China is now India's primary source of 'strategic?envy', says US think tank

Atlantic Council, a US-based think tank specialising on South Asia in a paper presented recently said China is now "India's primary source of strategicenvy", stating that India does not believe that China poses a "compelling threat" to its security.

The think tank in its article said India has steadily diluted its commitment to an "unambiguous nuclear first use(NFU) policyover the last fourteen years."

The article under the header: Asia in the "second nuclear age" wrote, "in 2003, for example, an Indian government document listed an adversary’s use of chemical or biological weapons as a triggering condition for the potential first use of nuclear weapons," adding,"the issue of whether India has privately abandoned NFU, or will do so soon, is an unknown for even better-informed observers in New Delhi."

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The think tank said senior Indian national security officials also indicate that India is "rethinking its limited-conventional-war strategy against Pakistan".

"In the case of ballistic missiles, warheads will very likely be mated to the missiles during emergency flushing-out routines," the think tank concluded.

The Atlantic Council said China is the only "nuclear power among the three which is actually modernizing"replacing ageing delivery systems with newer and better designs.

The think tank said neither India nor Pakistan are conducting nuclear tests to develop or improve designs for nuclear warheads. The same holds for China.

However, the think tank cautioned that Pakistan is rapidly "accumulating fissile material, which could increase to four hundred and fifty kilograms ofplutonium, sufficient for ninety weapons, and more than 2,500 kilograms of highly enriched uranium (HEU), sufficient for one hundred simplefission warheads by 2020."

The nuclear rivalry in South Asia remains ominous, because Pakistan wages LIC against India via non-state actors, while India has devised "limited conventional-war options" to punish the Pakistani military on Pakistani soil, the think tank observed.

The big difference between the "first and second nuclear ages" is the domestic stability of the nuclear-weapon powers, it said.

"In Asia- China and India represent this continuity of strong state institutions, as well as checks and balances on the military."

The Atlantic Council said Pakistan remains "internally unstable, and increasingly unable to rein in 'praetorianism'over national security andnuclear policy."