Integrity Score 240
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National Security Doctrine for Global Reach continues....
The fundamental question is: Bomb for what? Does a nuclear arsenal provide sufficient deterrent worth the cost?
The question today is not whether India has the capacity or can afford it. Of course India has and can, and no one in the world anymore doubts that. The question is instead two fold:
First, producing nuclear weapons in adequate numbers with the essential delivery system to boot, to constitute a โcredible minimum deterrent forceโ is the question. Such a credible system would entail raising our defence, atomic energy and space expenditures from the present 2.5 per cent of GDP, to at least 7 per cent of GDP. We should be clear from where the funds to meet these expenditures will come. It obviously cannot be conjured up from euphoria. Instead we shall need hard-nosed budgeting to find these resources. If any government has no intention of building a nuclear deterrent (e.g., 200 bombs fitted on missiles and placed in concrete silos underground), or has no clue as to where the required funds are to be found, then the Pokharan-II tests represented adventurism and jingoism that will increase the risk of isolation and conflict, without commensurate benefit in defence.
Second, if it is the determination of the nation that the credible nuclear deterrent is to be created even if we have to forego everything (and eat grass?), then what doctrine is going to guide its use? As Prime Minister, Mr. Vajpayee had unilaterally committed to the world that India shall never be the first to use nuclear weapons. This means that our doctrine has to be based on the concept of โsecond strikeโ capability. That is, the scenario is that our enemy will strike first with nuclear weapons, and after we survive this attack, we shall retaliate with what is left of our arsenal. And who is this enemy? Pakistan? An Indo-Pakistan nuclear war is a negative sum game.
to be continued.....