India nuclear news and discussion

Locked
ramana
Forum Moderator
Posts: 59773
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by ramana »

Thanks Gerard. Will read the whole thing over the weekend.
ramana
Gerard
Forum Moderator
Posts: 8012
Joined: 15 Nov 1999 12:31

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by Gerard »

One of the original ayatollahs of selective proliferation

Image

Albert Wohlstetter worked at the RAND Corporation in the 1950s and 1960s where his analyses of surprise attack scenarios and the “delicate balance of terror” drew considerable attention. He later complemented his consulting work by teaching at the University of Chicago, where he mentored Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad and Henry Sokolski, among others. In the Winter 1976/1977 issue of Foreign Policy, he wrote a prescient article on proliferation, “Spreading the Bomb without Quite Breaking the Rules,”
Using the eighteenth century language of natural law from our Declaration of Independence, the NPT asserts the ‘inalienable right’ of all countries to peaceful nuclear energy – which includes, some exporters apparently feel, reprocessing. We have a new natural right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Plutonium.
This right of course is largely due to the influence of Homi Bhabha. It sticks in the craw of the NPAs and predates the 'original sin' of the PNE at Pokhran.

Nuclear Heuristics: Selected Writings of Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter
Edited by Mr. Robert Zarate, Mr. Henry D. Sokolski.
Free download from
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.ar ... ?PubID=893

Pioneers of nuclear-age policy analysis, Albert Wohlstetter (1913-1997) and Roberta Wohlstetter (1912-2007) emerged as two of America's most consequential, innovative and controversial strategists. Through the clarity of their thinking, the rigor of their research, and the persistence of their personalities, they were able to shape the views and aid the decisions of Democratic and Republican policy makers both during and after the Cold War. Although the Wohlstetters' strategic concepts and analytical methods continue to be highly influential, no book has brought together their most important essays--until now.
ramana
Forum Moderator
Posts: 59773
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by ramana »

X-posted from the Great Game thread...

Old but very important.

How the West supported the Paki bomb
From The Sunday TimesSeptember 2, 2007

How the West summoned up a nuclear nightmare in Pakistan
Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark reveal how misguided deals with Pakistan have created a terrifying threat of nuclear terrorism
General Pervez Musharraf was surprised. Visiting New York for a session of the UN, the last thing the Pakistani president expected was to be confronted with evidence of his country’s secret sales of nuclear bomb technology and equipment to members of the “axis of evil”.

Yet here on the polished wooden table of Musharraf’s hotel suite, George Tenet, director of the CIA, was laying out a sheaf of incriminating evidence.

There were intricate drawings of Pakistan’s P-1 uranium-enriching centrifuge, with part numbers, dates and signatures. And there were details of the activities of Abdul Qadeer “A Q” Khan, the so-called Father of the Pakistani Bomb: his travels around the world, bank statements, even paperwork showing what his organisation had offered for sale and to which countries.

A senior Musharraf aide described it disingenuously as “the most embarrassing moment in the president’s life” – not because of the evidence but because he had felt Pakistan was on a long leash as it was integral to the Americans’ war on terror.

It was only three months since President George W Bush had cancelled a $1 billion debt and instigated a new $3 billion military and economic assistance package for Pakistan.

“Now the leash was being wound in, but Musharraf got over his surprise. He moved on and thought, so be it. He was a survivor. Pakistan was a survivor. We would adapt to a new reality,” a source said.

But he was not going to confess all: “Musharraf would play dumb until he ascertained what the US knew and whom we could blame.”

The general feigned ignorance. But everyone in the room during this “confrontation” four years ago knew that they were involved in a charade.

American officials knew that Musharraf had known about the nuclear trade all along. And Washington had itself not only turned a blind eye to Pakistan’s nuclear bomb project for decades but had covered it up for imperative geopolitical reasons, even when Islamabad began trading its secret technology.

By 2003 there was mounting evidence – still kept from Capitol Hill and the UK parliament – that Pakistan’s clients now encompassed North Korea, Iran and Libya and probably other countries and individuals too.

Britain had privately been pressing America to tell Musharraf it had to stop. In October 2003 MI6 uncovered Pakistani nuclear material on a boat heading for Libya. But the consensus in Washington was that saving Pakistan’s vulnerable (and valuable) president mattered more than prosecuting the guilty.

A senior British Foreign Office source explained: “He would come up with his own framework for survival and we would help him get through it, as long as the dirty deals were wound up. It was a compromise struck in the world of realpolitik.”

The details were agreed between Musharraf and Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, at a meeting in Islamabad. A drama was conceived that drew from Musharraf a promise to shut down Pakistan’s nuclear black market in return for winning continued US support for his unelected regime.

It was agreed that A Q Khan and his aides would be arrested and blamed for “privately” engaging in proliferation. The country’s military elite – who had sponsored Khan’s work and encouraged sales of technology to reduce their reliance on American aid – were left in the clear.

Khan was made to admit his “unauthorised activities” on television. Bush subscribed to the deceit, announcing: “Khan has confessed his crimes and his top associates are out of business . . . President Musharraf has promised to share all the information he learns about the Khan network, and has assured us that his country will never again be a source of proliferation.”

The truth was that Musharraf had been reducing Khan’s role in the nuclear enterprise and had pushed him into official retirement. The nuclear programme and trading were – and are – completely under the military government’s control. And proliferation did not stop.

Four years on, Khan is still under house arrest, and Musharraf is still in power. In a further exercise in “realpolitik”, another political deal is being stitched together to keep him in the presidency as America’s best hope of maintaining stability in this geopolitically vital but desperately unstable country.

Musharraf’s term of office comes to an end in November. Under the constitution he cannot win another term if he remains chief of army staff. Urged on by Washington, he has been discussing a power-sharing agreement with Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister.

He intends, however, to keep hold of foreign affairs, the armed forces, internal and external security portfolios, the nuclear deterrent and the WMD (weapons of mass destruction) programme, according to Pakistani sources.

America’s reason for sustaining Musharraf in power is that the alternative is even less appealing. The upper reaches of the army, and the retired military elite, are rife with Islamists – a legacy of General Zia ul-Haq, the zealot who both ramped up the nuclear programme and gave the military a religious mission when he was president from 1978-88.

The tragedy is that America’s gamble on Musharraf has not paid off. Washington’s nightmare is a nuclear Pakistan controlled by fundamentalists. Yet Musharraf presides over a country that is not only still a nuclear proliferator but the real source of the Islamist terrorism menacing the West.

Al-Qaeda has merged with Pakistan’s home-grown terrorists, spawning new camps, new graduates and new missions abroad – including the July attacks in London in 2005.

At least 17 of the worst Sunni terror groups banned by the US and the UN have been allowed to operate openly and launch recruitment drives, using flimsy cover-names, most of them operating within sight of the Pakistan military.

The Taliban reformed after Musharraf signed a secret pact with its supporters in Waziristan – the tribal region of northwest Pakistan – in 2004, and again in 2006, leading to what Nato commanders in Afghanistan complained of as a 300% increase in attacks on UK and Afghan forces.

US intelligence sources have accused elements of Pakistan’s intelligence establishment and army – including General Mo-hammad Aziz Khan, who until October 2004 was Musharraf’s chairman of the joint chiefs of staff – of coaching and sheltering the neo-Taliban.

Pakistan today stands on the failed states index at position 12, just below Haiti, in worse shape than North Korea and Burma. Yet Musharraf’s government has been rewarded with a 45,000% increase in US aid since 2001, taking assistance levels to more than $10 billion, five times more than received by any other country (including Israel).

On his only visit to Pakistan, in March 2006, Bush flew in at night, unannounced, without lights. As the US knew only too well, America’s enemies had access to US-supplied Stinger missiles that Pakistan’s former army chiefs had declined to help the CIA claw back after the Afghan war.

Bush never got near to the people of Pakistan. A heavy security blanket enveloped Islamabad, which was patrolled by thousands of riot police and para-troopers while US Black Hawks buzzed the skies which were empty of any commercial traffic.

After Bush’s visit, Eliza Manningham-Buller, then the director of MI5, made an unusual outing in public to warn that “resilient networks” of terror in Britain and elsewhere in Europe were being “directed by al-Qaeda in Pakistan”.

Pakistan’s unsecured nuclear arsenal is increasingly vulnerable as terrorists gain new footholds in Islamabad. According to a recent poll of 100 US foreign policy experts by the Centre for American Progress and the Carnegie Endowment, both in Washington, Pakistan poses today’s greatest nuclear threat to the world.

Robert Gallucci, who as a young US diplomat tracked its nuclear programme from inception in 1972 and ended his career as Bush’s adviser on WMD, describes Pakistan as “the number one threat to the world at this moment in time”.

He warns: “If it all goes off, a nuclear bomb in a US or European city, I’m sure we will find ourselves looking in Pakistan’s direction.”

Furthermore, disturbing new intelligence suggests that proliferation has not stopped. Last year, a 55-page highly classified “early warning” assessment was produced by Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, the BND, taking in the pooled knowledge of British, French and Belgian spies.

Its authors found that a range of materials and components were still being procured by Pakistan that “clearly exceeds” what Islamabad needed for its domestic nuclear programme. One of the report’s authors said: “They were buying to sell, and it could no longer be hived off as rogue scientists doing the deed.”

The report said that KRL labs, Khan’s old facility, had continued to coordinate the Pakistani sales programme and now ran a network of front companies in Europe, the Gulf and southeast Asia which deployed all the old tricks: disguising end-user certificates by shielding the ultimate destinations from sellers, and lying on customs manifests.

The Pakistan-North Korean relationship was still very much alive, the report stated. Islamabad had hooked Pyongyang into its nuclear procurement network in western Europe, buying raw materials and machinery for production lines in North Korea that were churning out cheap centrifuge components. Pakistan was one of the key customers, selling the parts on to other clients.

Most alarming was the finding that hundreds of thousands of components amassed by Khan had vanished since he had been put out of operation. In other words, Pakistan has continued to sell nuclear weapons technology (to clients known and unknown) even as Musharraf denies it – which means either that the sales are being carried out with his secret blessing or that he is no more in control of Pakistan’s nuclear programme than he is of the bands of jihadis in his country.

Some of Pakistan’s generals are gleeful and even unguarded about the trade, seeing it as proof of their apparently untouchable status as a prime ally in the US war on terror, but also as evidence of their rapid industrialisation.

Pakistan has learnt to manufacture the restricted components and materials, electronic equipment and super-strong metals needed for a ready-made nuclear weapons facility which they were selling to anyone who could come up with the cash.

General Khalid Mahmud Arif, formerly in charge of the nuclear programme and still an influen-tial figure in military circles, said: “Once we skulked around. Now we have a new generation of men and the technology. We have labs and the industry to rival the West.”

He said Pakistan was producing super-strength maraging (low carbon) steel which is primarily used for making centrifuges with which Pakistan enriched uranium to weapons grade. It was also making high-frequency inverters which regulate power to the centrifuges.

“They used to come from the UK and now we are selling them ourselves,” he said. “Maraging steel too – once we struggled but now, finally, we are manufacturing it at the People’s Steel Mill and exporting it. It is better than you can get outside.”

For many years the US and Europe have barred the export of both items to Pakistan.

Musharraf has consistently hidden bad news from his American backers. Two particularly worrying incidents were recently disclosed by sources close to those involved.

In 2001, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s powerful intelligence agency, had proof that Osama Bin Laden had received in person two retired Pakistani nuclear scientists at his secret HQ in Afghanistan. Both had become Islamist radicals in retirement.

According to the son of one of them, Bin Laden told them he had succeeded in acquiring highly enriched uranium from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and he wanted their help to turn it into a bomb. Amazed, they explained that while they could help with the science of fissile materials, they were not weapons designers.

Soon afterwards, a secret army audit discovered evidence that 40 canisters of highly enriched uranium (HEU), the feedstuff for a nuclear bomb, were missing from the Kahuta enrichment labs outside Islamabad after A Q Khan retired.

Dr Muhammad Shafiq ur-Rehman, an insider who is the son of one of Khan’s former key aides, revealed: “They could only account for 80 out of a supposed 120 canisters.”

The ISI reasoned that some of the drums had probably gone to North Korea, and some to Iran and probably Libya, according to a former ISI officer.

Enough highly enriched uranium remained at large to fuel 1,000 dirty bombs or a sizable nuclear device. All it would take for a doomsday scenario is 100lb of HEU – a mass the size of a sugar bag as the material is heavier than lead – to get into the hands of terrorists with the right expertise.

Split into two loads to prevent accidental fission, it could be machined into semi-spheres, loaded into a cannon-style device, and driven in the back of a van to a western target.

Behind this desperately worrying state of affairs lies a grand deception. For three decades, consecutive US administrations, Republican and Democrat, as well as governments in Britain and other European countries, allowed Pakistan to acquire highly restricted nuclear technology. Key US agencies were then misdirected and countermanded in order to disguise how Pakistan had sold it on.

Intelligence gathering in the US was blunted while the departments of state and defence were corralled into backing the White House agenda and forced to side-step Congress and break federal laws. Officials who tried to stop the charade were purged.

The deceit began under President Jimmy Carter; but it burgeoned under Ronald Reagan, who used Pakistan as a springboard for American aid to the antiSoviet jihad in Afghanistan.

US officials converged on Islamabad carrying cash and the message that America would ignore the growing nuclear programme – while Reagan publicly insisted that nonproliferation remained a primary policy.

A flavour of the duplicity comes from Robert Gallucci, who was director of the bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian affairs at the State Department in 1982 at a time when the Reagan administration was desperately struggling to suppress evidence that Khan was designing a bomb.

After British intelligence caught the Khan network shopping in the UK for reflective shields made from beryllium, which could boost the power of a nuclear device, Reagan sent General Vernon Walters, a former CIA deputy director, to see President Zia in Islamabad.

Gallucci, who accompanied him, remembers: “Our evidence was incontrovertible. ‘This is what your experts have been up to’, we said, as politely as we could, giving Zia a get-out.

“However, the president rejected our briefing, saying our information had come from the Indians.”

Gallucci was not privy to a secret agenda. Walters confided to a senior State Department colleague on his return that, far from demanding a rollback in nuclear trading, he had been asked to warn the Pakistanis to do it more discreetly.

“He came in looking miserable,” the colleague recalled. “He said, ‘I was told [by the White House] to tell Zia to get that nuclear problem off our radar’.

“I was shocked. It was the antithesis of what we were supposed to be doing. Instead of giving it to them with both barrels, Walters had told the Pakistanis they had better hide their bomb programme, lest it humiliate Reagan.”

But Zia did not heed the warning and, as the months passed, the intelligence mounted. It was augmented by a US data-collect-ing operation made possible by a high-tech surveillance device secreted in the arid area surrounding the heavily guarded Kahuta hills outside Islamabad, where the nuclear installation had been built.

The device, a resin “boulder”, was capable of transmitting intelligence through an array of recording and air-sampling technology hidden inside.


A freak accident exposed the operation. Somebody fell on the “rock”, exposing the whirring and blinking components. :rotfl:

While knowing what was going on, Washington pursued a deception that bloomed into a complex conspiracy. Evidence was destroyed, criminal files were diverted, and Congress was repeatedly lied to.

The obfuscation concealed from the world Pakistan’s “cold-testing” of a nuclear bomb in laboratory conditions in 1983 and the intelligence that it had “hot-tested” – exploded – one in 1984 with the help of China.

By the time Reagan’s presidency came to an end in 1989, Pakistan possessed a deployable and tested nuclear device. Much of the programme had been funded using hundreds of millions of dollars in US aid diverted by the Pakistan military.

The bomb could be mated to a missile or dropped from Ameri-can-supplied F-16 fighter jets, also given by Reagan in the mid1980s, and the nuclear weapons programme had become a shop window for the world’s most unstable powers.

The US deceit lapsed in the 1990s when President George Bush Sr cut Pakistan adrift after the fall of the Soviet Union; but this increased Islamabad’s need to develop and sell nuclear technology in place of aid.

Under Bill Clinton an ever more detailed picture was pieced together of Pakistan’s dangerous liaisons: Iran in 1987, Iraq in 1990, North Korea in 1993, and by 1997 Libya, too. In 1998 both India and Pakistan held publicly announced nuclear tests.

By the time George W Bush became president in 2001, there was a mountain of precise intelligence portraying Pakistan as the epicentre of global instability: a host of and patron for Islamist terrorism, ruled by a military clique that was raising capital and political influence by selling WMD.

Yet even when American spy satellites photographed missile components being loaded into a Pakistani C-130 outside Pyong-yang, the North Korean capital – and intelligence analysts concluded that the cargo was a direct exchange for Pakistani nuclear technology – Washington did not react.

It was in this dangerous condition that Pakistan was clutched back into the American bosom after the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. And the deception continued.

© Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark 2007

Extracted from Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons, to be published by Atlantic Books on September 13 at £25. Copies can be ordered for £22.50 including postage from The Sunday Times BooksFirst on 0870 165 8585
I dont have the evidence but very clearly the Paki quest was for the tehcnology to produce HEU weapons from the get go. It wasnt the Pu based weapons. They got the CHIC 4 design from the PRC much later as can be seen from above chronology. All along the US which is the high preist of NPT was silent and psuhing India to diarm while propping up TSP via PRC.
My deduction is this transfer of nukes to TSP via PRC was based on highest level of US political leadership. And most likely it was during or after the 1971 war. The CHIC-4 design seems to be ideal for a low technology country to acquire nukes- simple, reliable and low tech. There is something at the root of the CHIC4 design that allows its proliferators to spread it around with the US chasing the after effects but not go after the original perpetrators. Could it be the CHIC 4 wasnt really a PRC design?

BTW I had said in 1999 that India was the last country to weaponize on the sub-continent and it remains true.
Gerard
Forum Moderator
Posts: 8012
Joined: 15 Nov 1999 12:31

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by Gerard »

International Groups Seek Renewal of Hague Declaration on Nuclear Disarmament
A number of nongovernmental organizations believe the International Court of Justice should reaffirm its 1996 declaration that nuclear weapons jeopardize "all civilization and the entire ecosystem of the planet,"
Some of the groups have proposed that the General Assembly ask the court to clarify whether the "obligation" referenced in the 1996 opinion compels all nuclear states to immediately engage in dialogues that involve schedules for total disarmament; whether nations currently bolstering their arsenals stand afoul of this obligation; and whether nuclear-armed nations outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty -- such as India, Pakistan and Israel -- are bound by this obligation.
Gerard
Forum Moderator
Posts: 8012
Joined: 15 Nov 1999 12:31

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by Gerard »

putnanja
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4665
Joined: 26 Mar 2002 12:31
Location: searching for the next al-qaida #3

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by putnanja »

When the Buddha first smiled
...
Two separate and interconnected reasons led to Indira Gandhi’s resolve to conduct the test although its roots really went back to her father, Jawaharlal Nehru’s time. It is difficult to think of another person so thoroughly opposed to nuclear weapons as he. Yet all through his life — since 1946 indeed — he also held steadfastly to the policy that India must develop the technology to build these weapons, should the need arise, especially if others refused to abjure them. (With the solitary exception of Morarji Desai in 1977, all Nehru’s successors have broadly shared this approach.).
...
On October 16, 1964 China’s first nuclear bomb went up at Lop Nor. Coincidentally, Nikita Khrushchev, who had denied China a nuclear weapon design, went down in Moscow on the same day. In New Delhi, K. Subrahmanyam, the country’s premier security analyst, then a deputy secretary in the defence ministry, sent a top-secret note to the defence secretary suggesting that a committee, headed by the legendary Homi Bhabha, should devise India’s response to the Chinese challenge. In the ministry of external affairs, K. R. Narayanan, then director, China (later President) also advised the government to “exercise the nuclear option”.

...
What Shastri did authorise, however, was a Subterranean Nuclear Exploration Project (SNEP). It did not make headway because of deaths in quick succession of both Shastri and Bhabha. Like Shastri, Indira Gandhi also wasted some time in the meaningless search for a “nuclear security umbrella” by the two superpowers.

...
As the news of detonation spread, in distant Washington, Denis Kux, officer in change of the India desk at the state department, prepared a scathing draft criticising the “Indian test”. But Kissinger, then in the Middle East, toned it down, arguing that the Indian explosion was an “accomplished fact” and “public scolding” would only “add to US-India bilateral problems”. However, this did not prevent the US from imposing the harshest sanctions on this country.

...
Details of the long and secret decision-making process cannot be discussed in available space. But a crucial meeting just before the PNE deserves a mention. The issue was whether to go ahead and “push the button”. According to an account by Raja Ramanna, the mastermind of the venture, two of Indira Gandhi’s top advisers, P. N. Haksar and P. N. Dhar, were opposed to it, and wanted it postponed. Homi Sethna, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, offered no opinion. D. Nag Chaudhuri, Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister started weighing pros and cons but was cut short by the prime minister. “Dr. Ramanna,” she said. turning to him, “please go ahead. It would be good for the country”. The next morning “the Buddha smiled”.

...
ramana
Forum Moderator
Posts: 59773
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by ramana »

RaviBG that artiel deserves to be quoted in full. ramana.

BTW, it was the bombs developed during Moraraji Desai's tenure that were weaponised by Rajiv Gandhi after TSp weaponization and tested ten years later.

Morarji Desai, who faced immense pressure from Carter Admin and also personal abhorrence for WMD, but did not do the wrong thing, was the unsung hero of the POKII saga.
Gerard
Forum Moderator
Posts: 8012
Joined: 15 Nov 1999 12:31

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by Gerard »

New 'Smart' Polymer Reduces Radioactive Waste At Nuclear Power Plants
Scientists in Germany and India are reporting development of a new polymer that reduces the amount of radioactive waste produced during routine operation of nuclear reactors.
Synthesis and Characterization of Imprinted Polymers for Radioactive Waste Reduction
Anupkumar Bhaskarapillai, Narasimhan V. Sevilimedu and Brje Sellergren
INFU, University of Dortmund, Otto Hahn Str-6, 44221 Dortmund, Germany, and WSCD, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre Facilities, Kalpakkam-603102, India
Prabu
BRFite
Posts: 423
Joined: 22 Jul 2006 17:51
Location: In the middle of a Desert

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by Prabu »

cross posting from missile tech thread

here we go !

India test-fires nuke-capable Agni-II missile
Prem Kumar
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4215
Joined: 31 Mar 2009 00:10

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by Prem Kumar »

Thinking of the unthinkable: what happens if Taliban gets a hold of the nukes and actually nuke India? In keeping with the Paki tradition of negotiating with a "gun pointed at their own head", I would not be surprised if the Paki military & ISI actually help make this happen.

I hope the Indian strategic establishment has contemplated this scenario and its response. If the Taliban launches say a nuclear tipped Gauri against India, the Paki government will grovel and claim it was not "them" but "our common enemy the Taliban. So please dont nuke us in return". Pakistan has all the elements of classic "good cop, bad cop" strategy for negotiations. Their government being the good guys, ISI/military being the bad ones & the Taliban being the ugly. The U.S will also exert maximum pressure for India to exercise restraint mainly to save their own troops stationed there.

Does India have the b@lls to second strike if a rogue missile from Pakiland lands in Delhi?
Atri
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4152
Joined: 01 Feb 2009 21:07

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by Atri »

unlikely scenario.. at least in coming few years.. Unkil and India will see it coming from long distance.. The benefits extracted by TSP will cease to exist if they execute the threat which is yielding them money. they will get nuked from all sides, even if India does not..

Paki jarnails are intelligent enough to understand that it is unwise to kill the hen which lays golden eggs..
shubho
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 8
Joined: 14 May 2009 11:05

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by shubho »

Link
Indian Agni missiles deployed in tunnels on Chinese border
Can Gurus say about the probable locations of these tunnels. Once I heard that India plans to deploy long range missiles in the dense and high altitute Himalaya Jungles of Bhutan.
harbans
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4883
Joined: 29 Sep 2007 05:01
Location: Dehradun

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by harbans »

Bharat Karnad said that the weakest point of the Nuclear Chain of command was the will of the government to launch retaliatory strike

That is true. Using Nuclear Weapons means the Govt needs the will and ability to commit genocide because that is exactly what the weapons really will do. Indians are not brought up in an environment to think such. Hence this indeed will be the weakest chain. Think MMS can authorize use of NWs in a second strike? Nope. There's a good book on this scenario "The Thirld World War" written by an ex BBC journalist. Pretty good scenarios there.

Compare with the US, Putin in Russia, the Chinese, even the Paki's. All have tremendous will and possibly even will take initiative in using them. Forget about thinking that a nuke strike on any of these nations will not automatically result in complete nuking of those who do it to them. They will not hesitate an iota in authorizing their use. Indian leaders will hesitate even if we bear the brunt of a first strike.

The real problem with this soft image is that the Pukes will be working on scenarios that they can strike first, albeit through non state actors and get away with it playing the 'good cop' 'bad cop' routine as mentioned by Prem Kumar. So ironically the soft image attracts us as a target of nuclear weapons.

I hope people in the GOI understand this.
Suraj
Forum Moderator
Posts: 15043
Joined: 20 Jan 2002 12:31

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by Suraj »

shubho wrote:Can Gurus say about the probable locations of these tunnels. Once I heard that India plans to deploy long range missiles in the dense and high altitute Himalaya Jungles of Bhutan.
:shock: Are you out of your mind ? Why on earth would you want anyone to speculate or comment on the location of strategic second strike batteries ? This is not a topic for public discussion, and will not be allowed on this forum.
shubho
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 8
Joined: 14 May 2009 11:05

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by shubho »

Suraj wrote:
shubho wrote:Can Gurus say about the probable locations of these tunnels. Once I heard that India plans to deploy long range missiles in the dense and high altitute Himalaya Jungles of Bhutan.
:shock: Are you out of your mind ? Why on earth would you want anyone to speculate or comment on the location of strategic second strike batteries ? This is not a topic for public discussion, and will not be allowed on this forum.
:D
we all came across lots of docs, Google Earth Locations etc in Internet speculating the Chinese missile silos. The same is available for Pakisthan, USA, Russia etc.. and for many other countries.

Does it (availability of speculative materials by some 'time passers' ) really matter to these countries.
Are you sure that the extensive US, Chinese spy satellite network, their ELECINT, and Human Intelligence backed by enormous money power are still clueless about those locations ???

Do you mean that our Potential enemies (read Chinese) will read BR Forum to find out the location of Indian Silos :rotfl: :rotfl:

The Point is, no one here, probably is in a position to speculate those locations.... and what we discuss here doesn't really bother/matter to the actual enemy concerned.

By the way, your overwhelming concern, is probably the Joke of the decade to the chinese (if they r reading this) :rotfl:
shubho
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 8
Joined: 14 May 2009 11:05

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by shubho »

If you are really reluctant to 'allow' this discussion :rotfl:

I will find some International forum like that of Janes,US, Chinese, UK forum to discuss this. I am thrilled to explore such a secret with some armatures. :rotfl:
Mahendra
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4416
Joined: 11 Aug 2007 17:20
Location: Chronicling Bakistan's Tryst with Dysentery

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by Mahendra »

Dear Shubho

Please dont be disheartened by the bullying that the Admins are subjecting you to here, please do not leave in haste, yes this is an important topic and can be discussed appropriately Here

Looking forwards to hearing from you

Please bring your friends along

Chinese welcome too

PS You spelt Pakistan as Pakisthan, now that is a give away
archan
Forum Moderator
Posts: 6823
Joined: 03 Aug 2007 21:30
Contact:

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by archan »

shubho wrote:If you are really reluctant to 'allow' this discussion :rotfl:

I will find some International forum like that of Janes,US, Chinese, UK forum to discuss this. I am thrilled to explore such a secret with some armatures. :rotfl:
Sure, I would be happy to help you with the transition, if you should need me to. Don't let the door hit you on your musharraf on your way out (unless, of course, you like it that way).
Prem Kumar
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4215
Joined: 31 Mar 2009 00:10

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by Prem Kumar »

harbans wrote:Bharat Karnad said that the weakest point of the Nuclear Chain of command was the will of the government to launch retaliatory strike

That is true. Using Nuclear Weapons means the Govt needs the will and ability to commit genocide because that is exactly what the weapons really will do. Indians are not brought up in an environment to think such. Hence this indeed will be the weakest chain. Think MMS can authorize use of NWs in a second strike? Nope. There's a good book on this scenario "The Thirld World War" written by an ex BBC journalist. Pretty good scenarios there.

Compare with the US, Putin in Russia, the Chinese, even the Paki's. All have tremendous will and possibly even will take initiative in using them. Forget about thinking that a nuke strike on any of these nations will not automatically result in complete nuking of those who do it to them. They will not hesitate an iota in authorizing their use. Indian leaders will hesitate even if we bear the brunt of a first strike.

The real problem with this soft image is that the Pukes will be working on scenarios that they can strike first, albeit through non state actors and get away with it playing the 'good cop' 'bad cop' routine as mentioned by Prem Kumar. So ironically the soft image attracts us as a target of nuclear weapons.

I hope people in the GOI understand this.
Yep - the soft image makes us a target, just like it did for the past 1000+ years. If you look at some of the game theory strategies of the Cold War, there is one particular thought which is very interesting. It was propounded by John von Neumann. He said that the U.S.A must sometimes intentionally display "irrational behavior" to ensure deterrence. Meaning that the Soviet Union must never be able to predict what the U.S will do in the event of any conflict. They must in fact be in doubt as to the conditions under which the U.S might launch a first strike. In India's case, besides the soft-image, we also suffer from "predictability". In all war gaming scenarios of the Chinese or the Pakis, they can reasonably accurately predict what India would do. The opposite is not true.

This is exactly why Pakis can create a 26/11 - fully knowing that India will not retaliate. We have additionally shot ourselves in the foot by declaring a "no first use" policy. There goes that element of surprise!!
Prem Kumar
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4215
Joined: 31 Mar 2009 00:10

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by Prem Kumar »

Chiron wrote:unlikely scenario.. at least in coming few years.. Unkil and India will see it coming from long distance.. The benefits extracted by TSP will cease to exist if they execute the threat which is yielding them money. they will get nuked from all sides, even if India does not..

Paki jarnails are intelligent enough to understand that it is unwise to kill the hen which lays golden eggs..
Chiron Sir: I agree with you that it is a low probability event. But it is the [probability, impact] product that is important. We can liken it to an asteroid hitting the Earth. Low probability but massive impact. So, we have to analyze that scenario & prepare counter plans, contingencies etc.

If one were to develop this scenario further, we can explore many options.

a) Means of Taliban acquiring nukes: Possibilities: Paki general defects to the Taliban; one of the missile complexes get overrun by the Taliban; ISI connives to present them with a nuke;

b) What does Taliban do once they get a nuke: Possibilities: black-mail the Americans into leaving; launch an actual strike against American troops; launch a strike against India;

c) Where would you launch it from: It gets interesting because of the porous Af-Pak border. Technically a rogue Paki or Taliban might launch a missile strike from within Afghanistan towards India. Should we nuke both Pakistan and Afghanistan in return?

d) A dis-information campaign: the ISI might selectively leak information that the Taliban "might" have acquired a nuke. Explore the impact of this news - the Americans would be off Afghanistan before you can say Taa-Lee-Baan

Pakistan, whether we like it or not, controls many aces. They seem to like it that way - except neither we nor them nor unkil know when the game goes out of control.
Rishirishi
BRFite
Posts: 1409
Joined: 12 Mar 2005 02:30

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by Rishirishi »

:D
we all came across lots of docs, Google Earth Locations etc in Internet speculating the Chinese missile silos. The same is available for Pakisthan, USA, Russia etc.. and for many other countries.

Does it (availability of speculative materials by some 'time passers' ) really matter to these countries.
Are you sure that the extensive US, Chinese spy satellite network, their ELECINT, and Human Intelligence backed by enormous money power are still clueless about those locations ???

Do you mean that our Potential enemies (read Chinese) will read BR Forum to find out the location of Indian Silos :rotfl: :rotfl:

The Point is, no one here, probably is in a position to speculate those locations.... and what we discuss here doesn't really bother/matter to the actual enemy concerned.

By the way, your overwhelming concern, is probably the Joke of the decade to the chinese (if they r reading this) :rotfl:

Did you know that 95% of the espionage comes from open sources. BR is probably read by most inteligance agencies. Do not get surprised if one of the senior members, or even one of the admins is actually a spy for a forigin country. Spying is often collecting small pices of information and creating a larger picture. Small pices of informatin that appear on this board can help in creating the whole picture. Certainly a pice of information like "my grandfather has a farmhouse and they have been digging this tunnel etc.
Last edited by Gerard on 21 May 2009 04:52, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: quote tags fixed
Anujan
Forum Moderator
Posts: 7806
Joined: 27 May 2007 03:55

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by Anujan »

Prem Kumar wrote:If one were to develop this scenario further, we can explore many options.
Prem Kumar-saar

IMHO the most likely scenarios are

1. The talibs coming upon facilities, drawings, materials and personnel which they then "export" around the word. This is something everyone is scared of, but nobody talks about. For a second, let us assume that the talibs take over isloo. A jernail, who is then using these talibs as pawns, can then export everything to everybody to make money/help the ummah etc. This is a very likely scenario

2. The second most likely scenario is that the pakiban build a "dirty bomb" using nuclear materials and waste. More than killing people, this will cause massive economic impact if it leads to evacuation, businesses closing, decontamination etc. An event like this in an economic center is likely to lead to the loss of a lot of money.

Mushroom cloud scenario is the last worst case scenario of the pakiban acquiring nukes, but there are several "interim" scenarios which are grave.
Atri
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4152
Joined: 01 Feb 2009 21:07

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by Atri »

Premkumar ji,

If DRDO is conducting user trials to educate Indian army to operate the missiles like Prithvi and Agni, it means that even for a highly trained professional army like IA, it is difficult to load and operate Ballistic missiles without scientific training of handling the same. Dumb-bombs falling in hands of Taliban, although a huge concern, is not an apocalypse.

It requires lot of training to load the ballistic missiles, to operate them. Taliban requires to be given that, if they are to pose serious thread to Bhaarat. Now, all this holds true only if you buy the crap that TSPA is separate and legitimate entity like ISI and not equal to Taliban. If you believe that TSPA is fighting Taliban a dire battle for survival of Pakistan in NWFP, then the above mentioned scenario holds true. Thus in above mentioned scenarion, it is easy to see Taliban even thinking of acquiring nukes and missiles from long distance and preventive measures can be taken.

If you see the truth, then you will realise that ISI==TSPA==Taliban==Al-Qaeda==pain in the ass of Bhaarat and rest of the world. If you understand this equation, then rest assured that nukes (if any) and mijjiles are already in hands of Pakibani mujahids.

Brahma Satyam Jagat Mithya :)
Prem Kumar
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4215
Joined: 31 Mar 2009 00:10

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by Prem Kumar »

Chiron Sir,

Love your quote "Brahma Satyam Jagat Mithya"!! Captures the thought pretty nicely.

If true, then the threat is more real already. Though I really think that equating all these parties is over-simplifying things. Each of the groups has their own agendas and conflicts. Plus Pakis would at least like to keep the appearance that these groups are all different, at least for the sake of deniability.

Actually Anjuan-ji's scenario is even more probable & scary - dirty nukes or dirty secrets in dirty hands. Because you dont need extensive training to smuggle and detonate a dirty bomb.

Not sure what we should do. My personal preference is a pro-active policy of sending troops to Af-Pak. The negative side to this is that currently the Taliban hates mainly the U.S. If India shows up at their door-step, they have 2 targets and will pick the softer one.
shubho
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 8
Joined: 14 May 2009 11:05

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by shubho »

harbans wrote:Bharat Karnad said that the weakest point of the Nuclear Chain of command was the will of the government to launch retaliatory strike

That is true. Using Nuclear Weapons means the Govt needs the will and ability to commit genocide because that is exactly what the weapons really will do. Indians are not brought up in an environment to think such. Hence this indeed will be the weakest chain. Think MMS can authorize use of NWs in a second strike? Nope. There's a good book on this scenario "The Thirld World War" written by an ex BBC journalist. Pretty good scenarios there.

Compare with the US, Putin in Russia, the Chinese, even the Paki's. All have tremendous will and possibly even will take initiative in using them. Forget about thinking that a nuke strike on any of these nations will not automatically result in complete nuking of those who do it to them. They will not hesitate an iota in authorizing their use. Indian leaders will hesitate even if we bear the brunt of a first strike.

The real problem with this soft image is that the Pukes will be working on scenarios that they can strike first, albeit through non state actors and get away with it playing the 'good cop' 'bad cop' routine as mentioned by Prem Kumar. So ironically the soft image attracts us as a target of nuclear weapons.

I hope people in the GOI understand this.
Yes this is the inherent nature of most of the Indians. Can you tell me what will happen if the whole of Delhi is taken out in a 300 - 500 kt first strike. Considering that the whole NCA (PM, Chiefs etc) would be gone, who will authorize and initiate the retaliatory strike ?
harbans
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4883
Joined: 29 Sep 2007 05:01
Location: Dehradun

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by harbans »

Yes this is the inherent nature of most of the Indians. Can you tell me what will happen if the whole of Delhi is taken out in a 300 - 500 kt first strike. Considering that the whole NCA (PM, Chiefs etc) would be gone, who will authorize and initiate the retaliatory strike ?

Me. :mrgreen:

I authorize the second strike and third strike and so on, from obviously undisclosed super secret facilities, even if the entire first, second and third rund leaderships are taken out. Thats my job! Don't believe it? Well not your fault. How about discussing this with the amateurs on the Chinese boards? :)
shubho
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 8
Joined: 14 May 2009 11:05

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by shubho »

harbans wrote:Yes this is the inherent nature of most of the Indians. Can you tell me what will happen if the whole of Delhi is taken out in a 300 - 500 kt first strike. Considering that the whole NCA (PM, Chiefs etc) would be gone, who will authorize and initiate the retaliatory strike ?

Me. :mrgreen:

I authorize the second strike and third strike and so on, from obviously undisclosed super secret facilities, even if the entire first, second and third rund leaderships are taken out. Thats my job! Don't believe it? Well not your fault. How about discussing this with the amateurs on the Chinese boards? :)

:cry: :cry:
Atri
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4152
Joined: 01 Feb 2009 21:07

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by Atri »

Prem Kumar wrote:Though I really think that equating all these parties is over-simplifying things. Each of the groups has their own agendas and conflicts. Plus Pakis would at least like to keep the appearance that these groups are all different, at least for the sake of deniability.

Not sure what we should do. My personal preference is a pro-active policy of sending troops to Af-Pak. The negative side to this is that currently the Taliban hates mainly the U.S. If India shows up at their door-step, they have 2 targets and will pick the softer one.
The differences are vanishing. You see, the guys who entered the service during times of Zia some 20 years ago, must have reached to high positions in Army now. It is well known that Zia Islamized the paki army to an extent that nothing can be done now. He encouraged religious fanaticism in Paki army.

It is a gradual gradient which is shifting the overall composition of paki army personnel towards fanaticism. And Jawans are already recruited from poor class, most of which are Madrassa tutored. By sheer probability, lots of them might have been promoted to higher positions. Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani belongs to such poor economic class who has risen to such a high position. You never know at what rate this gradient is consuming TSPA and in how many years will TSPA become a bunch of religious fanatics only and nobody else. They might come out of closet when they think the time is right. But even when they are in closet, they are increasing in numbers.

Hate India==Hate infidels==service to Islam and ummah. This is the mantra of their training. They have kept it that simple since their birth. This simplification is done by Jinnah himself. Can't undo it now..

Yes, the second scenario of Anujan ji is quite alarming and very real possibility. Given our corrupt customs officials who are on the pay-roll of Dawood will let in any material which comes through supply chain of D-gang. If they can smuggle drugs, arms, bombs, gold and other illegal things through that network, it is very much possible to smuggle a dirty bomb which is capable enough to infect people with radioactivity and cause major panic, even if it does not go critical and cause an actual explosion.
Gerard
Forum Moderator
Posts: 8012
Joined: 15 Nov 1999 12:31

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by Gerard »

shubho wrote:Yes this is the inherent nature of most of the Indians. Can you tell me what will happen if the whole of Delhi is taken out in a 300 - 500 kt first strike. Considering that the whole NCA (PM, Chiefs etc) would be gone, who will authorize and initiate the retaliatory strike ?
I suggest you do a little research and educate yourself about NFU, the Indian NSAB Draft Nuclear Doctrine etc, before commenting on this thread.
Baljeet
BRFite
Posts: 410
Joined: 29 May 2007 04:16

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by Baljeet »

ramana wrote:BTW I had said in 1999 that India was the last country to weaponize on the sub-continent and it remains true.
Ramanji
So it shall remain the last country on earth to protect herself and her citizens from thugs, rapists, firangis.
shiv
BRF Oldie
Posts: 34982
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30
Location: Pindliyon ka Gooda

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by shiv »

shubho wrote: :D
we all came across lots of docs, Google Earth Locations etc in Internet speculating the Chinese missile silos. The same is available for Pakisthan, USA, Russia etc.. and for many other countries.
Wow - you have heard of Google earth? I though I was tech savvy and I found Google Earth only yesterday. My step father is a Captain in the PLA army and he was kind enough to introduce me to Google earth

i would love it if you could point me to links on where Chinese silos are. And while you are at it could you please locate and post Indian missile silos. My stepfather would appreciate any help in this regard because he is studying for a test (for promotion) and has to make a map of India silos.

Thanks.
Gerard
Forum Moderator
Posts: 8012
Joined: 15 Nov 1999 12:31

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by Gerard »

putnanja
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4665
Joined: 26 Mar 2002 12:31
Location: searching for the next al-qaida #3

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by putnanja »

svinayak
BRF Oldie
Posts: 14223
Joined: 09 Feb 1999 12:31

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by svinayak »

See the contempt of IG by people of that generation
It was in delightful prose, to Kissinger’s great annoyance: “Her concern is whether the United States accepts the Indian regime. She is not sure but that we would be content to see others like her overthrown. She knows full well that we have done our share and more of bloody and dishonourable deeds.”

Indira Gandhi’s ire was a purely personal one. She was “friendly” with Moynihan. Hers was the imperial style of an inordinately vain person, which fawning civil servants and journalists encouraged. She harmed the national interest.

Neither for the first nor for the last time was India’s national interest sacrificed at the altar of its leader’s vanity and ineptness. The national mood of chauvinism was fostered by such leaders.
SaiK
BRF Oldie
Posts: 36424
Joined: 29 Oct 2003 12:31
Location: NowHere

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by SaiK »

shubho wrote:...would be gone, who will authorize and initiate the retaliatory strike ?
shub-ho jao!,sab kuch automagickkkk!!
Prem Kumar
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4215
Joined: 31 Mar 2009 00:10

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by Prem Kumar »

Very interesting read. Perhaps IG did miss a trick by not pursuing this further. However, the article is not clear about whether Kissinger assured that India would make it into NPT as a "nuclear weapons state". Knowing Kissinger's Machiavellian tactics and India's mistrust of the U.S, its quite possible that IG felt this as a way of U.S acknowledging India's nuclear weapon status "bilaterally" but not under NPT. That would have been a way to smother India's program. In that sense, IG's suspicion was understandable.
Ameet
BRFite
Posts: 841
Joined: 17 Nov 2006 02:49

Re: India nuclear news and discussion

Post by Ameet »

Baljeet wrote:
ramana wrote:BTW I had said in 1999 that India was the last country to weaponize on the sub-continent and it remains true.
Ramanji
So it shall remain the last country on earth to protect herself and her citizens from thugs, rapists, firangis.
Maybe you should take a look at the congress party members breakdown that the country just overwhelmingly voted for and reconsider your statement.
Locked