Deterrence

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 19 Mar 2012 13:57

They deployed about 3000 troops or so in Syria. But this was going to be suicide mission by the RSAF to strike eilat fuel depots in 2 strikes. The plan was to strike eilat and eject over jordanian territory. They were on standby but the order never came because ceasefire was agreed by then. Bandar bin sultan was to lead the first strike.

They did a few practice runs near Bahrain.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 21 Mar 2012 10:42

Slowly its sinking in the NPA ummahdom that China is at the center of two power triangles:USA-Russia-China and China-India-TSP.

Not realised yet is that China is at the China-North Korea-USA and China-Middle East :KSA and Iran- USA triangles.

And US facilitated all these triangles all along.

Bombs Away

The Washington Quarterly Spring 2012

devesh · Post by **devesh** » 21 Mar 2012 20:37

one has to wonder where USA is pulling is "intellectual coffers" from. almost as if the "scholars" are trained to think in ways which in the long term are destined to bleed the US out of power. they still don't realize it but the gamble of post-FDR elites/president to put faith the British basket is costing them deeply. they've adopted a lot of their predecessor's methods, but fail to understand that predecessor is not their "greatest ally", as their delusional belief goes.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 21 Mar 2012 20:54

Its like the Kauravas trusting Shakuni mama!

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 22 Mar 2012 12:30

devesh wrote:one has to wonder where USA is pulling is "intellectual coffers" from. almost as if the "scholars" are trained to think in ways which in the long term are destined to bleed the US out of power. they still don't realize it but the gamble of post-FDR elites/president to put faith the British basket is costing them deeply. they've adopted a lot of their predecessor's methods, but fail to understand that predecessor is not their "greatest ally", as their delusional belief goes.

That is the trick played by the original super power!

Baton was only passed temporarily.

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 05 Apr 2012 21:40

Karnad is impressed with Israelis. Who would not be, this small nation, has more IP based exports than all of India combined!

Israelis — doers, ‘karmyogis’ Vs Indians, talkers
Posted on April 5, 2012
Earlier this week there was sustained interaction with an Israeli team of former militarymen, policy persons, and researchers including a fighter pilot from the July 1981 sortie that preemptively took out the Iraqi reactor — Osiraq, that was about to go critical. The Israeli concern this time around was, of course, Iran. [Chatham House rules were the norm, so cannot identify the Israeli or the Indian dramatis personnae.]The point the former fighter pilot made very convincingly was not that aerial strikes to destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities would prevent Tehran from pursuing a weapons capability, but rather that such a strike would, at a minimum, delay Iran’s securing nuclear weapons and could also deter that country from pursuing the weapons option owing to the well-founded fear that the capabilities would again be hit once they reached a certain dangerous threshold, reducing their nuclear weapons project to a hopeless, Sisphyean task that will eventually be so frustrating, the Iranians will give up the effort. Had we this kind of Israeli mentality, we would have joined the Israelis to repeatedly attack Pakistani nuclear weapons complex every time it approached certain level, until Islamabad got the nessage. This option is not practicable any more. But it was readily available during the 1970s and early 1980s when Pakistan was cobbling the N-weapons capability tohgether centrally with Chinese design and material assistance, and America, helpfully, looking the other way. Washington needed Pakistan as base to mount the jihad against the Soviet occupation troops in Afghanistan, remember? [In Greek mythology, Sisyphus tried to steal fire from the Gods and was punished by having repeatedly to roll a large boulder up a mountain only to see it roll down once he had managed to get it almost to the top.] What an exhilerating change this is from hearing our diplomats and official types constantly bellyache about Washington not doing this, not doing that, not doing nearly enough to rein in Pakistan, its terrorist activities, etc. Well, how about the Indian government doing something about it, such as ordering covert ops to remove Hafeez Saeed from the scene, instead of relying on the $10 million US bounty to reel him in, which won’t catch this fish. Then again, Indians are talkers, and Israelis are doers — the great difference that cannot be bridged.

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 11 Apr 2012 05:12

Saran on CTBT, still sticking to the RG template.

The CTBT conundrum : SHYAM SARAN

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 12 Apr 2012 00:05

Assuring destruction forever: nuclear weapon modernization around the world [pdf]

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 12 Apr 2012 00:21

ShauryaT wrote:Saran on CTBT, still sticking to the RG template.

The CTBT conundrum : SHYAM SARAN

1. The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO) with its “over 300 state-of-the-art sensors in every corner of the world,” gives assurance that “any nuclear test will be detected.”

Comment: There are actually 337 CTBTO stations in the world, but only 250 or so have been internationally certified. So there is still some way to go before the level of confidence in the verification procedures can be considered adequate. It may also be noted that the CTBT does not bar virtual tests undertaken through computer simulations. With rapid advances in computing power and sophisticated software, the actual testing of a nuclear device may not be necessary to either improve existing weapons or assemble a modest but workable nuclear arsenal. There is also the possibility of a fully tested design of a nuclear weapon or even an actual device being transferred clandestinely from a nuclear weapon state to a non-nuclear weapon one. This is what China did with respect to Pakistan in the late 1980s. The CTBT and the CTBTO provide no answer to such challenges.

2. There is a looming danger of nuclear warfare in South Asia, which would be catastrophic for the entire region.

Comment: The greater danger today is not the threat of a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan but the threat emanating from a loss of control over Pakistan's nuclear weapons as a result of increasing dysfunction and even possible disintegration of the country's polity and governance structure. There is a growing risk that these weapons may fall into the hands of jihadi and extremist elements. In that case, not only India and South Asia, but also the entire world would be under a nuclear threat.

Further, regional issues, should not detract from the urgent focus required on achieving a world free of nuclear weapons. CTBT has significance only if it is integrally located within a credible and time-bound programme of nuclear disarmament. The link between nuclear weapons and international terrorism, highlighted by the United Nations, is a new dimension of the nuclear threat which demands a renewed priority to nuclear disarmament.

3. The ratification of the CTBT by non-nuclear weapon states in the Asian region, would serve to put the “eight CTBT holdouts in the spotlight.”

Comment: This is a simplistic argument. These countries have little or no impact on the security perspectives of the eight holdouts. The holdouts themselves are motivated by different factors. India, Pakistan and North Korea have neither signed nor ratified the CTBT. It would be fair to say that Pakistan's calculations are influenced by what India does. In 1999, Pakistan and India committed themselves bilaterally to a moratorium on nuclear testing. India's calculations are similarly conditioned by what China does and China is unlikely to become a party unless the U.S. does.

Egypt and Iran obviously link their decisions to what happens to Israel's undeclared nuclear weapon arsenal. North Korea is a problem country in its own right. What would hasten the coming into force of the treaty is a U.S. decision to ratify the treaty, which would likely trigger a chain of positive decisions among the other holdouts. Not all “holdouts,” therefore, are equal in this respect.

India has declared that it would be unable to sign and ratify the CTBT as it currently formulated, but will continue its voluntary and unilateral moratorium on further testing. At one point, India had also declared that it would not stand in the way of the CTBT coming into force, but that would require an amendment to the treaty's unusual provision that it will come into force only if it has been signed and ratified by all the 44 nuclear-capable states, including India. India is the only nuclear weapon state to declare that it believes its security would be enhanced, not diminished, in a world free of nuclear weapons.

It is willing to engage in multilateral negotiations on an International Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Manufacture, Deployment and Use of Nuclear Weapons, at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. Success in these negotiations would automatically take care of the issue of nuclear testing.

I agree that the world may be perched on a “nuclear powder keg.” But that requires us to move beyond partial and interim measures such as the CTBT and deliver, with a sense of urgency, on the long-standing international commitment to eliminate nuclear weapons altogether as a category of weapons of mass destruction, as has already been achieved with chemical weapons.

( Shyam Saran is a former Foreign Secretary and is currently Chairman, RIS, and Senior Fellow, CPR .)

Looks like Dhanapala was trying to score points over India as usual. Strange are the ways of NPA chatterati that they show up in unusual flavors.

member_22872 · Post by **member_22872** » 12 Apr 2012 00:27

From pdf Austin ji posted:

...Regardless of the veracity of these claims, the statement implies the desire, if not the actual ability...

It is okay to doubt and question the veracity of results, it is another thing to be condescending about our ability in nuclear field. Does anyone know the credentials of Mr.M.V.Ramana?

Rudradev · Post by **Rudradev** » 12 Apr 2012 05:09

ramdas wrote:Rudradevji,

If TSP makes 100/yr, wont they soon have CFSD deterrence against us unless we do something to proportionately enlarge our arsenal ?

Also, news periodically indicates we have only 2 days of ammo, etc stockpiles for a full-fledged conventional war. Wont these facts together mean TSP controls the escalation ladder and ensure TSP military hegemony on the subcontinent ?

What I have often heard is that TSP has 100+ and isbuilding up towards 200+ by 2020...hope we too, rapidly build up...

devesh wrote:Rudradev ji,
very informative post. thank you. going back to Pakis, the 100/year would mean that they will have CFSD against India very soon. that rate of production is amazing, and they will effectively have CFSD against India within the next 5-8 years.

Sorry, didn't see these posts earlier. Actually, that's not the case. For CFSD you need a vast excess of nukes capable of enough overpressure to take out hardened installations. That means megaton-plus yield warheads, or several MIRVed warheads of ~200 plus kT each. Pakistan is reportedly making 100+ a year of mostly small, tactical battlefield nukes of sub-kiloton yield. That would never give them CFSD even if Indian production was at a complete standstill for 20 years.

For CFSD you also need extremely reliable delivery systems that are very precise, since direct hits on all enemy installations must be guaranteed. Pakis have nothing like that, and neither do the Chinese.

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 14 Apr 2012 06:55

The Fate of India’s Strategic Restraint

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 24 Apr 2012 23:09

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/new ... 856623.cms
Global famine if India, Pakistan unleash nukes: Study

CHICAGO: More than a billion people around the world would face starvation if India and Pakistan unleash nuclear weapons -- even if that war is regionally limited, a study released Tuesday warned.
That's because the deadly and polluting weapons would cause major worldwide climate disruption that would dramatically drive down food production in China, the United States and other countries. "The grim prospect of nuclear famine requires a fundamental change in our thinking about nuclear weapons," said study author Dr. Ira Helfand of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.
"The new evidence that even the relatively small nuclear arsenals of countries such as India and Pakistan could cause long lasting, global damage to the Earth's ecosystems and threaten hundreds of millions of already malnourished people demands that action be taken," Helfand said in a statement. "The needless and preventable deaths of one billion people over a decade would be a disaster unprecedented in human history. It would not cause the extinction of the human race, but it would bring an end to modern civilization as we know it." he study, set to be published in the peer-reviewed journal Climate Change, was released at the World Summit of Nobel Laureates in Chicago. It found that corn production in the United States would decline by an average of 10 percent for an entire decade and soybean production would drop by about 10 percent, with the most severe decline occurring five years after the nuclear war. It also determined that rice production in China would drop by an average of 21 percent for the first four years and 10 percent for the next six years.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 24 Apr 2012 23:21

Dooms day scenario sitting in some western universtities can come up with this kind of stuff.

Nuke! Nuke! Nuke as if that is the only thing in the sub continent. But such stories stick to the western people mind and good psy ops. The only thing is to create counter image and counter psy of the region.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 25 Apr 2012 05:25

At most India and TSP will use a couple of nukes. This was done by US on Japan in 1945 and no global climate change happened!

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 07 May 2012 06:29

Karan ji,

If I may .................

Fizzle or sizzle, the question is if the Chinese THINK India has the means to push them back into time. It is as simple as that.

POK 2 was about testS to validate technologies and also to convince those that needed convincing that India has deterrence. The tests were NOT about India has a MT. IF a KT or a sub-KT bomb can - in some window of opportunity - create just enough question marks in the MINDS of the Chinese we have deterrence.

Now, I am going by recollection alone, I do not recall ANYONE posing the question to S if India has deterrence. When asked what is the issue - again my recollection - he said China has huge assets in Tibet (in hind sight he was right) - and by extrapolation, India does not have a huge response.

My question - then and now - is simple. Whatever India has - sub-KT, KT, whatever, IS China CONVINCED that India has reterrence?

IF the answer is "Yes', then we have deterrence. Test if you would like to or must or just because you feel so or to keep Homi happy (with all due respects) or because so many ex BARC people think so............... BUT that does NOT take away from the fact India has deterrence.

IF the answer is "No", then please let me know why - FROM a Chinese point of view please. Why would China THINK India has no deterrence.

Essentially, finding an answer to "does India have deterrence" takes S out of the picture.

IF India needs to retest, then it necessarily means India does NOT have a deterrence. AND, if fizzle matters in this thinking then the burden of proof is with those that think so, that a MT alone constitutes a deterrence.

Does it?

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 07 May 2012 08:29

NRao wrote: Fizzle or sizzle, the question is if the Chinese THINK India has the means to push them back into time. It is as simple as that.

NRao garu "what people think" is a vital component of deterrence and you are absolutely right.

A lot of Indians feel inadequate and inferior because of the ostensibly puny results of India's nuclear tests and feel that since they consider these tests as puny and Chinese tests as awesome, the believe the Chinese too consider Indian bombs as puny and non scary while Indians simply must dhoti shiver on account of Chinese megatons. Such thought are Indian thoughts. They do not necessarily reflect Chinese thoughts - which is what you are talking about.

I apologize for the piskodigression.

negi · Post by **negi** » 07 May 2012 08:45

If Deterrence were a religion then by all means what people think will matter; going by that logic if one convinces the second largest populous country that it has deterrence then even nukes are not needed. Do kapalbhati 3 times a day and all will be fine.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 07 May 2012 08:51

negi wrote:If Deterrence were a religion then by all means what people think will matter; going by that logic if one convinces the second largest populous country that it has deterrence then even nukes are not needed. Do kapalbhati 3 times a day and all will be fine.

Yes this is absolutely correct.

As I see it the issue that crops up most often on BRF is one of these extremes. On the one hand a reassurance that deterrence is "adequate" is not believed by a section of people who feel the nation is being fooled into complacency by a non existent deterrent.

But as NRao says none of this matters as long as the Chinese are deterred. If the Chinese are deterred by Indians doing kapalbhati 3 times a day, then that deterrence will work. The problem is that we have no way of knowing for sure that the Chinese are deterred by Indians doing kapalbhati 3 times a day.

In fact we have no way of knowing whether the Chinese are more scared of 1 megaton bombs than 20 kiloton ones, or if kapalbhati itself is sufficient. If we knew that, then deterrence would be easy and sure. If I were Chinese I would express open terror at the thought of Indians doing kapalbhati 3 times a day to make Indians think that I (the Chinese) are deterred by that. So what the Chinese say is never going to indicate what they actually think.

Altair · Post by **Altair** » 07 May 2012 09:00

piskologically thinking loudly
Ask yourself.
If there was a "wikileaks" to suggest that India's TNW was a sizzle and Chinese were worried after POK2, would we be still having this discussion?
If NOT then we have a serious mental problem and must visit a shrink.
This is same effect as asking a wh0re for a feedback if we were indeed good?
It reflects, A complete lack of self-confidence and a massive inferiority complex. WTF!
To me, True Deterrence is in the mind.

If I am a six feet macho and my neighbor got a whiff that I was good with women in the area and he notices his young wife giving a naughty smile to me, will he will try to be good to me while searching for new home OR start a fight with me?

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 07 May 2012 09:11

As long as radiations can kill, it does not matter few kilo tons hear and there.. A 200KT half burnt maal is more dangerous than full burnt maal, in any pisskological sense.

member_20317 · Post by **member_20317** » 07 May 2012 09:29

But then India had detergent with 12kt 74 vintage maal.

Then why bother with 98. ABV was truely a Kongi, made us do kabila dance around 45 kt fire for something that would only have required Kapalbhati.

Should have started Kapalbhati in 75 when I was born. After all, 'all is in the mind only'.

Seems like Indian detergent deters Indians more then it does the Chinese.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 07 May 2012 09:31

Is PRC the only challenger? Who has been playing games moving pieces on a grand chessboard? How pushed others to name India in the EIF clause in CTBT?

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 07 May 2012 11:39

If the 12 kt (74 device) or a demonstrated ~250 kt device would be sufficient under all situations, who can say with certainty. I am going by ~250 kt because it is the number quoted by the powers (DAE/GoI/DRDO), so there must be a technical or a strategic justification behind the number.

What however can be stated with more assurance is that a demonstrated ~250 kt device will force a rational adversary to be more cautious before taking a gamble on a first strike against India than a declared ~250 kt device. A demonstrated ~250 kt would not prevent a madman or a determined foe or even one who thinks that they can take out most or all of our second strike capability. If a demonstrated pataka will not prevent a first strike then a declared pataka of the same yield most certainly won't.

The major assumption here is that you adversary always stay rational and what is rational in one culture is also rational in the other.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 07 May 2012 17:14

pankajs wrote: What however can be stated with more assurance is that a demonstrated ~250 kt device will force a rational adversary to be more cautious before taking a gamble on a first strike against India than a declared ~250 kt device.

Why are we scared of Pakistan? Or are you saying that we need not bother about Pakistan?

I am expecting a particular reply, but won't mention it just to see if something new has happened since the last 200 page forum discussion on the subject.

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 07 May 2012 21:09

On Pakistan we are concerned but not scared. The patakha in question is China centric.

Is this the reply that you had expected saar?

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 07 May 2012 21:12

pankajs wrote:On Pakistan we are concerned but not scared. The patakha in question is China centric.

Is this the reply that you had expected saar?

Fair enough. Thanks for not saying what I expected!

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 09 May 2012 07:23

Cross post from a discussion in the burqa forum

In the early days of the Cold War, it was the US that went for a massive and vulgar increase in the number of nuclear weapons before the Soviets followed suit. The US idea (this was the 1950s ~a decade or so after Hiroshima) was to conduct a pre emptive strike on Russia and knock out all its nuclear weapons rendering the Russian threat ineffective. This is what started the "nuclear race". If you read/hear interviews of people who were in high office in the US those days (MacNamara, Kissinger) it is clearly on record that the US did not do this massive first strike on the USSR because nobody could give a guarantee that the USSR would not have at least one or more nukes left to hit back at the US. And once Soviet nukes proliferated - the chances of the US attacking became even more remote.

This great love for large numbers of nukes (because the US/USSR) did it arises from this history. Very few people seem to read why so many nukes were made and what was the intention. This was also the reason why the US had a first strike policy. Us policy was always first strike but the hollowness of that policy come out when you look at why the US never ever conducted another first strike after WW2. The US was unable to be sure that it would not get hit in retaliation even though they had thousands of nukes. So the numbers of nukes and the first strike policy were paper only.

This business of "megaton nukes" also has a history. The US had a need (and a secret policy) to destroy a nation as big as the USSR. So apart from large numbers of nukes they wanted bigger bangs for smaller weights. Bombers really could not reach all parts of the USSR from the USA and huge fission bombs were getting heavier and heavier. That led to the refinement of lighter thermonuclear bombs. The development of missiles added to the size of bomb. The missiles were inaccurate and a miss by say 20 (32 km) miles at a distance of 6000 miles (9600 km) -an error of just 0.3%, would make even the biggest megaton bombs useless. If you Google for the relevant tables you find that even a 2 megaton bomb causes only light damage 10 km away from where it falls. 30 km away is too far - too big a miss margin.

But the US and other countries went on testing bigger and bigger and dirtier weapons in the atmosphere, not realizing the environmental damage they were causing. When that became clear there was a push to start underground testing. Underground testing brought with it a whole lot of new problems. There is no accurate way of assessing yield for an underground device. There is also no way of assessing ground damage in a real war. As far as actual ground damage caused by nukes is concerned, the public info is totally dependent on findings from Hiroshima and whatever was released into the public space by the US in Nevada and Pacific overground tests. The impetus to develop smaller weapons (kilotons rather than megatons) that were more compact came from two developments. One was more accurate missiles, and the other was nuclear submarines. Add to that a realization that the USSR couldn't be destroyed by US nukes without the whole world being affected by fallout.

While the US (and the USSR too) browned its pants in 1962 and it is said that nuclear war was avoided in the Kennedy era, by 1970 it was clear that the US and USSR were going nowhere. They were desperately talking to each other to reduce their weapons. In those days one of the silliest ideas I read was the agreement between the US and USSR not to builr anti-missile defences. I used to think that this was a stupid idea and could not understand why they were doing that. I now realise that both countries were desperate to reduce their nuclear arsenals and risk. Al the machogiri was burnt out. They really did not want nuclear war and felt that not having defenses would keep the fear of nuclear destruction high.

All this changed in the 1980s with Reagan and his talk of "Star Wars" defences, and the US-Pakistan-Saudi axis in Afghanistan. The USSR then collapse rendering thousands of US and Russian weapons as useless relics.

China initially got nuke tech from the USSR. Later they broke away and scrambled to copy the US and USSR. Then, by the Vietnam era, a beleaguered Nixon allied with China via Pakistan. That allowed Pakistan to get nukes. But these events have set up a new nuclear weapons dynamic between India, China and Pakistan. We have not developed nuclear weapons using the same thought process that the US had. We have never had the intention of "destroying a whole country the size of China" simply because that isn't possible. What the history of nuclear weapons from 1945 to 1975 showed was that the extreme damage that nuclear weapons cause to the attacked as well as bystanders is so high that their use cannot be a premeditated war winning act as the US had mistakenly imagined it to be in the 1950s. You cannot destroy whole countries without causing serious environmental and economic damage to yourself. Using one or two nukes is useless because the other fellow may hit back with 20 or 50 so that everyone on earth suffers.

NPAs in the US look at Indian development in missile defence and say "Hey - this is destabilizing". They want india and Pakistan to have a stable "balance of terror" the way the US and USSR had, and the way they agreed not to develop AMBs which were felt to be "destabilizing". But if you look at it rationally, an NFU policy, a robust ability to conduct a retaliatory strike and the good missile defence system is the most sensible combination of things for an India that has been affected by the US's own pant browning that led to Pakistan and China developing nukes. No one is seriously going to start a nuclear war and imagine that he is going to win it outright and at low cost.

I will cross post in the deterrence thread because I put in some effort to type out my views from my reading.

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 09 May 2012 08:40

shiv wrote: NPAs in the US look at Indian development in missile defence and say "Hey - this is destabilizing". They want india and Pakistan to have a stable "balance of terror" the way the US and USSR had, and the way they agreed not to develop AMBs which were felt to be "destabilizing". But if you look at it rationally, an NFU policy, a robust ability to conduct a retaliatory strike and the good missile defence system is the most sensible combination of things for an India that has been affected by the US's own pant browning that led to Pakistan and China developing nukes. No one is seriously going to start a nuclear war and imagine that he is going to win it outright and at low cost.

I will cross post in the deterrence thread because I put in some effort to type out my views from my reading.

Also, an ABM shield can have the reverse effect. Since an adversary knows that an ABM exists and a second strike is certain, what is the point of the first strike and its own nuclear arsenal? Two parties not ideologically opposed to each other's existence can come to reasonable conclusions. In India's context, we still have some ways to go with both China and TSP to get that that stage.

PS: Thank you for posting. I was wondering, why are you writing all this, till we got to the end.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 09 May 2012 20:47

Shiv, Very good summary of the evolution of the nuke doctrines in other countries. What I like about your article is you propose what is best for India unlike the nuke expertatti who look at the situation through Western framework. Once again thanks and please develop on this. BTW in 1999 I wrote a BRM article "What Next?" which gives similar arguments from an Indian context.

shiv wrote:Cross post from a discussion in the burqa forum

In the early days of the Cold War, it was the US that went for a massive and vulgar increase in the number of nuclear weapons before the Soviets followed suit. The US idea (this was the 1950s ~a decade or so after Hiroshima) was to conduct a pre emptive strike on Russia and knock out all its nuclear weapons rendering the Russian threat ineffective. This is what started the "nuclear race". If you read/hear interviews of people who were in high office in the US those days (MacNamara, Kissinger) it is clearly on record that the US did not do this massive first strike on the USSR because nobody could give a guarantee that the USSR would not have at least one or more nukes left to hit back at the US. And once Soviet nukes proliferated - the chances of the US attacking became even more remote.

This great love for large numbers of nukes (because the US/USSR) did it arises from this history. Very few people seem to read why so many nukes were made and what was the intention. This was also the reason why the US had a first strike policy. Us policy was always first strike but the hollowness of that policy come out when you look at why the US never ever conducted another first strike after WW2. The US was unable to be sure that it would not get hit in retaliation even though they had thousands of nukes. So the numbers of nukes and the first strike policy were paper only.

This business of "megaton nukes" also has a history. The US had a need (and a secret policy) to destroy a nation as big as the USSR. So apart from large numbers of nukes they wanted bigger bangs for smaller weights. Bombers really could not reach all parts of the USSR from the USA and huge fission bombs were getting heavier and heavier. That led to the refinement of lighter thermonuclear bombs. The development of missiles added to the size of bomb. The missiles were inaccurate and a miss by say 20 (32 km) miles at a distance of 6000 miles (9600 km) -an error of just 0.3%, would make even the biggest megaton bombs useless. If you Google for the relevant tables you find that even a 2 megaton bomb causes only light damage 10 km away from where it falls. 30 km away is too far - too big a miss margin.

But the US and other countries went on testing bigger and bigger and dirtier weapons in the atmosphere, not realizing the environmental damage they were causing. When that became clear there was a push to start underground testing. Underground testing brought with it a whole lot of new problems. There is no accurate way of assessing yield for an underground device. There is also no way of assessing ground damage in a real war. As far as actual ground damage caused by nukes is concerned, the public info is totally dependent on findings from Hiroshima and whatever was released into the public space by the US in Nevada and Pacific overground tests. The impetus to develop smaller weapons (kilotons rather than megatons) that were more compact came from two developments. One was more accurate missiles, and the other was nuclear submarines. Add to that a realization that the USSR couldn't be destroyed by US nukes without the whole world being affected by fallout.

While the US (and the USSR too) browned its pants in 1962 and it is said that nuclear war was avoided in the Kennedy era, by 1970 it was clear that the US and USSR were going nowhere. They were desperately talking to each other to reduce their weapons. In those days one of the silliest ideas I read was the agreement between the US and USSR not to builr anti-missile defences. I used to think that this was a stupid idea and could not understand why they were doing that. I now realise that both countries were desperate to reduce their nuclear arsenals and risk. Al the machogiri was burnt out. They really did not want nuclear war and felt that not having defenses would keep the fear of nuclear destruction high.

All this changed in the 1980s with Reagan and his talk of "Star Wars" defences, and the US-Pakistan-Saudi axis in Afghanistan. The USSR then collapse rendering thousands of US and Russian weapons as useless relics.

China initially got nuke tech from the USSR. Later they broke away and scrambled to copy the US and USSR. Then, by the Vietnam era, a beleaguered Nixon allied with China via Pakistan. That allowed Pakistan to get nukes. But these events have set up a new nuclear weapons dynamic between India, China and Pakistan. We have not developed nuclear weapons using the same thought process that the US had. We have never had the intention of "destroying a whole country the size of China" simply because that isn't possible. What the history of nuclear weapons from 1945 to 1975 showed was that the extreme damage that nuclear weapons cause to the attacked as well as bystanders is so high that their use cannot be a premeditated war winning act as the US had mistakenly imagined it to be in the 1950s. You cannot destroy whole countries without causing serious environmental and economic damage to yourself. Using one or two nukes is useless because the other fellow may hit back with 20 or 50 so that everyone on earth suffers.

NPAs in the US look at Indian development in missile defence and say "Hey - this is destabilizing". They want india and Pakistan to have a stable "balance of terror" the way the US and USSR had, and the way they agreed not to develop AMBs which were felt to be "destabilizing". But if you look at it rationally, an NFU policy, a robust ability to conduct a retaliatory strike and the good missile defence system is the most sensible combination of things for an India that has been affected by the US's own pant browning that led to Pakistan and China developing nukes. No one is seriously going to start a nuclear war and imagine that he is going to win it outright and at low cost.

I will cross post in the deterrence thread because I put in some effort to type out my views from my reading.

Post Cold War that is the policy that US is also following. It has defacto second strike policy with a stated first strike policy.

Truly n+1 syndrome renders nukes as "Brutus Fulmen" aka "Useless thunderbolt!"

Hence KS garu always said nuke wars wont be fought.

K Mehta · Post by **K Mehta** » 09 May 2012 22:02

shiv wrote: In those days one of the silliest ideas I read was the agreement between the US and USSR not to builr anti-missile defences. I used to think that this was a stupid idea and could not understand why they were doing that. I now realise that both countries were desperate to reduce their nuclear arsenals and risk. Al the machogiri was burnt out. They really did not want nuclear war and felt that not having defenses would keep the fear of nuclear destruction high.
But if you look at it rationally, an NFU policy, a robust ability to conduct a retaliatory strike and the good missile defence system is the most sensible combination of things for an India that has been affected by the US's own pant browning that led to Pakistan and China developing nukes. No one is seriously going to start a nuclear war and imagine that he is going to win it outright and at low cost.

Shivji
I hope you read that book on US ABM development. This was covered there too. Good to see that being covered into Indian context.

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 10 May 2012 05:18

Deterrence.

PakiGenerals have always felt that they represent the purest of the pure among their kind - fair, tall, ...... So, their thinking has always been that when the nukes get tossed around that they can afford to let Pakistan become a sheet of glass, provided India takes a good blow. The idea being their brothers from like nations (not as pure of course) could now occupy India and what 800 years could not would be achieved in one stroke.

Just one problem. There was this one PakiGeneral that wanted to sneak out when a strike was imminent - his ancestors had fought Shivaji and lost, so he wanted to occupy a particular fort in Maha. That news (that he wanted to sneak out) spread, soon there were others shoor veer Pakis that wanted to survive and then occupy India themselves (for various reasons). In a few months the number increased to such an amount that sneaking was not feasible. Now PakiGeneral - like the US and Soviets - realized that making noise was sufficient. After all they had the entire Indian Ocean as CEP. Cannot go wrong.

That is how India achieved deterrence from that side and therefore could pour resources into deterring China.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 12 May 2012 02:35

May 11th is the anniversary of the POKII tests.

How come no one wants to remember this?

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 12 May 2012 02:47

ramana wrote:May 11th is the anniversary of the POKII tests.

How come no one wants to remember this?

May Maa Shakti bestow her strength on her children.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 12 May 2012 03:55

And some Buddhi too while at it!

Satya_anveshi · Post by **Satya_anveshi** » 12 May 2012 04:14

Happy Shakti Day to all Indians! May your power give confidence to all desis and instill fear in our enemies.

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 18 May 2012 19:14

Lavoy — Nukes in S Asia; India in Afghanistan, please!

Have known Lavoy for nearly two decades now. He has come to the DoD post from the US National Intelligence Council where he replaced Nancy Powell as head of the South Asia directorate. He’s among the original Americans, alongwith Michael Krepon at the Stimson Center in Washington, DC, who has consistently tried to scare Washington and, because of the process of reverse osmosis, the Indian government about the so-called India-Pakistan “nuclear flashpoint” — which I have argued since 1998 when it was first raised by these worthies, is so much nonsense. But because it doesn’t take much to scare Delhi, this thesis has become ingrained in the thinking of the Indian political class, the babus, diplomats, and even the military.

It is nonsense because of the unfavourable ‘exchange ratio’ – two Indian cities for the certain extinction of Pakistan. Which amongst the maddest mullahs in and out of uniform in Pakistan would take such a risk? The IRONY is it is the Indian establishment that seems more deterred by this prospect!!!

One other thing about Lavoy. In a seminar held in 2002 (if I recall right) with the USI in Delhi, Lavoy led a team from the Center for Contemporary Conflict (CCC) at the Naval Post-Graduate school, Monterrey, CA, there was a telltale incident in which a US Special Forces officer — a “Major Paul Smith”, part of the American team, inadvertently, indirectly, and in a roundabout way, said a few things. He confirmed what I had said during my previous presentation that intense US efforts were then underway by the US military and intel orgs to locate Pakistani nuclear assets for the purposes of preemption in crisis. I jokingly added that that was India’s first line of nuclear defence against the Pakis!! All this was just too sensitive info for it to get out and CCC tried to rub it out from the record of the proceedings. The website reference to this seminar, for instance, had me saying banal things about the nuclear situation in S Asia. I remember emailing Peter asking him to correct this piece of disinformation being put out. Didn’t hear back from him. And the CCC account remained uncorrected.

Then again what is intelligence except dezinformatisya to fool a foreign or a home audience?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 21 May 2012 01:59

Chatham House:

Nuclear Question in a Changing World

http://www.chathamhouse.org/events/view/182569

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 27 May 2012 07:26

x-post

dinesha wrote:Capability without strategy
Vipin Narang teaches political science at MIT. Christopher Clary is a PhD candidate in political science at MIT
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/capab ... y/952086/0
India must be transparent about its MIRV plans to avert a nuclear arms race in Asia

After the maiden test of the Agni V, the head of India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), V.K. Saraswat, noted that several Agni variants could eventually be mated with multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs), or multiple nuclear warheads — while later conceding that it was not yet government policy to do so. On May 10, he explained: “Where I was using four missiles, I may use only one missile. So it becomes a force multiplier given the damage potential.”

MIRV’d arsenals can be more destabilising than their solo-warhead counterparts. First, accurate MIRVs can enable a state to potentially disarm an opponent completely with only a fraction of the single-warhead missiles that might be required. Coupled with a missile defence system that might intercept any residual forces unhit by MIRVs, a state might be in a position to achieve “nuclear superiority”. As during the Cold War, this is a blueprint for a nuclear arms race, since adversaries must ensure that they have enough nuclear forces to survive a MIRV’d first-strike attempt and saturate any missile defences. Second, against MIRVs, an adversary has an incentive to preemptively destroy a missile force while it is still on the ground, since it can destroy multiple warheads for each hit, as opposed to just trading one-for-one. This gives an advantage to the side that launches its missiles first, the very definition of nuclear instability.

DRDO is attempting to develop accurate MIRVs as well as a multi-layered ballistic missile defence architecture. Saraswat has boasted that such a system will have a 99.8 per cent hit-to-kill probability. Even if this is inflated, to an adversary like China or Pakistan, repeated claims about MIRVs and ballistic missile defences may look like anything but a “credible minimum deterrent” strategy. But India has a no first use pledge, which makes its pursuit of MIRVs and any thought of attempting a disarming first strike puzzling. So why would India want MIRVs?

There are several possible explanations. Since authoritative views from the government, particularly senior national security officials, on technological developments relating to nuclear strategy have not been aired in the public domain, we — and India’s adversaries — can only speculate.

The first possible explanation is that deploying MIRVs is not official government policy. Instead, to enhance its organisational prestige, DRDO seeks to indigenously develop the same capabilities, including MIRVs, as the superpowers, without giving much thought to the strategic implications. Some scholars have explained such trajectories as technological determinism: if a state can build it, it will try to do so, whether the technology fulfils a particular requirement or not.

Unfortunately, if this is the case, DRDO’s pursuit of its own prestige may upset Asian strategic stability by triggering concerns in Beijing and Islamabad that India’s nuclear posture is no longer one of “assured retaliation” but one of “nuclear superiority” that threatens the survivability of China’s and Pakistan’s nuclear forces. Such fears might force them to re-evaluate their nuclear requirements and rapidly expand their nuclear arsenals to make any disarming attempt by MIRV’d Indian missiles impossible. While China has historically been relaxed about this possibility, Pakistani nuclear planners have suggested publicly that they account for possible first strikes in how they size and deploy their nuclear arsenal. It may push China and Pakistan toward more dangerous postures emphasising preemptive launches, since they might fear that their nuclear forces face a “use them or lose them” dilemma in a potential crisis. This is incredibly destabilising.

The second possibility is that India has quietly decided to abandon its nuclear posture of assured retaliation and no first use in favour of seeking nuclear superiority, and that deploying MIRVs and missile defences are, in fact, government policy. Since all public signals continue to point to an assured retaliation strategy and continued reaffirmation of the no first use pledge, this is unlikely.

The third explanation is that the government may approve the development of MIRVs, but in order to enhance the survivability of India’s second-strike deterrent. If India’s civilian nuclear managers and Strategic Force Command maintain warheads separate from missiles, and anticipate that an adversary may try to target Agnis in a conflict to degrade India’s nuclear retaliatory capability, MIRVs enable one to retain sufficient retaliatory throw-weight even with a few surviving missiles. Suppose India has 100 nuclear warheads and 100 various Agnis in its future force posture. If three-fourths of the Agni force is disabled by strikes, the remaining 25 Agnis with multiple warheads can achieve the same retaliatory throw-weight as a full complement of single-warhead Agnis. Such a strategy is not entirely irrational, assuming India believes its warheads are survivable but its missile force will be small or vulnerable.

If this is indeed the strategy, the problem lies in convincing China and Pakistan that India’s MIRVs, and potential missile defences, are defensive rather than offensive. If so, the government should clarify exactly how deploying these capabilities are consistent with its longstanding strategy of assured retaliation. A MIRV’d sea-based force makes a lot of sense for an assured retaliation strategy. But the argument for a MIRV’d land-based force is harder to make. Especially since, at first glance, dispersed single-warhead missiles seem more stable than a MIRV’d force for an assured retaliation strategy: it optimises survivability by requiring an adversary to hit many more targets to disarm your force, still assures the ability to inflict massive damage, and minimises incentives to be struck first since it does not pose a disarming threat to the adversary.

India finds itself in a strategically awkward position: advertising the development of a potentially destabilising capability that it does not yet possess and for which it has not yet articulated a clear rationale. If the government does not envision a role for MIRVs, it should enforce greater discipline on DRDO messaging. Alternatively, if there is a clear role for MIRVs, it should articulate it publicly to alleviate Chinese and Pakistani fears of a tectonic shift in Indian nuclear strategy. Developing capability without a strategy is a recipe for disaster. There are both malign and benign explanations for developing MIRVs and missile defences. In this case, there is virtue in the government being transparent about its intended course, lest Asia quickly find itself in an unnecessary and dangerous nuclear arms race.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 27 May 2012 08:26

ShauryaT wrote:Capability without strategy
Vipin Narang teaches political science at MIT. Christopher Clary is a PhD candidate in political science at MIT
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/capab ... y/952086/0
India must be transparent about its MIRV plans to avert a nuclear arms race in Asia
<snip>

India finds itself in a strategically awkward position: advertising the development of a potentially destabilising capability that it does not yet possess and for which it has not yet articulated a clear rationale. If the government does not envision a role for MIRVs, it should enforce greater discipline on DRDO messaging. Alternatively, if there is a clear role for MIRVs, it should articulate it publicly to alleviate Chinese and Pakistani fears of a tectonic shift in Indian nuclear strategy. Developing capability without a strategy is a recipe for disaster. There are both malign and benign explanations for developing MIRVs and missile defences. In this case, there is virtue in the government being transparent about its intended course, lest Asia quickly find itself in an unnecessary and dangerous nuclear arms race.

I detect patronizing bullshit in this article. Shri Narang tries to make a lecture out of scientific/industrial developments.

I just wonder why he picked on the nuclear threat to China and Pakistan. For example the DRDO has stated for more than two years that it has an antisatellite capability. Surely that too warrants a lecture on how India has no transparent policy and that it is now threatening everyone's satellites.

This man may have too narrow a focus and as academics in the US are supposed to do he has to keep churning out papers - even if they are bullshit.