The only alternative to coexistence is co-destruction
Jawaharlal Nehru was a maven of international relations, and this statement reflects his incisive understanding of the same. In the international system, it is important for countries to at least be able to coexist, if not have good diplomatic relations. The phrase ‘vasudhaiva kutumbakam’ meaning ‘the world is one family’ is a philosophy that India has stood by and believes is part of its moral fabric. India’s foreign policy has also emphasised on unity, and veered away from divisiveness. At the same time, India has encouraged unity among nations too. In fact, when the entire world was either siding with communist Russia or capitalist USA, India helped found the concept of non-alignment. While having allies is how international diplomacy works, gathering allies as a means of spreading their influence has become a recourse often taken by powerful nations. This engenders discord among nations by creating factions in the international community, and is extremely disruptive. Thus, it gravely threatens co-existence among countries. Additionally the splitting of nations into factions either due to ideological differences, historical antagonism or otherwise furthers hostility between such factions. This puts nations firmly on the path to co-destruction. When nations strive to maintain sufficiently stable relations to co-exist, it often leads to war which ultimately adversely affects all parties involved.
The doctrine of mutually assured destruction arose during the Cold War. It states that in scenarios where both the attacking nation(s) and the defending nation(s) have access to powerful weapons of mass destruction, the conflict will inevitably result in the mutually assured destruction of all nations involved. The weapons of mass destruction could be nuclear or chemical or otherwise. It is believed that this doctrine was the only thing preventing USA and Russia from engaging in an all out open battle during the period of the Cold War. If these two nations had gone to war, not only would people from these two nations would have been affected but other nations would also have been caught in the crossfire. Both nations had a highly developed arsenal that consisted of nuclear weapons amongst other equipment in their arsenal. Hence, in this instance, the nations involved found a way to co-exist so that co-destruction of both these nations and others was pre-empted.
In the context of India and its relations with its neighbours, the fear of mutually assured destruction has discouraged both India and Pakistan from going to war again. The fact that both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons means that the threat of mutual destruction is heightened, with the lives of millions of people hanging in the balance. Hence, despite multiple disagreements and fire exchanges between the armies of both nations, the two countries found a way to co-exist.
