Oppenheimer was admired by a section of the Indian intelligentsia for his familiarity with Indian philosophical traditions and his advocacy of peaceful nuclear uses.
Complete demilitarisation is essential to assure the full safety of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant complex, despite the significant safety design features of the facility.
Although the ideas of nuclear arms control, nuclear security and nuclear disarmament have featured in several US official statements and joint statements with other countries, will US adopt the ‘No First Use’ policy, remains to be seen.
The rapid increase in the nuclear forces of China, as revealed in the 2021 Pentagon Report, is a matter of serious concern. Several countries are undertaking exercises to ascertain the strategic and security implications of the feared expansion of the Chinese nuclear stockpile.
The Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has not succeeded in adding any additional universal stigma to nuclear weapons. It lacks the support base needed for replacing the Cold War vintage “Mutual Assured Destruction” with “Mutual Assured Abstinence”. The nuclear weapon countries’ faith in the deterrence logic remains intact.
Even as nuclear safety protocols and processes have been strengthened since the 1986 disaster, learning from Chernobyl should be a continuing, ongoing process.
India’s tryst with its destiny for the twenty-first century will greatly depend upon how it prioritises its strategic necessities in the face of current Covid-19-induced economic crisis. While still on course to be the third largest world economy by 2050, India will need to ensure it has the essential tools—economic, military and diplomatic—by then to provide the necessary leverage as a great world power. Great thinkers have stressed and history has shown that maritime power is one such leverage.
