Sea-based nuclear weapons in Asia: Stabiliser or menace?

On this day in 1945, the first nuclear weapon was used in conflict, with devastating consequences for the people of Hiroshima. In Asia today, nuclear weapons remain part of the strategic reality, for better or worse.

But calculations about nuclear armaments in the region may be changing, notably with the introduction of Chinese and Indian submarine-launched nuclear weapons. This could have profound implications for whether nuclear weapons continue to help keep the peace or become instruments of instability and catastrophic escalation.

Often, strategic analysts and policymakers consider nuclear deterrence as somewhat separate from broader strategic and economic change. This has been all too apparent in the grand maritime region of Indo-Pacific Asia, where economic growth has been accompanied by tensions at sea, military modernisation and growing strategic differences among the powers.

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