2020 - A challenging year yet a satisfying year, professionally

2020 has remained a challenging year for the world around and I was no exception.  Personally, it was a trying year with a lot of dislocations.  Nevertheless, it has been a satisfying year, professionally speaking.  

In March 2020, I was offered to join the Perth USAsia Centre as part of their inaugural Indo-Pacific Fellow programme for a period of nine months.  While I represented India, there were colleagues, one each from Australia, Japan, Indonesia and Vietnam.  It was a very fulfilling experience.  As part of the fellowship, I did a number of essays and webinars: Towards A Quad-Plus Arrangement?; Uneasy Contradictions Continue in India's Strategic Engagements; Countering ChineseAssertiveness: India’sChanging Posture in the Indian Ocean; and a forthcoming one, looking at how India-Australia relations will continue to get stronger in the face of an aggressive China.  

I got a peer reviewed journal article, "India's Emerging Space Assets and Nuclear-Weapons Capabilities" published in The Non-proliferation Review in March 2020.  In this article, I argue that over the last five decades, India’s nuclear and space programs have gone through several phases, from collaboration to divorce to supportive. An interplay of two factors determined the nature of the relationship. One was the state of India’s nuclear-weapon program. The second was international conditions, especially India’s relationship with the nuclear-nonproliferation regime. In the early decades, because of the rudimentary nature of India’s nuclear and space programs, the relationship was collaborative, since the rocket technology being developed was a necessary adjunct to the nuclear-weapon program. Subsequently, as India’s rocketry capabilities and nuclear-weapon program began to mature and concerns about international sanctions under the non-proliferation regime began to grow, the two programs were separated. The Indian rocketry program was also divided, with the civilian-space and ballistic-missile programs clearly demarcated. After India declared itself a nuclear-weapon state in 1998 and the programs matured, the relationship has become more supportive. As the two programs mature further, this relationship is likely to deepen, as the nuclear-weapon program requires space assets to build a robust and survivable nuclear deterrent force.  

In May 2020, the Office of Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India and the Department of Science and Technology invited me to be part of the process of formulating India's new Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy (STIP 2020).  As part of the STIP 2020 policy drafting exercise, 21 thematic groups (TGs) were constituted and I was asked to be a member and Co-Chair of the TG-Strategic Technologies.  It was such an honour and privilege for me to part of this exercise, discussing and coming up with recommendations on India's strategic technologies.  The report should be out within a few months, I guess.  

In October 202, I was invited to be part of the Editorial Board of Asian Security.  It is one of the top ranking journals on various aspects of national and international security in Asia.  I am honoured and delighted to be joining the journal in this capacity.  

In November 2020, I was part of the Bloomberg-Intelligence Squared US debate, "That's Debatable - Is A U.S.-China Space Race Good for Humanity?".  The debate was aired on November 7, 2020 and it is available at: https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/us-china-space-race-good-humanity.  American theoretical physicist, Prof. Michio Kaku and I argued against the motion, and Prof. Avi Loeb and Bidhushi Bhattacharya argued for the motion, and so well-moderated by John Donvan.  This was so much fun and we won the debate.  

I thought I will highlight some of my professional activities here but I have updated my blog with most of these developments on a reasonably regular basis.  

Disarmament Still A Talk Shop Topic

Here's the link to an article of mine on the recently concluded NPT Review Conference and how disarmament remains a distant dream for the near future.

As long as Asia continues in this vicious cycle of security and insecurity, the salience of nuclear weapons in the overall security calculus cannot diminish, which in a way indicates that nuclear weapons will continue to play a major role in the coming decades and the issue of disarmament remains a talk shop topic and not a reality.



NPT Review Conference 2010 was considered a success by many around the world, wherein 189 countries were able to finalize on a 28-page document that reiterated nuclear disarmament, the need to prevent “further proliferation of nuclear weapons,” as well as “preserving the [Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons] Treaty’s vital contribution to peace and security.” Some in India have not been happy with the mentioning of India in the final document which called upon India, Pakistan and Israel to sign the treaty as non-Nuclear Weapon States and to put nuclear facilities under the comprehensive safeguards of the IAEA. But, by and large, the bottom line was that the Treaty is a good thing and it is also a good thing to be a “Friend of the NPT.” However, on the issue of whether the conference was a step forward, there are different views, depending on what one wanted to achieve through this conference. Assuming that stopping horizontal proliferation was a major objective, the conference did not see much progress. There are not going to be any “rollbacks” nor can one predict with certainty that more countries will not go nuclear in the near future, before the next NPT Review Conference in 2015. Therefore, global disarmament is likely to remain a pipe dream for the near future.

If nuclear proliferation is really as big a problem as the US and others seem to believe, then greater attention needs to be paid to nuclear disarmament. This is one side of the story – the demand side of the problem: as long as nuclear weapons remain legitimate for some, others are bound to seek it also. And this is not just for reasons of prestige, as it has been made out in the case of India. The Cold War rivalry drove the US and Soviet arsenals, and thereafter, Chinese insecurities about the US, and subsequently the Soviet power drove the Chinese to develop their arsenal. That same chain reaction led to the Indian and Pakistani nuclear weapons programme. This quest is likely to continue in the foreseeable future. Even if overwhelming American military power manages to stem the tide of proliferation for the next several years, the inevitable (relative) waning of American power can be counted upon to lead to a new round of WMD proliferation. Indeed, the disparity in power between the US and the other powers itself is likely to spur other nations to seek nuclear weapons. For example, North Korea seems to have decided that the main lesson of the decade-long crisis over Iraq is that one cannot challenge the US without first acquiring nuclear weapons.

The non-proliferation fundamentalists of Washington have found it very convenient to assume and even conclude that states pursue nuclear weapons for purpose of prestige, since it then precluded them from looking at the real reasons for acquiring these weapons – security-related reasons. If Washington shifts its focus to security concerns as the key, then the reasonably correct conclusion would be that the process of proliferation is inevitable unless there is some serious drive towards nuclear disarmament, which is rarely paid the attention it requires. Instead, the global (Washington’s) focus has almost entirely been on the supply side of the question: how and why states acquire these capabilities and what capabilities they acquire. But there are other issues that need attention too.

First and foremost, there should be questions as to how the policies of the great powers have encouraged such acquisition; Pakistan’s acquisition/development of nuclear weapons is a good point to start with. Without American and Chinese acquiescence or assistance, neither Pakistan nor Israel could have acquired nuclear weapons. The logic of such actions suggests that a significant source of future proliferation could be the imperatives of great power politics. The US policy approaches tend to be very short-sighted. In order to make some quick, tactical gains, these critical issues are often ignored. The manner in which Pakistan-China nuclear proliferation was ignored so as to have Pakistan on board for its Cold War policies against the Soviet Union is a classic example.

Second, NPT has been instrumental in seeing that there is no horizontal proliferation, i.e., states other than the five “haves” do not become nuclear weapon states. There has been hardly any mention of vertical proliferation and the need to stem that as well. This mismatch has to be looked into and until then, there cannot be any genuine progress toward nuclear disarmament. This issue needs to be addressed even if regional weapon free zones are to become a reality. Though there has been significant reduction in American and Russian nuclear arsenals, they still have thousands of warheads each and, of course, the other three nuclear powers are not yet part of this nuclear arms control process.

Third, the world is moving towards increasing insecurity. As the Cold War ended, the world in general was expected to become a much more secure place with the disappearance of the two superpowers and their rivalries. However, post-Cold War stability has given way to increasing insecurity, which in turn has put greater emphasis on military modernization, including nuclear weapons, which further increases insecurity. The Asian scenario is a classic case of this. There are several contributing factors, including US unilateralism, particularly during the Bush Administration. Rising China with major military focus has also contributed to the rising insecurities in the region. Similarly, Russian insecurities and its responses to that insecurity as well as increasing adventurism by North Korea have been factors contributing to the securitization of Asia.

As long as Asia continues in this vicious cycle of security and insecurity, the salience of nuclear weapons in the overall security calculus cannot diminish, which in a way indicates that nuclear weapons will continue to play a major role in the coming decades and the issue of disarmament remains a talk shop topic and not a reality.

Role of Nuclear Weapons in Asian Security Landscape

In the nuclear arena, the US remains the only country that is capable enough to “disarm the long-range nuclear arsenals of Russia or China with a nuclear first strike.”



Scholars like Lieber and Press believe that a pre-emptive strike by the US on Russia during a “peacetime alert” and on China even during a “crisis time alert” can be reasonably successful. These scholars argue that China and Russia cannot claim to have a “survivable nuclear deterrent.” It should, however, be noted despite major technological gap, Russia and China in the last few years have been forced to improve their capabilities for two reasons. One, Russia and China want to eliminate their existing vulnerabilities; and second, because the US has continued with a policy of maintaining nuclear primacy.

Of course, China’s nuclear capabilities have been expanding also because it is not limited by any international arms control agreements, unlike the US and Russia. This could lead to a nuclear arms race, potentially reducing US security and increasing regional insecurities, particularly that of Japan. China and Russia could improve their nuclear capabilities by expanding their nuclear arsenals, dispersing their nuclear forces, pre-delegating the launch authority to local commanders, thus avoiding delay in decision-making, and possibly also adopting hair-trigger nuclear retaliatory doctrines. Japan also believes that China could move away from its current nuclear posture of minimum deterrence to developing a “robust second-strike capability, perhaps with Japan as a primary target.”

However, the more worrying aspect for Japan is that US nuclear primacy could be eroding with projected reduction in US nuclear capability and an increase in the Chinese capabilities. In such a scenario, the US might enter into a bilateral arms control agreement with China that “endorses protection of a Chinese limited nuclear strike capability against the United States, with a decoupling effect that would be devastating for Japan.” Also, if a nuclear arms race recurs, the chances for an accidental nuclear war cannot be ruled out. For instance, an accident involving the US and China during a Taiwan crisis cannot be overlooked. The impact on Japan in any of these situations can be nightmarish.

DPJ Coming to Power: How Does It Impact on the US-Japan Security Alliance?

Here's an anlysis on the weekend electios in Japan and how if the opposition party, DPJ comes into power, will affect US-Japan security alliance. The analysis first appeared on the ORF website.

Yukio Hatoyama, leader of the DPJ, who could become Japan’s next Prime Minister, has stated that he will ban US nuclear weapons from Japanese soil if the DPJ is elected. The DPJ is also reported to be developing a stance that is “more independent of the United States.” However, it is unlikely that Japan will shift policies radically even under the DPJ; Tokyo rather wait and watch the unfolding US policies under Obama and respond accordingly. The US-Japan security alliance will continue to be the cornerstone of its foreign and security policy, whether it is an LDP or DPJ government in power.



With the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) set to come to power following the weekend elections, the issue of US nuclear weapons on Japanese soil is in the news. Yukio Hatoyama, leader of the DPJ, who could become Japan’s next Prime Minister, has stated that he will ban US nuclear weapons from Japanese soil if the DPJ is elected. However, it is unlikely that Japan will shift policies radically even under the DPJ; Tokyo rather wait and watch the unfolding US policies under Obama and respond accordingly. The US-Japan security alliance will continue to be the cornerstone of its foreign and security policy, whether it is an LDP or DPJ government in power.
Hatoyama’s comments relate to the controversial and “secret” pact between US and Japan to allow the US to bring nuclear weapons into Japan even unannounced and without prior bilateral consultations. In his remarks on a television programme, Hatoyama is reported to have said that he will follow up the issue “with firm determination” with the Obama Administration, in getting a guarantee from President Barack Obama on not deploying American nuclear weapons on Japanese territory. Some documents declassified in 1999 showed that both the countries had reached an agreement in 1959 that would allow US warships and aircrafts carrying nuclear weapons to make a stop-over in Japan as also pass through Japanese air space and/or territorial waters even without prior consultation with Tokyo. These documents were reclassified immediately after the Japanese request to cancel the declassification, as these documents dealt with issues that are sensitive to Japan. The original US-Japan security Treaty was concluded in 1951 but it was the revised treaty of 1960 that included provisions for prior consultations on the issue of US bringing in nuclear weapons into Japan. However, nuclear-armed US warships and aircrafts passing through Japan was exempted from these consultations. This secret deal is in clear violation of the “three principles” that Japan has put in place, of not producing, possessing or allowing nuclear weapons to be brought into Japan. While this is not legally binding, there is significant opposition to nuclear weapons among the public. This is despite the fact there is a new sense of nationalism developing particularly among the younger generation. Some Japanese security analysts are reportedly of the view that this new nationalism could affect Japan significantly in the sense that they may not feel the need to be relying on the US for their security and be beholden to US objectives and principles. They may even result in questioning the need to continue with a pacifist constitution imposed upon them by the US. If that be the case, it could lead to an independent foreign and security policy, including the nuclear option.
The DPJ is also reported to be developing a stance that is “more independent of the United States.” The opposition party in fact has vowed to question the US on several foreign and security policies issues, while seeking to improve ties with countries like North Korea and China, which have been Japan’s traditional adversaries. While improving relations with Beijing and Pyongyang may be in the interests of Japan, distancing from the US may prove to be difficult. Japan, having been under the US security umbrella for the last fifty years, has not developed adequate military capability. While there is skepticism in the minds of Japanese policy makers and leaders about the reliability of the US as a credible partner, they believe the US security cover still remains the best option. Moving away from that cover may not prove to be a viable option, as several Japanese policy analysts have pointed out. However, if US power is in serious decline and if it is not able to provide extended deterrence, it could lead to some regional powers taking security on their shoulders rather than relying on the US. Second, given the kind of highly interdependent relationship between China and the US, especially in the current scenario of global economic crisis, Japanese security analysts wonder whether the US would provide that kind of security to Japan if there is a catastrophic attack on Japan from North Korea or China. A related but similar concern in Japan stems from the fact that closer Sino-US partnership could possibly widen the “gap between Tokyo’s and Washington’s security perspectives” and could weaken the US security commitment.
The DPJ has also been in clear opposition to the Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) policy of extending and widening the scope of Japanese military capability. In the post-Cold War era, particularly during the first War, Japan came under sharp criticism from the US that Tokyo was enjoying a free ride without taking any security roles or responsibilities. Following such critique, Japan began to assume larger politico-strategic and security roles by increasingly engaging power in ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), East Asia Summit (EAS) as well as sending its Self Defence Forces (SDFs) to distant theatres such as the Indian Ocean, Iraq, and the Gulf of Aden on anti-piracy missions. The LDP has continued to argue that these measures are necessary for strengthening the US-Japan security alliance. The DPJ, being in opposition, has continued to oppose these laws, including blocking one of the military missions. On the current agreement on extending refueling support to the US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan, the DPJ has maintained that instead of withdrawing the support immediately, it will continue till the end of the term (December 2009).
While the DPJ may argue for peace and cooperation with North Korea and China, the reality of missile strikes or nuclear threats and the lack of transparency of the Chinese military programme will hit them once they are in power. It is possible that once they are in positions of power, these realities will force them to become more realistic and pragmatic. The question of nuclear weapons and a more assertive and independent foreign and security policy approach too is likely to be corrected after assuming power. It should be noted that the DPJ has hardly been in power, except for a brief period of 11 months in the mid-1990s. Serious geopolitical developments in the region such as a possible Korean reunification, although a distant possibility, too will have serious consequences for Japan. If re-unification of the Koreas takes place, another question that will gain immediate prominence will be whether that it would be a nuclear Korea. In such a scenario, distancing from the US may not be a realistic option for Japan. Instead, one may witness a further strengthening of the US-Japan alliance, irrespective of the fact whether a DPJ or an LDP government in power. In the years ahead, as the US power is seen to be gradually waning, Japan may have to shoulder more of its security responsibilities.

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1 Emma Chanlett-Avery and Mary Beth Nikitin, “Japan’s Nuclear Future: Policy Debate, Prospects, and US Interests,” CRS Report for Congress, February 19, 2009, available at http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL34487.pdf.
2 Brad Glosserman, “Japan Peers into the Abyss,” PacNet Newsletter #20, March 20, 2008, cited in Emma Chanlett-Avery and Mary Beth Nikitin, “Japan’s Nuclear Future: Policy Debate, Prospects, and US Interests,” CRS Report for Congress, February 19, 2009, available at http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL34487.pdf.