I am an insider and hence more sympathetic to the local scientists and may even accept the claim about the scalability of the TNW at face value. Will the outside powers accept our claim of possessing a 200 kt TNW at face value? We will either have to share the design or some data that will convince them about the nature and potential of the bomb. Obviously we can't do that so what is the next best option? We have to demonstrate the full design yield of the TNW to convince outside powers about the true potential of the TNW.Kanson wrote:So Deterrence is what your adversary perceive as threat. It doesn't need demonstration to create that threat, mere Info warfare could do that with minimal show.pankajs wrote:Deterrence is based on demonstration of the yield and not on claims.
We will keep going in loop if we continue to have the insiders viewpoint. The productive way of looking at this question would be by taking an outsiders view e.g a Chinese general in charge of PLA's nuclear forces and responsible for their strategy and posture wrt India.
Will AK and co's claim of having a 200 kt design fly with this Chinese General, assuming 45-50 kt TNW was a success? Another equally illuminating question could be will India (GoI/Forces) accept a claim made by AQK about the scalability of the one of the devices tested by Pakistan? Say the 5kt device was actually a FBF device and could easily be scaled up to 100 kt.
My point is that if outside powers, in this case Chinese, do not buy our claim on the TNW yield, we are naked as far as nuclear umbrella is concerned. Deterrence has broken down and miscalculation will happen on both sides with catastrophic consequences. The only option is to test till a majority of decision makers within the nuclear weapon powers are convinced. It does not matter even if every Indian is convinced about the 200 kt maal. Deterrence will holds only if the above parties are convinced about you 'maal' otherwise it's usefulness is limited to being a vengeance weapon.
If you say f**k the Chinese (representative of all nuclear powers) , I really don't care what they think or If the test was purely for internal consumption and had nothing to do with our deterrence...then I guess I was chasing the wrong end of the discussion.