What Is The Policy Of India And Pakistan On Nuclear Weapons?
India officially adheres to a "no first use" (NFU) policy, pledging never to initiate a nuclear strike and to only retaliate if attacked with nuclear weapons
The world has its eyed firmly trained on South Asia as India and Pakistan, two nuclear-armed neighbours, launch into what seem to be the early days of their fourth war.
The latest trigger was the brutal attack by Pakistan-backed terrorists in J&K’s Pahalgam last month in which 26 Indians, mostly tourists, were killed. Two weeks later, India launched Operation Sindoor, bombing nine terrorist hubs in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
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While India targeted terrorists across the border, Pakistan responded late on Thursday by attempting to strike Indian military stations in Jammu, Pathankot, Udhampur and some other locations with missiles and drones. The Indian military swiftly foiled the Pakistani attempts, and in response launched kamikaze drones and destroyed a Pakistani air defence system in Lahore.
The Other N-Word
Both India and Pakistan are nuclear-armed rivals, each possessing formidable stockpiles developed over decades. As of early 2024, the Arms Control Association estimated that India holds approximately 172 nuclear warheads, while Pakistan possessed a comparable arsenal of around 170, though some assessments suggest it may have as many as 200.
Neither India nor Pakistan is a signatory to the global Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), although they have a longstanding bilateral agreement – the Non-Nuclear Aggression Agreement signed in 1988 – that prohibits attacks on each other’s nuclear installations.
India officially adheres to a “no first use" (NFU) policy, pledging never to initiate a nuclear strike and to only retaliate if attacked with nuclear weapons. Pakistan, however, has deliberately kept its nuclear doctrine ambiguous.
Both India and Pakistan are among the nine nuclear-armed nations globally. According to the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), the total global nuclear stockpile stands at approximately 12,331 warheads as of early 2025. The United States and Russia control a staggering 88% of this arsenal.
If Past Is Prologue…
The world does not need to imagine the devastation of a nuclear involvement — it has already witnessed it. On August 6 and 9, 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, respectively, instantly killing more than 2 lakh people. Those who survived the initial blast endured agonising injuries, radiation sickness, and long-term health complications that persisted for generations. Photographs of charred bodies, flattened buildings, and the haunting image of the Hiroshima Dome still stand as enduring reminders of what nuclear weapons are capable of.
In Hiroshima, temperatures at the blast’s epicentre reached an estimated 4000 degrees Celsius, melting steel and vaporising human bodies. The fireball created a shockwave that levelled buildings within a 2-kilometre radius. Survivors reported searing blindness from the initial flash, while others suffocated as oxygen was sucked from the air. Thousands more died slow deaths in the days and weeks that followed, with hospitals overwhelmed and entire neighbourhoods reduced to radioactive ash.
The long-term environmental and genetic effects of those bombings are still being studied today. Leukaemia rates soared, congenital birth defects rose sharply, and psychological trauma haunted survivors – known in Japan as ‘hibakusha‘ – for the rest of their lives.
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