Polaris  

Is the oft-cited maxim, attributed to an Indian defence official, about not fighting the Americans without nuclear weapons an invention? Probably.

Michael Krepon has shared some of his favourite one-liners about nuclear weapons with readers of ArmsControlWonk, and asked them to submit some of their own suggestions. One immediately sprung to mind, although I have reservations about its veracity:

Never fight the United States without nuclear weapons.

I’ve come across that quote or one of its iterations—attributed either to the Indian defence minister, the Indian chief of army staff, or simply to an unidentified Indian general—in numerous books, articles, interviews and op-eds. For a sampling, see Michael Ignatieff, Philip Bobbitt (who in turn has been quoted on this in other works), Les Aspen (again, frequently re-quoted, including by Thomas Mahnken in a 1993 Washington Quarterly article not available online), Philippe Delmas, James Schlesinger, Manjeet Pardesi, Mark T. Clark, Robert Manning, the American Foreign Press Service, and National Public Radio (which attributes the quote to a Pakistani). I’ve also come across it in archived testimony before the U.S. Congress, dated 1995. I have yet to find the quote used by an Indian.

The earliest media references I can find are two, both in The Washington Post, in January 1992. On the 17th, veteran journalist Haynes Johnson began an article with the following:

In the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War — yes, that war, remember? — India’s military chief of staff reportedly drew this lesson: “Never fight the U.S. without nuclear weapons.”

A few days after Johnson’s article, Ralph Earle and John Rhinelander repeated it verbatim in a Washington Post op-ed, with the exact same attribution. Needless to say, India does not have a single ”military chief of staff” (the army chief at the time was Gen. Rodrigues).  

However, no half-decent source provides a reliable attribution of the original quote, and as noted above, the source tends to vary. So does the exact phrasing, with some authors using “the U.S.,” or “the Americans” in place of “the United States.”

All of this begs the question: is this an accurate quotation? Further, if it was not, in fact, said, is it still a useful invention? Its widespread use suggests so. But unless a more concrete original report of its utterance can be established, perhaps it should be invoked with a little more hesitation.

Update: I forgot to include another variation on the quote: “Don’t fight” instead of “Never fight.” That version can be found used by individuals affiliated with the U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force, the Federation of American Scientists, the Arms Control Association, the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies and the College of William and Mary.