Sharpening the Arsenal: India's Evolving Nuclear Deterrence Policy

By Gurmeet Kanwal

Speaking in Delhi in November 2016, Manohar Parrikar, India's then Defence Minister, said there should be an element of unpredictability in the country's military strategy. He wondered whether India's nuclear doctrine should be constrained by a 'no-first-use' posture. The essence of the defence minister's introspection was that ambiguity enhances deterrence. This view has been expressed by several nuclear strategists. Nuclear doctrines are not written in stone and are never absolutely rigid. They are not binding international treaties that must be adhered to in letter and spirit. Fifteen years have passed since India's nuclear doctrine was approved by the Cabinet Committee on Security in January 2003. A review of the nuclear doctrine is long overdue. Credible minimum deterrence and the posture of no-first-use have stood the test of time. But is there no conceivable operational contingency that justifies a first strike? Do we need a new nuclear policy for our new geopolitical reality? This book delves into the debate and charts out a way ahead.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Nov 25, 2017
• ISBN: 9789352773251

Gurmeet Kanwal

Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (Retd) is Distinguished Fellow, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi; and Adjunct Fellow, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC. He is former Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi, the Indian Army's think tank. He is the author and editor of several books on defence.

Book preview

SHARPENING THE

ARSENAL

India’s Evolving Nuclear

Deterrence Policy

Gurmeet Kanwal

To my parents

Contents

Preface

1. India: Reluctant Nuclear Power

2. Nuclear Doctrine: Is a Review Necessary?

3. Force Structure: Warheads and Delivery Systems

4. The Nuclear Arsenals of China and Pakistan

5. Tactical Nuclear Weapons Are Inherently Destabilising

6. India’s Cold Start Doctrine: Fear Is the Key

7. Strategic Stability: A Bridge Too Far?

8. Ballistic Missile Defence: Panacea or Pipedream?

9. Indo-US Nuclear Agreement: Impact on Deterrence

10. Threat of Nuclear Terrorism

11. Nuclear Confidence-building and Risk-reduction Measures

12. Non-proliferation Challenges and Nuclear Disarmament

13. Sharpening the Arsenal: Looking Ahead

Appendices

Notes

Index

About the Book

About the Author

Copyright

Preface

After a very educative, challenging and professionally satisfying tenure at the Directorate General of Military Operations (DGMO) at the Army HQ, New Delhi, I opted for a two-year fellowship commencing in late-1998 at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi. The Director, IDSA, (late) Air Cmde Jasjit Singh, a renowned fighter pilot and a brilliant analyst, liked the research projects that I proposed, but wanted me to work on something more substantive.

‘Why don’t you work on a project on India’s nuclear forces?’ he asked. India had declared itself a state armed with nuclear weapons in May 1998; hence, the Director’s desire for a research project on nuclear forces was justified. I confessed that I knew nothing about India’s nuclear forces and the Director countered, ‘Isn’t that a good place to begin?’ Those two fruitful years resulted in my first book: Nuclear Defence: Shaping the Arsenal (IDSA and Knowledge World, 2001). The book analysed India’s nuclear deterrence challenges and the doctrinal precepts and recommended a force structure, including a command and control system.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr has written, ‘Man’s mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.’ Having been exposed to the intricacies of nuclear deterrence – and knowledge of the guaranteed horrors that will follow if deterrence fails – I have remained hooked to this ultimate domain of conflict with geo-strategic repercussions.

And, thanks to the doctrinal and the technological developments across the Radcliffe Line and the frequent fulminations of Pakistan’s leaders as well as the chiefs of its various terrorist organisations or jihad factories, the issues of nuclear deterrence and strategic stability in South Asia have remained current. In fact, strategic stability in South Asia is often described as a cottage industry!

Since Nuclear Defence: Shaping the Arsenal was published, much water has flowed down the Ganga and the Indus rivers. The new developments include Pakistan’s quest for ‘full spectrum deterrence’ and tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs), and India’s Cold Start doctrine and trials of a ballistic missile defence (BMD) system. All of these developments have a major impact on strategic stability, which essentially comprises deterrence stability, crisis stability and arms race stability.

Over the years, I have written extensively on the emerging challenges and the developments in the nuclear deterrence domain by way of chapters in books, articles in journals and op-eds in newspapers. Goaded by colleagues in the nuclear enclave of the strategic community, I decided to put it all together and this is how the present volume took shape. Krishan Chopra, Publisher, HarperCollins, took up the project and I am grateful to him.

Sharpening the Arsenal: India’s Evolving Nuclear Deterrence Policy reviews the evolution and the present status of India’s nuclear doctrine, takes stock of the developments in the force structure, and looks briefly at China’s and Pakistan’s nuclear stockpiles and delivery systems. The three main chapters are on the destabilising impact of TNWs, the likely implications of India’s execution of its Cold Start doctrine and, consequently, the ‘ugly’ state of strategic stability in South Asia.

Other chapters highlight the developments in BMD systems, the impact of the Indo-US nuclear deal on deterrence, the growing threat of nuclear terrorism, the dire need for nuclear confidence-building and risk-reduction measures, coping with the current non-proliferation challenges and the slow progress towards nuclear disarmament. The book ends with a set of recommendations to upgrade the quality and the credibility of India’s nuclear deterrence.

Researched writing is always a very humbling experience because it brings into sharp focus how little one knows. Writing this book has been a superb learning experience for me, not the least because it has taught me how far down the road I still have to go. Due to the lack and opacity of information on nuclear deterrence in the public domain, despite my best efforts some errors are bound to have crept in. I am sure there are many shortcomings in the analysis as well. For all of these I accept full responsibility.

Some portions of my previously published articles, chapters and papers have been reproduced with the permission of the respective copyright holders, each of whom has been individually acknowledged in the foot notes. I am grateful to all of them.

Finally, my special thanks to Siddhesh Inamdar, who edited this book and added immense value to it. As during the publication of my last two books, it has been a pleasure working with the outstanding professionals comprising Team HarperCollins and my grateful thanks to all of them.

Brig. Gurmeet Kanwal (Retd)

November 2017

1

India: Reluctant Nuclear Power

Regional Instability

For over four decades, the security environment in South Asia has been characterized by high levels of instability. In fact, South Asia is the second most unstable region in the world after West Asia.¹ The foremost causes of regional instability are the collusive nuclear weapons-cum-missile development programmes of China, North Korea and Pakistan; the strident march of radical extremism; the diabolical nexus between narcotics trafficking and terrorism; the proliferation of small arms and the volatility inherent in the rule of despotic regimes.

Instability on the Indian subcontinent is manifested, first and foremost, in the continuing conflict in the Af-Pak region. Continuing conflict in Afghanistan and its tense relations with Iran, Pakistan and the Central Asian Republics (CARs) are the greatest causes of uncertainty. The Pakistani army’s struggle to gain control over the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), even as it supports and encourages various factions of the Afghan Taliban to launch attacks on their homeland, the fissiparous tendencies in Baluchistan and Gilgit-Baltistan, the upsurge in jihadi terrorism in Pakistan’s Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa provinces and the country’s gradual slide towards becoming a ‘failed state’ despite some economic gains in the last five years, have added further to instability to the west of India.

Also symptomatic of an unstable and uncertain security environment in the South Asian region are Sri Lanka’s inability to find a lasting solution to its internal challenges; Bangladesh’s gradual embrace of fundamentalist terrorism driven by jihadi forces and its struggle for economic upliftment to subsistence levels; the negative impact of the Maoist insurgency on Nepal’s fledgling democracy; the simmering discontent in Tibet and Xinjiang and a low-key uprising against China’s repressive regime; and the Myanmar peoples’ nascent movement for democracy. In all these countries, socio-economic development has been slow and, consequently, per capita income is alarmingly low. Trans-border narcotics trafficking – the Golden Triangle (Myanmar, Laos and Thailand) lies to the east of India and the Golden Crescent (Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan) to its west – and the proliferation of small arms make a potent cocktail. Ethnic tensions and fairly widespread radicalisation, worsened by the advent of the vicious ideology of the Islamic Caliphate, add further to regional instability. Clearly, while India itself cannot be described as an island of calm, it is ringed by a sea of instability.

India–China Relations at the Strategic Level

China, a nuclear weapons state (NWS), fought a local border war with India in Arunachal Pradesh and on the Aksai Chin Plateau in Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), in 1962 over its territorial claims. China is in physical possession of 38,000 sq km of Indian territory in Ladakh and claims the entire state of Arunachal Pradesh (96,000 sq km) and additional territory in the plains of Assam, north of the Brahmaputra River. The Line of Actual Control (LAC) between these two Asian giants has not been demarcated on the ground and on military maps. Due to the ambiguity regarding the actual ground features over which the LAC passes, patrol face-offs are common. Though procedures have been evolved to resolve the transgressions that occur, the possibility of a shooting incident that could trigger a border conflict, which may or may not remain localized, cannot be ruled out. China resents the fact that India provided shelter to the Dalai Lama when he had fled from Tibet in 1959 after China had occupied it by force. China objects to Indian political leaders visiting Arunachal Pradesh and issues loose-leaf visas to its citizens visiting China. Hence, at the tactical level, the relationship is marked by political, diplomatic and military instability.

However, at the strategic level the relationship is reasonably stable. There have been no shooting incidents since the 1967 scrap at Nathu La in Sikkim; negotiations aimed at instituting confidence-building measures (CBMs) to deal with incidents on the border are ongoing; bilateral trade has been flourishing though the balance of trade is skewed heavily in China’s favour; and the two countries have been cooperating in international fora on issues like climate change and the WTO negotiations. Both countries have adopted a credible minimum deterrence nuclear doctrine with a ‘no first use’ posture. Technological developments in the nuclear warhead and ballistic missile field have also been similar.

State of India–Pakistan Relations

Relations between India and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed states, have been strained since both became independent in August 1947. The two countries have fought three wars with each other: in 1947-48, 1965 and 1971 and a localised border conflict in the Kargil district of J&K in 1999. The dispute over J&K lies at the heart of the tense relationship. The Indian position is that Maharaja Hari Singh of J&K signed the Instrument of Accession and J&K acceded to India in keeping with the provisions of that treaty, even as Pakistan-sponsored Razakars and Mujahids – led by army officers – invaded the region and were involved in looting, plunder and rape in 1947-48. Pakistan’s view is that as J&K is a Muslim-majority state that is contiguous to Pakistan, it should have acceded to Pakistan. The Pakistan government and the army consider the merger of the state with Pakistan as part of an unfinished agenda left over from the Partition.

The Indian and Pakistani armies have virtually been in eyeball-to-eyeball contact on the Line of Control (LoC) in J&K, and a low-intensity limited conflict has been ongoing. Despite the agreement at Shimla in 1972, where Pakistan accepted that all outstanding disputes will be resolved through bilateral negotiations, Pakistan has continued its efforts to wrest J&K from India by all means and at all costs, including the use of military measures. Since 1989-90, Pakistan’s ‘deep state’ – the army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) – has been waging a war against India through asymmetric means. The deep state has been sponsoring radical extremist organisations like the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) to infiltrate their mujahideen across the LoC to destabilize J&K through terrorist attacks on civilian and military targets. Their larger aim is to eventually trigger a spontaneous uprising. Terrorist attacks have been launched in other parts of India as well, such as the attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001 and the strike on multiple targets in Mumbai in November 2008.

Other contentious issues of concern include the lack of agreement on the demilitarisation of the Siachen Glacier conflict zone² and non-demarcation of the international boundary at Sir Creek on the west coast of India and its impact on the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of both countries. The growth of bilateral trade has been affected by Pakistan’s failure to reciprocally give India MFN (most favoured nation) status; India had done so in 1996.³ And looming large on the horizon is a disagreement over the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, which Pakistan considers unfair despite India having been awarded only 19.48 per cent of the waters as the upper riparian state and Pakistan 80.52 per cent of the waters as the lower riparian state. Goaded by the exhortations of the leaders of organisations with extremist agendas, such as Hafiz Saeed of the LeT, several mainstream political leaders have called upon the government of Pakistan to ‘revisit’ the 1960 treaty with a view to getting more water for the country.⁴

Reluctant Nuclear Power

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, a policy of 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’),⁵ India is a reluctant nuclear power.⁶ 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 had been denied nuclear security guarantees by the Western powers and had no option but to eventually assemble its own nuclear weapons to safeguard its national security interests.⁷

Though India conducted a ‘peaceful’ nuclear explosion (PNE) in May 1974 to showcase its technological capability, the government continued to resist nuclearisation and strongly advocated total nuclear disarmament. However, India’s deteriorating security environment and the impending entry into force of the discriminatory Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) convinced the government to reconsider its policy of nuclear deterrence.

India’s quest to become a nuclear power has been comprehensively recorded in several books including Weapons of Peace: The Secret Story of India’s Quest to Be a Nuclear Power by Raj Chengappa, From Surprise to Reckoning: The Kargil Review Committee Report, India’s Emerging Nuclear Posture: Between Recessed Deterrent and Ready Arsenal by Ashley J. Tellis, and India’s Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation by George Perkovich.⁸ India’s efforts towards nuclear disarmament have also been well recorded by several authors. What is remarkable in Indian writing on nuclear issues is an almost complete disregard for operational matters, primarily because the vast majority of early nuclear research and development was conducted by the civilian Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), with the military’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) only being co-opted at a later stage. The armed forces were not in the loop.

China, which fought a border war with India in 1962, conducted its first nuclear test at Lop Nur on 16 October 1964 and became a de facto nuclear power. In retrospect, it is clear that an examination of the impact of China’s acquisition of nuclear weapons was carried out within the Indian government, and that nuclear scientists, led by Homi J. Bhabha, were quietly given the go-ahead to develop the technology necessary to assemble nuclear warheads, should the government choose to acquire them.⁹ Intelligence reports about the rapidly developing China–Pakistan nuclear and missile cooperation led to then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri approving the development of a nuclear explosive device, which resulted in the PNE conducted at Pokhran in Rajasthan in May 1974.

Within the government, the nuclear deterrence issue was dealt with by the prime minister, assisted by only a small number of officers outside the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). There was very little public debate about the need to acquire nuclear weapons, and there was even less discussion about the size and shape of the arsenal that India should have. K. Subrahmanyam, former director of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) in New Delhi, had consistently argued for a robust nuclear posture review for India. Lieutenant General K. Sundarji, later the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), commissioned the well-known Combat Papers¹⁰ as the Commandant of the College of Combat at Mhow.¹¹ The two papers examined the impact of a nuclear environment on the future of Indian Army battlefield operations but had only limited circulation when they were written.

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 such weapons by India’s nuclear-armed adversaries. This was reflected in a statement made by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Parliament soon after the five nuclear tests in May 1998:¹² ‘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 is premised on ‘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, is willing to 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 (short-range ballistic missiles) and Agni-1 to 4 IRBMs (intermediate-range ballistic missiles) 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; 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 (INS Aridhaman) 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 unauthorized 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 a no-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 (kt) 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 kt. India’s nuclear capabilities are completely indigenous since India was subjected to stringent technology denial regimes and sanctions in 1974 when a 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 India’s nuclear command and control system and 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, headed by the national security advisor, 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 the respective services, 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 keeping in mind 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 practise 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 the personnel of the AEC and the high explosive trigger mechanisms were in the custody of the 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) or 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 peacetime 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