Indian Nuclear Policy

by Harsh V Pant

  Ballistic missiles, therefore, have always remained the most preferred form of nuclear delivery. For one, their effective range can far outperform the capability of fighter aircraft. They can carry bigger payloads too. Most importantly, once silo-hardened and made rail or road mobile, they are very difficult to track and target. India’s missile programme, therefore, has been the most important venue of its expanding nuclear delivery capabilities. From hosting just three platforms in 1998—Prithvi, Agni-1, and Agni-2—limited in range to targets in Pakistan, today New Delhi is building Agni-5, able to reach all targets in China, and working on Agni-6, intended to extend even further. To further pose a sign of robust intent against potential Chinese aggression, Agni-5 and Agni-6 are also being designed to host MIRV warheads, increasing their destructive capacity. Indian missile developments are thus reaching new heights of technical maturity. However, Prithvi, Agni-1, and Agni-2 are the only missiles that have actually been inducted into India’s nuclear forces; rest are still in the R&D stage. This illustrates that full integration of the later Agni platforms into India’s nuclear force is still a future aspiration than a technical reality.

  The most ambitious and path-breaking addition to India’s nuclear arsenal, however, has been the commissioning of India’s first SSBN, INS Arihant.8 India’s Draft Nuclear Doctrine, released in 1999 by the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB), had stated the requirement of a nuclear triad for effective projection of India’s nuclear deterrent. If land-based missiles and aircraft delivery systems constitute the first two legs of the nuclear triad, an underwater nuclear launch capability mounted on nuclear submarines forms the third. The sea-based nuclear launch capability is important as it can provide for a ‘post-surprise attack-survivable force’ and hence, would have a ‘deep stabilising effect’ on nuclear deterrence in the region (Menon 2000: 225–6). In the Indian case, there are two main reasons behind this thrust upon developing a force of nuclear-armed submarines or SSBNs, with the concomitant armament of long-range ballistic missiles tipped with nuclear warheads (Tellis 2001). First, the removal of India’s nuclear forces from the mainland would effectively neutralize the enemy’s nuclear targeting. More nuclear weapons at sea would automatically mean less vulnerability. Second, a naval nuclear force based on nuclear submarines is very difficult to detect and destroy, which provides for unhurried retribution after careful evaluation though ensuring that the effect on the enemy would be catastrophic. These characteristics of a sea-based nuclear force complement India’s nuclear doctrine, which calls for NFU and massive retaliation. It is therefore that SSBNs in the future may become the primary vector of India’s nuclear force projection. Yet, this leg of India’s nuclear deterrent will take some time before becoming fully operational. The Arihant was launched in 2009 and commissioned in 2016, but it must be seen largely as a technology demonstrator. A series of nuclear submarines with major R&D modifications are now being constructed. These SSBNs will not only be more powerful but would carry longer-range missiles, providing it an ultimate nuclear force de frappe.9

  If acquiring an invulnerable second strike is the primary driver of India’s nuclear force development, the evolving nuclear situation in its neighbourhood, as has been discussed in the previous sections on Pakistan and China, also demands constant reappraisal of India’s capabilities and future requirements so that its nuclear deterrent remains potent. This requirement explains many of India’s R&D programmes, which may not strictly fit with the traditional requirements of a purely retaliatory deterrence force. For example, since 2003, India has invested heavily in developing a ballistic missile defence system. A number of factors in recent times have made India interested in these systems: China and Pakistan’s growing nuclear arsenals; chances of accidental launch from Pakistan; fears of a bolt-from-the-blue strike on India; and Pakistan’s unstable political situation and the growing influence of non-state actors, especially in Pakistani body politic (Nagal 2016).

  This expanding nuclear force has led Indian decision-makers to critically think about the command and control of India’s nuclear arsenal. Following the 1998 nuclear tests, the Indian government established new institutions to manage nuclear policy-making. This replaced a previous informal command chain concentrating authority in the PMO. In 2003, the Nuclear Command Authority (NCA) and Strategic Forces Command (SFC) were established to manage the command and control of nuclear forces.10 The NCA exists for civilian officials to consider and issue nuclear deployment orders. The membership of the NCA consists of two tiers: a political council chaired by the prime minister and an executive council chaired by the national security advisor. The second institution is the SFC. This is headed by a rotating military chair and the three service chiefs, and exists to organize the military execution of orders emanating from the NCA. In the event of a decision to use nuclear weapons, the command structure is so organized that the decision is made solely by the NCA political council; its execution organized by the NCA executive council; and ultimate execution conducted by the SFC (Pant 2007).

  The existence of civil–military coordination mechanisms within the NCA structure, as well as the two dedicated planning groups detailed earlier, are evidence that the Indian government has achieved more effective political and technical oversight over nuclear force development as compared to previous eras. The structural participation of the military in these multiple elements of the nuclear command chain, in this reading, suggests its greater involvement in nuclear force development (Kampani 2014a).

  The Problems of Signalling Deterrence

  Following its nuclear tests of May 1998, India decided upon a doctrinal formulation of ‘credible minimum deterrence’ (CMD). In August 1999, the NSAB issued India’s Draft Nuclear Doctrine. India’s doctrine consists of three broad principles. First, at the declaratory level, India has articulated a vision where nuclear weapons are political instruments rather than effective weapons of war (Singh 1998: 11). Second, India adheres to a policy of NFU of nuclear weapons. For Indian decision-makers, for both political and military reasons, NFU has appeared to be a risk worth taking. The NFU comported well with India’s overall nuclear philosophy that nuclear weapons should never be used in the battlefield. Since nuclear weapons were only for deterrence, any first use of nuclear weapons was out of question. The third important aspect of the ideological component of New Delhi’s nuclear deterrence is, therefore, centred on India’s responses to the threat of use of nuclear weapons by its adversaries or actual use of nuclear weapons in case deterrence breaks down. India’s nuclear doctrine has maintained an ‘assured retaliation’ posture. The posture of assured retaliation is based on the premise that deterrence works on the logic of punishment: the threat of retaliation maintains deterrence.

  In the period between the 1998 tests and the declaration of India’s official nuclear doctrine on 4 January 2003, the definitions of NFU and the posture of ‘assured retaliation’ underwent some shifts. From a strict NFU policy in 1999, India had, by 2003, conditioned its NFU pledge by declaring that it may retain the right to respond with nuclear weapons in case its territory or its armed forces anywhere in the world were attacked by chemical or biological weapons. On the issue of quantum of punishment, India’s retaliatory strategy moved towards a more muscular approach. The volume of retaliation took an ascendant trajectory: from ‘punitive retaliation’ in August 1999 to ‘massive retaliation’ in January 2003. However, there have been no further official revisions since then, and Indian analysts argue that both NFU and ‘assured retaliation’ continue to define India’s nuclear doctrine.

  In the recent past, four developments in India’s external and internal environment have led to a renewed debate around India’s nuclear doctrine. First, Indian nuclear and conventional strategies have not been able to adequately answer the challenge of Pakistan-sponsored sub-conventional warfare in the subcontinent. Second, the increasing volume and sophistication of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, and especially its development of TNWs, has created doubts in
Indian strategic circles regarding the credibility of New Delhi’s nuclear deterrent. Third, Chinese nuclear force modernization has also generated additional pressure on India’s nuclear forces as seen within India, increasing the perceived deterrence gap between the two. Finally, India’s own growing strategic capabilities are challenging the doctrine (Narang 2013).

  All these factors—the increasing lethality and range of Pakistan’s arsenal; India’s inability to resolve the Pakistan conventional–nuclear dilemma; China’s nuclear modernization; and the growing sophistication of India’s nuclear capabilities—have ignited a domestic debate in India over the need to revise the doctrine. The two most important points of current discussion around the nuclear doctrine are India’s NFU pledge and its policy of massive retaliation. These precepts were fundamental to India’s nuclear thinking when the doctrinal plans were first conceived in the post-1998 period. In the current strategic churning over nuclear doctrine, they are also the most debated.

  That NFU has assisted India in projecting itself as a responsible and restrained nuclear power is accepted by most Indian analysts. Being essentially a defensive policy, NFU has helped in ‘reassuring globally that India is not an aggressive power’ (Nagal 2014: 13). However, as critics now argue, the challenges posed by the evolving strategic situation far outweigh the soft power benefits accrued by the ‘passivity’ of the NFU pledge. First, an NFU pledge allows the adversary to carry out ‘large scale destruction’ even before a massive retaliation can be launched against it. Second, an NFU policy also restricts India’s military options; it cannot attrite the enemy’s strategic assets through selective counter-strike targeting of its nuclear forces.

  If NFU is being questioned, so is India’s strategy of retaliating massively to any form of nuclear attack. In the official pronouncement of the nuclear doctrine in 2003, India postulated that its response to any kind of nuclear attack would be ‘massive’. Critics now argue that this certitude of massive response suffers from huge credibility problems. The most likely use of nuclear weapons in South Asia pertains to the scenario of Pakistan availing its TNWs against Indian armed forces. Such low-level nuclear use, even when deemed as first use of nuclear weapons, cannot believably invite massive retaliation from India. An additional but related issue with the doctrine of massive retaliation is the issue of proportionality of use of force. To threaten extinction of the enemy, which is inherent in the policy of massive retaliation, against low-yield, local use of battlefield nuclear weapons goes against the logic of proportionality of response. However, the issue of political will is also a key concern: would Indian decision-makers be ready to walk the talk in case the adversary resorts to nuclear first use? The issue of political resolve is particularly problematic for a policy of ‘massive retaliation’ because most critics believe that Indian political class is highly risk-averse. This averseness to political risk was manifest in India’s response to crisis situations in the past, whether it was the Kargil War, the Parliament attack and military mobilization crisis of 2001–2, or the more recent Mumbai attacks.

  There has been pressure building upon Indian decision-makers to review India’s nuclear doctrine. For one, there is some argument towards diluting the NFU. Pre-emption of Pakistan’s use of TNWs is gaining ground among those who advocate a first-use policy. Former Indian National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon has argued that one ‘potential grey area’ where India could resort to pre-emption is where New Delhi is ‘certain that adversary’s launch (of nuclear weapons) was imminent’ (Menon 2016: 164). Similarly, on massive retaliation, sceptics have argued for a number of other options. The common thinking behind these options is to settle for less than punishing Pakistan ‘massively’ for its battlefield use of nuclear weapons. The need, therefore, is to dilute the quantum of punishment in the doctrine to the earlier posture of ‘punitive retaliation’. This may provide the Indian decision-makers much-needed flexibility to deal with Pakistan’s low-level use of battlefield nuclear weapons. However, even critics of massive retaliation admit that adopting a more flexible retaliatory doctrine at this stage may send ‘wrong signals’ to Pakistan and other adversaries. However, most importantly, a flexible response posture also does not guarantee India its most important objective: to deter Pakistan’s use of nuclear weapons in the first place. India is, therefore, caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to its retaliatory posture.

  India’s nuclear doctrine, as propounded in 1999 and revised in 2003, signalled India’s commitment to being a responsible nuclear power. Its status quo bias where nuclear weapons were considered as only a deterrent against threat or use of nuclear weapons, however, has appeared to be ineffective against risk-prone states like Pakistan. Both of its fundamental premises of the NFU and ‘retaliating massively’ to a nuclear strike are now being questioned. However, successive Indian leadership has affirmed its faith in the original precepts of its nuclear philosophy. In fact, three different prime ministers, including the government of Narendra Modi, have affirmed the same doctrinal principles over a period of 20 years. The doctrine has tolerated the pressure of the changing security environment, organizational impulses within the military, technological sophistication of its arsenal, growing discontent among the strategic elites on the existing doctrine, and also the change of government at the centre.

  However, the fundamental problem for Indian decision-makers and strategists is whether a change in doctrine would really achieve India’s main objective: one of deterring nuclear use by the adversary. Indian policy-makers remain yet to be convinced that a dilution of the NFU and a flexible retaliatory strategy would help achieve that end. This tension will, therefore, continue to bedevil India’s nuclear policy. This makes it imperative for the government to officially conduct periodic reviews of the nuclear doctrine, a practice which must be institutionalized as is the case with other nuclear weapon states.

  Global Nuclear Order

  When in 1998 India conducted a series of nuclear tests, the global opinion was stacked against New Delhi for having posed one of the biggest challenges to the non-proliferation regime. However, within a decade of the nuclear tests, India obtained de facto recognition as a nuclear weapon state with the successful conclusion of India–US civilian nuclear agreement in 2008. It was recognized as a ‘state with advanced nuclear technology’ and the technological barriers emanating out of India’s difficult relationship with the non-proliferation regime were also removed (MEA 2005). The NSG, originally conceived to target India’s nuclear programme, unanimously granted an exemption to New Delhi to trade in sensitive nuclear technologies and materials.

  This turnaround in India’s fortunes was a result of two important strategic developments after 1998 (Mohan 2006). First, India’s economic rise with high growth rates provided a geo-economic heft to Indian diplomacy. Accommodation of this rising power therefore fitted well with historical trends in international politics. Second, for the US, despite its position as the chief architect and enforcer of the non-proliferation regime, India was a natural partner in checking the strategic rise of China as Washington’s most probable future challenger. These strategic reasons for Indian accommodation were complemented by India’s non-proliferation policy approaches. India changed its historic resistance to the NPT and came out in full support of the principle of non-proliferation. Second, India agreed to adhere to a strict export control policy. In June 2005, India enacted the Weapons of Mass Destruction and their Delivery Systems (Prevention of Unlawful Activities) Act, also known as the WMD Act. This legislation was part of India’s commitment to establish domestic controls to prevent the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons and their means of delivery. Moreover, India has unequivocally sided with the global community’s efforts to restrict further proliferation, whether it was the case of Iran or Syria.

  These shifts in India’s non-proliferation policy did indeed help its quest for accommodation in the international nuclear order. When the US president declared i
n June 2005 that ‘as a responsible state with advanced nuclear technology, India should acquire the same benefits and advantages as other states’, India’s track record on nuclear non-proliferation was held to be one of the benchmarks of its responsible nature (MEA 2005). This also started the process of India–US civilian nuclear agreement. For three long years beginning in 2005, India and the US negotiated India’s accommodation in the nuclear non-proliferation regime (Pant 2011). India agreed to structurally separate its nuclear weapons programme from its civilian nuclear energy programme, sign an IAEA Additional Protocol, give guarantees to continue its nuclear test moratorium, and negotiate an FMCT. The US, for its part, changed its domestic nuclear laws to restart nuclear technology trade with India, and also promised to secure an Indian exemption from NSG nuclear technology export restrictions. In September 2008, the NSG unanimously agreed to permit India to engage in nuclear trade, leading to the civilian nuclear deal getting final approval from the US President George W. Bush.

  The NSG waiver was a historic landmark in India’s relations with the non-proliferation regime. However, the civilian nuclear agreement with the US constituted only a partial accommodation. Post-2008, the debate within India veered towards gaining full accommodation in the international nuclear order as India was not a member of any of the major technology denial regimes, such as the NSG, MTCR, or the Australia Group. India is still seeking admission to the NSG as a full member, but has obtained membership of the MTCR, Australia Group, and Wassenaar Arrangement groupings regulating export of missile, chemical/biological, and sensitive conventional technologies, respectively. India’s candidacy for the NSG has received support from all major powers, including the US, Australia, France, Germany, Russia, South Korea, and the UK. However, India’s NSG challenges remain substantial. First, NSG membership is agreed upon by group consensus, and Indian diplomacy has not yet been able to overcome the continuing opposition by several members, including Ireland, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. India is unwilling to yield to demands for stronger non-proliferation commitments, which could include adopting a permanent test ban or ending fissile material production. The impasse on non-proliferation commitments notwithstanding, the biggest obstacle to India’s NSG membership is China. Unlike other major powers, China has not been particularly enthusiastic about accepting India as a nuclear weapon state. China viewed the Indo-US nuclear deal with hostility: an attempt by the US to prop up India as a challenger to China’s hegemony in Asia. China’s strategy to effectively sabotage India’s NSG membership is by advocating a quid pro quo for Pakistan. Given Islamabad’s past problems with proliferation, that is, the A.Q. Khan network, such a proposal has hardly any takers in the NSG. Its strategic merit, however, lies somewhere else: by linking India’s membership with Pakistan, it not only invokes the fear of a crumbling nuclear regime under the weight of the exceptions being granted to India, as many committed non-proliferationists argue, but it also takes care of China’s all-weather friendship with Pakistan.