As Russian President Vladimir Putin realised that he was losing ground in the futile war against Ukraine, he threatened to use nuclear weapons. Although now he has toned down his nuclear war rhetoric, the fact remains that the threat from nuclear weapons is real and can’t be passed off as a mere rhetoric by a publicity hungry leader of a rogue nation, like Kim Jong-un of North Korea.
For a country like India, which has nearly two billion population, the nation has to be wary of a nuclear attack. We live in the middle of a nuclear environment. Both Pakistan and China have been acknowledged as nuclear states.
Over decades, the Indian governments have made efforts to develop nuclear weapons and delivery platforms to complete the triad for ground, sea and aerial delivery. However, little is heard of our defensive capability!
Secrecy and security of information of weapons and programmes of such a serious strategic nature apart, many times making public announcements also sends the desired message to adversaries and to the citizens.
It can be easily assumed that India lacks passive defensive measures against nuclear threat. There have been little or no efforts at such measures, which could include monitoring hostile nuclear weapon locations, movement deployment and a launch based on which all defensive actions hinge.
Town planning, health care and civil defence are also underprepared. There is no information available, at least officially, on underground shelters to shift the population to safeguard against a nuclear attack, no personal protection equipment, there is no information about decontamination centres.
Even the armed forces do not have sufficient capacity to reduce the effect of a nuclear strike and enable continued operational ability in the face of a nuclear strike.
Town Planning and Urban development departments need to take advice from the armed forces in this regard in order to make our cities safe. In the absence of such measures, we can be sure that the government, no matter which political party, would have cold feet in the event of a war as demonstrated by the past.
During the cold war there were two nuclear doctrines that deterred first use and maintained nuclear peace. MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) and NUTS (Nuclear Utilisation and Targeting Strategy). The premise is that if there were credible nuclear defences, it would create an imbalance.
It is almost impossible to create nuclear shelters for any country’s population due to the high cost involved. It is restricted to key decision makers and the armed forces to fight in a radioactive environment. But efforts should be made to build as many nuclear shelters as possible to protect as many lives as possible.
India already started procuring the controversial anti-missile weapon S-400 Missile System from Russia with target detection at the range of 600 miles with 17,000 kmph speed, 14 Mach, which for sometime deteriorated Indo-US relationship. But lots really needs to be done starting with making of anti-nuclear shelter from the front line to rear areas for civilians.
In Europe, most of the underground metros are side by side, being modified to provide anti-nuclear shade for civilians. Incidentally India is having near parity in all other military branches except for Missile, where India is behind in range and number. As India is fast developing its missile system, it will not take much time to catch up with China.
The Himalayas were and are working as a big natural protective barrier till date and will remain so in future too. China will never be able to deploy a mass enemy in the Himalayas which will be restricted to the limited deployment on the passes in the Himalayas.
But, as the Gulf war and now the Russia-Ukraine conflict have shown, the main offensive will come through aerial routes, by way of missiles and drones. It is not necessary that large capacity nukes will be used. Tactical nukes meant for use against enemy military formations during a conflict, especially the tanks, could be used, which could cause heavy damage.
Most of these tactical nuclear weapons, for example those possessed by Russia and USA are 100 times more powerful than the atomic explosions that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan during World War II. We are surrounded by two nuclear weapon States that have been at loggerheads with India, which is also a nuclear weapon country.
We can’t take it easy. Preparations for all kinds of nuclear deterrence – civil and military – has to start on a war footing with a three pronged strategy – preventing enemy nukes from entering our airspace, protecting our people through nuclear shelters and provide medical treatment to the survivors and last but not the least, cleaning up the toxic air that would be caused by nuclear radiation.
