Delivering the Bomb: Foreign Assistance in the Development of Nuclear Forces

• In Event: Nuclear Forces, Strategy, and Deterrence

Abstract

What determines how regional nuclear powers build their nuclear forces? Most studies of nuclear proliferation explain why states build the nuclear bomb and how they do it. What they miss, however, is how states develop and acquire the apparatus to deliver these nuclear weapons – a crucial part of operationalizing any nuclear force. This paper posits an original framework to understand nuclear force structure development in regional powers taking into account the enabling and constraining mechanisms that states have to navigate in the process. I identify different networks of interaction among regional powers which – in the face of geopolitical and non-proliferation regime related constraints – produce different parts of a regional power’s nuclear force structure. Using newly declassified documents from India, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States, I examine the case of India’s nuclear force structure as the primary case study. In particular, I focus on India’s acquisition of Jaguar aircraft from the United Kingdom, and space/missile technology from France to develop its nuclear delivery platforms. My paper addresses a gap in the scholarship on nuclear proliferation and strategy by mapping out the paths that states take to develop their nuclear force structures after developing the nuclear bomb and establishing the role of foreign networks in the process. Additionally, the paper deepens our knowledge of aspects of nuclear proliferation hitherto overlooked by academic and policy discourses.

Author

• Debak Das, Stanford University