India’s Doctrinal Modifications: Counterforce Temptations in South Asia

2021 ◽  
pp. 002190962110190
Author(s):  
Iftikhar Ali ◽  
Jatswan S Sidhu
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Indian Policy ◽  
Nuclear Deterrence ◽  
Technological Capabilities ◽  
Nuclear War

This paper assists in understanding contesting technological capabilities and doctrinal modification between India and Pakistan that are drifting South Asia towards instability, leaving the nuclear deterrence in a dark abyss. Hawks on both sides of the nuclear armed rivals are unprecedentedly chanting threats of nuclear war. More bothersome is the indications of shifting the Indian policy of No First Use (NFU), calls for doctrinal modifications and counterforce temptations. An Indian quest for escalation dominance and Pakistani quest for stability against India is in fact a mutual struggle beyond ‘minimum credible’ to ‘assured second strike’ capabilities.

The Subtle Knife

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 25
Author(s):  
Peter Rautenbach
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Psychological Effects ◽  
Nuclear Deterrence ◽  
Cyber Warfare ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
Hybrid Warfare ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Polar Opposite

This article looks to tie together the polar opposite of hybrid warfare and nuclear deterrence. The reason for this is that hybrid warfare and its effects on nuclear deterrence need to be explored as there appears to be substantial increases in hybrid warfare’s usage. This article found that hybrid warfare has an erosion like effect on nuclear deterrence because it increases the likelihood that nuclear weapons will be used. This may be due to both the fact that hybrid warfare can ignore conventional redlines, but also because the cyber aspect of hybrid warfare has unintended psychological effects on how deterrence functions. how does this relate to nuclear war? In short, cyber warfare attacks key concepts which make nuclear deterrence a viable strategy including the concepts of stability, clarity, and rationality. Therefore, hybrid warfare increases the chance of nuclear use.

The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Kroenig
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
National Security ◽  
International Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
Theoretical Explanation ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Nuclear Deterrence ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
Nuclear Strategy ◽  
Empirical Record

What kind of nuclear strategy and posture does the United States need to defend itself and its allies? According to conventional wisdom, the answer to this question is straightforward: the United States needs the ability to absorb an enemy nuclear attack and respond with a devastating nuclear counterattack. These arguments are logical and persuasive, but, when compared to the empirical record, they raise an important puzzle. Empirically, we see that the United States has consistently maintained a nuclear posture that is much more robust than a mere second-strike capability. How do we make sense of this contradiction? Scholarly deterrence theory, including Robert Jervis’s seminal book, The Illogic of American Nuclear Strategy, argues that the explanation is simple—policymakers are wrong. This book takes a different approach. Rather than dismiss it as illogical, it explains the logic of American nuclear strategy. It argues that military nuclear advantages above and beyond a secure, second-strike capability can contribute to a state’s national security goals. This is primarily because nuclear advantages reduce a state’s expected cost of nuclear war, increasing its resolve, providing it with coercive bargaining leverage, and enhancing nuclear deterrence. This book provides the first theoretical explanation for why military nuclear advantages translate into geopolitical advantages. In so doing, it resolves one of the most intractable puzzles in international security studies. The book also explains why, in a world of growing dangers, the United States must possess, as President Donald J. Trump declared, a nuclear arsenal “at the top of the pack.”

A Bifurcated Global Nuclear Order

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramesh Thakur
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Nuclear Deterrence ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
The World ◽  
The United Nations

The very destructiveness of nuclear weapons makes them unusable for ethical and military reasons. The world has placed growing restrictions on the full range of nuclear programs and activities. But with the five NPT nuclear powers failing to eliminate nuclear arsenals, other countries acquiring the bomb, arms control efforts stalled, nuclear risks climbing, and growing awareness of the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear war, the United Nations adopted a new treaty to ban the bomb. Some technical anomalies between the 1968 and 2017 treaties will need to be harmonized and the nuclear-armed states’ rejection of the ban treaty means it will not eliminate any nuclear warheads. However, it will have a significant normative impact in stigmatizing the possession, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons and serve as a tool for civil society to mobilize domestic and world public opinion against the doctrine of nuclear deterrence.

India and Pakistan's Unstable Peace: Why Nuclear South Asia Is Not Like Cold War Europe

2005 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Paul Kapur
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Significant Risk ◽  
Indian Territory ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
Nuclear Level ◽  
International Attention ◽  
Low Probability ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Cold War

Scholars attribute conventional violence in a nuclear South Asia to a phenomenon known as the “stability/instability paradox.” According to this paradox, the risk of nuclear war makes it unlikely that conventional confict will escalate to the nuclear level, thereby making conventional confict more likely. Although this phenomenon encouraged U.S.-Soviet violence during the Cold War, it does not explain the dynamics of the ongoing confict between India and Pakistan. Recent violence has seen Pakistan or its proxies launching limited attacks on Indian territory, and India refusing to retaliate in kind. The stability/instability paradox would not predict such behavior. A low probability of conventional war escalating to the nuclear level would reduce the ability of Pakistan's nuclear weapons to deter an Indian conventional attack. Because Pakistan is conventionally weaker than India, this would discourage Pakistani aggression and encourage robust Indian conventional retaliation against Pakistani provocations. Pakistani boldness and Indian restraint have actually resulted from instability in the strategic environment. A full-scale Indo-Pakistani conventional confict would create a significant risk of nuclear escalation. This danger enables Pakistan to launch limited attacks on India while deterring allout Indian conventional retaliation and attracting international attention to the two countries' dispute over Kashmir. Unlike in Cold War Europe, in contemporary South Asia nuclear danger facilitates, rather than impedes, conventional confict.

Nuclear Deterrence—Another Perfect Storm

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Rendall
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Nuclear Deterrence ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Business As Usual ◽  
Global Heating ◽  
Perfect Storm

This chapter applies Stephen M. Gardiner’s model of the perfect moral storm to nuclear deterrence. Most damage from a major nuclear war would fall on third parties rather than the belligerents. Some would be present-day people in neutral countries and nonhuman animals, but future generations would be the largest group of victims. This makes ongoing reliance on large nuclear arsenals ethically indefensible. It presents many of the same problems, however, as global heating. One is that future damages are not salient to present-day publics and politicians. Another is that nuclear weapons reduce the probability of major war while greatly increasing the damage if it occurs. This affects the intergenerational distribution of costs and benefits. Nuclear deterrence is a ‘front-loaded’ good: its benefits arrive right away, whereas its costs will most likely arrive only in the future. Nuclear war is inevitable if states rely on it in perpetuity, but for a given generation, the likelihood may be small. “Business-as-usual” may thus be a good self-interested gamble for each generation until nuclear war actually occurs. Not surprisingly, it finds many defenders. The last part of the chapter considers possible solutions.

scholarly journals Impacts of a nuclear war in South Asia on soybean and maize production in the Midwest United States

2012 ◽  
Vol 116 (2) ◽  
pp. 373-387 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mutlu Özdoğan ◽  
Alan Robock ◽  
Christopher J. Kucharik
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
Maize Production ◽  
Midwest United States

Nuclear Deterrence in South Asia

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rizwana Abbasi ◽  
Zafar Khan
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Nuclear Deterrence
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