Anant wrote:Amit,
It's an issue of arsenal size, not just yield. I have no problem accepting the fact that 200KT weapons are in the Indian arsenal. What the TN weapon offers is more bang for the buck, aka more with less fissile material. In the context of American pressure and the other G-19, it makes sense to have it because if there is a cap on the amount of fissile material produced, we will need TN weapons to make up for the lack of raw material available. Mate this with the fact that we want to build nuke boats and MIRV missiles it makes sense. If the goal is to lob some 200KT stuff on China or the Pukes, that is different; then FBF might be fine. But make no mistake, China will lob everything and some of that stuff is heavy stuff (yield wise). We need to make (my opinion), a high-lo mix of nukes. Some TN, some FBF and some fission. Most nuclearized countries do this. It is laughable to me because it doesn't seem to be a priority perhaps due to the argument that we have a 200 kT bomb so why bother and in my humble opinion has little to do with ego and more to do with the fact that we need to make the most of our raw materials. I see the TN bomb being the only way to go. Thanks.
Anant,
I'm sure you've noticed that there's a degree of ambiguity about the TN weapons capability. You can quote KS and say India doesn't have a TN, others can quote RC, AK etc to say yes India can and has the ability to build a TN.
This line of debate gets us nowhere. However, one point on which I think we all can agree on is that we need more testing. Period.
Now, I think from a geopolitical point of view instead of debating who screwed up on that fateful day in 1998 and demanding blue ribbon reviews or peer reviews and what not, it would be more fruitful to have a look at what signals India is sending out with respect to all the treaties like shitty bitty (CTBT), NPT etc which can potentially foreclose our option to test.
I have posted many times on this thread and its predecessor that the most definitive articulation of India's stand on this debate was Shyam Saran's speech at the Brookings Institute in March. (This was before Krishna's recent statement).
Yet despite this we've had in house experts give dire predictions of how India would commit harakiri by signing on to CTBT later this month (the oblique reference was to the G20 Pittsburgh meeting). Well Pittsburgh has come and gone and it hasn't quite proved to be the battle of Plassey that was predicted.
Krishna's statement IMO shows India's position remains exactly the same. The testing will be done when the economic conditions are better and/or when external geopolitics allows for testing. India will not do a rogue testing, just to prove a point.
Till then our deterrence would be (I'm relying on what Sanjay has written) based on FBF and it seems our military has accepted this fact.
Another point this is not some kind of static game. Maybe India does not have TN capability at this point of time. However, that doesn't really mean that for all times to come India will not have TN capability does it?
India's security is not just dependent on the number of TN bombs in its arsenal. It is dependent on a whole gamut of factors including economic strength, conventional military, geopolitical clout etc. And all these have to be developed in tandem and not one after the other. The folks who decide on these things don't only think in terms of TN or no TN, IMHO.