Shaping Nuclear Identity: The Role of National Branding in India and Pakistan’s Diplomatic Narratives
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55737/trt/v-v.312Keywords:
Nuclear Identity, National Branding, Nuclear Diplomacy, India, Pakistan, Diplomatic Narratives, Strategic CommunicationAbstract
Over the past several years, India and Pakistan have made it a point of State policy to increasingly tie nuclear capability to their foreign identities and civilian discussions. After conducting their first nuclear tests in 1998, the state policies of both countries have increasingly embedded the use of the nuclear capability as integral to their foreign identity and political discourse. Nuclear identity is not a military one but rather one of nation branding used as a strategic tool that manifests in international legitimacy, regional status, and foreign policy goals. In this paper, I analyze how both State A and the State B create and present different nuclear identities in the world political system through the use of diplomatic discourse. It draws particular official statements of policy, strategic statements and doctrines, speeches, and scholarly publications into a qualitative research analysis. The analysis suggests that the image of a responsible nuclear power that is dedicated to strategic restraint and international control comes from India, while Pakistan has its vision of nuclear capability as a credible deterrence and a stabilizing force within the immediate region. Overall, the study understandably finds that the national branding has a significant impact on international opinion regarding specific countries as well as on their diplomatic relationship and strategic engagements in the broader context of security as related to their respective South Asian cases.
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