Relevance: mains: G.S paper III: Disaster and disaster management.
What is the issue?
- Irresponsible election rhetoric over nuclear weapons would only lead to a mutually assured delusion.
How is India’s posture with respect to nukes so far?
- India had acquired minimum nuclear deterrence capability in 1974 itself, but was reluctant to acknowledge its status due to certain legal, technical, and geopolitical reasons.
- Even after proclaiming itself as a nuclear weapons state in 1998 and initiating steps to develop a nuclear triad consistent with the doctrine of “minimum credible deterrence,” India assured the international community that its nuclear weapons are for deterrence only and that it will not be the first to use them against any of its adversaries.
- However, recent invocation of nuclear weapons to seek votes contradicts India’s restrained nuclear posture and puts the country in the company of irresponsible states.
- Countries possessing nuclear weapons should exercise extreme prudence in their deployment posture and public conduct of its leadership because the costs of miscalculation or Handling nuclear weapons with responsibility.
What is the issue?
- Irresponsible election rhetoric over nuclear weapons would only lead to a mutually assured delusion. How is India’s posture with respect to nukes so far? · India had acquired minimum nuclear deterrence capability in 1974 itself, but was reluctant to acknowledge its status due to certain legal, technical, and geopolitical reasons.
- Even after proclaiming itself as a nuclear weapons state in 1998 and initiating steps to develop a nuclear triad consistent with the doctrine of “minimum credible deterrence,” India assured the international community that its nuclear weapons are for deterrence only and that it will not be the first to use them against any of its adversaries.
- However, recent invocation of nuclear weapons to seek votes contradicts India’s restrained nuclear posture and puts the country in the company of irresponsible states.
- Countries possessing nuclear weapons should exercise extreme prudence in their deployment posture and public conduct of its leadership because the costs of miscalculation or and it cannot be taken for granted that this will save the day every time.
What lies ahead?
- Nuclear war will bring unimaginable miseries to both India and Pakistan and should thus not be even casually talked about, let alone fought.
- The two Cold War adversaries deluded themselves that each would prevail after a full-scale nuclear war, only to realise that it produced a stalemate of mutually assured destruction.
- The Indian and Pakistani leadership should, therefore, avoid having a mutually assured delusion of prevailing in a nuclear war.