Sanjay wrote:We need him to give more interviews.
At the end of the day whether or not S-1 achieved what it was supposed to, India's TN capability is still largely nascent.
Bulky fission and boosted-fission weapons are our lot for a while. That is a limiting factor on the everything - delivery systems to size of arsenal.
This is, IMO a reasonable assumption.
If I were to descend to the level of "Oh what will our neighbors say?" (or Log kya sochenge?) I just wonder if "bulky" was not the state of the warheads in the US and USSR in the 1960s.
I have no doubt that deterrence works even with a "bulky weapon" scenario. Someone else has already pointed out the Noko example. I would add to that the example of Pakistan's deterrence value versus Iraq, or Iran's nuclear deterrence value to the US.
The whole idea of reducing the value of weapon size and yield to the question of deterrence is (in my view) as follows.
Nuclear weapons are held in inventories primarily as a symbol of the punishment one is capable of inflicting. Any adversary has to confront the reality that he, or his forces or much of his support system may get wiped out if he indulges in bravado and that bravado does not work.
The posture of "deterring" somebody can only come from
1) Possessing nuclear weapons
2) Having means to deliver them.
3) Having the ability to inflict unacceptable pain on an adversary.
This means that the mind of an adversary - i.e what he thinks of you and your weapons is an integral part of deterrence.
If the above three goals are achieved by anyone, then deterrence is working, but that does not mean that weapon designs should not be improved or perfected.
I believe that the window period for overtly testing new designs is over.Unless there is a "chance event" of a nuclear conflict that raises alarms all over the world. overt testing of huge weapons will not occur in the foreseeable future.
To my mind this poses restrictions as well as opportunities. The restrictions are fairly obvious. I believe we on BRF have spent a great deal of time thrashing out the restrictions imposed by the inability to test overtly.
I would also like to point out and talk about the opportunities. Testing is certainly being done covertly and surreptitiously in all nuclear weapons states. What is not clear is how many non NWS are doing the same thing. The other thought that occurs to me is that this forced research into small undetectable weapons is likely to lead to the development of small nuclear weapons that can then be applied into war that is considered "winnable"
IMO nuclear wars were basically unwinnable because of the pain they inflict on both sides. I must hastily point out that losing 10 cities and 25 to 50 million people while "defeating" an adversary is not, by my view "victory". These are philosophical points about which people will disagree and have already disagreed - and my intention is merely to state my view and not force it down someone else's throat.
But the development of new and small weapons probably increases heir attractiveness and this would serve as an "opportunity" presented by the inability to test overtly. What are the "national technical means" required for this?