The only caveat to the NFU is if India is attacked with biological or chemical weapons. Retaliation against a nuclear attack will be “massive” and inflict “unacceptable damage”.

India’s NFU policy maintains CMD without provocation, ensuring that its second-strike capability would deter the enemy from using nukes.

Change In Nuclear Dynamics

Besides India, only China of the other eight nuclear powers has the NFU policy, which should be reassuring to New Delhi considering that Beijing has the third-largest nuclear arsenal. China’s stockpile as of January was 620, almost thrice that of India’s (190).

On the other hand, India’s other nuclear rival, Pakistan, has170 nukes with a first-use policy.

The nuclear dynamics, per the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Yearbook 2026, are evolving with all the nuclear powers continuing to strengthen their arsenals, deploying new nuclear-armed or nuclear-capable weapons and some increasing their stockpiles in 2025. 

The figures are alarming in India’s context.

China is the only NPT member that continues to expand its arsenal, producing 20 more nuclear warheads in 2025 and “is expected to keep growing over the coming decade”, per SIPRI.

According to a 2022 US Department of Defense (DoD) report, China might have 1,500 nukes by 2035. 

Pakistan’s nuclear warhead inventory was stable as of January, but “it continued to develop its nascent nuclear triad during 2025. Pakistan’s nuke arsenal and fissile material stockpile are “likely to continue to expand over the next decade” as it continues to develop delivery systems and accumulate fissile material.

In light of the SIPRI estimates, should India revise its NFU policy?

Three factors warrant revisiting the NFU policy—China, Pakistan and the nuclear-conventional entanglement. 

China’s Evolving Nuclear Posture 

China claims that its NFU policy reflects that the development of nukes is only for self-defence. 

Most of China’s nuclear warheads are stored separately from launchers—strategic bombers, missiles and ship submersible ballistic nuclear (SSBNs).

China, which claims that nukes are deployed only to maintain a second-strike capability, has deployed 34 warheads on a smaller number of its missiles.

However, China has gradually changed its nuclear posture without changing its doctrine in three ways.

First, there’s a high probability that China has an early-warning counterstrike (EWCS) capability similar to the launch-on-warning (LOW) strategy. China will retaliate with a nuclear strike when its infrared Tongxun Jishu Shiyan satellites, large phased-array radars and command-and-control centres detect an incoming nuclear missile within 90 seconds of its launch.

According to the DoD’s “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2025” report, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) launched several silo-based ICBMs simulating an EWCS operation. 

China’s EWCS capability makes its NFU policy meaningless.

Second, China’s six JIN-class SSBNs are on “near-continuous at-sea deterrence patrols” armed with either 12 JL-2 (range 8,000-9,000 km) or JL-3 (range 10,000-13,000 km) nuclear-capable SLBMs each. 

The JL-3 can hit the continental US from China’s coast, including the South China Sea. Both missiles have Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicle (MIRV) capability, allowing them to carry multiple warheads.  

On July 6, China conducted a rare test of the JL-2/JL-3 with a dummy warhead in the Pacific Ocean.

Third, China is making its second-strike capability more lethal. Beijing has been constructing nuclear missile silos since 2021—around 300 in the deserts of Yumen, Hami and Ordos in Gansu, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, respectively. 

The silos contain the DF-5A, B and C, with a range of 13,000 km and the B and C variants carrying 10 MIRV warheads. The silos also have the DF-31A, AG and BJ missiles, with a range of 11,700 km. 

The PLA has likely loaded more than 100 ICBM missile silos at the three silo fields with DF-31s, “which are very likely intended to support EWCS”, per the DoD.  Some silos could be part of “combat readiness duty” and “high alert duty” drills.

Now, Beijing has constructed more than 80 launch pads, bunkers and communications nodes near the Hami silo field to protect its land-based nuclear ballistic ICBMs, increasing its second-strike capability. 

Pakistan’s First-Use Policy

Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine is aimed at deterring an Indian conventional or nuclear attack, especially considering the conventional asymmetry with India.

India has decisively defeated Pakistan in every war, from 1947 (over Kashmir) to 1999 (Kargil), forcing the centralisation of strategic command authority in the Army to threaten India. Therefore, Pakistan has deliberately maintained strategic ambiguity by never issuing an official, written nuclear doctrine. 

Pakistan has a first-use policy and India-centric full-spectrum deterrence (FSD), introduced post-1998 nuclear tests. 

According to General Khalid Kidwai, adviser to Pakistan’s National Command Authority, FSD includes striking every Indian target: countervalue (socioeconomic and civilian assets), counterforce (important military assets) and battlefield (tactical targets). 

Pakistan has four nuclear thresholds against India, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies:

1.   If the Pakistani Army fails to prevent a large-scale penetration by Indian Armed Forces

2.   If a large part of Pakistani Armed Forces, especially the Air Force, is destroyed

3.   If the Pakistani Navy is unable to counter an economic (naval) blockade and

4.   If political or massive internal destabilisation is uncontrollable—for example, the Bangladesh Liberation War. 

Pakistan has repeatedly threatened India with nuclear weapons: thrice before the 1998 nuclear tests and following the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019 and the Indus Water Treaty suspension in 2025.

Tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs) usually used to threaten or blackmail the adversary in a conventional war. Pakistan, unlike India, has a TNW, the Nasr, a 70-km-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile that carries a sub-kiloton warhead.

However, Pakistan’s nuclear threats have never deterred an Indian conventional attack—the latest example was Operation Sindoor. 

Consequently, Pakistan promulgated the 27th Amendment, vesting complete strategic authority in the Army Chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, without any accountability and political oversight.

Munir, who issued two nuclear threats to India post-Operation Sindoor, has concentrated strategic power by becoming the first Chief of Defence Forces and the head of the newly formed National Strategic Command.

Consolidating nuclear decision-making in a single military commander increases the chances of rapid and impulsive escalation in a stand-off between two nuclear arch-rivals. 

Nuclear–Conventional Entanglement 

Another dangerous aspect of the evolving nuclear situation is the use of platforms that can deliver both conventional and nuclear weapons, or dual-capable systems, like warplanes and missiles. 

China, which has the world’s largest land-based ballistic missile stockpile, has a range of dual-capable ballistic and cruise missiles—DF-15, DF-17, DF-21, DF-26 and HN 1,2,3—in identical mobile launchers. 

China’s long-range strategic bombers, H-6N and H-6K, carry both nuclear and conventional ballistic missiles. Even the H-20, a stealth bomber under development, will be for dual use. 

Pakistan has four dual-use warplanes: F-16, JF-17 and Mirage III and V. Its dual-use missiles are Abadeel, Shaheen 1, 2 and 3, Babur, Ra’ad, Ghauri and Ghaznavi.

India’s dual-capable combat jets include Jaguar, Mirage 2000, Su-30MKI and Rafale. The missiles are Agni series, BrahMos, Dhanush, Sagarika ( K-15), Nirbhay, Prahaar and Prithvi-I and II.

The use of dual-use systems in a conflict is extremely risky and could lead to a nuclear conflict.

First is the wrong threat assessment. If a state concludes that a dual-capable combat aircraft of its adversary is on a nuclear mission, it might retaliate with a nuke, triggering a nuclear war. 

Second, if the adversary attacks a nuclear-capable platform of   a state with a conventional system, it can also lead to a nuclear war.

This nuclear-conventional entanglement has the potential of dragging a conventional war into the nuclear realm.

India Should Be Prepared

The nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the first and probably the last use of nuclear weapons. 

Using a nuke will invite global opprobrium, sanctions and isolation. However, WMDs are here to stay. 

Though deterrence is the main goal, the possibility of accidental escalation would always remain, and China and Pakistan would continue to flex their nuclear muscles. 

India has realised the gravity of the changing nuclear dynamics. 

As of January 2026, India may have deployed 12 SLBMs on one of its SSBNs, but “this assessment comes with considerable uncertainty”, per SIPRI.

India’s nuclear triad and second-strike capability are more powerful compared to Pakistan, which doesn’t have an SSBN. 

Since India has an NFU policy, it relies on its second-strike capability, which primarily comprises its three SSBNs, INS Arihant, INS Arighaat and INS Aridhaman, with the fourth, INS Arisudan, expected to enter service next year. Of the 4 SSBNs, 2 have 4 missile tubes each while the other 2 have 8 tubes each. 

However, India needs to revisit its nuclear doctrine if not change it, at least, introduce the LOW strategy to counter both China and Pakistan, in case, of a nuclear escalation.

In 2014, the BJP promised to revisit the NFU policy. In 2019, defence minister Rajnath Singh said at Pokhran that though India stands by its NFU policy, “what happens in the future depends on the circumstances”.

The circumstances have changed and so should India’s NFU policy.

(The writer is a columnist with more than two decades of experience in journalism. Views are personal.)