Nuclear Deterrence

[Guest]

Arunji,



Whn you say higher yield warheads, do you mean thermonuclear warheads with >300kt yield ? BK refers to a 1MT design which the single warhead version of Agni-V (which he calls Agni -Iv) carries. This weighs 1.5 ton as per BK. Possibly A-III carries the same ? (BK referred to A-III in MIRV config carrying 3x300kt..)

[ramana]

Arun,

1) Isnt the new reproccessing plant for power reactors part of the separation plan for the NSG wiaver?

2) The APSARA inof in my view is two parts. The old imported fuel is being sent away. And htere is a new APSARA reactor on its way.



3) Those teams looking around during the CWG are an Indian version of NEST? So there was concern about dirty bum at that time.



Kritavarma,

Can you give actual quote of BK's write-up and refs please?

[Guest]

[quote name='ramana' date='21 April 2011 - 01:27 PM' timestamp='1303413581' post='111410']

Kritavarma,

Can you give actual quote of BK's write-up and refs please?

[/quote]



Read pgs 79-82 of BK's book "India's Nuclear Policy". Has a lot of information.



Arunji,



If BKs assertion abt 1MT single warhead is true, where can it be tested ? Or is it a conservative design (1Mt/1.5 ton is a low yield/weight) compared to the smaller, more risky design tested in 1998, which is why they feel more confident abt it ? puzzling, but may be an explanation for why we passed frm 1 ton to 1.5 ton payloads...

[ramana]

Can you scan or take picture of the pages and post here? most of us dont have access to that book. We need the context of what he was saying.Also when was his book published?

[Guest]

[quote name='ramana' date='22 April 2011 - 10:13 PM' timestamp='1303531556' post='111417']

Can you scan or take picture of the pages and post here? most of us dont have access to that book. We need the context of what he was saying.Also when was his book published?

[/quote]



http://bit.ly/gPMVSd



Here is a link to these pages on google books....The book was published in 2008..

[Arun_S]

Here is an article written by Bharat Karnad in 2007 during the fierce debate on India-US Nuclear deal.



[size="6"] [url="http://www.india-seminar.com/2007/569/569_bharat_karnad.htm"]Minimum deterrence and the India-US nuclear deal[/url]



[/size][size="3"] [/size][size="3"]BHARAT KARNAD[/size]



[size="3"] [/size] [size="3"] [/size] [size="3"] [/size] [url="http://www.india-seminar.com/2007/569.htm"][/url] K. Subrahmanyam is an iconic figure in India’s strategic milieu. Until his emergence on the scene over forty years ago as an insightful commentator, establishment insider and, as member of innumerable government committees and commissions influencing defence policy, the nation at-large seemed to care little and understand even less about grand strategy, strategy and, in particular, nuclear deterrence.



The pity, however, is – and this will remain a void in Indian strategic literature – Subrahmanyam never got down to doing other than ‘entertainment’ (to use Graham Greene’s phrase differentiating his writing at the popular level from what he considered serious literature) and so no books containing comprehensive, sustained and scholarly treatment of the evolution of the Indian nuclear policy and security policy generally, which he was well equipped to write, ensued from his pen. However, collections of his mainly newspaper articles, chapters, and the like, are periodically published. (KS’ son, Sanjay, has elsewhere explained his father’s lack of serious ‘scholarship’ by juxtaposing it against his popular writing. Subrahmanyam, he says, did not want to give up the latter and thus lose ‘a larger audience of people who want things explained in plain language.’ But, given his undoubted intellectual skills, there is no reason why Subrahmanyam could not have done both.)



Subrahmanyam’s most notable contribution has been in shaping the Indian strategic nuclear policy. He began as an ardent champion in the 1970s of the nuclear weapons option for the country – arguably his golden years, when he was at his combative best and took on all comers, particularly western nonproliferation experts counselling moderation and non-nuclear armament for India, became the chief theoretician and propagandist for the minimum deterrence concept in the Indian context in the following two decades, to now when he is reduced to an apologist for the entrenched nuclear minimalism. More shocking still, he has been in the forefront of those championing the deal with the US for ‘civilian nuclear cooperation’ requiring India to acquiesce in the 1967 Non-Proliferation Treaty regime he once derided as unfair, unequal and deleterious to the national interest. He advises India to embrace the United States and to benefit from such favours (like being allowed access to high technology) as Washington may wish, from time to time, to bestow on this country.







[size="5"] [/size][size="5"]T[/size]hat the deal, prohibiting any resumption of nuclear testing, will qualitatively ‘cap and freeze’ the Indian nuclear forces in their current technological state at a time when all the advanced nuclear weapon states are enhancing their nuclear punch, seems to bother him not at all. Subrahmanyam’s technology blindness, motivated by his belief in minimum deterrence and the efficacy of a small-sized force of simple fission weapons, mirrors the complacency of lesser historical figures. Like Julius Frontinus, chief military engineer to the Roman Emperor Vespasian in 70 AD, who publicly declared that he would ‘ignore all ideas for new works and engines of war, the invention of which has reached its limits and for whose improvement I see no further hope!’







[size="5"] [/size][size="5"]S[/size]ection II of his latest collection of articles – Shedding Shibboleths: India’s Evolving Strategic Outlook (Delhi, Wordsmiths, 2005) carries Subrahmanyam’s by now signature arguments for a minimum deterrent policy and posture. But here he constructs his case circuitously, combining bits and pieces of the standard history of the development of nuclear weapons in the US and of strategic deterrence during the Cold War, and short individual country studies (France, China, Israel, etc.) coupled with riffs on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the controversial ‘No First Use’ principle. Referring to the South African experience, which apparently resonates with his own views, Subrahmanyam says, for instance, that a small nuclear force is more than adequate for deterrence purposes because ‘nuclear weapons are not costly [and] nuclear deterrence can be exercised at very minimum level and… need not result in a costly arms race …and [that] above all, uncertainty plays a crucial role in projecting deterrence.’ While he is right about a few things, like the cost – an ‘x’ sum of monies will buy a bigger nuclear bang than it will conventional military capability – he is wrong on almost every other count.



At the centre of his take on nuclear deterrence is his mistaken belief that disparity in the nuclear forces of any two adversarial nuclear-armed countries does not matter – a view pioneering deterrence theorists, like Bernard Brodie in the US, first popularized in the end-1940s but a decade later modified in the light of the Soviet nuclear build-up – because, he argues, the promised retaliatory destruction by even a small number of low yield atomic weapons will be perceived as ‘disproportionate’ and that this would generate ‘uncertainty’ in the aggressor’s mind, thereby countering his ‘rational’ expectations of gain from using his bigger, more advanced, nuclear arsenal. Subrahmanyam thus concludes that a country equipped with even basic atomic bombs can effectively deter a state armed with more advanced and more numerous nuclear armaments.







[size="5"] [/size][size="5"]O[/size]verlooking for the nonce the difficulty of getting a practical policy handle on an abstract concept like rationality in the nuclear deterrence context, Subrahmanyam’s analysis, enmeshed in a Brodiesque time warp, has innumerable problems. For one, his historical slant is a beneficiary of 20/20 hindsight! The main reasons deterrence stability accrued during the Cold war is because the United States and the Soviet Union allowed no ‘gap’ to develop between their strategic arms inventories and because their respective arsenals, always on alert status, gave credence to their threats. To look back on this time and suggest that the Americans and the Russians could have done with far fewer nuclear weapons and delivery systems is to ignore the deterrence dynamic of the early- to mid-Cold War years. And to suggest, as he does, that this ‘lesson’ is applicable to India’s strategic situation in the first decade of the 21st Century is to make the still graver mistake of analysis by misanalogy.



The question to ask is: if this were such a universal and obvious lesson from the Cold War, why is China – India’s most immediate strategic competitor and rival – embarked on its most ambitious programme of strategic build-up? And why are the United States and Russia making haste so slowly in reducing their nuclear inventories from the 35,000 level to the 1,700 threshold by 2007 as per the agreement hammered out in the George W. Bush-Vladimir Putin Summit in 2002, as to nullify that accord? (The United States and Russia, each still has nuclear armaments numbering in excess of 10,000, with Washington, helping Russia disarm but shifting the bulk of its own nuclear devices to the ‘reserve’ category under the so-called ‘stewardship programme, enabling them to be made operational in next to no time.) If the United Kingdom and France have de-mobilized some of their nuclear weapons and are contemplating other ‘disarmament’ measures, it is primarily because they continue to enjoy the security of the overarching US nuclear umbrella.







[size="5"] [/size][size="5"]S[/size]ome sixty odd years into the nuclear age, Subrahmanyam pooh-poohs the idea that qualitatively superior nuclear and thermonuclear weaponry have political value in international relations or count in the rank ordering of states. This merely reveals how distanced he is from the reality of international power politics. And, further, to ceaselessly argue, as Subrahmanyam has done over the years, that deterrence occurs, somewhat magically, owing simply to the existence of nuclear weapons with a country is to disregard the factual basis for the phenomenon, namely, that a bellicose state is deterred primarily by the level of preparedness for nuclear war and the alert conditions of the strategic forces he sees in a potential target state. It leads the aggressive-minded country to surmise, reasonably, that retaliatory punishment is certain should it start an affray, and hence that it is prudent to desist from doing so.







[size="5"] [/size][size="5"]O[/size]n the other hand, a manifestly under-prepared India, which merely threatens retaliation without any of the basic wherewithal in place, will merely induce an aggressor state to call India’s bluff. KS’ ideas in this respect derive from McGeorge Bundy’s concept of ‘existential deterrence’. But when Bundy, national security assistant to US President John F. Kennedy, articulated this concept, he did so on the basis that no preemption technologies of the precision strike-kind slaved to satellite and other platform-based sensors were available, as is the case today.



To confuse issues further, Subrahmanyam juxtaposes the use of nuclear weapons exclusively for deterrence purposes, which he thinks is the right thing to do, against their use in war-fighting, which he considers dangerous and redolent of the ‘Cold War mindset’. Subrahmanyam alights on a whimsical and dangerous distinction in their roles and end-uses, which, alas, the Indian government and Armed Forces have swallowed whole. In the event, with the view that a few unassembled nuclear weapons lying around can suffice as deterrent, there has been no urgency in official circles to set up the necessary nuclear command and control infrastructure and redundant systems or to flesh out the Strategic Forces Command, which years after being constituted remains a hollow shell with more pretence than substance.



This means that in a nuclear crisis or contingency, the country will have to rely more on prayers than on deterrence provided by its small, vulnerable, and – quality and quantity-wise – inconsequential deterrent for its safety. Indeed, the situation is so alarming that even a marginal nuclear weapon state like Pakistan, which has operationalized its deterrent and integrated its nuclear assets into its military command links and force structure, can trump India with impunity.







[size="5"] [/size][size="5"]A[/size]s mentioned earlier, Subrahmanyam’s ideas ignore, for example, the continuously improving sensor and precision strike-on-mobile-target technologies, which China is set to obtain some time in 2007, that make preemption and counter-force strategies feasible. This means that a ‘de-alerted’ force of Indian fission bombs and short range nuclear war-headed missiles can be wiped out in a surprise conventional attack, what to talk of the extreme vulnerability of the multiple target sets provided by the Indian strategic forces arrayed in a ‘de-mated’ manner on a rail-mobile mode. Not having thought through such a contingency, he has not assessed the aftermath of deterrence breakdown. Would India consider the attack on its nuclear strike capability by conventional means a provocation for a nuclear counter-attack? And, if not, what kind of meaningful response could be sustained in these conditions of war? And, in any case, will there be any residual forces left for the promised nuclear retaliation?



The Indian government’s adherence to the No First Use-principle, again, owes much to Subrahmanyam’s advocacy over the years. NFU may be useful as political rhetoric and make for stability in situations short of war. But as a serious war-planning predicate, it is a liability. NFU is not in the least credible, because it requires India to first absorb a nuclear attack before responding in kind. The trouble is not the theory, but what will happen in practice. Decisions to retaliate, with what force, and against what targets, will have to be made in circumstances where little of the infrastructure for such decision-making may survive the first attack(s). Considering that the country and all levels of government are annually immobilized by the onset of the monsoons and the government’s crisis management is typically non-existent, it is a bit far-fetched to imagine that the government will or can act effectively after suffering nuclear hits and, even less, that it can do so under nuclear fire.







[size="5"] [/size][size="5"]N[/size]uclear deterrence has complex dynamics, which cannot be reduced to simplistic mantras of minimum deterrence. However, paradoxically, ownership of ready megaton-yield thermonuclear forces with intercontinental ballistic missile reach can in fact simplify matters a whole lot, as this analyst has been urging, by seeding real fears of vast thermonuclear destruction in the minds of potential adversaries, including the most powerful and belligerent states. Successfully generating irrepressible fear is the key to nuclear deterrence. And nothing inspires as much dread as do megaton yield hydrogen bombs that, frighteningly, can vapourize large cities in a blink of an eye and therefore, induce extreme caution during nuclear crises in adversary nuclear weapon states.Subrahmanyam’s case for the nuclear deal is even more incomprehensible. He backed the shaky energy rationale, saying the deal would help bridge the electricity deficit in the country. But this thesis was undermined in a Planning Commission study by one of its members, Kirit Parikh. It concluded that even with 20 imported reactors, nuclear power plants would produce no more than 5%-6% of the total energy produced in India in 2035. Plainly, this is not incentive enough – except perhaps to Subrahmanyam, Manmohan Singh and their ilk! – to stifle India’s legitimate nuclear military growth.







[size="5"] [/size][size="5"]B[/size]ut the girding for Subrahmanyam’s cheerleader role seems to be something else. It is the statement emanating from Washington about the US intention to help India become a major world power and a hefty counter-weight to China in Asia, which the Indian establishment has taken to heart. It is, of course, a ridiculously contrafactual premise, history-wise, for policy orientation. A big country may partner another big state to contain a third power – this is the stuff of geopolitics. But it is another matter to conceive of a big state helping a middling state become strong just so it can add to the already stiff strategic competition.



Subrahmanyam’s advocacy also depends on his reading of the post-Cold War world. He believes that the international system has changed radically with the US as the predominant, but beneficent, power, whom India needs to accommodate (on the nuclear deal, for example) and cultivate. That in the shade of this quasi-patron-client relationship, India can strengthen itself economically to, in time, emerge as one of the poles in the international system. And, he counsels New Delhi to emulate Beijing’s ‘prudence’ without considering that unlike China, India is not an NPT-recognized nuclear weapon state and any give with respect to the development of its strategic nuclear forces, will end up consigning India to permanent inferiority vis-a-vis China. Unless, Subrahmanyam has in mind India accepting US nuclear protection against China.



This, as is evident, is a deeply flawed vision because the political and military cost of the deal is unbearably high. The so-called ‘123’ agreement that India will negotiate with Washington cannot disregard Congressional strictures contained in the enabling US Public Law – the Henry J. Hyde United States and India Nuclear Cooperation Promotion Act of 2006. The so-called ‘non-binding’ clauses in it will require India unavoidably to hew to the parameters of the Act. The nonproliferation intention of this US law being manifest, signing any agreement will be tantamount to formalizing India’s acquiescence in the norms and restrictions embedded in the 1967 Non-Proliferation Treaty and the nearly defunct Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (that the US has stopped short of ratifying) without this country being signatory to either! It will solidify India’s status as a ‘non-nuclear weapon state’ under the NPT. The United States will finally achieve the one non-proliferation goal that had so far escaped it. And this mind you when all the five NPT-recognized nuclear weapon states and even Pakistan will be completely free to continually modernize their nuclear arsenals.







[size="5"] [/size][size="5"]A[/size]t the heart of the deal is India’s undertaking that, for all intents and purposes, it will never test again, thereby capping the Indian nuclear weapons technology – something the US has always wanted. As Clinton’s Acting Under Secretary of Defence Jack Holum revealed in Congressional testimony in the wake of the 1998 tests, India’s never testing again will ensure that it will remain stranded at the low end of the ‘learning curve’. The former Atomic Energy Commission chairman R. Chidambaram’s claim, supported by Subrahmanyam, that India can do without further testing because of its advanced computational competence is fantastical nonsense.







[size="5"] [/size][size="5"]S[/size]ophisticated software simulating nuclear and thermonuclear explosions cannot be developed on the basis of just a few tests – and only one each in the case of ‘boosted fission’ and the thermonuclear designs. In fact, despite building up expensive and advanced facilities for subcritical and hydronuclear testing and very high speed computing wherewithal, the French and American weapons establishments are becoming vociferous in their demand for further testing because of the shortcomings in simulation techniques as a means of fabricating ever more advanced weapons. And surely, even a ‘political scientist’ like Chidambaram (meaning a scientist willing to cut deals with the political leaders at the expense of the Indian nuclear programme’s weapons capability), cannot claim that the quality of India’s simulation and computational base exceeds that of France and the United States. Incidentally, the Hyde Act expressly bars India from conducting subcritical and hydronuclear tests!



The fact is the decisive thermonuclear test in 1998 was a fizzle, and various fusion and boosted fission weapon designs on the shelf need to undergo a series of iterative tests – something Anil Kakodkar, Chidambaram’s successor, reportedly concedes but only in private. Any embargoes that may be slapped on India, as a result of New Delhi ordering a new series of tests, will be quickly removed by the lure of the large Indian market and the economic logic of the marketplace and the desire of the advanced countries to profit from such access.



But testing is now made virtually impossible by the deal because Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is inclined to think, as Subrahmanyam does, mounting evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, that the alleged benefits from technology and other cooperation with the United States far outweigh the gains from India’s continually upgrading its arsenal and retaining its strategic independence. Besides, as the Hyde Act clarifies, that civilian nuclear cooperation will not entail transfer of cutting-edge plutonium reprocessing, uranium enrichment and heavy water production technologies. Nor is there any assurance, outside of selling nuclear reactors that, other than the promise of consideration on a case-by case basis, India will have its requests for non-nuclear dual-use technologies met, unless India and its Armed Services expect to remain content with military technology from the 1970s, like the F-16 or F-18 fighter aircraft. There is little doubt that India will, in the years to come, end up paying the price for the government’s strategic myopia and its stubbornness in pursuing a course that will result in the strategic reduction of the country to a technology dependency, a nuclear client state and generally, to use Subramaniam Swamy’s phrase, a junior partner of the United States .







[size="5"] [/size][size="5"]S[/size]ubrahmanyam has been hailed as the Bhishmapitamah by the Indian strategic community, a title he apparently takes seriously – his book jacket features a line drawing of the elderly Mahabharata hero lying impaled on a bed of arrows. But he may wish to remember that for all his strategic wisdom and sagacity, Bhishma ultimately found himself with the Kauravas and on the wrong side of history, as Subrahmanyam does now when siding with the nuclear minimalists and against the country’s sovereignty and national interests.

[Guest]

Arunji,



There is also an interview of Dr. Santhanam around 2009 (in NewsX i think). He was asked why he did not openly oppose the N-deal. His answer was that there is no commitment in the N-deal not to test, whereas in 2009 the danger of MMS signing CTBT forced him to go public.



The reality is that the "international community" has very little leverage to punish us if we test again. The worst that can happen is that the deal is undone (which means returning to the pre-deal status). Even that will require at least as much "international consensus" to achieve as was required to get us "in". Vested business interests will oppose such a consensus. If we get NSG membership (however, one cannot bet on this), then expelling us will require our own permission.



All in all, if a GoI with pol. will goes ahead and tests, the "international community" can only curse us verbally (along with some NGO types at home). They are in no position to do anything concrete against us.



The key is to free GoI from external political control. Many liberal NGOs are another facet of this (probably even more dangerous). Once all such videshiparast elements are sidelined, the rest will be automatic.

[Arun_S]

Kritverma ji,

I have interacted quite extensively with key people on the issue and have good understanding of hot buttons and open issues/risks, and often air my views to balance the half glass full and half glass empty perspective.

[Guest]

[quote name='Arun_S' date='25 April 2011 - 12:50 PM' timestamp='1303756976' post='111433']

Kritverma ji,

I have interacted quite extensively with key people on the issue and have good understanding of hot buttons and open issues/risks, and often air my views to balance the half lass full and half glass empty perspective.

[/quote]



This statement I do not fully understand. You are saying we must have a balance between "glass half full" viewpoint and "glass half empty" viewpoint. If so, I agree. OTOH what I said about the cost of testing is correct. The key is to replace the MMS/maino dispensation by a dispensation more committed to sovereignty. Such a dispensation can conduct tests - for which we wont have anywhere near as much of a price to pay as MMS would like to think. In any case, testing to get a credible deterrent should be a highest national priority.

[Arun_S]

All that I said is that my assessment and views are arrived at after listening to both side of the policy debate.



Indian situation is quite precarious; with a national polity that is busy participating in national loot without distinction of treasury and opposition bench.



"Khao aur Khanay Do" or "Behti Ganga Main Haath Dho" by all national political parties.

[ramana]

Look slike Beijing is worried that as US withdraws from the West Asia India could be tempted to retest....



ShyamD wrote:

The agent has spoken of what the PRC is thinking. This is a message to the strategists - "We are watching you and we know what you are upto". This is now the 2nd time I've heard this - 1st was a very reliable source.



Possible, India resumes nuclear test?

16:58, April 26, 2011

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By Li Hongmei (Li Hongmei, editor and columnist of PD Online.)



In the international nuclear talks drama worked out by the U.S., it seems that only North Korea, who exits the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and Iran, who is suspected to be violating the Treaty, are respectively cast in the roles of the No.1 and No.2 negative characters. But the fact is that behind the scene there exists a super antagonist in the US-produced nuclear soap opera, and it is India.



India has so far refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a document signed in 1970 restricting the number of nuclear superpowers to five countries only – China, the USA, the USSR, Great Britain, and France.



India was not listed among those states: the nation conducted a first nuclear test in 1974. The reason why India refused to sign the NPT is that it disagreed with the fact that only five large countries of the world use the NPT to monopolize the right for possessing nuclear arms.



India has long been desperately trying to step over the threshold of nuclear, and gain the international recognition of being a nuclear power. In the conditioning of India, equipped with nuclear weapons, it would boost confidence in dealing with its rivaling neighbor, Pakistan, and pluck up courage to counteract China whom it has long taken as "a slumbering threat" at its bedside.



India has never dropped its dream to overtake China, growing up to be a leading regional, and global power, now that it has self-measured to be the world's No.3 military power.



Given this, India stunned the world after it conducted nuclear tests in the Rajasthan desert in 1998, and the lid of India's nuclear issue has since lifted open.



The tests, a showcase of India's national strength, were reciprocated by its traditional rival, Pakistan, and dramatically raised the stakes in the stand-off over Kashmir, one of the world's longest-running feuds.



It was a move that was bitterly criticized internationally as well as within the country.

Some in India argued that by going nuclear it had actually lost its conventional military edge over Pakistan. Others felt that the tests had opened the door to international, in particular, American intervention in Kashmir dispute, something which India has traditionally opposed.



But years later, it is still a moot point whether India lost more than it gained by going nuclear.



Increasingly, it appears that by self-claiming to have joined the nuclear club, India has forced the world to take it seriously. But, the 1998's "large step forward" to go nuclear has yet to make India feel more secure. Instead, the desperate move has indeed incurred the higher risk of being attacked upon India, and its national security would accordingly be downgraded.



Currently, the international situation seems delivering a pleasant message to India---if the sweeping unrest in the Middle East continues and the unpredictable war is prolonged in Libya, the world's attention and the US top concern will be shifted to the ongoing upheavals, neglecting the Sub-continent.



And perhaps, once the Middle East situation further exacerbates, the US would risk helping India become a nuclear-weapon state. Considering this, India is likely to resume its nuclear tests. For this, China and all the neighbors should sharpen their vigilance on India's every maneuver.

So a lot of people are watching and waiting.

[Bharat_2009]

[quote name='Arun_S' date='26 April 2011 - 11:23 AM' timestamp='1303796723' post='111439']

All that I said is that my assessment and views are arrived at after listening to both side of the policy debate.



Indian situation is quite precarious; with a national polity that is busy participating in national loot without distinction of treasury and opposition bench.



"Khao aur Khanay Do" or "Behti Ganga Main Haath Dho" by all national political parties.

[/quote]



Yes, this is what worries people who know what is going on. People are more worried about political clowns with power than war fighting capabilities.

[Arun_S]

In view of recent nuclear escalation by Pakistan, India is already in First Use mode. RIP NFU policy. Although this article provides obfuscatory cover.





[url="http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/WhyIndiashouldretainitsNoFirstUsepolicy_rkazi_110411"]Why India should retain its No-First-Use policy?[/url]

[url="http://www.idsa.in/taxonomy/term/115"]Reshmi Kazi[/url]

April 11, 2011 Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh has called on the government to re-examine its doctrine of no-first-use (NFU). The rationale behind his suggestion is the increasing multi-pronged security concerns facing India. The no-first-use policy was formulated by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government in 1998. According to Jaswant Singh, the NFU policy, as it stands today, is antiquated and, hence, the Government cannot ‘sit in yesterday’s policy’.



In advocating the need to readdress the NFU doctrine, Singh has emphasised on the security concerns emanating from Pakistan’s growing nuclear arsenal. Pakistan is reportedly in possession of 100 to 110 nuclear warheads, which makes it double India’s nuclear stockpile of approximately 50 to 60 warheads. Pakistan has good delivery systems, which were reportedly transferred to it by China and North Korea. And it is rapidly adding to its nuclear inventory, despite being a failing state run by a powerless government, largely controlled by its military establishment, and with very little control over the terrorist groups operating within its territory. There is no foolproof assurance of how safe and secure Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are, as questioned by Mr. Singh. Even the United States, which has provided million dollars for the safety of Pakistan’s crown jewels, is unaware of their location. The other security concern cited by the veteran politician is of an expansionist China. He has pointed to China’s rising influence in the internal affairs of Nepal to substantiate his claim that Beijing poses a long-term threat to India.



Playing down these apprehensions, External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna has asserted that there will be no revision of the NFU policy by the government. However, merely allaying the concerns expressed by Mr. Singh is not enough, and the issue deserves an analysis.



Sceptics question the efficacy of the NFU policy, on the ground that it has little relevance as a strategic tool against Pakistan. It is considered to be a merely declaratory policy. Hence, it has no binding legitimacy. Pakistan’s military establishment views India’s NFU doctrine as a paper policy that cannot be depended upon in a situation where the stakes are high. Since India’s nuclear doctrine is a unilateral decision, it can be revoked anytime if the situation so demands. The Pakistanis believe that there is no way of making the NFU policy incapable of first use. This disparagement is difficult to ignore, but it can be argued that militarily India need not depend upon nuclear weapons against Pakistan and China. India’s strategic culture clearly demonstrates that it is a status quo power devoid of any aggressive intention. Besides, India’s conventional strength is adequate for defence against Pakistan. This conventional advantage is further reinforced by India’s offensive policy of ‘Cold Start’, which seeks to circumvent a nuclear response from Pakistan. The Cold Start doctrine is independent of the NFU pledge and, hence, India can use it to neutralise any conventional aggression by Pakistan.



China’s expansionist policies cannot be deterred by revising the NFU. Besides, it would not be prudent to abandon the NFU and send a deliberate signal of provocation to China. This can offset India’s declared stand on a minimum credible nuclear policy and project it as an aggressive power. Further, abrogating the NFU policy would signal a first use posture by India, thus reducing the space for conventional warfare below the nuclear threshold. This could also severely corrode India’s ability to limit Pakistan’s offensive tactics and policies at the conventional level. Instead, India must gradually revise its posture of ‘active deterrence’ to ‘dissuasive deterrence’ by building up its infrastructure along the border and improving the surveillance and warning capabilities, the mobility of land-based missiles, survivability of the airborne retaliatory force, and increased force levels.



Concerns over Pakistan’s increasing nuclear stockpile have been cited as a reason to revise and revisit India’s no-first-use policy. According to the estimates of Professor R. Rajaraman and his colleagues of the International Panel on Fissile Material, by 2010 Pakistan was presumably in possession of 1.5 to 3 tons of highly enriched uranium (HEU) – fissile material enough for 60 to 120 weapons, and approximately 100 kg of plutonium – enough for 20 bombs. The Penal has also estimated that by 2020 these figures are likely to rise to 450 kg of plutonium – enough for 90 bombs, and 2500 to 6000 kg of 90 per cent HEU – sufficient for approximately 100 to 420 simple fission weapons. It is also projected that a significant proportion of Pakistan’s annual production of natural uranium, approximately 40 tons, will be consumed by the three Khushab reactors, and not much will thereafter be left for the centrifuge plant at Kahuta. The recent estimates of 80 to 140 weapons in Pakistan’s stockpile come from the figures of 1.5 to 3 tons of HEU and 100 kg weapons grade plutonium. But there is a lot of ambiguity involved in these projections. Moreover, simultaneously, India’s own nuclear stockpile is likely to increase especially given the advances being made in breeder technology, which will yield reactor grade plutonium. Hence, it is not necessary to revise the NFU policy on the basis of figures which are hypothetical.



Withdrawing the NFU policy and making a declaration to that effect makes little strategic sense, since it will damage India’s status as a responsible nuclear power. Such a step will abrogate India’s commitment to the universal goal of nuclear disarmament and upset the regional balance in the sub-continent. The NFU policy is a sound pillar of India’s nuclear doctrine. It facilitates a restrained nuclear weapons programme without tactical weapons and a complicated command and control system. It forswears brinkmanship by avoiding the deployment of weapons on hair-trigger alert and keeping an arms-race in check.



In conclusion, the no-first-use policy is premised upon an assured second strike capability, that is survive a first strike and retain sufficient warheads to launch massive retaliation upon the adversary. As long as this second strike capability is not degraded there is no reason to abandon the NFU posture. At present, there is no evidence to suggest that the reported expansion of Pakistan’s nuclear stockpile has degraded India’s nuclear retaliatory capability. India should therefore retain its no-first-use doctrine.

[Arun_S]

[url="http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/05/02/matt-gurney-pakistan-cant-be-trusted-with-nuclear-weapons/"]Matt Gurney: Pakistan can’t be trusted with nuclear weapons[/url]

[url="http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/author/mattgurneynatpost/"]Matt Gurney[/url] May 2, 2011 – 10:47 AM ET | Last Updated: May 2, 2011 2:45 PM ET



It will be a long time before every detail of the death of Osama bin Laden at the hands of U.S. special forces is known. Indeed, in the short term, much of the information that does come out must be taken with a grain of salt, as both the United States military, government and the Pakistani leadership have reasons to hide or misrepresent the facts of what was obviously a highly sensitive mission. But what we do know doesn’t look good on our so-called Pakistani allies: bin Laden wasn’t hiding in some dank cave, but was in fact living in a newly built mansion in an affluent Pakistani city, apparently within a 10 minute walk — a mere thousand yards — of a Pakistani military academy where the best of Pakistan’s officers are trained. And that’s not even to mention the three whole regiments of army troops that were also based in the city.



No one should doubt that there are honourable elements within the Pakistani government and security forces, who recognize the threat posed by Islamic radicalism and the benefits of aligning their country with the West. But there should be equally little doubt that however large those elements may be, they do not have full control of their country and its military forces. The government of Pakistan is divided up into competing factions, with their own agendas and plots against each other. This breeds instability and the risk of rapid shifts in the balance of power within Pakistan.



The military has typically been considered the most reliable, pro-Western element of the Pakistani power structure, in contrast with the thoroughly Islamist and pro-Taliban intelligence services and the weak civilian government trapped between them. But now we discover that the world’s most wanted man, the leading terrorist of our time, was living practically within shouting distance of a major Pakistani military facility in a heavily garrisoned city. That leaves us with two equally unpalatable possibilities: the military is either not as aligned with the West as we had assumed, or is simply incompetent.



Neither option is good. In recent years, major activity has been observed at many of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons facilities, as the country is believed to be both enlarging and modernizing its stockpile of nuclear warheads. Estimates as to the size of the Pakistani arsenal have now at least doubled to somewhere between one and two hundred bombs, and the bombs themselves are, thanks to modernization, becoming smaller and more powerful at the same time.[size="3"][color="#0000ff"] It is likely that Pakistani nuclear weapons are now capable of achieving yields that would be measured in the hundreds of kilotons[/color][/size] — many times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945, and certainly capable of hollowing out any major city.



Pakistan has repeatedly tried to reassure the world that its arsenal is safe and secure, and a 2008 U.S. Congressional report noted that the weapons are stored in secure underground facilities, unassembled, and separate from their launchers. But while that might sound comforting, the fact remains that the security of these weapons rests in the hands of those who somehow missed bin Laden’s mansion just down the street from their training facility, who receive their information from the same intelligence services that consider the Taliban a strategic asset, not an enemy.



It is obvious why Pakistan feels it needs nuclear weapons — only through their power can they hope to stave off an attack by the much more economically and military powerful Indians. They will never give them up. But the risk posed by leaving the ultimate weapon in such obviously unreliable hands cannot be overstated. For the sake of the world’s safety, we must hope that the United States keeps a close eye on where these weapons are stored, and is prepared to do what’s necessary to prevent them from ever falling into the wrong hands — even if that involves the rapid, surgical use of some of America’s own stockpile of nuclear warheads to destroy the bunkers where Pakistan keeps theirs.

Equal equal yield nukes w.r.t India

[Guest]

[quote name='Arun_S' date='04 May 2011 - 12:01 AM' timestamp='1304488413' post='111520']

[url="http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/05/02/matt-gurney-pakistan-cant-be-trusted-with-nuclear-weapons/"]Matt Gurney: Pakistan can’t be trusted with nuclear weapons[/url]





Equal equal yield nukes w.r.t India

[/quote]



Is this a propaganda equal equal ? Probably yes. First of all, with us itself, there is no conformation of our warheads having hundreds of kt yield, right ? Unless we have deployed fixed TNs (but even that requires a test for confirmation). Unless TSP has received TNs or uses weapons with huge amounts of HEU (>60 kg), they cannot achieve hundreds of kt...



Seems to me that the NPA crowd for many reasons wants to hype TSP capability vis a vis us. For example, they estimated our WGPu stockpile at 680kg or so as of 2009 but "found reasons" to lower the estimate to 500kg in 2010...Probably related to getting TSP in the bag for FMCT (after which sole pressure can be put on us).

[ravicv]

[quote name='Arun_S' date='24 April 2011 - 05:21 PM' timestamp='1303693982' post='111428']

Here is an article written by Bharat Karnad in 2007 during the fierce debate on India-US Nuclear deal.



[size="6"] [url="http://www.india-seminar.com/2007/569/569_bharat_karnad.htm"]Minimum deterrence and the India-US nuclear deal[/url]



[/size][size="3"] [/size][size="3"]BHARAT KARNAD[/size]



[size="3"] [/size] [size="3"] [/size] [size="3"] [/size] [url="http://www.india-seminar.com/2007/569.htm"][/url] K. Subrahmanyam is an iconic figure in India’s strategic milieu. Until his emergence on the scene over forty years ago as an insightful commentator, establishment insider and, as member of innumerable government committees and commissions influencing defence policy, the nation at-large seemed to care little and understand even less about grand strategy, strategy and, in particular, nuclear deterrence.



The pity, however, is – and this will remain a void in Indian strategic literature – Subrahmanyam never got down to doing other than ‘entertainment’ (to use Graham Greene’s phrase differentiating his writing at the popular level from what he considered serious literature) and so no books containing comprehensive, sustained and scholarly treatment of the evolution of the Indian nuclear policy and security policy generally, which he was well equipped to write, ensued from his pen. However, collections of his mainly newspaper articles, chapters, and the like, are periodically published. (KS’ son, Sanjay, has elsewhere explained his father’s lack of serious ‘scholarship’ by juxtaposing it against his popular writing. Subrahmanyam, he says, did not want to give up the latter and thus lose ‘a larger audience of people who want things explained in plain language.’ But, given his undoubted intellectual skills, there is no reason why Subrahmanyam could not have done both.)



Subrahmanyam’s most notable contribution has been in shaping the Indian strategic nuclear policy. He began as an ardent champion in the 1970s of the nuclear weapons option for the country – arguably his golden years, when he was at his combative best and took on all comers, particularly western nonproliferation experts counselling moderation and non-nuclear armament for India, became the chief theoretician and propagandist for the minimum deterrence concept in the Indian context in the following two decades, to now when he is reduced to an apologist for the entrenched nuclear minimalism. More shocking still, he has been in the forefront of those championing the deal with the US for ‘civilian nuclear cooperation’ requiring India to acquiesce in the 1967 Non-Proliferation Treaty regime he once derided as unfair, unequal and deleterious to the national interest. He advises India to embrace the United States and to benefit from such favours (like being allowed access to high technology) as Washington may wish, from time to time, to bestow on this country.







[size="5"] [/size][size="5"]T[/size]hat the deal, prohibiting any resumption of nuclear testing, will qualitatively ‘cap and freeze’ the Indian nuclear forces in their current technological state at a time when all the advanced nuclear weapon states are enhancing their nuclear punch, seems to bother him not at all. Subrahmanyam’s technology blindness, motivated by his belief in minimum deterrence and the efficacy of a small-sized force of simple fission weapons, mirrors the complacency of lesser historical figures. Like Julius Frontinus, chief military engineer to the Roman Emperor Vespasian in 70 AD, who publicly declared that he would ‘ignore all ideas for new works and engines of war, the invention of which has reached its limits and for whose improvement I see no further hope!’







[size="5"] [/size][size="5"]S[/size]ection II of his latest collection of articles – Shedding Shibboleths: India’s Evolving Strategic Outlook (Delhi, Wordsmiths, 2005) carries Subrahmanyam’s by now signature arguments for a minimum deterrent policy and posture. But here he constructs his case circuitously, combining bits and pieces of the standard history of the development of nuclear weapons in the US and of strategic deterrence during the Cold War, and short individual country studies (France, China, Israel, etc.) coupled with riffs on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the controversial ‘No First Use’ principle. Referring to the South African experience, which apparently resonates with his own views, Subrahmanyam says, for instance, that a small nuclear force is more than adequate for deterrence purposes because ‘nuclear weapons are not costly [and] nuclear deterrence can be exercised at very minimum level and… need not result in a costly arms race …and [that] above all, uncertainty plays a crucial role in projecting deterrence.’ While he is right about a few things, like the cost – an ‘x’ sum of monies will buy a bigger nuclear bang than it will conventional military capability – he is wrong on almost every other count.



At the centre of his take on nuclear deterrence is his mistaken belief that disparity in the nuclear forces of any two adversarial nuclear-armed countries does not matter – a view pioneering deterrence theorists, like Bernard Brodie in the US, first popularized in the end-1940s but a decade later modified in the light of the Soviet nuclear build-up – because, he argues, the promised retaliatory destruction by even a small number of low yield atomic weapons will be perceived as ‘disproportionate’ and that this would generate ‘uncertainty’ in the aggressor’s mind, thereby countering his ‘rational’ expectations of gain from using his bigger, more advanced, nuclear arsenal. Subrahmanyam thus concludes that a country equipped with even basic atomic bombs can effectively deter a state armed with more advanced and more numerous nuclear armaments.







[size="5"] [/size][size="5"]O[/size]verlooking for the nonce the difficulty of getting a practical policy handle on an abstract concept like rationality in the nuclear deterrence context, Subrahmanyam’s analysis, enmeshed in a Brodiesque time warp, has innumerable problems. For one, his historical slant is a beneficiary of 20/20 hindsight! The main reasons deterrence stability accrued during the Cold war is because the United States and the Soviet Union allowed no ‘gap’ to develop between their strategic arms inventories and because their respective arsenals, always on alert status, gave credence to their threats. To look back on this time and suggest that the Americans and the Russians could have done with far fewer nuclear weapons and delivery systems is to ignore the deterrence dynamic of the early- to mid-Cold War years. And to suggest, as he does, that this ‘lesson’ is applicable to India’s strategic situation in the first decade of the 21st Century is to make the still graver mistake of analysis by misanalogy.



The question to ask is: if this were such a universal and obvious lesson from the Cold War, why is China – India’s most immediate strategic competitor and rival – embarked on its most ambitious programme of strategic build-up? And why are the United States and Russia making haste so slowly in reducing their nuclear inventories from the 35,000 level to the 1,700 threshold by 2007 as per the agreement hammered out in the George W. Bush-Vladimir Putin Summit in 2002, as to nullify that accord? (The United States and Russia, each still has nuclear armaments numbering in excess of 10,000, with Washington, helping Russia disarm but shifting the bulk of its own nuclear devices to the ‘reserve’ category under the so-called ‘stewardship programme, enabling them to be made operational in next to no time.) If the United Kingdom and France have de-mobilized some of their nuclear weapons and are contemplating other ‘disarmament’ measures, it is primarily because they continue to enjoy the security of the overarching US nuclear umbrella.







[size="5"] [/size][size="5"]S[/size]ome sixty odd years into the nuclear age, Subrahmanyam pooh-poohs the idea that qualitatively superior nuclear and thermonuclear weaponry have political value in international relations or count in the rank ordering of states. This merely reveals how distanced he is from the reality of international power politics. And, further, to ceaselessly argue, as Subrahmanyam has done over the years, that deterrence occurs, somewhat magically, owing simply to the existence of nuclear weapons with a country is to disregard the factual basis for the phenomenon, namely, that a bellicose state is deterred primarily by the level of preparedness for nuclear war and the alert conditions of the strategic forces he sees in a potential target state. It leads the aggressive-minded country to surmise, reasonably, that retaliatory punishment is certain should it start an affray, and hence that it is prudent to desist from doing so.







[size="5"] [/size][size="5"]O[/size]n the other hand, a manifestly under-prepared India, which merely threatens retaliation without any of the basic wherewithal in place, will merely induce an aggressor state to call India’s bluff. KS’ ideas in this respect derive from McGeorge Bundy’s concept of ‘existential deterrence’. But when Bundy, national security assistant to US President John F. Kennedy, articulated this concept, he did so on the basis that no preemption technologies of the precision strike-kind slaved to satellite and other platform-based sensors were available, as is the case today.



To confuse issues further, Subrahmanyam juxtaposes the use of nuclear weapons exclusively for deterrence purposes, which he thinks is the right thing to do, against their use in war-fighting, which he considers dangerous and redolent of the ‘Cold War mindset’. Subrahmanyam alights on a whimsical and dangerous distinction in their roles and end-uses, which, alas, the Indian government and Armed Forces have swallowed whole. In the event, with the view that a few unassembled nuclear weapons lying around can suffice as deterrent, there has been no urgency in official circles to set up the necessary nuclear command and control infrastructure and redundant systems or to flesh out the Strategic Forces Command, which years after being constituted remains a hollow shell with more pretence than substance.



This means that in a nuclear crisis or contingency, the country will have to rely more on prayers than on deterrence provided by its small, vulnerable, and – quality and quantity-wise – inconsequential deterrent for its safety. Indeed, the situation is so alarming that even a marginal nuclear weapon state like Pakistan, which has operationalized its deterrent and integrated its nuclear assets into its military command links and force structure, can trump India with impunity.







[size="5"] [/size][size="5"]A[/size]s mentioned earlier, Subrahmanyam’s ideas ignore, for example, the continuously improving sensor and precision strike-on-mobile-target technologies, which China is set to obtain some time in 2007, that make preemption and counter-force strategies feasible. This means that a ‘de-alerted’ force of Indian fission bombs and short range nuclear war-headed missiles can be wiped out in a surprise conventional attack, what to talk of the extreme vulnerability of the multiple target sets provided by the Indian strategic forces arrayed in a ‘de-mated’ manner on a rail-mobile mode. Not having thought through such a contingency, he has not assessed the aftermath of deterrence breakdown. Would India consider the attack on its nuclear strike capability by conventional means a provocation for a nuclear counter-attack? And, if not, what kind of meaningful response could be sustained in these conditions of war? And, in any case, will there be any residual forces left for the promised nuclear retaliation?



The Indian government’s adherence to the No First Use-principle, again, owes much to Subrahmanyam’s advocacy over the years. NFU may be useful as political rhetoric and make for stability in situations short of war. But as a serious war-planning predicate, it is a liability. NFU is not in the least credible, because it requires India to first absorb a nuclear attack before responding in kind. The trouble is not the theory, but what will happen in practice. Decisions to retaliate, with what force, and against what targets, will have to be made in circumstances where little of the infrastructure for such decision-making may survive the first attack(s). Considering that the country and all levels of government are annually immobilized by the onset of the monsoons and the government’s crisis management is typically non-existent, it is a bit far-fetched to imagine that the government will or can act effectively after suffering nuclear hits and, even less, that it can do so under nuclear fire.







[size="5"] [/size][size="5"]N[/size]uclear deterrence has complex dynamics, which cannot be reduced to simplistic mantras of minimum deterrence. However, paradoxically, ownership of ready megaton-yield thermonuclear forces with intercontinental ballistic missile reach can in fact simplify matters a whole lot, as this analyst has been urging, by seeding real fears of vast thermonuclear destruction in the minds of potential adversaries, including the most powerful and belligerent states. Successfully generating irrepressible fear is the key to nuclear deterrence. And nothing inspires as much dread as do megaton yield hydrogen bombs that, frighteningly, can vapourize large cities in a blink of an eye and therefore, induce extreme caution during nuclear crises in adversary nuclear weapon states.Subrahmanyam’s case for the nuclear deal is even more incomprehensible. He backed the shaky energy rationale, saying the deal would help bridge the electricity deficit in the country. But this thesis was undermined in a Planning Commission study by one of its members, Kirit Parikh. It concluded that even with 20 imported reactors, nuclear power plants would produce no more than 5%-6% of the total energy produced in India in 2035. Plainly, this is not incentive enough – except perhaps to Subrahmanyam, Manmohan Singh and their ilk! – to stifle India’s legitimate nuclear military growth.







[size="5"] [/size][size="5"]B[/size]ut the girding for Subrahmanyam’s cheerleader role seems to be something else. It is the statement emanating from Washington about the US intention to help India become a major world power and a hefty counter-weight to China in Asia, which the Indian establishment has taken to heart. It is, of course, a ridiculously contrafactual premise, history-wise, for policy orientation. A big country may partner another big state to contain a third power – this is the stuff of geopolitics. But it is another matter to conceive of a big state helping a middling state become strong just so it can add to the already stiff strategic competition.



Subrahmanyam’s advocacy also depends on his reading of the post-Cold War world. He believes that the international system has changed radically with the US as the predominant, but beneficent, power, whom India needs to accommodate (on the nuclear deal, for example) and cultivate. That in the shade of this quasi-patron-client relationship, India can strengthen itself economically to, in time, emerge as one of the poles in the international system. And, he counsels New Delhi to emulate Beijing’s ‘prudence’ without considering that unlike China, India is not an NPT-recognized nuclear weapon state and any give with respect to the development of its strategic nuclear forces, will end up consigning India to permanent inferiority vis-a-vis China. Unless, Subrahmanyam has in mind India accepting US nuclear protection against China.



This, as is evident, is a deeply flawed vision because the political and military cost of the deal is unbearably high. The so-called ‘123’ agreement that India will negotiate with Washington cannot disregard Congressional strictures contained in the enabling US Public Law – the Henry J. Hyde United States and India Nuclear Cooperation Promotion Act of 2006. The so-called ‘non-binding’ clauses in it will require India unavoidably to hew to the parameters of the Act. The nonproliferation intention of this US law being manifest, signing any agreement will be tantamount to formalizing India’s acquiescence in the norms and restrictions embedded in the 1967 Non-Proliferation Treaty and the nearly defunct Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (that the US has stopped short of ratifying) without this country being signatory to either! It will solidify India’s status as a ‘non-nuclear weapon state’ under the NPT. The United States will finally achieve the one non-proliferation goal that had so far escaped it. And this mind you when all the five NPT-recognized nuclear weapon states and even Pakistan will be completely free to continually modernize their nuclear arsenals.







[size="5"] [/size][size="5"]A[/size]t the heart of the deal is India’s undertaking that, for all intents and purposes, it will never test again, thereby capping the Indian nuclear weapons technology – something the US has always wanted. As Clinton’s Acting Under Secretary of Defence Jack Holum revealed in Congressional testimony in the wake of the 1998 tests, India’s never testing again will ensure that it will remain stranded at the low end of the ‘learning curve’. The former Atomic Energy Commission chairman R. Chidambaram’s claim, supported by Subrahmanyam, that India can do without further testing because of its advanced computational competence is fantastical nonsense.







[size="5"] [/size][size="5"]S[/size]ophisticated software simulating nuclear and thermonuclear explosions cannot be developed on the basis of just a few tests – and only one each in the case of ‘boosted fission’ and the thermonuclear designs. In fact, despite building up expensive and advanced facilities for subcritical and hydronuclear testing and very high speed computing wherewithal, the French and American weapons establishments are becoming vociferous in their demand for further testing because of the shortcomings in simulation techniques as a means of fabricating ever more advanced weapons. And surely, even a ‘political scientist’ like Chidambaram (meaning a scientist willing to cut deals with the political leaders at the expense of the Indian nuclear programme’s weapons capability), cannot claim that the quality of India’s simulation and computational base exceeds that of France and the United States. Incidentally, the Hyde Act expressly bars India from conducting subcritical and hydronuclear tests!



The fact is the decisive thermonuclear test in 1998 was a fizzle, and various fusion and boosted fission weapon designs on the shelf need to undergo a series of iterative tests – something Anil Kakodkar, Chidambaram’s successor, reportedly concedes but only in private. Any embargoes that may be slapped on India, as a result of New Delhi ordering a new series of tests, will be quickly removed by the lure of the large Indian market and the economic logic of the marketplace and the desire of the advanced countries to profit from such access.



But testing is now made virtually impossible by the deal because Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is inclined to think, as Subrahmanyam does, mounting evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, that the alleged benefits from technology and other cooperation with the United States far outweigh the gains from India’s continually upgrading its arsenal and retaining its strategic independence. Besides, as the Hyde Act clarifies, that civilian nuclear cooperation will not entail transfer of cutting-edge plutonium reprocessing, uranium enrichment and heavy water production technologies. Nor is there any assurance, outside of selling nuclear reactors that, other than the promise of consideration on a case-by case basis, India will have its requests for non-nuclear dual-use technologies met, unless India and its Armed Services expect to remain content with military technology from the 1970s, like the F-16 or F-18 fighter aircraft. There is little doubt that India will, in the years to come, end up paying the price for the government’s strategic myopia and its stubbornness in pursuing a course that will result in the strategic reduction of the country to a technology dependency, a nuclear client state and generally, to use Subramaniam Swamy’s phrase, a junior partner of the United States .







[size="5"] [/size][size="5"]S[/size]ubrahmanyam has been hailed as the Bhishmapitamah by the Indian strategic community, a title he apparently takes seriously – his book jacket features a line drawing of the elderly Mahabharata hero lying impaled on a bed of arrows. But he may wish to remember that for all his strategic wisdom and sagacity, Bhishma ultimately found himself with the Kauravas and on the wrong side of history, as Subrahmanyam does now when siding with the nuclear minimalists and against the country’s sovereignty and national interests.

[/quote]



Excellent article. It exposes the true KS - a third-rate charlatan!

[Arun_S]

[url="http://www.kforcegov.com/Services/IS/NightWatch/NightWatch_11000107.aspx"]NightWatch [/url]For the Night of 19 May 2011

China-Pakistan: Update. On the third day of Pakistani Prime Minister Gilani's visit to China - and the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations, [size="3"][color="#FF0000"]China warned that any attack on Pakistan would be tantamount to an attack on China[/color][/size], The News reported.



Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao reportedly told Pakistani Prime Minister Gilani that Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi warned Washington during the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue to respect Pakistan's sovereignty. Moreover, Beijing will send a special envoy to Islamabad to express solidarity with Pakistan, a senior Chinese official said.



Comment: The precise wording and the intentions of the Chinese are not clear and there seems to be less substance than grandstanding. The words suggest China has agreed to act as Pakistan's protector, in some circumstances.



China's implied promise of a response would seem to apply to another US raid against terrorists and to drone attacks. What is not clear is how China might honor that commitment.



The language also seems to indicate that China would assist Pakistan in the event of an attack from India. China has done so for 40 years. On the other hand, the new alliance language also might imply that in the event of a war between India and China, [color="#FF0000"]Pakistan would be obliged to attack India on the flank[/color].



[color="#0000FF"]A violation of sovereignty is an act of war, but it cuts in many directions. For example, Pakistan's harboring of Taliban leader Mullah Omar is certainly a hostile act against Afghanistan and arguably an act of war.[/color]



Nevertheless, the language reported by The News indicates a significant strengthening of the defense relationship, possibly converting it into an alliance as close as that which China has with North Korea. After the US, China is emerging as the largest beneficiary from the death of bin Laden!

So nuclear attack by TSP on India will assuredly invite Indian second strike on Pakistan and China.



The question is how credible is this posture given that:

1. Indian nuclear weapons are so few if they have to be credible against not just Paki-satan but China
2. Indian weapon yield is something that China has derided and is no match compared to Chinese nuclear fir power
3. The quantity of Indian Agni missiles required to take on Paki and China does not simply exist, particularity given that Agni-3, Agni-4 Agni- 5 Agnit 6 Agni .... are not yet proven and worse still do not yet exist in inventory

Indian military doctrine and capability are HOT words, and no better than gastric flatulence.

[ravicv]

[quote name='Arun_S' date='24 May 2011 - 06:30 PM' timestamp='1306290143' post='111685']









The question is how credible is this posture given that:

1. Indian nuclear weapons are so few if they have to be credible against not just Paki-satan but China
2. Indian weapon yield is something that China has derided and is no match compared to Chinese nuclear fir power
3. The quantity of Indian Agni missiles required to take on Paki and China does not simply exist, particularity given that Agni-3, Agni-4 Agni- 5 Agnit 6 Agni .... are not yet proven and worse still do not yet exist in inventory

Indian military doctrine and capability are HOT words, and no better than gastric flatulence.

[/quote]



This is the handiwork of the r*nt-boy catamite MMS and the criminal pervert SG!

[ravicv]

X-POSTED

--------



Every single reliable source points to the dung beetle quisling MMS for stalling the Indian missile program at this very critical juncture in Indian history. I wonder whether a fresh thread needs to be started wherein instances of deliberate sabotage of Indian strategic projects, and, potentially invaluable strategic alliances (for example like one with Vietnam) by Indian powers-that-be can be documented.

[ramana]

We will hit back

Air Marshal T. M. Asthana (retd), a fighter pilot, was the first Commander-in-Chief of India’s Strategic Forces Command which operationalises the country’s nuclear arsenal. He tells Anand K. Sahay that if India faces a nuclear hit from terrorists in Pakistan — which he considers unlikely — it can retaliate with nuclear or conventional forces, and possesses the capability for a surgical strike.



Q. Last Sunday, terrorists in Pakistan attacked the Mehran naval base near Karachi and destroyed two sophisticated maritime surveillance and attack aircraft. This has led to fears that Pakistan’s nuclear stockpile and fissile material are no longer safe from theft by militants. Is India at particular risk of a possible terror strike using nuclear materials? What is our response mechanism like in such a scenario?

A. The retaliation against terrorist organisations can be nuclear or with conventional weapons. If we have ascertained that a nuclear strike from the Pakistan side is by a terrorist outfit, and we want to hit back using nuclear weapons, then we should inform Pakistan that we are not striking at the country but only to destroy a particular group. We know the sites of the terrorist outfits. We only need to decide the strength of the nuclear weapon to be used. It will obviously be tactical, of a particular yield that does not cause damage beyond, say, a brigade strength. But my preference would be to use conventional force in retaliation. I think in nine out of ten cases, this should suffice. We should continue hitting them till they raise the white flag.



Q. Have scenarios of this nature been discussed in government in your experience?

A. Of course.



Q. The course you are suggesting calls for extreme precision in operation — something like what the Americans deployed to take out Osama bin Laden at Abbottabad. Do we have the capability?

A. We certainly have the capability.

Q. If we strike at a terrorist site in Pakistan in retaliation, you don’t think Pakistan as a country will respond using its official forces? Is that something to be taken into account?

A. When we go in, we should seek to convince Pakistan and the USA etc —unless you are sure you don’t care what they think. But that’s unlikely in India.



Q. It is being said that Pakistan is developing tactical nuclear weapons in a big way for use against India. Can these be special target of theft by terrorist groups, especially when they are said to have insider support in the Pakistan nuclear establishment, the armed forces or the ISI?

A. There are rumours, and also some reports, that they are developing tactical nuclear weapons. I doubt this very much. A tactical nuclear weapon is for use against enemy forces, not the population, and is a sub-kiloton device. Our policy is “no first use”. We won’t be the first to use nuclear weapons of any kind against any country. But the retaliation from our side will be massive if a nuclear device is used against us. I wonder if that is an acceptable risk for Pakistan to take — using a tactical weapon against India and inviting a massive retaliation.



Q. What can be India’s response in the event of a failed attempt by terrorists in Pakistan to steal fissile material or a nuclear device?

A. There is no requirement of a response from our side except to strengthen intelligence, our security systems, to have more than a single layer of security. Remember, our policy is only of retaliation against NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical weapons) strike. I think there is not even a small chance of that unless there is provocation from their side. Please remember, we will hit back massively even if Lashkar-e-Tayyaba or any of the terrorists drops a bomb on India. The principle remains the same. We will hit back.



Q. How safe are Pakistan’s nuclear systems — its production facilities and bomb storage sites? Pakistan’s weapons are said to be kept on the move in order to make them less susceptible to theft or attack. Doesn’t that make them susceptible to theft.

A. There is international hue and cry about Pakistan’s nuclear safety because of Taliban, Al Qaeda and others. But no one has said what the final answer is.



The director of strategic planning in Pakistan’s nuclear authority has said lately that the command authority is based on the “two-man rule”, ie clearance is required from two persons for mating and launch (bringing together the weapon and the trigger, and then the launching of it). They also say they have their own — not taken from the US — PALs (Permissive Action Links) to authorise mating and launch. They also claim to have a comprehensive and intrusive personnel reliability system which means screening of all employees before, during and after their stint in the nuclear area. I take this with a pinch of salt.



Anyway, these claims had not come to light earlier. Before, every time they spoke on these issues, they spoke of their doctrine of ‘first use’ (not hesitating to be the first to strike with a nuclear weapon). Apart from the security systems Pakistan now claims, there is always the standard stuff of phoney bunkers, dummy warheads to fool the enemy. In short, Pakistan is trying to say it is very difficult for unauthorised personnel to assemble a device.



Q. Can this be taken at face value?

A. There can be discussion about that. But we find it difficult to believe that any form of terrorist organisation is capable of assembling and launching a nuclear device unless they have insiders with them who have the knowledge. Even if they could steal a weapon, they will have to develop a trigger mechanism for it. A trigger doesn’t work unless the code and authorisation known. So, this scenario is extremely unlikely, although nothing can be ruled out.