What Would Brinkmanship Look

Like in the Indo-Pacific?

A recent publication shows how nuclear
competition in Asia has evolved—with far-
reaching effects for deterrence.
Sumit Ganguly
October 10, 2022, 5:14 PM

China's DF-41 nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles are seen during a military parade in
Beijing on Oct. 1, 2019.

China's DF-41 nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles are seen during a

military parade in Beijing on Oct. 1, 2019. GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images

In recent weeks, Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly

raised the specter of nuclear weapons use as his military faces
significant battlefield setbacks during its war in Ukraine. Russia’s
:
 resort to this sort of brinkmanship is certainly not lost on other
nuclear powers, including those in Asia. There, China, India, and
Pakistan have long been entangled in a three-way nuclear
competition, which has evolved in critical ways amid shifts in
geopolitics—the most important being China’s rise and increasing
assertiveness.

China, India, and Pakistan may have started measuring their nuclear
programs against one another as early as the 1970s, but New Delhi’s
and Islamabad’s landmark nuclear tests in 1998 brought their
nascent competition to the fore. A recent publication by Ashley J.
Tellis, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, masterfully details the developments in nuclear policy among
the three countries in the decades since. Tellis shows how the
region’s nuclear competition has intensified in the past decade, as
each nuclear power has modernized its arsenal to acquire new
capabilities, including tactical nuclear weapons.

Trending Articles

Helsinki Commission Recommends Kicking

Russia Off U.N. Security Council
Not so fast, experts say.

These developments have important ripple effects for the

international system. Unlike India and Pakistan, whose nuclear
programs are mostly regionally focused, China’s seeks to target
regional adversaries as well as those farther afield—namely the
United States. Furthermore, Moscow’s current approach to nuclear
brinkmanship may embolden Beijing or Islamabad—both revisionist
states—to resort to similar threats in future crises in the quest for
strategic advantage.
: