Nuclear Deterrence

[Arun_S]

As for CANDU in low burn mode, pls refer to



India Research Foundations:



[size="3"][url="http://www.indiaresearch.org/Indo-USStrategicDeal.pdf"]Impact of Indo-US Agreement on Indian Strategic Weapon program: Arun Sharma[/url][/size]



I had envisioned it my assessment 4 years ago before Bharat Karnad sahib's latest magnum opus was published last year.



As regarding FMTC the pivitol issue is not just having low burn spent fuel but having reprocessed and extrated the WgPu in explicit pre-FMTC stockpile. No evidence that is happenign under MMS watch.



Secondly 200 fission warheads with their limited yield is equivalent to being "Half Pregnent" nuclear deterrence; IOW there is no such thing unless the yield of those 200 warheads is in "High Yield" class, or the number of warheads and delivery vehicles have to to be increased by ~ 3 to 4 times.



The current Indian deterrence based on puny delivery capability (as of now) is less then "Half Pregnent Detrrence" it deters nobody. Not even Terrorist Pakistan !

India Research Foundation



[size="3"]Impact of Indo-US Agreement on Indian Strategic Weapon program:[/size][size="3"]

Will it make available more indigenous Uranium reserve for Indian Weapons Program?[/size]



Introduction

On July-18,2005 President Bush and Prime Minister Singh in a major breakthrough announced

an agreement on ‘Global Strategic Partnership’ involving many sub-agreements, including civil

nuclear energy cooperation, whose details were further agreed on March 2, 2006. The civil

nuclear power cooperation envisages United States to remove sanctions legislated by US

Congress in 1978 on nuclear fuel and power-plant technology, and work with US lead NSG to

accommodate nuclear fuel supply for Indian civilian nuclear plants. India in turn will separate its

strategic facilities from civilian facilities and put all current & future civilian nuclear power plants

and facilities under site specific IAEA safeguards.



Some opponents of this agreement have argued that India has small Uranium reserve thus

letting India purchase nuclear fuel supply for civilian power plants from NSG will somehow help

Indian nuclear weapons program by making available greater fraction of indigenous Uranium

reserve for military nuclear weapons program.



Assessment

Let us look at facts to understand merit of this argument.

1. Indian strategic nuclear weapons use approximately 3 Kg Plutonium.



2. India has large un-safeguarded Plutonium stockpile (conservatively estimated to between

3,000 Kg and 6,000Kg), a fraction of that will suffice to make hundreds of nuclear weapons if

India choose to exercise the option.



3. [color="#0000ff"]Indian PHWR reactors that are outside IAEA safeguard when operated for efficient power

generation would have cumulatively required just 5,842 tonnes. India is estimated to have

mined about 9,200 tonnesI of natural-uranium, indicating that about 55%II of the fuel and 8%

of its reactor capacity was used in low fuel burn mode, generally associated with operating

the reactors in mode optimized to generate weapon grade Plutonium. This corresponds to

about 2,400Kg weapon grade Plutonium enough for 800 strategic nuclear weapon.[/color]



4. Current Indian reserves of uranium estimated between 77,500 – 94,000 metric tonnes,

enough to support 12,000 MWe power generation for 50 yearsIII.



5. Current Indian PHWR reactors that are outside IAEA safeguard annually require 116 tonnes

of natural-uranium when operated in a mode optimized for power generation. When

operated in a mode optimized to generate weapon-grade Plutonium they require just 747

tonnes of natural-uranium annually, in the process they generate 745 Kg weapon grade

Plutonium, which is enough for 248 nuclear weapons per year.

From above one can clearly see that there is no merit in the argument that US-India civilian

nuclear agreement will be of any consequence to Indian nuclear weapons programs.



Conclusion

In conclusion the Indo-US agreement on civil nuclear reactors does not help Indian military

program:



1. India already has fissile material enough to make more than 800 warheads.



2. Its Fast Breeder Reactors can generate limitless fissile material for weapons or civilian

applications.



Date: 02-May-2006 Author: Arun Sharma

For Appendix pls see teh original PDF linked above