Shortly after conducting the Pokharan II tests, the NDA government made two significant announcements. One was a voluntary moratorium on further nuclear testing, and the other an unequivocal commitment to no-first-use of nuclear weapons. It is the second that is becoming increasingly relevant as the post-November 26 strategic picture develops. A nuclear weapons power makes a no-first-use commitment only because it is so sure of its conventional deterrence that it believes it won’t need the nukes except in retaliation. India’s larger strategic thinking is, therefore, predicated on two beliefs: that our conventional strength is sufficient to ward off any future, conventional threat from China, and is adequate to deter Pakistan with a threat of punishment. To that extent, nuclear weapons become the weaker, or the losing side’s, option in the subcontinent. India’s deterrent, therefore, remains a decisive conventional superiority. Unless you have it, you cannot talk of no-first-use.

Over the past five years, we have allowed the gap between our conventional strength and Pakistan’s to narrow so dangerously that that deterrent has weakened. That is why Pakistan was bold enough to create war hysteria pro-actively after November 26. The establishment there believes India no longer has the capability of imposing quick and effective retribution and, if a spiral of retaliation escalates, it would be at most a war of attrition, and soon enough the global community would stop it. Or they could raise the nuclear alarm. You can read this cockiness in every post-November 26 move and statement of the Pakistani establishment. Their response was substantively different from what it was even in 2001-’02 after the Parliament attack.

... contd.