Nuclear

On May 8, 2018, President Trump withdrew the US from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Since the JCPOA is endorsed by a United Nations Security Council Resolution and supported by the international community, Trump has had to justify this controversial decision. Based on data extracted from Trump’s Twitter account and taking advantage of Theo van Leeuwen’s (2008) discursive construction of the legitimation model, this article addresses the following question: How has Donald Trump attempted to delegitimize the JCPOA?

• Hossein Nourani , Afsaneh Danesh , Mohammad Reza Nouri , Farzaneh Latifi
• July 2020
• Strategic Analysis

As the focus and priority of the international community in recent years have been on averting nuclear terrorism and nuclear accidents, the nuclear experience of synergising safety and security can be highly useful in combating threats like COVID-19.

• Rajiv Nayan
• April 21, 2020
• Issue Brief

Even after five decades of its entry-into-force, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is largely seen as a Cold War era instrument that has failed to fulfill the objective of creating a pathway towards a credible disarmament process.

• A. Vinod Kumar
• March 31, 2020
• Issue Brief

The existing approach to cyber security is heavily tilted towards practising deterrence by denial, essentially by building defences. However, the concept of deterrence needs further tweaking to make it workable in cyberspace.

• Cherian Samuel , Munish Sharma
• December 16, 2019
• Issue Brief

Apart from the United States, India's nuclear cooperation agreements with Japan and Australia have been the most contentious domestically within those countries. The 'slow embrace' of India's civil nuclear credentials by Japan — given the four years for negotiations to begin (after the December 2006 Joint Statement which talked about discussions regarding such an agreement with India) in addition to the six years it took for negotiations to bear fruit — took place despite the strategic context of increasingly closer economic, political, and security ties.

• S. Samuel C. Rajiv
• Monograph

The Defence Minister’s recent statement on ‘no first use’ basically underlines the fact that India’s current nuclear doctrine is working well.

• Rajiv Nayan
• September 16, 2019
• IDSA Comments

Nuclear doctrines and postures are dynamic processes that evolve with the security environment. Twenty years after India’s nuclear doctrine was first drafted, the time is ripe for a comprehensive review and suitable revisions.

• A. Vinod Kumar
• August 27, 2019
• Issue Brief

ince the time of their invention and the first-and-only use on 6 and 9 August 1945 on two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively, nuclear weapons have been seen by the states that possess them, or the ones that seek them, as the ultimate guarantors of their security.1 It is believed that these weapons are key to achieving victory in a war that otherwise may go on for a long time or may end in defeat if fought in conventional ways by a weaker country; in other words, nuclear weapons are believed to act as instruments of deterrence.

• Nazir Ahmad Mir
• April-June 2019
• Journal of Defence Studies

This is a personal recollection of the author on the evolution of the Indian nuclear policy and developments leading to the Shakti tests. Since it draws solely upon the author’s memory there could be errors and discrepancies in the account. This has been written in an effort to present a coherent and comprehensive account of the Indian nuclear policy, since, in the absence of an authoritative official document, there are considerable dissensions and misperceptions in the country.

• K. Subrahmanyam
• May 2018
• Strategic Analysis

Ever since India and Pakistan conducted their nuclear tests in 1998, it has been the favourite pastime of many analysts writing on nuclear issues to cast the strategic stability in South Asia in dark tones. This urban myth is primarily a Western invention although at times writers in the subcontinent as well have taken some part in it.

• G. Balachandran
• May 2018
• Strategic Analysis