SOURCE: Jagran News
The much talked-about Defensive Offence strategic doctrine of India outlined by NSA Ajit Doval, has ensured that country’s defence structures remain confident of its Nuclear deterrence capabilities. While Pakistan, India’s terror-exporting neighbour remains marginally, ahead of India in terms of the number of nuclear warheads, India’s deterrence mechanism against nuclear arms remains far more advanced and synchronised with its overall requirements.
In its 2020 yearbook, (SIPRI) Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a Swedish think-tank, has estimated India’s total number of nuclear warheads at 150, while that of Pakistan at 160. Earlier, in 2019, SIPRI had estimated India’s nuclear warhead numbers at 130-140, while that of Pakistan at 150-160, implying a clear increase in India’s nuclear warhead number just in one year.
Decrease in the number of Global N-warheads
A total of 465 nuclear warheads have been made to retire, mainly by the US and Russia, between 2019 and 2020.
The nine on-the-record nuclear armed states, that is, the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea had 13,865 Nuclear warheads in 2019, which have come down to 13,400 in 2020.
The US and Russia, with with 5,800 and 6,375 nuclear warheads respectively account for close to ninety per cent of total number of Nuclear Warheads, globally.
Why SIPRI report is significant right now?
The report comes at a time when India is at crossheads with China in Ladakh’s Galwan valley, with China reportedly having breached India’s perceptive Line of Actual Control (LAC) earlier in May, amid on-going de-escalation efforts.
Pakistan, on other hand continues to export the terror and turmoil in the Kashmir valley, with tens of infiltration attempts already even in the middle of a pandemic.
The military build-ups along the 3,488 km Line of Actual Control with China remains intense on both sides, alongside the concentrated volatility along the Line of Control with Pakistan.
“India and Pakistan are slowly increasing the size and diversity of their nuclear forces,” SIPRI’s 2020 yearbook says, implying towards the nuclear triad (from under/above the sea, air and land) capabilities of India which Pakistan lacks.
In April this year, with an expenditure of $71.1 billion in 2019, SIPRI found India as the third largest military spender in the world, just behind the US and China.
https://defencenewsofindia.com/in-comparison-to-pakistan-india-betters-its-nuclear-warhead-numbers-in-2020-alongside-an-advanced-deterrence/
