ABSTRACT
The transformation of the global nuclear landscape and the increasing international competition among the great powers, together with the challenges posed by rapid changes in the South Asian security context, have a strong influence on how India is responding to the Third Nuclear Age. While nuclear weapons continue to play an important role in Indian security strategy, military leaders have been investing resources to develop and acquire more sophisticated technologies, such as missile defences, hypersonic missiles, nuclear-powered submarines and ASAT capabilities. But this does not necessarily reflect a deliberate “counter-force” capability, as some have suggested, but rather a policy of technological and political hedging. Likewise, officials in New Delhi have sought to deepen strategic and defence ties with both the United States and Russia (and Israel), cement links with the non-aligned world and at the same time balance against an increasingly more powerful and influential China. The Indian role in the Third Nuclear Age seems likely to be significant, but as yet, it isn’t clear exactly what form that will take.
