In India, the issue of our strategic arsenal being capped short of our assessed requirements for a credible minimum deterrent on the basis of a FMCT coming into force has been one of the core issues in the debate on the Indo-US nuclear deal and our dealings with the nuclear suppliers group. It is therefore necessary to focus on an Indian strategy in case FMCT comes into force in the next few years.

India can take the stand as it did on the nonproliferation treaty that it will stay out of the treaty and accept all the consequences, as it did in the case of NPT. Secondly, the Indian strategic community can conclude that with FMCT added to other nuclear arms control measures, there is likely to be a stable international situation and the Indian stockpile as it will be by the time the FMCT comes into force will be adequate to meet the needs of a credible minimum deterrent. Western think tanks have estimated that by early 2000, India should have had enough fissile materials of weapon grade for about 100 weapons. This is on the assumption that our reactors and reprocessing plants had worked to optimum capacity. In addition, India has tested the reactor grade plutonium and proved that it is weapon usable.

What should be the size of a credible minimum deterrent is a matter for a multidisciplinary decision in which there have to be inputs such as assessment on the likely future international security milieu, strategic doctrines of our potential adversaries, their stockpiles, our diplomacy in the emerging balance of power, our own capabilities in terms of dispersal, camouflage, reaction time etc. Such an interdisciplinary decision calls for expertise in international relations, foreign policy and military nuclear strategy.

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