[Jaishankar & other SCO foreign ministers with Xi presiding]
India is tending irrefutably downwards in the external realm, perhaps, for the first time in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 11 years in office to-date.
The fiasco of Op Sindoor May 7-10 was the curtain raiser. I had wondered in a post on the mystery of no deaths other than that of family members of the Terrorist Azhar Mahmood in the Indian strikes on Muridke and Bahawalpur on May 7. That was cleared up early by foreign minister S Jaishankar’s revelation that Islamabad had been pre-warned about the incoming missile attacks on Muridke and Bahawalpur along with an assurance that no military facilities would be struck, and that this was a pre-offer to GHQ, Rawalpindi, to “stand down” after the attacks went through. And how in the wake of the effective May 10 missile and drone barrage, as it were, it was the Pakistan military that sought a ceasefire. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiVNgeKrm-E)
This raises the legitimate question: whether Jaishankar, who is tasked with implementing Modi’s policies re: US — to get close, and China —to give no offence, wasn’t being too clever by half. Jaishankar who apparently prides himself on knowing the American system decided he’d win some brownie points with Washington by alerting the Trump Administration to the M-B strikes before Islamabad was contacted. It boomeranged on India in two ways.
Firstly, Pakistan military, confident that the Indian armed services would be lax, not expecting a hard Pakistani response because New Delhi had given the game away (with its warning of specific targeting) saw it as an opportunity, using the Saab2000 AEWACS and the Chinese satellite guidance, to take down a few unsuspecting IAF aircraft. And also confident that with the US government put in the know by New Delhi, the Indian response even to the takedown of IAF planes — which in Asim Munir’s mind evened out the exchange and the Pak military’s ego was salved, would be limited. This proved to be the case. Why else, if the Indian government felt that it had militarily the upper hand, would it accept Pakistan’s offer of ceasefire May 10 considering Pakistan had hit back and its narrative was gaining traction worldwide at India’s expense? Recall that not a single country supported India’s actions.
Secondly, by informing Washington first, or at all, Jaishankar had set Trump up for an easy boastful diplomatic romp, and the Modi regime for a fall. Not one to miss out on hyperbolicising the “nuclear” aspect of any conflict, especially one that can be given a religious colouring an India-Pak, Hindu-Muslim, skirmish and trumpeting his own exaggerated role in defusing a flashpoint. He is so desperate for a Nobel Peace Prize — remember he wants to match Obama, who won the prize for nothing more than a single peace speech in Prague— surely, in his blunderbuss fashion Trump has done more!!
Short of broadcasting it through PIB, the Modi government had made the restricted nature of India’s Pahalgam retaliation amply clear, once it broached the topic of Indian strikes to the Trump Admin. So, any follow up actions by the Indian army to capitalise on the situation were ruled out, given that there was no offensive warlike disposition of the army, in any case.
What then was the whole Sindoor episode about other than to polish up Trump’s fictional narrative to boost his Nobel chances??? The government put out that Modi was steaming in frustration with Trump for stealing his thunder, by taking undue credit for shutting down any Indian military escalation as Washington claimed was the case when, other than, the intra-mural (as I called it) motivation to show up Munir for his puerile “48 hour” threat with the Indian May 10 missile attacks, nothing else was on the cards.
What this episode revealed was Modi’s low standing with Trump because of the latter’s conviction that the Indian PM would not publicly and personally refute his claims’s of his alleged central role in ending Sindoor. And further, that the Indian leader would swallow the insult of Munir’s notable welcome at the White House without in any way damaging the prospects of the Free Trade Agreement with India under negotiation, or hurting the general direction of bilateral relations. Again, Washington was proved right. Because commerce minister Piyush Goel, was gung-ho about an FTA, lining up India for concessions and economic giveaways, including $750 billion worth of annual Indian central, state, and local public procurement that, following the FTA lead with UK and EU, will permit American firms to bid for — driving a stake through the heart of Indian industry.
But Indian-origin —who else? — Washington Beltway think tankers are demanding more. Of India! One of them wants the Modi dispensation to reciprocate years of what he calls America’s “strategic altruism” with more giveaways. Perhaps, the American altruism includes Zbigniew Brzezinski — President Jimmy Carter’s NSA’s policy of encouraging China’s proliferation of nuclear weapon and missile technologies to Pakistan starting in 1979, continued by the incoming Reagan administration, in return for Pakistan army ISI’s staging the CIA’s mujahideen operation to undermine the Soviet military presence in Afghanistan. Just, may be, Jaishankar’s attitude resonates with such advice and India is returning love and bouquets for Trump’s brickbats!!
But shouldn’t the PM be concerned with the “practical” advice he has been getting from his foreign minister, Jaishankar, on how specifically to handle Washington and Trump, in particular? Japan, America’s closest ally in Asia, for example, decided to cancel the scheduled 1st July 2×2 meeting of foreign and defence ministers, to protest Trump’s tariffs and his pressuring Tokyo to increase its defence spending to 5% of GDP. And then here’s Modi’s India, pushed by Jaishankar, revealing plans for a surprise attack on Pakistani heartland, and expecting not only that Washington would be simpatico with the Op’s anti-terrorist slant, but would back it in the venture, entirely misreading the historically strong US commitment to Pakistan, and Trump’s special love and longing for tough-talking generals and in Munir’s case, a self-appointed “Field Marshal”. And more, the Indian government is preparing to “open up” India for American business — as reward for the Trump Admin doing what? Courtesy Jaishankar, for showing up Modi as a weak-kneed leader, and for getting political-diplomatic mud on India’s face. And for the Indian military — not known for being offensive-minded, reinforcing its reputation only for small time actions against a small time foe?
At the other end, there was Jaishankar’s trip to Beijing ostensibly to attend the SCO foreign ministers meet. But his being in the city for several days before the start of the conference led, as a Taiwan-based Indian academic noted, in snide Chinese media reports of India seeking to mend its relations with China and preparing in effect to do what it does best — kowtow! Indian industry’s shortages of rare earths materials and base chemicals for its pharmaceutical factories and electronics components for its telecommunications manufacturers, and the troubling matter of an active Chinese military role with its Beidou LEO satellite constellation the PAF plugged into during Sindoor, and China’s successful forays in winning over the states neighbouring India — Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Bangladesh and, of course, Pakistan, are all seemingly concerns inducing New Delhi to cry Uncle! And for Jaishankar to go cup in hand to his counterpart, Wang Yi.
This dependence on China was engineered by MEA fixated on warm relations with China over decades. After all, what does the Indian Foreign Service officers believe their remit is?? It is apparently not to think strategically, whether in economic or military terms. Because if economic strategies were their concern, they would have long ago warned the Indian government to incentivise the production of electronics components and base chemicals and such, and urged setting up a rare earths refining capacity. Just to make clear, rare earths minerals are available everywhere in lesser or larger quantities — so mining and refining becomes ultimately a costing exercise — what is the country willing to pay for getting indigenously-produced rare earths, that’s the question. In Jaishankar’s MEA calculus, rare earths and base chemicals from China constitute an economic option — no more informed than the Chawri Bazar trader who imports some lampshades! Meanwhile, the Chinese leadership and state were busy cornering not just the global rare earths market by taking ownership of mines and unmined reserves in Africa, Central Asia and South America, but also the manufacturing jobs, and leading the charge on cutting edge science and technology, especially the defining technology of tomorrow — Artificial Intelligence, to boot.
Meanwhile, a decade plus into his job, Modi is still mulling over whether and how much to de-bureaucratise the economy! And ease up on the land, labour and taxation laws to allow investment flows in the manufacturing sector to flood in.
So, how about military strategics? Well, the less said the better I still have the then Foreign Secretary K Raghunath’s words ringing in my ears when I asked him in an NSAB’s session with MEA in 1998 about India’s alighting on a tit-for-tat measure — and I have recounted this interaction umpteen time on this blog and in my books, of nuclear missile arming countries on China’s periphery with nuclear weapons — an albeit belated response to Beijing’s cold blooded equipping of Pakistan with the same along with the transfer of all requisite technologies and designing expertise, even as the US rode shotgun on this illicit commerce. And all that the wretched MEA babu had to say to the NSAB was that reciprocal action was “NOT A PRACTICABLE SOLUTION”!!!
Did anyone in Zhongnanhai caution Chairman Dengxiaoping against such n-proliferation when he embarked on his “Nuclearising Pakistan” actions because it was not befitting “a responsible state”? Or, did anyone in Washington cry halt! when the US first proliferated to Britain and later France, and still later permitted France to nuclear-wise help Israel get over the weapons hump? Or, anyone in Kremlin stop Khrushchev from sending in the mid-1950s nuclear weapons and missile materials, technologies, and experts to China to beef up Communist bloc solidarity?
It falls then to the “responsible state” theming MEA to successfully canvas AGAINST India doing what all the major countries have done when proliferation served their national interests — PROLIFERATE to do in the enemy, the more recklessly the better to have the intended effort. Would Beijing be acting the way it does now with India had New Delhi grown a bit of spine and transferred entirely indigenously developed weapons technologies and expertise to states seeking absolute security against China?
Guess who stops India now from doing the same? It is Modi’s fear of the US and China, and the efforts by MEA personages, like Jaishankar, to bolster that fear to ensure not only that India does NOT use the self defence provision — Article 51 of the UN Charter to onpass sensitive N-tech to friendly countries bordering China, but actually to hamstring the country by pushing it towards shackling itself with still more constraints. Such as membership in, say, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the MEA craves as they have already done vis a vis missile technology by having India sign the Missile Technology Control Regime, join the Wassenaar Agreement, the Australia Group, et al. These are MEA personnel seeking to curry favour with Washington and European governments because their children all reside in the US and the West. A former IFS man and Congress party apparatchik Mani Shankar Aiyar reckoned that over 95% of senior Indian diplomats’ progeny are so placed! Senior Indian military officers too have been part of this game for some 30 years now.
Everybody in the Indian government seems to be up for sale. Who in the Indian government can an Indian citizen anymore trust to do well by the country?
US ambassador John Galbraith during the Kennedy years confessed that a cabinet decision would be communicated to him for a bottle of Scotch! This was the Sixties. Today the price has gone up and is in the form — not of secret offshore accounts — that’s passe’ — but of sons and daughters of officials being taken care of by “scholarships” to Ivy League universities, jobs with Western companies, and resident visas. Talk of a “bikauu” (purchasable) Third World Indian government bureaucracy!
India’s ultimate foreign and military policy tragedy is that foreign interests have always driven them. If, in the early years Nehru relied on the Mountbatten-Blackett duo, in the main, to shape the external policy and national security outlook and approach, today we have our own leaders, diplomats, secretaries to the government and the lot, and senior military officers channeling India into the American/Western dependency trap, while mouthing the “strategic autonomy”-“Nonalignment 3.0” claptrap
Why not just hang a placard — “India for SALE”?
Security Wise 
@BharatKarnad
“Zbigniew Brzezinski — President Jimmy Carter’s NSA’s policy of encouraging China’s proliferation of nuclear weapon and missile technologies to Pakistan starting in 1979 “
where can we read more about this i am aware of the chinese missile arming pakistan but what is the role of USA in the nuclear weaponization of pakistan
nuclear general@ —Please read, Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott’s Deception.
The inability to understand a few basic facts regarding China and Pakistan have caused unbelievable damage to India’s national security
1-Regarding Pakistan the unwillingness to accept the harsh reality that Pakistan represents a supremacist Islamist mindset where the desire and willingness to cause harm to India and Indians is far more than the desire to do something regarding the welfare of the ordinary Pakistani Citizen. Relentless hostility against India based on religious doctrine is the edifice of Pakistani identity. Playing cricket with them, allowing their artists and singers to act in Bollywood Movies, Cultural exchanges, Trade and allowing their “journalists” access to Indian Media only reinforced the disdain the supremacist Islamic mindset had for India. The desire to have better relations with Pakistan was interpreted as a sign of weakness by the decision makers in Pakistan.
2-Regarding China the unwillingness to see China as ruthless exponent of realpolitik whose aim was containing India by nuclear arming Pakistan to ensure that India’s influence would be limited to its geographical boundaries. Containment of India was, is and will always be China’s policy towards India. Basic Balance of Power considerations. Trade will never be able to change this fundamental Chinese policy. In fact it may make India’s case even more weak by fueling dependency on China
Professor Karnad- “Everybody in the Indian government seems to be up for sale. Who in the Indian government can an Indian citizen anymore trust to do well by the country?”
Excellent article. As an India national living in China since more than a decade because of my spouse being a Chinese citizen. I possess more information about China than even the so called Chinese experts in GOI.
I emailed both Rajnath as well as Jaishankar during their recent visits to China requesting an appointment for a personal meeting to discuss Indo-Chinese relations.
None of them even bothered to reply. I am totally convinced about the incompetence mixed with the arrogance of the Indian establishment.
You should name your forthcoming book “Why India will never be a great power ever”
Dear Professor Karnad:
Thanks for saying this. I have been thinking along the same lines but did not have the courage to say this publicly. Kudos to you for saying it so bluntly and honestly.
BTW, I live in Australia and the behavior of Indian officials out here, particularly the art of kowtowing to third rate goras, makes me puke!
Best wishes to you.
Rajat Ganguly
rajatganguly@outlook.com
The current government’s policies are causing more harm than good, but the alternatives appear even less promising, leaving us with two poor choices. China’s economy is struggling, so India should take a firm stand and restrict their market access. China freely sells its goods in India, using the resulting foreign exchange to fund arms supplies to our neighbors.
Despite daily challenges like poor air quality and traffic, the Indian public is resilient. Banning cheap Chinese products would be a minor inconvenience compared to these struggles.
just 2-3 days gutham gutha with Pakistan to get votes in bihar election our tragedy is our leaders don’t see beyond their nose no strategic thinking no long term planning just plan how to get votes
Thank you for this article. Mr Jaishankar’s body language when he first uttered those words about Pakistan being pre-warned was quite telling. He appeared flabbergasted. The stress of the past few days was clearly showing on him in my judgement. JD Vance’s suggestion about keeping the response limited to avoid a regional conflict and everything that happed there after, corroborates that at least US if not Pak directly, was forewarned. Except perhaps Modi government did not expect such an open backstabbing by Trump thereafter. Successive Indian governments are turning India into a US lackey progressively since the Nuke deal, expecting some great tech transfer or economic transformation assisted by the west. None of which is easily forthcoming. This trade deal which is clearly already done and only some delay in signing is being done to give an impression that India will not work on a “deadline”.
You have boldly mentioned the fact about how a well placed, compromised person on top, can undermine the effort, of a thousand people. It is necessary that sensitivity to conflict of interest and revolving door is etched in a government transparency law, that will shield our decision makers from external influence. I think you have mentioned about the power of H1B repeatedly including in your book “Why India is not a great power(yet)?”.
But the main reason why we fall over backwards to west I think, I have heard articulated best by a certain Chinese mandarin was about Indian leadership(Nehru in particular) being educated in the west. He also thanked his stars that Zhou in Lai was unable to learn French during his stay in France and that allowed for original thinking in Chinese leadership.
We should all realize is that an average Indian (especially the ‘highly’ educated kind) is deeply mentally colonized. At a sub conscious level this colonization affects the judgement faculty of the mind i.e. “Buddhi”. Even the well meaning folks will not realized how their decisions are affected due to this mental conditioning. Professor Kapil Kapoor(ex JNU) has explained this phenomenon quite well. I would recommend you to read or listen to his work.
Prof Karnad
(On a lighter note) You seem to mention that it is the first time, the foreign policy seems to be on a downward spiral on the current government’s watch.
But you have an entire book “Staggering Forward” dedicated to this right? 😃
In a way has this slide been kind of going on for a while?
Do agree with the MEA not having the long term forward looking Outlook partly because of the generalists running the cadres.
BTW who in your opinion was the most forward looking foreign minister India ever had? I understand the caveat that foreign policy is often an extension of the PMO’s thought and vision
True, Prabal. But Staggering Forward was written in the 4th year of Modi’s PMship. But my worst fears have, however, come true, in the main — that Modi isn’t the reformist leader his 1st election campaign promised. He is, as I concluded, too much the statist to discard the levers of state — the babus, and to thin down the government and thus the bureaucracy. This I believe is at the heart of India’s record of failure. It answers who’s the best question.
It is useless to talk about political parties now. They are all the same.
The problem is with the innate nature of Hindu men and women, who have made policy decisions since decades.
When one steps out into the overpopulated dusty and filthy cesspool of Indian cities and towns and villages, it is an indictment that Hindu men and women do not know how to govern.
Not Hindus but Sanskaari Sanatanni or tanatanni.
The whole episode looks very fishy.
Pulwama 2019 happened just before the Lok Sabha elections. Raj Thackery immediately said that the truth will be revealed. Ram Gopal Yadav of Samajwadi party repeated what Raj Thackery said.
Arnab Goswami of Republic TV, a well know sycophant of Modi was boasting well ahead of the Pulwama episode in WhatsApp chats to one of his acquaintances that something big is going to happen.
Trump boasted about stopping the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours of assuming the office of the President of USA.
Putin completely ignores Trump resulting in frustrating Trump greatly and pouring cold water on his plans of getting the Nobel Peace prize so, he arranges this fixed match between India and Pakistan to enhance his clout as a global peacemaker.
Indians are so in awe of Yankees they will do anything to stay in Uncle Sam’s good books. Pakistan gets to show its strategic importance to the world.
Think over it. Pakistan is in the good books of both the Yankees as well as the Chinese whereas in today’s world the Chinese and the Americans are arch rivals of each other.
This is my half cent opinion on this staged drama called Operation Sindoor.
Besides babus, the lalas/sheths have big hand in the destruction of India. They have long history of debt write-offs, land grabs, offshore holdings, crony capitalism, & business cartelization.
China’s growth was predicated upon smashing such lobbies, and encouraging the technology-creation above profit-making. In India, the lala/sheth lobby controls both the parties, the PM too comes from the same lobby.
Indians are ace hypocrites. Their support to BLA insurgents in Pakistan is well known and documented.
This whole Pahalgam incident — how is it possible for a group of heavily armed men to massacre dozens of tourists and disappear in thin air.
This game was played to showcase the machoness of Modi instead the Chinese check mated Modi by downing multiple IAF jets using their space satellite navigation to guide the precision kill.
Two fronted war, hahaha. India better pray to its millions of Gods that it never materializes otherwise Pakistan and China together will ensure utter humiliation for this self proclaimed Vishvguru and it’s over hyped army.
Millions of gods commanded allah to return abhinandan and so he did. So we pretty believe in them or in allah’s submission.
professor there was no point of Chinese satellite in air warfare they are observation satellite for tracking army columns not air assets.
In my observations we are gonna see second confrontation soon enough between the two nations . army chief might be incompetent but CDS seems to be on to something, we will see a Field Marshal vs Failed field Marshal soon
Perhaps, by “observation” you meant surveillance. Typically, satellites that surveil can also track. And the JC-10 is meant to fight uplinked to the Beidou sats.
My bad, of ignoring the ELINT capabilities of beidou satellites in tracking the communications and radar signals
So was the voice recording of Indian pilot in 1 paki press conference legit (Godzilla down) of fabricated it would be down bad for IAF If chinese have such communication decryption capabilities. but that still doesn’t explain why PAF was unable to shoot down more plane on consecutive days it must be their AWACS not the satellite in air comm support on first day.
With SFC conducting tests of agni and prithvi 2 yesterday along with pak preparing for missile test next week and GHQ cancelling all leaves are we entering cold war as the one we had with china till last year or we are preparing for hot soup ?
reminder of book suggestions and library
@BharatKarnad
Dr Karnad , China has an extremely strong military posture along the eastern seaboard and along the Indo – Tibetan Border. But its South Western parts i.e its geographical areas along Burma , Laos and Vietnam are relatively unguarded. How about threatening China in these parts.Let us convert the WW2-era Stillwell Road into a Security Corridor. So next time the Chinese threaten Arunachal Pradesh , we make a grab for Kunming , the nervous centre of Yunnan.
tremendous idea! But if indian govt has shown no stomach to take bits of territory across LAC, Stillwell Road?!
I do not share the view presented in this column. The point I want to make is that one needs to draw conclusion on foreign policy decision making on case-by-case basis. Modi has defied the US on Kashmir’s legitimate status within the Indian Union stubbornly by ‘abrogating Artice370’s validity’ any further. Very recently on the Eastern region, i.e. Assam, Meghalaya etc, as well as on Bangladesh imbroglio Delhi’s message to the US is loud and clear “hands-off”. I am pretty optimistic that India will intervene militarily to safeguard her own interest, if it comes to that. This is not to say, that everything is hunky-dory with Modi-Shah policy on every issue. To my info, Delhi has withdrawn now the visa of UN observers’ presence in Kashmir along the LOC for monitoring peace which was going on since 1949.
@BharatKarnad
the former strategic forces commander Vice admiral Vijay Shankar recently wrote an article on his blog channel on op sindoor and nuclear wargaming
there was a section or part of the particle that is aimed at you
i am quoting him
“Perspectives for Arm-Chair Strategists
The ‘88-hour’ engagement came as a breath of fresh air to strategists long entrenched in the belief that limited armed engagements could only be decided by the occupation of territories, weight of destruction and casualties rather than the impact of demoralisation, exposing vulnerabilities of defences and out manoeuvring of the adversary. In a reverse analogy, just as the machine gun and trench warfare provided the negative and bizarre logic for the clash of mass against mass resulting in a meat-grinder military doctrine; swift and complete counter air operations followed by targeted offensive air operations are the key to success in limited modern operations. Remember in Operation Sindoor counter air and offensive air operations followed in rapid succession of minutes rather than hours which had a paralysing and unbalancing effect on the adversarythat quickly resulted in the first calls for a ceasefire.
For the arm-chair strategist, some of who bewailed the fact that, cessation of operations came at a time when the Pakistan air space was wide open to an extent when a joint air-land thrust ought to have expanded their objectives to the occupation of territory and salients in POK. This is symptomatic of a lack of understanding of the nature of modern power, its application and its deterrent impact; that is, to prevent certain threats from materializing by posing an even greater threat. There is no inevitable symmetry between offensive and defensive power as both are influenced as much by resolve as by magnitude of power and immeasurable considerations such as surprise, geography, limitations on purpose and indeed the degree to which objectives are pursued. These characteristics of power will also determine the risks that the state is willing to take. Perils are heightened as offensive power gains the edge over the defense and penetrates to an extent when friction clutch in. In operation Sindoor, objectives were limited, risks of getting embroiled in a drawn out slugging match of attrition particularly on land was to be avoided, remember the higher political directive “Samay seemit hai aur laksh bade” (Time is limited and our aims are large) almost as if to suggest that the engagement must be brought quickly to a decisive conclusion without jeopardizing our long term developmental agenda. Assessment of risks had to account for possible escalation and how far the adversary’s nuclear bluff could be called. Importantly, deterrence provided incentive for innovation, both political and operational to India that ran consistent with rapidly changing technology, as long as it was brisk in time and limited in space. The key consideration was that Sindoor was retaliation to an act of terror; so-much-so that had Pakistan chosen not to respond militarily, the operation would have concluded after Phase I.
As for the “narrative-war” which some severe critics of Operation Sindoor believe ‘India lost the plot’; is there really any such thing that has a lasting impact in this age of transparency? In the American lexicon ‘narrative’ implies “a story or account of events, or the like, whether true or fictitious”. Surely the final arbiter was the stark photo evidence of the demolition of the JeM headquarters in Bahwalpur, devastation of the LeT headquarters at Muridke and other terror camps and critically the suppression of the Pakistan air-defences and the neutralisation of their strategic air stations including the Nur Khan air base. After all it was the Pakistan Director General of Military Operations that sued for a cease-fire.
Do you agree with what the admiral kind of indirectly said about you professor?
would love to know your response
https://thestrategicdialogues.com/2025/07/19/triggering-nuclear-war-hazards-of-husbanding-wargames/
here is the link of the blog written by the former SFC admiral
VADM Shankar is a thoughtful man, and that’s his view! (I may choose to respond in a post, or not.)
@Mishra- “After all it was the Pakistan Director General of Military Operations that sued for a cease-fire.”
The above sentence of this retired general sums it all up. Even if the Pakistani DGMO asked for a cease fire. Why did you bother listening to him? You folks should have continued your military operations no but how could Modi have dared to refuse Uncle Trump
At this point, one wonders who among India’s who’s who is not up for grabs.
@BharatKarnad
In this lecture( there is audio only in it not video )at IISS think tank
former SFC chief vice admiral vijay shankar tells about the thermonuclear weapons of pokhran
He accepts that yes there are doubts about the s1 yield but he then says yes that partial designed weapons can be deployed
now by this i suppose he is trying to say that 30kt-40kt yield that the 275kt weapon was intended to produce can be weaponized
now i know sir this might be frustrating for you as you have repeatedly said about it but i consider you as the most knowledgeable person on nuclear matters in india
so do you agree with the admiral if not thermonuclear can there be a even a single design use of the s1 test would like to know your opinion
Do not at all agree with Shankar. This is what happens when military professionals — not career specialists in nuclear matters, become apologists for the dismal state of the country’s strategic deterrent.
wait you said in one of the podcast that the navy only has a nuclear specialist cadre
air force is completely illiterate
and shankar was the first person from navy to join the SFC.
IN had initiated a nuclear cadre during DK Joshi’s CNS-ship. But inadequate numbers of N-platforms skewed that programme.
I recall seeing a press conference by Ashok Parthasarathi some time around 2010 when he made the claim that thermonuclear weaponization had not been done. his words were “11 years have passed and no weaponization has been done(for Thermonuclear device)” Has it been done yet?
I suppose one can weaponise a failed, unproven, untested device!
@BharatKarnad
professor karnad do we have dial a yield weapons
beacuse sk sikka the man who was given the responsibilty to the design the thermonuclear device in one of india today interview said
and i am quoting him
“We have dial a yield weapons The yields for a hydrogen bomb can vary from as little as 1 kilotonne to over 60 megatons. We kept our yield deliberately low to minimise damage to villages which are just 5 km from the blast site. Controlling yields does require a certain sophistication in design. Ours was a two-stage thermonuclear device. In early models the first stage was usually an atom bomb. We never revealed this before but our first stage was a boosted fission bomb which uses far more advanced technology”
do you agree with sikka ?
‘not sure why Siika and others had to float this nonsense. The s-1 fizzled, so India lacks a 250kt weapon — the planned yield. Actual partial fusion burn yield 42-50 KT. Where’s the dialled yield weapon other than in Sikka’s imagination?
Readers of this article might find this interesting, Shiv Shankar Menon’s interview to Global times.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202507/1338332.shtml
@Prof if you have a comment on the article, please leave one.
@BharatKarnad
professor karnad one collaboration that has always bothered me is the exchange of hypersonic armaments from china to pakistan
we all know the long history of chinese proliferating missiles and warheads
well what if they climb one more step and arm pakis with 2500km range MRBM the DF 17 missiles
Which is even feared amongst American forces
can they do that and what should be our response?
Agni Missiles have good accuracy at range (if A-5 prime is any indication)
@BharatKarnad
https://www-the–express-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.the-express.com/news/world-news/177839/indias-most-advance-missile-test/amp?amp_gsa=1&_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQIUAKwASCAAgM%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17532069678030&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.the-express.com%2Fnews%2Fworld-news%2F177839%2Findias-most-advance-missile-test
recently American media wrote about India’s ambitions to match china in missile tech . They are excited only untill it is aimed at china and not turned towards American bases
now I know we suck in thermonuclear field but what is your assessment on the missile arsenal
like its accuracy and all specs
your views ?
Dr Karnad, what are your thoughts on the recently signed FTA between the UK and India.? Does it conform to whatever you feel bad about this deal ?
Not seen the FTA text; so hard to say
@BharatKarnad Can’t the cooling-off period post-retirement from service in the Government of India be modified and extended to not only the employees, like bureaucrats and diplomats mentioned by you in this blog post of yours, but also extended to their family and relatives on a permanent basis?
Or is there something like this already there?
There’s no such prohibition
@BharatKarnad If there’s no such prohibition, like you say, do you think introducing such a prohibition will help India?
@BharatKarnad With regards to the nuclear specialist cadre, does the Indian Army have one like the Indian Navy and the Indian Air Force?
What does nuclear specialist cadre mean?
I ask this because the Strategic Forces Command consisting of personnel from all the 3 services handles India’s nuclear weapons arsenal.
Don’t want to keep repeating it. SFC is rotational posting, top to bottom.
@BharatKarnad I didn’t ask you to repeat.
I didn’t know about this which is why I asked you about this.
I also didn’t know that you’ve repeated this.
@V.Ganesh @BharatKarnad
https://bharatkarnad.com/2012/08/16/dedicated-nuclear-cadre/
read this essay that professor wrote 13 years ago on SFC
it is old but still relevant today
@AdityaMishra, I thank you for giving me the link to the nuclear cadre blog post of Bharat Karnad.
I appreciate it.
I’ll read it.
@BharatKarnad With regards to this, https://www.economictimes.com/news/defence/iaf-looking-to-acquire-2-3-squadrons-of-fifth-generation-fighter-jets-from-foreign-sources/amp_articleshow/122886596.cms,do you think this will happen [especially during Operation Sindoor, when only Israel supported India openly] because only Russia and America are mentioned as the sellers from whom we can get these?
@V.Ganesh
neither one of them
by getting these we will kill our indigenous jets
like we killed marut
@AdityaMishra Yes, neither of them, because the Russian Federation under Vladimir V. Putin unlike its predecessor is now as much transactional with India like the United States of America under Donald John Trump.
But, we also can’t ignore the report about this need of the Indian Air Force.
Maybe, India should try to get talent all over the world from the world of military aviation like we did for the Marut and like how now the European Union is inviting American talent to the European Union due to Donald John Trump’s policies including policies regarding to immigration.
We just need to be generous with our money and overhaul our entrenched civil services bureaucracy to get such talent, because, after all it is in India’s strategic and national interest.
@BharatKarnad
out of curiosity i was searching for some past reviews of your book though i have one old copy of the 2002 big fat book
and i found this paid review aritcle by india today newspaper they reviewed it way back in 2002 only
“By Bharat Karnad
Macmillan
It is often mistakenly assumed that the great Indian nuclear debate is a contest between nuclear advocates and anti-nuclear dissenters. The truth is that Indian opponents of nuclear weapons do not count in any significant sense.
Within the public domain the influence of anti-nuclear activists is restricted to a few middle-class radicals, and their presence in the policy community is virtually negligible. Nuclear angst still does not strike a chord with much of the Indian imagination.
Indeed, despite systematic attempts at generating nuclear dissent in this country, often motivated by other countries, most Indians still view the country’s nuclear might with considerable pride.
The real nuclear tussle, in both an intellectual and political sense, is among those who agree with at least one proposition: India made the right decision by going overtly nuclear in May 1998.
But beyond this limited agreement, there are stark differences. Sharp disagreements over the nature of threats to India, the purpose behind acquiring atomic weapons, the size and shape of the country’s nuclear arsenal and the current state of capabilities makes the nuclear debate a rich if sometimes a fractious one.
The main faultline within nuclear advocates is between the so-called minimalists and the maximalists. Minimalists take a more relaxed, a more political and, dare we say a more Indian, view of nuclear deterrence.
For them the credibility of Indian nuclear deterrence does not lie in numbers or in the baroque infrastructure often associated with the command and control of these most destructive weapons of mass destruction.
Instead, the minimalists feel that having demonstrated its nuclear capability and having at least a rudimentary delivery capability, India can now be more or less assured that it has the means to deter countries that are likely to pose a nuclear threat in the foreseeable future.
Minimalists would also argue that nuclear weapons are only one, and probably not the most important, instrument in the country’s resources that can enable it to carve out a niche in the international system.
And that India can and has developed a nuclear doctrine which need not mimic western nuclear theology or replicate the Cold War experience. In contrast, maximalists view the minimalist posture with deep scepticism and concern, and fiercely argue that there can be no short cut, no quick fix to acquiring a credible nuclear deterrent.
Bharat Karnad is inarguably one of the most “muscular” of the maximalists, to use former US deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott’s description of his writings. While Karnad has extensively published in scholarly journals in the past,Nuclear Weapons and Indian Securityis clearly his magnum opus.
And despite the 700-odd pages, it is also one of the more readable accounts of nuclear politics produced by a strategic thinker in India. Be that as it may, the book will undoubtedly provoke sharp comment and may cause considerable offence for Karnad does not shy away from often taking personal jibes at individuals and institutions that he disagrees with intellectually.
But whether you agree with Karnad or disagree with him, there is a refreshing clarity to his views. A clarity that will make his volume a standard text for some, but will frighten many others who will profoundly disagree with his Machtpolitik.
Consider the most provocative of Karnad’s assumptions. For him, the threats to the country are not just those from two of India’s nuclear neighbours, but also potentially from the United States.
India, for him, needs to protect itself specifically “against the wilfulness of the United States and the sustained, if opportunistic belligerence of China”. And the recipe: “To deal with the more immediate nuclear threat from China and to deter from the US coercively turning its military prowess against India on any pretext in the future demands the early acquisition of strategic armaments that the Indian government has shied away from, namely megaton-yield thermonuclear warheads and weapons married to intercontinental range ballistic and cruise missiles in sizable numbers.”
And while Karnad has little faith in the Indian political leadership, which he finds “pickled in self doubt”, he believes that the bulk of the Indian people are rooted in the “vagaries of Machtpolitik” depicted in the ancient Hindu texts and “conditioned by life-long deprivation, are hard as nails”. In sum, contentious, controversial, sometimes disturbing, but highly readable.”
sir do you regard this 2002 book as your magnum ops as the newspaper says?
i mean out of your 7 books which one demanded the most time and resources to write
Insofar as I can remember, this was a review by JNU professor Amitabh Mattoo published in India Today. Books are like authors’ children, hard to say which’s best. But Nuclear Weapons and Indian Security is a magnum opus in that it is comprehensive and authoritative, whose prescriptions have stood the test of time. Are there any minimalists around anywhere?
But all my books have something substantive and hefty to offer by way of realpolitik-power recommendations that the govts to-date would have been well advised to heed. They did not, and we are in all sorts of trouble, only few of them acknowledged!
@BharatKarnad
professor karnad this question has been bothering me for a long time what is that one thing that makes the PAF superior to IAF
no shame in accepting it rather we would get to know our weak points and work on them
what is it is it long term strategic thinking, better tactics , better training and pilots or better fighter jets and missiles.
though you are a much more knowledgeable person then me sir but may I recommend you a nice book that is written by your former colleagues ravi rikhye and pushpinder chopra who wrote the famous book fizaya i could not get a copy of it they recently wrote an updated version fizyaa 2 writing about PAF operations from 1990 to 2025 and on operation sindoor i ordered a copy and the book is literally a guide on PAF .Here is the link
https://amzn.in/d/8xf8PvZ
would like to know your views what makes the PAf stand apart
regards
As mentioned in my posts: PAF is more tech savy coupled to better quality of its fighter pilots.
@BharatKarnad
professor karnad i was reading your older essays on the need for a strategic bomber for the IAF
you give many points that IAF is a strategically illiterate force it got no nukes of its own it is short minded and cannot target at longer ranges
then you advocate for the tu 160 now and tu 22 in past
have you considered how sophisticated AD defense and anti aircraft weapons have become
and what makes you think that a tu 160 will penetrate the much hardened chinese air defences
russia has been using tu 160 in ukraine they use it very carefully. Recently ukraine knocked out dozens of russian bombers using cheap drones
I mean I would like to know do you still advocate for a strategic bomber
The Latest white swan version of Tu-160 is very capable.
@BharatKarnad Is the tech-savviness of the PAF due to Pakistan’s geography and limited resources and being unable to match and or compete against India in any criteria/category, in comparison to India’s geography and resources?
Perhaps. It has also been exposed, as I have mentioned, to USAF fighter tactics from the 1950s.
Prof Karnad,
I must confess that I’m been an avid reader of your blog for over half a decade now, and I’ve had the pleasure of reading some of your works.
I’m currently serving in the IPS as SP of a frontier district in Arunachal Pradesh. I would like to have your input regarding what I should be reading and how I should be thinking.
I’ve done my undergraduate degree from Hindu College, and pursued my Masters from JNU in IR. I’ve interned with MEA, pursued summer university in Moscow at HSE and started Hindu ORF Policy Conclave on IR in the year 2018.
International Relations has been my passion throughout college and University, and I want to pursue the opportunity to serve the National interest in my current profession as well
I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincere Regards,
Angad Mehta, IPS SP Keyi Panyor, Arunachal Pradesh
Angad Mehta,
I could be glib and say “read all my books, keep up with posts on this blog” and “adopt my viewpoint”!
But if your interest in IR is as substantive as your past efforts at the undergrad level suggest, then you no doubt by now have some fairly definite ideas your self. You don’t need to be spoon fed.
That you may be veering round to the realpolitik-hard power school of thought, is a good direction to move in given the state of international affairs and the difficult choices the country needs to make.
Good Luck and Godspeed in your intellectual journey!
@BharatKarnad
sir a small question regarding your nuclear weapons and indian security
in one of the interviews you say that you had to read the english commentaries of the vedas and you were surprised by their bloody minded approach
well can you tell the author or editor whose vedas commentaries you refered to while writing the 2002 book
Pls look up the footnotes
@BharatKarnad
I was recently reading the carneige detailed article on indian nuclear forces structure proposed for 2025
it was written 9 years ago in 2016 so now is the time to look at it
and we are nowhere close we are in the middle
and this is what you recommended way back in 2016
“Bharat Karnad, a senior fellow at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi, is among the first analysts to study Indian nuclear deterrence requirements closely. He advocates what has been dubbed a maximalist approach to nuclear deterrence and strongly advocates the need for megaton-class thermonuclear weapons in the Indian arsenal. He assumes that India’s primary and secondary target lists could contain about 60 locations in China and Pakistan. In order to ensure, with a small degree of uncertainty, that each of these targets can be destroyed, he recommends targeting each location with four warheads, each of which has a 3-kilometer circular error probable (CEP).25 As it would take time to build a plutonium stockpile, and to design and develop both the intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) and the SSBNs necessary for this targeting plan, Bharat Karnad suggests that India’s nuclear arsenal be gradually built up over a period of three decades to a total of 328 nuclear warheads, as given in 2
The breakdown of the final figure of 328 nuclear warheads and the proposed delivery systems suggested by Bharat Karnad includes
he suggests 328 warheads by 2025
Karnad suggests that 253 of the 278 nonreserve warheads should be thermonuclear. The remaining 25 should be atomic demolition munitions. He writes: “If a counter-cities or counter-value nuclear bombardment strategy is the only one that makes sense, then thermonuclear bombs, with megaton yields, are the most convincing instruments of this strategy.”27 However, the yield potential of India’s current weapons designs is limited. The 45-kiloton, two-stage thermonuclear device tested in 1998 only has the potential to be upgraded to a yield of about 200 kilotons.28 India would have to further refine weapons designs and conduct another round of physical tests in order to develop the megaton-yield weapons that Karnad’s plan requires. As India has unilaterally renounced further nuclear tests, such weapons probably cannot be created. Also, as the accuracy of India’s missiles continues to improve, and as CEPs drop from thousands to hundreds of meters, India might follow in the path of other nuclear states and limit the yield of its weapons to 200–400 kilotons. Yields in this range should be adequate for India’s countervalue strategy, provided India can develop ballistic missiles with a CEP of less than 500 meters.29
do you still support this or now after 9 years your proposed structure for the SFC has changed considering the fact that this was 9 years old
would appreciate if you could write a detailed blog on the new force structure till 2035 or 2040
would like to know your views sir
regards
Yes
@NuclearGeneral and @BharatKarnad NGB meaning Next Generation Bomber? That’s what I could find about the meaning of NGB. I don’t know what it means. My understanding of NGB as Next Generation Bomber could be wrong. If I’m wrong, I’m willing to learn and get the clarification for this.