India's Nuclear Planning, Force Structure, Doctrine and Arms Control Posture

India’s emergence as a declared nuclear weapons state (NWS) has only sharpened its challenges to build a minimal but credible nuclear deterrent. India can build only a very small deterrent force because its stockpile of weapons-grade plutonium and its ® nancial resources are limited. New Delhi will need to have a high level of con® dence in the reliability and survivability of its arsenal so that the smallness of the deterrent is not a handicap. Such con® dence can come about only by rigorously meeting the technical and policy requirements of a deterrent. Potential adversaries will have to be left in no doubt about the retaliatory prowess of India if it were to come under attack. The key challenge for India is to deter adequately two hand-in-glove nuclear adversaries, China and Pakistan. India’s threat situation is unique: it is the only state in the world to share disputed borders with two closely aligned nuclear foes. India has yet to acquire the deterrent capacity to end China’s nuclear threat. It will have to plug this vulnerability at the earliest opportunity. New Delhi’s decade-long policy of rapprochement with Beijing since 1988 has not won it Chinese friendship, but enabled China both to engage and to contain India, with engagement serving as a front for accelerated containment. Covert Chinese transfers have neutralised India’s technological advantages over Pakistan. China also has sought to bring

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