Degrees of deterrence

The possibility of the Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) being taken up for discussion in the Committee on Disarmament compels the Indian security establishment to apply its mind to the issue of credible minimum deterrent and what constitutes it. One of the basic criticisms of the Indo-US nuclear deal and India accepting the Nuclear Supplier Group guidelines is that if the FMCT is to be concluded in the near future, India will be foreclosed from building up a credible minimum deterrent of a size the Indian strategic establishment may envisage.

Deterrence is a highly subjective issue and is not related to an equation of arsenals on either side. In 1961, when the US had a nuclear arsenal 17 times the number in the Soviet stockpile, there was an attempt at planning a total disarming strike on the USSR. But when the President and the Defence Secretary were informed that in spite of the possibility of a successful disarming strike there could be no certainty that a few Soviet weapons would not land on US cities, the plan was dropped. Deterrence depends more on a side’s willingness or otherwise to accept the kind of punishment likely to be inflicted on it, than on what it can do to the other side. Therefore loss from a nuclear exchange should be worthwhile with reference to anticipated results at the end, to motivate a rational leadership to initiate a nuclear war.

There are as yet unsolved problems in respect of command and control in a nuclear war and therefore the President Reagan-General Secretary Gorbachev joint declaration that a nuclear war cannot be won and should not be initiated. Most of the nuclear doctrine was developed by strategists as an unconstrained two-person game between the US and the USSR. There is very little literature on a nuclear exchange scenario between two smaller nuclear weapon powers in a world where there are other larger nuclear weapon powers with capabilities to inflict punishing damages on them without suffering any retaliation. How those uncertainties will influence deterrence on an aggressive smaller nuclear power is difficult to anticipate.

The situation in which President de Gaulle asked whether the Americans would risk New York, Washington or Chicago to save Paris is different from the one in which Pakistan or India can contemplate using a nuclear weapon without worrying about an American punishing strike, because neither country is in a position to hit back at US cities in the foreseeable future. Some would argue that US forces in the Gulf could be vulnerable to a retaliatory strike. But they are not the same. While there can be no certainty about the likely course of US action, the US capability to intervene is an existential factor that cannot be ignored.

What calculation would make it worthwhile for Pakistan or China to resort to a nuclear strike against India in situations where retaliation will be certain? While China is
espousing a caveated no-first use policy, Pakistan has spelt out the scenarios in which it would consider first use of nuclear weapons. All these considerations would have to be factored in assessing the size of nuclear arsenal that would, in the Indian judgment, be adequate to credibly deter an adversary.

Surely in today’s world the kind of strategic thesis that justified arsenals of 30,000 warheads during the Cold War would be difficult to sell.

The Indian decision on the size of credible minimum deterrent has to be taken in the light of these considerations by a multi-disciplinary task force making its recommendations to the Executive Council of Nuclear Command authority. The history of nuclear strategic thought highlights the fact that the size of the arsenal was determined purely on ad hoc grounds in the US and that in turn influenced Soviet thinking. The British, French and Chinese arsenals were not planned to have totally autonomous roles. The nuclear strategy of these three powers, as well as that of Israel, is supplemented by diplomacy. Britain and France are formal allies of the US. Israel continues to have a special relationship with the US. China, during the time that it had a confrontation with USSR, was a crypto-ally of the US. Today Pakistan is a crypto-ally of China.

What is called for today in India is innovative strategic thinking on our nuclear strategy and size of our nuclear arsenal for the near future in the new balance of world power.
The writer is a strategic affairs analyst.