Credible minimum deterrence is the principle on which

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

nuclear strategy Nuclear strategy involves the development of doctrines and strategies for the production and use of nuclear weapons. As a sub-branch of military strategy, nuclear strategy attempts to match nuclear weapons as means to political ends. In additi ...

is based. It underlines

no first use In nuclear ethics and deterrence theory, No first use (NFU) refers to a type of pledge or policy wherein a nuclear power formally refrains from the use of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in warfare, except for as a seco ...

(NFU) with an assured

second strike In nuclear strategy, a retaliatory strike or second-strike capability is a country's assured ability to respond to a nuclear attack with powerful nuclear retaliation against the attacker. To have such an ability (and to convince an opponent of it ...

capability and falls under

minimal deterrence In nuclear strategy, minimal deterrence, also known as minimum deterrence and finite deterrence, is an application of deterrence theory in which a state possesses no more nuclear weapons than is necessary to deter an adversary from attacking.Kriste ...

, as opposed to

mutually assured destruction Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy which posits that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker on a nuclear-armed defender with second-strike capabilities would cause the ...

. India's tentative nuclear doctrineHosted at www.pugwash.org -
Draft Report of National Security Advisory Board on Indian Nuclear Doctrine
'' was announced on August 17, 1999 by the secretary of the

National Security Advisory Board The National Security Council (NSC) (IAST: ''Rāṣṭrīya Surakṣā Pariṣad'') of India is an executive government agency tasked with advising the Prime Minister's Office on matters of national security and strategic interest. It was est ...

Brajesh Mishra Brajesh Chandra Mishra (29 September 1928 – 28 September 2012) was an Indian diplomat from the Indian Foreign Service and politician, best known for serving as Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's principal secretary and National Security Ad ...

. Later, the draft was adopted with some modifications when the Nuclear Command Authority was announced on January 4, 2003. A significant modification was the dilution of the NFU principle to include nuclear retaliation to attacks by biological and chemical weapons.

References

Credible Minimum Deterrence Credible minimum deterrence is the principle on which India's nuclear strategy is based. It underlines no first use (NFU) with an assured second strike capability and falls under minimal deterrence, as opposed to mutually assured destruction. I ...

Nuclear weapons programme of India Vajpayee administration 2003 in India {{India-gov-stub

See also

References