Description
India's nuclear tests on May 11-13, 1998 ended the country's three-decade old self- imposed restraint on its emergence as a nuclear power, India also announced that It was now a nuclear weapon state. A new phase in India's security calculus, therefore, has begun. India's nuclear policy Is five decades old, but the policies of a nuclear India start now.
At the national level, the tests have necessitated the articulation of a more unambiguous policy for India as a nuclear weapon state. The country has now to dwell upon the doctrine and strategy for an affordable credible deterrence, and to put into place necessary command and control systems that minimise the risk of nuclear exchange caused by accident miscalculation. or
India's tests and the decision to go nuclear were conditioned by the shift from disarmament to non-proliferation and the constriction of the non-proliferation order. India had to break out of this tightening stranglehold which threatened to squeeze the open option into irrelevance. At the regional level, the Indian tests were triggered by increasing evidence and extent of nuclear and missile proliferation that had long existed in the region. Strategic cooperation between nuclear weapon states at one level, and China and Pakistan at the other, created a matrix with deeply negative implications for India's security. By going nuclear India seeks to reshape a strategic environment, remove the adverse asymmetry that had been growing, and put in place capabilities to deal with strategic uncertainties in a world in transition in order to protect its security and vital interests.
ISBN:8186019111
