Bharat Rakshak

TEHRAN - Iran has strongly condemned the United States for carrying out a subcritical nuclear test in Nevada Desert this week, saying that the test shows U.S. inattention to international calls for total nuclear disarmament.

On Friday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said the test proves Washington’s hypocrisy in regard to the issue of nuclear disarmament that threatens world peace and stability.

He also said that Iran, as one of the primary victims of weapons of mass destruction, adheres to the noble cause of disarmament in accordance with the Supreme Leader’s fatwa (religious decree), in which he has declared that the production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons are all haram (prohibited in Islam).

The subcritical test, known as Pollux, was carried out successfully on Wednesday to test the safety and effectiveness of U.S. nuclear weapons by Nevada National Security Site, scientists at the Los Alamos, and the Sandia National Laboratories.

According to RT, international inspectors were not allowed to witness the experiment as Washington has prevented access to its test site since the late 1990s.

Wednesday’s test is the United State’s 27th “subcritical experiment” since full-scale nuclear weapons tests were halted in 1992.

Effective deterrence cornerstone of defence policy: Prez .

Tuesday, 18 December 2012 14:04 Tamil Nadu | Sulur (Tamil Nadu)

A force that can be deployed any time to protect sovereignty of the country is essential for effective deterrence which is the cornerstone of country's defence policy, President Pranab Mukherjee said here today.

Speaking at a function here to present Presidential Standard to 25 and 33 Squadron of the Indian Air Force, Mukherjee said, "India stands for peace and its foreign policy is focused on the achievement of this objective." "Therefore, effective deterrence is the cornerstone of our defence policy. But effective deterrence requires the maintenance of a force that can be called upon at any time, to secure the sovereignty of our nation. Our armed force, of which the men and the women who stand before us, symbolises, this capability," he said.

Lauding the role of Air Force, the President said the force has not only safeguarded sovereignty of the country but also been available for providing humanitarian assistance during disaster both within and outside the nation. "I do remember that the Air Force had flown relief supply in 2005 to a place as far as the US when Hurricane Katrina had struck New Orleans. In 2008, the Indian Air Force flew relief supplies to earthquake hit South western Province of Sichuan in China," he said. During the ceremony, Mukherjee inspected the parade participated by 56 officers and over 400 air men. The aircraft AN32 and Dornier in small boy formation gave a flypast to the Standard. A Presidential Standard is a flag awarded by the head of the state to a military unit. It is one of the greatest honours bestowed upon a unit or squadron in recognition of exceptional service rendered by it to the nation, both in war and peace.

Following the entry into service of the nuclear-armed Nirbhay’s ALCM and SLCM versions, India’s Strategic Forces Command (SFC) will have at its disposal four distinct types of highly survivable nuclear warhead delivery systems that will be optimised for retaliatory nuclear strikes, these being the 4,500km-range SLBM now under development, the 600km-range air-launched supersonic LRCM that is also now under development (for delivering tactical nuclear warheads), plus the Nirbhay’s ALCM and SLCM versions, both of which will be able to deliver boosted-fission nuclear warheads.

Koithara’s charge is that, despite the creation of the Strategic Forces Command (SFC) in 2003 and the beefing up of a nuclear cell in the Prime Minister’s Office, India is still not up to these tasks. Nuclear affairs remain characterised by “tight compartmentalisation of activities, a dysfunctional approach to secrecy, highly inadequate external audit, and a marked lack of operational goal setting”- problems which the new Strategic Forces Commander can’t fix without a proper secretariat, akin to the widely respected Strategic Plans Division (SPD) in Pakistan.

Koithara goes into admirable detail on issues that others would dismiss as trivial, but are in fact integral to the usability and credibility of nuclear forces. For instance, he warns that ballistic missiles must either have a large number of secure (actual and dummy) pre-surveyed launch points (and well-drilled crews who can assemble at these points rapidly) or expensive underground silos. But India’s topography and population density make it unsuitable for both.

By contrast, India’s long peninsular coasts make the sea-leg of its deterrent- in the form of the Arihant nuclear submarine and its anticipated successors- preferable. Koithara argues that India’s greatest advantage is that it (unlike China) doesn’t have to face American Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW), and indeed can share information with Washington about Chinese submarines.

At the same time, this throws up difficult questions of how Indian civilians can retain control over launch authority, given that India lacks an Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) station of the sort that can send communications to the depths, at which nuclear submarines must operate, or an airborne command and control station with trailing antennae.

At the core of “Managing India’s Nuclear Forces” is the crucial insight that greater operationalisation, which makes nuclear weapons safer, is often confused with greater readiness, which does not. Perhaps surprisingly, Koithara is a minimalist in nuclear terms, and his recommendations- sticking with fission rather than thermonuclear warheads, shunning a ‘tenuous’ ballistic missile defence programme “driven by the institutional interests of the scientific community”, and avoiding an unnecessarily large arsenal- are anathema to those, like Bharat Karnad, who think in more ambitious terms.

For too long, discussions of Indian national security affairs have been dominated by questions of technology and platforms rather than the relationship between operations and strategy, and the human interface between those two. This engenders a fixation on hardware (not just the Agni or Brahmos, but also, say, the Gorshkov and Rafale) rather than software, machines rather than the institutions that operate them. That, in turn, impoverishes, Indian strategic thought. Koithara has performed a great service in turning the discussion back to software. Scholars of Indian seapower and airpower, take note.

ramana wrote:Surprising as it may seem, Indians have given the idea of nukes a lot of thought over the long years.Tight compartmentalization has ensured results except for the one false step in S-1.

The book author is naive or deluded like the early political leaders if he thinks any country can let its deterrent force information be shared with others and still be independent!
Looks like one more nonsense being peddled in India.
KS and his cohort laid the foundations and no need for deviation.

Pak strategy: Deny India nuclear victory
The guardians of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal are trained to keep secrets. Here are excerpts in two parts from a conjectural essay by Michael Krepon based on a limited public record, inferences and 20 years of visiting Pakistan and following its nuclear programme


The growth of Pakistan's nuclear stockpile is commensurate with a targeting objective to exact overwhelming damage sufficient to prevent India from recovering as a functioning society.

PAKISTAN'S relations with two of its neighbours - India and Afghanistan - are strained, and a third border, with Iran, marks the Sunni-Shia divide within Islam. Domestic social services are in decline. Governance is widely conceded to be poor at both the national and provincial level. Many extremist groups have found shelter in Pakistan. Some fight the military, others have colluded with it. Over the past five years, Pakistan ranks second (only to Iraq) in the incidence of mass-casualty deaths due to sectarian and politically-inspired domestic violence.

Amidst these indicators of national decline - and in the face of concerted efforts by the US and other nations to prevent Pakistan from crossing key production thresholds -- Pakistan now possesses a considerable and growing nuclear arsenal, which is publicly estimated to include perhaps 90-110 weapons. It is hard to identify another governmental or military enterprise in contemporary Pakistan that has been more successful in identifying goals and implementing them than Pakistan's nuclear weapon-related programmes. Most Pakistanis who bemoan the problems they face in everyday life feel pride in the accomplishments of testing and producing nuclear weapons. They begrudge governmental corruption and incompetence, but not money spent on the Bomb.

Start of N-pursuit

Pakistan's serious pursuit of nuclear weapons began with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who famously declared in 1965 -- well before taking charge of the country and the programme -- that his compatriots would "eat grass" and suffer other deprivations in order to possess nuclear weapons. This priority became more focussed after the 1971 war with India that resulted in Pakistan's grave humiliation, vivisection, and Bhutto's ascendancy as President, and subsequently, as Prime Minister. Ghulam Ishaq Khan, a powerful political figure who became President of Pakistan from 1988 to 1993, provided continuity of oversight over the nuclear programme after Bhutto's demise and during a period of revolving Prime Ministers. As with other nuclear programmes in other countries, "first generation" scientists in defense establishments also played key roles in nuclear development programmes, most notably Munir Khan and Samar Mubarakmand of Pakistan's Atomic Energy Commission and A.Q. Khan of the Khan Research Laboratories.

The transfer of Pakistan's nuclear weapon-related programmes to military control was realised in stages, beginning with the imprisonment in 1977 and subsequent execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto by General Zia-ul-Haq. Military supremacy in all military-related nuclear matters was reaffirmed after Ghulam Ishaq Khan's forced resignation from the Presidency in 1993, and was consolidated further when, in February, 2000, then-Chief Executive and Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, implemented plans for a directorate to focus on operational issues -- the Strategic Plans Division (SPD) at Joint Staff Headquarters -- that the recently deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had dawdled over.

High-end nuclear strikes

While high-end Pakistani nuclear strike packages probably include some military targets, the standard way for new nuclear-weapon states to define minimal, credible deterrence is by means of counter-value targeting, i.e., being able to destroy an adversary's large metropolitan areas. There are ten cities in India with populations over three million: Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Surat, Pune, and Jaipur. Mumbai is a centre of commerce, culture, and nuclear infrastructure. New Delhi is the seat of government. Chennai and Kolkata are significant regional hubs. Bangalore and Hyderabad represent the new, "rising" India, fueling India's economic growth. Placing these cities, some of which contain very significant Muslim populations, at risk is one way to check perceived Indian designs on Pakistan's territorial integrity.

This analysis hypothesises very modest requirements for Pakistani counter-value targeting. Assuming ten cities and three weapons per city, thirty weapons delivered on targets would be required. These numbers are notional; they may vary from city to city and could be revised upward or downward. Those responsible in Pakistan for planning counter-value targeting against Indian cities would also have to assume losses of nuclear weapon delivery vehicles and storage sites to Indian pre-emptive or retaliatory strikes.

Consequently, if there is a fixed requirement for the laydown of a certain number of weapons against Indian cities, a multiple of this number would presumably be applied to compensate for expected losses. In any event, counter-value strikes against Indian cities could entail a very substantial use of nuclear weapons. All of these planning factors are closely held, so this assessment is highly conjectural.

Indian leaders and hawkish analysts have expressed the view that their country could survive a nuclear war, whereas Pakistan would not. As former Defence Minister George Fernandes said in a 2002 interview, "f he should finally take that kind of step, perhaps out of desperation, he should realise that India can survive a nuclear attack, but Pakistan cannot."

Army Chief S. Padmanabhan echoed these sentiments when he reportedly said that "India would severely punish any state that is 'mad enough to use nuclear weapons against any of our assets.' Padmanabhan added, 'the perpetrator shall be so severely punished that his very existence will be in doubt. We are ready for a second strike.'" Likewise, hawkish analyst Bharat Karnad wrote, "The problem here is not one of preventing nuclear war, but with believing that Pakistan can annihilate India, which is not possible, even as the reverse is eminently true."

A targeting doctrine

These assertions have not gone unnoticed by those who set Pakistan's requirements for nuclear weapons. It would be out of character for Pakistan's military leadership to accept the survival of India and the death of Pakistan in a nuclear war. Thus, in this conjectural analysis, Rawalpindi is likely to pursue a "victory denial" strategy in the event of a complete breakdown in deterrence. The growth of Pakistan's nuclear stockpile is commensurate with a targeting objective to exact overwhelming damage sufficient to prevent India from recovering as a functioning society. Denying India "victory" in a nuclear war would constitute the high end of Pakistan's targeting objectives. These might include, in addition to India's largest cities, its leadership, key industrial facilities, ports, nuclear power plants, dams, and other critical infrastructure that are not necessarily situated in large metropolitan areas.

A targeting doctrine to deny India victory in a nuclear slugfest would be an unusual and exacting way to define minimal, credible deterrence, but it could well explain Pakistan's production capacity for nuclear weapons and the prospective growth of its stockpile. Peter R. Lavoy has argued that Pakistan's nuclear deterrence strategy is predicated on a commitment to "escalation dominance."

During the Cold War, hawkish US strategists held the view that victory was still possible in nuclear exchanges, even at great cost. Failing that, an adversary's victory could still be denied - and deterrence reaffirmed - by means of expansive nuclear inventories and targeting capabilities. Do the managers of Pakistan's nuclear deterrent believe that they can fight and win a nuclear war with India? In their foundational essay, Agha Shahi, Zulfiqar Ali Khan and Abdul Sattar wrote that Pakistan was "not so unrealistic as to entertain" thoughts of the "use of nuclear weapons for war-fighting or seek to develop capability for preemptive attack." These authors argue that, "India is too large and too well armed to be vulnerable to a disabling strike."

This line of reasoning is reaffirmed as long as India's strategic assets grow, are properly diversified, become more operationalised for deterrence purposes, and if New Delhi becomes more serious about command and control arrangements. It would not require Herculean efforts for Indian leaders to dissuade Rawalpindi that a Pakistani victory in the event of a nuclear war is not achievable. A strong case can be made, however, that New Delhi has been lax in assuring retaliatory capabilities and proper force management. While the achievement of victory by Pakistan in a nuclear war with India seems far-fetched, the denial of an Indian victory is another matter. The build-up of Pakistan's nuclear forces is entirely consistent with this objective.

Pakistan's deciders

Pakistan's nuclear requirements are set by very few military officers and one retired officer, Lt. General Khalid Kidwai, with very little civilian oversight or ability to question military requirements. After taking charge of the SPD in 2000, Gen. Kidwai was promoted to Lt. General in October, 2001, and then received an extension in service in 2004 to stay at its helm - a highly unusual personnel action. Gen. Kidwai faced retirement in 2005 because his time on active duty would extend beyond those who were about to out-rank him. His boss, Chief of Army Staff (and President of Pakistan) Pervez Musharraf decided on his retirement, while keeping him in place at the SPD. While many retired military officers have been given plum assignments overseeing civilian institutions in Pakistan, the appointment of a retired military officer to be in charge of a most sensitive joint staff assignment is unprecedented. Gen. Musharraf's decision survived his banishment from Pakistan. Gen. Kidwai's extended tenure at the SPD has meant that his views regarding Pakistan's nuclear requirements will be very hard to overrule.

How many other individuals help determine the requirements to implement nuclear doctrine is a matter of conjecture. Presumably, a small core group of very senior military officers are instrumental in making such decisions, beginning with the Chief of Army Staff, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, the head of the Strategic Forces Command, and the Chiefs of the Air Force and Navy. A larger group of military officers, scientists, and civil servants provides input to these decisions and implements them.

Decisions on nuclear matters

Sitting atop Pakistan's National Command Authority, which was initially promulgated as an administrative regulation at the outset of Gen. Musharraf's rule, and then codified into an ordinance nearing the end of his tenure, is the Head of Government. With Musharraf's exit, the Head of Government became a civilian in the person of President, Asif Ali Zardari. In November, 2009, President Zardari revised this ordnance, placing the Prime Minister, then Yusuf Reza Gilani, at the top of the NCA. This passing of the baton was orchestrated in the context of clarifying the transition from a Presidential- to a Prime Ministerial-led government. Under the Musharraf set-up, the Prime Minister served as Vice Chairman of the NCA. Now it appears that the Vice Chairmanship is vacant. Two subsidiary bodies of the NCA - an Employment Control Committee and a Development Control Committee -- have Deputy Chairmen. The Deputy Chairman of the all-important Employment Control Committee is the Foreign Minister, a position currently held by Hina Rabbani Khar. The Deputy Chairman of the Development Control Committee is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. Three civilian Cabinet Ministers also serve on the Employment Control Committee: the Minister for Defence; the Minister for Interior, and the Minister for Finance.

According to an interview Gen. Kidwai gave in 2002, when Gen. Musharraf sat atop the NCA, "practically all (99%) of the nuclear decisions pertain[ed] to the Head of Government." One can certainly envision that when the Army Chief of Staff sat atop the NCA, he held the ultimate authority in determining employment and developmental decisions relating to nuclear weapons. It would strain credulity to assert that this remains the case under a civilian Head of Government - Prime Minister Gilani, his successor, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, and under the Deputy Chairmanship of Foreign Minister Khar. While notional authority now resides in the office of the Prime Minister, and while Cabinet Ministers on the NCA are involved in these decisions, real authority lies with the Chief of Army Staff, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Kidwai, and a few others, some of whom may not be involved in decision-making under extreme duress.

Michael Krepon is the co-founder of the Stimson Center and a Diplomat Scholar at the University of Virginia. He is the author of "Better Safe than Sorry: The Ironies of Living with the Bomb"

Christopher Sidor wrote:Put it bluntly, India will survive. Pakistan will not survive an Indian nuclear strike.

SSridhar wrote:X-post from the TSP thread
Book Launch of Eating Grass, for making the Pakistani Bomb - Woodrow Wilson Center by a fmr PA officer involved in the programme.

He says that it was completely an indigenous programme, the Chinese help was minimal. The more the American sanctions, the greater the resolve to make the weapon. The programme started only after c. 1972. The TNWs are centrally controlled under the NCA. He says that any Cold Start by India would make Pakistan unleash the TNWs. They are not under the control of field commanders. He also says that India cannot think of attacking Pakistan, like when a Mumbai-like terror attack happens, and hope to terminate the conventional war and on its own terms without it going nuclear. He says that with the 4 Pu production facilities coming up in TSP, it would not stop making bombs.

Pratyush wrote:Who was it, on the BRF. Who said that a bomb in the back yard and an ICBM in the front is the key to establishing global peace. Or have I got it the other way round.

pentaiah wrote:Should India also test before the shutters come down?

Several conclusions in my previous blog (“Rogue Triad and H-Bomb Tests”) have been borne out. According to a source, it is confirmed that what was exploded was a fusion-boosted fission device of Pakistani design that was vetted/refined by Chinese weapons scientists. Officially, South Korean siesmic sensors read 4.7+ on the Richter scale, the US 4.9+, Japanese 5.2+, but the most reliable read is from the Russian station at Petropovlovsk on the Kamchatka Peninsula nearest to the test site with 5.3-5.5+ Richter. Petropovlovsk also has, according to this source, a radionuclide detection facility. While the Granite stratum of the Hamygeong test site dampened/suppressed the shock waves, the 5.5 on Richter translates into a certifiably estimated 20-30 Kiloton explosion. This, on the face of it, is a better performing design than the S-1 device tested in Pokhran on May 11, 1998. This should worry GOI enough for it to order resumption of N-testing, because now there’s no doubt whatsoever about Pakistan obtaining, centrally with Chinese help and assistance, thermonuclear armaments.

pentaiah wrote:This the best opportunity for India to kill many birds in one shot

1 the need to test by India is on strong moral and security reason
2 the need to dispel about our capability if it exists to better what we have done
3 the need for bs chanikyan spin by eminent scientific establishment to provide ambiguity is over or be prepared to blown over by TSP or at minimum be ready to grovel at their slightest provocation.
4 the need is now once for all to draw a line with uncle about the BS about TSP Molly codling vis vis proliferation with PRC hand in glove.
5 last but not least the best test for super Mano family to establish their credibility and commitment to this nation
6 the icing on the cake Rahul baba can ride the H bum under his bum to the throne and everybody can live ever after happily

" a H bum in every back yard and a ICBM in front yard of all countries is the best way to achieve universal dis armament " also in tune with macho male anatomy!

After all that's way to bare all arms around the world and that's the right thing for every country to emulate US 2 nd amendment, they are the role models for color revolutions any way ? No?

RoyG wrote:

pentaiah wrote:This the best opportunity for India to kill many birds in one shot

1 the need to test by India is on strong moral and security reason
2 the need to dispel about our capability if it exists to better what we have done
3 the need for bs chanikyan spin by eminent scientific establishment to provide ambiguity is over or be prepared to blown over by TSP or at minimum be ready to grovel at their slightest provocation.
4 the need is now once for all to draw a line with uncle about the BS about TSP Molly codling vis vis proliferation with PRC hand in glove.
5 last but not least the best test for super Mano family to establish their credibility and commitment to this nation
6 the icing on the cake Rahul baba can ride the H bum under his bum to the throne and everybody can live ever after happily

" a H bum in every back yard and a ICBM in front yard of all countries is the best way to achieve universal dis armament " also in tune with macho male anatomy!

After all that's way to bare all arms around the world and that's the right thing for every country to emulate US 2 nd amendment, they are the role models for color revolutions any way ? No?

I have said the same thing. Politically what does the Congress have to lose? It could serve as a little boost for the party and push all the scams to back pages.

- Makes India the breakout state in same league as NoKo.
- Resumes the bad atmospherics of post POK-2 tests.
- What if MMS/UPA had frozen the design and mfg capability as a CBM to get the "non-deal" deal?

- What if its repeat of S-1? Same people are running the show and have managed to get the dissenters booted out from their orgs and elsewhere?

ramdas wrote:KS estimates in one of his interviews that 2-3 tests will validate a TN capability. The pros of testing outweigh the cons.

Acharya wrote:

ramdas wrote:KS estimates in one of his interviews that 2-3 tests will validate a TN capability. The pros of testing outweigh the cons.

Should India do a 'non-test' TEST

ramdas wrote:

- Makes India the breakout state in same league as NoKo.
- Resumes the bad atmospherics of post POK-2 tests.
- What if MMS/UPA had frozen the design and mfg capability as a CBM to get the "non-deal" deal?

These are nonserious cons. Even KS mentions that there is nothing in the deal to prevent testing. Any such CBM as postulated is only a oral, nonbinding assurance, which can be discarded when the situation warrants. As for being a breakout state in NoKo league, we were in that type of situation in 1998. But our large market ensures that any sanctions will not last very long. Anyway, in the end, beyond pointless noises, what is the international community able to do to NoKo ? Nothing.

......
A new generation is running the show now. They may have been junior to RC, etc but they probably have some idea what went wrong. Any repeat of S-1 is all the more reason for open ended testing.

KS estimates in one of his interviews that 2-3 tests will validate a TN capability.

The pros of testing outweigh the cons.