Nuclear Discontents

All doctrines require regular reappraisals and the Indian nuclear doctrine will inevitably have to respond to contemporary challenges.

- Harsh V.Pant

AN INTERESTING DEBATE is taking place in India on the future of its nuclear doctrine. A number of factors have added a new sense of urgency to this debate—a centre-right government in New Delhi that is not shy of dramatically recalibrating Indian foreign and security policy, growing concern among Indian strategic thinkers that Pakistan’s reliance on tactical nuclear weapons as well as the Pakistan China collusion is rapidly closing India’s room for manoeuvrability and an ongoing power transition in the Indo-Pacific whereby the Trump Administration is indicating that it may not be averse to new nuclear powers emerging in Asia.

Though the Modi government has so far not proposed any change in the doctrine or the No First Use (NFU) policy on which India’s declaratory nuclear doctrine is based, it had promised in its 2014 election manifesto to “study in detail India’s nuclear doctrine, and revise and update it, to make it relevant to challenges of current times.” Manohar Parrikar, who till a month back was India’s Defence Minister, has questioned the NFU policy on nuclear weapons, asking, “Why a lot of people say that India has No First Use policy... I should say I am a responsible nuclear power and I will not use it irresponsibly... And as an individual, I get a feeling sometime why do I say that I am not going to use it first. I am not saying that you have to use it first just because you don’t decide that you don’t use it first. The hoax can be called off.”