Book Summary of Managing Indias Nuclear Forces

India is now enmeshed in the deterrence game actively with Pakistan and potentially with China. It is also gaining easier access to fissile materials and strategic technologies. To deal with these developments thoughtfully India needs a much more sophisticated and multi-disciplinary understanding of the strategic, technological, operational, and cost issues involved in nuclear matters. There is danger today of nuclear forces getting expanded and upgraded without enhancing deterrence and deterrence stability. There is the linked problem of Indias nuclear force management system being grafted on a very sub-optimal defence management system. The defence management system of a nuclear power needs to be very good because, besides underpinning a very demanding nuclear force management system, it has to manage the conventional forces in a manner that forestalls nuclear escalation by either side. This book dissects these issues and suggests a way forward taking into account the modified understandings about deterrence that has evolved worldwide in the last two decades.