India’s Nuclear Dilemma Faces a Dramatic Moment of Reckoning

New Delhi: The fragile foundations of the 21st century’s nuclear non-testing norm have been shattered. The autumn 2025 announcements by US President Donald Trump, alleging that China, Russia, and even Pakistan have been conducting clandestine nuclear tests, have been chillingly substantiated.

The subsequent confirmation from the CIA, asserting that both Beijing and Moscow have engaged in “super-critical nuclear weapons tests”—thereby exceeding the “zero-yield” standard that underpins the global moratorium—has plunged the world into a new and dangerous strategic era.

For India, this revelation is not a distant great power dispute; it is an existential crisis. It forces New Delhi to confront its own quarter-century-old, self-imposed moratorium on nuclear testing—a policy that has been a co