Perceptions and purpose of the bomb: Explaining India's nuclear restraint against China

Much of the literature on India's nuclear programme assumes that China's nuclear capability drove New Delhi, the strategically weaker actor, to pursue a nuclear weapons capability. China's nuclear tests not only rendered New Delhi militarily insecure and dented its claim for the leadership of the Third World but they also polarized the domestic debate over the utility of the bomb. In the global scheme of nuclear proliferation, therefore, India was just another fallen nuclear domino. Marshalling recently declassified documents, this article revisits India's nuclear behaviour during the crucial decade between 1964 and 1974. By focusing on threat assessments made at the highest levels and internal deliberations of the Indian Government, this article shows how, contrary to the claims made in the literature, Indian decision-makers did not make much of the Chinese nuclear threat. This conviction emanated out of their distinct reading of the purpose of nuclear weapons in China's foreign and military policy; their perceptions of how India could achieve nuclear deterrence against China by using the bipolar international politics of the Cold War; and, finally, their understanding of the political costs of developing an indigenous nuclear response to China's nuclear threat. New Delhi's nuclear restraint resulted from its perceptions of Chinese nuclear intentions and its beliefs about the purpose of the bomb in Sino-Indian relations. India's perceptions of China as a nuclear adversary and its decision-makers’ views on the purpose of nuclear weapons in this rivalry were fundamentally different from the expectations set out by the domino theory of nuclear proliferation.

Project Solarium 1953 and the Cyberspace Solarium Commission 2019

The word ‘Solarium’ means different things to different people. To some, it evokes an era of global uncertainty with competing nuclear powers. To others, it brings to mind a threat so compelling that a US President formed a special project to reshape US policy rapidly. The word Solarium again inspires hope, optimism, and expectation that cybersecurity—one of the most critical challenges of the twenty-first century—can be addressed as successfully as challenges from the past. Will combining the name Solarium with the twenty-first-century threat’s gravity deliver similar results as it did in 1953? What exactly did Project Solarium 1953 provide? In what way is the global nuclear threat and spread of communism in 1953 comparable to the global cyber threat of the twenty-first century, and is there a risk that the comparison might either over-simplify a complex problem or, worse still, provoke an inappropriately exaggerated and perhaps even apocalyptic approach to cyberspace security? Are there other aspects of the 1953 Project Solarium that offer more useful insights into the human elements of policymaking? Does the naming of the 2019 Cybersecurity Commission as the Cybersecurity Solarium Commission provide little more than smart branding?

CURRENT THREATS TO WORLD SECURITY

Each historical era corresponded to a certain type of technological revolution that produced transformations both in terms of the theory of military science and in the field of strategies, techniques, tactics and procedures for preparing and conducting the phenomenon of war. Thus, the beginning of the 21st century has been marked by major transformations of the global security environment, an environment conducive to hybrid dangers and threats that can seriously affect contemporary human society. Moreover, migration, terrorism, organized crime, the nuclear threat and pandemics are and will remain the main sources of global insecurity and major threats to global security. The persistence and rapid evolution of these phenomena motivate us to investigate the field, to analyze the sources of instability that seriously threaten the security of the human evolutionary environment and to present to the informed public a study of current threats to global security.

Arms treaty deal will help broader Russian-US dialogue

Significance Soon after Biden's inauguration as president tomorrow, US and Russian diplomats are expected to discuss an extension to New START, the only remaining major agreement regulating their nuclear forces. This can be done quickly; the main outstanding question is whether to prolong it for the maximum five years permitted or settle on a shorter extension. Impacts With New START renewed, Washington and Moscow will seek clarity on next steps in nuclear threat reduction and arms control. This could be a lengthy process, requiring internal reviews of nuclear policy, force posture, arms control and bilateral relations. The alternative is an increase in mutual suspicions of force plans, further erosion of trust and pressure to enlarge nuclear budgets. COVID-19 management will consume government attention to and budgets for defence and diplomacy.