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ID: 171171

India’s nuclear counter-revolution: nuclear learning and the future of deterrence / O’Donnell, Frank

O’Donnell, Frank	Journal Article
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Summary/Abstract

The India–Pakistan near war of February–March 2019 highlights India’s ongoing evolution in strategic thought and practice since its emergence in 1998 as an overt nuclear-weapon possessor. These changes, involving an increasing willingness to engage in the intentional escalation of conflict with a nuclear-armed rival willing to be the first to use nuclear weapons, challenge certain academic assumptions about the behavior of nuclear-weapon states. In particular, they undermine the expectations of the nuclear-revolution theory—which anticipates nuclear and conventional restraint among nuclear-armed rivals through fear of mutual assured destruction—and the model of nuclear learning which underpins this theory, in which new nuclear-weapon states gradually absorb this restraint through policy-maker learning. This article explores how India’s learning pathway since 1998 has deviated from these expectations. India is instead pursuing its own “revolution,” in the direction of creating capabilities for flexible response and escalation dominance. It concludes by illuminating the similarities between Indian strategic behavior and contemporary practices of other nuclear-armed states, and suggests that New Delhi’s emerging de facto nuclear doctrine and posture is part of a broader empirical challenge to our current conceptions of the nuclear revolution and of nuclear learning.

Key Words

Deterrence ; South Asia ; India ; Nuclear Revolution ; No - First - Use ; Flexible Response

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ID: 193176

No annihilation without representation: NATO nuclear use decision-making during the Cold War / Michaels, Jeffrey H

Michaels, Jeffrey H	Journal Article
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Summary/Abstract

Scholars focused on NATO nuclear strategy during the Cold War have devoted little attention to the dynamics of how the Alliance would decide to use nuclear weapons. This article aims to fill this gap by examining the internal debates about how a nuclear use decision would be taken, particularly balancing the desire to ensure adequate consultation of the non-nuclear members without undermining the credibility of NATO’s nuclear deterrent by giving them a veto. To avoid undermining Alliance cohesion, the nuclear use decision process was kept deliberately vague, despite the problems that would almost certainly have arisen in a war.

Key Words

Nuclear Strategy ; NATO ; Nuclear Use ; Cold War ; Flexible Response

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