‘Shift in India’s nuclear NFU policy could intensify arms race in region’

Islamabad: A shift in India’s declared nuclear policy regarding No-First Use (NFU) of nukes could intensify arms race in the region, warned nuclear policy experts at the Center for International Strategic Studies (CISS) here on Monday.

CISS organised a roundtable discussion on recent hints by the Indian leadership that nuclear policy on No-First Use may change. Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, during his visit to Pokhran on the death anniversary of former Prime Minister AB Vajpayee on Aug 16, 2019, made this suggestion first during his statement at the event there and later through a tweet. Singh, speaking at an event at Pokhran, had said: “Till today, our nuclear policy is ‘no first use.’ What happens in future depends on the circumstances.”

The CISS conference looked at the possibilities of India changing its declared position on NFU, the factors motivating Delhi to move in that direction, and its implications for the strategic stability of the region.

The Executive Director of CISS Ali Sarwar Naqvi recapped the shifts in India’s NFU Declaration ever since the draft nuclear doctrine was unveiled in 1999. In the first instance, a caveat was added in 2003 stating that nuclear weapons can be used in case of chemical and biological weapons attack against India or Indian forces anywhere. Later in 2010, Indian National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon, in a speech, rephrased NFU to ‘no first use against non-nuclear weapon states,’ and then in 2013 Convener of India’s National Security Advisory Board Shyam Saran said that India would retaliate massively irrespective of size of any nuclear attack against it, he recalled.

“Such doctrinal developments are alarming for India’s main adversaries, especially Pakistan, which would be compelled to take counteractive measure and increase sufficiency level to ensure the credibility of its deterrence posture,” Naqvi observed.

Senior Research Fellow at CISS Dr. Naeem Salik maintained that Indian defense minister’s statement could not have come as a surprise for Pakistan because it never believed in the India’s NFU declaration. He recalled that Indian leaders and officials have, in the past also, talked about abandoning NFU.

Another Senior Research Fellow Dr. Mansoor Ahmed said, “India’s apparent shift in its NFU flows from the military technologies that it has acquired and developed over the past two decades.” He believed that the Indian defense minister’s statement reflected his government’s “confidence in the new capabilities” that are geared towards an “escalation dominance strategy” being tailored for a “Full Spectrum Conflict” with Pakistan and China.

Dr. Mansoor warned that these developments could incentivize greater investments in conventional and strategic force modernisation. He said this could result in “more warheads and delivery systems.”

“India feels that now is an opportune time to maximize the leverage that it derives from its increasing diplomatic and economic influence at the world stage, which would serve its geo-strategic ambition,” Dr. Mansoor maintained.

The presentations were followed by an intense discussion on India’s nuclear policy and developments that was participated by senior academics and retired diplomats and former military officers.