India is now part of MCTR (Missile Control Technology Regime) that limits ICBM development. So that's no longer a valid concern. Also, India has done well without the assistance of the US in space technology and will continue to do so. So if the US doesn't want to assist in technology, it's not going to be a show stopper for India. It will continue to eat at the small satellite launch business.
That's regime sounds like a great intent, but the simple fact is that taking a satellite launching rocket, replacing the satellite with a nuke, and aiming it back at the ground somewhere is trivial.
Trivial for a nation-state is different than trivial for a person. A nation like India could accidentally lose the amount of money required to hire a team of 20 to do the engineering to mount a working nuke to a working rocket.
Intentionally paying and assembling that same team would be trivial for a nation like India, USA, China or Russia. It could be as simple as a single line item on some military spending bill.
The point of MCTR is to prevent a nation from openly admitting they have such a weapon and hence it can not be used as an argument in any future negotiations.
1) Their no-first-use policy
2) Pakistan already having nuclear weapons
For example I never understood USA providing F16s to Pakistan. It is nothing but USA's attempts to escalate the tensions.
ICBMs use much more stable fuels so they can sit in a silo for years on end. This requires totally different engines and fuel tanks.
tldr: You can't just stick a nuke on top of a liquid fueled rocket and use it like an ICBM.
A treaty does provide a way for bureaucrats and ambassadors to meddle with, discuss and possibly prevent that attack in advance... if they know about it.
Mounting a working nuke to a working rocket can easily be done in secret by a small team.
Neither adhere to a no-first-use doctrine. That means that they reserve the right to scorch the world with nuclear fire, in response to an attack by conventional weapons.
It's hard to pin down exactly how disproportionate this level of hubris is.
But no... it must just be a double standard... if you squint hard enough.
The decades of arms reductions still put the arsenals of either the US, or Russia at ~10 times that of India and Pakistan combined.
At least India has a no-first-use policy. I'm not saying things are better in that conflict, but this is the pot calling the kettle black.
It does at least tell anyone with a scrap of skepticism though, where you're coming from. Equivocation is at the heart of apologism.
While the odds of nuclear conflict between them may be lower then the odds of one between India and Pakistan (And this is an arguable point), it will be incredibly more devastating.
As such, it's incredibly disingenuous to claim that New Delhi has it's thumb on the doomsday button, but that Moscow or Washington don't.
As for devastation, http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/RobockToonSciAmJan2010...
So much sensationalism in this comment! It's like watching a sensationalist news channel. Anyone who follows India-Pakistan politics know that nuclear war is unlikely. Neither of them can afford another war.
The "realistic" situation is that unless nuclear weapons end up in the hands of terrorists in Pakistan, there is no real nuclear threat.