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political leadership and, in particular, the civilian bureaucracy. The restructuring
of India's higher defense organization, which is currently underway in
accordance with the recommendations made by the Group of Ministers in the
aftermath of the Kargil conflict, in fact confirms that India's nuclear weapons
will continue to remain under both civilian command and civilian custody for at
least the foreseeable future.
Although the new Indian Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) is vested with
'administrative control' of the country's nuclear forces, this responsibility falls
far short of what the armed forces advocated in their 1998 proposal. To be sure,
the new reorganization casts the CDS as the 'single point' advisor to the
government on all matters pertaining to defense, and it even vests this office with
the task of managing India's nuclear forces. This management role however—at
least as far as nuclear weapons are concerned—is manifested in three very
specific, though highly circumscribed, ways.
First, the CDS will be responsible for overseeing the preparation of all dual-
capable delivery systems and physical infrastructure that are currently procured,
manned, and operated by different armed services insofar as these are necessary
for the conduct of nuclear operations. Second, the CDS will be responsible for
overseeing the procurement, organization, training and readiness of all those
dedicated nuclear delivery systems that India is likely to acquire in the future.
And third, the CDS will be responsible for developing all the plans, both current
and prospective—pertaining to conventional joint operations and to the
coordination of changing control and custody procedures over nuclear weapon
components in an emergency.
While these innovations represent a major step in rationalizing India's
capability to conduct nuclear operations, it is important to underscore that they
do not give either the CDS or the prospective nuclear command under his
authority any control or custody over nuclear weapons (or nuclear weapon
components) in peacetime. This means that the country's civilian custodians will
continue to maintain at least the fissile cores and possibly even the weapon
assemblies routinely.
This fact notwithstanding, the new organizational structures—if they function
as intended—could contribute to the effective management of India's evolving
nuclear deterrent in multiple ways: first, by providing formal opportunities for
military advice with respect to strategic requirements in order to guide the
research, development, and acquisition of nuclear weapons, delivery systems,
and supporting infrastructure assets; second, by creating a permanent institution
tasked with overseeing the development of nuclear targeting and weapon
employment plans under civilian guidance; and third, by developing an
embryonic joint system intended to systematize all the plans and procedures
required to effectively integrate India's conventional and nuclear capabilities
under different threat conditions.
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