium (e.g., water, tissue, air).” (US Nuclear
Regulatory Commission glossary, http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/glossary/rad-radia-
tion-absorbed-dose.html.)
53. US Department of the Army, FM 100-5 Operations, 10-3.
54. Dennis P. Wilkins, Tactical Nuclear Doctrine — Part 1: Methodology (Adelphi, MD: Harry
Diamond Laboratories, 1980), 12.
55. Nagappa, Vishwanathan, and Malhotra, Hatf-IX/ NASR — Pakistan’s Tactical Nuclear Weapon, 27.
173
56. US Army Command and General Staff College, RB 100-34 Operations on the Integrated
Battlefield (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Command and General Staff College, 1981), 6-10.
57. US Army Command and General Staff College, “Air-Land Battle — Nuclear Weapons
Evaluation” (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Command and General Staff College, 1982), 3-10.
58. US Department of the Army, TRADOC Pamphlet 525-5 The Airland Battle and Corps 86 (Fort
Monroe, VA: Headquarters US Army Training and Doctrine Command, 1981), 46.
59. “Dazzle” is temporary loss of vision caused by exposure to high-intensity light.
60. Pakistan Army, Pakistan Army Doctrine 2011 (Islamabad: Doctrine and Evaluation
Directorate, Concepts and Doctrine Division, Pakistan Army, December 2011), 11.
61. Author’s conversations with Pakistani officials.
62. Close, Europe Without Defense?, 27.
63. US Department of Defense, Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (Washington, DC:
US Government Printing Office, 1979), 244.
64. C. M. Herzfeld, Adelphi 145: Command, Control, and Communications (London: International
Institute for Strategic Studies, 1978), 40-41.
65. US Department of the Army, FM 6-20 Fire Support in Combined Operations, 6-19.
66. US Army Field Artillery School, Fire Support in Integrated Operations, 28.
67. Seymour J. Deitchman, Limited War and American Defense Policy (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1969), 186.
68. Henry Rowen, Adelphi 145: New Weapons Technologies and East-West Security (London:
International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1978), 3.
69. John P. Rose, “Tactical Nuclear Weapons Are Just One More Form of Combat Power on the
Battlefield,” Marine Corps Gazette, April 1979, 50.
70. James C. McDade, “Command and Control Disruption,” Journal of Electronic Defense, July 1983, 20.
71. Ibid.
72. Mark O. Oetken, “Countering the Soviet EW Threat to Field Artillery Communications,”
Field Artillery Journal, April 1980, 44-45.
73. David C. Isby, Weapons and Tactics of the Soviet Army (New York: Jane’s, 1981), 353.
74. Viktor Suvorov, “Spetsnaz: The Soviet Union’s Special Forces,” International Defense Review,
September 1983, 1209.
75. Clary, Thinking about Pakistan’s Nuclear Security in Peacetime, Crisis, and War, 17.
76. Ibid.
77. Frank Greve, “Security Gaps Raise Fears About US Warheads in Europe,” Philadelphia
Inquirer, January 13, 1983, 1.
78. Frank Greve, “Warhead Sites: NATO’s Achilles’ Heel,” The Denver Post, March 13, 1983.
79. Ibid. See also http://www.pbase.com/202mpco/image/38474545.
80. See Michael Krepon, Rodney W. Jones, and Ziad Haider, ed., Escalation Control and the
Nuclear Option in South Asia (Washington, DC: Stimson Center, 2004). Also see Michael Krepon,
“When Terrorists Were West Germans,” Arms Control Wonk, February 11, 2010, http://krepon.
armscontrolwonk.com/archive/2623/when-terrorists-were-west-germans
174
81. Bracken, 47.

82. Jeffrey Record, NATO’s Theater Nuclear Force Modernization Program: the Real Issues
(Cambridge, MA: Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, 1981), 26.
83. See South Asia Intelligence Review, South Asia Terrorism Portal, http://www.satp.org/.
84. International Institute for Strategic Studies, Nuclear Black Markets: Pakistan, A. Q. Khan and
the Rise of Proliferation, May 2007, 114.
85. Clary, Thinking About Pakistan’s Nuclear Security in Peacetime, Crisis, and War, 29. See also
Jaspal, “Tactical Nuclear Weapons,” 9; Hussain, Nuclear Doctrines in South Asia, 22.
86. Clary, Thinking About Pakistan’s Nuclear Security in Peacetime, Crisis, and War, 29. See also
Jaspal, “Tactical Nuclear Weapons,” 9; Hussain, Nuclear Doctrines in South Asia, 22.
87. Hussain, Nuclear Doctrines in South Asia, 14.
88. Shaheryar Popalzai, “Tehreek-i-Taliban Claim ‘Revenge’ Attack on Kamra,” Express Tribune,
August 16, 2012, http://tribune.com.pk/story/422821/attack-on-paf-airbase-live-updates/.
89. Abdul Manan, “Taliban Threat: Nuclear Site in DG Khan Cordoned
Off,” Express Tribune, August 16, 2012, http://tribune.com.pk/story/432295/
taliban-threat-nuclear-site-in-dg-khan-cordoned-off/.
90. Alain Enthoven and K. Wayne Smith, How Much Is Enough? (Santa Monica, CA: the Rand
Corporation, 1970), 130.
91. Quoted in Kanwal, “India’s Cold Start Doctrine and Strategic Stability,” 2.
92. This would be difficult to accomplish without nuclear testing.
93. Defence Research and Development Organisation: Press Release, “‘Prahar’ — New Surface
to Surface Tactical Missile Successfully Launched,” July 21, 2011, http://drdo.gov.in/drdo/
English/PressReleasePraharnew.pdf. See also David C. Isby, “Pakistan’s Hatf 9 Promoted as a
Counter to India’s Prahaar,” Jane’s 360, December 4, 2013, http://www.janes.com/article/31174/
pakistan-s-hatf-9-promoted-as-a-counter-to-india-s-prahaar.
94. Praveen Swami, “Talking to Pakistan in Its Language,” The Hindu, June 11, 2014, 8, http://
www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/talking-to-pakistan-in-its-language/article6101797.ece
175
176
DEPENDENT TRAJECTORIES:
INDIA’S MIRV PROGRAM AND DETERRENCE
STABILITY IN SOUTH ASIA
Joshua T. White and Kyle Deming
India has long emphasized minimalism as the guiding principle of its nuclear
doctrine.1 Leaders in New Delhi have largely foreclosed a policy of first use and,
viewing nuclear weapons as instruments of existential deterrence rather than
war-fighting, have been slow to modernize delivery systems. Wary of military
influence over the nuclear enterprise, India’s civilian elite have established strict
and elaborate controls over nuclear decision-making. Since the nuclear tests of
1998, these same elite have maintained that, in accordance with the principle of
minimalism, India seeks an arsenal consistent only with the lowest quantitative
and qualitative levels required to sustain a credible deterrent effect against the
dual threats of China and Pakistan.2
There are reasons to believe that this long-standing consensus on nuclear mini-
malism may be fraying. As documented elsewhere in this volume, some Indian
observers are increasingly concerned that their country’s nuclear doctrine is
not keeping pace with technological developments by potential adversaries.
Minimalist deterrence models, such as those predicated on the assurance of
massive retaliation to any nuclear strike on Indian forces, are being seen in some
quarters as outmoded and lacking credibility in light of Pakistan’s potential de-
ployment of short range nuclear-capable delivery systems.3 Some strategists even
worry that the no first use (NFU) pledge has inadvertently reassured Pakistan
and incentivized its use of subconventional militancy against India.4
Quite apart from these doctrinal debates, challenges to nuclear minimalism are
also emerging from India’s technical community. Developments spearheaded by
India’s powerful defense research organizations are gradually influencing the shape
of India’s nuclear posture — creating capabilities that could over time precipitate
changes in strategy and doctrine. Even the open pursuit of technologies that stand
little chance of becoming fully operational could have significant consequences for
the way in which India’s own strategic enclave formulates its options, and for the
technology and nuclear policy decision-making of India’s neighbors.5
Two technologies under development by India today could presage a move away
from a restrained nuclear posture. The first is ballistic missile defense (BMD),
177
Dependent Trajectories: India’S MIRV Program and Deterrence Stability in South Asia
a capability that the defense research establishment is publicly pursuing but

which the defense policy community and political leadership have not yet fully
endorsed. Few observers expect Indian BMD capabilities to develop quickly,
as even the world’s leading defense industrial bases, such as the United States,
have found the implementation of such systems to be fraught with technological
challenges. Nevertheless, even the specter of a limited BMD shield over New
Delhi could well spur a more intense, interactive nuclear competition with both
Pakistan and China.
Another technology that could place equally consequential pressures on both
Indian doctrine and Pakistani nuclear posture has received considerably less
attention: the development by India’s defense research base of multiple inde-
pendently targetable re-entry vehicle (MIRV) capabilities for its medium- and
long-range nuclear-capable ballistic missiles. The deployment of MIRVed ballis-
tic missiles would be discordant with a policy of nuclear minimalism, and could
signal a gradual erosion of India’s commitment to NFU. Moreover, while India
might justify development of MIRVs as a response to its perceived strategic
vulnerabilities with respect to China, the one likely consequence of this devel-
opment would be an acceleration of the arms race between India and Pakistan.
This essay examines the implications of Indian MIRV development for de-
terrence stability in South Asia. It begins with a critical review of the state of
India’s MIRV program. The section that follows explores the possible drivers of
MIRV development, including domestic and bureaucratic incentives, strategic
concerns related to Pakistan, and — most notably — perceptions regarding
China’s ballistic missile program. It then identifies three areas in which Indian
MIRVs might, in addressing perceived deterrence gaps vis-à-vis China, inad-
vertently accelerate the arms competition with Pakistan. The essay concludes by
critically examining New Delhi’s options with respect to the future of its MIRV
program — including those that might dampen destabilizing outcomes — and
by arguing that MIRV development raises the stakes for its decision-making
and messaging about its BMD ambitions. Given the particularly potent signal-
ing risks associated with simultaneous development of MIRVs and BMD, the
Indian political leadership would do well to consider the strategic advantages of
articulating — at most — a carefully bounded BMD agenda limited to point-in-
tercept capabilities protecting national command authority.
178
From Smoke to Fire?

MIRVs are a ballistic-missile-payload delivery capability that allows a single
missile to carry multiple warheads, each capable of being independently ma-
neuvered into a separate trajectory by a payload “bus” toward distinct targets.
When a MIRV capability is combined with advanced guidance systems, a single
missile can be employed to destroy multiple hardened targets, thereby efficiently
bolstering counterforce capabilities. MIRVs are a technological follow-on to
multiple re-entry vehicles (MRVs), which disperse from a missile bus toward
the same target but lack the independent maneuverability of MIRVs.6 Unlike
MRVs, which are suitable for “soft” targets such as cities, MIRVs can be used
against dispersed or hardened military targets for which precision is necessary.7
MIRVs were first developed in the 1960s by the United States to compensate
for the Soviet Union’s advantages in missile throw-weight and as an offensive
countermeasure to the anticipated development of Soviet anti-ballistic missile
(ABM) systems. MIRVs also allowed warhead totals to rise appreciably without
expanding the force structure. The MIRV program inspired fierce political
debates in Washington, and featured prominently in the first Strategic Arms
Limitation Talks (SALT). SALT I failed to limit the development, flight-testing,
and deployment of MIRVs, which were eventually operationalized on ballistic
missiles by the United States, Soviet Union, France, and the United Kingdom.
Although the United States de-MIRVed its last land-based ballistic missiles in
early 2014, Russia is moving forward with new land-based MIRVed ballistic
missiles.8 China and India have both begun to experiment with the technology.
While Chinese officials have been reticent to discuss MIRV programs, Indian
defense research officials have publicly advocated MIRVing their longer-range
Agni-series nuclear-capable ballistic missiles. Relatively few details about India’s
efforts to develop MIRVs have been explicitly confirmed or independently veri-
fied; however, a survey of public statements by officials of the Defence Research
and Development Organisation (DRDO) indicates that MIRVs represent a
meaningful research focus for the Indian defense science community. Indian
civil servants, cabinet ministers, and the Prime Minister’s Office have yet to
officially endorse these steps.9
Clear evidence of the defense science community’s ambitions was voiced in
September 2007, when the DRDO announced that the Agni-V — an interme-
diate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) capable of ranging Beijing and Shanghai10
— would be a priority initiative for the DRDO and its Hyderabad-based missile
facility, the Advanced Systems Laboratory (ASL).11 Avinash Chander, then di-
179
rector of the laboratory, claimed at the time that the next Agni variant “would
be a multiple warhead missile with a capacity to carry four to 12 warheads.”12 A
few months later V. K. Saraswat, the DRDO’s then chief controller of missiles
and strategic systems, confirmed that the agency was working on MIRVs as part
of a broader warhead modernization effort, either for the Agni-III or a future
variant of the Agni series. He also provided an early rationale for the organi-
zation’s MIRV development: “Adversaries will … acquire [missile defenses],
so our future missiles should counter the threat of interception.”13 In October
2009, Chander added that India had “made progress on the MIRVs in the last
two years,” which, if true, places the earliest efforts by India around the time of
the original Agni-V announcement in 2007.14
Between late 2009 and the period surrounding the first Agni-V flight test
in April 2012, indications of India’s progress on MIRVs remained limited. A
DRDO newsletter in November 2011 — later recalled and modified — noted
that Chander was leading a research group for a “6,000 km [range] A6 [Agni-
VI] system with multiple warheads (MIRV) capable of launching both from
the ground and underwater.”15 Even optimistic reports that took the DRDO at
its word about achieving “significant progress” estimated that deployments of
MIRVs were at least three to four years away.16
Following the first successful flight-test of the Agni-V in April 2012, an eager
cadre of DRDO officials began speaking out more openly about the MIRV
program. Saraswat, then the director-general of the agency, offered a new jus-
tification for the technology with no obvious connection to countering poten-
tial BMD: “Where I was using four missiles, I may use only one missile. So it
becomes a force multiplier given the damage potential.”17 New insights also
emerged about the technical direction of the program. An anonymous source
in the DRDO suggested that work was also underway on a MIRV-capable Agni-
VI — a new, heavier missile designed for intercontinental range — which could
carry up to 10 warheads.18 An August 2013 statement by the DRDO optimis-
tically forecast MIRV deployments by 2015, with more advanced penetration
aids and “intelligent warheads” following in due course.19 These timetables were
unrealistic. As of May 2014, IHS Jane’s estimates that the MIRV-capable Agni-VI
is still at the design stage and will not be fully operational until at least 2018.20
The DRDO has been somewhat more circumspect about MIRVing sea-launched
ballistic missiles (SLBMs). Given the state of India’s SLBM testing (described
in more detail below), it is apparent that MIRVed SLBMs are not a near-term
prospect. India’s first-generation SLBM, the short-range K-15, has not yet been
integrated onto the Arihant-class nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarine.
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The next-generation SLBM, the intermediate-range K-4, is still in early testing.

Former DRDO director Saraswat gave a detailed presentation at the Indian
Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay in March 2013 in which he described a
third-generation SLBM under development (no identifier was given, but some
have dubbed it the K-5/K-6 or a modified version of the Agni-VI) that would
have a range of more than 6,000 km and would carry four MIRVs with a total
throw-weight of 2,000 kg.21 While he did not venture a timetable for this system,
it is presumably many years into the future.22
There are some reasons for skepticism about the DRDO’s claims and timetables.
For one, although development is clearly ongoing, there has been no clearly ar-
ticulated public commitment from the Indian leadership in support of testing
or deploying a MIRV capability. Public statements have largely come from the
DRDO, reinforced by hawkish commentators and retired military officers.23
The DRDO has earned a reputation for making overly optimistic statements
and then failing to deliver capable systems in a timely fashion.24 For example,
in 2011 Saraswat assessed India’s fledgling BMD system as on par with US and
Russian interception capabilities, despite glaring shortfalls across a range of
technical capabilities.25
The DRDO also faces real but presumably surmountable technical challenges.
Miniaturizing warheads for MIRVed Agni-V/VI missiles and certifying the de-
sign yield of these warheads without breaking its self-imposed moratorium on
hot testing will be difficult. Retrofitting the current short- and medium-range
ballistic missile fleet for MIRV capability would represent an even greater ob-
stacle, given the smaller diameter and throw-weight of the missiles.26 (The Agni-
VI is expected to have a diameter of approximately 2 meters, compared with
approximately 1 meter for the earlier generation of Agni missiles.27)
These political and technical restraints notwithstanding, there is ample reason
to believe that the Indian MIRV development will move forward, albeit at an
uncertain pace. The DRDO enjoys relative autonomy, and political leaders have
been reluctant to impose restrictions on research and development programs or
to muzzle DRDO officials who make extravagant claims. Work on controversial
technologies such as BMD continues apace, and DRDO budgets are increasing.28
MIRVs also have a constituency within the close-knit community of scholars
and defense analysts. Experts from Vivekananda International Foundation, a
New Delhi think tank that has served as a feeder for national security positions
under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, have written on more
than one occasion about the benefits of an Indian MIRV program.29 Former
181
Commander-in-Chief of Strategic Forces Command Lt. Gen. B. S. Nagal, who

later served as head of the nuclear cell in the Prime Minister’s Office, penned an
illuminating article shortly after his retirement that suggests similar views may
be held among senior uniformed officers. Nagal wrote that MIRVs should be
pursued, as they can “increase the number of targets destroyed by one delivery
vehicle, overcome missile interception defenses, [and] deliver more on a single
missile, thereby reducing the delivery vehicles.”30
Neither are the technical challenges associated with MIRVed missiles likely to
be insurmountable. India is able to draw on a wealth of experience in propul-
sion technologies from its primary space agency, the Indian Space Research
Organization (ISRO).31 The organization’s successful 2007 Space Recovery
Experiment (SRE) provides some evidence that India has achieved progress
on re-entry vehicle development, a key precursor technology to MIRVs.32 The
primary impediment to deployment is therefore likely to come in miniaturiz-
ing warheads with sufficiently high yields rather than mastering the MIRV bus
technology itself. Absent political intervention from New Delhi, the defense
research establishment seems on track to eventually flight-test MIRV-related
technologies for the next generation of its ballistic missile delivery vehicles.
Driving Development
What explains India’s push for MIRVs? Outside of the DRDO, Indian officials
have not been very forthcoming about the rationale for the program. It is, how-
ever, possible to speculate about the internal and external drivers of MIRV
development. At some level, advocates of the technology within India are likely
responding to reputational incentives. India aspires to great-power status; great
powers have, or are developing, MIRVs; therefore, the narrative goes, India
ought to do the same.33 A corollary to this view emphasizes the need for notional
nuclear parity with China. The argument here is that India ought as a matter
of strategy to achieve some measure of nuclear parity with its peer competitor,
and that the total number of warheads available and better means to deploy
them are a reasonable metric for such parity. In practice, India’s leaders may
be less concerned with parity of the overall arsenals (a measure in which they
currently lag) than with rough parity in targeting major population centers.34
Even if one sets aside numerical notions of parity altogether and focuses on
qualitative aspects, MIRVed ballistic missiles may — by boosting the efficiency
of warhead delivery — be seen as both a prestigious and cost-effective addition
to India’s arsenal, as well as a counter to the combined increase in Chinese and
Pakistani nuclear capabilities.35
182
More sophisticated versions of these arguments explicitly reference India’s per-

ceived threat from China. Since the People’s Liberation Army began modern-
izing in the late 1970s, New Delhi has watched Beijing with concern. As India’s
deterrent has developed, it has sought as a baseline requirement the capability
to place cities such as Beijing and Shanghai at risk as a way to deter Chinese es-
calation in the event of full-scale conflict.36 The Agni-V missile, with a reported
range of 5,000 km, was developed with this all-but-explicit purpose.37
China is already developing MIRV-related technologies for its ballistic missile
program. The US Department of Defense has long assessed that China has
the capability to develop MIRVs for its silo-based forces if it sought to do so.38
Reliable reports suggest that the current generation of Chinese road-mobile
ICBM, the DF-31A, may be MIRV-capable with a three- to five-warhead capaci-
ty.39 In addition, a 2014 Department of Defense report to Congress assessed that
China’s next-generation ICBM, the DF-41, would be MIRVed.40 In August 2014,
provincial government sources appeared to inadvertently confirm the existence
of DF-41 missiles in Shaanxi province.41 In December 2014, reports followed that
China had conducted a flight-test of a MIRVed DF-41 with an unknown number
of dummy maneuvering warheads.42 While China’s development of long-range
MIRVed ballistic missiles is most likely driven by concerns related to the US
BMD deployments in Asia43 and, as some have concluded, longer-term aspi-
rations for nuclear parity with the United States,44 India no doubt is watching
this capability closely, and is seeking to be in a position to respond to Chinese
flight-testing and deployment of MIRV capabilities.
More specifically, the DRDO and other MIRV advocates may believe that the
technology can provide three advantages in India’s competition with China. The
first is in preventing a widening imbalance in land-based ballistic missile forces.
India is believed to have at present only a limited number of missiles capable of
targeting Chinese cities.45 One source estimates that India has a small number of
Agni-II IRBMs in service — about 20 to 30, which are presumed to be rail-mobile
and able to range some, but not all, of China.46 The longer-range Agni III IRBM
may, according to analysts, have entered service in limited numbers.47 And follow-
ing a test in late 2014 of the Agni-IV, believed to be a longer-range ICBM variant of
the Agni-II, the DRDO claimed that the missile was ready to enter production.48
China’s land-based ballistic missile forces are, by contrast, both more diver-
sified in terms of range and more numerous. Published Pentagon estimates
put China’s ICBM fleet at 50 to 75 missiles in 2013.49 A Pentagon assessment
of China’s medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) fleet in 2011 estimated the
arsenal at 75 to 100 missiles.50 Most of these are assumed to be the solid-fueled
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and mobile DF-21 missiles, which likely form the backbone of China’s deterrent
against India. While China could fire its MRBMs in any direction, some Indian
analysts are concerned that the DF-21 brigades in Yunnan and Xinjiang prov-
inces are focused largely on India.51
With a smaller and perhaps less mobile arsenal, Indian strategic analysts worry
that Chinese MIRV deployment would act as a force multiplier, allowing Beijing
to efficiently increase the number of warheads delivered against Indian targets.
Indian nongovernment experts have also assessed that China holds an advan-
tage in terms of the accuracy of its ballistic missiles (particularly long-range
missiles), which could allow them to achieve a comparable effect with relatively
smaller yields.52 Together, these concerns may provide incentive for India to
continue MIRV development.
The second area in which the DRDO may believe that MIRVs provide important
capabilities vis-à-vis China is in ensuring that India does not fall too far behind
in its ability to establish a credible sea-based nuclear deterrent. China has a
more advanced program than India does for nuclear-powered ballistic missile
submarines (SSBNs). The Department of Defense assessed in 2014 that China
has three Jin-class (Type 094) SSBNs currently operational, “and up to five may
enter service before China proceeds to its next generation SSBN (Type 096) over
the next decade.”53 Carrying up to 12 JL-2 submarine-launched ballistic missiles
(SLBMs) with an estimated range of over 7,000 km, the Jin-class submarines are
on the verge of providing China “its first credible sea-based nuclear deterrent.”54
Several Chinese sources have claimed that the JL-2 can carry between three and
nine warheads, though this is unconfirmed.55
India, by contrast, lags in both SSBN and SLBM development.56 Its first SSBN,
the INS Arihant (known as the S-2 before its commissioning), began sea trials in
early 2015, with initial operational capability anticipated in late 2016.57 Plans are
underway to build at least two more Arihant-class boats (the S-3 and S-4), but
as India’s submarine programs have been characterized by lengthy delays, the
timetable for bringing these submarines to operational capability is unclear.58
India’s only operational SLBM is the K-15, which reportedly has a range of only
700 km and carries one warhead; it has undergone testing and will eventually
be available for integration with the Arihant-class SSBNs. Reports suggest that
the Arihant is designed to accommodate a dozen K-15 SLBMs.59 As of early 2015,
very early tests are underway for the K-4 SLBM, which is designed for a range of
approximately 3,500 km.60 Owing to the larger diameter of the K-4, the Arihant-
class submarines would be able to accommodate only four of the missiles.61
Some commentators have speculated that the follow-on SSBN class, beginning
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with the S-5, would be designed with 16 or more missile tubes, though no cred-
ible design information on this class has yet been published.62
Even optimistic projections about India’s ability to complete two or more
Arihant-class submarines and bring the K-4 to initial operational capability
over the coming years would leave India well below Chinese SSBN and SLBM
capabilities. As one analyst suggested, it may take 20 years before India can
“boast of any meaningful undersea deterrent force.”63 This structural disadvan-
tage may itself provide a rationale for Indian planners to continue with MIRV
development for the K-series missiles (e.g., the MIRVed 4-warhead SLBM de-
scribed by Saraswat in 2013), so as not to be caught in a position in which China
can MIRV its J-2 SLBMs and dramatically improve the throw-weight of its sea-
based nuclear deterrent relative to India.
Finally, some in New Delhi may also believe that MIRVs provide a hedge against
the possibility that Beijing may someday decide to deploy BMD.64 (The prospect
of a Soviet missile defense program and the need for “enhanced penetrability”
were early motivating arguments for American MIRV development.65) China has
undoubtedly shown interest in BMD, and could deploy limited defenses around
some major cities. Indian officials and strategic analysts would have good reasons
to expect the maturation of Chinese space and ballistic missile programs.66
That said, BMD efforts against long-range missiles have a checkered history,
and it is unclear whether the technology will ever prove viable against sophis-
ticated capabilities that include countermeasures, decoys, and other relatively
simple penetration aids.67 Indeed, India’s DRDO already claims to have an active
program focused on developing decoys for its ballistic missile fleet.68 In sum,
while there are no reliable indications that China plans to move away from
its “restrained” nuclear posture, or that Chinese interest in BMD is oriented
toward any potential threat other than the United States, Indian officials may
believe that MIRVs are a necessary hedge against future Chinese capabilities,
and a valuable boon to their force’s deterrent value.69
Downside Risks
China’s reported flight-testing of a MIRVed DF-41 in December 2014 makes it
quite likely that India will eventually follow with its own flight-test of a MIRVed
ballistic missile. Apart from the reputational pressures to test, as described
above, the Indian defense establishment will likely continue to justify the MIRV
program on the basis of a competitive assessment of India’s capabilities vis-à-
vis China, and the need for cost-effectively bolstering its deterrent capabilities.
185
At the same time, there are good reasons to be concerned about the implications
of India’s MIRV development on parallel nuclear competitions in the region.
These competitions are asymmetric: China hedges against perceived threats
from the United States, India hedges against perceived threats from China, and
Pakistan hedges against perceived threats from India.70 India thus finds itself
in a position in which it could lose whatever gains it might realize from MIRVs
in terms of establishing greater deterrence against China, by inadvertently ac-
celerating parallel arms competitions with both Pakistan and China. In this
context, Indian political leaders in particular would do well to consider three
downside risks if they move forward with MIRV development, flight-testing,
and eventual deployment.
Encouraging Technological Path Dependence

The first risk derives less from MIRVs themselves than from the precedent that
is being set by allowing the Indian defense technical community to make de-
cisions that de facto impact not only force posture but also nuclear signaling
and doctrine. To be fair, this problem is not limited to one technology, and is
not limited to India. The MIRV development process in India, however, has
been emblematic of a wider dysfunction in the Indian defense system. Unless
the Indian political leadership decides to provide more explicit guidance on the
role and rationale for MIRVs in Indian strategic doctrine, they risk reinforcing
the influence of the technical community in autonomously making technology
decisions that have strategic import.71
For example, ample evidence documents the ways in which the American MIRV
program was driven in large part by the technical community, and only later
justified by policymakers.72 Despite the distinct differences between the Cold
War and the triangular strategic dynamic in contemporary South Asia, there
are useful analogues here. Retrospective accounts of the US program highlight
the dangers of technological path dependence.73 In his classic 1975 analysis of
the American MIRV development, Ted Greenwood observed that “political
and bureaucratic forces,” particularly those in the defense research community,
kept the MIRV program alive even as the strategic rationales for such a capa-
bility changed or were obviated over time.74 Others have documented the ways
in which the US military could have achieved many of their desired targeting
outcomes with MRVs, avoiding the negative signaling effects of MIRVs.75
Allowing technological development to outpace strategic thinking also cre-
ates a ratchet effect under which it becomes politically difficult not to deploy a
technology once it has been developed, for fear of looking weak or diminishing
186
one’s notional bargaining position vis-à-vis a competitor state. In the Cold War
case, declassified US government documents demonstrate how the American
leadership was reluctant to freeze MIRV development or negotiate restrictions
on MIRVs for fear of giving up an already-acquired technological edge. Some
of this fear was particular to the arms control negotiations at play in the SALT
talks. More generally, however, by allowing the technical community to press
ahead with development of MIRVs, US officials put themselves in a political
position in which it became almost impossible to limit the deployment of the
technology—either on the basis of sensible cost-benefit calculations, or bilateral
negotiations—for fear of ceding “advantage.”76
Decades from now, Indian political leaders may look back on their develop-
ment of MIRVed ballistic missiles with satisfaction. Or, like many American
historians and strategists, they may wish that they had exercised more strategic
oversight, restrained the technical community from proceeding on autopilot,
and considered ways to dampen open-ended competition on strategic delivery
systems. Reflecting on the quantitative and qualitative arms buildup by the
Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s, American policymakers have in retrospect
noted the influence of MIRVs as a contributing factor to the strategic compe-
tition. One former National Security Council staffer observed that the choice
to abandon limitations on MIRVs “was a truly fateful decision that changed
strategic relations, and changed them to the detriment of American security.”77
No less a figure than Henry Kissinger, who played a key role in removing MIRV
limitations from the SALT I talks, later expressed regret about the decision,
acknowledging “I wish I had thought through the implications of a MIRVed
world more thoughtfully in 1969 and 1970 than I did.”78
Whether or not Indian political leaders ever face such regrets, they would be
wise to consider the regional implications of moving forward with MIRVed
missiles. In addition, they would benefit by approaching flight-testing with care,
and by controlling public statements and other forms of signaling rather than
leaving these to the whims of the defense research establishment. More broadly,
it is not too late for the Indian political leadership to use the country’s MIRV
development program as an example by which to signal their intent to more
carefully exercise control over technological developments that might affect the
contours of India’s strategic competition with its neighbors.
Driving Open-Ended Competition with Pakistan

Indian arguments about the value of MIRV development may have narrow ap-
peal in the context of Sino-Indian competition, but are of more dubious merit
187
in a wider assessment of India’s security environment. Although Indian officials

may like to think that they can develop technologies with reference only to their
competition with Beijing, a decision by New Delhi to move ahead with MIRV
flight-testing in response to China could have a uniformly negative impact on
deterrence stability between India and Pakistan. This may seem counterintui-
tive, given the delivery systems on which India is reported to be considering the
addition of MIRV capabilities. For example, the Agni-V variant on which the
DRDO plans to add MIRVs has a range of 5,000 km, and is plainly designed to
range major Chinese cities.
Notwithstanding this, Pakistani planners have reason to be concerned about
the implications of India’s MIRV program. For while the DRDO has been clear
that the initial MIRV development is focused on the Agni-V/VI, Pakistan might
reasonably assume that MIRV technology would eventually be adapted for use
on Indian missiles that have a smaller diameter, such as the intermediate-range
Agni-II and -III, which presumably are the default deployed platforms for tar-
geting Pakistan. Planning against worst-case scenarios, Pakistani strategists
would also have to assume that, in a crisis, even long-range Indian MIRVed mis-
siles could be redirected for deployment against Pakistani targets. It is therefore
not surprising that, both in public writings and private conversations, Pakistani
strategists have expressed concern about the Indian MIRV program as being
“directed toward [both] China and Pakistan.”79
Pakistan’s likely response to continued Indian MIRV development would be to
pursue countermeasures in the near-term that have the effect of accelerating the
Indo-Pakistani arms competition presently underway. Pakistan might pursue
one of several paths. One possibility would be to explore BMD technology,
though this path is improbable given the enormous cost, technical hurdles,
questionable effectiveness, and challenges posed by the exceptionally short
warning times that obtain in the subcontinent. Alternately, some commenta-
tors have called for Pakistan to acquire MIRVs of its own.80 Islamabad might
reckon that MIRVs — or even MRVs — could bolster the reliability of its second
strike, or be used as necessary as a counterforce tool against fixed targets.81 This
path is possible; however, MIRV technology is formidable and expensive. While
China and Pakistan are known to have shared a long collaboration on ballistic
missiles, and in theory China could share MIRV technology with Pakistan in
an attempt to draw Indian defense resources away from the Sino-Indian theater,
there has been no indication that Pakistan would consider MIRVs a priority area
for technology transfer.82
188
If Islamabad were to conclude that India’s pursuit of MIRVs raises the overall
risk to Pakistan of any future Indian BMD deployment, it may choose to ac-
celerate technologies designed to counter missile defense. These may include
increasingly sophisticated penetration aids for its existing ballistic missiles. A
more asymmetric approach would be to focus on cruise missiles, which can be
designed with a low radar signature, and can operate at an elevation and with
an angle of attack that make them very difficult to counter with BMD systems.
Specifically, Pakistan might choose to expand the number of nuclear-armed
road-mobile Babur (Hatf-VII) cruise missiles in its arsenal, diversify the deliv-
ery platforms for its air-launched Ra’ad (Hatf-VIII) cruise missiles, or to develop
longer-range or stealthier versions of the same.
Hedging against real or perceived counterforce capabilities implied by India’s
pursuit of MIRV technology, Pakistan might choose to bolster the survivability
of its existing arsenal. Fearing an Indian surprise attack, Pakistan could place its
nuclear weapons on a higher state of alert. A launch-on-warning posture would
be a dangerous, technologically complicated, and largely unnecessary step, but
this option could become attractive during a crisis in which India possesses
MIRVs and BMD. Alternately, recognizing that MIRVed Indian missiles could
be used to penetrate hard targets, Pakistan might elect to reallocate some of its
warheads to more dispersed but less hardened sites — thus increasing security
and safety risks.83
Even Pakistan’s less drastic alternatives, such as continuing its current path
of adding more mobile ballistic- and cruise-missile delivery platforms, have
obvious negative security implications. Pakistan has already flight-tested the
60-km-range Nasr (Hatf-IX) ballistic missile with “shoot and scoot” attributes
designed for mobile deployment in a battlefield setting.84 As detailed elsewhere
in this volume, short-range systems such as these raise a host of safety and se-
curity challenges, and present numerous operational and command and control
risks in a crisis environment.85 These risks would increase — not linearly but
exponentially — if Pakistan were to develop and deploy these systems at scale.
Any move by India, therefore, that incentivizes Pakistan to divert a greater
percentage of its warheads for use on mobile systems for reasons of survivabil-
ity rather than simply targeting effectiveness would introduce new risks to the
India-Pakistan security equation.
Even if the optimists are correct and Indian MIRV development results in no
overt change to Pakistani force-planning, it nonetheless could erode deterrence
stability by introducing uncertainty about the long-term trajectory of the size
of India’s nuclear arsenal. The Indian government has given no clear sign as
189
to what it considers a sufficient arsenal to ensure credible deterrence, though

independent analysts have proposed figures of 200 weapons or more.86 Pakistan
already takes an expansive view of what constitutes the requirements for its own
credible deterrence, and any suggestion that India may be reaching for some kind
of parity with the Chinese nuclear arsenal is almost certain to negatively affect its
own assumptions about fissile material and delivery-vehicle sufficiency.87
One mechanism by which Pakistan might address its uncertainty about India’s
future arsenal would, of course, be to move forward with negotiations on a Fissile
Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) in the UN Conference on Disarmament. An
FMCT could prove to be a valuable stabilizing mechanism for the India-Pakistan
and India-China deterrence relationships. Pakistan has blocked the start of inter-
national negotiations on the FMCT, and has been reluctant to negotiate a treaty
that does not account for India’s existing fissile stocks. While Pakistan’s oppo-
sition to the FMCT may be more political than substantive, Indian MIRV de-
velopment and flight-testing could in fact throw into sharper relief for Pakistan
its decision about whether to pursue multilateral limitations on fissile material
competition, or seek aggressively to match Indian production.88
Even with a multilateral agreement limiting fissile production, it would be
naïve to suggest that India can do much in the near term to change Pakistan’s
deep-seated and ideologically grounded fears of Indian aggression. For their
part, Indian commentators are correct when they suggest that the Pakistan
military routinely exaggerates Indian defense capabilities in order to justify
its own conventional and nuclear modernization. Even so, this does not mean
that Pakistan makes decisions about the size of its arsenal and its force posture
entirely independently of India.
Public statements by Indian scientists that promote the “force multiplier” aspect
of MIRVs, their utility in destroying hardened targets, and their value in helping
India to more efficiently compete with the Chinese nuclear arsenal — particu-
larly in the absence of official correctives — quite understandably fuel Pakistani
distrust of Indian nuclear “minimalism,” and make more likely a continued
and open-ended competition in terms of fissile material production, warhead
miniaturization, and diversity of delivery systems.89
Presaging a Doctrinal Shift to Counterforce Targeting

The development, flight-testing, and eventual deployment of Indian MIRVs
have the potential to presage troubling changes in Indian nuclear doctrine. This
would not happen quickly, but over the medium term a tested and deployed
190
MIRV capability could drive Indian planners to stray further from a “minimum
credible deterrence” posture and toward more risky, destabilizing, and expen-
sive counterforce targeting.
In the near term, the most realistic rationales for MIRVs have to do with main-
taining the survivability of the nuclear force, and maintaining credible counter-
value retaliatory capabilities. With respect to the former, it is not clear whether
Indian MIRVs would in fact increase survivability. As Vipin Narang and Chris
Clary have argued, “dispersed single-warhead missiles seem more stable” than
a MIRVed force — holding the number of warheads equal — because dispersal
optimizes survivability.90 If, however, India holds or expects to hold surplus
supplies of fissile material, or if the cost of deploying and securing delivery
systems is substantial, MIRVs could represent a more efficient option to bolster
survivability. The testing of Chinese MIRVs may, in addition, compel India to
consider the survivability of its arsenal more seriously than it once did.91
Similarly, MIRVs could be seen as consistent with existing Indian nuclear doc-
trine insofar as they bolster the credibility of India’s commitment to massive
retaliation in the event of a nuclear strike.92 This does not mean, however, that
MIRVs are necessary to maintain the commitment. Beyond a certain point, in-
creasing the number of potential countervalue targets is subject to diminishing
returns as a means of signaling resolve.
Over the medium term, MIRVs could have a more pernicious effect by putting
pressure on Indian doctrine to shift away from countervalue targeting. India
and China have heretofore adopted relatively stabilizing and minimalist nuclear
postures.93 The continued flight-testing and introduction of MIRVs by China,
and presumably at some future date by India, could give nuclear planners more
options to consider with respect to counterforce targeting. These options may
eventually put pressure on India’s commitment to massive retaliation. This
could happen in two distinct but related ways.
First, since MIRVed missiles have independently targetable warheads, they are
well-suited for use against military installations or hardened sites as part of re-
taliatory strikes aimed at damage limitation. Any move by Indian strategists to
plan against damage limitation objectives may not be destabilizing in the near
term, but does point toward open-ended requirements for fissile material and
strategic delivery systems. In short, once an objective is established to be able to
target some or all of an adversary’s nuclear sites following a first strike by that
adversary, the requirements become both dynamic and expansive.
191
Second, the availability of potential counterforce platforms such as MIRVs

could drive Indian strategists to more seriously consider limited nuclear options
(LNOs). As is noted elsewhere in this volume, the Indian strategic community
is already under pressure to find alternatives to a massive retaliation doctrine
that is increasingly seen as lacking credibility.94 The allure of LNOs is that they
could in theory deliver a proportional retaliatory nuclear response — likely
against military or industrial targets — without escalating to all-out nuclear
war. Planning for LNOs did not serve the United States or the Soviet Union well,
and is neither a sensible nor a practical option for India’s nuclear planners in
the near term. Doctrinally and operationally it is fraught with risks (e.g., what
is proportional, and how is escalation controlled?). Numerically, it demands an
expanded force posture. And practically, it requires sophisticated intelligence,
surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities that India does not — and
is unlikely to — possess in the next decade.
All the same, the flight-testing and induction of MIRVs atop India’s ballistic
missiles would undoubtedly provide a fillip to those in the Indian system who
believe that a limited nuclear force focused on countervalue targeting and mas-
sive retaliation is untenable. As pressures grow for building out a force posture
consistent with damage-limitation objectives and LNOs, the presence of MIRVs
and other technologies well-suited to counterforce targeting will only make
doctrinal revisions away from minimum credible deterrence more appealing.
Looking further down the road, some commentators have suggested that Indian
MIRV deployments could eventually lead to the most dramatic counterforce
planning option, in which India develops the capability for a decisive first strike
against one or more of its adversaries.95 In theory, MIRVs can reverse the ex-
change ratio — the number of adversary weapons destroyed by a missile in a
counterforce strike — from favoring the defending side to favoring the attacking
side.96 In the Cold War context, this created perverse incentives for the Soviet
Union either to strike first in a crisis, or to build up its arsenal to overcome the
new exchange ratio.97
The risk of New Delhi attempting a decisive first strike is almost certainly ex-
aggerated given the historically cautious approach to nuclear planning that has
pervaded Indian strategic culture.98 Such a shift with respect to planning against
Pakistan, for example, would require abandoning India’s no first use doctrine;
obtaining additional ISR capabilities to identify Pakistani nuclear assets both in
peacetime and in a crisis environment; and risking horrific damage to Indian
cities in the event of failure.
192
The impact of MIRVs and other counterforce instruments may, however, be felt
in terms of perceptions and planning. Even if Pakistan considers a dramatic
shift in India’s nuclear posture to be unlikely, it may still worry that Indian
MIRVs signal an intention to engage in counterforce targeting.99 Although the
overall probability of an escalatory conflict might remain relatively low, Indian
MIRV capability would in theory increase Pakistan’s incentives to engage in a
decisive first strike of its own — something its doctrine does not preclude —
since destroying multiple-warhead missiles is a higher-value proposition than
single-warhead missiles.
Speculations about first-strike risks, however remote or unlikely, do highlight a
key challenge associated with MIRVs: it is practically impossible to signal to a
potential adversary that they do not constitute the use of nuclear weapons in of-
fensive, rather than defensive, ways. Both the academic literature and historical
experience suggest that strategic competitions in which the offensive or defense
posture of weapons is unclear are more likely to result in a security dilemma
that drives an arms race and makes deterrence stability a chimera.100
The American experience with MIRVs should discomfit advocates of the
Chinese and Indian programs. In 1969 and into 1970, the Nixon administra-
tion tried to convince skeptical members of the US Congress that MIRVs would
not further accelerate the arms race between the United States and the Soviet
Union. (Most members were not convinced, but the program moved forward
anyway.) Declassified documents show that even as President Nixon was cyn-
ically considering with his National Security Council staff ways of declaring
that US MIRVs were “only for defensive purposes,” senior members of his ad-
ministration recognized that the Soviets “must look at our MIRV system as
something that permits the Americans to upgrade, make more accurate, and
give a first strike capability.”101 Everyone recognized, in short, that it was impos-
sible to signal to a potential adversary that MIRVs provided a purely retaliatory
capability.102
If there were any reasonable way to signal that MIRVs were deployed solely for
assured second strike, it would be to place them on submarine-based rather
than land-based platforms. While sea-based MIRVs could in theory be used for
offensive or counterforce purposes, they are much more likely than ground-
based systems to be perceived as defensive in nature and designed principally
for countervalue retaliation in extremis.103 This perception is derived from their
relatively greater survivability, from the ways in which states have traditionally
articulated planning and doctrine for submarine-based nuclear forces, and from
some of the targeting challenges inherent in using these forces. Since Pakistan’s
193
nuclear forces are presumed to be road-mobile, any counterforce use against

them by India would require dynamic, real-time targeting; the command and
control lag between the Nuclear Command Authority and field commanders
would almost certainly be more pronounced with sea-launched ballistic mis-
siles than with ground-launched systems, making submarines a poor delivery
platform for counterforce strikes.
If New Delhi were to place a priority on containing the growth of Indo-Pakistani
strategic competition, it could choose to signal its continued commitment to
countervalue targeting and declare that it would deploy MIRVs only on its SSBNs
and not on ground-launched systems. Unfortunately, China’s apparent decision
to test a ground-launched MIRVed ballistic missile means that India would find
it difficult to adopt a unilateral limitation on ground-launched MIRVs.
Ultimately, there is no reason to believe that Chinese and Indian development,
flight-testing, and deployment of MIRVs would have an immediate impact on
strategic competition in the subcontinent. Neither is there a reason to think
that credible first-strike postures are anything but a long way off. Chinese and
Indian MIRVs would, however, signal a move toward more serious consider-
ation of counterforce targeting. They would undoubtedly drive open-ended
competition between India and both Pakistan and China, making an agreement
on fissile material cut-off even more difficult to reach. And they would begin to
shift incentives within the Indian defense system to align procurement, posture,
and even declaratory doctrine away from the countervalue orientation that has
characterized India’s minimum credible deterrent.
Conclusion
India’s pursuit of MIRVs is not taking place in a vacuum. One cannot decouple
India’s decisions about this technology from those of China. Seen in this con-
text, India has several options for the way in which it moves forward with its
MIRV program. It could choose to compete assertively with China, prioritizing
MIRV flight-testing and deployments, and recognizing that it may have to deal
with downstream negative consequences in its deterrence relationship with
Pakistan. Alternately, it could choose to compete elsewhere, declining to flight-
test MIRVs and investing instead in bolstering the reliability and credibility of
its long-range single-warhead strategic delivery systems, thus signaling that it
remains fully committed to a minimal deterrence posture. This approach would
arguably be the most stabilizing, but is also the least likely.
194
India has a more calibrated set of options as well. It could quietly suggest a
parallel policy of contingent restraint with China. It takes several flight-tests
to demonstrate the operational capability of a new ballistic missile technology.
New Delhi could communicate to Beijing — on a deniable basis, if necessary
— that as long as China does not engage in further MIRV flight tests, India
would refrain from doing so as well. (A complementary understanding could
be reached regarding deployment of missile defenses for reasons other than to
protect national command authority.) This would place the onus squarely on
Beijing for the destabilizing consequences of MIRVing. The strategic asymme-
tries in the US-China-India triangle, along with China’s long-standing reluc-
tance to discuss nuclear matters with India, could make it difficult for both sides
to come to such an agreement. Even a pause in MIRV flight-testing, however,
could be of value.
If China chose to continue flight-testing, India could then match those tests
— but not move to widespread deployment of MIRVs. New Delhi would thus
demonstrate a capability-in-waiting, but would signal that it had no interest in
building out ground-launched MIRV deployments at this time, perhaps reserv-
ing the technology for later use on long-range SLBMs. It could also, as a stabiliz-
ing gesture to Pakistan, clarify that any future MIRVing would be limited to its
longest-range missiles. Under this more calibrated approach, India would still
face downside risks to deterrence stability with Pakistan. It might also face the
risk of diminished deterrence credibility with China. This middle path would,
however, signal Indian restraint, help to dampen strategic competition in deliv-
ery systems, and demonstrate a continued commitment to a minimal deterrent.
Taking a wider view, it is important for India to consider the ways in which
its MIRV program may also affect perceptions of other defense technologies
currently under development. Even if India feels compelled to follow China
and assertively compete on MIRV testing and deployments, it would do well
to recognize that this significantly raises the stakes for India’s decision-making
and messaging about its ambitions with respect to ballistic missile defense. All
things being equal, a country’s BMD capability is more likely to be perceived by
adversaries as potentially offensive in nature if it is complemented by MIRVed
ballistic missiles. If India appears committed to a MIRV program, Pakistan
might reasonably assume that it ought to take the prospect of Indian BMD more
seriously, and proceed with haste to develop countermeasures and grow its force
structure to deal with an Indian military that could one day launch MIRVed
counterforce strikes from under the protection of a BMD shield.
195
If Indian political leaders find the notion of MIRVs being used offensively in
combination with ballistic missile defenses as fanciful and far-fetched, they
partially have themselves to blame. The Indian government has been almost
as opaque about its BMD ambitions as it has about its MIRV development pro-
gram, allowing the defense research establishment to define the public param-
eters of discussion and signal capabilities to potential adversaries.104
In light of its MIRV program, the Indian political leadership would be wise
to consider the strategic advantages of articulating a more carefully bounded
BMD agenda that at a maximum suggests a narrow focus on protecting critical
national command infrastructure rather than facilitating offensive war-fighting
plans. This would be valuable, as the DRDO’s public articulations of its BMD
ambitions are, for example, often broader than the ones that are described in
private by officials from the Ministry of External Affairs.105 A BMD system ex-
plicitly limited to protecting national command and control infrastructure is
considerably less likely to further destabilize the Indo-Pakistani strategic com-
petition than something resembling a national missile defense program or an
architecture focused on the defense of a few select cities — however inadequate
or faulty it might be.
A clear public statement by India’s civilian leadership about the contingent na-
ture and strategic rationale for MIRVs and for BMD, and the parameters under
which they will and will not be deployed, could set an important precedent for
oversight of the defense research establishment. At a minimum, it would help
to correct the perception that the DRDO has the prerogative to implicitly set
strategic nuclear policy. More broadly still, it would reaffirm that India’s nuclear
doctrine of “credible minimum deterrence” is not subject to revision solely on
the basis of promising research and development results, and that technological
self-restraint on the part of the Indian government is not necessarily inconsis-
tent with its strategic self-interest.
196
Endnotes
1. This chapter was prepared while Joshua T. White was employed at the Stimson Center. The
opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of the United
States government.
2. The authors would like to thank Christopher Clary, Jack Gill, Dhruva Jaishankar, Feroz Khan,
Michael Krepon, Shane Mason, Jeffrey Schreiner, Julia Thompson, and others who wish to remain
anonymous for their helpful comments. The views reflected here are those of the authors alone.
3. David Smith, “The US Experience with Tactical Nuclear Weapons: Lessons for South Asia,”
in Deterrence Stability and Escalation Control in South Asia, ed. Michael Krepon and Julia
Thompson (Washington, DC: Stimson Center, 2013); and Manoj Joshi, “The Credibility of India’s
Nuclear Deterrent,” in this volume. Note that the latest authoritative affirmation of India’s exist-
ing nuclear policy was in April 2013. See Shyam Saran, “Is India’s Nuclear Deterrent Credible?,”
India Habitat Centre, April 24, 2013.
4. Shashank Joshi, “An Evolving Indian Nuclear Doctrine?” in this volume.
5. Vipin Narang and Christopher Clary, “Doctrine, Capabilities, and (In)stability in South Asia,”
in Deterrence Stability and Escalation Control in South Asia, ed. Krepon and Thompson.
6. Kartik Bommakanti, “Satellite Integration and Multiple Independently Retargetable Reentry
Vehicles Technology: Indian-United States Civilian Space Cooperation,” Astropolitics 7, no. 1
(2009).
7. A third type of re-entry vehicle, maneuverable re-entry vehicles (MaRVs) are capable of chang-
ing targets during atmospheric re-entry in order to evade ballistic missile defense. MaRVs can, in
theory, also be MIRVed.
8. Bill Sweetman, “Russia Develops Multiple Nuclear Systems,” Aviation Week, November 11, 2013,
http://aviationweek.com/awin/russia-develops-multiple-nuclear-systems.
9. Tathagata Bhattacharya, “Where India Stands Today on Missile Technology,” IBNLive,
September 19, 2012.
10. Ajey Lele and Parveen Bhardwaj, India’s Nuclear Triad: A Net Assessment, occasional paper,
Institute for Defence Studies & Analyses, April 2013.
11. Note that the United States government typically categorizes IRBMs as ballistic missiles with
ranges between 3,000 km and 5,500 km, and ICBMs as ballistic missiles with ranges over 5,500
km. The government of India, by contrast, has sometimes labeled its 5,000-km-range Agni-V as an
ICBM. See Ballistic and Cruise Missile Threat (Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH: National Air
and Space Intelligence Center, 2013); and Rakesh Krishnan Simha, “Missile Impossible: Why the
Agni-V Falls Short,” Russia & India Report, April 26, 2012.
12. “Next Variant of Agni to Be Inducted within 4 Years: Scientist,” Press Trust of India,
September 28, 2007.
13. Ajai Shukla, “Agni Missile to Get Multiple Warheads,” Business Standard India, January 28, 2008.
14. Ajai Shukla, “What Makes 5,000 Km Range Agni-5 Missile Deadlier,” Business Standard,
October 12, 2009.
15. DRDO, “Personnel News,” DRDO Newsletter 31, no. 5 (May 8, 2011), drdo.res.in:8080/alpha/
drdo/pub/newsletter/2011/may_11.pdf.
16. “India Developing MIRVs,” SP’s Aviation, November 2009.
197
17. Vipin Narang and Christopher Clary, “Capability Without Strategy,” Indian Express, May 22,
2012, http://archive.indianexpress.com/story-print/952086/.
18. “Agni-VI with 10,000 Km Range to Be Ready by 2014,” IBNLive, May 24, 2012.
19. Doug Richardson, “DRDO Describes Technologies Used in Agni V,” Jane’s Missiles & Rockets
16, no. 6 (June 1, 2012); and “Agni V to Be Operational by 2015,” The Hindu, August 3, 2013, http://
www.thehindu.com/news/national/agni-v-to-be-operational-by-2015/article4982029.ece.
20. “Agni 6,” IHS Jane’s, May 22, 2014.
21. Ibid.; and “Sneak Peek into India’s New Missile Programs,” Indian Defense Research Wing
News Network, July 29, 2014.
22. V. K. Saraswat, “Future Challenges of Aerospace Research in India: A Perspective,” IIT, March
2, 2013.
23. Bharat Karnad, “Managing Indian Nuclear Forces,” Security Wise, August 13, 2012, http://
bharatkarnad.com/2012/08/13/managing-indian-nuclear-forces/.
24. Bharat Karnad, “MIRVing Tech Not Tested,” Security Wise, April 19, 2012, http://bharatkar-
nad.com/2012/04/19/mirving-tech-not-tested/.
25. “India’s Ballistic Missile Defence Capability Is Grossly Exaggerated,” DNA India, April 4, 2011,
http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/analysis-india-s-ballistic-missile-defence-capability-is-gross-
ly-exaggerated-1527966.
26. Gaurav Kampani, “Is the Indian Nuclear Tiger Changing Its Stripes? Data, Interpretation, and
Fact,” Atlantic Council, March 21, 2014.
27. “Agni 6,” IHS Jane’s; and “Agni 5,” IHS Jane’s, August 12, 2014.
28. One press report indicated that the DRDO’s budget was increased nearly 60 per-
cent from FY 2013-14 to FY 2014-15. “FDI in Defence Increased to 49%,” Business Recorder,
July 11, 2014; P. K. Vasudeva, “Defence Allotments Deficient in Threat Perception,”
Indian Defence Review, July 14, 2014, http://www.indiandefencereview.com/news/
defence-allotments-deficient-in-threat-perception/.
29. Radhakrishna Rao, “Carry Forward The Legacy of Agni-5,” May 1, 2012, http://www.vifindia.
org/article/2012/may/01/carry-forward-the-legacy-of-agni-5; Vinod Anand, The Role of Ballistic
Missile Defence in the Emerging India-China Strategic Balance, occasional paper, Vivekananda
International Foundation, January 2013, http://www.vifindia.org/sites/default/files/the-role-
of-ballistic-missile-defence-in-the-emerging-india-china-strategic-balance.pdf; and Arun
Vishwanathan, S. Chandrashekar, and Rajaram Nagappa, Nuclear Weapons and Deterrence
(International Strategic and Security Studies Programme, National Institute of Advanced Studies
(NIAS), November 18, 2013), http://isssp.in/nuclear-weapons-and-deterrence/.
30. B. S. Nagal, “Checks and Balances,” Force, June 2014; and B. S. Nagal, “Perception and Reality:
An In-Depth Analysis of India’s Credible Minimum Deterrent Doctrine,” Force, October 2014.
31. Verghese Koithara, Managing India’s Nuclear Forces (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution
Press, 2012), 129.
32. Bommakanti, “Satellite Integration and Multiple Independently Retargetable Reentry Vehicles
Technology.”
33. Koithara, Managing India’s Nuclear Forces, 5.
34. Hans Kristensen and Robert Norris, “Status of World Nuclear Forces,” Federation of American
Scientists, 2014, http://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/.
198
35. Dinsa Sachan, “India’s Missile Milestone: Agni V to Ensure Deterrent Parity with China,”
Down To Earth, April 20, 2012, http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/indias-missile-mile-
stone-agni-v-ensure-deterrent-parity-china. MIRVs would be particularly attractive if India is
unable to procure key missile components, or is unwilling to pay for more long-range missiles.
36. “India test-fires Agni V with range as far as China,” Hindustan Times, September 16, 2013,
http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/india-test-fires-agni-v-with-range-as-far-as-china/
article1-1122291.aspx.
37. Toby Dalton and Jaclyn Tandler, Understanding the Arms ‘Race’ in South Asia (Washington,
DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 13, 2012), http://carnegieendow-
ment.org/2012/09/13/understanding-arms-race-in-south-asia/dtj0#.
38. Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, “Chinese Nuclear Forces, 2013,” Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists 69, no. 6 (November 2013): 79–85.
39. “China Strategic Weapons Systems,” IHS Jane’s, November 30, 2014.
40. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security
Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2013 (Washington, DC: US Department of
Defense, 2013).
41. “Chinese Provincial Agency May Have Confirmed Secret Long-Range Missile,” New York
Times, August 1, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2014/08/01/technology/01reuters-chi-
na-military.html.
42. Bill Gertz, “China Tests ICBM With Multiple Warheads,” Washington Free Beacon, December
18, 2014; Bill Gertz, “Chinese Military Confirms DF-41 Flight Test,” Washington Free Beacon,
December 26, 2014.
43. Lora Saalman, “China’s Evolution on Ballistic Missile Defense,” Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace, August 23, 2012, http://carnegieendowment.org/2012/08/23/
china-s-evolution-on-ballistic-missile-defense/dkpj.
44. Philip Saunders, testimony before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission
hearing on developments in China’s cyber and nuclear capabilities, 2012, http://devposse.gatech.
edu/sites/devposse.gatech.edu/files/Chinese%20Nuclear%20Forces%20and%20Strategy.pdf. See
also Benjamin Schreer, “China’s Development of a More Secure Nuclear Second-Strike Capability:
Implications for Chinese Behavior and US Extended Deterrence,” Asia Policy 19 (January 2015): 14–20.
45. Ballistic and Cruise Missile Threat.
46. “Agni 2,” IHS Jane’s, June 3, 2014.
47. “Weapon of Choice: India’s Strategic Missile Capabilities,” Jane’s Intelligence Review 25, no. 1
(January 1, 2013).
48. “Agni 4,” IHS Jane’s, December 11, 2014.
Defense, 2013).
Defense, 2011).
199
51. “Weapon of Choice: India’s Strategic Missile Capabilities,” Jane’s Intelligence Review; see also
P. K. Singh, “The India-Pakistan Nuclear Dyad and Regional Nuclear Dynamics,” Asia Policy 19
(January 2015): 42.
52. Lele and Bhardwaj, India’s Nuclear Triad: A Net Assessment, 35.
Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2013, 7. See also Ronald O’Rourke, China
Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities — Background and Issues for
Congress, Congressional Research Service, December 23, 2014.
54. Samuel Locklear, statement before the Senate Committee on Armed Services on US Pacific
Command Posture, March 25, 2014, http://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/
Locklear_03-25-14.pdf.
55. Andrew Erickson and Lyle Goldstein, “China’s Future Nuclear Submarine Force: Insights from
Chinese Writings,” in China’s Future Nuclear Submarine Force (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute
Press, 2007).
56. Compared to Pakistan, however, India is far advanced in submarine technology. Pakistan is
substantially behind India on acquiring a sea-based deterrent and probably lacks the resources
and the will to build a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine, at least in the short term. See
also Frank O’Donnell and Yogesh Joshi, “Lost at Sea: The Arihant in India’s Quest for a Grand
Strategy,” Comparative Strategy 33, no. 5 (November 18, 2014): 466–481.
57. Sanjeev Miglani and Tommy Wilkes, “Rattled by Chinese Submarines, India Joins Other
Nations in Rebuilding Fleet,” Reuters, December 2, 2014.
58. Rajat Pandit, “Move to Fast-Track Two Submarine Projects Gathers Steam,” Times of India,
July 14, 2014; Guarav Kampani, China–India Nuclear Rivalry in the “Second Nuclear Age,” IFS
Insights (Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, November 2014); Gaurav Kampani, “India: The
Challenges of Nuclear Operationalization and Strategic Stability,” in Strategic Asia 2013-14: Asia
in the Second Nuclear Age, ed. Ashley J. Tellis, Abraham M. Denmark, and Travis Tanner (Seattle:
National Bureau of Asian Research, 2013), 99–130.
59. Pallava Bagla and Vishnu Som, “NDTV Exclusive: This Is INS Arihant, First Made-in-India
Nuclear Submarine,” NDTV, August 20, 2014.
60. Saraswat, “Future Challenges of Aerospace Research in India: A Perspective.”
61. The K-15’s diameter is 0.8 meters, while the K-4’s is speculated to be approximately 1.3 meters.
For figures on the K-15, see “Jane’s K-15,” Jane’s IHS, August 12, 2014; for information on the K-4,
see Sushil Sharma, “India Fires Long Range SLBM, Changes Dynamics of Indian Ocean,” Bharat
Defence Kavach, March 25, 2014.
62. Arun Prakash, “A Step Before the Leap — Putting India’s ATV Project in Perspective,” Force,
September 2009.
63. O’Donnell and Joshi, “Lost at Sea,’” 471.
64. Shukla, “Agni Missile to Get Multiple Warheads.”
65. “Diplomatic and Strategic Impact of Multiple Warhead Missiles: Hearings Before the
Subcommittee on National Security Policy and Scientific Developments,” US House Committee
on Foreign Affairs, July 8, 1969, 242. See also Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, “A Brief
History of Minuteman and Multiple Reentry Vehicles,” February 1976, http://www2.gwu.edu/~n-
sarchiv/nsa/NC/mirv/mirv1_1.html.
200
66. Ting Shi, “China Says Third Missile-Defense Test in Four Years Successful,” Bloomberg, July
24, 2014, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-24/china-says-third-missile-defense-test-in-
four-years-successful.html.
67. Richard H. Speier, K. Scott McMahon, and George Nacouzi, Penaid Nonproliferation
Hindering the Spread of Countermeasures Against Ballistic Missile Defenses (Santa Monica, CA:
the Rand Corporation, 2014), http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/
RR300/RR378/RAND_RR378.pdf.
68. Saraswat, “Future Challenges of Aerospace Research in India: A Perspective.”
69. Saalman, “China’s Evolution on Ballistic Missile Defense.”
70. Toby Dalton, “Strategic Triangle,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, August 5,
2013, http://carnegieendowment.org/2013/08/05/strategic-triangle.
71. The DRDO’s work on ballistic missiles in particular has been effective at maximizing its
“bureaucratic autonomy” within the Indian defense system; see Frank O’Donnell and Harsh Pant,
“Evolution of India’s Agni-V Missile: Bureaucratic Politics and Nuclear Ambiguity,” Asian Survey
54, no. 3 (June 2014): 584–610.
72. Ronald L. Tammen, MIRV and the Arms Race: An Interpretation of Defense Strategy (New
York: Praeger, 1973); Alison Lee Morgan, “Factors Promoting Weapons Research in Cold War
America: The Case of MIRV,” San Jose State University, 2000, 103, scholarworks.sjsu.edu/cgi/view-
content.cgi?article=3026&context=etd_theses.
73. For a broader discussion of the risks of technology and path-dependence see Donald
MacKenzie, “Technology and the Arms Race,” International Security 14, no. 1 (1989): 161–175.
74. Ted Greenwood, Making the MIRV: A Study of Defense Decision Making (Cambridge, MA:
Ballinger, 1975), 97.
75. Indeed, part of the bureaucratic rationale for MIRV development in the 1960s was a desire by
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to maintain warhead numbers while deferring Air Force
requests for more ICBMs; this likely could have been accomplished with MRVs instead of MIRVs.
See Fred Kaplan, “Living in a MIRVed World: Some Second Thoughts About a First Strike,”
Environment Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, April 1984.
76. “Foreign Relations of the United States 1969–1976, Volume XXXII: SALT I, 1969–1972,” US
Department of State, 2010, 217; and “Diplomatic and Strategic Impact of Multiple Warhead
Missiles: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on National Security Policy and Scientific
Developments,” US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 269–270.
77. William Hyland, Mortal Rivals, Superpower Relations from Nixon to Reagan (Random House,
1987), 43.
78. Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography (Simon and Schuster, 2005), 322. To be fair, some
defense officials at the time made a conscious trade-off between short-term imperatives and long-
term risks. Even Deputy Secretary of Defense David Packard, who supported keeping the MIRV
advantage, concluded in a 1970 National Security Council meeting, “In the short haul we need
it. In the long haul it is disturbing.” (“Foreign Relations of the United States 1969–1976, Volume
XXXII: SALT I, 1969–1972,” US Department of State, 213.)
79. Rizwana Abbasi, “Strategic Stability in South Asia,” Hilal 50, no. 12 (June 30, 2014): 44; and
authors’ conversations with Pakistani officials, Islamabad, November 2014.
80. Sehar Kamran, “Pakistan’s Defence Compulsions,” The Nation, May 28, 2014.
81. Usman Ansari, “Pakistan Seeks To Counter Indian ABM Defenses,” Defense News, March 21, 2011.
201
82. For an assessment of early Sino-Pakistani missile cooperation, see Donald Rumsfeld et al.,
“Executive Summary of the Report of the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the
United States,” July 15, 1998, http://fas.org/irp/threat/bm-threat.htm.
83. Nonofficial Indian analysts have indeed suggested that MIRVed ballistic missiles would bol-
ster India’s capabilities against hardened targets; see Lele and Bhardwaj, India’s Nuclear Triad: A
Net Assessment, 34.
84. “Pakistan Test Fires Nuclear-Capable Missile,” Dawn, February 11, 2013, http://www.dawn.
com/2013/02/11/pakistan-conducts-successful-test-of-hatf-ix-nasr/.
85. Smith, “The US Experience with Tactical Nuclear Weapons: Lessons for South Asia.” See also
Jeffrey McCausland, “Pakistan’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons: Operational Myths and Realities,” in
this volume.
86. See Gurmeet Kanwal, “India’s Nuclear Forces: Doctrine and Operationalization,” in India’s
Military Modernization: Challenges and Prospects, ed. Rajesh Basrur, Ajaya Kumar Das, and
Manjeet S. Pardesi (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014), 100–101.
87. Just as the Soviet Union, lacking a reliable sea-based second-strike capability into the late
1960s, felt as though its silo-based ICBM fleet was theoretically subject to destruction by a smaller
number of MIRVed US missiles, so Pakistan may face incentives to bolster its arsenal to compen-
sate for a perceived asymmetry introduced by Indian MIRVs. (William C. Potter, “Coping with
MIRV in a MAD World,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 22, no. 4 (December 1, 1978): 599–626.
88. In 2011, Pakistan’s ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament suggested that his country
would begin negotiating if it received an NSG waiver similar to the one granted India in 2008, and
that Pakistan’s position was related to the Indo-Pakistani fissile imbalance but was more impor-
tantly a matter of “principle.” (“The South Asian Nuclear Balance: An Interview with Pakistani
Ambassador to the CD Zamir Akram,” Arms Control Association, n.d., http://www.armscontrol.
org/act/2011_12/Interview_With_Pakistani_Ambassador_to_the_CD_Zamir_Akram.)
89. “India Planning Two More Tests of Long-Range Agni-5 Ballistic Missile,” The Economic Times,
May 5, 2013, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com//articleshow/19899017.cms.
90. Narang and Clary, “Capability Without Strategy.”
91. For more on the impact of Chinese MIRVs on Sino-Indian strategic stability, see M. Taylor
Fravel and Evan S. Medeiros, “China’s Search for Assured Retaliation: The Evolution of Chinese
Nuclear Strategy and Force Structure,” International Security 35, no. 2 (2010): 48–87.
92. India has, since 1999, revised its massive retaliation policy to include non-nuclear strikes; in
2003, a statement was issued that India retains the right to use nuclear weapons in retaliation for a
biological or chemical weapon attack.
93. Michael Krepon, “The Myth of Deterrence Stability Between Nuclear-Armed Rivals,” in this
volume.
94. Shashank Joshi, “An Evolving Indian Nuclear Doctrine?” in this volume. Massive retaliation
is arguably problematic, but pursuit of a more flexible response doctrine and associated LNOs
would raise an entirely new set of risks and deterrence problems for India.
95. Zachary Keck, “The Most Dangerous Nuclear Threat No One Is Talking
About,” The National Interest, December 19, 2014, http://nationalinterest.org/blog/
the-most-dangerous-nuclear-threat-no-one-talking-about-11899.
96. Greenwood, Making the MIRV: A Study of Defense Decision Making, 110.
97. “Diplomatic and Strategic Impact of Multiple Warhead Missiles: Hearings Before the
202
Subcommittee on National Security Policy and Scientific Developments,” US House Committee

on Foreign Affairs, 102; Kampani, China–India Nuclear Rivalry in the “Second Nuclear Age,” 24.
98. Sarang Shidore, “India’s Strategic Culture and Deterrence Stability on the Subcontinent,” in
this volume.
99. With the Indian acquisition of an Airborne Warning and Control System platform from Israel,
Pakistan may also be concerned about preemptive conventional cruise missile strikes against its
nuclear arsenal. Such a possibility was broached in the quasi-official journal Air Power in 2013. See
Arjun Subramanian P, “India’s Ballistic Missile Defense,” Air Power 8, no. 4 (Winter 2013).
100. Robert Jervis, “Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma,” World Politics 30, no. 2 (1978):
167–214.
101. “Foreign Relations of the United States 1969–1976, Volume XXXII: SALT I, 1969–1972,” US
Department of State, 211.
102. Ibid., 629.
103. The United Kingdom’s MIRVed SLBMs garner little international concern not only for
geopolitical reasons, but because the UK’s nuclear force is entirely sea-based and its arsenal is not
growing.
104. See, for example, Rahul Singh, “India to Deploy Defence against Ballistic Missiles by 2016,
Says DRDO Chief,” Hindustan Times, September 16, 2014.
105. Author’s discussion with Indian officials, November 2014.
203
204
CONTRIBUTORS
Rasul Bakhsh Rais is a Professor of Political Science in the Department of

Humanities and Social Sciences, Lahore University of Management Sciences
(LUMS). Before joining LUMS, he taught international politics at the Quaid-
i-Azam University, Islamabad for 22 years, and headed the Area Study Center.
He took time off from LUMS and worked as Director General of the Institute
of Strategic Studies Islamabad during 2013-14. He is author of Recovering the
Frontier State: War, Ethnicity and State in Afghanistan, War without Winners:
Afghanistan’s Uncertain Transition after the Cold War, Indian Ocean and the
Superpowers: Economic, Political and Strategic Perspectives. He has published
widely in professional journals on security and political issues. His current re-
search interests are: modernism, the challenge of radical Islam in Pakistan, war
and state in Afghanistan, and the fall of the Bahawalpur state.
Kyle Deming was an intern for the Stimson Center’s South Asia program. He
graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Michigan in 2013 with a B.A.
in Political Science and History. He was the William J. Taylor Intern for the
Project on Nuclear Issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
He plans to attend Georgetown University’s M.A. program in Security Studies
in fall 2015.
Manoj Joshi is a Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation,

New Delhi, heading its national security initiative. Prior to this, he was a jour-
nalist at The Hindu, Times of India, Hindustan Times, and India Today. In 2011
he was appointed by the Government of India to the Task Force on National
Security chaired by Mr. Naresh Chandra to propose reforms in the national
security system of the country. He has been a member of the National Security
Council’s Advisory Board. He is a graduate from St Stephen’s College, Delhi
University and holds a Ph.D. from the School of International Studies (SIS),
Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Shashank Joshi is a Senior Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute
(RUSI) in London, and a Ph.D. Candidate at the Department of Government,
Harvard University. He previously graduated from Gonville and Caius College,
205
Contributors
University of Cambridge. He is broadly interested in international security in

South Asia and the Middle East, with a particular interest in the foreign, se-
curity, and defense policies of India. On the subject of nonproliferation, he has
previously published on the implications of Pakistani tactical nuclear weapons
and a monograph on Iran’s nuclear program. He has written for publications
including the Journal of Strategic Studies, The Washington Quarterly, Asian
Survey, Survival, Orbis, and the RUSI Journal.
Michael Krepon is the Co-Founder of the Stimson Center and Director of its
South Asia program. He is the author or editor of twenty-one books, including
Better Safe than Sorry: The Ironies of Living with the Bomb; Deterrence Stability
and Escalation Control in South Asia; Nuclear Risk Reduction in South Asia;
Escalation Control and the Nuclear Option in South Asia; Global Confidence
Building: New Tools for Troubled Regions; and Crisis Prevention, Confidence
Building, and Reconciliation in South Asia.
Shane Mason is a Research Associate with the Stimson Center’s South Asia
program. He previously served as a Scoville Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace. He graduated magna cum laude from Pepperdine
University with a degree in political science, and received his M.A. in nonpro-
liferation and terrorism studies from the Middlebury Institute of International
Studies at Monterey.
Jeffrey D. McCausland is a retired Army Colonel with more than 30 years of

military experience. He has served in a variety of operational and staff po-
sitions, including command of a field artillery battalion during Operations
Desert Shield and Storm. During the Cold War, he was assigned to numer-
ous units equipped with tactical nuclear weapons and participated in both
training as well as planning for their employment. He has also served on the
National Security Council Staff during the Kosovo crisis and in the office of
the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations on the Army Staff in the Pentagon.
His final Army assignment was as Dean of Academics at the US Army War
College. He currently serves as a Visiting Professor at Dickinson College and
is also the Distinguished Visiting Professor of Research and Minerva Chair
at the Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College.
206
Sarang Shidore is an independent researcher and consultant based in Austin and

currently Visiting Scholar at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs
at the University of Texas at Austin. His areas of research focus are strategic
futures and energy/climate policy, with several publications in strategic culture
and Indian foreign and security policy. These include, most recently, a chapter
on the impact of Indian strategic culture on the Iran relationship in the volume
India’s Grand Strategy: History, Theory, Cases (Routledge, 2014). He previously
co-led a comprehensive scenario planning study on global security in the years
2030 and 2050 at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi
in partial collaboration with the Development, Concepts, and Doctrine Center
(DCDC) of the U.K. Ministry of Defence. He holds three Master’s degrees — in
International Studies, Mechanical Engineering, and Aerospace Engineering —
with a prior 15-year career in the engineering software arena.
Julia Thompson is a Research Associate with the Stimson Center’s South

Asia program. She graduated from Georgetown University with a degree in
international politics and from King’s College London with an M.A. in war
studies, where she focused on counter-terrorism and nonproliferation. She co-
edited Deterrence Stability and Escalation Control in South Asia.
Joshua T. White is currently Senior Advisor & Director for South Asian Affairs
at the National Security Council staff. This chapter was prepared while White
served as Senior Associate and Co-Director of the South Asia program at The
Stimson Center. Prior to joining Stimson, he served as Senior Advisor for Asian
and Pacific Security Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, a po-
sition he held in conjunction with an International Affairs Fellowship from
the Council on Foreign Relations. He has spent extensive time in South Asia,
interviewing Islamist leaders in Pakistan’s remote tribal areas, meeting with
politicians and military officials, and researching trends in nuclear deterrence
and strategic stability. He graduated magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from
Williams College with a double major in history and mathematics, and re-
ceived his Ph.D. with distinction from The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced
International Studies in Washington.
207
Contributors
DETERRENCE
INSTABILITY
& NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN SOUTH ASIA
Deterrence between India and Pakistan is becoming less stable with the pas-
sage of time and an increase in nuclear weapon capabilities. India and Pakistan
have not addressed basic issues in dispute, nor have they agreed to set them
aside. Direct trade and other means of connectivity remain purposefully cir-
cumscribed, and spoilers who oppose Pakistan’s rapprochement with India are
poorly constrained. In 2015, India and Pakistan are no closer to resolving their
differences than they were seven years ago, after members of Lashkar-e-Taiba
carried out attacks against Mumbai landmarks, including the central train
station, two luxury hotels, and a Jewish center.
The essays in this volume highlight how doctrinal, strategic, and technological
developments contribute to growing deterrence instability in South Asia. Key
elements of Indian and Pakistani strategic culture intersect at times in negative,
reinforcing ways. Pakistan and India continue to diversify their nuclear weapon
capabilities in ways that undermine stability. Two kinds of delivery vehicles —
short-range systems that must operate close to the forward edge of battle, and
sea-based systems — are especially problematic because of command and con-
trol and nuclear safety and security issues. Taken together, these chapters point
to serious challenges associated with increased nuclear dangers unless leaders
in India and Pakistan work to resolve their grievances, or consider measures to
mitigate their costly and risky strategic competition. If not, deterrence instabil-
ity on the subcontinent will grow in the decade ahead.
210

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Key Terms and Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

The Myth of Deterrence Stability Between Nuclear-Armed Rivals . . . . . . . . . 15

The Credibility of India’s Nuclear Deterrent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

An Evolving Indian Nuclear Doctrine? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Pakistan’s Strategic Culture and Deterrence Stability on the Subcontinent . . 95

India’s Strategic Culture and Deterrence Stability on the Subcontinent . . . . 119

Pakistan’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons: Operational Myths and Realities . . . . 149

KEY TERMS AND ACRONYMS

AFAP Artillery-fired Atomic Projectile

In “Pakistan’s Strategic Culture and Deterrence Stability on the Subcontinent,”

THE MYTH OF DETERRENCE STABILITY

Deterrence Instability Between the Superpowers

Kenneth Waltz argued that exacting, outsized calculations of nuclear deterrence

was, however, quite difficult to determine because modernization programs

Confidence-building, transparency, and NRRMs helped to keep the Cold War

to be understood as the pursuit of “a nuclear superiority that is not merely

Deterrence Instability on the Subcontinent

risk-taking by Pakistan lent credence to another construct of Western deter-

Familiar domestic, political, and institutional impulses to compete are present,

Stabilizing Mechanisms for Southern Asia

Trilateral or bilateral treaty arrangements are an unlikely pathway to deterrence

THE CREDIBILITY OF INDIA’S NUCLEAR DETERRENT

Two aspects of Indian nuclear doctrine are increasingly questioned — New

needed strengthening, began testing short-range missiles, advertised as being

Dysfunctional Defense Management

of defense — have prevented the emergence of a coherent national security

in failures to properly modernize India’s armed forces. An associated problem,

A Long-Standing Civil-Military Divide

In 2009, reviewing the government’s response to its earlier reports examining

The Conventional-Nuclear Interface

New Escalation Pathways to an Unstable Future

The China Factor

The Indian Paradox

say the domestic-based Maoist Naxalite movement is a very serious

2014 general elections and subsequently consolidating itself through a string of

28. Menon, “A Mismatch of Nuclear Doctrines.”

AN EVOLVING INDIAN NUCLEAR DOCTRINE?

Nuclear deterrence in South Asia is typically analyzed with reference to nuclear

chemical or biological weapons (CBW), possibly mimicking the “calculated

therefore survivability, this might reasonably be interpreted, by India, as Pakistan

NFU, Assured Retaliation, and Preemption

nuclear weapon used for attacking India, strategic or tactical, is irrele-

Bharat Karnad, a proponent of a much more ambitious nuclear posture than

perceptions thereof, to be weakened by default, through continued growth in

PAKISTAN’S STRATEGIC CULTURE AND

Theory and Concept

rity decisions.8 Assumptions about an adversary’s identity and intentions, what

Literature on Pakistan’s Strategic Culture

stituencies, and institutions on Pakistan’s perceptions. India has remained at

Key Elements of Pakistan’s Strategic Culture

Countering the Indian Threat

Primacy of National Security

Pride in Muslim Sovereignty

Reliance on Proactive Means of National Defense

ance on foreign equipment. Third, it incorporates tactical nuclear weapons with

Strategic Culture and Deterrence Stability

be placed in an untenable position if it uses nuclear weapons first in a military

and national sentiment cultivates a sentiment of self-sacrifice and fosters a private

Durability and Adaptation of Strategic Culture

still pursued a proactive defense strategy of employing subconventional warfare

41. Lavoy, “Pakistan’s Strategic Culture: A Theoretical Excursion,” 5.

INDIA’S STRATEGIC CULTURE AND DETERRENCE

Strategic Culture: History and Theory

Johnston, in a seminal study of Chinese military doctrine, contributed a new

India’s Strategic Culture: Contemporary Debates

India’s Strategic Culture: The Nuclear Dimension

Rajesh Basrur conducted a perceptive theoretical and empirical analyses of

India’s Strategic Culture: A New Understanding

Table 1: India’s Three Central Strategic Paradigms

Central Strategic Paradigm

accelerating two-way trade by as much as an order of magnitude from current

Firm Civilian Control over the Military

Preservation of the Territorial Status Quo