Deterrence

[Sanku]

In fact credit would go to the Chinese for maturity if this is what transpires. If they keep getting into provocative wars with nuclear armed states, sooner or later a nuke will hit them. having nuclear weapons itself calls for reluctance to use them - at least for normal states.

If I may return the compliment Shiv, not possible to disagree with this on any count -- however, I would like to rephrase this statement a little, from

That would mean that deterrence holds but is never tested the way you expect

to

That would mean that deterrence holds but is possibly never tested the way you expect

Which is (to harp on the same point) -- while you have defiantly outlined one significant apsect of reality -- that is not the only aspect of reality.

China for example -- might get into a situation where its economy stalls, or it may suffer a humiliating diplomatic or military misadventure (a "small" spat with Japanese on some trivial islands, tiny bits of land, had resulted in a drop of 10% of business between the two -- now what is the economic cost of that?).

I can go on and on, but to be short and pithy, the scenario you have taken as some assumptions, including the presence of rationality, and the rationality being same for the chinese under all scenarios as it is for you (us) -- both are, as I would like to point out, working assumptions, but assumptions nevertheless.

I would therefore consider the above scenario -- but that would not be the only scenario I would consider.

[shiv]

China for example -- might get into a situation where its economy stalls, or it may suffer a humiliating diplomatic or military misadventure (a "small" spat with Japanese on some trivial islands, tiny bits of land, had resulted in a drop of 10% of business between the two -- now what is the economic cost of that?).

Sankuji this is interesting. But how does that connect up with what we are talking about? I have not followed the point you are trying to make.

[Sanku]

China for example -- might get into a situation where its economy stalls, or it may suffer a humiliating diplomatic or military misadventure (a "small" spat with Japanese on some trivial islands, tiny bits of land, had resulted in a drop of 10% of business between the two -- now what is the economic cost of that?).

Sankuji this is interesting. But how does that connect up with what we are talking about? I have not followed the point you are trying to make.

At this point of time, I am only trying to bring out a convincing argument (with references to reality rather than thought experiment models) to support the point that situations could evolve (either deliberately or accidentally) -- where the goals of "peace and prosperity" might not dominate, or, people are willing to lose some of the same for other goals.

In other cases they may forgo those goals altogether.

And many of the older fault lines get triggered and move precipitously in very short spans of time.

[pentaiah]

I was listening to terry gross interview on NPR day before and waited for it to show up as podcast audio cast on web site

http://www.npr.org/2012/11/01/164096479/ricks-firing-generals-to-fight-better-wars

The time line of nukes and deterrent is very interesting.

Time Line of nuke Weapon Development

Nukes


1945 US 1st explosion
1949 USSR 1st explosion

USSR intimidated by US monopoly and also ideological reasons ( including territory grabbing)

Korean War
http://www.authentichistory.com/1946-19 ... index.html


http://www.sparknotes.com/history/ameri ... eline.html

In the interview the first URL
You can hear that Gen. Douglas McArthur contemplating Nuking Chinese troops as his two divisions are about to fall into PRC hands as POWs

This is in 1952 1953

So the Chinese and the USSR the big brother of PRC as Khrushchev said
Started co operation on nukes. So the US drove PRC home to thinking of nukes even while completely impoverished

In 1956 unkil meddles in Hugarian revolution and Khrushchev comes down heavily and thinks of staging things close to US
In 1959 USSR and. PRC are in full swing or tango in the Nuke development.

Now after a period of relative stability and of free from war

1961 the bay of Pigs idea is executed and is flop in ousting Brother Fidel alarmed USSR starts putting missiles in Cuba 1962
PRC thinks best time to attack India
PRC attacks India 1962
With in two years 1964 PRC explodes Nuke project 596 year 1959 start month june(6)
India starts to wonder if any international security could help us...
(Read Inder malhotra and LBS doing rounds in UK and flop show)

Vietnam war Gulf of Tokin 1964 ( prelude)

1971 Bangladesh desh war
USS Enterprise sails into Bay of Bengal , the dynamic duo of Nixon and Kissingher threaten India with nukes ( implicit) if TSP is dismembered in west also

Meanwhile Unkil and PRC agree in 1972 to make TSP a nuke power

IG says enough is enough and makes Budha smile in 1974 10 yrs after PRC does

The rest is too recent to recap

The point is US is the driving force to make nuclear proliferation what it is today

Now Iran will and surely in our time be nuke weapon state
Listen to the interview in fresh air to get substantiation

On what would happen if Pakistan became an enemy of the U.S.

"Pakistan strikes me as the biggest problem in the world right now, much more than Iran. Pakistan is a country that seems to me on the edge of falling apart — [and one] that already has well over 100 nuclear weapons by best estimates and seems to be drifting to extremism. ...

"It makes it much more difficult extricating ourselves from Afghanistan and hoping it is relatively OK after we leave. The second thing is India — it gives us a natural reason to be allied with India in addition to other reasons. India is a democracy, India is a very large and important country, and India has a burgeoning information-technologies industry. So there's a lot of good reasons to be allied with India. The funny thing is India is not quite so sure it wants to start going steady with us. I think India is a little bit worried that the United States is not the best partner to have in the world at this point, and it's doing quite well on its own and it doesn't necessarily want to forge a close alliance with the United States."

On military spending { the republicans are idiots and Romeny is the leaders of the pack}

"I think you could cut a lot of money from the defense budget — I don't know whether it's 10 or 20 or 30 percent. Right now we have a U.S. military that really is not very good at spending money. Since 9/11, they've just had a fire hose of cash turned on them, almost like, 'Here's the cash. Figure out how to spend it.' And in military terms, 10 to 15 years is a generation. So we have a generation of officers who have never actually had to live with any austerity at all, or even had to think about things, about, 'Maybe there's a cheaper, better way to do this. Maybe this second way of doing it is not as effective, but it's one-tenth the cost.' So we have a military that really doesn't know how to spend money effectively at all."

[Adrija]

Gents, I recently finished a pulp book over a domestic flight

http://www.bencoes.com/books-2/coup-detat-synopsis

The book itself is largely so-so (gets even basic stuff about India and Pak wrong- names, and even the fact that India does NOT have a presidential form of government)

However, the interesting thing was how powerfully it brought about the fact that even in a border skirmish with the Pukis, the US and China interests are aligned in enforcing nuke-nood for India...........leave alone a full-fledged conventional war

AND just having the least minimum numbers required for a credible nuclear deterrence encompasses NOT just the numbers + foolproof delivery system (missiles)

The basic infra -which we know- is enough Agni-Is/ IIs to ensure the total destruction of Pakistan (> 250 tactical nukes), and another ~ 700-1000 similar Agni Vs primed and ready to go, to ensure the same for the Chinese. However, it also requires for India's capabilities in this regard to be known, for deterrence to work (a point which the book Arming Without Aiming also brings out well, btw)

(Disclaimer- my take/ analysis, not what the author writes)

I know we all instinctively and intellectually realize it, but it being written in a reasonably likely outcome just slams it home more powerfully than any intellectual discussion could...at least for me it did

Worth a read for just that

My 2 np to the discussion......

[Sanku]

Vivek Ahuja is just about to test all our deterrence theories in his scenarios thread.

Good good.

[chaanakya]

Reading with great anticipation. I am sure Arihant and Arimardan would be lurking near Beijing and Shanghai. Although it may not be not in the scope of current Scenario. Their Planners should think of that. Are there any more Cities which could sustain China Morally. If Delhi is gone, Chennai, Bangalore, Trivendram, Mumbai or Kolkata could easily serve the purpose but What about China??

[ramana]

Good article by Pravin Swami in Hindu

Pakistan's Hot Nuclear green house

Its green in more ways than one!

Pakistan’s hot nuclear greenhouse
Praveen Swami

The world’s fastest growing arsenal is being produced not just because of the fear of India but a strategic paranoia exacerbated by existential anxieties

Forty-seven years ago this month, Pakistan’s then Foreign Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, while on a visit to Vienna, had an unscheduled chat with a young, obscure nuclear scientist called Munir Ahmad Khan. “I briefed him about what I knew of India’s nuclear programme and the facilities that I had seen myself during a visit to Trombay in 1964,” Dr. Khan was to recall soon after Pakistan’s 1999 nuclear tests. India’s plans “added up to one thing: bomb-making capability.”

Less than three months earlier, Field Marshal Ayub Khan, Pakistan’s military ruler, had led his forces into the war of 1965: an adventure that began with an ill-planned raid in Kashmir, and ended with Indian tanks massed on the outskirts of Lahore. Dr. Khan’s meeting with Bhutto led to another meeting the following month at the Field Marshal’s suite at the elegant Dorchester Hotel in London. “I must say Ayub Khan listened to me very patiently,” Dr. Khan recalled, “but at the end he said Pakistan was too poor to spend that much money.”

{So the paki were searching for a bomb from 1964 onwards! Then they found the Oil countries to pay for their quest.}

‘Civilisational’ difference

In 1972, his nation torn apart by the force of Indian arms, now Prime Minister Bhutto decided no cost was too high to pay. His concerns were focussed, though, on something far larger than India — his nation’s civilisational destiny. From the death row cell to which he was eventually despatched, Bhutto wrote: “the Christian, Jewish and Hindu civilisations have this capability. The Communist powers also possess it. Only the Islamic civilisation is without it.”

The programme Dr. Khan seeded has grown into an extraordinary nuclear weapons greenhouse: Pakistan now has the fastest-growing arsenal in the world, with 90-110 warheads, up from 65-80 in 2008 and ahead of India’s 60-100. It has refused to sign the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, which seeks to cap global weapons stockpiles.

Even the capacity to obliterate India’s cities, evidently, hasn’t addressed the existential anxieties Pakistan felt back in 1962. The production of warheads in the nuclear greenhouse is suggestive of the existence of a strategic paranoia at the heart of the Pakistan military’s thinking — a pathology that will, if unaddressed, have huge consequences for India.

Pakistan’s nuclear pursuit is not entirely severed from reason. India’s smaller arsenal gives it the capacity to annihilate Pakistan; Pakistan needs more warheads to inflict proportionate damage. Islamabad fears, moreover, that New Delhi might render its warheads ineffective through pre-emptive strikes, or eventually develop anti-ballistic missile defences. The Pakistan army is deeply concerned about its growing asymmetry with India’s armed forces.

Brian Cloughey, a sympathetic historian of the Pakistan army, has suggested that if “India’s two armour-heavy mechanized infantry strike corps managed to penetrate to the line joining Gujranwala-Multan-Sukkur and to the outskirts of Hyderabad in the south, then it is likely Pakistan would have to accept defeat or employ nuclear weapons.”

Lieutenant Colonel Syed Akhtar Husain Shah, writing in a Pakistan army publication in 1994, was already noting that in future wars, the “probability of the application of nuclear devices at the strategic and tactical level will be high. These strikes may be pre-emptive or reactionary, at any stage of the battle.” Much of Islamabad’s recent nuclear pursuit has been focussed on providing it the nuclear teeth needed to fight just such a war — for example by seeking to arm the 60-km range Hatf9 missile with a nuclear warhead.

Experts aren’t convinced, however, that more tactical nuclear weapons are making Pakistan more secure. In a 2010 paper, A.H. Nayyar and Zia Mian argued that the use of tactical nuclear weapons would be of little use if “Indian armed forces had prepared for a nuclear attack and were able to rapidly disperse.” In addition, using tactical weapons even on Pakistan’s own soil could provoke retaliation — something India’s Cabinet made clear, in a 2003 statement, it would be prepared to do.

NATO, whose Cold War tactical nuclear programme appears to provide a template for the current Pakistani thinking, eventually pulled back because of not-dissimilar concerns. However, as analyst Shashank Joshi has noted in a thoughtful commentary, NATO’s rollback was facilitated by its technology-driven conventional warfare superiority over the Warsaw Pact. In the India-Pakistan case, though, the gap is increasing, meaning “its reliance on nuclear weapons will grow”.

This proposition tallies with what Pakistanis themselves have been saying. In December 2011, the Director of Arms Control at Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division, Air Commodore Khalid Banuri, stated that the precise number of nuclear weapons Pakistan needed “could not be quantified.” And in a 2010 letter to The Daily Telegraph, Pakistani diplomat Wajid Shamsul Hassan linked his country’s programme to India’s “potential to produce 280 nuclear weapons annually.”

Since the early 1990s, it has been repeatedly shown that the threat of one nuclear bomb hitting one of its cities has proved adequate to deter India: in this sense, it matters little to New Delhi whether Islamabad has a hundred nuclear weapons or a thousand. India decided not to retaliate against Pakistani support for the Kashmir jihad, chose not to cross the Line of Control in 1999, and again held back its forces in 2001-2002.

Asymmetries of power

No other nation, moreover, has reacted to asymmetries of power with an open-ended nuclear pursuit. India is not seeking to grow its nuclear arsenal to outstrip China. Though China is modernising its nuclear delivery systems and technologies, it hasn’t sought to rival the arsenals of the United States or Russia.

So just what is keeping the nuclear greenhouse hot? Essays in the Green Books, collections authored by Pakistani army officers for internal debate, offer some insight into the question. Perhaps the first reference to a nuclear weapon appeared in the 1990 Green Book, when Brigadier Mushtaq Ali Khan argued India was “following a policy of destabilising every country in the region and then moving in as the saviour with its armed forces.” It had succeeded in doing so because “both the superpowers have been silently accepting such ventures.” Therefore, he went on, “an alternate deterrence measure has to be developed.” Put another way, while the immediate military threat might be from India, Pakistan’s larger concern was the world.

From the invasion of Iraq by the United States, anxieties about Islamabad’s relationship with Washington became more explicit. “Russians bending on their knees on the superpower chess board has made the USA the only actor to play its flip [sic throughout] by unfolding a new world order suiting the American interest and Zionists in particular,” wrote Brigadier Sayyed Ifzal Hussain in the 1991 Green Book. “Pakistan’s nuclear policy is a pinching needle for a master of new world order, particularly after dismantling a potential military titan, Iraq.”

{SO the Green book ( very appropriate name for an Islamist bandit nation) from 1991 show a fear of US being masked by proclaimed fear of India!!! I was right in 1998 when I said after the Chagai tests that TSP was now a world problem and not just India's alone.}

Lieutenant Colonel Muhammad Farooq Maan, writing in 1992, expanded on this theme, warning of “a full fledged air, land and sea attack by U.S. using the Indian Ocean and Indian territory as a base in collaboration with Indian forces and coalition forces such as were gathered against Iraq”. “It may,” he went on, “involve the U.S., Israel and India to undertake such an operation.”

{In 1992 the first shibboleth of YYY axis is invoked in the Green Book!}

In the post-9/11 era, these concerns solidified. The West, argued Brigadier Muhammad, believed “a nuclear [and Muslim] Pakistan has to be kept in control, lest it leads the Islamic world towards the formation of a new and powerful economic and military bloc in competition with or antagonistic to the western alliance.” Brigadier Khalid Mahmud Akhtar, also writing in the 2002 Green Book, saw an “American strategy of economic warfare to force Pakistan to abandon her nuclear programme.” Bhutto, clearly, still speaks from his grave: the nuclear greenhouse produces weapons to protect Pakistan from a world hostile to its ideological raison d’etre.

The nuclear greenhouse will cool down only when Pakistan makes peace with its place in the world. Its strategic fears are unlikely to be stilled even by progress on Siachen or Kashmir: no soldier will be moved to give up his gun by shows of benevolence by adversaries he believes have malign aims.

Pakistan’s relationship with India and with the world will be shaped by the struggle now under way to shape the country’s relationship with itself — a contestation that has pitted democrats against an alliance of ultra-nationalists and Islamists with an intensity never seen before.

It is imperative that India continue to do what it can to secure progress in its relationship with Pakistan. It is just as important, though, to remain aware that détente, until this epic struggle is settled, will stand on a firmament more closely resembling quicksand than bedrock.

[email protected]

Actually the struggle in TSP will resolve when the jihadis take over very clearly and not be masked under the facade of the RAPE who provide a soft face for jihad.
The jihadis will take over when they are confident or they are spooked by anything that US does.

[pentaiah]

{SO the Green book ( very appropriate name for an Islamist bandit nation) from 1991 show a fear of US being masked by proclaimed fear of India!!! I was right in 1998 when I said after the Chagai tests that TSP was now a world problem and not just India's alone.}

..........
Lieutenant Colonel Muhammad Farooq Maan, writing in 1992, expanded on this theme, warning of “a full fledged air, land and sea attack by U.S. using the Indian Ocean and Indian territory as a base in collaboration with Indian forces and coalition forces such as were gathered against Iraq”. “It may,” he went on, “involve the U.S., Israel and India to undertake such an operation.”

{In 1992 the first shibboleth of YYY axis is invoked in the Green Book!}

Hope Devesh ji reads
Dang again the optimist in me shows up

I have to remember

Curb your Enthusiasm of learning and educating one and all......

[Rudradev]

Interesting thoughts Rudradev and let me post a few comments on selected portions

There will be a certain end state reached by each side of the conflict, that each side must subsequently recover from.
<snip>
In the above-described exchange, China clearly has a far better chance of recovering in a shorter time than India does. Recovery to status quo ante bellum may take a very long time

This is an accurate interpretation of what I had in my mind when I suggested that scenario.

What you have done in writing the words I have quoted is to conceive of life after failure of deterrence. That is, China has failed to deter India and India has failed to deter China and they have both done their darndest and after that there is some life left and that after-life would be better for China because China is capable of inflicting far more damage on India than India on China.

So what you are talking about is life after failure of deterrence, and not deterrence per se. But this is a valid thought process IMO but I must point out that there is a difference. Nuclear Deterrence is the possibility of avoiding getting hit by the other guy's nukes. It gives no guarantee that there will be no conventional warfare. The minute the other guy's nukes hit you, your deterrence has failed.

So if China nukes India, India's deterrence has failed

And if India nukes China in retaliation, China's deterrent has failed.

Shiv,

No argument there. The corollary of what you describe is that "deterrence" itself is a side-effect, a meta-consequence of arming for nuclear war. In the final analysis there is only a given probability of war, and the probability that when one side uses nuclear weapons, it becomes a nuclear war. The fact of one or both sides of a conflict having the capacity to deploy nuclear weapons, confers (as ONE of its effects) a certain additional probability that military confrontation will be avoided or curtailed for fear of nuclear devastation if it escalates too steeply. Deterrence is nothing but a name for this additional probability effect.

Deterrence is not an "end" in itself, and we mustn't allow the prevalent rhetoric to convince us that it really is one. Nuclear weapons are developed so as to be able to cause pain of a certain order of magnitude to the enemy. Governments, politicians and diplomats like to use the politically correct term "deterrent" for this capacity, because it sounds a lot more polite than "major body count extractor"... just as "friendly fire" is used in place of "shooting one's own soldiers in the back."

The question of life after nuclear war and the idea of whether my life is going to recover faster and better than the other party's life is fundamentally an acknowledgement that my own nuclear deterrent may fail - that is, my nuclear deterrent did not deter. Of what use are China's 500 odd megaton size nuclear warheads as a deterrent, or for that matter any size of deterrent if that deterrence is going to fail and one must prepare for life after failure of deterrence.

Given that deterrence is only one probabilistic effect connecting the two probabilities of life before nuclear exchange and life after nuclear exchange, no one should construe it as a guarantee of any kind. Forget nuclear weapons for a moment. In a tribe of cavemen, consider the one caveman who gets his hands on the biggest available mammoth-femur to use as a club. That confers some "deterrence" but no guarantee that the caveman has nothing to fear from his fellows. They can still cut his throat while he is sleeping, or sneak up on him from behind, or any of a number of things. In the end it is the cause of conflict and the effect of conflict that are immensely more important, and the "deterrent" femur is important only to the extent that it influences either of those states. If somebody attacks the caveman and kills him despite his femur-club, the last thing he will be worried about in his dying moments is that his "deterrent" failed. That is of no more consequence than a pathologist's report of what precise type of injury was the cause of his death.

This does not, however, negate the fact that another caveman deciding whether or not to challenge the first caveman in a hand-to-hand fight, would have to factor in the size of the femur-club in the first caveman's hand. The size of that club might change the mind of a potential attacker in a given instance. It is only to that extent that it has value as a "deterrent." This is a certain finite value, potentially a measurable value that is directly determined by how big, mean and sharp-edged the club is.

Now that doesn't mean that a caveman shouldn't try to get his hands on the biggest, meanest available mammoth-femur for use as a club, thinking "oh, this may not be that big a femur but it can still hurt someone." It does, however, mean that the "deterrent" value of his club isn't enough to serve as a sole guarantor of safety.

Having the biggest possible deterrent is then an absolutely necessary condition, but by no means a sufficient condition to achieve permanent security and peace of mind.

In fact once deterrence fails, the life of your nation is independent of the numbers and megatonnage of your own nuclear weapons but wholly dependent on the size of the other person's nuclear arsenal. If the other guys weapons are puny, your nations will suffer less and if the other guys arsenal is huge, your nation will suffer more. Suffering and pain is guaranteed either way, and even if you have 5000 weapons of 1 megaton each and are ready to turn the other party into a glass parking lot the amount of damage you receive depends on the other guy's capability.

Yes, of course. That is the nature of any purely offensive weapon. No sword ever served as a suit of armour, and no gun ever made its owner bullet-proof. Still, a sharper sword or a bigger gun means you have a stronger capacity to inflict damage. A blow from his smaller sword, while still harmful, might only cause a relatively superficial wound that you may eventually recover from. A blow from your sword, however, could cut off his head or a limb at one stroke. The argument that it is better to have a sharper/bigger sword holds true, regardless of the purely "deterrent" value of having such a sword.

If you feel that the other guy's capability is weak and that the other guy has only 50 bombs of 10 kilotons then you may feel that you are ready to take that much damage. But if you look at the other guys arsenal and find that it is 500 bombs of 1 megaton you may tell yourself "Hey I would be willing to take 50 bombs of 10 kilotons but not 500 bombs of 1 megaton each"

Absolutely. I don't know about specific numbers but I am sure the guys who plan nuclear warfare contingencies make these sorts of cold calculations all the time. Mao for a long time felt that America could be challenged and confronted militarily because even the loss of 50 million Chinese citizens to American nukes would still leave him with a larger population than most countries. He had already begun to think about recovery after an American nuclear attack in 1951, and decided the risk was worth it to intervene in Korea. Had he not thought like that, he might never have challenged America in the Korean war. America's nuclear arsenal was thus useless as a "deterrent" against Chinese aggression in Korea; but, had the Americans actually decided to use nukes in Korea, they would still have been plenty useful in terms of inflicting damage on the PLA!

Similarly in 1971, an India without nukes went on decimating the TSPA in Bangladesh even as a US carrier battle group with nukes was menacing us in the Bay of Bengal. How many megatons of nukes was the Enterprise carrying, and what damage could they have done if they fell on Kolkata or Bhubhaneshwar or Madras? Definitely somebody somewhere in IG's cabinet was deputed to figure those things out, alongside other experts in political diplomacy who were assigned to figure out if Nixon was bluffing. The sum total of factoring in all those equations came out to a negligible probability of India being harmed by the US before Dacca fell. It was guesswork of course, but it turned out to be the correct guess. The rest is history.

I believe that what you are suggesting is that India is looking at China and saying "Hey we are not ready to take 500 bombs of 1 megaton each" but you believe that China is looking at India and thinking "Hey we are ready to take India's puny 50 bombs of 10 kilotons, so let us provoke India". I believe that what you are suggesting is that China is not afraid of India's puny arsenal and should be made afraid so that they should say "Hey we were not scared of India's puny 50x10kt warheads, but now we are scared of India's 1000 one megaton warheads and we will stop provoking India in future". I do not find this an argument that reduces my fears in any way. I cannot see how an increase in my arsenal will reduce the pain I feel if I my country gets nuked by China.

Here is where I must beg to differ with you. I do not know for sure what the Chinese are thinking. I cannot know for sure what the Chinese are thinking.

My fear is not a factor here; I may be afraid of even one Chinese nuke, or I may say "ok, we can still come back after losing P,Q,R,S cities and T lakh people, and the risk of that is worth retaining the option to exercise X,Y,Z conventional countermeasures in the event of Chinese aggression in Arunachal/J&K." But that is irrelevant. In terms of developing my nuclear arsenal, I only want the Chinese to be as scared as I can make them, of what will happen if they send even one nuke. Therefore, I can only do everything in my power to maximize the probability that they will be scared. There is no way to do this other than by building enough nukes of enough yield to achieve a certain probability of inflicting a specific measurable quantum of damage against China.

As an armchair strategist I cannot calculate what that quantum of damage is, or how many nukes we will need to achieve it; but again, people with the expertise would be able to figure it out. What effect would X hits of Y kilotons have on China's industrial capacity? Economic capacity? Population resources? Natural resources? Financial institutions? Political stability? Infrastructure? Agriculture? Etc. Etc. In the absence of telepathy, it definitely involves some amount of guesswork to take the next step, i.e. to relate a specific quantum of nuclear warhead damage to a state that Beijing would consider impossible to recover from while maintaining political and/or territorial integrity. However, I'm sure there are people in India qualified to make very well educated guesses in that regard.

So our disagreement boils down to this. You appear to be saying that, even given the size and yield of our current nuclear arsenal, our experts have already determined that the capacity to inflict a threshold quantum of damage needed to scare the Chinese has been exceeded... hence, testing or developing bigger-yield nukes is not necessary. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but that appears to be the thrust of your argument.)

I am saying, I wish I could believe that. But I do not have faith in the government institutions that tell me (and in fact, do not even do a very clear job of telling me) that. What has shaken my faith in those institutions? Well, (1) the widely disparate nature of 1998 yield estimates made public by various government people, from Chidambaram ("S1 was 45 kT") to K. Subrahmanyan ("we have 80 kT") to K. Santhanam/ B. Karnad ("no more than 20 kT pure fission is assured".) And (2) the abject paucity of data...an essential part of arriving at any conclusions...which is a direct consequence of having ever done only one test. I'm enough of a scientist to be extremely skeptical of any conclusions when the data is so absurdly limited and the observations reported are so vastly diverse.

Given the general level of confidence in all spheres of governance, policymaking and security affairs that our current GOI inspires, I'm afraid I need more tests in order to feel confident in our nuclear arsenal's capacity to deliver the optimal quantum of damage to China.

We are already scared of China's nukes and Pakistans nukes. This question is only about what would scare them. We cannot stop being scared. Chinese and Pakistani nukes are not going to vanish if we get a bigger arsenal. So how would our fears become less if we get a bigger arsenal? Our fears remain exactly the same whether we have nukes or not. We can only hope that China and Pakistan are scared by us. What scares them is pure guesswork. How do you guess what scares them? You have already guessed that what we have does not scare them. At what stage in the development of our arsenal will they start getting scared and how would you assess that?

Of course we are not going to stop being scared to one extent or the other. Of course, China and Pakistan will not vanish by the fact of our getting a thousand 1 MT nukes. A deterrent, as I said, doesn't guarantee any of those things any more than the size of the mammoth-femur in hand guaranteed a caveman's security in all contingencies.

On the question of "pure guesswork", however, I disagree with you. There are people in New Delhi whom I believe are equipped to make very well-educated guesses about this. They have seen and measured the 1998 test in person, and are privy to the specifics of any new weapon designs developed since that time. They have inputs available regarding everything from the state of China's finances to the fate of current crop harvests in particular provinces to the magnitude and extent of internal dissent against the CPC at any given time. I would trust a consensus estimate made by these experts to the effect that our ability to inflict a certain quantum of damage could most likely cripple PRC beyond hope of recovery under its present national structure and political dispensation. Anything beyond that, I as a private citizen have to take on faith... just as I take on faith that our army is capable of defeating Pakistan in a conventional contest, or that our political leaders aren't pulling out of Siachen and handing over J&K to Pakistan tomorrow.

What bothers me is that those strategic analysts, appointed by our government to evaluate all available inputs and come up with the best guesses, as well as different scientists who were directly and personally involved with our bomb program, are openly contradicting each other about the damage-inducing capacity of our nuclear arsenal. They do not seem to have any consensus. They disagree publicly, and what is worse, they will not do the one thing that could eliminate any doubt and help to achieve a consensus... conduct more tests.

I may still be wrong. We could conduct more tests, prove 1 MT or 2 MT yields, prove MIRV capacity, and the Chinese could STILL keep trying to encroach on Tawang or deploy PLA troops along the LOC. But then, at least we will know that we've done everything in our power to maximize PRC's fears on the strategic weapons front, and this will give us some amount of valuable insight towards evaluating our other options.

[abhik]

I saw a news story that Hurricane sandy will cost the US 50 billion. is that correct? Only about a 100 dead. No major buildings gone. A few hours/days without electricity. The entire nation ready to help.

What if a 15 kiloton nuke explodes over Manhattan? What would be the cost?

Losing one city temporarily to a hurricane causes some upset. Losing 25 cities with 50 to 100,000 dead in each , and 100,000 injured should feel different no? For anyone, not just USA. I think the reason why deterrence held between the USSR and the US was an appreciation of how costly nuclear war is.

I just wonder how a government can actually run a country faced with such devastation. News that the nation that conducted these attacks has been destroyed is hardly likely to cause much cheer.

Sorry for the late reply, You seem to be rather sure that any country or it citizens will to fight will collapse or they will simply give up. That too in the face of an invasion. I think instead of looking at the recent post hurricane scenario in the US one could study what happened during the German invasion of the USSR. The latter country citizens and soldiers in the millions(albeit over the course of months) yet they continued fighting and eventually did turn the tide. Now you may say that the communist government didn't give a fig about their people but I doubt a democracy would have done things much differently.

[shiv]

Cross post

Pak race for tactical nukes adds new poison to the mix

US experts are deeply concerned about the development because when pushed to its logical conclusion, such weapons make sense only when distributed near the borders for quick and early use. That, by definition, is destabilising because the decision to use them would theoretically rest with officers lower down the hierarchy. Political inputs – such as they are in Pakistan – could be lost or ignored by a local commander in the confusion of war.

The fear of theft might also increase as small nuclear weapons are distributed around the battlefield and so would the possibility of loss of command and control. No surprise that US officials are worried – their once most favored nation-state has added a new poison into the mix.

The risk of nuclear weapons falling into Pakistani jihadi is now higher. Reuters

Why are US officials concerned? Pakistan is a Most Favored non NATO ally. Why does the US feel threatened? India is not bothered. Why is the US bothered?

The Pakistan army probably calculates that launching a small nuke to decimate an Indian attack will make the Indian politicians chicken out from retaliation because their own asses have not been harmed and only some Indian soldiers killed.

I am certain that the Pakistan military calculates that if India invades, they can blunt the invasion using tactical nukes - perhaps even on Pakistani soil and that Indian political leaders will not have the guts to carry out retaliatory nuclear strikes on Pakistan and international pressure will stop India from retaliating, allowing the Pakistani army to get away with using nukes against Indian forces.

[shiv]

Sorry for the late reply, You seem to be rather sure that any country or it citizens will to fight will collapse or they will simply give up. That too in the face of an invasion. I think instead of looking at the recent post hurricane scenario in the US one could study what happened during the German invasion of the USSR. The latter country citizens and soldiers in the millions(albeit over the course of months) yet they continued fighting and eventually did turn the tide. Now you may say that the communist government didn't give a fig about their people but I doubt a democracy would have done things much differently.

My question was:

I just wonder how a government can actually run a country faced with such devastation. News that the nation that conducted these attacks has been destroyed is hardly likely to cause much cheer.

In every case in history the war was at the border and industrial centers away from the front would have their patriotism turned on in full. But if 15 or 20 cities all over the country are rendered ineffective because life is disrupted by 100,000 dead and 200,000 wounded, the citizens of each city will have to be made to ignore their own city's plight and contribute to a war effort hundreds or thousands of km away.

How will a government do that? Appeals and TV broadcasts that an enemy needs to be fought will not help much. The city will need relief in the form of housing, water, disposal of the dead, medicines and shelter. Or else another 100,000 will die. A war effort at some border 1000 km away cannot continue if 15-20 cities are damaged to this extent and need relief.

How many people died in New York after Sandy? 100? How many building destroyed?

[Pratyush]

^^^

My response to the piece at FP.

The author of the article needs to understand the Indian nuke doctrine, and the clarifications issued from time to time.

She will then understand that, once the nuke threshold is crossed, their is no going back. It is in Pakistan's interests to lower the threshold, of nuke usage.

At the same time it is in India's interests to keep the thresh hold high. That can only be done by enunciating the Indian nuke doctrine, every time the Pakistanis, shout about the TNWs they posses.

[ShauryaT]

A viewpoint by Nitin Pai. A little dated, apologies if posted earlier.

Secure under the New Himalayas

We can see nuclear weapons as the New Himalayas that keep us secure. As long as they are high—that’s where the minimum credible deterrent comes in—it is inconceivable that China or any other power will see merit in mounting a direct military invasion. Of course, we will continue to see skirmishes, proxy wars, terrorist attacks and geopolitical chess games under the nuclear umbrella, but a large scale war is very unlikely. For a nation with a strategic culture of being oblivious to external threats until they reach the plains of Panipat, if not the very walls of Delhi, acquiring security through the New Himalayas was perhaps the ideal way.

[ShauryaT]

Impact of Pakistan's TNWs - P K Chakravorty

Pakistani rationale

The obvious question was why did Pakistan test the NASR. The Pakistani establishment has provided its rationale which does not appear coherent. The first is the acquisition of miniaturisation technology. This technology would assist Pakistan in miniaturising their Cruise Missiles Babur and Raad for

submarine launches thereby moving on to second strike capability. The second is the TNW being a counter to India’s limited war doctrine. The adoption of a doctrine which envisages rapid attacks by India’s mechanised spearheads resulting in capture of sensitive shallow objectives would be effectively deterred by NASR. Pakistan proposes to use the TNW on Indian territory possibly at the areas of commencement of operations of Indian forces. This appears to be difficult as it entails usage of nuclear weapons prior to engagement by conventional forces....

Logical Application

The Pakistani views expressed above are emotional and lack logical application. There are two issues which emerge on the application of NASR, targeting Indian mechanised spear heads attacking Pakistan. At the strategic level it is using a nuclear weapon and as Air Chief Marshal (Retired) P V Naik has stated “Tactical or Strategic, it is a nuclear weapon. Our response would be absolutely violent, if it is used as per our existing policy. Accordingly it is not a game changer.” The second aspect to be considered is the modus operandi by which Pakistan can dissuade our forces from under taking proactive operations....

Implications

The introduction of NASR has certainly added a new dimension to the usage of nuclear weapons by Pakistan. In a way Pakistan is possibly imitating the NATO route during the Cold War. The concept was to use TNWs from the commencement of operations to block the Warsaw Pact offensive. The thought process had to be changed as it was prudent to reply with nuclear weapons instead of TNWs as they did not prevent escalation and it led to use of more destructive weapons as a matter of course. Similarly use of Nasr would lead to punitive retaliation which would be detrimental to Pakistani interests. It would be naive to presume that there would be no retaliation to usage of TNW.

The response of India to the usage of NASR should be clear to all authorities. In consonance with our stated policy of ‘No First Use’ usage of NASR should be treated as use of a nuclear weapon and suitable response undertaken. As regards our land strike elements, they should be prepared for a TNW attack and be trained in undertaking protective measures while undertaking offensive operations.

The auhtor, a retired Major General is presently an Advisor to BrahMos Aerospace

[member_22872]

The first is the acquisition of miniaturisation technology

I remember many gurus discussing if Pakis have this tech, Some thought they dont have the wherewithal to miniaturize as Americans themselves took lot of time to perfect this. can any one please enlighten me how did Pakis acquire this tech? Is it the Chinese?

[shiv]

The first is the acquisition of miniaturisation technology

I remember many gurus discussing if Pakis have this tech, Some thought they dont have the wherewithal to miniaturize as Americans themselves took lot of time to perfect this. can any one please enlighten me how did Pakis acquire this tech? Is it the Chinese?

Very simple. They may not have achieved it. The tech is not easy. We simply have to believe them and assume they have achieved it, for our own good and prepare to nuke them.

[pentaiah]

There is nothing TS Pakistan can not do which China has done


( this applies only in Nuke devices, also the rapid build up Pu by TSP and the number of devices they have stockpiled indicates the arsenal is small yield devices a) to tackle the large size of India's land mass b). They are usable because of smaller yield c) they can be easily supplied to third countries for multiple vehicle delivery


http://www.thenews.com.pk/NewsDetail.as ... ar-devices

[SSridhar]

The first is the acquisition of miniaturisation technology

I remember many gurus discussing if Pakis have this tech, Some thought they dont have the wherewithal to miniaturize as Americans themselves took lot of time to perfect this. can any one please enlighten me how did Pakis acquire this tech? Is it the Chinese?

Miniaturization, MIRV, TNW, Megaton, SSBN, Stealth, BMD, ASAT, Spysat are either already with TSP or are certainly in the pipeline from the Chinese. India's efforts to neutralize this evil axis includes normalizing relationship with TSP. The US and India seem to agree on this evil and also on the approach.

[shiv]

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/NEWS/news ... wsid=19750
Cold War lessons for India and Pakistan

The Indian participant argued that the dearth of trust between India and Pakistan was so gaping that it was impossible for India to reveal how many nuclear weapons it has, where they are sited or to accept what Pakistan tells it about its nuclear weapons.

The scholar was clearly irked by demands for India to agree to greater transparency. He said it was “puzzling” that such proposals should come from Moscow and urged Russian experts to have “a reality check”.

<snip>

A leading Russian strategic analyst called on India and Pakistan to negotiate a treaty to slash their arsenals of short and medium-range missiles. Such a treaty could be modelled on the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty between the Soviet Union and the United States, which led to the elimination of all of their nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 km.

In the case of India and Pakistan, an INF pact could cap the number of missiles at 100 to 150, according to the Russian expert. The proposed cuts would not affect India’s deterrent against China — air and sea-based nuclear arms, as well as long-range missiles.

The more time I spend reading and sharing thoughts about national and international issues, the more I feel that a lot of "experts" are less than half baked and barely literate in terms of the background information they need to have.

[SSridhar]

From the above, Cold War Lessons for India and Pakistan

It was further argued that despite the centrality of China to India’s nuclear strategy it is unrealistic to expect Beijing to negotiate with New Delhi, because China’s nuclear forces are primarily aimed at countering the threat from the U.S.

At the same time, the so-called Russian expert has no qualms in advising India to negotiate with Pakistan. While one concedes that China has not explicitly nuclear-blackmailed India as Pakistan does, the continuous transfer of weapons, technology, missiles, and other support systems along with diplomatic support for Pakistan's terrorism against India, apart from its own meddling in the affairs of the North-Eastern states require India to be prepared for a two-front war with China & Pakistan. For a long time now, China has located nuclear-capable missiles in Tibet and have even recently started upgrading them. The liquid-fuelled CSS-2 (DongFeng 3) missiles along the LAC are being replaced with solid-fuelled Medium Range Ballistic Missile CSS-5 (DongFeng 21) with 250 kT nuclear warheads. The Chinese, while not denying the development, simply said that it was “normal for the Army to develop and renew weapons and equipment given the progress of science and technology”. In c. 2011, India discovered multiple missile silos at Xiadulla across the Karakoram Pass in China's Xinjiang region. After China tested its 14000-km MIRVed DF-41 in late August 2012, the English-language channel of CCTV (China Central Television) said, “ICBM’s range gave China a formidable first-strike capability.”

There are various other reasons as well for India to be very weary of a nuclear China, including its hostility and assertiveness. India's nuclear strategy will therefore evolve taking into account both China & Pakistan as one entity.

[pentaiah]

PRC and Uncle don't have to anything except keep TSP fully furnished to take on India
So why would PRC nuke black mail India
Any way PRC stuff is all photoshopped copied uses less junk to be worried no?

[ShauryaT]

Pakistan’s flirtations with Tactical Nuclear Weapons - ADITI MALHOTRA

[ShauryaT]

This comment by a Pakistani was on the CLAWS site to Gurmeet Kanwal's article on Nasr. My comments on the same.

Zahir Kazmi
28 October 2012

It is widely believed that Pakistan has developed Nasr to deter India from operationalizing the CSD.

If TSP actually has swallowed the CSD when India herself is not clear on what is the purpose of CSD beyond rapid mobilization (there has never been an official articulation of the doctrine – which has to stem from political objectives, which have never been clear) is something to ponder on what other BS is TSP willing to swallow. The truth of the matter is Pakistan fears ANY Indian conventional attack and hence resorts to these childish antics of threatening nuclear escalation to any conventional assault.

The provocative doctrine would ostensibly telescope India’s military mobilization time to launch shallow and swift attacks in Pakistan’s territory and punish it before the nuclear weapons come into play.

It is understandably in TSP’s self interest to keep its red lines uncertain and unclear. However, it will be the greatest folly on TSP’s part and cowardice from India’s part to presume that space for ANY conventional operations has ceased to exist due to TSP’s fear mongering.

With its short-range and nuclear capability, Nasr signals that every inch of Pakistan’s territory is sacrosanct and its people would not stand even a minor Indian ingress.

I am sorry but almost feel like puking at the above statement. Pakistan territory sacrosanct and its people would not stand Indian ingress are words from a third grade hollywood movie. Nasr signals only one thing. TSP’s complete fear and inability to meet Indian conventional power. It signals TSP’s paranoia and inability to think clearly and a hope that Indian political masters would be deterred.

Nasr has shifted onus of maintaining stability in India’s court.

The above takes some gall or stupidity of the highest order after ALL the perfidies of the Pakistani state. The word stability and Pakistan do not go together, either east or west of their borders. Statements like the above are nothing but blinkered and unrealistic flabbergasts.

Third, Indian Prahaar missile is not nuclear-capable and India has opted not to go down the so-called TNWs route.

India has NOT shut down conventional options and needs short range missiles like Prahaar and cruise missile assets exclusively for conventional operations. It is a clear marker and consistent with Indian NFU policy, that the nuclear equation shall come into play, only and only if India or its forces are faced with a WMD. There is even some suggestion that the old liquid fueled Prithvi based missiles be removed from active service and its warheads defused so that short range missiles are completely out of the mix, but this step would need Pakistanis to do likewise. Unlike TSP, India has no need to be tactically stupid by bringing in nuclear assets into the mix in the conventional realm. Indian policy, force structure and doctrine are consistent in this regard and hence Prahaar shall be conventional armed only.

it would be incorrect to use TNW for Prahaar or Nasr as their use will have strategic results. Pak-India border is populated and would become the battlefields at the outset. Hence, the Western counter-force and counter-value targeting terms do not hold in the Subcontinent’s scenario because even low yields like 0.05 to 0.5 kilotons would affect the forces, civilian population and industries close to borders.

About the only point in the article I agree with. Western concepts of counter-force and counter-value and concepts of strategic and tactical are of little value in the indo-pak nuclear context. However, what is of value is to clearly lay out the nuclear assets and doctrine of nuclear use consistent with each parties goals and objectives.

If both adversaries possess the short-range delivery means, they would be deterred from escalating a crisis to even contemplate a limited war.

A serious fallacy in how rational minds of decision makers ought to work. Will it be OK, for India to say, if there is a single terrorist attack in India trace to elements in Pakistan then expect India to send in 100 thermo nuclear missiles to destroy the state of Pakistan. Justifying that ALL Indian lives and property are sacred and any harm to them will be met with the utmost force disposable by the state? Hope you see the fallacy of your arguments.

First and foremost – self preservation is the ultimate objective of any state. Towards this the question in the indo-pak context is a serious one. Even a full scale war with 10’s of 1000’s of casualties ought to be acceptable to both sides and ample room ought to exist. Nuclear war gets into the game only and only if both sides are willing to accept and scale this to millions of deaths. There is only one and only one reason for these weapons to exist, it is to save its own peoples from mass annihilation.

Even in the case, where the Indian army sits in Rawalpindi itself, the case for mass annihilation does not exist. The only justification that Pakistan has for use of these weapons is to save the state and thereby save the only entity that wields that state and it is the Pakistan army. IOW: Pakistan would be using nuclear weapons not to defend its peoples existence or even their rights, it will be playing with nuclear war so that the prestige of the Pakistan army is saved. If it comes to such a decision, what a great fallacy and disaster and for what – it shall be for the people of the region. Better to take the leadership of the PA out using a few well targeted Brahmos and let the PA escalate if it has the strength – they do not and it has been proved again and again since 1965.

This technological spinoff from developing Nasr would save Pakistan from nuclear blackmailing.

I have not seem more BS like this.

Naturally, Pakistan’s adversary would portray such technological leap as a gaffe.

TSP does not have a single WgPu weapon tested, let alone a miniaturized one.

India initiated the nuclear game in South Asia

TSP weaponized first is a recoreded fact. RG decision followed brass tacks in 87-88.

shunned Pakistan’s repeated proposals of no war pact, nuclear weapons free zone and strategic restraint regime in South Asia, but it seems to be developing cold feet from Pakistan’s responses.
Although Pakistani initiatives have been overtaken by time, there is always hope. If India quits intransigence to genuine peace efforts, offers credible evidence of revoking dangerous doctrines, resolves the thorny issues, ends unabated militarization, Pakistan should be willing to respond. Until then, who knows, if more may come from Pakistan in terms of variety of delivery means at the pace the Pakistani strategic planners are moving! The choice of making peace rests with India; Pakistan was only a reluctant entrant in the nuclear club. In the meanwhile, it seems to have been a short distance from Cold Start to Cold Feet.

OK. Not worth responding to rhetoric.

[pentaiah]

The Comparator for BMD/AAD

These numbers are of course particularly interesting when compared with the number of warheads that were dedicated to defeating the Moscow ABM. In their Protection Paradox paper Hans Kristensen, Matthew McKinzie, and Stan Norris estimated that in 1968 the U.S. war plan assigned 66 warheads to suppression of the A-35 system - that was, by the way, more than ten years before the system became operational. They also estimated that in 1989 the United States allocated about 200 warheads to defeat the Moscow ABM. And, of course, the United Kingdom and France argued that they needed hundreds of warheads and sophisticated decoys if their ballistic missiles are to penetrate the defense around Moscow.

Indian AAD

NEW DELHI: There were some big fireworks over the Bay of Bengal on Friday afternoon when India tested its experimental ballistic missile defence (BMD) system to intercept two "incoming hostile" missiles with interceptor missiles.

Elated with the "bang-on accurate" test, the seventh time the BMD system has been tested successfully over the last six years, the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) promptly declared a missile shield could be deployed for New Delhi by 2014.

"We are now ready to convert the BMD system from an experimental to an operational one that can be deployed on demand. I am confident we can deploy the Phase-I of the BMD system by 2014," said DRDO chief V K Saraswat, speaking to TOI from the Wheeler Island test range off Odisha coast.

But the reality check is that even American missile defence systems like Patriot Advanced Capability-3, Aegis BMD-3 and THAAD (terminal high-altitude area defence), as also Russian and Israeli ones, are not fully foolproof as of now.

In Friday's test, only one of the incoming missiles was real: a modified Prithvi missile mimicking M-9/M-11 class of Chinese Dong Feng short-range ballistic missiles. The other was an electronically simulated missile of a longer range of 1,500km.

TSP A failed state Ramping up Pu and a Global threat

Still, it is unclear how Pakistan is financing the new weapons production, at a time of extraordinary financial stress in the country. “What does Pakistan need with that many nuclear weapons, especially given the state of the country’s economy?” said one foreign official who is familiar with the country’s plans, but agreed to discuss the classified program if granted anonymity.
“The country already has more than enough weapons for an effective deterrent against India,” the official said. “This is just for the generals to say they have more than India.”

.................................
we’re facing a significant threat to global security in a Pakistani nation who has developed an out of control nuclear weapons arsenal while we sat by and did nothing….and its going to be completely our fault. Thanks, Mr. President.
This is appeasement on a grand scale. We have a regular Neville Chamberlain in the White House, and the last time we had one of those, Germany tried to take over the world.

The Audacity of Brinkmanship

Living on US dole, Pakistan builds fourth plutonium reactor
Chidanand Rajghatta, TNN Feb 10, 2011, 01.04pm IST

WASHINGTON: Despite being in the throes of a crippling political and economic crisis and almost entirely dependent on handouts from the United States and multilateral aid, Pakistan is poking a finger in the international community's eye. Days after it was revealed that Islamabad has doubled its nuclear weapons' inventory in the past decade, American experts have discovered that it has begun building a fourth plutonium-producing reactor to produce even more nuclear bombs to add to the 100-plus it already has.

The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) announced on Wednesday that it has obtained commercial satellite imagery from January 15, 2011 that shows what appears to be a fourth reactor under construction at Pakistan's Khushab nuclear site. The reactor construction was not visible during a previous satellite pictures last November.


"Pakistan is determined to produce considerably more plutonium for nuclear weapons," ISIS said in an outline of the progression of the country's plutonium reactors. While Pakistan's initial nuclear weapons were enriched uranium-based, it expanded to plutonium-based weapons (which are more compact) with the commissioning in 1998 of the first reactor at the Khushab site, which lies southwest of Islamabad. Sometime between 2000 and 2002, Pakistan began constructing a second reactor at the site, and in 2006, it began building a third reactor, adjacent to the second Khushab reactor.

connect the dots to see Why TSP will go beyond Britain in Number of devices from Chota to Mota I feel they will build a stock pile of 700 to 800 devices, just living on US dole imagine if their economy is self sufficient....


So the Nuke Nude theory goes out of Window of N guru 2001
Just like the Two Scorpion theory of kgoan of circa 2001

So after 11 years hence we face a much bigger problem that can't be solved by boosted fission..... and TSp is only Third of our problem not counting Photoshop Dragon

chalo apun tho sadak chap chai wallah not elite

[ShauryaT]

Early alarm bells to watch for.
Nuclear warnings

The concept to contain the Indian nuclear deterrent have recently emanated from Western think tanks. The gambit is a semi-official monograph — Less is Better: Nuclear Restraint at Low Numbers authored by Malcolm Chalmers of Britain’s Royal United Service Institute (Rusi). It calls for formally “capping” the quality and quantity of the Indian and Pakistani nuclear weapons at their 20 kiloton fission levels (validated in the 1998 tests) and their numbers well short of the 200 weapons/warheads mark that, Chalmers claims, will be reached by 2025. The idea is to get the two countries to sign the CTBT even if the US does not ratify it. India and Pakistan are also urged to announce “moratoria” on fissile material production without a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty anywhere on the horizon. It is next suggested that because any missile able to reach Europe poses a danger to it, such missiles need to be pre-empted. This will require India to not field missiles such as the advanced Agni-V, which bring almost all target sets within China and, incidentally, most of western Europe within their range. To follow this advice would require India to leave itself exposed and without a counter for the Chinese intermediate range ballistic missiles. This is necessary, Chalmers argues, because China would be unsettled by India’s Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicle (MIRV) technology that will allow a single missile to carry many warheads which, combined with its ballistic missile defence, will pose a counterforce threat to Beijing, for which reason India is to be persuaded to eschew MIRV technology as well. Finally, the Rusi report declares that India and Pakistan “need to demonstrate” that they are “satisfied” nuclear weapons states, meaning, presumably, that India, at least, is content with its present half-baked deterrent that currently has no missiles with long range, no tested weapons beyond the 20 kiloton fission-type, and no MIRV.

[shiv]

Early alarm bells to watch for.
Nuclear warnings

It is interesting that for many people, alertness and caution are advised only with regard to a China threat and the "peaceful defeat" that the west seeks and attempts even more skilfully than China, such as the above, are ignored as "non threats"

[Lilo]

connect the dots to see Why TSP will go beyond Britain in Number of devices from Chota to Mota I feel they will build a stock pile of 700 to 800 devices, just living on US dole imagine if their economy is self sufficient....


So the Nuke Nude theory goes out of Window of N guru 2001
Just like the Two Scorpion theory of kgoan of circa 2001

So after 11 years hence we face a much bigger problem that can't be solved by boosted fission..... and TSp is only Third of our problem not counting Photoshop Dragon

chalo apun tho sadak chap chai wallah not elite

Pji,
We can also view it the other way ..
That they are "seen" building more warheads and are stockpiling more fissile material so that they could get more US dole.
If that's the case, the nuke nude theory will still remain plausible and unkil is playing along.

[ShauryaT]

Why am I not surprised?
U.S. had plans to nuke the moon

That included talk of having nuclear launch sites on the moon, he said. The thinking, according to Reiffel, was that if the Soviets hit the United States with nuclear weapons first and wiped out the U.S. ability to strike back, the U.S. could launch warheads from the moon.

[Rony]

The Problem From Hell: South Asia’s Arms Race

India has mainly responded to Pakistan’s nuclear buildup not with one of its own, at least not yet anyway, but with strategy innovation, improved intelligence, missiles, and a nuclear triad. Strategy innovation is especially important because it is one of the great drivers of competition, and may transcend the political issues that are the original source of rivalry.

In the first nuclear age innovation – technological and strategic – was a major factor in the arms buildup. The appearance of strategic innovation in South Asia is important, therefore, in a way that goes beyond the particulars of any one innovation. An example of India’s strategy innovation involves new ways of using conventional forces in a nuclear environment. India’s “Cold Start” strategy, for example, calls for prompt mobilization of fast-moving battle groups made up of armor, helicopters, and mechanized forces to thrust into Pakistan as punishment for a Pakistani attack or a terrorist outrage.

Cold Start’s subnuclear option recognizes the nuclear threshold explicitly. The concept behind it is to fight below this threshold, if possible. But Cold Start has a nuclear element, too. Should Pakistan fire nuclear weapons at this Indian force, India can escalate with nuclear strikes of its own.

But the competition is broadening, with India tightening linkages among intelligence, command and control, cyberwar, and strategy innovations like Cold Start. For example, the “front end” of Cold Start is better intelligence to determine exactly what Pakistan has done and the readiness of its conventional and nuclear forces. India has invested heavily in satellites, advanced radars, signals intelligence, and reconnaissance to give its commanders an accurate picture of what Pakistan is up to. The “tight coupling” of these elements, in turn, is linked to a rapid mobilization of India’s army and air force. Any delay in mobilization would undermine the entire strategy of counter-escalation against Pakistan.

India is a much richer country than it was in the past, and much of this wealth comes from technological and business innovation.

India’s military in the past was a gigantic, inefficient, sluggish infantry with bloated headquarters and support staffs. But there are more dynamic possibilities for the future, ones that do not involve across the board modernization of every single element of the Indian armed forces. In fact, India is currently in the process of reallocating its defense capital from “old” programs to “new” ones, including nuclear weapons, missiles, submarines, intelligence, stealth, cyberwar, and satellites. One reason for this shift is that India already has a large edge over Pakistan in the old military programs of tanks, artillery, and aircraft, and investing more capital in these capabilities results in diminishing marginal returns. The greater opportunity for India lies in the new program areas, especially in a nuclear context and with respect to China.

[SaiK]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/201 ... ign-policy

take your time to view the video 1:30ish- especially chippanda view and ashley tellis one.

[ShauryaT]

Nuke dimension to Pakistan policies

George Perkovich, an American non-proliferation analyst, recently noted: “Thus far the people of South Asia have been spared the potential consequences of deterrence instability because Indian leaders have not retaliated violently to terrorist attacks on iconic targets. India’s “neo-Gandhian” forbearance was counter to the prescriptions of deterrence and cannot be expected to persist as new leaders emerge in Delhi”.

While Pakistan has not formally enunciated a nuclear doctrine, the long-time head of the Strategic Planning Division of its Nuclear Command Authority, Lt Gen Khalid Kidwai, told a team of physicists from Italy’s Landau Network in 2002 that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons were “aimed solely at India”.

Kidwai added that Pakistan would use nuclear weapons if India conquers a large part of Pakistan’s territory, or destroys a large part of Pakistan’s land and air forces. Kidwai also held out the possibility of use of nuclear weapons if India tries to “economically strangle” Pakistan, or pushes it to political destabilisation.

[putnanja]

X-posting from foreign policy thread ...

National Interest: Accidentally, in history

From the link above ...

...
THERE was one significant and scary juncture in India’s foreign policy under his charge that he has left unexplained. In fact, the eternal debate is about just how scary that moment was. It was during V.P. Singh’s government in the summer of 1990, when India and Pakistan came close to war over Kashmir. Benazir Bhutto, feeling pressured by her army, was making speeches of the kind that would make Hafiz Saeed look relatively moderate. She was threatening to cut Jagmohan, then governor of Kashmir, into little pieces: jag-jag, mo-mo, han-han, she said making chopping motions from one hand on the other arm at a Muzaffarabad rally. She repeated her late father’s favourite rant of waging a 1,000-year war against India. V.P. Singh responded in Parliament by asking if Pakistan would last 1,000 hours. It’s an aside, but I made a semi-facetious calculation in India Today (in partnership with defence expert Ravi Rikhye) to show how expensive a 1,000-hour (nearly 45-day) war would be, and even if India won decisively, how little it would achieve. But this story really opened up much later.

First, Seymour Hersh claimed (“On the Nuclear Edge”, The New Yorker, March 29, 1993) that Pakistan had indeed threatened to start that war with a nuclear attack against India and that threat had been conveyed to South Block by Bob Gates, then deputy national security advisor, who was the US president’s emissary to the subcontinent. This was immediately denied. But a much more detailed description of those perilous days appeared in a subsequent book (Critical Mass: The Dangerous Race for Superweapons in a Fragmenting World, William E. Burrows and Robert Windrem, Simon & Schuster, 1994). Again, there were denials. But now they sounded thin.

The story, that Gates brought the warning to New Delhi, was never conclusively established. But at one point, many years later, after a great deal of cajoling and pleading, Gujral admitted to having had a curious conversation with his Pakistani counterpart Sahibzada Yakub Khan. Sahibzada had come to India ostensibly to defuse tensions. But he said, as they walked down the South Block corridor, “Gujral sahib, this will not be like any of the decent, clean wars we have fought in the past. Your rivers, mountains, cities, will all be on fire, a fire of the kind you cannot imagine, and on the first day itself.” Gujral admitted he was taken aback. But he said he gathered his wits and replied: “Aisi baatein na karein toh achcha hai, Yakub sahib... kyunki humne bhi unheen daryaon ka paani piya hai jinka aapne...” The closest translation would be, keep these threats to yourself, because you will be paid back in kind.

I did persist with researching this over the years. That the Pakistanis threatened to begin the war with a nuclear attack is a fact. It is, truly, the first example of a nuclear blackmail. Did it work? That question is not fully answered yet. The one key witness who was most directly in the picture, Air Chief Marshal S.K. “Polly” Mehra, was the most forthcoming. He confirmed the threat and recounted how he was called by V.P. Singh and nervously asked, in front of Gujral, if he could prevent a Pakistani plane from delivering that “bomb”. Mehra said no air force could guarantee that. He could reasonably make sure, though, that the intruder wouldn’t go back. But, if such a thing happened, we need to retaliate, he said, and then asked an important question: “If the IAF has to deliver something in retaliation, can we at least see what it looks like? We can then figure out on which platform to put it, and how to deliver it. What are its aerodynamics, and so on.” Mehra said while this conversation was on, he saw Gujral in some sort of a panic, almost sprinting in and out of the room carrying fresh sheets of paper, obviously cables of some kind, and showing them to V.P. Singh. This much I was able to confirm with V.P. Singh himself, on the record. The implicit, and shocking story is, that if India did have a credible, deliverable deterrent then, its armed forces had not even seen it. More likely, India did not. We can say with certainty that this is when India finally dropped all notions of nuclear ambiguity and embarked on full-fledged weaponisation. Whether the Pakistani nuclear blackmail then worked, whether it intimidated V.P. Singh’s truly weak government, and if so, into what, is what we do not yet know. It is one of the most important questions Gujral has left unanswered.

...

[Johann]

connect the dots to see Why TSP will go beyond Britain in Number of devices from Chota to Mota I feel they will build a stock pile of 700 to 800 devices, just living on US dole imagine if their economy is self sufficient....


So the Nuke Nude theory goes out of Window of N guru 2001
Just like the Two Scorpion theory of kgoan of circa 2001

So after 11 years hence we face a much bigger problem that can't be solved by boosted fission..... and TSp is only Third of our problem not counting Photoshop Dragon

chalo apun tho sadak chap chai wallah not elite

Pji,
We can also view it the other way ..
That they are "seen" building more warheads and are stockpiling more fissile material so that they could get more US dole.
If that's the case, the nuke nude theory will still remain plausible and unkil is playing along.

What the Pakistanis are terrified of is that the US either on its own, or in cooperation with India will one day attempt to forcibly de-nuclearise it through a series of non-nuclear counter-force strikes. They know the US has those contingency plans. They want an arsenal big enough that ensures the Americans can never be sure they could get them all. The combination of US aid and US threats to Pakistan is particularly destabilising.

[SSridhar]

X-post from TSP Thread
Dealing with Pakistan's brinkmanship - Shyam Saran, The Hindu

During the past decade, there have been notable shifts in Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine, away from minimum deterrence to second strike capability and towards expanding its nuclear weapons arsenal to include both strategic and tactical weapons. Islamabad has described these developments as “consolidating Pakistan’s deterrence capability at all levels of the threat spectrum.” These shifts are apparent from the following developments:

(1) There is a deliberate shift from the earlier generation of enriched uranium nuclear weapons to a newer generation of plutonium weapons.

(2) This shift has enabled Pakistan to significantly increase the number of weapons, which now appears to have overtaken India’s nuclear weapon inventory and, in a decade, may well surpass those held by Britain and France.

(3) Progress has been made in the miniaturisation of weapons, enabling their use with cruise missiles, both air and surface-based (Ra’ad or Hatf VIII and Babur or Hatf-VII respectively) as also with a new generation of short range and tactical missiles (Abdali or Hatf II with a range of 180 km and Nasr or Hatf-IX with a range of 60 km).

(4) Pakistan has steadily improved the range and accuracy of its delivery vehicles {except Hatf-5 perhaps}, building upon the earlier Chinese models (the Hatf series) and the later North Korean models (the No-dong series). The newer missiles, including the Nasr, are solid-fuelled, which are quicker to launch than the older liquid-fuelled versions.

Not under safeguards

This rapid development of its nuclear weapon arsenal has been enabled by the setting up of two plutonium production reactors at Khusab with a third and fourth under construction. These have been built with Chinese assistance{It is my understanding that though the French did not supply a re-processing plant in the 70s, some significant ToT had already taken place before the contract was terminated} and are not under safeguards. The spent fuel from these reactors is reprocessed at the Rawalpindi New Labs facility, where there are reportedly two plants each with a capacity to reprocess 10 to 20 tonnes annually.

Olli Heinonen, a former Director of Safeguards at the IAEA has observed: “Commissioning of additional plutonium production reactors and further construction of reprocessing capabilities signify that Pakistan may even be developing second-strike capabilities”.

These developments are driven by a mix of old and new set of threat perceptions and, equally, political ambitions. The so-called existential threat from India continues to be cited as the main driver of Pakistan’s nuclear compulsions. The rapid increase in the number of weapons is justified by pointing to India having a larger stock of fissile material available for a much more numerous weapons inventory, thanks to the Indo-U.S. civil nuclear agreement. Tactical nuclear weapons are said to be a response to India’s so-called “Cold Start” doctrine or its suspected intention to launch quick response punitive thrusts across the border in case of another major cross-border terrorist strike.

Pakistan’s strategic objective has been expanded to the acquisition of a “full-spectrum capability” comprising a land, air and sea-based triad of nuclear forces, to put it on a par with India.

However, the focus on India has tended to obscure an important change in Pakistan’s threat perception which has significant implications. The Pakistani military and civilian elite is convinced that the United States has also become a dangerous adversary, which seeks to disable, disarm or take forcible possession of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.

This threat perception may be traced to the aftermath of 9/11, when Pakistan, for the first time in its history, faced the real prospect of a military assault on its territory by U.S. forces and the loss of its strategic assets. In his address to the nation on September 15, 2001, President Pervez Musharraf justified his acquiescence to the U.S. ultimatum to abandon the Taliban and support U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, on account of four over-riding and critical concerns — “our sovereignty, second our economy, third our strategic assets and fourth our Kashmir cause.” Pakistan once again became a “front-line state,” this time in the U.S. war on terrorism in Afghanistan in contrast to the U.S.-led war against the Soviet forces in that country in the 1980s. But this time round, Pakistan became an ally by compulsion rather than by choice.

While the immediate threat to its strategic assets passed, Pakistan’s suspicions of U.S. intentions in this regard did not diminish and have now risen to the level of paranoia. The American drone attacks against targets within Pakistani territory and, in particular, the brazenness with which the Abbotabad raid was carried out by U.S. Navy Seals in May 2011 to kill Osama bin Laden, have only heightened Pakistan’s concerns over U.S. intentions. These have overtaken fears of India, precisely because the U.S. has demonstrated both its capability and willingness to undertake such operations. India has not.

Recent shifts

Thus the recent shifts in Pakistan’s nuclear strategy cannot be ascribed solely to the traditional construct of India-Pakistan hostility. They appear driven mainly by the fear of U.S. assault on its strategic assets. The more numerous and compact the weapons, the wider their dispersal and the greater their sophistication, the more deterred the U.S. would be from undertaking any operations to disable them or to take them into its custody. The U.S. finds it as difficult to acknowledge this reality as it has, until recently, Pakistan’s complicity in terrorism directed against its forces in Afghanistan. This permits putting the onus on India to reassure Pakistan through concessions rather than admitting that the problem lies elsewhere. There is also a strong non-proliferation lobby in the U.S. which believes it could leverage the threat of an India-Pakistan nuclear exchange to reverse some of the concessions made to India in the civil nuclear deal. More recently, it is being argued that since the U.S. is finding it difficult to get its promised share of the civil nuclear business in India due to concerns over the country’s Nuclear Liability legislation, a major rationale behind the agreement no longer exists. And meanwhile, it is further claimed, the civil nuclear agreement has only heightened the danger of India-Pakistan nuclear war by feeding into Pakistani fears of India’s enhanced nuclear capabilities.

In this context, I wish to recall an exchange over dinner hosted by President George Bush for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in November 2008 in Washington. The then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice remarked that after the “heavy lifting” the U.S. had done to get the nuclear deal through, she hoped India would ensure that U.S. companies got a share of the orders for new reactors. Before our Prime Minister could reply, Mr. Bush stated categorically that he was not bothered if India did not buy even a single reactor from the U.S., since he regarded the agreement as confirming India as a long-term strategic partner rather than a mere customer for U.S. reactors.

Pakistan encourages the arguments of the U.S. non-proliferation lobby since this keeps the pressure on India and enables the camouflage of Pakistan’s real motivations. It would not wish to project, as an adversary, a much more powerful U.S., and lose out on the economic and military support it receives, however transactional these deals may have become.

The implications

What are the implications of these recent developments?

One, it is not through “strategic restraint” or security assurances by India that Pakistan would be persuaded to change its behaviour and revise its strategy. India and Pakistan have some nuclear CBMs in place and India would be prepared to go further. The main levers for such persuasion lie in Washington and in Beijing, not in New Delhi.

Two, whatever sophistry Pakistan may indulge in to justify its augmented arsenal and threatened recourse to tactical nuclear weapons, for India, the label on the weapon, tactical or strategic, is irrelevant since the use of either would constitute a nuclear attack against India. In terms of India’s stated nuclear doctrine, this would invite a massive retaliatory strike. For Pakistan to think that a counter-force nuclear strike against military targets would enable it to escape a counter-value strike against its cities and population centres, is a dangerous illusion. The U.S. could acquaint Pakistan with NATO’s own Cold War experience when tactical nuclear weapons were abandoned once it was realised that use of such weapons in any conflict would swiftly and inexorably escalate to the strategic level. Instead of urging India to respond to Pakistani nuclear escalation through offering mutual restraint, the U.S. should convince Islamabad that a limited nuclear war is a contradiction in terms and that it should abandon such reckless brinkmanship. The U.S. knows that India’s nuclear deterrence is not Pakistan-specific. Any misguided attempt to constrain Indian capabilities would undermine, for both, the value of Indo-U.S. strategic partnership in an increasingly uncertain and challenging regional and global security environment.

Three, Pakistan is no longer India’s problem. Its toxic mix of jihadi terrorism and nuclear brinkmanship poses a threat to the region and to the world. Even China, whose culpability in continuing to assist Pakistan in developing its nuclear and delivery capabilities is well documented, is not exempt. It needs to reassess its own policies. An apparently low-cost and proxy effort to contain India may well become China’s nightmare, too, in the days to come.

[Aditya_V]

X posting from TSP thread

Dealing with Pakistan's brinkmanship - Shyam Saran, The Hindu

I have read quotes that

1)both the Chashma plants are under IAEA safeguards, SHyam Saran says otherwise, and

Pakistan gets IAEA approval for new N-plant

The approval of the agreement is a success for Pakistan and a recognition of its non-proliferation commitments, it said, and added that a similar safeguards agreement was also in place for Chashma-1 in central Punjab province.

Pakistan gets approval for nuke plant

Knowlegable people, IAEA cannot state/ approve a plant from a Non NPT signing country producing Weapons grade plutonium.

If these 2 plants are under safeguards, then Pakistan has no plutonium, the Karachi plant can produce negliable amount of Uranium.

2) can these 2 plants produce more plutonium than all of Nuke plants in India combined.

Somehow I felt his article is to produce Dhoti Shivering and explain why WKK is nessecary and why Pakistan is big and powerful to the Aam Janta the actions of elite which is done in other interests.

Has Shyam Saran deliberately stated that the plants are not under IAEA safeguards which will make his whole theory fall flat?

[SSridhar]

Aditya_V, TSP's Pu comes from Khushab where two unsafeguarded reactors are producing conservatively between 20 & 25 Kg Pu per year, together. This would make for about 4 to 5 bombs per year. There is a third reactor under construction. Both KANUPP & CHASHMA I to IV are (or will be) under IAEA safeguards as you said.

Of course, India's stockpile is massive compared to TSP's, but we do not seem to be extracting Pu and converting into useful maal.

[Aditya_V]

Yes something does nt add up, how coem the Khushab reactors don't produce any power and India is very Ghandian in not producing Nukes from its Stockpile.

During the power crisis earlier in the year, there was no mention of any power generated by these power plants.

[SSridhar]

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