Strategic Analysis, 2018

Vol. 42, No. 3, 194–207, https://doi.org/10.1080/09700161.2018.1463950

Pokhran 20 Years After: Did the World Change?

Harald Müller

Abstract: Was the 1998 Pokhran test a historical watershed as many contemporary
observers believed? This article looks at its impact on the nuclear non-proliferation
regime, regional security, India’s position in global institutions, and the ongoing global
power shift: the non-proliferation regime continued along the old dispute lines;
regional conflict behaviour did not change at all; India grew into global institutions
not because of nuclear tests but because of her remarkable economic development; the
re-arrangement of global power follows more basic trends as well. The only tangible
effect of the Pokhran test was to change India’s exposition to nuclear blackmail from
improbable to impossible, not unimportant but still marginal.

Introduction1
ow did the Pokhran nuclear test influence international politics? The immediate
H reactions worldwide seemed to indicate a political watershed. Jubilation in the
Indian streets about the nation’s achievement contrasted with condemnation by the
United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and the imposition of sanctions on the
‘perpetrators’. Some even predicted the breakdown of the global nuclear non-
proliferation regime just four years after the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT)
had been extended.
In this article, I look into the impact of the Pokhran test. I start with looking at the
global nuclear non-proliferation regime. Next, I address the consequences for regional
security relations. Finally, I address the influence on global power politics: First, I
look at India’s membership in four important institutions: the Group of Twenty (G20),
the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), Brazil, Russia, India, China, South
Africa (BRICS) and the UN, notably the UNSC. Second, I take a look at the
relationships of India with the world powers—the US, Russia and China. An overall
summary concludes the article.

Pokhran and the non-proliferation regime

India’s attitude towards the nuclear non-proliferation regime, in particular the NPT,
was always ambiguous. Principally, India supported nuclear disarmament and
conformed with the objective of non-proliferation. However, India believed that
it was the target of global non-proliferation policy and opposed the ‘nuclear
apartheid’, which it perceived in the NPT’s division between nuclear weapons
states (NWSs) and non-NWSs (NNWSs). It regarded the disarmament undertaking
in Article VI as a fig leaf with little consequences; from today’s vantage point,

Prof Harald Müller is Head of Research, the Nuclear Arms Control Group, and Associate Fellow at
The Peace Research Institute, Frankfurt (PRIF).

© 2018 Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses

 Strategic Analysis 195

New Delhi was not far off the mark. As a member of the Geneva Eighteen Nation
Committee on Disarmament (ENCD), which negotiated the NPT, India refused to
accede to the treaty and and has until now resisted all the ritualistic appeals
addressed to the holdouts by the NPT community. The treaty’s indefinite extension
came as unpleasant news to New Delhi. On top of this, the Comprehensive Test
Ban, an erstwhile goal of the Non-aligned Movement (NAM), was concluded in
1996. India then decided to use the nuclear option before the door was completely
closed.2

Pokhran and the NPT review process

Concerns that India’s test would hurt the NPT’s credibility loomed large. The NPT
was expected to grow into a universal norm. As long as India (and Pakistan) had not
demonstrated their weapons capability and declared themselves NWSs, the hope to
integrate them into the non-proliferation regime continued to exist, though sounding
increasingly hollow. The destruction of this hope, it was feared, could stymie the
readiness of parties to strengthen the NPT and induce some parties to emulate the two
defiant South Asian states.
None of this came true. The 2000 Review Conference (RevCon) deplored the tests
and continued the now unrealistic appeal to the three holdouts (Israel included) to join
the NPT as NNWSs. In the general debate, mention of the 1998 tests was made by
several, but not all, speakers. For the three main committees and their subcommittees,
the South Asian situation played hardly a role. The conference circulated around the
usual main controversy, disarmament, and achieved consensus on a final document
through a showdown between the five NWSs and the New Agenda Coalition, a
disarmament promoting group consisting of Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, New Zealand,
South Africa and Sweden.3
The NPT community had a textbook response to the Pokhran challenge: The violation
of a norm (to which India and Pakistan had never subscribed) met the determined defence
and confirmation of the norm (indicated by the condemnation and repeated appeals to the
holdouts to join), and the norm followers then went back to their normal business
indicating that the norm remained as valid as ever. Thus, against pessimistic expectations,
the NPT survived the challenge seemingly stronger than ever.

US–India nuclear deal and the NPT

A momentous gain for India was the nuclear deal with the US in 2005. The Bush
Administration recognised India as an NWS in all but name, opened the road to civilian
nuclear cooperation and scrapped nuclear trade constraints that dated back to the 1974
‘peaceful explosion’ together with the remnants of the post-Pokhran sanctions.4 Most of
the sanctions, in any case, had already been lifted in the last year of the Clinton
administration. On top of that, the US arm-twisted the partially reluctant members of
the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to adopt a unique exception for India from the NSG
rule that permits its members to export nuclear and dual-use items only to countries
where all fissile material is under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
comprehensive safeguards. The US–India nuclear deal was highly controversial because
it put India on an equal level with the NWSs, and constituted a breach with the
agreement to supply nuclear related items only if the recipient accepts comprehensive
safeguards on its nuclear activities. This norm had been integrated into the NSG
196 Harald Müller

guidelines in 1992, and became part of the Principles and Objectives in the package
deal that led to the indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995.
The resistance within the NSG, American arm-twisting and negative comments
from leading non-aligned states led many NPT experts to fear that the deal—a long-
time corollary of Pokhran—might shatter the unity of the parties and mark the
beginning of the end of the treaty.5
But the 2000 story repeated itself in the NPT RevCon of 2010. There were some
critical remarks during the general debate, and acerbic criticism of Iran during the
main committee proceedings (because the US, Iran’s arch enemy, was the main
culprit, and Iran could illustrate its defensive narrative of double standards in the
NPT). But this was it. This overall neglect of the US–Indian deal issue was all the
more remarkable as another regional issue, the Middle East nuclear weapon free zone,
was one of two main negotiation foci (the other was disarmament). The language of
the final declaration made it clear that the ‘deal’ would remain a singular exception
and not serve as a precedent. The issue did not resurface in the failed 2015 RevCon;
here, the two main issues were, first, disarmament with the new frontline issues of the
humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons use and (as a consequence) a legal
ban on nuclear weapons, and, second, the Middle East.6
Thus, even though there were dire predictions about the deal’s impact on the non-
proliferation regime, in fact it had little consequences and left the NPT—including the
existing conflicts within its membership—largely intact. Three facts contributed to
this outcome: first, some of the leading critics, South Africa and Brazil, did not want
to take on a BRICS peer. Second, most NPT parties recognised the growing impor-
tance of India on the world stage and the attractiveness of the Indian market. Third,
the Indian/Pakistani issue was intractable, and the overwhelming majority of the
parties were aware that the traditional appeal did not constitute a promising policy.
Maybe some were even relieved that the deal presented a means to bind India closer
to the regime without destroying it outright.
Nevertheless, India and the US have still been unable to secure NSG membership
for India, which both governments have been pushing for long.
The resentment of quite a number of NSG members and a quiet but determined
Chinese opposition have so far prevented this step.7 Pokhran, of course, did not help
but only motivated resistance within the NSG.

Summary
The international community reacted flexibly to the Pokhran challenge. It confirmed
the validity of the norm, uttered the necessary ritualistic statements of condemnation
and reassurance and continued with business as usual. The robustness of the NPT
regime was impressive. If it is brittle today, it is not because of Pokhran but because
of traditional controversies about the Middle East and disarmament. Concerning the
latter issue, the Nuclear Ban Treaty presents a new fact towards which the NWSs and
their allies have still to position themselves reasonably.

Regional security
How has the coming out of India and Pakistan as nuclear weapons powers influenced
regional security in South Asia? The security structure in this region is characterised by
three factors: First, the continuing ‘frozen conflict’ between India and Pakistan over
 Strategic Analysis 197

Kashmir which turns periodically ‘hot’; second, Chinese-Indian relationship charac-

terised by economic cooperation, politico-military tensions, unresolved territorial dis-
putes and China’s partnership with hostile Pakistan; and third, US involvement as a
rival of China in East and Southeast Asia, particularly its relationship with India, which
can be called a ‘quiet security partnership’, and its presence in Afghanistan, which seeds
tension in the once close US–Pakistani relations.

India–Pakistan
The Indian–Pakistani conflict had almost a permanently violent element including wars,
militarised conflicts and terrorist incidents (almost uniformly against Indian targets); by
far most of these events were related to the territorial dispute on Kashmir. Periods of
violent conflict and high tension alternated with phases of detente which, however,
never lasted long. This pattern sustained for a time until India proved its nuclear
capability with the 1974 ‘peaceful explosion’ and the Pokhran test later. At this
moment, believers of deterrence theory could have expected that the pattern of alter-
nating tension and detente periods would be replaced by continuous stability, with
‘tensions’ becoming rather symbolic and rhetorical. This expectation proved wrong.
Rather, on the heels of the tests came a fully-fledged local war involving regular armed
forces on either side, the ‘Kargil War’ in the Karakoram mountains.8 Ironically, the
main effect of the war was to prove the professional performance of India’s conven-
tional armed forces, prevailing in rough terrain in an uphill fight and delivering an
impressive example of joint service operations without taking resort to either nuclear or
horizontal escalation.9
The Kargil War demonstrated the ‘other side of nuclear deterrence’: the ‘stability/
instability paradox’.10 In a nuclear armed dyad, an NWS might be tempted to launch a
limited conventional attack in the expectation that the enemy would shy away from
nuclear escalation. Exactly this appears to have been the calculus of the then Pakistani
Chief of Staff and later President, Pervez Musharraf.
The years following the Kargil War until today have been marked by terrorist
attacks in India that originated in Pakistan. Among the major incidents were the Delhi
Red Fort (2000) and Parliament (2001) attacks, after which the two countries were on
the brink of a major war; the 2002, 2003 and 2005 series of attacks in Kashmir’s
capital Srinagar; the 2007 Samjhauta Express bombings; and the 2003 and 2008
Mumbai attacks which took a high civilian toll. In 2009, violence rose again in
Kashmir. In recent times, the 2016 Pathankot attack, followed by a terrorist raid
against the Uri armed forces base in Kashmir in the same year, led to a determined
operation of Indian forces across the line of control.
This dense sequence of violence proves one thing: the Pokhran test had little
impact on the pattern of the Indian–Pakistani conflict. The two opponents had avoided
an all-out war from the beginning, but without arriving at sustainable peace. The
achievement of nuclear weapon status did not change the habits of conflict behaviour.

India–China
Indian–Chinese security relations with regional impact are characterised by territorial
disputes (most prominently about the territory of the Indian state of Arunachal
Pradesh, called ‘South Tibet’ by China, and sovereignty over the northeast part of
Kashmir, ‘Aksai Chin’). It would be reasonable to settle for the status quo, but China
198 Harald Müller

is unenthusiastic about this solution. Decades of bilateral talks have led nowhere, and
skirmishes along the border are frequent. China loathes India’s hospitality to the Dalai
Lama, which it considers a challenge to Chinese territorial integrity. India is con-
cerned about China’s persistent support to Pakistan.11
Chinese measures to secure the sea lane from the Persian Gulf to Chinese harbours
collide with India’s desire to control the Indian Ocean to gain access to its own shores.
The consequence is a military competition which includes both naval armament and
Chinese construction of naval bases and anchor places in partnering countries. India is
concerned about this Chinese ‘string of pearls’ strategy, which looks like maritime
encirclement of the Subcontinent. China, on the other hand, looks with dismay at
India’s joint forces base in the Andaman and Nicobar islands at the exit of the Strait of
Malacca, which is capable sealing off China’s maritime routes west of Malacca off the sea
lines leading to China.
It was the India–China War of 1962 that put an end to the rather amicable
relationship that seemed to have been established at the 1955 Bandung meeting
between Chou En-lai and Jawaharlal Nehru.12 Since the 1962 War, the two Asian
powers have avoided a serious military conflict, but localised military clashes in the
contested mountainous regions have taken place repeatedly, though not as frequent as
violent events between India and Pakistan.13
During the decade after the Pokhran test—a temporary low in Indian–Chinese
relations—an observer could have speculated that China was beginning to regard
India as an equal partner with whom cooperative relations were most desirable.
Beijing recognised India’s sovereignty over Sikkim, agreed to open the Nathu la and
Jelep la passes and implemented a couple of confidence-building measures in the border
areas. Their trade rose significantly. Yet, in recent years, militarised disputes in the
Ladakh area in north-eastern Kashmir occurred regularly.14 The most serious incident
between the two powers was the 2017 Doklam stand-off along the borders of China,
India and Bhutan. Chinese road construction, supposedly on Bhutanese territory, was
seen by India as threatening its security interests. It took six weeks to defuse the crisis.15
If the Pokhran test had any impact on the Indian–Chinese security situation, it was
short-lived. The pattern of militarised disputes and détente, mutual distrust and
confidence-building, economic cooperation and military and geopolitical rivalry
remained unchanged.16

The nuclear equation in Asia

In Asia—from the Afghan border to Manchuria—three nuclear armed countries,
India, China and Pakistan, are knit together by territorial conflicts and a nuclear
competition. North Korea is also armed with nuclear weapons, but its situation is
sui generis and not an integral part of this triangle. As the external fourth partner, the
US is involved in a global and regional rivalry with China and has a keen interest in
helping New Delhi remain a viable counterweight to Chinese power.17 It should be
noted that while Russia is no significant participant in regional strategic relations, it is
connected indirectly to this nuclear competition via its strategic rivalry with the US.
Serious nuclear crises between the US and Russia need not, but might, engender
ripple effects in the South Asian conflict structure.18
Pokhran clarified a previously opaque situation. It eliminated any doubt in the
viability of an Indian (and Pakistani) deterrent. This might have changed calculations
in India as well as in China. Before 1998, one could have surmised that India might be
 Strategic Analysis 199

subject to nuclear blackmail in a serious crisis involving China. Unfortunately, there

could be multiple triggers for this scenario: China’s role as guarantor for Pakistan,
Indian–Chinese territorial disputes, India’s position as a watchdog at the entrance/exit to
and from the Malacca Strait and the possibility that a US–Chinese conflict in East or
Southeast Asia could escalate horizontally and impact on the strategic situation in the
Indian Ocean.19 The common knowledge that China could not anymore control its
‘Western front’ simply by threatening a nuclear conflagration is likely to give New
Delhi more confidence in such a crisis. On the other hand, the Chinese leadership is
aware that conflicts with India will inevitably take place in the nuclear shadow and that
the situation cannot be ‘pacified’ with the assistance of a nuclear weapons monopoly.
In this regard, Pokhran has shifted the Asian security constellation—this is the good
news for India. The bad news is that the risk of nuclear escalation might be enhanced
once a crisis reaches a critical tension point because China might feel compel to try to
eliminate as much of the Indian potential as possible, or Pakistan might try to use a
Chinese-Indian standoff to its own advantage—with escalatory consequences.20 The
significance of Pokhran in shaping regional security is ambiguous.

Summary
The effect of the Pokhran test on regional security was fairly limited. Conflict
behaviour in the Pakistan/India and the China/India dyads remained more or less
unaffected. The only tangible effect was the elimination of the perceived vulnerability
of India to potential Chinese nuclear threats in a crisis. This stabilising effect is partly
counteracted by the somewhat higher possibility of such crises escalating vertically.

India and global governance after the tests

India’s status in the world and the influence it exerts is mirrored by the membership in
international institutions and the position it assumes within their rank order.21 For the
time period under inquiry, we look at three institutions that emerged around or after
the time of the tests—G20, SCO and BRICS—and a time-honoured institution of
global relevance, the UN, particularly, the UNSC.

G20
The G20 is a new formation that addresses world finance and economy issues and,
in recent times, has also reached into security questions. The membership com-
prises states with the greatest relevance for the world economy, including India.
The prehistory of this group dates before the Pokhran tests: the immediate pre-
decessor was the ‘Group of 22’, which was formed as a response to the Asian
financial crisis at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit of 1997.
The proposal originated with the American delegation, as the US had realised that
existing Western-centred arrangements of world economic governance did not
suffice to guide processes in the world economy where new centres of economic
power had emerged. The new group did not work well and suffered from the
absence of the European Union (EU) Commission. As a consequence, the finance
ministers of the G7 proposed the formation of what would become the G20, and
the first meeting of this institution took place in Berlin in December 1999.22 Since
then G20 meetings have become a feature of international politics, its summits are
200 Harald Müller

major events, its portfolio of issues has expanded and—although different world-
views and interests make a common denominator for practical coordination diffi-
cult—the institution is considered indispensable for governing the fate of the world
at least in the economic field.23
The nuclear tests had no influence on India’s position in the group. G20 was
created as a response to an acute economic crisis with no relation to international
military security. India was already a member of the G22 before the Pokhran explo-
sions. And three members of the ‘nuclear club’, namely Pakistan, Israel and North
Korea, were never considered as candidates because of their lack of economic weight.
India qualified because of the size of its national economy and its formidable growth
over the last three decades; the nuclear issue played no role.

SCO
The SCO is a regional organisation with an impact beyond its borders. It was founded
in 2001 as an instrument of Russian and Chinese foreign and security policies with
three aims: (1) to eliminate US influence in a region, Central Asia, that was of
considerable importance to both Moscow and China; (2) to prevent a sharp geostra-
tegic competition between the two which could have created undesirable tension at a
time when their cooperation was required to fend off US influence; and (3) to stabilise
regions where Islamist terrorism, ethnical strife and interstate tensions among regional
states were rife. Besides Russia and China, original members included Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Over the years, the SCO has developed an
elaborated structure and a panoply of activities, covering economic cooperation, the
environment, security and counterterrorism.24
India vowed for observer status with a view to keep Pakistan out. While Russia
had sympathies for privileging India over Pakistan, China objected. As a conse-
quence, both the South Asian states participated as observers in an SCO meeting in
2005. It took 12 more years for both India and Pakistan to achieve full membership:
they were given simultaneous entry to the SCO in 2017. Again, India’s desire to keep
Pakistan out was foiled by China.25
India’s nuclear status however influenced neither the SCO membership nor the
process of entry. Its membership was desirable for Russia to gain a partner with which
it has traditionally maintained friendly ties and acceptable to China provided Pakistan
was admitted too. For both, the entry of India into the SCO was a positive step
because it gave the organisation more weight and enhanced its role as a counterweight
to the US. Thus, the whole process was shaped by the strategic interests of the two
leading powers in the SCO.26

BRICS
BRICS is a cooperation arrangement by non-Western major powers, created to
counter global Western influence.27 It emerged in the aftermath of the Iraq War
which was seen as a disquieting indicator of Western (mainly US) unilateralist use
of force, and of the general thrust of the Bush Administration to pursue US interests
without regard to the principles of multilateralism.28 Initially, a group of four powers,
minus South Africa, started meeting in 2006; and their first summit convention was
held in 2009. South Africa was admitted as the fifth member a year later.29 The most
distinctive achievement of BRICS has been the establishment of a development bank
 Strategic Analysis 201

outside of the traditional Bretton Woods institutions, which is not under Western
control.30
India’s presence as an original BRICS member reflects its status as one of the
rising powers of the Global South. This status is dependent on the size and economic
growth of a country, which qualifies India for a grouping like BRICS. That the
nuclear status as demonstrated by the Pokhran test has no effect in this context is
indicated by the membership of Brazil and South Africa, both prominent representa-
tives of the nuclear disarmament movement and the Humanitarian Initiative that led to
the Nuclear Ban Treaty;31 South Africa, the only country so far to dismantle an entire
indigenous nuclear weapons infrastructure, was especially invited to join the forma-
tion. And it is exactly because of this heterogeneous composition with regard to
nuclear weapons that the institution does not play a role in global nuclear policy.

UN
India joined the UN even before its independence, in 1945, and has been a very active and
important member ever since. It ranks second as provider of peacekeeping troops and has
been elected a non-permanent member of the UNSC seven times, ranking forth in
frequency among the non-permanent members. India has long been striving for a
permanent seat. Since the early years of this century, it has pursued this objective in
cooperation with three other candidates, Brazil, Germany and Japan. The four tried hard
to win permanent seats, when then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan led the most serious
attempt so far to reform the UNSC in preparation for, and during the UN General
Assembly (UNGA) summit meeting in 2005. Nevertheless, Annan failed in his attempt
because of the diversity of interests in the UNGA and the determined resistance of some
member states such as Pakistan, Mexico and Italy.32 All five permanent members have
given India verbal endorsement of its membership; China on the condition that India
drops its support for the Japanese permanent seat, a condition India has not accepted.33
Although India with its size of population, territory and economy, huge military
force and as the world’s largest democracy seems to be the most obvious candidate for
permanent membership in the UNSC, it has not succeeded in this ambition. Support
by permanent members has been rhetorical but not practical, and China’s endorsement
a veiled opposition. It is quite conceivable that had one or two of India’s friends, the
US and Russia, tabled a formal resolution to admit India, no permanent member might
have thrown a veto (China does not like to be isolated and might be shy of suffering
the inescapable deterioration in its relationship with India), and that the necessary two
thirds majority in the UNGA would have been achieved. But this has not happened.
The change of India from a supposed to a proven NWS has simply not been sufficient
to motivate the most powerful states to admit it into their ranks—in the end, their
preference is to remain exclusively privileged, and India’s nuclear status has not
swayed it.

Summary
India’s position in emerging multilateral institutions reflects its character as a large
state with a huge population and, above all, the impressive development of its
economy since the late 1980s. It shows no impact of the Pokhran tests, i.e. the proven
identity of India as a nuclear weapons power. Its failure thus far to gain a permanent
seat in the UNSC, despite the obvious justification of its candidacy, is a sobering sign
202 Harald Müller

of the limitation of nuclear weapons to bolster the status of a state—India has been
treated no better than Israel, Pakistan or North Korea.

Global power shift and Pokhran

It is widely agreed that the world is in the midst of a global power shift in which the
former superiority of the Western world is overcome by the rise of new powers, and a
new structure of the international system is emerging which is most likely multipolar,
but not without asymmetries which may constitute informal hierarchies within the
ranks of major powers. The creation of BRICS is usually taken as a sign for this
development, as all of its members are non-Western powers with some interest in
changes in the international order, and four of them are actual or potential world
powers.34 There is discussion on whether the world can envisage a future order which
is not hierarchical, or whether a true power transition will put a new hegemon at the
top of the international system—the candidate named by those who believe in this
alternative is usually China.35

Global power shift and the reconfiguration of great power relations

The US, Russia and China figure in any discussion on the present power changes. Most
authors point also to India, and indeed the country, by its size, its geostrategic location, its
population, the size of its armed forces and its ambitions, is the first candidate to be added
to these three.36 Its economy has still to catch up, but if we use purchase power parity
(PPP) adjusted gross domestic product (GDP) as measure, India is already the fourth
largest economy, or when we do not count the European Union (EU) as a single economy,
the third largest with about 40 per cent of the Chinese and more than double as large as the
Russian one. India is also an active participant in a seminal shift of the global structure,
and the question is now whether Pokhran had an influence. Part of the answer has been
given in the section on international institutions, as the institutional position of a country
reflects its power position. The second part of the answer is the development of relations
with the other great powers, which this section addresses.

India–China
The Indian–Chinese security relationship has already been discussed above. As for the
overall political relations, the traditional starting point is that the Chinese elite tend to
look at India with condescension, far from being a peer of the ‘Kingdom of the
Middle’, while India sees itself historically and culturally as an equal of the Chinese
and expects the same recognition from Beijing as well. The Chinese stance has not
changed with India’s achievement of the unequivocal position of a nuclear weapons
power. China continues to disregard Indian preferences in the relationship to Pakistan,
is not open to compromise on territorial issues and was hardly helpful with regard to
India’s UNSC ambitions.37
The most recent example of ‘hierarchy politics’ is China’s One Belt One Road
(OBOR)38 project, a gigantic geo-economic programme to boost connectivity between
Asia, Europe and Africa. Beijing’s main instruments are huge infrastructural invest-
ments, and the expected outcome is an integrated economic space ready to accept
products made in China and largely under China’s control. China has developed this
project without consultation with India, even though India’s geostrategic interests are
 Strategic Analysis 203

intimately affected, and several infrastructure subprojects involving Southeast Asia,

notably Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and the Maldives, all around
India’s periphery, have already started.39 Notably, the Pakistan part was a slight to India,
as the China–Pakistan Corridor runs through a part of Kashmir claimed by India. India,
in turn, refused to attend a major OBOR conference in Beijing in May 2017—the only
regional country to do so. China’s offer to modify the ‘Corridor’ once India agrees to
join OBOR met deaf ears in New Delhi, as India views the whole project as a strategy
to establish Chinese hegemony.40 India and Japan are collaborating to set up an
alternative to China’s OBOR strategy, the ‘Asia-Africa Growth Corridor’, as an indica-
tion of India’s concern and dismay at the Chinese dismissal of its core interests.
The China–India relationship has been following a predictable trajectory since the
Indian economy started to takeoff in the late 1980s: a mixture of cooperation
(economically, and occasionally also diplomatically, e.g. in international economic
institutions) and competition with slowly growing intensity, particularly as their
position as ‘rising powers’ has become clearer by the year. The interaction is still
structured by the power asymmetry in favour of China. India’s nuclear weapons status
has obviously not impressed China’s leadership sufficiently so as to change its top-
down approach to the South Asian neighbour.

India–US
The seemingly best example of Pokhran’s impact on India’s relationship with a
great power is the American–Indian rapprochement in the first decade of the 21st
century, culminating in the ‘nuclear deal’ of 2005. The US also began to offer
military goods to India in the early 2000s, and cooperation between the US and
the Indian armed forces began in earnest, including joint naval exercises in the
South Chinese Sea. In addition, the US supported India’s claim for a permanent
seat in the UNSC.
All this seems to suggest that Pokhran triggered a landslide shift in the US policy
towards India. However, this would be a hasty conclusion. A closer analysis reveals
that the change in US policy and consequently, the improvement of the relations
between the two powers started during the first Clinton Administration. Clinton had
started his presidency by continuing the traditional US South Asia policy with its bias
in Pakistan’s favour. From 1995 onwards, however, matters changed decisively. This
was signified by a sequence of visits of US Secretaries of Energy, Commerce and
Defence to New Delhi and the ensuing growth of both economic and defence
cooperation. The most significant change, however, was the US adoption of a new
general orientation towards the Indian-Pakistani conflict. Washington recognised that
Pakistan was behind the unrest and terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, mitigated the
accusations against India on human rights grounds and warmed up to India without
great concern for Pakistani interests or feelings. More and more, the US started
treating India as a strategic partner of importance.
Objectively speaking, this change was not too surprising. First, India was not
anymore a close strategic ally of the Soviet Union (though formally non-aligned), but
an important counterweight to the newly emerging world power (and a rival of the US)
China. Second, India’s economy was growing at an extraordinary rate and presented
itself as most interesting market and thus economic partner. Third, both countries shared
a keen interest in combating terrorism instigated by fanatic jihadists and had good
reason to form a counterterrorism partnership. Fourth, the Clinton Administration (in a
204 Harald Müller

liberal mode) and the George W. Bush Administration (in a neoconservative mood)
pursued a policy of democracy promotion in which India figured as a natural partner.41
A prominent Indian analyst thus gave a correct assessment of the state of relation-
ship when he wrote at the beginning of 1998—long before the Pokhran test: ‘Today,
as we move to the year 1998 it is accurate to say that Indo–US relations are at their
best. … The current trends indicate a gradual but definite upward movement in
relations between the two countries.’42
There is no doubt that the India–US relations improved continuously through the
Bush Administration and beyond, not least because of the increasingly ambivalent
US–Pakistani relations concerning counterterrorism, and despite the fact that the US
needed some, however token, Pakistani cooperation.43

India–Russia
India–Russia relations before and after Pokhran remained largely the same. India
and the Soviet Union had cultivated a close economic and political relationship that
made the USSR by far the most important arms supplier for the Indian Republic.
Russia took over this role, but adopted a more commercial pricing for its arms
supply in order not to burden its shaken economy and state budget even more. It
gave India support in the regional setting, promoted India’s membership in the SCO
and endorsed India’s bid for permanent membership of the UNSC. While Russia
agreed with the post-Pokhran UNSC sanctions, it worked to keep them limited and
lobbied for their early lifting after a brief grace period. Moscow supported enthu-
siastically the opening of civilian nuclear export opportunities to India (having
supplied fuel for the Tarapur power reactor for 30 years once the original supplier,
the US, withdrew after the 1974 explosion). It is significant that Russia did not even
criticise, or try to impede, the warming up between the US and India. It continued
being a sympathetic partner and maintained an amicable relationship even as the
US–India relations improved.

Summary
India’s relations with its three ‘peers’ at the top level of the global hierarchy were
less affected by the Pokhran tests than one might have surmised. The Russia–India
relationship remained largely untouched, except for the Russian token acceptance
of relatively mild sanctions for India, a response that was inevitable for one of the
three depositories of the NPT. The relationship between India and China—the two
fastest growing economies in the world—remained a mixture of distrust and
dispute, interrupted by confidence-building measures from time to time, and
cooperation. China’s attitude of condescension towards India hardly changed,
nor did India’s reaction of dismay to the Chinese stance. As in the Russian
case, the India–US relations were briefly impacted negatively, because of the US
role in the non-proliferation regime, only to return to its upward curve soon after.
The nuclear cooperation agreement was only an illustration of the dramatic
improvement in relations between the two that had continuingly soured during
the Cold War. US support for an Indian permanent seat in the UNSC and for
India’s opposition against China’s OBOR, and the economic and military coopera-
tion between the two nations indicate a significant entente that has formed over
more than two decades definitely starting before the test.
 Strategic Analysis 205

After Pokhran: is the world different?

Pokhran at the time appeared to be the ‘big bang’ of world politics, triggering many
dire predictions for the future of the non-proliferation regime, not the least the fear
that it would motivate followers on the path to nuclear proliferation. On the other
hand, it was interpreted by some as leading to India’s final entry into the club of the
most powerful.
Much of what was surmised has not come true and what has, was not caused by
Pokhran. The non-proliferation regime did not crumble; only one proliferation case—
North Korea—happened, but without any causal link to the Pokhran test. India’s rise
continued, symbolised by its entry into the SCO, the G20 and BRICS, as well as the
recognition as a significant partner by the US, with the impressive development of its
economy which, for the first time, enhanced the natural resource base of territory, location
and size of population by societal productivity. Limits to Indian power remained visible in
the failure to be admitted neither to the NSG nor, importantly, to the UNSC.
Two points remain: First, strategically, India has overcome the risk of being black-
mailed in her conflicts with China. This advantage must be weighed against the
increased risk of becoming entangled in a nuclear escalation in a conflict involving
nuclear multipolarity. Second, it is obvious that the nuclear weapons status is equal to
being a great power; otherwise, one would include Israel, Pakistan and North Korea,
too, in this category. Serious candidates must be endowed with the full spectrum of
power resources—a large territory, a huge population, big and thriving economy,
scientific-technological proficiency, a strong military including an operational blue
water navy and a stable political system capable of deciding and acting with determina-
tion. But if a state disposes of all these attributes it might still be perceived as lacking a
condition of great power if it does not dispose of a nuclear arsenal. There is no
mechanical causality linking one to the other: even a state possessing nuclear weapons
can incrementally lose great power status when it falls back in the rank order of nations
with regard to the other criteria. Nonetheless, it is still possible, that India, in this sense
has taken a step forward, even if it is not sufficient to realise all objectives.44 Moreover,
all these attributes plus nuclear weapons do not still make a country a global power. To
be one, it needs vision, initiative, activism and leadership. India has still some way to
go; Pokhran was—against all rhetoric and noise—a rather small step.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes
1. This work has been supported by Charles University Research Centre programme, UNCE/
HUM/028, Peace Research Centre Prague/Faculty of Social Sciences.
2. George Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, Its Impact on Global Proliferation, University of
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206 Harald Müller

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 Strategic Analysis 207

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