{"id":1028,"date":"2016-06-29T13:03:35","date_gmt":"2016-06-29T13:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/?p=1028"},"modified":"2016-06-29T13:20:17","modified_gmt":"2016-06-29T13:20:17","slug":"indias-evolving-nuclear-force-and-its-implications-for-u-s-strategy-in-the-asia-pacific","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/2016\/06\/29\/indias-evolving-nuclear-force-and-its-implications-for-u-s-strategy-in-the-asia-pacific\/","title":{"rendered":"INDIA’S EVOLVING NUCLEAR FORCE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. STRATEGY IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"PUBL<\/a><\/p>\n

Yogesh Joshi Frank O’Donnell Harsh V. Pant<\/strong><\/p>\n

Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College Press<\/strong><\/p>\n

India’s growing and diversifying nuclear force raises challenges for its defense planners. New nucle\u00adar options need to be located within a holistic view of India’s defense approach, with clearly assigned roles for conventional and nuclear forces dependent on the threats posed.<\/p>\n

This also generates issues for U.S. defense plan\u00adners. The current U.S. policy is to energetically assist the defense projection of India so as to help compli\u00adcate the rise of China. This focus has an underlying as\u00adsumption that the United States and India do not mili\u00adtarily threaten each other.<\/p>\n

This framing could poten\u00adtially lead to an overlook or downplay of the potential negative effects from Indian nuclear force develop\u00adments \u2014and their related strategic interactions with Pakistan and China \u2014 in terms of the risk they pose to U.S. interests. In reality, the nature and domains of tri\u00adlateral India-Pakistan-China nuclear and conventional competition are rapidly shifting, and close assessment of their potential effects is merited by the growing de\u00adployment of U.S. forces to the region.<\/p>\n

This Letort Paper makes four main policy recom\u00admendations, directed to Washington and\/or New Delhi.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Indian Nuclear Policy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

India’s nuclear doctrine has not been publicly re\u00advised since 2003. The nuclear doctrine commits India to policies of “no-first-use” but “massive retaliation” if struck with nuclear weapons, with a force posture characterized by “credible minimum deterrence.<\/p>\n

” However, the context of Indian nuclear policy has changed since 2003, including new nuclear and con\u00adventional security challenges posed by China and Pakistan; growing concerns within India’s strategic community regarding the credibility of the “mas\u00adsive retaliation” commitment in particular; and new nuclear force options that are suggestive of interest in a war-fighting capacity. These developments are all taking place without a substantive public nuclear doctrine review to incorporate these new conditions at an official level.<\/p>\n

Indeed, this problem is not isolated to the nucle\u00adar domain of Indian defense; security policymaking also lacks integrated planning processes. New Delhi should conduct a public strategic defense review, in\u00adcluding that of their nuclear doctrine, to assess the new threats it faces and clearly structure the role of conventional and nuclear forces in meeting those threats. In particular, this process should reiterate that nuclear weapons are only credible as a last-resort tool to prevent national extinction, with other threats to be met with stronger conventional defenses.<\/p>\n

This will reduce the blurring of conventional and nuclear force purposes as can be perceived in Indian strategic dis\u00adcourse, which is a consequence of the new regional, doctrinal, and force posture developments influenc\u00ading Indian strategic perceptions in the absence of such an official review.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

U.S. Approach Toward the Changing Nature of India-Pakistan Competition.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The United States emphasis on strengthening India’s defense projection capabilities is driven by a dominant view of India in terms of a partnership to complicate the rise of China. This framing carries risks of U.S. diplomats and defense planners overlooking or downplaying new nuclear and conventional ten\u00adsions in the India-Pakistan relationship in U.S. crisis resolution simulation and planning.<\/p>\n

A future India-Pakistan crisis will occur in a dra\u00admatically different political and strategic context from those before. New developments include: the fielding of a dedicated tactical nuclear missile by Pakistan and potentially nuclear short-range missiles by India; dif\u00adferent views of where their bilateral nuclear threshold is and should be; continuing Indian interest in con\u00adventional limited war options despite the very low nuclear threshold announced by Pakistan; and, the contrasting breadth and levels of trust in the compar\u00adative U.S.-India and U.S.-Pakistan strategic relation\u00adships, which could encourage Indian decision-mak\u00aders to further escalate their response to a crisis with an assumption of U.S. support. U.S. crisis interven\u00adtion planning should recognize and build in the po\u00adtential involvement of some of these factors.<\/p>\n

The last three India-Pakistan bilateral crises have been settled only through substantive U.S. intervention, and U.S. diplomats and forces should not let their principal regional focus on China preclude awareness of these new developments.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Initiating a Trilateral Regional Nuclear Dialogue.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The nuclear strategic thought and force develop\u00adment of India, Pakistan, and China are interlinked, but this is not recognized at an intergovernmental level through trilateral nuclear strategic dialogue. Bilateral nuclear dialogues between pairs within this triad have been attempted, but have largely failed due to the inherent reality that effective nuclear risk reduc\u00adtion measures, efforts to reduce strategic mispercep\u00adtions, and greater clarity regarding adversary nuclear intentions can only be achieved by having the third member of the triad as a committed participant.<\/p>\n

The United States should urge all three capitals to start such a trilateral nuclear dialogue. However, for such a dialogue to be successful, Washington may have to join the dialogue as a full participant.<\/p>\n

The Chinese hesitancy to join such a trilateral dialogue could be partly caused by the centrality of the United States in its nuclear and conventional threat percep\u00adtions, with poor prospects for substantive regional nuclear risk reduction progress without American participation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

U.S. Approach Toward Indian Ocean Naval Nuclear Competition.<\/strong><\/p>\n

India and China are fielding nuclear-armed sub\u00admarine fleets, while Pakistan has outlined naval nu\u00adclear intentions. These states lack experience in oper\u00adating nuclear-armed naval forces, further complicated by the fact that Indian Ocean territorial boundaries and access routes are growingly contested.<\/p>\n

As U.S. strategic attention and posturing is increasingly di\u00adrected toward the Indian Ocean, diplomats and local forces should prepare for a crisis scenario involving these nuclear-armed naval forces, including potential confusion of adversary conventional and nuclear na\u00adval forces.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Washington should engage New Delhi on naval surveillance technology coopera\u00adtion to help disambiguate Chinese nuclear from con\u00adventional naval movements and obtain a mutually clearer view of the effects of regional nuclear armed naval competition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yogesh Joshi Frank O’Donnell Harsh V. Pant Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College Press India’s growing and diversifying nuclear force raises challenges for its defense planners. New nucle\u00adar options need to be located within a holistic view of India’s defense approach, with clearly assigned roles for conventional and nuclear forces dependent on the… Continue reading INDIA’S EVOLVING NUCLEAR FORCE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. STRATEGY IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[234],"tags":[80,276,842,579,98,841],"class_list":["post-1028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-publications","tag-china","tag-india","tag-new-delhi","tag-pakistan","tag-u-s","tag-u-s-army-war-college-press","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1028"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1030,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028\/revisions\/1030"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}