Nuclear weapons have since comprehensively changed the disposition of the Kashmir problem. They were suspect on that very count. Now they ring even more hollow. During the 34 years that India lived under the supposedly dangerous Chinese bomb, and for the 10 years or more since it suspected Pakistan of having acquired nuclear weapons, it did not consider it necess ary to take extreme measures such as raising military spending by 28 per cent in a single year, especially privileging scientists dedicated to military projects, or building underground shelters. Today, it is doing precisely that, with plans to construct an underground command structure at the cost of Rs.1,100 crores - more money than the Centre commits to fighting the drought.
China remains unreconciled to India's nuclear status.
Along with the menace from the Theatre Missile Defence the U.S. plans in East Asia, India's nuclear activities are likely to impel a serious change in China's nuclear posture and doctrine. A compelling logic is in operation here, that of an arms race involving China as well as Pakistan. India, then, courted insecurity by going down the nuclear path. This means the loss of one of the few levers left in the hands of pro-disarmament forces. India now behaves like any other arrogant NWS, indeed even more cynically, as in opposing a special United Nations session on d isarmament, which it once passionately demanded.