Ladakh border crisis places further pressure on India’s nuclear boundaries

31 July 2020

India and China are engaged in their worst border crisis in 40 years. China has occupied areas of India-governed Ladakh since at least May 2020, with a clash in June 2020 leading to double-digit mortalities on both sides. These intrusions surpass China’s previously claimed line in its Ladakh territorial dispute with India. They have the effect of cutting off Indian border patrol posts from each other while establishing a position to potentially sever the crucial Indian Darbuk–Shyok–Daulat Beg Oldi strategic supply road.

It is perhaps inevitable that this continuing Indian national security crisis has amplified the debate in New Delhi regarding its nuclear doctrine. India has deployed INS Arihant, it’s sole nuclear-armed submarine (SSBN), in the Indian Ocean to “send out a message” to China. A former chief of the China-facing Indian Army Northern and Central Commands has written that if China attempts further offensive military actions, New Delhi “will have to resort to nuclear brinkmanship to safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

These developments are symptoms of the growing insecurity within India’s government and strategic circles regarding the ability of its 2003 nuclear doctrine to continue to deter its adversaries. This doctrine committed India to a policy of no-first-use (NFU), but with important exceptions, including permitting an Indian nuclear response to a biological or chemical weapons attack. This doctrine was arguably revised in August 2019, in an official statement by Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.

Singh referred to NFU in the past tense, selecting “has strictly adhered” rather than “strictly adheres” to describe the Indian doctrinal commitment. To underline this framing of NFU, Singh followed with “What happens in (the) future depends on the circumstances”. This statement strongly suggests that India’s nuclear policy is now one of official ambiguity, which in turn permits absolute flexibility of use.

India’s nuclear forces deploy

Indian operational force developments, especially in the naval and air domains, simultaneously indicate that New Delhi’s strategic planners see a greater role for nuclear weapons in India’s general defence. The Arihant was also deployed during the 2019 Pulwama-Balakot militarised crisis with Pakistan. Indeed, it is standing policy of India’s Strategic Forces Command — the military body charged with maintaining custody of nuclear weapons and executing civilian nuclear orders — to move nuclear warheads out of storage and co-locate them with delivery vehicles in the early stages of a conventional crisis with Pakistan or China. During the Pulwama-Balakot crisis, this policy extended to deploying the Arihant armed with nuclear weapons. It is presently unclear if the Arihant was similarly armed while being dispatched in the present crisis, but its inclusion in the deployment of “a large number of ships in the Indian Ocean” risks Beijing perceiving this action as Indian escalatory nuclear signalling.

The growing pressure upon the Modi government to be seen to be robustly responding to China’s Ladakh incursions threatens to accelerate increasingly aggressive developments in Indian nuclear doctrine and posturing.

Indeed, India recently paired an SSBN deployment during a conventional crisis with aggressive actions against potential nuclear-armed adversary platforms.

During the Pulwama-Balakot crisis, while India fielded its SSBN, the Indian Navy simultaneously located every Pakistani naval vessel in preparation for a potential order to eliminate them. The fact that some of these vessels could be nuclear-armed did not factor into this preparatory targeting order, despite the escalation risks inherent in a potential Pakistani nuclear-armed vessel — such as PNS Saad — refusing to comply with Indian demands to surface. China continues to expand and regularise its Indian Ocean naval movements, while India sees such Indian Ocean surges as a credible signalling policy. As such, the risk grows of Indian naval forces challenging a Chinese vessel which turns out to be nuclear-armed, with escalatory consequences.

Growing confidence and capabilities

Indian confidence in its ability to achieve an air-delivered counterforce strike — especially with powerful precision conventional munitions — is also increasing. The Pulwama-Balakot crisis featured Indian Prime Minister Modi ordering an airstrike upon Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) facilities in Pakistan’s uncontested national territory, as opposed to Pakistan-governed Kashmir. The airstrike formation was launched from the Ambala airbase, which is widely assessed to host nuclear strike aircraft. Indeed, the formation consisted of 12 Indian Mirage-2000 bombers, which is a platform assigned nuclear missions, alongside 4 protective Sukhoi-Su30MKI fighters, an airborne early warning and radar aircraft, and a refuelling plane. As such, this resembled a classic nuclear strike formation and could have been interpreted as such by Pakistan. Indeed, in response to the attack, Prime Minister Imran Khan publicised his convening of Pakistan’s distinct nuclear National Command Authority leadership, as opposed to the Cabinet Committee on National Security, which meets for more general national security matters and crises.

While the desired destruction of the JeM targets is still a matter of dispute, the Indian Air Force feels it has demonstrated its ability to strike hardened — including nuclear — Pakistani targets at will. In 2017, Air Force Chief Marshal B.S Dhanoa answered a question on the implications of Pakistan’s Nasr tactical nuclear weapons platform with “As far as the Air Force is concerned, it is not only with tactical nuclear weapons, but any target across the border, we have the ability to locate, fix and strike targets across the border”. He did not highlight, as his predecessor did, that such actions would be necessarily conditioned by India’s NFU policy. Moreover, the joint India-Russia Brahmos-II hypersonic cruise missile, which will have air, sea, and ground-launched variants, is described on the official project website as “well suited to attacking hardened or deeply buried targets such as bunkers or nuclear and biological-weapon storage facilities”.

In conclusion

The growing pressure upon the Modi government to be seen to be robustly responding to China’s Ladakh incursions threatens to accelerate these increasingly aggressive developments in Indian nuclear doctrine and posturing. However, in responding to conventional and sub-conventional crises by adopting changes to its nuclear policy and nuclear-relevant operations, New Delhi still refuses to learn the lessons from the 2008 Mumbai attacks, 2019 Pulwama bombing, and 2020 Ladakh incursions crisis: that early detection, potential interdiction, and (in the case of Mumbai) feasible conventional response options were hindered by severe deficiencies in India’s intelligence systems and conventional forces. These, and not nuclear forces, must be the target for Indian investment and modernisation as New Delhi commences a new phase of heightened competition with China.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Author biography

Frank O’Donnell is a nonresident fellow in the Stimson Center South Asia Program. He researches the intersection between strategic cultures, technical force developments, deterrence conceptions, and stability challenges within nuclear rivalries, with a particular focus on South Asia. Image credit: Wikipedia Commons.

South Asia, Most Popular9DLJuly 31, 2020India, South Asia, China