On February 14, 2019, members of a Pakistan-based terrorist organization, the Jaish-e-Mohammed, attacked an Indian paramilitary convoy in the town of Pulwama in Indian-controlled Kashmir, killing as many as forty personnel. In response, the Indian Air Force (IAF) struck at what it claimed was a terrorist training camp at Balakot in Pakistan. This was the first time since the 1971 India-Pakistan War that the IAF had struck across the international border, i.e., beyond the confines of the divided state of Kashmir. Within days, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) struck back, shooting down an Indian MiG-21 Bison that had engaged the PAF aircraft. Though passions ran high on both sides, in the end, events did not spiral out of control, and the immediate crisis concluded with the safe return of the Indian pilot. Nevertheless, this episode underscored the willingness of both sides to use airpower against each other, even across the international border. It has sharpened concerns that the next such confrontation could escalate to a nuclear exchange—concerns that are motivated as much by changes in military doctrine and technology as by the pattern of recurring crises since the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests of 1998.
South Asia is the world’s only region with two nuclear-armed rivals outside the ambit of the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The region’s nuclear vortex also extends beyond India and Pakistan to include the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which has been involved in an enduring geopolitical rivalry with India since the early 1950s. The Sino-Indian nuclear dyad, however, is quite asymmetric; the PRC is primarily concerned with the perceived nuclear threat from the United States, while India views the PRC’s own nuclear-weapons capabilities with considerable alarm.
Given the presence of nuclear arsenals in all three states and the existence of two ongoing rivalries, it is striking that, barring two anodyne nuclear confidence-building measures between India and Pakistan, the region has not seen any efforts toward regional nuclear-arms control.Footnote1 The reasons are complex and require some discussion. Although Pakistan has made various proposals, India has avoided entering into any nuclear-arms-control agreement with Pakistan that might constrain its nuclear capabilities vis-à-vis the PRC. For its own part, the PRC refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of India’s nuclear-weapons program, making it difficult for India to broach the subject with the PRC. Furthermore, given the PRC’s preoccupation with the American nuclear threat, it is far from evident that it would be willing to enter into a regional arms-control agreement that could limit its capabilities.
To compound matters, all three parties are involved in the modernization and expansion of their respective nuclear arsenals. The PRC, as can be surmised, is primarily concerned with maintaining an arsenal that enables it to cope with the threat from the United States.Footnote2 Its efforts to bolster its capabilities, in turn, create a security dilemma for India.Footnote3 From India’s standpoint, even if the PRC is primarily concerned with the United States, its expanding capabilities nevertheless pose a threat to India. Pakistan, in turn, faces a similar security dilemma. India’s capabilities, though mostly focused on deterring the PRC, constitute a threat to Pakistan’s security. Furthermore, India has, for over a decade, been investing in a ballistic-missile-defense system, which Pakistan’s leaders might reasonably conclude is meant to counteract their own nuclear forces. Not surprisingly, Pakistan has sought to boost fissile-material production in the recent past.
The existence of these two related nuclear rivalries, especially in the absence of any regional arms-control arrangement, imperils the region. The purpose of this special issue is to carefully examine the scope of the nuclear gyre in the region and to explore the possibility of strategic stability as well as challenges to it. To that end, the articles in this issue examine the Sino-Indian nuclear dyad, India’s and Pakistan’s emerging nuclear capabilities, India’s pursuit of a submarine-based nuclear force, and the relationship of India’s space assets to its nuclear forces.
In “Acrimony, Asymmetry, and the Sino-Indian Nuclear Relationship,” Susan Turner Haynes argues that the nuclear relationship is clearly asymmetric. India is genuinely preoccupied with the threat that it perceives from the PRC while the latter remains mostly focused on the security challenge posed by the United States. While downplaying any threat from India, the PRC historically contributed to the development of Pakistan’s nuclear-weapons program.
Also, the PRC’s stated no-first-use (NFU) policy has offered little or no reassurance to India, for two compelling reasons. First, Haynes argues, if a nuclear weapon were fired into disputed territory, the PRC could claim that it was not using it against another state. Second, its NFU policy apparently does not apply to states outside the NPT domain.
Despite the threat that the PRC’s nuclear arsenal poses for India, Haynes argues that the stability of this dyad is likely to endure for the foreseeable future. The PRC, given its substantial lead over India, has substantial retaliatory capabilities and thereby can effectively deter any possible Indian threat. India, by the same token, is unlikely to pursue an adventurous course, given the existence of this nuclear asymmetry.
Frank O’Donnell is less sanguine about the future of crisis stability in the India-Pakistan nuclear dyad. In “India’s Nuclear Revolution: New Delhi’s Learning and the Future of Deterrence,” O’Donnell argues that India may be disregarding the lessons of the nuclear revolution: namely, that, in a nuclear milieu, states need to act with an abundance of caution when involved in a crisis. Far from adopting a circumspect approach, India is now pursuing a strategy of escalation dominance.
In O’Donnell’s view, India has prioritized the modernization of its nuclear forces over the pursuit of any arms-control measures. Additionally, he contends that there have been subtle but discernible changes in India’s nuclear doctrine, moving away from an unequivocal commitment to “no first use” while also moving from a strategy of “punitive retaliation” to one of “massive retaliation.” He also demonstrates that there has been a significant alteration to its nuclear posture: India has abandoned its stated preference for assured retaliation to one of early retaliation. O’Donnell concludes that India’s doctrinal choices and force deployments belie hopes that India will adhere to the expectations of the nuclear revolution and any teleological views of nuclear learning, i.e., the anticipation of an ultimate convergence on some form of “finite” deterrence.
India’s doctrinal choices may well shift as it seeks to perfect the final leg of its nuclear triad, a submarine-based nuclear force. However, as Yogesh Joshi argues, it is still a long way from realizing these capabilities, despite having embarked upon a nuclear-submarine program as early as 1965. In “A Force in Being: The History, Evolution, and Consequences of India’s Undersea Nuclear Deterrent,” Joshi traces the evolution of this program and explains its ebbs and flows during much of the Cold War period and beyond. Given the vicissitudes that the enterprise has encountered, he concludes that it is still some distance from providing the country a secure second-strike capability, especially against its principal nuclear-armed adversary, the PRC.
India’s investments in its space program are also acquiring greater significance. “India’s Emerging Space Assets and Nuclear-Weapons Capabilities,” by Rajeshwari Rajagopalan, shows that, while the Indian space program was initially focused on civilian uses, many of the early advances also boosted its ballistic-missile program. She also identifies particular junctures where the civilian and military components of the space program moved in tandem, and others where they diverged. She concludes her discussion with an analysis of the development of India’s latest space assets and how they might dovetail with the emergent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance needs of its expanding nuclear force, including the development of an incipient ballistic-missile-defense program.
Diana Wueger, in her article “Pakistan’s Nuclear Non-revolution: The Once and Future Doctrine of Asymmetric Escalation,” argues that, while India has become more risk averse in responding to Pakistani provocations, Pakistan remains wedded to the lessons of the nuclear revolution. It sees its nuclear arsenal as essential to deterrence and, more to the point, as a guarantee of its very existence. In the foreseeable future, Wueger does not visualize any significant changes to Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine, other than its increased reliance on tactical nuclear weapons. In considerable part, she argues that Pakistan is unlikely to make significant doctrinal changes or rely more on conventional forces because of its material weaknesses as well as its inability to acquire substantial weaponry from abroad to augment its conventional arsenal.
At least one of the two nuclear dyads in the region—India-Pakistan—may well be entering a more fraught period. Yet it is also hard to be too sanguine about the Sino-Indian dyad, given its troubled history, an unresolved border dispute, and the continued expansion and modernization of the nuclear forces of both states. More to the point, the region is witnessing a rapid growth of nuclear military capabilities, shifts in doctrine, and a greater propensity to take risks in “sub-conventional” and conventional conflicts. The matter of “sub-conventional” conflict in the region is especially disturbing, as the events of 2019 have reminded us once again. Pakistan’s continued reliance on proxy forces against India and the latter’s new-found willingness to overtly strike back highlight a new strategic dynamic in the rivalry. In the absence of virtually any routinized, institutional mechanisms for managing these nuclear rivalries, the region could well see greater dangers to crisis stability in the foreseeable future.
Notes
1 In 1991, India and Pakistan entered into an agreement not to attack each other’s nuclear installations. Since January 1, 1992, the two sides have exchanged appropriate lists of such entities on an annual basis. In February 1999, as part of the Lahore Declaration, the two sides agreed to pursue nuclear-risk-reduction measures. However, no formal agreements have ensued from that stated goal.
2 On China’s nuclear modernization, see M. Taylor Fravel, Active Defense: China’s Military Strategy since 1949 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019).
3 For a discussion of the concept of the security dilemma, see Shiping Tang, “The Security Dilemma: A Conceptual Analysis,” Security Studies, Vol. 18, No. 3 (2009), pp. 587–623.