Obama's foreign policy

In a recent op-ed, former Japanese defence minister Yoriko Koike said that the one man who could, perhaps unwittingly, endanger world peace, is not Vladimir Putin, but United States President Barack Obama.

According to Koike, by his ‘scholarly inertia’, Obama appeared to be unconcerned over the “fate of smaller faraway countries.” What she charges Obama with is the willful neglect of the world order which was created by the United States in the wake of World War II.

This system was based on a willingness of the US, the recognised global hegemon, to take the tough policies and implement rules and norms that ensured a generally stable global environment.

It is easy to understand the Japanese angst. The Russian seizure of Crimea could presage a similar Chinese move to snatch the Senkaku islands of Japan which Beijing claims. It was one thing for Putin to reclaim Russian-majority Crimea which had been detached from Russia in 1959.

But now, as it foments separatism in eastern Ukraine and talks of reconstituting the Soviet Empire, the US seems paralysed. Actually the tremors of America’s passivity are being felt across the globe. In the Persian Gulf, historic allies of the US Saudi Arabia and the Gulf sheikhdoms wonder whether the US intends to upend the regional order and place its bets once again on Iran. Or worse, end up doing neither moving to Iran, or backing its allies.

In Southeast Asia, there are few signs of an American Asian pivot. The ‘pivot’ idea is attributed to a 2011 essay by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Her basic thrust was that as the Iraq war winds down and the Americans begin to pull out of Afghanistan, the US will be at a pivot point.

At this stage, Asia was not mentioned, but soon it became clear that the American pivot, later rechristened ‘rebalance’, would be to Asia. The pivot became part of a larger plan to refocus the US military deployments in the Asia-Pacific region after their diversion to the Middle-East and South Asia in the 2001-2011 period.

The obvious urgency for the pivot/rebalance was to counter the rising power of China, and reassure US allies like Japan and the Philippines, who were locked in territorial disputes with Beijing.

Almost immediately, the Asian pivot was overwhelmed by the Arab Spring following revolts in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt in quick succession. But while the situation was manageable in these countries, the revolts in Syria and Ukraine have taken a different turn and brought out the limits of American power. It was also significant that this was the point at which the muscular Clinton was replaced by John Kerry as Secretary of State.

The United States has gone through two harrowing wars and Obama’s main goal is to retrench and recuperate. But when you are the global hegemon, and one that is naturally keen to maintain its primacy for as long as it can, Obama and the US do not have the option of taking their ball and going back home.

It would be wrong to blame Obama alone for this situation. For example, his allies, such as Germany could have done more to control the Russians. But his bigger problem is the US Congress and the American public.

While he is trying to follow a policy of engagement and deterrence, his hands are tied by the Congress, which has pushed the blunt instrument of sequestration to control the budget.

So bitterly divided is the US these days that last year, because of the lockdown of the government, Obama was unable to attend the APEC Summit in Bali, leaving the floor to China’s leader Xi Jinping. America’s long and fruitless wars have been a major drain on its economy.

Its defence spending averaged 4 per cent between 1990-2012 but now, under the sequestration policy of the US Congress, the spending will fall steadily from 4.3 per cent of the GDP in 2012 to 2.8 by 2023.

The consequences of the shift is apparent from the comment of a senior Pentagon official in March that the Pentagon’s plans to pivot to Asia ‘can’t happen’ due to cuts to the defence budget. However, she later clarified that the US Department of Defence would “adapt and innovate” but still make the pivot happen.

Obama has finally made his Asian visit last week, which has included the first visit by a US president to Malaysia since Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1966. But there is not much to show for it.

There has been little or no movement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement through which the US hopes to slow down, if not halt, the Chinese economic juggernaut. He has signed a 10-year defence agreement with the Philippines, but he has left unanswered the more important questions about the reliability of the United States as an ally.

The big paradox that the US confronts is the need to confront China and Russia at the same time. Clearly, even the mighty US does not have the energy and resources to do that. Beijing is, of course, quite self-confident because it is locked into the western economies and is, in that sense, sanctions proof.

But a wounded Russia will only rush into the arms of the Chinese. This would serve China well because it would now have access to Russian resources, as well as its military tech which it cannot obtain from elsewhere in any case.

Mid Day April 29, 2014

How the world sees a future Modi Government

Washington: In the capital of the country that has refused to give a visa to Narendra Modi, there is endless speculation among policy makers about what Modi's arrival on the scene means for India, its relations with Pakistan and China and, of course, the United States.

Modi's own statements have helped to thaw the American freeze somewhat. In several interviews he has insisted that his individual issues in relation to the American visa denial will not be allowed to cloud his judgment over India's US policy.

In another interview last week, he has been most explicit – India and the US are "natural allies" he declared, in a formulation first heard during the Vajpayee period.

Indeed, Modi said it was Vajpayee who laid the foundation for a new era of partnership with the US, so "we will build upon that and take it forward."

Assertion

But given his personality, no matter what he says, Modi is not likely to forget the slight of the US visa denial easily. It will therefore be some time before relations with the US can get back to the level they were at the time the Indo-US nuclear deal was signed.

In addition, there will have to be a lot of work done in Washington and New Delhi to undo the era of bad feelings that have characterised Indo-US relations in the last couple of years.

None of this will remove the lingering concerns of the different segments of the US policy community. There are non-proliferation wallahs who worry that the BJP promise "to study" and "review" the nuclear doctrine could lead to India abandoning its no first use pledge.

Those promoting religious rights – who were primarily responsible for his visa denial – worry that a Modi prime ministership could have negative consequences for religious freedom in the country.

Then there are those who worry that an assertive Modi could upset the regional applecart in relation to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Modi's declaration that relations with Pakistan cannot be normal "as long as the bombs are going off" provides one perspective. Another can be seen from his refusal to court the Muslim community during the elections. In other words, his Pakistan policy could be marked with indifference, rather than active belligerence.

Indian policy towards Pakistan has veered between what can be termed "flexible engagement" and "flexible containment", and it would not be surprising if the latter theme becomes dominant in his dealings with Islamabad.

Then there are those in Washington who look at relations with India through the prism of specific regional issues-Iran, Afghanistan, Ukraine, South China Sea and so on. Given America's own reluctance to get involved in another conflict, they hope that India can play a more active role.

India is not unhappy that the US seems to be preoccupied with developments in the Middle-East and Ukraine. Because they worry that a US desperate to leave Afghanistan could further compromise India's interests in relation to Pakistan.

Likewise, there are concerns that the US is pushing the Russians into the arms of the Chinese and this could result in India losing its coveted status as Russia's favoured partner for arms transfer issues.

Consequences

America itself is going in for an election this year. The mid-term election involves the entire House of Representatives and 34 out of 50 seats in the Senate and 36 out of 50 governorships of the states.

At a superficial level, Barack Obama is not very different from that of Manmohan Singh. He, too, is seen as an indecisive or passive leader. But the US is coping with the consequences of the two wars it fought in the 2000s.

The policy wonks may not like it, but the average American is quite happy to stay away from any new conflict, especially one that could involve another war.

Of great interest in the US are Modi's perspectives towards China. It is known that he has visited both China and Japan. Many feel that these are the countries towards which India could tilt towards in the coming period.

Last week in an article in the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece Global Times Liu Zongyi, a fellow at the Shanghai Institute of International Studies came up with another angle. He said that that Modi's election is cause for disquiet in western countries and Modi could actually bring China and India closer together.

Development

It is not so much over the issue of human rights or religious freedoms, Liu has argued, but that the authoritarian and tough Modi could give rise to an ultra-nationalist and assertive India which could alter the terms of engagement between India and the west.

As of now, India follows a policy of passive restraint which is essentially defensive. It leans towards the west in terms of its world view. But were Modi to take the Putin track, it could upset the regional power equations. There is, however, an element of wishful thinking in the Chinese argument that a nationalist Modi will avoid getting involved in US plans for India to counter-balance China.

It is difficult to explain to the strategic community here that Modi has not yet been elected. And even if he is, his room for manoeuvre would depend on the kind of majority or plurality he had. But most important, is that Modi's own priorities would be on the economic side because he has raised enormous expectations among the electors on that front.

Getting tough with external adversaries is not a priority area, and in any case the level of toughness he can exercise would be greatly conditioned by the economic situation of the country. Raising the GDP by several percentage points would do more for India's standing, than any act of assertion against Pakistan, China or the US.

 Mail Today May 12, 2014

Modi moves closer to the political centre

As the election to the 16th Lok Sabha moves towards its culmination on May 16th, when counting begins and the results will be apparent in quick time, the frontrunner for the PM's job, Narendra Modi, is making his policy positions clearer and moving distinctly towards the centre of the political spectrum.
In a slew of interviews given to regional, vernacular and wire-services media, Modi has adopted a prime ministerial stance, emphasising balance and consensus over right-wing posturing.
In a recent interview, even while affirming his "Hinduness" he insisted that he was an Indian first.
In another interview to a news channel, Modi said the government was run according to the Constitution of the country and not the ideology of any outfit (read RSS).
Moderation
In a similar vein is his rebuke to Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde for going public on the issue of dealing with Dawood Ibrahim.
Responding to questions about Shinde's statement that India will bring back Dawood from Pakistan, Modi told a Gujarati TV channel: "Can such things be achieved through media. Are these things to be revealed through newspapers…Did America hold a press conference on its plans about tracking down Bin Laden?"
He added pointedly: "They don't have minimum maturity. I am ashamed that the Home Minister made such statements."
Equally insistent has been Modi's effort to dampen the hawks on the issue of nuclear policy. The Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) 2014 election manifesto promised to study "in detail" India's nuclear doctrine and "revise and update it to make it relevant to challenges of current times."
Many analysts have interpreted this to mean that India will alter its long-standing policy of no-first use (NFU) of nuclear weapons, but the language of the BJP's manifesto, which had apparently been cleared by Modi himself, was quite moderate and clear.
Actually, the confusion was caused by Sheshadri Chari, the convenor of the BJP foreign policy cell and a member of the group that formulated this section of the party's manifesto, who reportedly said: "Why should we tie our hands into accepting a global no-first-use policy, as has been proposed by the Prime Minister [Manmohan Singh] recently?"

+3

Centrist: Modi has indicated that his foreign policy will mirror that of the last BJP-led government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee

He was referring to Singh's remarks at a conference organised in early April by the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses on a nuclear weapons free world.
Another angle to this was provided by former Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal, a faculty member of a think tank close to the BJP who said the manifesto commitment seemed to have been driven by the need to revise no-first-use in the light of "the increasing nuclear threat from Pakistan".
He also pointed out that countries like the US did not have a no-first-use policy, and that China did not even recognise India as a country that possessed nuclear weapons.
Not surprisingly, the manifesto reference had the non-proliferation ayatollahs around the world fulminating.
Their attitude was summed by the warning issued through an editorial in the New York Times, noting that, "The lack of clarity about the party's intentions on this[NFU] issue introduces more uncertainty into an already unstable region."

Clarity
Actually, there was never any ambiguity on the issue of Modi's attitude towards no-first  -use. On the occasion of the Nani Palkhivala lecture in Chennai in October 2013 Modi was explicit in backing NFU, by praising the Vajpayee's government's nuclear policy and its commitment to NFU.
So it is not surprising that last week, to end the speculation he declared in an interview to ANI that, "No-first-use was a great initiative of Atal Bihari Vajpayee - there is no compromise on that. We are very clear.
"No-first-use is a reflection of our cultural inheritance."
It is not surprising that there is so much speculation, some warranted, some not so, on what a Modi prime ministership would be like.

Modi has not been in Delhi since 2001 and even in the BJP hierarchy he has viewed as an outsider.
His economic perspective is not too difficult to determine since he has made it the centrepiece of his governance platform in the state. But in the area of foreign and security policy he offers a puzzle.
As of now, Modi has clearly indicated that his perspective is linked to that of the last BJP-led government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, which was centre of the road, if anything.
It is likely that in the area of foreign and security policies which are not easy to change overnight, Modi will rely on experienced players who have had a Delhi connect and are also close to or members of the BJP.
Expectations
It is an irony, perhaps, that in coming to rule Delhi, Modi is like the sultans of yore who came from across the Hindu Kush to rule India.
One feature of their rule was the constant haranguing of the ulema zealots pressing them to take a hard line against the Hindu masses.
But the cleverer sultans, at least, had a healthy sense of pragmatism and realised that they needed the cooperation of the people to sit securely on the throne.
By antagonising the people, all that they would get is rebellion and disorder.
As the new ruler of New Delhi, Modi's first goal, driven by the enormous expectations he has raised across the country, would be a stable administration which can get the economy up and running.
He will have to face the paradox of any person who wins an election - his clock will begin ticking immediately after the government takes office. But, the way things work, the very months in which he is assembling his team, will also be the honeymoon period in which it is easiest to take the most far-reaching decisions. 
Mail Today April 29, 2014

The PMO files

All of you have probably heard of the law of unintended consequences. Well, if you haven’t, you need to reflect on some of the things that we have been witnessing in the recent days and months. Take Mani Shankar Aiyar’s ‘chaiwallah’ (tea boy) jibe. Caught up in his own verbosity at a Congress conclave in January Aiyar declaimed, “There is no way he [Narendra Modi] can be Prime Minister in the 21st century... but if he wants to come and distribute tea here we can make some room for him.” The supercilious Aiyar was taking a dig at Modi’s origins as the son of a tea seller.

But he did not reckon with the consequences. This throwaway remark has formed the cornerstone of the BJP’s strategy of wooing the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in Uttar Pradesh, and by all accounts it has worked brilliantly in attracting the poorer classes of people to the party. As a result, the BJP could win 40-50 out of the 80 seats that the state has in the Lok Sabha. No doubt the ‘chaiwallah’ dig will provide the BJP payoffs elsewhere as well.

The second instance is more recent and equally obvious. Had the Congress party bitten the bullet and remained quiet following the release of a book, The Accidental Prime Minister, by Sanjaya Baru, the former media adviser to the prime minister on the functioning of UPA 1 and 2, there would have been some immediate news interest because of it is election season, and thereafter some modest sales.

But, egged on by the Congress party, the Prime Minister’s Office chose to fight dirty with an official statement on Friday, the day the book was released, by the current media adviser Pankaj Pachauri that the book was “an attempt to misuse a privileged position and access to high office to gain credibility and to apparently exploit it for commercial gain. The commentary smacks of fiction and coloured views of a former adviser.”

If Pachauri had couched the statement in sorrow, rather than in anger, he may have actually managed to elicit some sympathy for the government. But by coming out in a slash and burn attack, he only provoked a storm and generated so much interest in the media and amongst the people that the first run of 10,000 hardcover books was sold out by Friday evening.

The tenor of party spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi’s remarks were even harsher: “Baru is an out of job, disgruntled turncoat who is spreading canards to sell his book and gain cheap publicity.” Never mind that Baru, a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, is the director for geoeconomics and strategy for the renowned Institute for Strategic Studies London, and earns several times more than he ever earned as the media adviser to the Prime Minister.

More importantly, the ‘turncoat’ jibe needs comment. A week before the book hit the market, Baru had sent a copy of the book to the prime minister who reportedly read it and had no comment to make. Anyone who has actually read the book will realise that more than anything else, the book is the work of someone with deep affection for Manmohan Singh and who is keen on bringing out the achievements of his tenure as well as the reasons why he was unable to function, as he ought to have, in his second tenure beginning 2009. And Baru’s is no uncritical account. He has strongly criticised Manmohan Singh for not quitting office when it had become clear that he had lost all control over his government.

Indeed, the sordid story he tells is of disloyalty, but not on the part of Baru, but of those ministers and officials, including the top PMO officers, who bypassed the PM or ignored his directives and thereby undermined his administration.

What rattled the Congress the most was the charge that PMO files were seen by Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

The reason is not too hard to see. First, showing such files to non-officials, be it Sonia or her political secretary Ahmed Patel would be a serious breach of secrecy. Second, the people liable for action would be the officers involved. That is why Pachauri came up with another statement declaring “The statement being attributed to a former media adviser to the Prime Minister that PMO files were seen by the Congress president, Smt Sonia Gandhi is completely baseless and mischievous. It is categorically denied that any PMO file has ever been shown to Smt Sonia Gandhi.”

The fact of the matter, say insiders, is that officers like the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister T K A Nair and Pulok Chatterji were sharing the contents of official files with Ms Gandhi and Ahmed Patel. The files related not so much to the business of state, but to the top-level appointments in the government which were controlled and manipulated by the ‘high command’.

Since we are at the point of inflection where the old government is likely to be replaced by a new one soon, many of these aberrations and illegalities could well be exposed. If so, they will be testimony to the arrogance of the Congress party leadership which eventually succeeded in chopping off its nose to spite its face.

Mid Day April 15, 2014

The outlier as the Prime Minister

If Narendra Modi becomes prime minister, he will join a select band of predecessors who can be called "outliers" - a scientific term used to describe phenomena which are outside the normal experience.
We have had 13 prime ministers, some who have served multiple terms, and some for a few days. But few fall in this category since they came from within the system, and their policies and perspectives hewed close to the norm.
Modi may be an RSS pracharak and four-term chief minister of Gujarat, but as of two years ago, he had, at best, an outside chance to become PM. But this is not about how he became a front-runner within his party, but about what can happen when an outsider gate-crashes the system.

If he wins, Narendra Modi will join an elite band of outlier PMs

He propelled himself into the ranks of front-runners by a well-organised PR campaign stressing decisiveness, good governance and incorruptibility, but his real strength came from the fact that both the RSS and BJP soon realised that there was just one man who could enthuse the cadre, and that was Modi.

Governance

This said, the question remains of figuring out how Modi, the outlier, will impact on India's governance and polity. We know what he stands for in Gujarat and his narrative of Gujarati asmita will presumably translate into Bharatiya asmita once he takes up residence at 7 Race Course Road.
His economic policies are fairly clear - oriented towards growth and the promotion of manufacturing industry - witness his quick invitation to Ratan Tata to establish the Nano car plant in Gujarat after the contretemps with Mamata Banerjee, or his proximity to industrialists like Gautam Adani, Mukesh Ambani and others.
But where we could expect innovation and surprises is in his dealings in foreign and security policies. How, for example, would Modi deal with Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, or for that matter Pakistan, China and the United States? The easy answer is that he will be firm and decisive. But there is just a degree of separation between what is considered "firm" and "decisive" and what can be "rigid" and "rash."
Likewise, how would he handle the complex trade and climate change negotiations going on, or respond to the regional challenge that China is throwing at us.
A better understanding of how outliers impact on policy comes from the career of some previous prime ministers.

Heading the list is Indira Gandhi. When Panditji passed away in May 1964, Lal Bahadur Shastri became PM. But he passed away suddenly in Tashkent in January 1966, and Mrs Gandhi was pushed into office by the Syndicate of old-timers who didn't want to give the office to one of themselves.
They thought that the goongi gudiya (dumb doll as she was pejoratively called) would do their bidding. In a matter of two years, she had outmaneuvered them and become PM in her own right. Her moves included a Left-ward swing by abolishing privy purses of former Indian rulers, nationalising banks, and later coal, steel, copper, cotton textiles and insurance.
After sweeping the 1971 elections on the Garibi Hatao slogan, she became supreme. Each twist and turn of the Indira story was unpredictable - the decision to liberate Bangladesh, grab Sikkim, declare Emergency or order Operation Bluestar.

Subterfuge

Another outlier was P V Narashima Rao. Recuperating from a heart bypass operation, he sat out the election of 1991. But it was he who became Prime Minister after the untimely death of Rajiv Gandhi.
As a member of the Congress (Indira), Rao was always careful to hide his talents and true inclinations. It is this ability for subterfuge, and his considerable intelligence, that he used to liberalise the Indian economy, with the actual work being done by his finance minister, Manmohan Singh.
Unfortunately for him, a similar move to derail the Sangh Parivar's Ram Mandir plan ended in disaster when the Babri Masjid was demolished in 1992.
A great deal of what Rao achieved is still under the covers, especially his role in India playing catch up with Pakistan on the nuclear front. His "Look East" policy and recognition of Israel are another example of what happens when the outsider becomes the insider.
The third outlier in our list is Atal Bihari Vajpayee. When L K Advani was single-handedly building up the BJP through the Ram Mandir agitation, Vajpayee remained in the sidelines. But, soon Advani realised that he could never find acceptance in non-Parivar political formations.
For that reason when the opportunity came knocking for the BJP in 1996, it was Vajpayee who was put forward as the acceptable face of the party, the mukhota, as someone termed it.

Oddball

Vajpayee had always been the oddball in the Parivar. Though technically an RSS pracharak, he was known to enjoy the good things in life, and as an MP, at least in the 1980s and 1990s, he was not known for shrillness when things started getting shrill.
But beginning with the nuclear tests of May 1998, the Vajpayee prime ministership came up with policy moves which would have been considered unthinkable earlier: the outreach to Pakistan despite Kargil, the 2002 visit to Beijing that created an opening for a border settlement, which was derailed only because the BJP lost the 2004 elections.
The move towards the United States who Vajpayee termed as a "natural ally." There have been other outliers in India's prime ministerial stakes - HD Deve Gowda, I K Gujral, or Chandrashekhar, but their role was insignificant because they were there by the grace of someone else.
Leading this pack is Manmohan Singh. He did come from nowhere to become India's third-longest serving prime minister. But, he, too, is someone else's creature and that has been his tragedy these ten years.
To come back to Modi. As of now there are more questions than answers before us because we do not know the size of his victory, nor the composition of his team. We have some understanding of his domestic policy perspective from his role as CM of Gujarat. But as for his foreign and security policies, we will have to wait and watch.
If the history of past outliers is a guide, he is likely to spring more than his share of surprises.
Mail Today April 15, 2014

Updating India's nuclear posture

Published in the ORF website

The  Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP)  2014 election  manifesto has promised to study “in detail” India’s nuclear doctrine and “revise and update it to make it relevant to challenges of current times”. Many analysts are interpreting this to mean that India will alter its long-standing policy of  no-first use of nuclear weapons, but the language of the BJP’s manifesto is quite moderate and clear. The BJP’s commitment needs to be seen in the context of the failure of the UPA government to update India’s nuclear doctrine and prevent the  emergence of a rugged and credible nuclear force and evolve a strategy which would integrate the country’s conventional war-fighting potential with its nuclear weapons capability. In light of this, it is worth examining the various issues connected to India’s nuclear doctrine, strategy and posture.

 When India conducted its nuclear weapons tests in May 1998, it created a sensation. Predictably, Pakistan followed suit. There was uniform condemnation of both the countries and the UN Security Council passed resolution 1172 that not only condemned the action, but ordered India and Pakistan to cease all nuclear weapons programme, halt ballistic missile activity and the production of fissile material. All countries were asked to prohibit export of equipment, materials and technology. Egregiously, the UN also offered to resolve the Kashmir dispute.

Given this climate, New Delhi’s response was to try and calm the world community. To this end, it declared that it would enter into a voluntary moratorium on testing, develop only a credible minimum deterrent, and offer a no-first-use pledge on the employment of  its nuclear weapons.

A year later, in August 1999, the National Security Advisory Board wrote out a Draft Nuclear Doctrine (DND) for India, which did not quite appear minimalist—it called for a triad with nuclear weapons capable of being delivered by aircraft, land-based and sea based missiles. It said that any nuclear attack on India and its forces “shall result in punitive retaliation with nuclear weapons to inflict damage unacceptable to the aggressor.” Importantly it also spoke of the need for an early warning system and  “survivable and operationally prepared” nuclear forces and an “integrated operational plan or a series of sequential plans predicated on strategic objectives.”

However, 15 years later, most observers will agree that many of these objectives have yet to be achieved, especially on the score of an operationally prepared deterrent.   

India’s doctrine and strategy still continues to harp on the mantra of “minimum credible deterrent”, even though Pakistan has now overtaken India in the number of nuclear warheads it possesses. Some analysts say that there are no signs that the Pakistani buildup is slowing down.

Likewise, there continues to be a belief that India provides an unqualified “no first use” pledge on the employment of nuclear weapons. But this  no-first-use pledge has gone through a lot of changes since it was first enunciated. A document titled “Evolution of India’s nuclear policy,” was tabled by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee when he first spoke to Parliament after the tests on May 27, 1998. Among other things, it noted “In 1994, we had proposed that India and Pakistan jointly undertake not to be the first to use their nuclear capability against each other. The Government on this occasion, reiterates its readiness to discuss a ''no-first-use'' agreement with that country, as also with other countries bilaterally, or in a collective forum.”
On August 4, 1998 speaking on a debate on foreign policy in the Lok Sabha, Vajpayee was more categorical. He offered an unequivocal global no-first-use pledge, saying that India would not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states, and not be the first to use them against the nuclear weapons states.

The Draft Nuclear Doctrine of August 1999 gave the no-first-use another twist. It declared,          “India will not resort to the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons against States which do not possess nuclear weapons, or are not aligned with nuclear weapon powers.” Prior to this India had given a “no use” pledge to non-nuclear weapons states, by now removing “states aligned with nuclear weapons powers” from the list, the DND suddenly included entire blocs of countries, such as the European members of NATO or Japan and South Korea.

However, the current version of “no first use”,  was contained in a speech to the National Defence College in April 2010 by the  National Security Adviser, Shivshankar Menon which has said that   India’s “no-first use” pledge is only valid  against  non-nuclear weapon states. Therefore,  Pakistan and China, and the other six nuclear weapons states are excluded from what was originally a global Indian pledge. As Menon told the NDC, in a speech which was publicly distributed,  “The Indian nuclear doctrine also reflects this strategic culture, with its emphasis on minimal deterrence, no first use against non-nuclear weapon states and its direct linkage to nuclear disarmament.”

But Menon’s statement needs to be put against what passes off as India’s official nuclear policy which comes from the press statement of January 4, 2003 following a Cabinet Committee on Security discussion. This says  that India would adopt a posture of “no first use” and that nuclear weapons would “only be used in retaliation against a nuclear attack on Indian territory or on Indian forces anywhere.” The note added that  even if Indian forces were attacked “ by biological or chemical weapons, India will retain the option of retaliating with nuclear weapons.”

For the record, China still maintains a pledge it made in 1964 when it first tested its nuclear weapons that it will not be the first to initiate a nuclear attack.

In itself, there is nothing wrong with the NFU, it is much more economical because you do not need a too large an arsenal—in NFU mode you need bombs that will destroy cities, in “war fighting” mode, you need very accurate weapons which can destroy the enemies hardened silos, as well as tactical nuclear weapons to take on his conventional capabilities. Further, you do not need sophisticated surveillance and early warning capabilities.

Another aspect of India’s nuclear policy relates to the nature of India’s retaliatory strike. The Draft Nuclear Doctrine of 1999 had  spoken of “punitive retaliation” and “unacceptable damage” to an attacker. However, the policy announced in January 2003 said that India’s retaliation to “a first strike will be massive and designed to inflict unacceptable damage.”

India’s commitment to “massive retaliation” received confirmation of sorts on   April 2013 by the convener of the National Security Advisory Board, Shyam Saran. In response to the development of small tactical nuclear weapons by Pakistan, Saran suggested in a well-publicised speech that India would not be the first to use nuclear weapons, but regardless of the size of the attack, Indian retaliation “will be massive and designed to inflict unacceptable damage on the adversary.”

Now “massive retaliation” has a certain connotation in strategic literature and almost all authorities say that it lacks credibility, if only for the simple reason that if an attacker is going to face “massive retaliation”, he could well be tempted to ensure that his attack is “massive” as well.  

There are other issues, too, such as the credibility of a doctrine of “massive retaliation”. Would India really destroy Lahore, if one of our army brigades which have entered Pakistan is struck by a small nuclear weapon ? A country that did not retaliate after the Mumbai terror attack in 2008, does not look like one that would destroy a city of 6 million , just like that. There is certainly an issue of credibility here.

Nuclear weapons are weapons that should never be used in war. That is a common sense, as much as a political declaration. However, they are weapons, though of a special category. They have a certain function—to deter potential adversaries from coercing you with nuclear weapons or undertaking an action that threatens your national existence. This deterrent effect can only be effective, if the potential adversary is convinced you will use the weapons and that  you very clearly demonstrated means of carrying out a retaliatory attack that could inflict  unacceptable damage on him.

This credible force must, therefore, be based on systems which can survive a nuclear attack. Missiles that are rugged and accurate, nuclear weapons which are robust , a command and control system, and a national decision-making setup which will convince an enemy  that India has the wherewithal to assuredly retaliate and inflict unacceptable damage on them. We have a problem in almost all these areas.

It is no secret among independent observers that India has problems with its missile arsenal, as well as its nuclear weapons. Its thermo-nuclear test, which would be the basis of its city-busting retaliatory capability, did not work as expected. Unfortunately, the Department of Atomic Energy personnel, specifically R Chidambaram, who is currently Principal Scientific Adviser to the prime minister, claimed that everything had worked as planned. However, this claim was contested by K Santhanam, the DRDO scientist who was the coordinator of the nuclear programme and responsible for conducting the tests. Analysts who studied the seismic data related to the tests, too, raised doubts about its efficacy.

As for the missiles, the DRDO claim that everything is on track is based on a couple of tests of each missile. Here take the example of Russia, which has huge experience in missile development. It did some 17 test launches for its most modern missile the Topol M between the mid 1990s and 2000s. Indeed, the high rate of failures of its Bulava submarine launched missile points to the complexity of missile development, especially those launched from submarines.

But all these problems don’t faze our DRDO. It has declared the Agni II as cleared for production after its second test. The Agni III had four tests, of which one failed, yet it was declared ready for induction in 2010, the Agni IV  has had three tests so far. Mercifully, neither the DRDO, nor the Defence Minister has yet claimed that it is operational. Who will believe that we have a rugged and top-quality missile to deliver nuclear weapons ? As it is, there is no verification, independent of the DRDO, on the accuracy of the tests. Even the so-called user tests are conducted by the DRDO with the service personnel watching on.

There is an equally major problem relating to our decision-making set up which excludes armed forces expertise in the strategic (nuclear) arena. It is well known, that the warheads of our nuclear weapons are under the custody of the Department of Atomic Energy and the DRDO. While the specially designated Air Force and Army personnel under the Strategic Forces Command (SFC) are to employ the nuclear weapons, the armed forces themselves are kept away from the decision-making relating to nuclear weapons.

This is self-defeating for three reasons. First, the SFC may come under the Nuclear Command Authority headed by the PM, but practically the units function within the armed forces where they can be protected and their movement can be kept effectively secret. Second, it is dangerous to maintain a firewall between conventional military strategy and nuclear strategy because one could have a bearing on the other. The best example is that of the Cold Start doctrine from which the army has now distanced itself. Its clearest impact was in Pakistan acquiring midget Theatre Nuclear Weapons. This means opens a hypothetical scenario where an army thrust into Pakistan, results in a nuclear attack on its unit, compelling India to then, as per its own doctrine, undertake a “massive retaliation.”   Likewise, in a conventional war, the Indian Air Force may, as part of its plans, take out several Pakistani storage sites and degrade Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, pushing Islamabad on a “use it or lose it” mode.

Third, you end up in a situation where strategic plans are made by outfits like the DRDO, rather than the armed forces. An example of this is the  Ballistic Missile Defence system where there is no Air Force involvement, and which has possibly served to encourage Pakistan to expand its nuclear arsenal.   

For its own sake, India needs to integrate the armed forces into its highest decision-making levels. This is because national security strategy cannot be divided neatly into two compartments, one nuclear and one conventional. Decisions by the armed forces can have nuclear consequences. Likewise, decision-making in the nuclear arena controlled so far by scientists, bureaucrats and politicians, requires  close consultation and coordination with the armed forces who may have to bear the brunt of their decisions, and, in any case, be responsible for employing the weapons.

Clearly, these are issues that need to be thought through. India’s nuclear doctrine and strategy cannot be static. Changes have been taking place in its neighbourhood and in the abilities of our potential adversaries. India must therefore adjust its own thinking on these issues. Words like “no first use” and “massive retaliation” are just policy declarations which must be fleshed out into a nuclear strategy which, in turn, must jell with the country’s national security strategy, as well as its instrumentality—the country’s armed forces. Nuclear weapons must never be used, but if they are to play their principal role as deterrents, the country needs to ensure that they can be used.