Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
wartime command posts. Information about all the details pertaining to these
assets will be hidden from most, including the Indian military, whose senior
officers will be told just what they need to know in order to develop the relevant
contingency plans relating to retaliation in the aftermath of India's absorbing a
nuclear attack.
The latter example suggests that the nuclear arsenal will be distributed with
weapons, and possibly even parts of weapons, kept separately from one another
and from the delivery systems. While the delivery vehicles will remain in
military custody because they are warfighting instruments
per se,
they are likely
to be prepared and secured in secret locations that will neither be easily
identifiable nor positioned close to the borders with Pakistan and China. Only
when these weapons are required in moments of supreme emergency would the
various component parts of the deterrent be brought together, integrated, and
released to the end user—the uniformed military—with the objective of
executing the acts of vengeance demanded by India's retaliatory response.
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THE ANATOMY OF THE 'FORCE-IN-BEING'
Both these examples serve to limn the future shape of India's nuclear deterrent:
a
force-in-being that is limited in size, separated in disposition,
and centralized in
control
. Each of these variables will be analyzed further in some detail but before
that investigation is undertaken, one important inference ought to be underscored.
The Indian decision to develop a force-in-being implies that New Delhi's
post-1998 nuclear posture—despite all the contrary rhetoric and expectations
aired in New Delhi, Islamabad, and elsewhere in the world—will not be
radically
different from that which has been in place since about 1992-94.
The biggest difference, of course, is that India today is a declared nuclear
weapons power: as such, its national leadership can openly discuss its nuclear
capabilities in Parliament and with external interlocutors; the myriad research
and development efforts pertaining to India's emerging nuclear capabilities can
also be carried out without the pervasive subterfuge of the past; and, planning for
strategic nuclear operations too can be pursued far more systematically and
without hesitation, embarrassment, or dissembling.
On all other matters, the continuities between its post-1992/94 variant of
'maintaining the option' and its post-1998 posture of a developing a 'force-in-
being' will be far greater and much more significant than most public
commentators in India, Pakistan, and the United States usually recognize.
Limited in Size
All Indian discussions about their future force posture emphasize one element
uniformly: that the desired nuclear deterrent will be limited in size. The Prime
