Nuclear deterrence introduced a new tension at its core, the uniquely destructive nature of nuclear weapons that made the consequences of deterrence failure unimaginably horrible. While most literature on nuclear deterrence is based on the U.S.-Soviet nuclear rivalry, there are clear limits on how far this can apply to nuclear rivalries which are asymmetric in nature, both in terms of composition of nuclear arsenals and respective nuclear doctrines. It needs nuclear weapons to deal with nuclear threats only because both its adversaries possess nuclear weapons. In other words, India does not consider nuclear weapons as weapons for war fighting but only for deterring nuclear threats. Most critics questioned how an attack could take place on a country that had nuclear weapons; this reflected a conflation of conventional and nuclear deterrence and overlooked the fact that nuclear weapons were never intended to deter terrorists.

Source: New York Times February 08, 2026 04:20 UTC