India’s emerging space assets and nuclear-weapons capabilities - my essay in the latest Nonproliferation Review

In the latest issue of The Nonproliferation Review (Volume 26, 2019 - Issue 5-6), I published an essay examining the linkages between India’s emerging space assets and nuclear-weapons capabilities. This is a special issue on South Asia, The Shifting South Asian Nuclear Landscape, put together by Prof. Sumit Ganguly and has several other interesting essays including one on future of deterrence in South Asia, Pakistan's nuclear future and the Sino-Indian nuclear dynamics.

In this essay, I argue that the relationship between India’s nuclear and space programmes has waxed and waned. Three phases can be identified that the relationship went through. There was a period in the early days of both the programmes when the relationship was close, signified by the fact that they were even headed by the same leadership, Dr. Vikram Sarabhai. For a variety of reasons that included growing maturity of both programmes but also political decisions about the need to separate the two programmes to reduce international concerns, the programmes became autonomous of each other for a period of time. More recently, over the last two decades, there has been greater collaboration between the two programmes though the nature of the cooperation is very different from what it was in the first phase. In this essay, I outline these three stages chronologically and conclude with some thoughts about how the relationship is likely to evolve.

For the full essay, click here.



It is a long essay and I concluded with the following:

Evolution of the relationship between India’s nuclear and space sectors has gone through multiple stages, partly as a consequence of domestic factors such as bureaucratic politics, technology development as well as due to international conditions such as the state of India’s relations with the global nuclear regime. In the current space, both the maturing of India’s technological capabilities in both the nuclear and space sectors and the evolution of India’s nuclear weapons programmes as well as the changed relationship between India and the global regime has led to a synergistic relationship in which India’s space programme provides significant support to India’s nuclear weapons programme. This is likely to continue for a period of time because India’s nuclear programme is still growing and it has not reached completion. For example, India still does not have a fully developed deterrence capability against China because it does not have any delivery system that can cover all of China. Moreover, the growing Chinese nuclear and space capabilities will require India to undertake further efforts before India can have a satisfactory deterrence relationship with China.

At the same time, the evolution of India’s nuclear weapons programme has changed the relationship between the nuclear and space programmes in at least two ways. First, the development of India’s missile systems outside the ISRO means that the Indian nuclear programme no longer has to depend on the space programme for this particular requirement. The DRDO has come a long way from its early efforts and is now fully capable of developing the delivery vehicles that India’s nuclear weapons programme needs. Second, the growth and complexity of India’s nuclear weapons establishment means that it needs other service support to fully exploit the delivery capability that India has developed. For example, it makes little sense to have delivery capabilities without advanced command and control systems to manage the delivery capability and ensure that it is used appropriately, which requires support from space-based communication and command systems. Similar reasons apply for intelligence and target acquisition, which are also space-based. Therefore, as the Indian nuclear weapons programme becomes more sophisticated, it also requires additional support from India’s space capabilities. What this suggests is that as India’s nuclear weapons programme continues to develop, we should expect a closer and more synergistic relationship between India’s nuclear and space programmes.

Can India Make Headway in the Nuclear Suppliers Group in 2018? - June 14, 2018

My third essay in June for The Diplomat - Can India Make Headway in the Nuclear Suppliers Group in 2018? - focused on the NSG plenary that is underway this week and examining India's NSG membership issue. How likely is the NSG to discuss and make progress on the issue? Despite New Delhi’s continued hopes and some encouraging signs, significant challenges remain.

Becoming an NSG member would be a major foreign policy achievement for the Modi government but given China’s opposition, it is unlikely that this week’s plenary will see any forward movement. Nevertheless, given India’s technological advancements and its potential to engage in nuclear commerce in the future, it should be an imperative for the participating governments to bring India into the NSG tent rather than leave it outside.

For the full essay, click here.



The next plenary of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) is taking place this week, and a second plenary for the year later in December. India is making some serious but quiet efforts to garner support for its membership into the group, an exclusive club of 48 nuclear supplier countries.

The NSG strives to uphold and strengthen the nonproliferation architecture by implementing its own guidelines to regulate nuclear commerce. India has now become a member of three of the four export control mechanisms that deal with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and other strategic technologies – the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) in June 2016, the Wassenaar Arrangement in December 2017, and the Australia Group in January 2018.

Upon admission into the Australia Group, the group announced, “With its admission into the AG, India has demonstrated the will to implement rigorous controls of high standards in international trade, and its capacity to adapt its national regulatory system to meet the necessities of its expanding economy.” With accession to the three export control regimes, India has attempted to prove its nonproliferation credentials, particularly important because India is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Becoming an NSG member would be a major foreign policy achievement for the Modi government but given China’s opposition, it is unlikely that this week’s plenary will see any forward movement. Nevertheless, given India’s technological advancements and its potential to engage in nuclear commerce in the future, it should be an imperative for the participating governments to bring India into the NSG tent rather than leave it outside.

India’s membership bid was first taken up for discussion at the Seoul plenary in June 2016 but Beijing at first even refused to entertain India’s case for discussion, using as an excuse India’s refusal to join the NPT. Though they were some other countries that were also unenthusiastic about India’s membership, it was China’s opposition that scuttled India’s entry into the NSG. The question is whether the recent bonhomie between India and China following the informal summit in Wuhan changed ground realities in India’s favor.

Indian security analysts believe that things are looking up for India. Many believe that there is a considerable shift in India-China relations after Modi’s meeting with Xi in Wuhan on April 27 and 28. While there is a general mood of optimism in the air and the optics of the relationship have improved, it is too early to suggest concrete positive changes in the bilateral relations between the two. Since the NSG makes decisions on the basis of consensus, there is little chance of India being able to join the NSG unless China drops its opposition.

Currently, India is believed to have undertaken some quiet diplomacy in reaching out to strategic partners and friends to push India’s membership at the upcoming NSG plenary. India has been in touch with countries such as the United States, Russia, and the Netherlands to make a concerted push at this week’s plenary.

The Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte, during his recent visit to India reaffirmed the Dutch support to India’s NSG aspirations. The joint statement issued at the end of the visit noted, “In order to further strengthen global non-proliferation, the Netherlands reaffirmed its strong support to building consensus among regimes’ members on the issue of India’s membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group; recognizing that India’s accession will add value to the aims and objectives of these regimes.”

It is not clear as to what extent these countries have been successful in effecting a change of mind in Beijing. India has also been articulating the need to have a merit-based approach while considering new applicants. India’s clean nonproliferation track record along with the NSG waiver in 2008 should strengthen the case for India. But there is also some understandable fear that member-states will get stuck at first establishing criteria to consider new membership cases.

Meanwhile, India is also trying to work with other countries such as Brazil, Argentina and South Africa, to head-off any procedural issue – which usually is an excuse — with examining the Indian application. South Africa has more than on one occasion extended support to India’s NSG membership bid.

India’s heightened diplomatic outreach to many of the NSG member countries is testament to the importance of this to the Modi Government. In May this year, the two ministers from the Ministry of External Affairs, MJ Akbar and VK Singh, were in Austria and Argentina respectively pushing the NSG agenda. India also hosted the foreign minister of Serbia in May.

But clearly, the big puzzle is China. If China were to behave as a more magnanimous power, it could change not only Sino-Indian relations for the better, but potentially wider Asian power dynamics as well. But this is far from certain.

India: Diversifying Arms Purchases

Here's an essay that I co-authored with Siddharth Sivaraman on India's exercise at diversifying arms purchases and how India might maximize its strategic gains and opportunities by making the right choices... The essay published in the Diplomat on August 13, 2014, additionally makes an argument on India should increase its military imports from the U.S., particularly drones.

India needs to diversify its arms imports. Although it is one of the world’s largest arms importers, most of India’s weapons come from Russia. Over the last five years, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Russia accounted for about $15 billion of the $20 billion in arms that India imported, or about three-quarters. That level of dependence is unhealthy: One of the reasons why India bought the Jaguar Bomber from a European consortium in the 1970s was the concern that India was becoming dependent on Soviet weapons.

India began diversifying when it awarded a contract for advanced air force fighters to France, though negotiations for the Rafale have dragged on interminably and have yet to be completed. India also buys some significant quantities of Israeli weapons.

But New Delhi has not sufficiently tapped the U.S., without question the country with the most advanced military technology in the world. Although the U.S. is India’s second largest source of weapons, it accounted for less than seven percent of India’s arms imports in value terms over the last five years. It is time that India diversified its arms sources by getting more of its weapons from the U.S., especially when cutting-edge technology is involved, as in advanced drones.

There are multiple advantages for India in making better use of U.S. weapons options. First, New Delhi could negotiate the development of state-of-the-art drone technologies, in which the U.S. has the most experience, with drones – or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) – such as the MQ-8 Fire Scout and/or long-range drones such as the MQ-9 Reaper or even the older Predator B. This would add a new dimension to UAVs with persistent capabilities for India, and it would also help kick start investments in this sector.

A U.S. senator recently proposed the joint manufacturing of weapons system, including drones. As the Indian military moves towards network-centric warfare, the importance of UAV technology will increase as it forms an important nodal center for intelligence gathering and dissemination. Currently the fleet of Searcher and long-range Heron drones is a good one, but there are operational limitations because of Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) guidelines, which restrict the sale of unmanned systems that fly more than 300 km and can carry payloads more than or equal to 500 kg.

The drone’s sensor intelligence gathering also requires capabilities in analysis and advanced software for interpreting data. The addition of this capability will also be important for the overall drone and imagery analysis architecture. Indeed, full-fledged UAV systems would give a tremendous boost to India’s surveillance capabilities. This will require bold thinking by policymakers to launch India into the select group of countries that can field long-range UAVs at short notice. However, such cutting edge technologies are shared, they are not given away.

For advanced technologies such as the MQ-9 Reaper, India will have to give ground, as such technologies cannot be readily obtained, even with a 100 percent FDI policy in the defense manufacturing sector.

Low observable technologies, under which the most modern UAVs fall, are heavily restricted for export by the U.S. government. Long-range drone operations in international waters require interoperability and information sharing, which can be a complicated endeavor involving a Communication Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA) with the U.S., but the advantages of learning long-range drone operations could be enormous. International search and rescue operations have increasingly involved the use of drones. Drones, along with air assets such as maritime patrol aircraft (MPA), would be help fill the large surveillance gaps in India’s vast ocean territories, which it must safeguard. Surveillance and around-the-clock monitoring of activities in the Indian Ocean, where traffic has seen a manifold increase, is significant. This fits well with the 2006 U.S.-India Framework for Maritime Security Cooperation that emphasizes cooperation in areas including piracy, smuggling, and WMD proliferation through maritime routes. The procurement of drones on a strategic level is paramount, so why should India not do all it can to acquire this surveillance capability?

Could the sale of such systems mean that the two countries can finally bury antique agreements such as the CISMOA and the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geo-spatial Cooperation (BECA)? Much remains to be said about how the U.S. government would view such an interest by India. U.S. aircraft have already given an edge to the strategic airlift capability; can they do the same with respect to India’s strategic surveillance capability?

Technology is important, but who you get it from is even more important. U.S. drones in the Indian inventory would have a huge value in terms of messaging, to friends and foes alike. Strategic partnerships are among the best force multiplier options in an uncertain Asia, and India should leave no stone unturned.