India as a Nuclear-Capable Rising Power in a Multipolar and Non-Polar World

Abstract

The two global trends of multipolarity (rising powers) and non-polarity (failing states) are strongly present in the South Asian geopolitical context. India's competitive–cooperative relationship with China is clearly part of the multipolar trend of rising powers throughout the world, while India's long, antagonistic history with Pakistan is increasingly witness to a weakening and radicalized Pakistani state. In this mixed strategic environment, Indian nuclear weapons are neither a global bane nor a coercive form of power for compelling a lopsided agreement with Pakistan on Kashmir. Indeed, the greatest indirect challenge to South Asian stability is not Indian nuclear capabilities, but rather US grand strategy, which helps fuel centrifugal forces in Pakistan while potentially increasing the bellicosity of other powers such as Russia and China, with potentially negative long-term effects on the currently minimalist Indian nuclear policy.

Notes

1. See for instance Steven Metz and Frank Hoffman, ‘Restructuring America's Ground Forces: Better, not Bigger’, Stanley Foundation Policy Analysis Brief Series, September 2007, pp. 1–3, 13–14, at http://www.stanleyfoundation.org/publications/pab/Metz_HoffmanPAB07.pdf.

2. B.M. Jain, Global Power: India's Foreign Policy, 1947–2006, Lexington Books, Lanham, MA, 2008, p. 226.

3. Peter Tatchell, December 21, 2007, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/dec/21/pakistanssecretwarinbaluch.

4. ‘PAKISTAN: Karachi Violence Stokes Renewed Ethnic Tension’, IRIN News Agency, Islamabad, May 15, 2007, at http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=72145.

5. B.M. Jain, n. 2, p. 140.

6. Ibid., p. 142.

7. Ibid., pp. 141–142.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid., p. 142.

11. Ibid., pp. 143–144.

12. Ibid., p. 144.

13. ‘PM Address at the India-China Economic, Trade and Investment Summit’, The Hindu, January 14, 2008, at http://www.hindu.com/nic/rd2.html.

14. Most of this section constitutes various excerpts from an earlier article by the author and Dr. Sumit Ganguly, ‘The 2001–2002 Indo-Pakistani Crisis: Exposing the Limits of Coercive Diplomacy’, Security Studies, 14(2), 2005, pp. 290–324.

15. Michael Kraig and Sumit Ganguly, n. 14.

16. Excerpted from a block quote, Michael Kraig and Sumit Ganguly, n. 14, p. 319.

17. Ibid.

18. Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, US Department of Defense, Joint Operations Capstone Document, November 2003, at http://www.dtic.mil/jointvision/secdef_approved_jopsc.doc.

19. Joint Vision 2020, ‘America's Military: Preparing for Tomorrow’, Joint Chiefs of Staff, US Department of Defense, at http://www.dtic.mil/jointvision/jv2020a.pdf, p. 6.

20. This latter process has painstakingly worked to ratchet down the dramatic tensions of the 2001–2002 crisis – a defining moment in relations which saw huge build-ups of hundreds of thousands of troops, pre-positioning of heavy conventional weapons in key border areas, and active Indian decision-making elite consideration of military strikes in response to terrorist attacks on the Indian Parliament by Pakistani-funded or -based radical Islamic groups in December 2001.

21. See Owen Bennett-Jones, ‘US Policy Options toward Pakistan: A Principled and Realistic Approach’, Stanley Foundation Policy Analysis Brief Series, February 2008, at http://www.stanleyfoundation.org/publications/pab/JonesPAB208.pdf.

22. Pak General (ret.) Ehsan ul-Haq, ‘U.S. Air Strikes Strategically Counterproductive’, World Security Network reporting from Islamabad in Pakistan, November 6, 2008, 8:57 p.m., [email protected].

23. Owen Bennett-Jones, n. 21.

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid.