1. Correspondence: Debating India's Pathway to Nuclearization
- Author:
- Karthika Sasikumar, Andrew B. Kennedy, Gaurav Kampani, and Jason Stone
- Publication Date:
- 10-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- In his article, Andrew Kennedy attributes India's nuclear restraint from 1964 to 1989 to (1) implicit nuclear umbrellas extended by the two superpowers and (2) the normative beliefs of Indian leaders. Using newly available declassified documents, he argues that India's apparent absence of nuclear balancing against China and Pakistan until the 1980s was a distortion of reality, because the balancing occurred in secret. Its means were implicit nuclear umbrellas, first extended against China in the mid-1960s by both superpowers and then from 1970 to 1991 by the former Soviet Union. As Soviet power in the mid-1980s waned, India resorted to internal balancing by developing an independent nuclear arsenal (pp. 151-152). Kennedy further claims that Indian leaders first sought security through international disarmament institutions. Only when that quest failed did they proceed with nuclear acquisition (pp. 144-146).
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, China, and India