Not for Sale THE CHINA–PAKISTAN NEXUS i Sale for Not Editorial Board Satish Chandra, IFS (Retd), former Deputy National Security Adviser Lt Gen Ravi Sawhney, PVSM, AVSM (Retd), former Deputy Chief of Army Staff Lt Gen Gautam Banerjee, PVSM, AVSM, YSM (Retd), former Chief of Staff, Central Command Ashok Kantha, IFS (Retd), former Ambassador to China and Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs Sale © VIF Vivekananda International Foundation 3 San Martin Marg, Chanakyapuri New Delhi-110021, India info@vifindia.org Follow us @VIFINDIA www.vifindia.org First published 2017 Photographs: pp 2, 46, 74, 93, 94, 122, 144, 157, 158: commons.wikimedia.org; p 1: narendramodi.in; p 20: vsmandal.org; p 36: mygov.in; p 57: 4gwar.wordpress.com,for Sergeant Tyler C Gregory; pp 58, 73: pmindia.gov.in; p 84: pbs.twimg.com; p 109: pbs.org; p 110: theindependentbd.com; p 134: moi.gov.mm; p 173: independent.co.uk; p 174: pulitzercenter.org; p 183: manoa.hawaii.edu; p 184: rocketstem.org, Bigelow Aerospace All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise—without the prior permission of the author/s and the publisher. ISBN 978-81-8328-510-0 Published by Wisdom Tree 4779/23, Ansari Road Darya Ganj, New Delhi-110Not 002 Ph.: 011-23247966/67/68 [email protected] Printed in India Contents Sale Preface v Strengthening India’s Nuclear Deterrence 2 General NC Vij, PVSM, UYSM, AVSM, and VIF Expert Group Swami Vivekananda’s Message and Vision: Some Keynotes and their Contemporary Relevance 20 Dr Anirban Ganguly for Case for India-specific Economic Model 36 S Gurumurthy Evolving US Foreign Policy under Trump and its Implications for India 46 Kanwal Sibal Engaging China in an Uncertain World 58 Ashok K Kantha The China–PakistanNot Nexus 74 Prabhat P Shukla Evolving Dynamics in Pakistan 84 Tilak Devasher Prospects and Problems of Transition and Stability in Afghanistan 94 Lt Gen Ravi Sawhney, PVSM, AVSM & Sushant Sareen Daring to Dream: Restoring Connectivity in South Asia for Regional Development 110 Tariq Karim India and the Indian Ocean—the Dynamics of Multiple Centralities 122 Vice Admiral Anil Chopra, PVSM, AVSM Emerging Contours of BIMSTEC 134 Rajeet Mitter The Arab World—A Region in Transition 144 Dinkar Srivastava Sale Radicalisation: Developing a Counter-narrative 158 Alvite Ningthoujam & CD Sahay The New Climate Change Regime and Its Implications for India 174 Chandrashekhar Dasgupta Weaponisation of Outer Space—A Major Security Challenge 184 Lt Gen Davinder Kumar, PVSM, VSM BAR, ADC Index for 195 Not Preface Sale As a sovereign, democratic nation, we are just seventy years in the making. Our expressions of various aspects of freedoms, rights and aspirations, therefore, have—of necessity—to be conceived, nurtured and articulated with great degree of deliberations. Obviously, such discussions have to be rooted in innate national wisdom covering political, strategic, administrative and economic experiences. The commitment to national consolidation is rendered more challenging when tested against the diversities of our nationhood and adversities imposed by geopolitical avarice in our neighbourhood. The Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF) was founded nearly a decade ago to sustain, promote and catalyse a noble commitmentfor to our nationalist consolidation. In this pursuit, the Foundation has found its cause from the powerful and patriotic teachings of Swami Vivekananda while the ever-venerated Vivekananda Kendra gave our Foundation a platform for its institutional functions. That made it possible for a group of highly regarded professionals from the fields of security, military, diplomacy, economics to generate ideas in the VIF and stimulate actions for greater national security and prosperity. The analyses, prognoses and options articulated by scholars of the Foundation have thus made a mark in shaping opinion amongst our higher State, public and private functionaries. Similarly, our factual, prejudice-free and candid confabulations with highly regarded think tanksNot and top intellectuals of the larger world has made it possible for the Foundation to gain deeper insight into the various challenges facing India, and so helped us in our search for appropriate policy options for the country. VIF has been disseminating its analytical papers and reports through its website www.vifindia.org. In this endeavour, occasional papers, monographs and books having vi SECURING INDIA long-term applicability are being published both in the printed form and in the e-version. This year, we decided to take another stride by requesting some of the most renowned experts in the strategic circles to pen down their observations on subjects of their expertise. These have been largely related to the aspect of ‘Securing India’ which has been carried as the central theme for this year’s publication. These enlightening and thought-provoking essays have been compiled in the form of a set of incisive papers for dissemination as our inaugural publication: VIF Perspective: Issues and Trends. There are in all fifteen papers of various lengths, each devoted to dissection of one of the salient aspects of our nation building. Papers of such nature, wherein deep knowledge and understandings have been packaged with experience and insight, are generally tedious to access for the thinking community at large. It has, therefore, been our effort to ease that avenue to analyses, enquiry and wisdom through the medium of this publication. I am sanguine that the publication, VIF Perspective: Issues and Trends, would serve its purpose in its cognitive reach-out to the State, academic, publicSale and private institutions and both at national and international levels. Jai Hind! for —General NC Vij April 2017 Director New Delhi Vivekananda International Foundation Not Not for Sale Not for Sale Strengthening India’s Nuclear Deterrence GENERAL NC VIJ, PVSM, UYSM, AVSM, AND VIF EXPERT GROUP Sale Abstract This paper looks at India’s nuclear deterrence as it exists today and recommends ways to strengthen it by identifying current gaps and suggesting remedies to address these. This exercise is driven by a two-fold requirement: First, to generate options to counter the ongoing nuclear brinkmanship by Pakistan; and secondly, to examine the larger issues of India’s nuclear doctrine in context of both Pakistan and China. The paper also covers the genesis of forPakistan’s tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs) and examines the impact of these on India’s nuclear deterrence. Measures to restore the credibility of India’s nuclear deterrence in a responsible and credible manner, through a wider spectrum of counter measures, have also been analysed in this paper. INDIA’S NUCLEAR DETERRENCE: GAPS AND REMEDIES SALIENT POINTS OF INDIA’S NUCLEAR DOCTRINE In essence, the salient points of India’s nuclear doctrine as per the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) notification of 4 January 2003 are that India will build up and maintain a ‘credible minimum deterrence’Not while following a ‘No First Use’ (NFU) policy. It proceeds to elaborate that India will use nuclear weapons only in retaliation against nuclear attack on Indian territory or on Indian forces anywhere and that retaliation will be ‘massive and designed to inflict unacceptable damage’. Further, nuclear weapons would not be used against non-nuclear weapon States; however, the option of retaliating with nuclear 4 SECURING INDIA weapons in the event of a major attack against it with biological or chemical weapons will be open. Finally, retaliatory nuclear attacks will be authorised only by the civilian political leadership through the Nuclear Command Authority (NCA). It is against the backdrop of the above-mentioned features of India’s nuclear doctrine and the contemporary nuclear developments in the region that various contextual issues are examined in this paper. THE DILEMMA OF NUCLEAR RESPONSE In its promulgation of ‘massive retaliation’ to cause ‘unacceptable damage’, India’s nuclear deterrence is but a ‘one massive leap’ response against one and every situation which India wants its potential adversaries to register. In that stance—essentially a mind game—as conceived by the architects of India’s nuclear doctrine, lies the punch of India’s deterrence. Another cardinal feature of the Indian doctrine is related to its apex command and control. In that, it is stated unambiguously that retaliatory nuclearSale response could only be authorised by the civilian political leadership through the NCA. In contrast, Pakistan follows a nuclear ‘first-use’ policy. This policy more or less propagates Pakistan’s policy of resorting to thwart any possible Indian aggression with its superior conventional forces. In late 2001, the Pakistan NCA defined their nuclear ‘red lines’ in the form of four potential thresholds. These were later published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IIIS). It is relevant to note that these formulations are mere pronouncements by Pakistan’s NCA; there per se is no formally promulgated nuclear doctrine or nuclear strategy by the State. Arguably therefore, these thresholds are merely stated positions at a pointfor in time and may well be subject to change at any time based on the ever-changing dynamics of India–Pakistan relations. Presently, the said thresholds stand stated as under: s Spatial Threshold. This threshold is crossed if and when the Indian military forces penetrate on a large scale into Pakistan’s territory which Pakistan is unable to thwart. The actual limits of this penetration have been left to the imagination of the analysts; the general belief is that it could be the line of Indus River—the lifeline of Pakistan. Penetration of Indian forces up to the Indus Valley and capture of key objectives along its most sensitive eastern territorial belt is therefore considered to be a situation serious enough for Pakistan to trigger nuclear first use. s Military ThresholdNot.