Nuclear Ambiguity and International Status

Abstract

India’s abstinence from nuclear weapons through the 1960s continues to puzzle political scientists who study the causes of nuclear proliferation and historians who study India’s specific path to nuclear weapons. This chapter argues that India’s nuclear interregnum of the 1960s is best explained by understanding the status benefits that nuclear ambiguity as a component of a non-aligned foreign policy bestowed upon India. India’s best response to an external nuclear threat and internal domestic pressure to build the bomb was not to actually go nuclear but rather to publicly keep the option open while simultaneously pushing for disarmament as a serious foreign policy goal. This strategy gave India a special position in the international community as a scientifically advanced and potentially powerful yet essentially peaceful nation. Nowhere was this clearer than in India’s contribution to debates in the Eighteen Nation Committee on Disarmament (ENCD) convened by the United Nations between 1962 and 1969.