Articles By Dr Manpreet Sethi
Early Nuclear Indicators in the US’ Interim National Security Strategic...
By: Dr Manpreet Sethi | Date: 11 Apr , 2021
President Joe Biden’s administration has been quick off the mark to retrieve control on many domestic and foreign policy fronts: reining in the COVID-19 health emergency, extending New START,...
Global Nuclear Non-Proliferation: Ten Years of Rising Dangers
By: Dr Manpreet Sethi | Date: 15 Feb , 2021
Early 2010s: A Mood of Optimism The decade of the 2010s dawned with much nuclear hope and optimism, basking in the glow of President Obama’s Prague speech of April 2009. The NPT RevCon in May...
COVID-19 Mauled 2020—A Nuclear Disaster Would End Time
By: Dr Manpreet Sethi | Issue: Courtesy: IPCS | Date: 31 Dec , 2020
2020 started on a grim note, with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists deciding in January to move the minute hand on its clock to 100 seconds to midnight. This was a reminder of the high level...
Another Date-Change for the NPT RevCon: Fresh Opportunity to Shape its Success
By: Dr Manpreet Sethi | Date: 27 Nov , 2020
The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that conducts a review conference (RevCon) every five years was due to hold one in April-May 2020. This RevCon had special significance as it was to mark the...
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in India-China Nuclear Relations
By: Dr Manpreet Sethi | Date: 12 Nov , 2020
India-China nuclear relations are unique and complex. China refuses to recognise India as a nuclear weapons state (NWS), though there is no denying the reality of India’s nuclear weapons. In...
The North Korean Nuclear Knot and China’s Dilemma
By: Dr Manpreet Sethi | Date: 09 Oct , 2020
The relationship between China and North Korea has often been described as similar to that between lips and teeth. Besides sharing the political ideology of communism, China is important for...
Nuclear Energy: Is it in or out?
By: Dr Manpreet Sethi | Date: 21 Jan , 2020
Two contrasting news on nuclear energy from two different parts of the world greeted the dawn of the new year. Germany announced the decommissioning of another of its nuclear power plants in...
Pulwama, Balakot, and the Future: How the Chips Stack Up
By: Dr Manpreet Sethi | Date: 17 Jun , 2019
For the time being, the India-Pakistan crisis triggered by the terrorist strike against the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) convoy in February in Pulwama appears to have stabilised. However,...
Limited Use of Nuclear Weapons: Political and Military Implications
By: Dr Manpreet Sethi | Issue: Courtesy: IPCS | Date: 06 Jan , 2019
Among the many things nuclear that 2018 will be remembered for, the rather cavalier statements made by leaders in the US, Russia and North Korea on the utility of nuclear weapons certainly stand...
Signalling with INS Arihant: Import of the Message and the Messenger
By: Dr Manpreet Sethi | Issue: Courtesy: IPCS | Date: 27 Nov , 2018
The announcement on 5 November regarding the completion of the first deterrent patrol of India’s first indigenous nuclear-powered submarine (SSBN), the INS Arihant, has evoked three kinds of...
Nuclear Security: The Focus Must Not Flag
By: Dr Manpreet Sethi | Issue: Courtesy: IPCS | Date: 24 Aug , 2018
The last few weeks have witnessed the release of at least three reports (1, 2, 3) on nuclear security. This is a welcome development since the import of this subject has in no way diminished...
China and the Shape of the Indo-Pacific
By: Dr Manpreet Sethi | Issue: Courtesy: IPCS | Date: 18 Jul , 2018
It is hardly surprising that China figures prominently in the idea of the Indo-Pacific. In fact, China’s behaviour and actions have provided the impetus and trigger for the revival of the...
The Bomb Banned: By and For the NNWS, For Now
By: Dr Manpreet Sethi | Date: 19 Sep , 2017
As the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), popularly referred to as the Ban Treaty, opens for signature on 20 September 2017, it is most likely that it will garner the 50...
Chinese Responsibility on DPRK: No ‘Theory’, Immutable Reality
By: Dr Manpreet Sethi | Date: 23 Jul , 2017
Recent videos from North Korea – or Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) – show their Supreme Commander of the Army, Kim Jong-un, chuckling away as he watches his country’s missile...
Indian Nuclear Policy and Diplomacy
By: Dr Manpreet Sethi | Date: 02 Jul , 2017
Democracies often undergo swings in policies with change of governments. India’s nuclear policy, however, in both its dimensions – weapons and power generation – has enjoyed broad support across...
India should not be Sucked into an Arms Race
By: Dr Manpreet Sethi | Issue: Courtesy: South Asia Monitor | Date: 12 Jan , 2017
India closed 2016 with the successful test of its long-range ballistic missile, the 5,000-km-range Agni V. The country heralded the New Year with the test of Agni IV, a ballistic missile with a...
Limits of Practising Nuclear Brinksmanship
By: Dr Manpreet Sethi | Date: 24 Dec , 2016
Thomas Schelling, a noted nuclear strategist who passed away recently, explained brinkmanship as a strategy that “means manipulating the shared risk of war. It means exploiting the danger that...
No Case for Simultaneous NSG Membership for India and Pakistan
By: Dr Manpreet Sethi | Issue: Courtesy: South Asia Monitor | Date: 06 Sep , 2016
In the midst of nearly daily attacks by home grown terrorists on its own populace, Pakistan found a moment of cheer when China engineered an unfavourable consideration of India’s case for...
Pak's Nuclear 'Normality' through External Deals: Chasing a Chimera
By: Dr Manpreet Sethi | Date: 23 Mar , 2016
Several recent writings have recommended how Pakistan could and should be accommodated into the nuclear mainstream. Mark Fitzpatrick, a non-proliferation analyst at the IISS, London, had...