“MORE POSTURE THAN REVIEW”

Abstract

By deemphasizing the role of nuclear weapons in US security policy, the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) could lead India to slow or halt the growth of its nuclear weapons capabilities and to adopt a less assertive nuclear doctrine; however, the NPR is unlikely to have this effect on India's nuclear program. This is the case for two reasons. First, Indian leaders do not seek to emulate US nuclear behavior; they formulate policy based primarily on their assessment of the security threats facing India. Second, Indians do not think that the NPR augurs major changes in US nuclear policy. Thus, it will not alter the international strategic environment sufficiently to enable India to relax its nuclear posture. In fact, Indian strategists believe that the new US policy fails even to match India's current degree of nuclear restraint. Therefore, according to Indian experts, the NPR will have little impact on India.

Keywords:

• India
• United States
• Pakistan
• China
• nuclear policy
• no-first-use policy
• nuclear weapons

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND DISCLAIMER

The author thanks Michael Krepon, Vipin Narang, Scott Sagan, and Jane Vaynman for helpful comments and criticism. The views expressed in this article are the author's alone and do not necessarily represent those of the US Department of Defense.

Notes

1. Department of Defense, “Nuclear Posture Review Report,” April 6, 2010, <www.defense.gov/npr/docs/2010%20nuclear%20posture%20review%20report.pdf>.

2. Given its existing nuclear weapons status, India would be a candidate for “unproliferation” rather than nonproliferation. See George Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), pp. 455–57.

3. John F. Burns, “In Nuclear India, Small Stash Does Not a Ready Arsenal Make,” New York Times, July 26, 1998, p. A3.

4. Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen, “Global Nuclear Weapons Inventories, 1945–2010,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July/August 2010, p. 78.

5. “India's Draft Nuclear Doctrine,” Arms Control Today, July/August 1999, <www.armscontrol.org/act/1999_07-08/ffja99>.

6. “India Tests Nuclear-Capable Agni III Missile,” Reuters, May 7, 2008; “DRDO Looks Beyond Agni III,” Indian Defence Review 25 (April–June 2010), p. 46.

7. “India Profile: Missile Overview,” Nuclear Threat Initiative/James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, October 2009, <www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/India/Missile/index.html>; BrahMos Aerospace, “BrahMos Cruise Missile,” undated, <www.brahmos.com/content.php?id=10&sid=10>.

8. Manu Pubby, “India Ready to Test First Undersea Missile to Complete Nuclear Triad,” Indian Express, February 19, 2008, <www.indianexpress.com/news/india-ready-to-test-first-undersea-missile-t/274522/> Jasbir Singh, ed., Indian Defence Yearbook (New Delhi: IDYB Group, 2010), p. 284.

9. Ashley J. Tellis, “Atoms for War? US-Indian Civilian Nuclear Cooperation and India's Nuclear Arsenal,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, June 2006, p. 13, <www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=18443>.

10. Ashley J. Tellis, “Atoms for War? US-Indian Civilian Nuclear Cooperation and India's Nuclear Arsenal,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, June 2006, p. 13, <www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=18443>, pp. 12–13; Zia Mian, A.H. Nayyar, R. Rajaraman, and M.V. Ramana, “Plutonium Production in India and the US-India Nuclear Deal,” in Henry Sokolski, ed., Gauging US-Indian Strategic Cooperation (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2007), p. 104. The recent Indo-US nuclear agreement could help India to increase its plutonium production. Access to international fissile material supplies for its civilian nuclear program may enable India to devote scarce domestic uranium to its weapons program. See Caterina Dutto, “Experts’ Advice on the India Nuclear Deal,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, December 7, 2005, <www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=17758&prog=zgp&proj=znpp>. For an opposing view, see Tellis, “Atoms for War?”

11. See Harsh V. Pant, “India's Nuclear Doctrine and Command Structure: Implications for India and the World,” Comparative Strategy 24 (2005), p. 282; Scott D. Sagan, “The Evolution of Indian and Pakistani Nuclear Doctrine,” in Scott D. Sagan, ed., Inside Nuclear South Asia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), pp. 248–50. Note that the phrase “Indian forces anywhere” is also somewhat more assertive than similar language in the 1999 draft doctrine, which referred only to an attack “on India and its forces.” For a detailed discussion of India's 2003 NFU posture, see Pant, “India's Nuclear Doctrine and Command Structure,” pp. 282–84.

12. Small nuclear arsenals can, however, also have the opposite effect. For example, a very small Pakistani nuclear force could increase Indian leaders’ confidence that they could destroy it in a first strike. Larger arsenals thus can sometimes be stabilizing. See Charles L. Glaser, “When Are Arms Races Dangerous? Rational Versus Suboptimal Arming,” International Security 28 (2004), pp. 74–76.

13. Terrorists are more likely to acquire a nuclear device by crafting it out of stolen fissile material than by stealing it whole. See S. Paul Kapur, “Deterring Nuclear Terrorism,” in T.V. Paul, Patrick Morgan, and James Wirtz, eds., Complex Deterrence: Strategy in the Global Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), pp. 111–12.

14. See Scott D. Sagan, “The Evolution of Indian and Pakistani Nuclear Doctrine,” in Sagan, ed., Inside Nuclear South Asia, pp. 225–26.

15. See Scott D. Sagan, “The Evolution of Indian and Pakistani Nuclear Doctrine,” in Sagan, ed., Inside Nuclear South Asia, p. 221.

16. Scott D. Sagan, “The Case for No First Use,” Survival 51 (June/July 2009), pp. 169–70; Jean du Preez, “The Impact of the Nuclear Posture Review on the International Nonproliferation Regime,” Nonproliferation Review 9 (Fall/Winter 2002), p. 78.

17. Sagan, “The Case for No Fist Use,” p. 176.

18. Despite recent improvements in Indo-US relations, the notion that Indians could view the United States as a strategic threat is not entirely far-fetched. Former Indian Army chief of staff S. Padmanabhan, for example, recently wrote a novel in which India, allied with China and Russia, fights a war against the United States, which he refers to as a “rogue superpower” bent on “perpetuating world dominance.” See S. Padmanabhan, The Writing on the Wall: India Checkmates America 2017 (New Delhi: Manas Publications, 2004).

19. As Perkovich notes, even if India initially acquired nuclear weapons for security reasons, there is no guarantee that an improvement in its strategic environment will now lead it to reduce or eliminate its nuclear arsenal. After a state acquires nuclear weapons, domestic actors and organizations develop their own interests in keeping them—interests that may have little to do with the state's initial rationale for pursuing a nuclear capability. See Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, p. 456. Nonetheless, the likelihood that a lowered level of strategic threat will lead to Indian nuclear retrenchment is probably greater if the original reason for India's nuclearization was mainly strategic than if it were mostly non-security related.

20. As Perkovich notes, even if India initially acquired nuclear weapons for security reasons, there is no guarantee that an improvement in its strategic environment will now lead it to reduce or eliminate its nuclear arsenal. After a state acquires nuclear weapons, domestic actors and organizations develop their own interests in keeping them—interests that may have little to do with the state's initial rationale for pursuing a nuclear capability. See Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, p. 456. Nonetheless, the likelihood that a lowered level of strategic threat will lead to Indian nuclear retrenchment is probably greater if the original reason for India's nuclearization was mainly strategic than if it were mostly non-security related. pp. 6–7, 457–59.

21. Scott D. Sagan, “Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons? Three Models in Search of a Bomb,” International Security 21 (1996/1997), pp. 65–69. Note that Sagan also argues that norms and state identity are important motives driving the Indian nuclear weapons program.

22. Sumit Ganguly, “India's Pathway to Pokhran II: The Prospects and Sources of New Delhi's Nuclear Weapons Program,” International Security 24 (Spring 1999), p. 173. For another analysis highlighting the importance of strategic variables to India's nuclear program see Baldev Raj Nayar and T.V. Paul, India in the World Order: Searching for Major-Power Status (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 2–3, 171–75.

23. “Nuclear Anxiety; Indian's Letter to Clinton on the Nuclear Testing,” reprinted in the New York Times, May 13, 1998, <query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D01E5DA1430F930A25756C0A96E958260>.

24. Chidanand Rajghatta, “Obama Scales Back US Nuclear Stance,” Times of India, April 6, 2010, <timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Obama-scales-back-US-nuclear-stance/articleshow/5767786.cms>.

25. Indrani Bagchi, personal correspondence with author, July, 26 2010.

26. In explaining the Indians’ views of the NPR, I am in no way endorsing or otherwise judging them. The NPR can be understood as an experiment, designed to determine whether a de-emphasis of nuclear weapons’ role in US security policy will lead to a similar de-emphasis in other countries. The central questions that I attempt to answer in this paper are whether this is likely to occur in the Indian case, and why such an occurrence is or is not likely. I seek to convey as clearly as possible the Indians’ views on these questions. Whether the Indians are justified in their positions is a wholly different issue, bound up with matters (ranging from predictions regarding China's future nuclear and conventional military trajectory, to judgments about whether a US shift to a 1,500-weapon arsenal actually constitutes a meaningful nuclear drawdown, to assessments of the reasonableness of post-colonial political sensibilities) that are beyond the scope of this project.

27. Senior Indian official, interview with author, New Delhi, July 2010.

28. Senior Indian official, interview with author, New Delhi, July 2010.

29. K. Subrahmanyam, “No First Use: An Indian View,” in “The Case for No First Use: An Exchange,” Survival 51(October/November 2009), p. 35.

30. K. Subrahmanyam, interview with author, New Delhi, July 21, 2010. Mishra was widely recognized as possessing tremendous clout within the Indian government. See Rediff Strategic Affairs Bureau, “A Question of National Security,” July 8, 2004, <www.rediff.com/news/2004/jul/08spec1.htm>.

31. Brajesh Mishra, personal correspondence with author, August 29, 2010. Kanwal Sibal, who was Indian foreign secretary in 2003, supports Mishra's account. According to Sibal, the strategic imitation argument “is off the mark. India's reasons in making the [2003] change were very Pakistan-specific.” Kanwal Sibal, personal correspondence with author, August 24, 2010.

32. This is an important question because, as Sagan points out, Subrahmanyam enjoys considerable status in the Indian nuclear establishment. One should therefore “pay special attention” to his opinions. Sagan, “Reply: Evidence, Logic and Nuclear Doctrine,” in “The Case for No First Use: An Exchange,” pp. 43–44.

33. K. Subrahmanyam, interview with author, New Delhi, July 21, 2010.

34. Norris and Kristensen, “Global Nuclear Weapons Inventories,” p. 78. For a discussion of relative Indian and Pakistani military capabilities see S. Paul Kapur, Dangerous Deterrent: Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and Conflict in South Asia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), pp. 50–52. The Pakistani economy was expected to grow at about 4.5 percent in fiscal 2011, though recent flooding could reduce that rate by about 1 percent. See David Roman, “Floods Hit Pakistan Economy,” Wall Street Journal Asia, August 25, 2010, <online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703447004575448773669357704.html>.

35. As Brajesh Mishra put it, Indian leaders believe that “Pakistan can be finished by a few bombs.” See Kapur, Dangerous Deterrent, p. 129.

36. Norris and Kristensen, “Global Nuclear Weapons Inventories,” p. 78; Jasbir Singh, ed., Indian Defence Yearbook 2010 (New Delhi: IDYB Group, 2010), pp. 131–48; Federation of American Scientists, “Chinese Nuclear Weapons,” November 29, 2006, <www.fas.org/nuke/guide/china/nuke/index.html>; and “China Details Nuclear Strategy,” Global Security Newswire, April 22, 2010, <www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20100422_9457.php>.

37. China's economy is currently growing at approximately 10 percent per year and India's at roughly 8 percent. See David Pierson, “China's Economic Growth Slows in Second Quarter,” Los Angeles Times, July 16, 2010, p. B2; “ADB Pegs India's Economic Growth at 8.2 pc in 2010,” Economic Times, April 13, 2010, <economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/indicators/ADB-pegs-Indias-economic-growth-at-82-pc-in-2010/articleshow/5794729.cms>.

38. See John W. Garver, “Evolution of India's China Policy,” in Sumit Ganguly, ed., India's Foreign Policy: Retrospect and Prospect (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 83–105.

39. See Ziad Haider, “Baluchis, Beijing, and Pakistan's Gwadar Port,” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 6 (Winter/Spring 2005), pp. 95–103.

40. On Indian strategists’ concern with the Chinese threat see, for example, Bharat Verma, “Offensive Orientation,” Indian Defence Review 25 (April/June 2010); G.D. Bakshi, “The Threat From China,” in Singh, ed., Indian Defence Yearbook 2010, pp. 108–13; SRR Aiyenagar, “A Perspective on India-China Relations,” Journal of the Center for Land Warfare Studies (Summer 2010), pp. 9–21; Rahul Singh, “China Now Bigger Threat Than Pakistan, Says IAF Chief,” Hindustan Times, May 23, 2009, <www.hindustantimes.com/China-now-bigger-threat-than-Pakistan-says--IAF-chief/Article1-413933.aspx>; and “MPs Worried Over Threat From China,” Press Trust of India, August 19, 2010, <www.dnaindia.com/india/report_mps-worried-over-threat-from-china_1425852>. Indian worries are sufficiently widespread to have received attention from Chinese commentators. See Dang Jianjun, “How to Respond to India's ‘China Threat’ Theory?” China.org.cn, June 3, 2009, <www.china.org.cn/international/2009-06/03/content_17883584.htm>.

41. Barack Obama, “Remarks by President Barack Obama,” Prague, April 5, 2009, <www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-By-President-Barack-Obama-In-Prague-As-Delivered/>.

42. Author's interview with Chintamani Mahapatra, New Delhi, July 2010.

43. Department of Defense, “Nuclear Posture Review Report,” p. viii.

44. Kanwal Sibal, personal correspondence with author, August 9, 2010. In the end, whether Indian or US doctrine is actually closer to an NFU policy depends on what one thinks is a bigger departure from the principle of NFU—a willingness, regardless of the attacker's NPT status, to respond with nuclear weapons to a chemical/biological weapons attack, but not to a conventional attack; or a willingness to respond with nuclear weapons to either a conventional or a chemical/biological weapons attack, but only if the attacker is not a non-nuclear weapon state signatory to the NPT in good standing.

45. There appears to be a widespread belief among Indian strategic elites that China will not consider reductions in its nuclear force unless the number of warheads in the US nuclear arsenal shrinks to “the high three digits”—a development that, the Indians point out, will not occur even under the NPR. Military officers, analysts, and academics repeatedly made this three-digit claim, though its factual basis is unclear. Chinese doctrinal statements have not publicly identified a specific arsenal size that the United States would have to reach before China would consider reductions of its own. Rather, China has said simply that it seeks the smallest force required to ensure that it possesses a secure second-strike capability. See Chris Buckley, “China Military Paper Spells Out Nuclear Arms Stance,” Reuters, April 22, 2010.

46. Senior Strategic Forces Command officer, interview with author, New Delhi, July 20, 2010.

47. Jaswant Singh, “Against Nuclear Apartheid,” Foreign Affairs 77 (1998), p. 43.

48. See S. Paul Kapur, “India and the United States from World War II to the Present: A Relationship Transformed,” in Ganguly, ed., India's Foreign Policy, p. 259. On the importance of nuclear weapons as symbols for a post-colonial state, see also Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, p. 457.

49. “India's Draft Nuclear Doctrine,” 1999, available through the Arms Control Association, <www.armscontrol.org/act/1999_07-08/ffja99>.

50. Senior Indian strategic analyst, discussion with author, New Delhi, July 19, 2010.

51. Senior Indian strategic analyst, discussion with author, New Delhi, July 19, 2010.; K. Subrahmanyam, interview with author.

52. Senior Indian strategic analyst, discussion with author, New Delhi, July 19, 2010.; K. Subrahmanyam, interview with author

53. Brahma Chellaney, “The NPT's Uncertain Future,” Japan Times, August 7, 2010, <japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20100807bc.html>.