‘No First Use’ is not sacrosanct - EDEN IAS CURRENT AFFAIRS FOR UPSC What would be the response of India if it comes across credible intelligence that Pakistan is preparing to launch nuclear-armed missiles as a means to escalate military hostilities? Would India wait for Pakistan to undertake a nuclear first strike, possibly on a major population centre like the National Capital Region (NCR), killing a million or more, and then mobilise its second-strike forces to strike Pakistan and inflict “unacceptable damage, ” as India’s Draft Nuclear Doctrine (DND) of 1999 proclaims? Or, instead, would it undertake a pre-emptive strike – either through a conventional air strike or with nuclear-tipped short/interim-range missiles – on Pakistani bases gearing up for striking targets in India? India’s ‘No First Use’ doctrine (NFU) on the use of nuclear weapons is open for change in the future, defence minister Rajnath Singh has indicated, reflecting thinking within the establishment that no policy is writ in stone and could be modified to deal with current realities. Votaries of NFU believe that it aptly reflects India’s moralistic ethos of a peaceful nation that uses its nuclear weapons responsibly even if the posture is inconsistent with the threat environment, denoted by two nuclear-armed rivals with characteristically different postures. What is No First Use (NFU) Policy? A commitment to not be the first to use a nuclear weapon in a conflict has long been India’s stated policy. Pakistan, by contrast, has openly threatened India with the use of nuclear weapons on multiple occasions beginning from the time the two nations were not even acknowledged nuclear powers. After the 1998 nuclear test when India declared itself a nuclear weapon state, it also enunciated a doctrine of ‘no first use’ of nuclear weapons. Put simply, Indian decision-makers categorically rejected the idea of initiating the use of nuclear weapons in any conflict scenario. India’s nuclear doctrine was purely retaliatory in nature. On January 4, 2003, the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) met to review the progress in operationalizing the country’s nuclear doctrine. An official release issued that day summarized the decisions that were being put in the public domain. Among the major points in the doctrine was “a posture of No First Use”, which was described as follows: “Nuclear weapons will only be used in retaliation against a nuclear attack on Indian territory or on Indian forces anywhere”. However, the doctrine made it clear that India’s “nuclear retaliation to a nuclear attack strike will be massive and designed to inflict unacceptable damage”. FOR FULL ARTICLE CLICK ON THE LINK https://www.edenias.com/no-first-use-is-not-sacrosanct-current-affairs-by-eden-ias/