For peace sake

After conducting five nuclear tests over two days in May 1998 (Operation Shakti), India declared itself a state armed with nuclear weapons. For two decades since then, nuclear deterrence has ensured that the country does not get embroiled in a major conflict.
With a pacifist strategic culture steeped in the lofty concept of ahimsa (non-violence, literally not to injure ), India is a reluctant nuclear power. India has faced many external threats and challenges and has for long had to endure the vicissitudes of a dangerous nuclear neighbourhood. China became a nuclear power in 1964, soon after the India-China border war of 1962.
Pakistan is reported to have acquired nuclear weapons capability in 1986-87 with covert help from China. India had sought but been denied nuclear security guarantees by the Western powers and had no option but to eventually acquire nuclear weapons.
Though India conducted =a peaceful nuclear explosion in May 1974 to showcase its technological capability, the government continued to resist nuclearisation and strongly advocated total nuclear disarmament. However, Indias deteriorating security environment and the likely entry into force of the discriminatory Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) forced the government to re-consider its policy for nuclear deterrence.
India believes that nuclear weapons are political weapons, not weapons of warfighting. Their sole purpose is to deter the use and threat of use of nuclear weapons by India’s nuclear-armed adversaries. This was reflected in a statement made by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in Parliament soon after the five nuclear tests in May 1998: ‘India is now a nuclear weapon state… We do not intend to use these weapons for aggression or for mounting threats against any country; these are weapons of self-defence, to ensure that India is not subjected to nuclear threats or coercion.”
India’s nuclear doctrine professes credible minimum deterrence and is based on a no first use posture. ‘This implies that India will not initiate the use of nuclear weapons and, as a corollary, absorb the damage that the first use of nuclear weapons or a first strike by an adversary may cause in India. In turn, India has declared its intention to counter a nuclear attack by launching ‘retaliation that will be massive and designed to inflict unacceptable damage. Consequently, India follows a policy of deterrence by punishment with a counter value targeting strategy aimed at _ inflicting unacceptable damage to the adversary’s cities and industrial centres, as against a counter force strategy aimed at destroying the adversary’s nuclear forces.

India’s Nuclear Forces

India’s nuclear force structure is based on a triad of land, sea, and air based forces: Prithvi-2 SRBMs and Agni-1 to 4+ IRBMs manned by the Missile Groups of the Indian Army; nuclear glide bombs under-slung on Mirage 2000 and SU-30 MKI fighter-bomber aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF); and, in due course, nuclear powered submarines (SSBNs) armed with submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) with the Indian Navy.
While INS Arihant, the first indigenously designed SSBN, is undergoing sea trials at present, the second SSBN is reported to be under construction. India has_ willingly abjured the use of tactical or ‘battlefield’ nuclear weapons as these are mainly employed against targets in the TBA {tactical battle area) and lower the threshold of use due to the proclivity to use them or lose them. These also involve complicated command and control mechanisms, enhance the risk of unauthorised and accidental launches and are complex and costly to manufacture and maintain.
The total number of warheads that India needs for credible minimum deterrence in and first use scenario has not been specified by the government.
In the views of Indian analysts the requirement varies from a few dozen warheads at the lower end of the scale to over 400 warheads at the upper end. In terms of yield these range from 10 to 12 kilotons to megaton monsters.
After the Pokhran tests of May 1998, in which warheads based on both fission and fusion were tested. India claimed that it had acquired the capability to manufacture nuclear warheads with yields varying from sub-kiloton to a maximum of 200 kilotons.
Notably, India’s nuclear capabilities are completely indigenous. India was subjected to stringent technology denial regimes and sanctions in 1974 when a peaceful nuclear explosion (PNE) was conducted ostensibly for civilian purposes. While some of these sanctions have been lifted, many others still remain in place.

Civilian Control over Nuclear Weapons

Unlike China, which is ruled by an authoritarian regime, and Pakistan, where the elected civilian leadership plays little role in national security decision making and the army calls the shots on key policy issues, India’s nuclear weapons are firmly under civilian control. The Nuclear Command Authority (NCA) is the apex body of Indias nuclear command and control system.
The Political Council of the NCA is chaired by the Prime Minister. All policy decisions, including the decision to approve the employment of nuclear weapons (if it ever becomes necessary), are vested in the Political Council. The Executive Council is headed by the National Security Advisor. It provides inputs to the Political Council for nuclear decision making and executes its directives.
The Chiefs of Staff of the army, the navy and the air force are members of the Executive Council but India does not yet have a Chief of Defence Staff to provide single-point military advice to the government. The nuclear delivery assets (the missile groups, fighter-bomber squadrons and the nuclear-powered submarines) though raised, manned, equipped and maintained by respective Services HQ, are under the command of the tri-Service Strategic Forces Command (SFC).
A responsive command and control system with adequate redundancy is in place. The Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C), SFC advises the Chiefs of Staff Committee (CoSC) on all aspects of nuclear deterrence and exercises operational and technical control over the nuclear forces on behalf of the Chairman. CoSC. A chain of succession has been formulated. India has established a National Command Post (NCP) somewhere in central India that will also double as a tri-Service operations centre during war. Warhead storage sites have been prepared with safety and security in view, besides the ease of transportation of the warheads to launch sites. Deployment areas and the routes to these have been reconnoitred.
Rehearsals and joint exercises, including the movement of launchers and warheads, are carried out periodically to practice retaliatory nuclear strikes.
Adequate checks and balances for the safety and security of nuclear warheads, the prevention of unauthorised use and the minimisation of the possibility of accidental detonation have been built into procedures for the custody, storage, handling and transportation of nuclear warheads during peace time.
Till recently, nuclear warheads were kept unmated and were stored separately from the launchers. The nuclear cores were in the custody of personnel of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and the high explosive trigger mechanisms were in the custody of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). However, with the cannisterisation of missiles carried on mobile launchers, it may be assumed that limited mating of warheads would have taken place. Permissive action links (PALs – electronic locks) have been installed to arm the missiles and the warheads. The launch platforms are manned by the armed forces and are not deployed till necessary. This reduces the risk of accidental and inadvertent launch and enhances peace time safety.

Support for Nuclear Disarmament

India has consistently been a strong advocate of total or universal nuclear disarmament. This policy, enunciated by the Nehru government after Independence in 1947, did not change even after the Pokhran nuclear tests of May 1998 as nuclear disarmament is seen to be in India’s interest.
Despite not having signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), India has complied with all the provisions of these treaties as a responsible nuclear-armed state. India is now a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and supports the early conclusion of discussions on the Fissile Material Control Treaty (FMCT). India views these treaties as important enablers of non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament measures that are necessary for regional and international peace and stability. India has voluntarily renounced further nuclear testing and has an unblemished non-proliferation record among the nuclear weapons powers.
India has invested deeply in strategic stability. This is reflected in the nuclear doctrine, the no first use posture, the nuclear force structure and the arrangements for command and control.
India has never flaunted its nuclear weapons and has exercised immense strategic restraint despite grave provocation from Pakistan by way of a three-decade old asymmetric war being conducted through state-sponsored terrorism. The Indian government opted not to cross the Line of Control (LC) during the Kargil conflict in 1999. In the 2001-02 stand-off, the armed forces were mobilised, but India did not retaliate militarily despite a terrorist attack on the country’s Parliament. The country is willing to discuss and institute confidence building measures (CBMs) and nuclear risk reduction: measures (NRRMs) with both China and Pakistan, but its overtures have not been suitably reciprocated by either of them. In fact China does not recognise India as a nuclear power and refuses to discuss nuclear CBMs and NRRMs.
Like India, China follows a minimum deterrence nuclear doctrine and has adopted a no first use posture though it is a qualified no first use. Unlike Pakistan, which threatens India with nuclear weapons with monotonous regularity, China has avoided rhetoric and sabre rattling. Pakistans quest to acquire nuclear weapons — colloquially called the Islamic bomb — to counter India’s superiority in conventional forces, its first use posture and its graduation to what is being called full spectrum deterrence, particularly the development of tactical nuclear warheads (TNWs) for battlefield use, have vitiated the security environment further. Pakistan’s strategy is to bleed India through a thousand cuts to be inflicted by state-sponsored terrorists under the shadow of its nuclear umbrella.
The rest of the world has come to accept India’s status as a state armed with nuclear weapons. Most countries are confident that India’s possession of nuclear weapons will be a stabilising factor in Southern Asia. As enough checks and balances have been built and the arsenal is under civilian control, the risks are negligible. India’s conduct as a responsible nuclear power was recognised by the United States government through the US-India Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement of July 2005. In 2008, India was given a waiver by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and permitted to acquire civilian nuclear energy technology and trade in nuclear materials. [Twelve years down the line, India is waiting to be given membership of the NSG, the Australia Group and the Wassenaar arrangement as a state armed with nuclear weapons.
Two decades after the nuclear tests at Pokhran in May 1998, India’s nuclear deterrence is robust and reliable. India is a short step away from inducting the indigenously designed nuclear-powered submarine INS Arihant to make it an effective triad. Slowly, but surely, India’s nuclear arsenal has begun to provide the country effective deterrence. However, much more can still be done to sharpen the cutting edge of India’s nuclear deterrence.