![]() Parameters will have to be informed by the varied interpretations of the advantages and disadvantages of flexible response, re-contextualised to meet New Delhi’s strategic interests, given its technical capabilities. As New Delhi ponders the credibility-deficit of massive retaliation, the challenge is to establish parameters that will guide policymakers in constructing a flexible response alternative. Flexible response is often mentioned as a viable alternative, but literature suggests that there are varying interpretations of ‘flexible response’ and, consequently, of its advantages and disadvantages. ![]() The requirement is clearly for an alternative blueprint for a more effective nuclear deterrent strategy. The extant scholarship on India’s nuclear doctrine does problematise the credibility deficit but barely provides a policy alternative. Īnalysts, therefore, have called on India to renounce massive retaliation as the country’s nuclear deterrent strategy. This ‘instability-instability’ paradox, to use the words of Paul Kapur, allows Pakistan to continue its proxy war against India while blocking the latter’s ability to punish Pakistan through conventional means. Because of perceptions that New Delhi would not follow up on its threat of massive retaliation against, say, a first use of a TNW by Pakistan on Indian soldiers in Pakistan’s own territory, Rawalpindi has managed to apparently deter India from launching a variety of conventional attacks. India’s strategy of massive retaliation therefore does not appear to be credible enough.Įxploiting this credibility-deficit vis-a-vis India’s massive retaliation strategy, Pakistan has adopted a first use policy and has lowered its nuclear threshold by introducing tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs). ![]() Third, and perhaps the most important reason, is that a massive nuclear response by India would invite retaliation on a similar scale and nature from Pakistan no civilian government in New Delhi will be willing to bear such costs. Second, the burden of escalation of nuclear conflict from tactical to strategic levels involving an all-out nuclear war will fall solely on India under this strategy. First, some have argued that the policy of targeting civilians with nuclear weapons in response to a tactical use of nuclear weapon by an adversary in battlefield is inhumane. However, there are a number of reasons why New Delhi is unlikely to follow up on such a threat. These criticisms are based on an interpretation of the strategy as a threat of nuclear retaliation against population and industrial centres using strategic nuclear weapons. Is India’s nuclear deterrent strategy of ‘massive retaliation’ credible? Various experts not only from India have critiqued the strategy on a number of factors, saying that it lacks credibility. This is the fourth paper in 20 years of Pokhran-II series However, such a policy-shift must correspond with India’s deterrence objectives and its nuclear wherewithal. It charts out the various parameters on which an alternative nuclear doctrine of flexible response can potentially be based. This paper seeks to develop the concept of flexible response as India confronts a rapidly changing strategic environment. Even when flexible response is often cited in India’s strategic circles as a likely alternative, the contours of such a strategy have hardly been deliberated. This study examines the alternative of flexible response available for India and makes an assessment of whether it provides a solution to this problem in India’s nuclear doctrine. The extant scholarship on India’s nuclear doctrine, while problematising the credibility deficit in the strategy of massive retaliation, fails to provide a policy alternative. Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology.
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