India has already adopted a no first use strategy that in turn involves according lesser salience to nuclear weapons. In 1985, President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev declared that a nuclear war could not be won and should not be initiated. Former US Defence Secretary Robert McNamara in his article in the May/June 2005 issue of Foreign Policy said: “I have never seen a piece of paper that outlined a plan for the United States or NATO to initiate the use of nuclear weapons with any benefit for the US or the NATO and there is no guarantee against unlimited escalation once the first nuclear strike occurs.”

The four statesmen are very influential in the US and the Western world and their programme has been endorsed by the Democratic presidential candidates and their advocacy chimes in many ways with long-held Indian positions. India should now take the initiative to synergise its efforts at the Conference on Disarmament with their campaign and in the process fill the gaps in their approach.

The writer is a senior defence analyst

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