January 26, 2024
The competitive and often antagonistic relationships among China, India, and Pakistan have roots that predate their possession of nuclear weaponry. Yet the significant transformation of the nuclear capabilities that is now underway in all three countries—which includes both an expansion and a diversification of their respective nuclear arsenals—simultaneously complicates and mitigates their geopolitical rivalries.
This continuing modernization derives its impetus from multiple sources. China’s rapid nuclear modernization and force diversification is now driven primarily by competition with the United States as its principal great-power rival, but without forgetting other regional opponents closer to home. India’s slow nuclear expansion is driven entirely by the need to deter Chinese and Pakistani nuclear threats and use, but because New Delhi enjoys significant conventional military capabilities against both adversaries, it still hews to a remarkably conservative nuclear posture. Pakistan’s much faster nuclear expansion and its quest for “usable” nuclear weapons are driven principally by its fears of India, though concerns about the United States have more recently begun to have an appearance in Islamabad’s political calculus.
This report examines the transitions in the nuclear weapons programs in China, India, and Pakistan over the last two decades, using the May 1998 Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests as a point of reference. Although India and Pakistan began to openly develop their deterrents since then, the transformations in the Chinese nuclear weapons program began much earlier. To understand the character and extent of these evolutions, this study combines published data with information garnered from conversations with policymakers, strategic planners, and military officials in all three countries as well as with U.S. and European government officials who follow strategic issues in Southern Asia.
Ashley J. Tellis is the Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, specializing in international security and U.S. foreign and defense policy with a special focus on Asia and the Indian subcontinent.
While on assignment to the U.S. Department of State as senior adviser to the undersecretary of state for political affairs, he was intimately involved in negotiating the civil nuclear agreement with India.
Previously, he was commissioned into the U.S. Foreign Service and served as senior adviser to the ambassador at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi. He also served on the National Security Council staff as special assistant to President George W. Bush and senior director for strategic planning and Southwest Asia. Prior to his government service, Tellis was senior policy analyst at the RAND Corporation and professor of policy analysis at the RAND Graduate School.
He is a counselor at the National Bureau of Asian Research, the research director of its Strategic Asia program, and co-editor of the program’s seventeen most recent annual volumes, including the latest Strategic Asia: Reshaping Economic Interdependence in the Indo Pacific.
Tellis serves as an adviser to the Chief of Naval Operations. He is a member of several professional organizations related to defense and international studies including the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Institute of Strategic Studies, the United States Naval Institute, and the Navy League of the United States.
He earned his PhD in political science from the University of Chicago. He also holds an MA in political science from the University of Chicago and both BA and MA degrees in economics from the University of Bombay.