Nuclear Weapon Policies
Why has India adopted a no-first-use policy wrt its nuclear weapons? Shivshankar Menon looks into the reasons in his book, Choices . (Incidentally, India’s assurance that it won’t use or threaten others by its nuclear weapons is limited to (1) non-nuclear weapon countries, and (2) countries not aligned to nuclear powers). Consider the alternative, he says: a declared first-use-if-needed policy. It’s what the US, Russia, and Pakistan have. America has it because that’s the only way to guarantee the security umbrella it provides to Japan, South Korea and much of western Europe. But once the US takes that policy, USSR/Russia has no choice but to adopt the same policy. Pakistan has it because of their paranoia of India and their weakness in conventional military strength. Menon points out that the alternative, first-use-if-needed policy, is destabilizing by definition. It sets off guessing games as to when such a country might fire its nukes, what they might consider ...