Deterrence

[NRao]

Only as a FYI, here is a 2007 discussion:

Optimal Size of Strategic Warheads

[shiv]

In fact, the more we rely on smaller kiloton weapons or conventional methods to achieve our goals in a war, the more vulnerable our strike capacity becomes to chinese megaton weapons! .

Rudradev - could you justify this commonly held view with a few examples of why this is correct. To my knowledge your assertion is not totally correct. It has its plus points but cannot be considered as wholly true. Poster rien had come up with a scenario that agrees with your view - but was unable to go beyond bland statements of dogma and explain the objections raised.

Ultimately no megaboom is guaranteed to take out any leadership or any deep bunkers or any hidden/mobile weapons and what we are left with is a massive civilian death scenario. And if the megaton bombs are wasted on rural/uninhabited places in the hope of taking out enemy weapons and bunkers suspected to be there - even that civilian death scenario does not occur

I believe you have to look at actual numbers of targets needed to take out an enemy's underground C & C and to take out his weapon launching capability - neither of which are guaranteed to be in the middle of his best cities. And if you are using up your megabooms on that, what guarantee is there that the enemy's second strike capability will be removed? (This of course is the old US vs USSR argument made in the US against first strike at a time when the US had thousands of weapons and the USSR hundreds). Are you wiling to use up 200 of your weapons trying to take out bunkers and missiles and decoys while the enemy manages to retain five weapons and take out five of your cities? My question is a serious one that requires some thought - beyond the level that I have seen being put into this issue by and large on this thread.


For example - even assuming that Paki generals do not care about huge numbers of dead - exactly how do you believe they can retain their power and privileges when they emerge from their bunkers 15 days after a war and find Islamabad/Rawalpindi, Lahore, Karachi and ten other cities reeling with several million dead and injured who are just beginning to show the signs of radiation sickness 2 weeks after the initial devastation? It is easier to say that one can ignore dead and dying people from the viewpoint of a person who has no idea what the sight of dead and dying does to people. A 1 MT bomb on a deep bunker in the hills does not have half the effect of a 10 kt bomb in the middle of your city.

[shiv]

Only as a FYI, here is a 2007 discussion:

Optimal Size of Strategic Warheads

In fact I had been through that link earlier and it seems to me that a least one person there imagines that China will try to hide its population in bunkers in the way Londoners hid in WW 2 and the US prepared for nuclear war in the 60s. I believe that these people imagine that the Chinese think like them and that is wrong.

Chinese leaders will hardly try to protect their population any more than Paki leaders. I mean how do you hide even 10 million people in bunkers - leave alone 100 million. Mao stated that "he" was willing to see several hundred million Chinese dead and asserted that several hundred million would be left alive. Now which Western leader is capable of making a statement like that and staying in power?

When a leader says that he is willing to see hundreds of millions of his people dead, the only way you can take up his challenge is to present him with his hundred of million dead and ask him to carry on. He will of course be hiding in a bunker and you will never know if you have hit him or not no matter how many nukes you pepper his nation with. Do not waste your nukes on bunkers and hardened shelters. Just kill people. Take the bottom out of his ability to run a country by gifting him with the millions of dead that he is "willing to accept".

[shiv]

One of the reasons I want to write and depict scenarios of death and dying in nuclear war is because I think we are a sanitized bunch of people who never see death or even serious injuries. We live in a society where we are presented sanitized pictures in which body parts and dead are not shown.

One of the first things one learns as a medical student is that some people faint at the mere sight of blood. Many doctors who did not faint at the sight of blood as students will nevertheless admit that they did not opt for a surgical speciality because they did not want to be swimming in blood and body parts.

Once you sanitize your mind from the actual mess of blood, body parts and a dying person it is easy to believe hat one can "ignore the dead and dying". Even trained people cannot do that.

In this connection let me post something that I noticed 2 days ago after the Fort Hood shootings
http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-11-06-voa19.cfm
Image caption: Colonels John Rossi (r) and Steve Braverman speak to reporters outside Fort Hood, 06 Nov 2009


Just look at Col. John Rossi's face enlarged. His face and eyes are screwed up - he is holding his mouth rigid. This is the "smoke gets in your eyes" look - he is obviously fighting tears. Nothing wrong in that unless you want to ask why a trained senior army officer would have to fight tears when faced with the death of a few 21 year old army professionals who are paid to die anyway?

[NRao]

Shiv,

I am trying to put together a data sheet, in which I hope to show that there is a trend among Nuclear Weapon States to move to smaller nuclear weapons (20-300 kt). That Mt is out of fashion. That even perhaps the counter value option is out of fashion.

I had posted a half baked info - some time back - on China.

In short, I am more interested in that very topic "optimal" size of a nuclear weapon - if there is one.

I am of the opinion that there is plenty of deterrence to go around for nuclear states. And, that there is enough intra government oversight to ensure that a conflict does not escalate to a nuclear status.

[shiv]

Shiv,

I am trying to put together a data sheet, in which I hope to show that there is a trend among Nuclear Weapon States to move to smaller nuclear weapons (20-300 kt). That Mt is out of fashion. That even perhaps the counter value option is out of fashion. .

This is true - but to figure that out you have to put in some serious reading of material that is available as you seem to be consistently doing. Even the paradigms and previously assumed "rules" of deterrence are changing and they keep changing. One has to move with the pressures and problems of the times.

[NRao]

I do differentiate between pre-deterrence (deterrence) and post-deterrence (a failed deterrence).

No matter what I feel that there is a move towards smaller weapons. Let us see.

[NRao]

The following is a very interesting article from Indian PoV:

Iran tested advanced nuclear warhead design – secret report

The very existence of the technology, known as a "two-point implosion" device, is officially secret in both the US and Britain, but according to previously unpublished documentation in a dossier compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iranian scientists may have tested high-explosive components of the design. The development was today described by nuclear experts as "breathtaking" and has added urgency to the effort to find a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis.

So, there are two players who know this design.

However, Iran seems (if we believe this report) to have got her hands on this design.

Furthermore (as FYI):

The sophisticated technology, once mastered, allows for the production of smaller and simpler warheads than older models. It reduces the diameter of a warhead and makes it easier to put a nuclear warhead on a missile.

So, it could be placed into small delivery systems. Cool.

Now:

Another western specialist with extensive knowledge of the Iranian programme said: "It raises the question of who supplied this to them. Did AQ Khan [a Pakistani scientist who confessed in 2004 to running a nuclear smuggling ring] have access to this, or is it another player?"

IF the US and UK are the two players, who else could get to this but them two?

So, we have multiple and interesting issues:
* No data points to build a highly sophisticated weapon (forget a device), no models, no simulations .......... ???????????
* That damn Venn diagram seems to have changed ............... again

[Rudradev]

Rudradev wrote:
In fact, the more we rely on smaller kiloton weapons or conventional methods to achieve our goals in a war, the more vulnerable our strike capacity becomes to chinese megaton weapons! .

Rudradev - could you justify this commonly held view with a few examples of why this is correct. To my knowledge your assertion is not totally correct. It has its plus points but cannot be considered as wholly true. Poster rien had come up with a scenario that agrees with your view - but was unable to go beyond bland statements of dogma and explain the objections raised.

Shiv,

I believe my post was quite soundly reasoned without needing to rely on any dogmatic adherences. Nonetheless, I think there are two main points of disagreement here.

The first, if I read you correctly, is that you contend that a capacity to inflict massive civilian casualties alone is sufficient to establish deterrence. I think this is unrealistic.


"Deterrence" itself is a concept that is hard to measure, let alone give "examples" to justify, because it is only manifest recursively by conjecture, and relies on a circular definition. Two mutually hostile nuclear powers can be said to have "deterred" each other merely by absence of a level of conflict that leads to a nuclear exchange between them, but when proxy wars, below-the-threshold incursions and aggressive proliferation persist, it's obvious that the deterrence is not comprehensive. If your enemy is still able to hurt you by taking calculated risks, it is because you haven't established a high enough capacity to inflict costs as to make his risks incalculable.

The one example of the use of nuclear weapons having actually ended a war decisively, occurred in a special context where one side (the US) possessed them and the other did not... 100% asymmetry. What we hear about Hiroshima and Nagasaki today, is dominated by the horrors inflicted upon their civilian populations; and yet, was that really what induced the Japanese to surrender? From the battle of Okinawa onwards, the Japanese were drilling women, children, the aged and the handicapped to fight to the last soul in preparation for an invasion of the home islands. In that situation you could arguably have expected more "civilian" casualties than Fat Man and Little Boy achieved.

What the Japanese government could not countenance was the extent to which their means of production could be erased in a single strike.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bom ... d_Nagasaki

At the time of its bombing, Hiroshima was a city of some industrial and military significance. A number of military camps were located nearby, including the headquarters of the Fifth Division and Field Marshal Shunroku Hata's 2nd General Army Headquarters, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan. Hiroshima was a minor supply and logistics base for the Japanese military. The city was a communications center, a storage point, and an assembly area for troops... The city of Nagasaki had been one of the largest sea ports in southern Japan and was of great wartime importance because of its wide-ranging industrial activity, including the production of ordnance, ships, military equipment, and other war materials.

When your hubs of transportation and sites of materiel storage can be scoured off the earth with such ease, what are you, as a government, going to fight the enemy with... even despite your willingness to sacrifice every available civilian as a combatant?

Today we say we have "deterrence" against the Chinese with our kiloton weapons that can kill hundreds of thousands of their civilians in airbursts. But as I said, the definition is circular and self-referential. The Chinese were not deterred from invading Korea against a nuclear-armed antagonist in the 1950s. We knew about the Chinese nuclear capacity in 1967, but fought them to a standstill at Nathu La. It didn't deter us from taking a calculated risk of military escalation in 1967, or in 1975 when Sikkim was consolidated (and we were still far behind the Chinese in deploying a nuclear arsenal). Pakistan has employed nuclear blackmail as an umbrella for terrorism against us (a nuclear power) for nearly two decades.

I might compare our present "deterrence" to a 150-kilo gentleman who eats butter chicken and paneer parathas at every meal, has a family history of T2DM, smokes a pack a day, but takes one 100-metre walk to the post office once a week. He might say that, because he hasn't yet had a heart attack, that 100-metre walk once a week is all the exercise he needs. But if you were selling him life insurance, how low would you price the premium?

Ultimately, if it comes down to a set of compulsions whereby nuclear conflict with the Chinese is imminent, I don't believe that our being able to kill some lakhs of their civilians will deter them; not when they have the capacity to kill as many if not more of our civilians, *plus* minimize our capacity to inflict likewise damage on them by taking out our strategic assets, infrastructure, and means of production. This capacity on their part multiplies the danger posed by their ability merely to cause massive civilian death in nuclear strikes. It deprives us of the ability to triage and rebuild in the aftermath of their strikes, let alone respond in kind to any further strikes they might conduct.

Now the second point, I think, is self-evident. If we accept that it is not sufficient deterrence to be able to cause civilian deaths but that we must actually be able to take out their strategic assets, infrastructure and means of production... then as we've established, we need to be able to impose maximum overpressure. We need very high-yield weapons to carry out groundstrikes against their hardpoints and replace those with craters.

So then it becomes as simple as doing the maths. Let's say that a particular Chinese hardpoint will need a 1 MT direct hit to take out. We can send in one 1 MT warhead plus 9 dummies, calculating that the likelihood of their ABM systems at the objective intercepting the warhead is 10%. On the other hand, we would have to score five direct hits (more difficult) with 5 200kt warheads to achieve the same objective. In addition, that increases the likelihood of ABM interception by 40%... and if even one of our 200kt warheads is intercepted, we don't achieve the objective. To arrive at the same degree of insurance against interception we need to send in 45 dummies along with our 5 200kt warheads. Now factor in the possibility of a proportion of our delivery systems failing, either at launch or in terms of guidance or propulsion or in landing outside the CEP... a lot more redundancy needs to be built in. So we're talking about a number of warheads and delivery systems that's up to an order of magnitude greater, to achieve the same number of objectives. These have to be stored and maintained in far larger facilities that are proportionately more difficult to conceal and protect against enemy strikes. They have to be transported and readied at greater expense and a greater cost in time, and of course the probability of error increases as the number of variables at every stage.

This is what I was trying to convey in brief when, in my previous post, I gave the example of the Chinese need for a W88 warhead... compact, easy to handle and store and get ready for use, less vulnerable to the megabooms of adversaries. And therefore a far more secure deterrent than what they had before.

Ultimately no megaboom is guaranteed to take out any leadership or any deep bunkers or any hidden/mobile weapons and what we are left with is a massive civilian death scenario. And if the megaton bombs are wasted on rural/uninhabited places in the hope of taking out enemy weapons and bunkers suspected to be there - even that civilian death scenario does not occur

This is true, nothing is guaranteed. But the calculus of deterrence certainly changes if that capacity is there. I am not saying we should eschew the civilian targets in favour of *only* hitting deep bunkers and hidden weapons... the kiloton devices are, and remain a critical part of our deterrence posture. An asymmetry in megaton weapons, however, means that we're getting the short end of deterrence by a wide margin.

I believe you have to look at actual numbers of targets needed to take out an enemy's underground C & C and to take out his weapon launching capability - neither of which are guaranteed to be in the middle of his best cities. And if you are using up your megabooms on that, what guarantee is there that the enemy's second strike capability will be removed? (This of course is the old US vs USSR argument made in the US against first strike at a time when the US had thousands of weapons and the USSR hundreds). Are you wiling to use up 200 of your weapons trying to take out bunkers and missiles and decoys while the enemy manages to retain five weapons and take out five of your cities? My question is a serious one that requires some thought - beyond the level that I have seen being put into this issue by and large on this thread.

That isn't the point. If we only have fifty weapons to take out the enemy's cities, but the enemy has fifty weapons to take out our cities plus 200 megabooms to take out our weapons, C&C and industrial-logistical capacity for triage/recovery/reconstruction...the deterrence equation is drastically skewed in his favour. He can not only take out our cities, but he can use his megabooms in counter-strategic strikes, with a given probability of success in reducing (if not eliminating) our capacity to take out his cities.

He isn't guaranteed to eliminate our second strike capacity, but in a numbers game (which is what deterrence boils down to) he clearly wins over an adversary with no chance whatever of neutralizing his strategic assets.

If we also had 200 megabooms to reduce the probability of his retaining a second strike capacity, deterrence becomes more balanced.

Since you mention it... a capacity to conduct strikes on the "B Country" (non-urban, relatively unpopulated areas) is actually another point of asymmetry between ourselves and the Chinese. If the Chinese use megaton weapons on groundstrikes against our B-Country, it adds to their capacity for devastation, because groundstrikes (not airbursts) are what cause fallout by discharging large quantities of radioactive earth into the atmosphere. Besides, the "B-Country" is crtically important because it is where the resources will come from to rebuild the "A-Country" of the cities, and provide relief to the survivors of nuclear strikes on those cities.

We already possess a great asymmetry with the Chinese in terms of our "B Country", because their infrastructure is far better developed. They are able to ferry relief supplies from the countryside to the city, and relocate city survivors to the country with far greater efficiency than we can.

If we (with only kiloton weapons) are limited to hitting their cities, and leave their B-Country untouched... while they hit our cities as well as B-Country sites with groundstrikes that also elicit fallout... it's quite easy to see why we will have the worst of a nuclear exchange by far.

For example - even assuming that Paki generals do not care about huge numbers of dead - exactly how do you believe they can retain their power and privileges when they emerge from their bunkers 15 days after a war and find Islamabad/Rawalpindi, Lahore, Karachi and ten other cities reeling with several million dead and injured who are just beginning to show the signs of radiation sickness 2 weeks after the initial devastation? It is easier to say that one can ignore dead and dying people from the viewpoint of a person who has no idea what the sight of dead and dying does to people. A 1 MT bomb on a deep bunker in the hills does not have half the effect of a 10 kt bomb in the middle of your city.

There were enormous numbers of dead and dying people at Dresden, Tokyo, Stalingrad and Kigali whose suffering had nothing to do with nuclear strikes. Their suffering was not sufficient to precipitate the collapse of the regimes prosecuting the wars concerned.

It does not matter how many dead people you or I, as individuals, may have seen. War brings suffering on a scale people are not used to in peacetime. This may go up by several orders of magnitude for being a nuclear war, but ultimately in the context of any war that is more than a "limited war", where civilians see the frontlines extending to their very front doors, I don't know if we can rely on the shock and horror alone to effect a "regime change". War also changes the mindset of people in terms of social behaviours and attitudes to nation and ideology in ways that aren't predictable by the templates of peacetime. You may be right about the Paki generals emerging from their bunkers etc. but I wouldn't want to gamble our security on that possibility.

Finally, in terms of "half the effect", that is quite an inexact assertion you are making. The "effect" being sought by dropping a 1MT bomb on a deep bunker is not the same as that pursued by a 10kt bomb in the middle of a city. Each has its uses. That 1MT bomb could reduce or eliminate the potential of retaliation, and multiply the suffering of the survivors in that city exponentially, depending on how and where it is used.

Just a couple of data-points regarding the effects of nukes on cities, however, notwithstanding your fine analysis of the Rawalpindi bomb which I have no issue with.

From this series of essays by a professional who used the bomb computer published on Fourmilab as a standard tool of his trade:

http://homepage.mac.com/msb/163x/faqs/n ... e_101.html
http://homepage.mac.com/msb/163x/faqs/n ... e_102.html
http://homepage.mac.com/msb/163x/faqs/n ... e_103.html

Initiate a 1 megaton device over the center of London and 95 percent of the cities assets and 80 percent of the population will survive (this means that, proportionally speaking, Londoners will be better off after a nuclear attack than they were before it took place. This was the basis of at least one Get Rich Quick scheme proposed in The Business).

If we're talking about deterring the Chinese, I'd say Shanghai or Beijing are closer to London than Rawalpindi in terms of the destructive power needed to take them down. So forget about 10kT... even 1 MT, according to this source, isn't nearly enough.

To give a feel for the sort of numbers that we're talking about, the British calculated that they needed 32 warheads to give Moscow a terminal dose of instant sunrise.

Assuming he means 32 of the standard W76 warheads that the British deploy on their Trident subs, that's 100 kT each. So, 3.2 MT to assure the comprehensive destruction of Moscow alone.

How many 25 kT warheads would we have to bring to bear, to achieve that? How easy will it be to store and protect them from Chinese megaboom first-strikes? How long will it take to ready them for use, transport them on infrastructure that has already been devastated by Chinese megabooms? Will we have that long?

[Umrao Das]

But if you were selling him life insurance, how low would you price the premium?

Even If mandated I will not sell Life Indurance but sell him more Butter Chicken, Butter naan, Paneer Tikka and half and half steamed frothed coffee

[Rudradev]

But if you were selling him life insurance, how low would you price the premium?

Even If mandated I will not sell Life Indurance but sell him more Butter Chicken, Butter naan, Paneer Tikka and half and half steamed frothed coffee

You could call that an Indo Unkil Culinary Naashta Cooperation Agreement

[Umrao Das]

read on serious folks who are deterred by joke(r)s.

The Nukes We Need

The Obama administration is right that the United States can safely cut its nuclear arsenal, but it must pay careful attention to the capabilities it retains. During a war, if a desperate adversary were to use its nuclear force to try to coerce the United States -- for example, by threatening a U.S. ally or even by launching nuclear strikes against U.S. overseas bases -- an arsenal comprised solely of high-yield weapons would leave U.S. leaders with terrible retaliatory options. Destroying Pyongyang or Tehran in response to a limited strike would be vastly disproportionate, and doing so might trigger further nuclear attacks in return. A deterrent posture based on such a dubious threat would lack credibility.

Instead, a credible deterrent should give U.S. leaders a range of retaliatory options, including the ability to respond to nuclear attacks with either conventional or nuclear strikes, to retaliate with strikes against an enemy's nuclear forces rather than its cities, and to minimize casualties. The foundation for this flexible deterrent exists. The current U.S. arsenal includes a mix of accurate high- and low-yield warheads, offering a wide range of retaliatory options -- including the ability to launch precise, very low-casualty nuclear counterforce strikes. The United States must preserve that mix of capabilities -- especially the low-yield weapons -- as it cuts the size of its nuclear force.

Just one more joke based on our great leadership scientists and political and Startegic ( ie Star studded BR and GOI analysts Bishama's who never tire or retire!

Tactical weapons are must in future
Therefore our NFU is bogus
If we stick to cold war detrrence we are cooked {like in above example Butter Tandoori chicken...}

just joker thoughts.. never take jokers seriously

[NRao]

"Trend" of US nukes:

Year last manufactured :: Mt/Kt
1965 :: 9/0
1976 :: 0/170
1982 :: 0/350
1987 :: 0/100
1988 :: 0/300 *
1989 :: 0/475
1990 :: 0/5 & 170-200
1990 :: 0/5 & 150-170
1991 :: low Kt to 1.2 Mt

* 300 Kt upgradable to 475 Kt

Source: http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Wea ... bombs.html

[Kanson]

Tactical weapons are must in future
Therefore our NFU is bogus

As the article mentions, the NFU is for "peaceful deterrence". I see no one mentions we dont have tactical weapons. Maybe you can enlighten us if it is not so.

[Sanku]

Excepetional posts as always Rudradev and thank you Shri Das for the incisive joke.

[NRao]

"Trends" for Chinese nukes:

Year last manufactured :: Mt/Kt

1980 :: 3.3/0
1981 :: 4-5/0
1991 :: 0/200-300
2006 :: 0/200-300 *
2009 :: 0/200-300 *

* http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-is ... na-cdi.htm

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s ... estruction

[Kanson]

No matter what I feel that there is a move towards smaller weapons. Let us see

Rao ji, from earlier times entire development of conventional weapons were done based on the axiom, "bigger is merrier". It slipped into the Nuclear weapons development too as we all know. In similar fashion consistent with the current conventional posture like SDB, and improvements in precision, the idea of smaller yield become fashionable. Megatons are not so favourite as it brings destruction to their own allies. Consider of using megatons in Europe land mass; radiation could/debris from megaton affects neighbouring allies as much as the adversaries.

There is a document of US planning first strike against China, that give an idea of constraints US is facing in using higher yield tonnage.

[NRao]

That isn't the point. If we only have fifty weapons to take out the enemy's cities, but the enemy has fifty weapons to take out our cities plus 200 megabooms to take out our weapons, C&C and industrial-logistical capacity for triage/recovery/reconstruction...the deterrence equation is drastically skewed in his favour. He can not only take out our cities, but he can use his megabooms in counter-strategic strikes, with a given probability of success in reducing (if not eliminating) our capacity to take out his cities.

How?

Prior to that you state:

"Deterrence" itself is a concept that is hard to measure, let alone give "examples" to justify,

And then go on to actually provide an example and a measure!!!

Anyways, is deterrence is not one-on-one?

The scenario you have provided is after a deterrence has failed. If

Is (todays China - granted Mao was willing to sacrifice a billion people, but he not longer rules) China (as an example) willing to accept even a single 25 Kt nuke?

The US was not willing to accept even one from the USSR OR NK!!!!!!!

I might compare our present "deterrence" to a 150-kilo gentleman who eats butter chicken and paneer parathas at every meal, has a family history of T2DM, smokes a pack a day, but takes one 100-metre walk to the post office once a week. He might say that, because he hasn't yet had a heart attack, that 100-metre walk once a week is all the exercise he needs. But if you were selling him life insurance, how low would you price the premium?

With a single nuke. Please read the NYTimes article I had posted - on NK as recent as about 5 years ago.

There is a huge diff between deterrence and a destructive power after a deterrence fails.

The MT destructive power - and you are absolutely right - favors China. The question is is China willing to accept a retaliatory strike (which it seems you believe India will not be able to mount, which is a diff story) even with a few 25 Kt nukes.

[Sanku]

The MT destructive power - and you are absolutely right - favors China. The question is is China willing to accept a retaliatory strike (which it seems you believe India will not be able to mount, which is a diff story) even with a few 25 Kt nukes.

I believe yes is the answer given in the first part of that post itself, an axiom on which the rest is based.

And I agree....

[NRao]

Kanson,

My saying did not have any impact on the discussion, so I had to dig it out (not complete as yet). I am not even sure if teh Chinese MTs can be trusted by the Chinese themselves - granted they could have done some under-table stuff to keep them going.

Besides that there are umpteen things that will happen prior to going nuclear AND after the fallout. And it holds specially true with countries like Pakistan (we are seeing that right now) and China. I would think China would be more scared of what others would do to her if she used a nuke.

Anyways, I am still waiting for my age old questions: 1) Will the current Chinese leadership accept - say 75 25-50 Kt nukes? 2) What will they do with what is left of China? (Assume India is a silicon parking lot, but has been able to retaliate.)

[NRao]

The MT destructive power - and you are absolutely right - favors China. The question is is China willing to accept a retaliatory strike (which it seems you believe India will not be able to mount, which is a diff story) even with a few 25 Kt nukes.

I believe yes is the answer given in the first part of that post itself, an axiom on which the rest is based.

And I agree....

OK. Thanks.

What will they do with what is left of it (which is not much)?

[Kanson]

My saying did not have any impact on the discussion

Rao ji, i guess, my messg went wrong. It has nothing to with current "discussion".

The following is a very interesting article from Indian PoV:

Iran tested advanced nuclear warhead design – secret report

The very existence of the technology, known as a "two-point implosion" device, is officially secret in both the US and Britain, but according to previously unpublished documentation in a dossier compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iranian scientists may have tested high-explosive components of the design. The development was today described by nuclear experts as "breathtaking" and has added urgency to the effort to find a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis.

Now:

Another western specialist with extensive knowledge of the Iranian programme said: "It raises the question of who supplied this to them. Did AQ Khan [a Pakistani scientist who confessed in 2004 to running a nuclear smuggling ring] have access to this, or is it another player?"

IF the US and UK are the two players, who else could get to this but them two?

The other could be China / France / Sweden / Germany or infact Russia.

W88 has something to do with two point implosion i guess.

[shiv]

Rudradev I have several points of disagreement with your views - and I guess I will just state a few points and leave it at that - our viewpoints are unlikely to coincide.

Here is one thing I do agree with though:

Today we say we have "deterrence" against the Chinese with our kiloton weapons that can kill hundreds of thousands of their civilians in airbursts. But as I said, the definition is circular and self-referential. The Chinese were not deterred from invading Korea against a nuclear-armed antagonist in the 1950s. We knew about the Chinese nuclear capacity in 1967, but fought them to a standstill at Nathu La. It didn't deter us from taking a calculated risk of military escalation in 1967, or in 1975 when Sikkim was consolidated (and we were still far behind the Chinese in deploying a nuclear arsenal). Pakistan has employed nuclear blackmail as an umbrella for terrorism against us (a nuclear power) for nearly two decades.

I am uncertain if you have thought this entire "deterrence" thing through - but let me say something again since I see no mention of it in your post. Deterrence is a state of mind with the following unique characteristics:

You will never know the other person's mind. If you think you are deterring him you may be wrong no matter what you think. Under these circumstances, when you have absolutely NO IDEA what is deterring him, it is completely delusional to imagine that you are deterring him because you have X^10 gigabooms and that you were unable to deter him last year when you had only X^5 gigabooms. That is obviously wrong because he was deterred last year. Why was he deterred when you were weaker?

You do not have the chance of a snowflake in hell of knowing what the other person's mind is telling him and he is not going to tell you. So how will you know what his mind is afraid of? You will never know. So you will never know why nuclear war has not occurred till today.

You do not know what deters the other person. You only know what deters you.

What you DO know is what YOU are afraid of. In your case you are indicating that you are afraid of Chinese capability as you have described it. YOU (representing India) are deterred. Your fear is valid and you are a rational person. However you are assuming that you need the same capability as China or more to deter China. That assumption is wrong because, as said above you will never ever know if and why the Chinese are afraid of you, if at all they are afraid of you. You have no way of telling whether China will be deterred by 20 times their capacity. You can only make an assumption and our argument is based on YOUR assumption of what YOU think China might be afraid of.

Please note that I am making NO assumptions about what China is or is not afraid of. I have no way of saying whether China is deterred or no deterred by Indian forces. I have no way of saying that India needs X nuclear weapons to deter China which is an absurd and baseless assumption of a thought process in someone else's head.

I only know that I am certain to cause some very severe damage to China under some circumstances. I claim loudly that I am deterred by China and that I harbor no intention of trying to damage China with my nuclear weapons unless China uses them first. If China uses them on me all this talk of "deterrence" becomes hot air. Deterrence has broken down. Since deterrence has broken down my only duty to myself and my country will be to damage China severely. I am NOT planning my nuclear arsenal based on the size and power of the Chinese arsenal. I am planning my nuclear arsenal on how much damage I intend to cause China.

How much damage do I intend to cause China if China nukes us first? A lot. I am not in the business of comparing the damage that China can cause to me with the damage I can cause to him in order to get some perverse satisfaction that I caused him "more damage". Since I do not want ANY damage from even one Chinese nuke, even one nuke on me is "too much damage". The damage that I intend to cause China is NOT based on the amount of damage China can inflict or will inflict on me. Those factors are immaterial to my planning the damage to be inflicted on China. Even ONE nuke on me from China will invite my entire retaliatory force on China. One nuke on me is unacceptable damage. The only effect the size and type of the Chinese arsenal has on my planning is to ensure that enough of my arsenal survives a first strike.

In my view there are several errors in the way you see things that cause needless confusion and concentration on pointless pursuits when the needs of nuclear war can be met easily if deterrence breaks down. You are confusing nuclear war with deterrence. Deterrence and nuclear war are different. You are somehow trying to equate a hypothetical scenario of "equivalent damage on China" in a nuclear war after deterrence breaks down as being a factor in deterrence. As I stated that is absurd and based on assumptions of what you think he thinks. You will never know what he thinks. You can only know what you think. You only feel happier to tell yourself "Since I have more and bigger weapons he is more afraid of me"

[Sanku]

In my view there are several errors in the way you see things that cause needless confusion and concentration on pointless pursuits when the needs of nuclear war can be met easily if deterrence breaks down. You are confusing nuclear war with deterrence. Deterrence and nuclear war are different. You are somehow trying to equate a hypothetical scenario of "equivalent damage on China" in a nuclear war after deterrence breaks down as being a factor in deterrence. As I stated that is absurd and based on assumptions of what you think he thinks. You will never know what he thinks. You can only know what you think.

Whether or not the deterrence breaks down is a direct consequence of post deterrence break down calculus.

It is that simple and that straightforward.

-----

Knowing what your enemies think is the basis of state craft, there is no excuse of saying "I dont know", and of course you will also never no for sure, that is no excuse for analysis paralysis either.

And in worst case if you really cant say what the other thinks, assume worst case and go for total annihilation, so you dont have to worry about what he thinks since you will ensure that he cant.

[shiv]

Whether or not the deterrence breaks down is a direct consequence of post deterrence break down calculus..

That is totally absurd. No situation of today can be based on a future event unless you have a time machine (or you rely on astrology).

Whether or not deterrence breaks down is based on your assumption of what you imagine the other person's mind is probably telling him about a post nuclear war scenario. That is as good as astrology. Maybe worse actually.

[Kanson]

read on serious folks who are deterred by joke(r)s.

The Nukes We Need

The Obama administration is right that the United States can safely cut its nuclear arsenal, but it must pay careful attention to the capabilities it retains. During a war, if a desperate adversary were to use its nuclear force to try to coerce the United States -- for example, by threatening a U.S. ally or even by launching nuclear strikes against U.S. overseas bases -- an arsenal comprised solely of high-yield weapons would leave U.S. leaders with terrible retaliatory options. Destroying Pyongyang or Tehran in response to a limited strike would be vastly disproportionate, and doing so might trigger further nuclear attacks in return. A deterrent posture based on such a dubious threat would lack credibility.

Instead, a credible deterrent should give U.S. leaders a range of retaliatory options, including the ability to respond to nuclear attacks with either conventional or nuclear strikes, to retaliate with strikes against an enemy's nuclear forces rather than its cities, and to minimize casualties. The foundation for this flexible deterrent exists. The current U.S. arsenal includes a mix of accurate high- and low-yield warheads, offering a wide range of retaliatory options -- including the ability to launch precise, very low-casualty nuclear counterforce strikes. The United States must preserve that mix of capabilities -- especially the low-yield weapons -- as it cuts the size of its nuclear force.

Just one more joke based on our great leadership scientists and political and Startegic ( ie Star studded BR and GOI analysts Bishama's who never tire or retire!

Tactical weapons are must in future
Therefore our NFU is bogus
If we stick to cold war detrrence we are cooked {like in above example Butter Tandoori chicken...}

just joker thoughts.. never take jokers seriously

FYI

On January 2, Defense Week quoted an Indian defence official as acknowledged that active consideration was being given to the creation of a Nuclear Air Command backed by a "first-strike capability". A Foreign Ministry official, quoted in the same report, commented: "'No-first strike' policy does not mean India will not have a first-strike capability. The foundations of the policy of deterrence, of which the Nuclear Air Command will be the key component, is based on having overwhelming superiority over the enemy to launch nuclear strikes. I would say we are working towards having a first-strike capability, but how to exercise this option within the 'no-first strike' policy will be the subject of political decision-making."

[Kanson]

Kanson,

......

Anyways, I am still waiting for my age old questions: 1) Will the current Chinese leadership accept - say 75 25-50 Kt nukes? 2) What will they do with what is left of China? (Assume India is a silicon parking lot, but has been able to retaliate.)

Rao, as per K.Sundarji, based on his assessment by 80s India need 20 20kt to deter Pakistan and 50 20kt to deter China.

From Nuclearweaponarchives"

India's first effort to formulate a nuclear policy and the determine the means needed to implement it was an informal but authoritative study group that was set up in November 1985 to answer queries by Rajiv Gandhi regarding defense planning. It encompassed the three services (Navy Chief of Staff Adm. Tahliani, Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. K. Sundarji, Deputy Cheif of Air Staff John Greene), leaders of BARC (Ramanna), the DRDO (Abdul Kalam), and the AEC (Chidambaram), and India's most prominent strategic analyst K. Subrahmanyam. The outcome of the group's deliberations was to recommend building a minimum deterrent force with a strict no first use policy. The arsenal envisioned was 70 to 100 warheads at a cost of about $5.6 billion.

In 1994 K. Subrahmanyam suggested that a force of 60 warheads carried on 20 Agnis, 20 Prithvis and the rest on aircraft would cost about Rs 10 billion over 10 years. In 1996 Sundarji suggested a cost of some Rs 27.5 billion -- Rs 6 billion for 150 warheads, Rs 3.6 billion for 45 Prithvis and Rs 18 billion for 90 Agni missiles.

[Sanku]

Whether or not the deterrence breaks down is a direct consequence of post deterrence break down calculus..

That is totally absurd. No situation of today can be based on a future event unless you have a time machine (or you rely on astrology).

I dont crash my car into a wall at 60 kmph even when I dont know for sure what will happen. Will the car be damaged? How much? Will the airbags deploy? Will the wall break down instead?

If however I have to make a choice between hitting a cow crossing the road and a wall, do I chose the cow or the wall?

Do I know for sure?

Do I have a time machine?

Is making a choice absurd?

The only thing that I find absurd is this fatalistic scenario, "oh we dont know anything, so lets assume anything since unless we know future for sure assumption 1 is as good as assumption 2"

All real life decisions are based without perfect knowledge of future, yet some routes are clearly better than others.

------

Similarly, for a nuclear exchange, what might happen if you cross the threshold will determine if you do.

Its as simple as that.

------

Further it is GoIs job to guess estimate what the enemy will do, based on real intelligence and analysis of their capabilities and intentions and strength. (whether or not US would use the seventh fleet or were posturing was a decision IG took, I am sure she did not KNOW yet she took a call)

Thats how it is in real world, hard luck to you if you consider it astrology.

[shiv]

Basing Indian nuclear posture on what the US plans for its nuclear doctrine is like the ant with an erection trying to seduce an elephant.

[shiv]

I dont crash my car into a wall at 60 kmph even when I dont know for sure what will happen. Will the car be damaged? How much? Will the airbags deploy? Will the wall break down instead?

If however I have to make a choice between hitting a cow crossing the road and a wall, do I chose the cow or the wall?

Do I know for sure?

Do I have a time machine?

Is making a choice absurd?.

Thanks for falling into an obvious trap. You don't crash your car (or you crash it in a particular way) because someone else has done it before and so you know, and you are basing your behavior on documented past experience.

Now tell me on what past experience you are basing your attitude of what will scare the Chinese in terms of nuclear war?

[NRao]

Kanson,

Cool.

That was then, I would expect a deterrent - today - for obvious reasons, to be even less.

But then what to do, even when we have data we have people hellbent on crashing cars into walls!!!! And trying to sell life insurance to someone who needs none.

And yet others confuse one nations quantitative deterrence with other.

_________________________________________________________

BTW, what ever happened to the other shoe? Someone felt he got cold feet - had to keep the shoe on to keep it warm. Possible?

_________________________________________________________

In spite of all that I am still open. As long as the equations add up. For I am certain that there will be no tests. And, the one tossing the shoe has not been consistent to believe that there is a need for tests. IMHO, even with a fizzle there is MORE than enough deterrence - Chicom will not press that button even with MT in back pocket. .........................


For even she does not know for sure that that air bag will open. That is for sure. There is no data on that.

[Lalmohan]

given that indians have such a low understanding of what nuclear war means in practical personal terms... (i.e. Shiv's points about death, destruction, sickness, breakdown of society, anarchy and chaos amongst the dying survivors... etc., especially if repeated multiple times), i shudder to think of the blissful ignorance on this topic in our deer cus's across the border who are fed on a fundoo diet...

nuclear bums are not just bigger bums, their destructive and lethal effects are orders of magnitude worse than conventional bums

[Sanku]

Basing Indian nuclear posture on what the US plans for its nuclear doctrine is like the ant with an erection trying to seduce an elephant.

I do not know why you have a America fixation, anything any one says or does, you come up with "it has to be so, because you cogged it from America"

Given that what is being said about Indian needs is less than what even what the least of P5 has, I find your fascination with America, well fascinating.

Do try and turn the piskological searchlight on yourself doc to see why you ascribe everyone's statement as being enamored of the US.

Thanks for falling into an obvious trap. You don't crash your car (or you crash it in a particular way) because someone else has done it before and so you know, and you are basing your behavior on documented past experience.

You know Shiv, I will do so, if I see 5 out of 5 people who chose to crash into the wall survived and those who chose the cow did not, that will dictate my choice.

I am sure you will base your decisions on truly liberated thinking, and prior experiences of people are not binding on you. Well I am just a cog and will do what others did.

Now tell me on what past experience you are basing your attitude of what will scare the Chinese in terms of nuclear war?

Wasn't that discussed in Rudradev's post itself, behavior of PLA in prior wars?

And many other posts? When the Nuclear Rubicon has to be crossed, I would say that what would deter China is the same nuclear capability has that of China's nuclear adversary it has in past messed with.

[Sanku]

Kanson,

Cool.

That was then, I would expect a deterrent - today - for obvious reasons, to be even less.

But then what to do, even when we have data we have people hellbent on crashing cars into walls!!!! And trying to sell life insurance to someone who needs none.

And yet others confuse one nations quantitative deterrence with other.

_________________________________________________________

BTW, what ever happened to the other shoe? Someone felt he got cold feet - had to keep the shoe on to keep it warm. Possible?

_________________________________________________________

In spite of all that I am still open. As long as the equations add up. For I am certain that there will be no tests. And, the one tossing the shoe has not been consistent to believe that there is a need for tests. IMHO, even with a fizzle there is MORE than enough deterrence - Chicom will not press that button even with MT in back pocket. .........................


For even she does not know for sure that that air bag will open. That is for sure. There is no data on that.

Troubling post NRao, on many counts.

Thankfully for India almost every Defence chief who has talked about the Nuclear position has maintained the need for different posture.

And so have the BKs and BCs of the world.

So thankfully we still have a lot of Indians who are not complacent and will not let complacency creep in.

I would really worry otherwise.

[shiv]

Wasn't that discussed in Rudradev's post itself, behavior of PLA in prior wars?

I have already stated the fact that i disagree with him and my question was directed at you. You have "passed the buck" to Rudradev and ducked the question .

So behavior in other wars indicates behavior after nuclear war? I believe that this is ignorance, but let me continue with the logic-defying line of thought you are proposing.

If behavior in non nuclear situations equated to behavior in the nuclear scenario then Chinese should have no problem with collisions against walls in their cars. You are deterred from crashing your car against a wall. Are the Chinese deterred? If the Chinese are deterred by walls a nuclear bomb should be a far bigger deterrent. Unless you can construct logic to say that the Chinese are deterred only by collisions against walls and by nuclear arsenals bigger than theirs, but are not deterred by anything in between those two extremes.

[Umrao Das]

Basing Indian nuclear posture on what the US plans for its nuclear doctrine is like the ant with an erection trying to seduce an elephant.

Like deterrence, the beauty of errection is in the mind, the very thought of seducing and elephant is sufficient for elephant to blush & walk away rather than trample the aunt? no

use of device or discharge fantasizing elephant throws things into different realm, which this thread precludes no?

***interview"Yes, Pakistan Has Tactical Nukes"

Lt Gen D.B. Shekatkar (retd) on Pakistan's TNWs and the options before us.

.......
So should the threat of a tactical nuclear strike by Pakistan inhibit our strategy?
It should not. At the same time, we should play our cards in such a way that Pakistan does not become desperate enough to use a tactical nuclear weapon. In any war, it is important to leave the enemy with some room for manoeuvre. Of course, we should send a clear signal to Pakistan that we can punish them with our second strike just in case it dares to use the nuclear option. Also, how would the Pakistanis ensure that their own troops and areas are not affected by the same tactical nuclear strike, given the proximity of the areas and the people?

The above is ant fantasizing the elephant, what does elephant do walk away camly swaing its thighs in simple harmonic motion.

Just What Is A TNW?Davinder Kumar

So far, only the US and Russia are known to possess TNWs. The US is believed to have about 2,000 of them, of which around 1,700 are supposedly deployed on the mainland and the rest across bases in Europe. The Russians, on the other hand, are suspected to have about 15,000 TNWs including the ones that are deployed, stored or are in the process of being decommissioned. However, the third most prominent player is China, which is suspected to have about 120 TNWs. It is from this stock that some warheads are believed to have been delivered to Pakistan. India does possess strategic nuclear missiles but does not have TNWs

[shiv]

given that indians have such a low understanding of what nuclear war means in practical personal terms..... i shudder to think of the blissful ignorance on this topic in our deer cus's across the border who are fed on a fundoo diet...

This is precisely why I think we need to talk about what nuclear bombs do - especially what Indian nuclear bombs are designed to do to others. The ridiculous consequence of the "fizzle tamasha" raised by "he of high repute who must not be named because he is absent" is the fact that on BRF you cannot mention a value for an Indian nuke higher than 25 kt because Santhanam says so, despite the fact that others have clearly stated higher values.

I deliberately wrote my scenario for 50 kt. I can extrapolate that to 200 kt which is a value that has been stated in the last 2 months, but he who must not be named may be invoked to pooh pooh that.

[NRao]

Kanson,

Cool.

That was then, I would expect a deterrent - today - for obvious reasons, to be even less.

........................................................

.............................................................

For even she does not know for sure that that air bag will open. That is for sure. There is no data on that.

Troubling post NRao, on many counts.

Thankfully for India almost every Defence chief who has talked about the Nuclear position has maintained the need for different posture.

And so have the BKs and BCs of the world.

So thankfully we still have a lot of Indians who are not complacent and will not let complacency creep in.

I would really worry otherwise.

Why troubling?

On Def chiefs: they ALL go back to what Kanson posted - Sundarji rules. Correct me if you think otherwise.

On different posture: THAT is my claim. India does not need MT just because someone else has it (which was the old thinking - they have MT, I need to have it too). So, again, feel free to correct me.

BK/BC. Sure, I respect them. No two ways about it. BUT, the GoI team has been consistent. That cannot be said of Santhanam (and perhaps some others). It is all there. (I have no problem supporting Santhanam - actually I did TILL he blurted out 72 meter radius, then changed it to 70 meters radius, AND I came across the BR article with all those equations). Since BC/BK rode the Santhanam horse, they - unfortunately - come in the same cross-hair. Problems will arise when one goes by "face value", specially when there are equations in open source.

However, I am surprised and amused that Chengappa has not come out and made a statement so far. So far I have taken his silence to mean that what he published cannot be reversed based on hard evidence that he can lay his hands on.

Complacency - IF AT ALL - has been on the part of Santhanam and others who felt/knew that it was a fizzle, for ALL these years. They had ample opportunities to make plenty of noise - both privately and publicly and did not do so.

From what I can conclude, based on open source, India has capability to counter MTs. Granted without MTs - but then that is the discussion, why Indian MTs - I have not come across any good argument so far (the ones I have come across are fear factors and ramblings) - I am still open to suggestions.

I have provided the best proof I can about countries moving to smaller weapons. Outside of the US I really cannot see any country that has MT manufactured in the past 20-25 years.

Under "I am still open":
1) Why Indian MT (as a deterrence please - not after deterrence fails)?
2) What will Chinese leadership come out of their bunkers to, in the event of a Indian nuclear strike?

I have provided what the Chinese seem to have and let us assume India has 100 x 50 Kt.

corrected spelling mistakes

[Umrao Das]

Oh by the way when some one talks about mega booms , knowledgeble people and gurus bring in or do "Going to America" quoting here "Even Americans have discarded big bums, fad of the day is "Small is beautiful" therefore India is well served with a <= 20 kt bums.

Cirkal pay goom rahe hai no?

Instead of harmonic motion we go in uniform cirkalar motions....

***
In the context of

shiv wrote:
Basing Indian nuclear posture on what the US plans for its nuclear doctrine is like the ant with an erection trying to seduce an elephant.

[NRao]

I would like to address what I term as MVRamana syndrome - where whatever India does is wrong and it is implied that what others do is right.

IF China can intercept 10% (whatever the real %age is) of Indian missiles, then India should be able to intercept a lot more %age wise.

The current set of numbers of nukes in inventory: India about 100, China about 250.

India needs hers for two nations: Pakistan and China.

China needs hers for at least three nations: India, the US and Russia.

IF China - for whatever reason/s - let go of her major nuclear assets against India, China will not have enough against the US and/or Russia.

China has a very limited supply vs. India.

In fact I would not be surprised at all if China has not allocated too many to India based on their confidence that India can be taken care of conventionally.