Deterrence

[Sanku]

Very Nice! Thanks Sridhar, its heartening to see such things from Bhartiya side from time to time!

In addition to adding to the universal appreciation for you post Manish, I would like to add to more ingredients to your scenario.

1) Tibet -- the future political evolution
2) Water ways -- the evolution

I would also like to add the possibility of a one-o-one China India conflict gradually spiraling up to the level that China feels bound to use Nuclear weapons.

[negi]

1. Respect India is earning in the world for its democracy and human rights record. Plus unlike chinese the west & ru does not sees india as threat or having the dream of taking over the world.

I would leave the respect part alone.

As for the threat to the rest of the world ; there is a reason for such a perception. India has not DEPLOYED strategic platforms to pose any threat to the WEST or RU so question of WEST or RU seeing us as a threat does not even arise.

But inspite of all this China has bigger enemies or competitors in US and Russia.

Yes but then all these play the game at a different level ; they have capability and deployed nukes against each other .

Now if China gets into nuclear exchange with India and destroys 20 indian cities while losing 8 of its own industrial cities plus some mega projects like tibet rail, 3g dam, 3 oil tankers, 2 ports and few refineries. It will be considerably weakened. Its dream of surging ahead of US will be delayed at least by 100 years and even after that who knows.

There is a big 'IF' there ,who knows how a nuclear stand off between the two countries will unfold ; what is the guarantee that such a war will not spill over into the surrounding regions and force the others to join in ?

Not only that it will be at the mercy of US + NATO + Rus taking advantage of its weakened position. This time it is a far cry from a closed country of Mao's past. In the age of internet and globalization its citizens are fully connected and aware of the world.

Ah you have not at all understood the 'philosophy' of the P-5 ; why do you think they have thousands of warheads amongst themselves well distributed across an array of delivery platforms across the world ?

US+NATO+RU in this case will risk getting nuked for PRC already engaged with India would find this as a do or die situation ; this is what I was trying to convey about dragging the others into a WAR.

Now when the nuke exchange happens with porkis. We will be inclined to use the nukes first against porkis thus spending part of our "anyway not so big minimum credible deterrent".

This gives Chinese three advantages, first is part of our arsenel is already spent on porkis. Secondly it gives them a small but crucial time window to take out rest of our missile bases etc. Whatever rest is thrown at them will have to go through their ABM defence. So some may fail on its own some may be tackled by ABM and some 20kts reach. Thirdly they can say to the west that they were only preventing india to escalate and launch more, so no sanctions from west.

Again an assumption based on nothing (no data). Do you know how many nuclear warheads India has ? The answer to that question holds he key to the question if India can take on both TSP and PRC in a hypothetical nuclear stand off.

If there exist warheads and delivery systems in desired numbers spread across our nuclear TRAID India should be able to take on both TSP and PRC.

With this capability we can let it be known clearly to the world and prc that any nuke attack by the world renouned porki whore on the motherland and we will see it as attack by prc too. Thus retaliating at the both of them. This is the only way I see prc holding porkis back in any misadventure.

Well now you see how even a mention of nuclear stand off between two enemies spills over to the rest of the world ?

You took a jingo position and conducted pre-emptive strikes over PRC even when India was engaged with TSP , now what makes you believe that PRC would not target RU with a similar logic as you (i.e. India's attack on PRC with RU support) , that if every one on board believes that India has enough nukes to inflict unacceptable dammage to PRC ?

[Manish_Sharma]

Very Nice! Thanks Sridhar, its heartening to see such things from Bhartiya side from time to time!

In addition to adding to the universal appreciation for you post Manish, I would like to add to more ingredients to your scenario.

1) Tibet -- the future political evolution
2) Water ways -- the evolution

I would also like to add the possibility of a one-o-one China India conflict gradually spiraling up to the level that China feels bound to use Nuclear weapons.

Thank you Sanku, yes these sort of things do make me happy:
India will not resort to the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons against states which do not posses nuclear weapons, or are not aligned with nuclear weapon powers.

Well yes there is a big chance of situations mentioned by you triggering nuclear war. Actually in life mostly things don't go as planned, in future something totally unthinkable might happen which nobody thought of.

But what I wrote was based upon how things could be done by Chinese in their step by step planning. The thing is they have other enemies too like japs whom they hate the more than indians.

I wish Vivek Ahuja comes back with fresh scenarios, he is a master in building up just the kind of scenarios regarding Chinese as you have mentioned.

[Manish_Sharma]

I would leave the respect part alone.
Negi it's a free world you can leave everything alone nobody will stop you.

As regarding the threat what I meant was the whole behaviour of both the countries you compare and see how much bullying, agressive and threatening China's behaviour is compared to India. It was the overall image people have in the mind in west about china and india. In that contrast india does come as soft nice and non threatening country. China is totally badnam in reverse engineering products of other countries, somebody mentioned how Germany claimed it is losing 50 billion euros annually because of cheating nature of prc. Not to mention RU complaining about same thing. Nowhere we have heard of india being accused of these things. So in this way china does come up as a goon cheating, conniving, bullying. Just see the way they crushed sarkozy and other western countries on tibetan issue, ask any westerner India would have behaved in a different way.

Yes but then all these play the game at a different level ; they have capability and deployed nukes against each other.
Again what I didn't make clear was that US etc. being economic competitors of China. The Chinese goal of not only overtaking US economically but leaving it miles behind.

Negi the whole point I was trying to make was "Deterrent should be based upon how much back we will set China if we have an nuclear exchange."
against
how many millions chinese we can kill with our nuke arsenel.

The whole idea I have in my head is that if Chinese are assured of being set back economically 50 or 100 years then only we can have a deterrent.

So you are very right when you said I have no data to prove. My whole Idea is that economic growth is more important money is more important for Chinese. The status is more important for them. For Indians our religion is more important our culture is more important.

In fact when I wrote that post, I was expecting to be corrected much more. Was very much surprised when got compliments from Shiv, Sridhar and Sanku. Even N Rao made post. Plus the nugget I got from Sridhar about the subtle change in india's NFU policy.

Anyway thank you for pointing out certain things. Negi how many warheads do you think India has, would be grateful if you can give me some idea.

[NRao]

N Rao the thing is separation of Baluchistan from Pakistan won't solve the problem regarding India. In fact it would create a soft border with Baluchs (in the case of us having a direct border with them). Just like Bangladesh. I remember an article of KR Malkani regarding this some years back. It was on the lines of population explosion in Pakistan and BD being 5-6 times more than India. Will get back on this issue.

Nothing is going to solve the problem (perhaps anywhere).

There are too many self serving interests to solve any problem.

And, even IF one problem is "solved" another will arise and the cycle continues. If one with Pakistan or China is solved there will be one that an Indian will create within India. Never ending cycle, with ever increasing problems.

However, the issue is will any of these escalate to a nuclear level. Note that as the US tries to resolve the nuclear problem at a very gross level - with NPT/CTBT/etc - the problem of a dirty device props its head. Now, which treaty can solve this particular problem? Which participant at the gross level can base a guarantee to solve the dirty device issue? None.

Where a "Baluchistan" could help is to provide a distraction for a nuclear "power".

One last item: no matter who the nuclear "warists" are, the fallout would/should impact the rest of the world one way or another. Specially if it involved India and China - the world economy will be impacted -vely.

[NRao]

From POK-II threat:

Nothing is guaranteed in a totalitarian country. They will have some version of mass annihilation of their own people or from other countries.

I do not think I am getting across.

OK, let us agree it is totalitarian and willing to let millions die.

My question is, then what?

What is left for them to continue with?

In geopolitics every country especially the big boys are for their own interest. They may even make what is left of India as their own colony.

Very true.

But I am contending that ALL that changes with a nuclear war. Rules will change. Take a look at Japan.

Would china like to be in that predicament? I just happen to think they do not.

With nuclear weapons nothing can be counted as irrational.

Although I do not agree I will grant you that.

_______________________________________

Let me ask you this:
IF there is an Indo-Sino nuclear war, what would China settle for? What is your, personal, opinion? And, at the end what is that you see in China in specific?

[vera_k]

But Indians too are ignoring tens of thousands of deaths in India.

But Indian leadership is not actively going out and killing people is it? It is a huge presumption to assume that the Chinese leadership, a leadership that sees nothing wrong in forcing abortions by injecting saline into fetuses 8 months along, is rational or human to the same degree as the Indian leadership.

[NRao]

Dirty-bomb Cleanup

[negi]

I would leave the respect part alone.
Negi it's a free world you can leave everything alone nobody will stop you.

Well in the context of the topic being discussed i.e. deterrence words like 'respect' are non nonsensical and of little relevance .

As regarding the threat what I meant was the whole behaviour of both the countries you compare and see how much bullying, agressive and threatening China's behaviour is compared to India. It was the overall image people have in the mind in west about china and india. In that contrast india does come as soft nice and non threatening country.

This is a typical Indian narrative of the present state of affairs which the rest of the world does not care for. For any country to be assertive,bullying aggressive there should exist weak,nice ,respectful etc etc countries , so what gives ?

As far as India being a threat or not is not at all relevant for the world does not care ; the powers that be go by what they feel is in their interests if that means portraying a picture of benevolent India or of a threat, it shall be done.From India's perspective there is no question of her being a threat for obvious reasons.

China is totally badnam in reverse engineering products of other countries, somebody mentioned how Germany claimed it is losing 50 billion euros annually because of cheating nature of prc. Not to mention RU complaining about same thing.

Completely out of context in fact OT. These things have nothing to do with 'deterrence'.
Btw if such things influence the world opinion there is a lot of acrimony in the west with regards to Indians taking away their jobs and trust me this receives more media attention that the PRC's antics.

Nowhere we have heard of india being accused of these things. So in this way china does come up as a goon cheating, conniving, bullying. Just see the way they crushed sarkozy and other western countries on tibetan issue, ask any westerner India would have behaved in a different way.

China would not have imagined to do such a thing couple of decades back , however it has grown in stature as far as geo politics is concerned it deals with the WEST and RU on a more even keel this in fact is an indicator of former's politico-military strength.

Again what I didn't make clear was that US etc. being economic competitors of China. The Chinese goal of not only overtaking US economically but leaving it miles behind.

Yes and what's wrong with that ? Don't you/me or every jingo on this fora dream about India over taking CHINA ?

Negi the whole point I was trying to make was "Deterrent should be based upon how much back we will set China if we have an nuclear exchange." against how many millions chinese we can kill with our nuke arsenal.

Well once one chooses to use nukes in a war ; all such thoughts are of little relevance ; the idea is to overwhelm the enemy so that it cannot retaliate (this is the only way one can expect to survive a nuke war unless one has means to intercept the enemy warheads ) and at the same time have enough to deter the others from attacking you . This has been the philosophy of the P-5 and hence obviously explains the size of their nuke stockpile.

So you are very right when you said I have no data to prove. My whole Idea is that economic growth is more important money is more important for Chinese. The status is more important for them. For Indians our religion is more important our culture is more important.

Well unfortunately nothing which you listed above is likely to survive a nuclear war.

In fact when I wrote that post, I was expecting to be corrected much more. Was very much surprised when got compliments from Shiv, Sridhar and Sanku. Even N Rao made post. Plus the nugget I got from Sridhar about the subtle change in india's NFU policy.

Yes it was indeed; else I would not have replied to it.

Anyway thank you for pointing out certain things. Negi how many warheads do you think India has, would be grateful if you can give me some idea.

I don't know , infact this number would be classified for obvious reasons . People can only try to arrive at a ballpark figure using the public info available on India's plutonium and HEU stockpile ,even then without knowing the details of the design of the warhead in question such an estimate might not be reliable enough to arrive at a logical conclusion wrt India's deterrence posture.

[ss_roy]

Can India have effective deterrence when our political 'leadership' consist of people like MMS, SG (and ABB, LKA)? If we had leaders like Patel , as opposed to Nehru, would 1962 have happened?

Seriously..

[shiv]

But Indians too are ignoring tens of thousands of deaths in India.

But Indian leadership is not actively going out and killing people is it? It is a huge presumption to assume that the Chinese leadership, a leadership that sees nothing wrong in forcing abortions by injecting saline into fetuses 8 months along, is rational or human to the same degree as the Indian leadership.

The Indian leadership is unable to prevent Indians from aborting female fetuses leading to a decrease in the female to male ratio in the Indian population. Leave alone the Indian leadership - Indians themselves are callous. vera jee this is not an argument we should be getting into - India is an open society that publicizes its warts - so any critic of India always gets more ammunition than a critic of China.


To quote an OT example

"The idiotic Indian Air Force has had so many accidents in 2009. A simple Bing search, or a glance at the Flight Safety thread of BRF will reveal that. But the PLAAF has not had a single accident on 2009, or even 2008 or 2007 for that matter"

[Manish_Sharma]

N Rao the thing is separation of Baluchistan from Pakistan won't solve the problem regarding India. In fact it would create a soft border with Baluchs (in the case of us having a direct border with them). Just like Bangladesh. I remember an article of KR Malkani regarding this some years back. It was on the lines of population explosion in Pakistan and BD being 5-6 times more than India. Will get back on this issue.

Nothing is going to solve the problem (perhaps anywhere).

There are too many self serving interests to solve any problem.

And, even IF one problem is "solved" another will arise and the cycle continues. If one with Pakistan or China is solved there will be one that an Indian will create within India. Never ending cycle, with ever increasing problems.

However, the issue is will any of these escalate to a nuclear level. Note that as the US tries to resolve the nuclear problem at a very gross level - with NPT/CTBT/etc - the problem of a dirty device props its head. Now, which treaty can solve this particular problem? Which participant at the gross level can base a guarantee to solve the dirty device issue? None.

Where a "Baluchistan" could help is to provide a distraction for a nuclear "power".

One last item: no matter who the nuclear "warists" are, the fallout would/should impact the rest of the world one way or another. Specially if it involved India and China - the world economy will be impacted -vely.

Very true, now that you explain this way I remembered my history teacher used to often say "It is only enemies like pak and china that keeps us together, otherwise we will split ourselves in 10-20 countries". Raj Thackrey, Khalistan etc.

Like you often say "India needs a Kargil every year". He used to say we should have a little war every few years, as this will keep us together and keep us away from creating problems from ourselves.

[shiv]

Can India have effective deterrence when our political 'leadership' consist of people like MMS, SG (and ABB, LKA)? If we had leaders like Patel , as opposed to Nehru, would 1962 have happened?

roy - I appreciate your sentiment but let me merely point out how your rhetoric can be countered by more rhetoric. Unfortunately most "debates" get bogged down in this way.

The reason we have not had a repeat of 1962, or even 1999 is only because of the competent leadership of our poojya pradhan mantriji"

[vera_k]

The Indian leadership is unable to prevent Indians from aborting female fetuses leading to a decrease in the female to male ratio in the Indian population. Leave alone the Indian leadership - Indians themselves are callous. vera jee this is not an argument we should be getting into - India is an open society that publicizes its warts - so any critic of India always gets more ammunition than a critic of China.

Let's say person A has a neighbour. Said neighbour gets up one fine morning, sets himself on fire and dies. Now, should A be blamed for not preventing the neighbour's death? I'd say not unless one can show that A set the fire that killed the neighbour.

Similarly, that the Indian population is aborting fetuses of its own free will is not something that can be laid at the doorstep of the Indian leadership. And this can in no way excuse the inhuman Chinese leadership that holds down a woman and kills the baby against the parent's wishes. Overlooking this inherent inhumanity exhibited by the CPC is not going to reduce criticism of India. Nor should it, in areas where the critic can justifiably point to a need for improvement.

[shiv]

Cross posting my own post from the fizzle thread

I pulled up that chart that illustrates the radius of damage by nukes of varying yields and based on that I created an image of circles of damage in a city being hit by a 1 megaton nuke or multiple 25 kt nukes.

The magenta circles are 25 kt and the yellow circles are 1 megaton. The circles illustrate radius of total destruction and heavy damage Areas of moderate and mild damage will be wider. I haven't bothered to illustrate them. Reach your own conclusions

kelik on thumbnail



Heavy damage radius for 1 megaton: approx 4.5 km
Heavy damage radius for 25 kt: approx 1.3 km

[shiv]

Cross posting Samuel's query from the fizzle thread

OK, so, if should we say we have X KT nukes for our own discussion here, what would X be?
I say 25KT. Over 100KT does not seem to exist, and that makes a point I was trying to make.
I've only heard >100KT here on this forum, based on either scaling arguments or that it would be "stupid" to put 20KT warhead on A-X series. That, and before the TN-blow, 100KT class warheads.

So you pick a number for a mean, 50KT? Let's say we have about 100 war heads. Each with 50KT. would that be reasonable?

If we can put these numbers even with error bars around them, we can ask ourselves some questions regarding deterrence. We can calculate using CEP, typical population radii, damage radii, etc. how many we need to total a city X number of cities. I'll posit that against irrational action by China+Pak, our deterrence is not effective (if the numbers remain in this ballpark). There will of course then be a debate about whether or not damaging one city is any better than damaging two, but that is not going to be my concern in the sense that all that matters here in this gedanken experiment is that "India comes out on top" and that deters (at some scale...the terrorism and arunachal grabbing still goes on and needs other solutions).

S

[NRao]

Heavy damage radius for 1 megaton: approx 4.5 km
Heavy damage radius for 25 kt: approx 1.3 km

If I may.

That map shows a comparative radius of guaranteed destruction.

It is, however, not an indicator of a "deterrence". For even a single 25 Kt MAY do the job as a "deterrence". It may not too. In which case one will need the appropriate number of nukes/missiles to constitute a deterrence.

[samuel]

Humans are not really rational to the degree that one can have confidence that the decisions made by them are borne out of some system of logic. They do things, they reason, they justify. But operating rationally is not something we typically do.

the most rational response to an attack is to hit back, possibly with everything. It is not sit back, fold, or something else. Those options usually become obvious many "plys" before the game ends where a rational decision maker will fold even before it all starts. Most humans won't.

I propose that we think of deterrence as an objective measure. Here deterrence is just a phrase or symbol for a desired outcome in the case it really happens. That desired outcome is that "India wins" a statement itself in quotes and meant in the ordinary way of the term, in the case that it goes to nuclear war against a set of opponents who we think can act in consort.

We may have all sorts of models of whether or not the opponent is rational, greedy, opportunistic, just a random nutjob or whatever. The only desirable outcome over these space of possibilities, to which we do not yet assign any probability, is that we come out on top.

There are some mechanics we can lay out.

How accurately does our missile hit the target.
What is the population distribution (spatially).
What are typical areas.
What is our bomb size.
How many spots need to be taken out to destroy the enemy.


Some of these are not objective but we could come to them in some objective way. If we do that, we can easily test the hypothesis that;
under a uniform choice of possible outcomes of rationality of our enemy, this is what India needs to "come out on top"

then, we can massage that. Is china more likely to worry about the deaths of its people; is pakistan likely to pee in its pants etc. But we will have one baseline case that if it is true, then come hit, you are toast. That will be true.

So, how about we simply put numbers that let us crank the machinery. Then we can attribute prior probabilities to particular attitudes or approaches of the actors involved?

Hopefully this made sense.

Thanks
S

[shiv]

Heavy damage radius for 1 megaton: approx 4.5 km
Heavy damage radius for 25 kt: approx 1.3 km

If I may.

That map shows a comparative radius of guaranteed destruction.

It is, however, not an indicator of a "deterrence". For even a single 25 Kt MAY do the job as a "deterrence". It may not too. In which case one will need the appropriate number of nukes/missiles to constitute a deterrence.

No disagreement with your post.

But there is, in my view, a considerable body of people who believe that deterrence is directly linked to size of nuke yield. I realise that you (and I) disagree with that contention - but I think that I (and I am sure you too) would like to keep minds open to the possibility that we might be missing something.

Hence the comparison. Let those who feel differently say what they feel and give them a chance to present their views.

[disha]

We may have all sorts of models of whether or not the opponent is rational, greedy, opportunistic, just a random nutjob or whatever. The only desirable outcome over these space of possibilities, to which we do not yet assign any probability, is that we come out on top.

There are some mechanics we can lay out.

How accurately does our missile hit the target.
What is the population distribution (spatially).
What are typical areas.
What is our bomb size.
How many spots need to be taken out to destroy the enemy.


Some of these are not objective but we could come to them in some objective way. If we do that, we can easily test the hypothesis that;
under a uniform choice of possible outcomes of rationality of our enemy, this is what India needs to "come out on top"

I do see a problem in laying out explicitly our capabilities. By laying out our capabilities in clear, we are allowing any adversary to scale and plan a response accordingly.

By leaving our capabilities ambiguous, we are throwing the adversarial plans in a tizzy. Case in point, in circa 1994 itself after the launch of the first Agni TD, India Today carried reports and diagrams of rail mobile Agni's. It was not confirmed (in fact it was not even thought to exist) until some youtube videos leaked out and retracted and the capability was proven.

Here is what happens when there is ambiguity, the adversary simply does not have a way to scale a response, leave alone plan for it. Assuming I am an adversary, and I am planning to strike India first here is what I am left with:

1. Does India have rail mobile Agnis? How many? Where? In dozens or in hundereds? Can I take for granted that it has none?
2. Does India have a IRBM or an ICBM? Is it an IRCBM? Or SRIRBM?
3. What will be my prime targets? Cities or Second strike capabilities? Can I assume it has none? What happens if 2 dozens 20 kt survive?
4. Does it have BM defenses? It has definitely one which is very advanced in technical demonstration phase (and I have none).

The answers always lead to a situation where climbing the nuclear strike escalator will result in Pyrrhic victory and hence the deterrence.

Also to the maximal'ists, I do have one question - what was the state of deterence vis-a-vis China from 1974 to 1998? India had only one successful explosion of 10-12 Kt fission device in 1974? No IGMDP? No Arihant?

And I do find it curious that inspite of calling our politicos and babooze spineless, we do have an advanced fighter (Su-30 MKI) and an advanced submarine and in 3-4 years, hopefully 3 air craft carriers with some 3 dozen AC launched fighters. Is it just luck and happen chance?

[NRao]

disha ji,

Gaming eh?
___________________________________________________________________________________________________

The problem is that I have to assume a few things here:
1) IF it was a real fizzle in 1998 (the TN I mean), then ALL the stuff related to deterrence is a total waste of time
2) IF #1 is true, then all the missiles India is testing, building, deploying is a truly waste of time and funds (note that a 'fizzle' assumes that what India MAY have other than a TN is not a worthwhile deterrence)
3) IF #1 is true, then 123, NSG, etc - that ENTIRE deal was worthless. I have to assume since that deal has gone through that India IS building more nukes with the excess U it now has and not contributing to the 'fizzle' position. IF I am wrong, then, of course, we have a recursive here -> #1
4) IF #1 is true, then Arihant makes absolutely no sense - total waste of money and time. No sense at all
5) IF #1 is true, then I do not think Santhanam is even close when he says that India needs (about?) two more TN tests. I would have expected him to say that India needs to test until India gets it right, for IF India can fail once she can certainly fail three times - or two more times. In the area of strategic policy one cannot have ambiguity as far as possible. So, Santhanam saying at least two more makes absolutely no sense - UNLESS he has some info, which he may have. But that leads me to believe that the S1 (or is it S2 now?) was fairly close to a non-fizzle, close enough for someone who knows enough to make it a non-fizzle for sure. JMTs.
6) IF #1 is true, then CTBT becomes a non-issue. India is then a Non weapons state and what follows, follows. MMS has no control over something he never had control over because the entire nuclear establishment failed since 1998. Note that Santhanam had a say in matters even after he retired. And, that CTBT did not raise its head in 2009 - it has always been there
7) A principled stand can continue, but for how long I do not know. IF India decides to test, it better be till it is got right.
8 ) NPT will be an issue even with a fizzle, so that is not a topic for much discussion right now

JMTs.

[rajeshks]

Also to the maximal'ists, I do have one question - what was the state of deterence vis-a-vis China from 1974 to 1998? India had only one successful explosion of 10-12 Kt fission device in 1974? No IGMDP? No Arihant?

And I do find it curious that inspite of calling our politicos and babooze spineless, we do have an advanced fighter (Su-30 MKI) and an advanced submarine and in 3-4 years, hopefully 3 air craft carriers with some 3 dozen AC launched fighters. Is it just luck and happen chance?

Israel never tested a nuclear weapon, does it mean that their weapon will fail if used against their enemies? If that was the case they would have tested 100 times now. So there is something that gives them confidence in their weapons and the same reasons can be true for india also, eventhough it was only 'consultancy'.

[Sanku]

Israel never tested a nuclear weapon, does it mean that their weapon will fail if used against their enemies? If that was the case they would have tested 100 times now. So there is something that gives them confidence in their weapons and the same reasons can be true for india also, eventhough it was only 'consultancy'.

Israel is hardly a independent entity and neither it is not locked in a civilization battle with China.

And compare Israels response to its enemies who develop the potential for a nuclear weapon (hint Osiraq)

A completely misplaced comparison.

[rajeshks]

Israel is hardly a independent entity and neither it is not locked in a civilization battle with China.

And compare Israels response to its enemies who develop the potential for a nuclear weapon (hint Osiraq)

A completely misplaced comparison.

I agree... what i meant was, Israel dont need to test its weapon to find out that it will work. We all know how they got that weapon. Similarly had India got some 'consultancy' on the weapon design then there is some sort of minimum guarantee that it will work. But then we dont know whether India got that consultancy.

[rajeshks]

Do we think that Vajpayee was a fool and so irresponsible that he will declare without first getting some sort of solid proof. Even the data received after the test might be verified by our brothers in east.

[Sanku]

Do we think that Vajpayee was a fool and so irresponsible that he will declare without first getting some sort of solid proof. Even the data received after the test might be verified by our brothers in east.

Well Bharat Karnad, V Sudarshan and others have said it is because RC lied and then browbeat others. Brajesh Mishra (whose motives are under a cloud) went with RC.

Yes and before some one jumps on me for that statement. I just posted links in the POK II where the above two have called RC ******.

It may be sad but that is what it is, and is on many public fora, stopping me from saying that like Arun_S was is not going to be enough. Some one needs to go against express buzz and those two gentlemen above and threaten them with libel too.

That is anyway the only possibility left it seems to propagate a certain POV.

[rajeshks]

Well Bharat Karnad, V Sudarshan and others have said it is because RC lied and then browbeat others. Brajesh Mishra (whose motives are under a cloud) went with RC.

Yes and before some one jumps on me for that statement. I just posted links in the POK II where the above two have called RC ******.

It may be sad but that is what it is, and is on many public fora, stopping me from saying that like Arun_S was is not going to be enough. Some one needs to go against express buzz and those two gentlemen above and threaten them with libel too.

That is anyway the only possibility left it seems to propagate a certain POV.

You may be right.. But if the present government has some kind of proof that Vajpayee was wrong then they would have used it for political mileage, simply because Vajpayee was BJPs tallest leader.

I think this is the wrong thread to discuss politics. So coming back to my earlier question... If israel can claim that their weapons will work without testing then why can't we?

[Sanku]

I think this is the wrong thread to discuss politics. So coming back to my earlier question... If israel can claim that their weapons will work without testing then why can't we?

I thought we discussed this, following reasons

1) Indian effort is largely assumed to be independent. Israel may have its weapons from it friends.
2) Indian claim if not correct are likely to be found out (certainly) by its enemies.
3) Indian enemies have nukes, Israels dont.
4) Israel can or could expect other with Nuclear umbrella to come to their aid if needed, India wanted such help but was rebuffed.

What else?

Last point without getting into politics. The current GoI may not want to use it against Vajpayee since this claim (even if false) may align with their different political goals.

[rajeshks]

Last point without getting into politics. The current GoI may not want to use it against Vajpayee since this claim (even if false) may align with their different political goals.

True.. Nuclear deal, CTBT etc

[dinesha]

As far as nuclear deterrence is concerned, It can be generalized that
Acceptable loss due to nuclear exchange is inversely proportional to socio-economic prosperity of a country. With the increase in prosperity, the acceptable loss will decrease.

US will be deterred by far less then China and China will be deterred by far less then TSP. Classis example is Iran and NoKo. Just handful of IRBMs and possible 1-2 simple fission bomb capabilities has saved Iran from suffering same fate as Iraq.

[rajeshks]

As far as nuclear deterrence is concerned, It can be generalized that
Acceptable loss due to nuclear exchange is inversely proportional to socio-economic prosperity of a country. With the increase in prosperity, the acceptable loss will decrease.

US will be deterred by far less then China and China will be deterred by far less then TSP. Classis example is Iran and NoKo. Just handful of IRBMs and possible 1-2 simple fission bomb capabilities has saved Iran from suffering same fate as Iraq.

Pentagon suggested Taiwan can use 3 Gorges dam as a detterent against China. Can't we also do the same? water from that dam can cause unacceptable damage to china & its economy. Detterence doesnt mean Nuclear deterrence alone.

[Sanku]

Pentagon suggested Taiwan can use 3 Gorges dam as a detterent against China. Can't we also do the same? water from that dam can cause unacceptable damage to china & its economy. Detterence doesnt mean Nuclear deterrence alone.

Taiwan has US safety net behind it all the way. If China wants to mess with Taiwan, US gets into action (they have bases in Taiwan IIRC)

A different equation yet again. Its only that we are different.

[NRao]

Pentagon suggested Taiwan can use 3 Gorges dam as a detterent against China. Can't we also do the same? water from that dam can cause unacceptable damage to china & its economy. Detterence doesnt mean Nuclear deterrence alone.

Most do not understand that, specially in the nuclear context.

However, the 3 Gorges dam may be able to take a conventional hit. So, it may need a nuclear one - just for the yield.

[samuel]

It is true that keeping things fuzzy keeps things confused. But that confusion may be in our minds, and we don't know whether it is in the minds of China or Pak or P4. We can in fact incorporate that too. That is, what if the information was covertly detected, then what we need vs. what if it isn't. In the long run, I'd say the distinction won't make a difference to what our needs are, but we can try to get at it more systematically.

The proposal is simply to start at some point where we have meaningful numbers. For example, the argument is that we don't have anything beyond 100KT. OK, let's believe that.There is good evidence that we've done 25KT test and scaling laws probably apply. So is it reasonable to assume we have operational systems of about 50KT? You could also say we have no clue, it's uniform between 25 and 100 and that's good information because it is sufficient to sample from. But perhaps we can just agree here and go where that leads us.

Delivery. We have some information on the A series and perhaps while some of it is not public we can make some calculations of how much payload they carry, in what configuration etc.

We can get information about population centers, if that is our policy following NFU. We can plug these numbers together and ask how many we need to do damage X, how many we need to prevent a rebound etc.

It is a different question to say whether or not threat of damage X is necessary or sufficient for deterrence, but at least we will agree on certain mechanics and differ on priorities or prior probabilities. We will be able to say that for this amount of risk, such and so is the cost. That sets up the lines of disagreement more clearly rather than some vacuous notion, in my mind, oh its all vague, its all there its deterrence, especially in the face of such overwhelming forces arrayed against us both conventional and nuclear.

You could say, well who are we to do this. The powers that be already know all this. We are already buying this that and the other and there are all these treaties. why would we be obfuscating here even though we may be elsewhere for strategic reasons. Sure, that is reasonable. But we can arrive at some bounds using just "first principles" that can be "maximalist" and "minimalist" and they will at least be upper and lower bounds. I am not even sure where we are in this space.

[chanakyaa]

{Your post was reported because the modern spelling made it look like something else entirely. Please be careful, thx}

[samuel]

OK, then,
Ramana had at one point suggested monte-carlo experiments. I needed to get some package to write out the whole chain for sampling probabilities.
Here is one "simulator" -- if anyone has used it (and saves me trouble to read the implementation), I'd appreciate.

http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/gmap/hydesim.html

This, a 1000KT (1MT) simulation over delhi. Pretty much obliterated.

http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/gmap/hyd ... 56&yd=1000

A 100KT simulation over Beijing. Largely intact.
http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/gmap/hyd ... 100&si&z=8

You will need three 25KT devices for 3-gorges, to be sure:
http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/gmap/hyd ... &yd=25&z=6

Note please:
15 psi Complete destruction of reinforced concrete structures, such as skyscrapers, will occur within this ring. Between 7 psi and 15 psi, there will be severe to total damage to these types of structures.
5 psi Complete destruction of ordinary houses, and moderate to severe damage to reinforced concrete structures, will occur within this ring.
2 psi Severe damage to ordinary houses, and light to moderate damage to reinforced concrete structures, will occur within this ring.
1 psi Light damage to all structures, and light to moderate damage to ordinary houses, will occur within this ring.
0.25 psi Most glass surfaces, such as windows, will shatter within this ring, some with enough force to cause injury.

Contours I believe are to 1psi, but since it is land based, we can consider that to be the effective radius (plz correct).

[samuel]

To get to some simple numbers (probably simplistic, but we can refine)

Arsenal of 100 x 25KT weapons will allow us to target ~ 10 city-sized targets.
Between China and Pak, that's about 5 each. Then we only got blanks.
In return, about 400 x 1MT devices stare us along with a few KT type from west.
Each MT leads with high probability to collapse of indian city, delhi size. Even with
100 x 1MT cities, that's nearly every major city in India.
So either, pakistan goes, china survives, and we go or china and pak survive and we go.

Arsenal of 100x100KT weapons will allow us to target about 25-30 city-cized targets.
Now we can do some serious damage but its bye bye here too, easily.

At 250 x 250 KT weapons, we can target nearly every major city and installation of both.
And leave some for a repeat. That's where I'd place my deterrent and gear testing to get to.
Build TN, lightest payload, develop 250-300KT class weapons, all modes of delivery. End.

Please note that it is not the size of the enemy's arsenal but the number of targets we deem necessary
and the desired/accomplishable kill probability that will determine what we need. The objective is to guarantee
the end of that civilization if it attacks us with nuclear or weapons of mass destruction of any kind.

Please also note that unlike the time since 1962, we don't have the soviets to bank on. So, we don't have a pact
we can count on, even indirectly to come to our help. We have to have this ourselves (unless the whole idea is to
create public opinion to fold into the US structure, as it appears to be happening).

JMT
S

[Prem]

Samuel Ji,
Will Chinese have enough left over to lob over japan and "others" and Wont India require more to do ram nam sat Hai for Baki Backers living in Registan who deserve to partake in Baki destiny.

[samuel]

Samuel Ji,
Will Chinese have enough left over to lob over japan and "others" and Wont India require more to do ram nam sat Hai for Baki Backers living in Registan who deserve to partake in Baki destiny.

I did not factor any of these but I think that if we step out beyond our Pak centric focus now into a China centric deterrence, many of our "pre NWS", cold-war type approach will be out to lunch. I am not yet sure what the full threat picture is, but these two in our immediate hood need to be stopped. If we know of security gurantees to Pak, I would like to learn of those.

S

[Manish_Sharma]

Samuel thank you for making things so clear. I was looking for something like this for long time.