Indian Politics & Policy Volume 1, Number 2, Fall 2018 | Page 9
Indian Politics & Policy
dian political parties and prime ministers
have been in office. Diverse groups
of Indian political leaders have repeatedly
chosen circumspect responses that
have clearly been intended to limit escalation
to a major India–Pakistan war.
Thus, the 20 th anniversary of the 1998
Indian and Pakistani nuclear explosive
tests is a propitious time to examine India’s
political–military behavior in the
shadow of nuclear weapons. This paper
investigates a question of great importance
for the future of crisis stability in
a nuclearized South Asia: Why has New
Delhi consistently chosen non-escalatory
responses in the face of Pakistani
aggression?
There can be, of course, no mono-causal
explanations for such vital
and complex national security decisions.
Numerous, varied pressures
weigh heavily on decision makers, and
different individuals and organizations
prioritize these factors in different orders.
In addition, each individual conflict
episode has its own idiosyncratic
contributing factors. Across the four
episodes, though, broader patterns
emerge from India’s policy choices that
narrow causes down to the most essential
ones. Broadly speaking, the explanations
most often adduced by scholars
for India’s cautious responses to Pakistani
and Pakistan-abetted aggression
identify four causes: (1) nuclear deterrence,
or the fear that more lethal Indian
military action would run the risk of
Pakistani nuclear retaliation or set off
an uncontrollable escalatory process
that could lead to a nuclear exchange; 9
(2) timely and energetic U.S. diplomatic
intervention to help manage conflicts
and reduce tensions before they escalate
to major war; 10 (3) an Indian “doctrine”
of strategic restraint that predisposes
political leaders to prefer nonmilitary
responses to security challenges emanating
from Pakistan; 11 and (4) a dearth
of good conventional military options
that would induce Pakistan to cease its
provocations without running the risk
of conflict escalation to major war, perhaps
even to a nuclear exchange. 12
My main argument has two
threads. First, three of these four causes—nuclear
deterrence, U.S. crisis management,
and the lack of good conventional
military options—combine to
best explain Indian forbearance in the
face of Pakistani provocations. Second,
the primary factor causing India to refrain
from more vigorous retaliation
has been nuclear deterrence. U.S. crisis
management and the absence of good
conventional military options were also
influential across the four conflict episodes,
but less so. These two causes are
closely tied—and subservient—to the
influence of nuclear weapons, which
sparked U.S. crisis management efforts
in the first place and severely limited
Indian conventional military options.
I argue that the least compelling explanation
for Indian moderation is the
ostensible doctrine of Indian strategic
restraint, which stems mainly from
the deterrent power of nuclear weapons
themselves, not from any doctrine
or abiding principle of Indian strategic
culture. The remainder of this paper
is organized in the following way. The
next four sections, respectively, provide
succinct narrative accounts of the 1999,
2001–02, 2008, and 2016 India–Paki-
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