Bharat Rakshak

SSridhar wrote:James, the NoKo test would be more tied with Chinese needs than the Pakistani ones. I believe that China would not go to that extent for Pakistan and history proves that. The Chinese may make some noise for Pakistan but wouldn't go beyond that. The NoKo H-bomb test (if it is true) is a far more destabilizing and escalatory one for the whole world than Pathankot would demand in any case.

NKorea/Pakistan’s thermonuclear test details

The International Monitoring System based at Petropavlovsk, Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia (comprising 5 primary and 13 auxiliary seismic stations, 4 infrasound stations, 8 radionuclide stations, 1 radionuclide laboratory), downwind from the North Korean Hanggyong mountain test site, has detected tritium. It confirms that the test Pyongyang was preparing for, and which the North Korean supremo Kim Jong Eun today confirmed, was of a hydrogen device, as warned in my blog on the subject three days ago. The seismic reading of 5.1 on the Richter Scale, in that rock hard substratum, translates to yield in the 50-100 kiloton range.

What experts believe is that given the relatively small yield for a fusion design but an apparently nearly flawless performance of the critical radiation channel that directs the fission energy from an atomic explosion into the tritium fuel package (that is the two stage system) in order to set off a full thermonuclear burn, the very good possibility is that the Pakistani designers have achieved something even more challenging — a successful tailored yield device and that too in miniaturized form!

This is a remarkable technical achievement even with Chinese weapons experts assisting and helping in configuring the design and vetting it before final engineering, for Pakistan to get right at the first shot — something India failed to do, whatever R. Chidambaram may say by way of obfuscatory explanations about the S-1 test in May, 1998.

But this is not the end. There is a certain method here. The 2013 test carried out in North Korea was of an FBF (fusion-assisted fission) device. The present test was of an enhanced FBF system. Far from being the terminus, there’s likely to be still another test in the series which will be full-fledged thermonuclear, and this new test could be conducted as early as July (or thereabouts) 2016 — i.e., just some six months-odd from now.

The strategic implications of Pakistan going fully thermonuclear with tested and proven weapons, courtesy the North Koreans and their making their test site available to the Pak Army’s SPD (Strategic Plans Division)-run nuclear weapons programme and hence providing Islamabad with plausible deniability — a brilliant working of the ‘rogue triad’ of China, Pakistan and North Korea, are too daunting to consider. For starters, it nullifies the official Indian doctrine’s misplaced reliance on “massive retaliation” as credible deterrence. When an adversary confronts you with a proven and tested high yield weapon and you have only a notional fusion weapon that may or may not work — thanks to the lack of open-ended testing owing to the test moratorium persisted with by now four successive govts (including, so far the Modi regime) since the Shakti series of tests 17 years ago.

The crucial difference is an incomprehensibly contented India habituated to thinking and acting small and minimal, sat still, thinking it had accomplished every thing, and is now where it was in May 1998 in terms of a noncredible thermonuclear arsenal. On the other hand, an unsatisfied Pakistan, displaying the sort of strategic verve and imagination absent in GOI, sought out other means of getting the weapons inventory it desired, and found a way out from under the US sanctions overhang in cahoots with its willing partners — China and North Korea.

Delhi sought Washington’s suffocating embrace and now finds itself inferior strategic weapons-wise to a rump state carved out of India some 70 years ago but one with a far stronger will, a formidable sense of its national self, and an infinitely greater flair for playing the international power game.

Guess where that leaves India?

schinnas wrote:

SSridhar wrote:James, the NoKo test would be more tied with Chinese needs than the Pakistani ones. I believe that China would not go to that extent for Pakistan and history proves that. The Chinese may make some noise for Pakistan but wouldn't go beyond that. The NoKo H-bomb test (if it is true) is a far more destabilizing and escalatory one for the whole world than Pathankot would demand in any case.

SS-ji, imvho, it could be a case of China sending a message to warn off US - Japan - Phillipines - Vietnam regarding South China Sea.

If Pakistan designs were utilized in NoKo, it is a serious case of escalation indicating that China views actions of GoI such as Malabar exercises, infra build out in NE, etc., gravely and wants to send a warning to India. However, that would also indicate that Cheen retains some control over the delivery mechanisms of nukes (or some components are kept separate under the control of Cheen engineers in Pak) for them to give tested H-Bomb to Pukis. I agree with you that Cheen would not go all the way to gift H-Bomb to Pukis. That would be unnecessarily reckless of them and they are not such types.

Thoughts?

No nation has suffered more in the nuclear age than Japan, where atomic bombs flattened two cities in World War II and three reactors melted down at Fukushima just three years ago.

But government officials and proliferation experts say Japan is happy to let neighbors like China and North Korea believe it is part of the nuclear club, because it has a “bomb in the basement” -– the material and the means to produce nuclear weapons within six months, according to some estimates. And with tensions rising in the region, China’s belief in the “bomb in the basement” is strong enough that it has demanded Japan get rid of its massive stockpile of plutonium and drop plans to open a new breeder reactor this fall.

Japan signed the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which bans it from developing nuclear weapons, more than 40 years ago. But according to a senior Japanese government official deeply involved in the country’s nuclear energy program, Japan has been able to build nuclear weapons ever since it launched a plutonium breeder reactor and a uranium enrichment plant 30 years ago.

“Japan already has the technical capability, and has had it since the 1980s,” said the official. He said that once Japan had more than five to 10 kilograms of plutonium, the amount needed for a single weapon, it had “already gone over the threshold,” and had a nuclear deterrent.

Japan now has 9 tons of plutonium stockpiled at several locations in Japan and another 35 tons stored in France and the U.K. The material is enough to create 5,000 nuclear bombs. The country also has 1.2 tons of enriched uranium.

Technical ability doesn’t equate to a bomb, but experts suggest getting from raw plutonium to a nuclear weapon could take as little as six months after the political decision to go forward. A senior U.S. official familiar with Japanese nuclear strategy said the six-month figure for a country with Japan’s advanced nuclear engineering infrastructure was not out of the ballpark, and no expert gave an estimate of more than two years.

In fact, many of Japan’s conservative politicians have long supported Japan’s nuclear power program because of its military potential. “The hawks love nuclear weapons, so they like the nuclear power program as the best they can do,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Non-Proliferation Program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California. “They don’t want to give up the idea they have, to use it as a deterrent.”

Many experts now see statements by Japanese politicians about the potential military use of the nation’s nuclear stores as part of the “bomb in the basement” strategy, at least as much about celebrating Japan’s abilities and keeping its neighbors guessing as actually building weapons.

But pressure has been growing on Japan to dump some of the trappings of its deterrent regardless. The U.S. wants Japan to return 331 kilos of weapons grade plutonium – enough for between 40 and 50 weapons – that it supplied during the Cold War. Japan and the U.S. are expected to sign a deal for the return at a nuclear security summit next week in the Netherlands.

Yet Japan is sending mixed signals. It also has plans to open a new fast-breeder plutonium reactor in Rokkasho in October. The reactor would be able to produce 8 tons of plutonium a year, or enough for 1,000 Nagasaki-sized weapons.

China seems to take the basement bomb seriously. It has taken advantage of the publicity over the pending return of the 331 kilos to ask that Japan dispose of its larger stockpile of plutonium, and keep the new Rokkasho plant off-line. Chinese officials have argued that Rokkasho was launched when Japan had ambitious plans to use plutonium as fuel for a whole new generation of reactors, but that those plans are on hold post-Fukushima and the plutonium no longer has a peacetime use.

In February, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua published a commentary that said if a country "hoards far more nuclear materials than it needs, including a massive amount of weapons grade plutonium, the world has good reason to ask why."

Steve Fetter, formerly the Obama White House’s assistant director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, thinks China's concerns are not purely political.

"I've had private discussions with China in which they ask, 'Why does Japan have all this plutonium that they have no possible use for?' I say they made have made a mistake and are left with a huge stockpile," said Fetter, now a professor at the University of Maryland. "But if you were distrustful, then you see it through a different lens."

For at least four or five years, said Leonard Spector, deputy director of the Center for Non-Proliferation Studies in Monterey, the Japanese plutonium stockpile has been mentioned as a threat in Chinese defense white papers.

Japan, of course, has its own security concerns with China and North Korea. North Korea's nuclear weapons program is a direct threat to Japan. Some of its Nodong missiles, with a range capability of hitting anywhere in Japan, are believed to be nuclear-armed. "Nodong is a Japan weapon," said Spector.

There have been confrontations between China and Japan over small islands north of Taiwan. The dispute has recently escalated. In October, state-controlled media in China warned "a war looms following Japan's radical provocation," Tokyo's threat to shoot down Chinese drones.

Most experts agree that China is the greater threat, because as one expert said, "If North Korea attacked Japan, the U.S. would flatten it"-- and thus China is the country Japanese officials, particularly the right, want to impress with their minimal deterrence.

But experts also note that another nation in the region seems to have been impressed by the Japanese “bomb in the basement” strategy, not as a threat but as a model.

There are fears that if Japan opens the Rakkosho plant, it will encourage South Korea to go the same route as its neighbor. The U.S. and South Korea have been negotiating a new civilian nuclear cooperation pact. The South wants to reprocess plutonium, but the U.S. is resisting providing cooperation or U.S. nuclear materials.

Jeffrey Lewis believes that the South Koreans want to emulate Japan, and says there is a “bigger bomb constituency in South Korea , about 10 to 20 percent [of the population],” than in Japan.

"The least of my concerns is that Japan would get a nuclear weapon," said Fetter. "But China and South Korea will use this as an excuse, each in their own way."

And, in fact, not everyone believes that Japan COULD go all the way. Jacques Hymans, a professor of international relations at the University of Southern California, believes the process would be thwarted by what he calls "veto players," that is, government officials who would resist a secret program and reveal it before it reached fruition. He wrote recently that Japan has more levels of nuclear bureaucracy than it once had, as well as more potential “veto players” inside that bureaucracy because of Fukushima. He said that any attempt to make a bomb would be "swamped by the intrusion of other powerful actors with very different motivations."

Still, even without a bomb, Japan has achieved a level of nuclear deterrence without building a bomb and suffering sanctions. That may be a more impressive achievement than actually building a bomb.

ramdas wrote:http://bharatkarnad.com

The seismic reading of 5.1 on the Richter Scale, in that rock hard substratum, translates to yield in the 50-100 kiloton range.

What experts believe is that given the relatively small yield for a fusion design but an apparently nearly flawless performance of the critical radiation channel that directs the fission energy from an atomic explosion into the tritium fuel package (that is the two stage system) in order to set off a full thermonuclear burn, the very good possibility is that the Pakistani designers have achieved something even more challenging — a successful tailored yield device and that too in miniaturized form!

nearly flawless performance of the critical radiation channel

What experts believe

The seismic reading of 5.1 on the Richter Scale, in that rock hard substratum, translates to yield in the 50-100 kiloton range

Pakistani designers have achieved something even more challenging — a successful tailored yield device and that too in miniaturized form

The 2013 test carried out in North Korea was of an FBF (fusion-assisted fission) device. The present test was of an enhanced FBF system.-there’s likely to be still another test in the series which will be full-fledged thermonuclear,

This is a remarkable technical achievement even with Chinese weapons experts assisting and helping in configuring the design and vetting it before final engineering, for Pakistan to get right at the first shot — something India failed to do, whatever R. Chidambaram may say by way of obfuscatory explanations about the S-1 test in May, 1998.

A thermonuclear test by the ‘rogue triad’ imminent?

In February 2013, I had warned about the China-Pakistan-North Korea “rogue triad testing an FBF (fusion boosted fission) device at the North Korean test site in the Hamyongg Mountain range in the northeast of that country. I had referred to the fact that the Punggye complex at the site, complete with the instrumentation bunker, closely resembled the Ras Koh complex in the Chagai Hills. And the extreme likelihood of China transferring the tritium and highly-enriched uranium (HEU) needed for the device designed by Pakistani scientists and vetted by Chinese nuclear weaponeers, by road across the mountainous border with North Korea in the Jiangsu province to avoid aerial detection. I had said that that the 30KT yield recorded by sensors of the pure FBF device actually proved better than the Indian S-1 hydrogen test in 1998. (See “http://bharatkarnad.com/2013/02/08/rogu ... omb-tests/ and http://bharatkarnad.com/2013/02/12/noko ... ndian-s-1/).

The rogue triad is now upping its game. There is now evidence of a new angled deep tunnel being bored in the Hamyongg mountains to best buffer shock waves in rocky stratum, and suggests preparations for a thermonuclear test. If it succeeds, Pakistan will have access to bonafide two-stage thermonuclear weapons tested by the nuclear outlaw North Korea on its territory, and hence attracting no sanctions or other other harsh reaction. China is in the top tier and immune to American pressures. And it will achieve for the Pakistan Army something it has been pushing the Pak N-weapons establishment quickly to attain — equalization with India, and bridging the remaining qualitative gap with India — this even though, post-1998 moratorium on testing, the Indian thermonuclear weapon is more fiction than fact in that some fundamental design problems relating, for instance, to the radiation channel remain. These are amenable to solutions worked on with computational means, but the rejigged design still needs to be proved and its performance cannot be verified except with a battery of new open-ended testing of fusion designs incorporating the engineering and other changes.

And new tests is what GOI — advised by R Chidambaram who has stayed on as S&T adviser to PM and continues to misguide the Indian govt about the non-necessity of new tests — is not permitting, fearful that it will upset the applecart of the N-deal with Washington and sink Indo-US “strategic” relations, not that this country has gained much from the special relationship with the US.

In any case, Delhi, I suppose, won’t wake up or do anything meaningful, until the Special Plans Division, Chaklala, announces fusion weapons in its armoury and announces their yield range and their raison d’etre, as Lt Gen Khalid Kidwai, longtime SPD head, did vis a vis tactical nukes at the 2015 Carnegie event. The slumbering-lumbering Indian nuclear weapons programme will be caught in a catch-up cycle which it has been trapped in since J. Nehru failed to test and weaponize after reaching the weapons threshold with the plutonium reprocessing plant in March 1964 and ten years later when Indira Gandhi refused to conduct further tests after the single 1974 test, being deterred, for political reasons, from going ahead and weaponizing. It will then be outclassed in a comprehensive way by its Pakistani counterpart. In this scenario of design-wise flawed, untested, and potentially nonfunctioning Indian thermonuclear weapons, the incomparable delivery systems in the Indian Agni missiles will be able to carry the nation’s security interests only so far. This will be the outcome because GHQ, Rawalpindi-qua-Pak govt, has always taken nuclear security more seriously than the strategically confused, fog-brained, nuclear deterrence illiterate, Indian government.

This is not turning out well for India.

shiv wrote:Questions:
Does North Korea become more dangerous with a "proper thermonuclear" device?
If so, why?

shiv wrote:To my mind North Korea and Iran are perfect examples of US weakness and the uselessness of a policy of sanctions.

ShauryaT wrote:Shiv ji: Just to annoy you a little more, I know you do not like BK's approaches, regardless of intentions or conclusions. Did not post this earlier as was disturbed by the Pathankot events, but for the record and may answer some of your questions, highlighted.

A thermonuclear test by the ‘rogue triad’ imminent?

ramdas wrote: The current NoKo test (given the 5.1 Mb) could be anything upto 30kt. This could well be a two stage Teller-Ulam with a primary and a very small secondary : basically a test to gather experimental data prior to a full fledged TN test. Such tests are known to have been done by others in the past.

ramdas wrote:@shiv: Teller-Ulam is not only for bang/kg of fissile material. It is also for yield/weight ratio: necessary if we wish to develop MIRVed missiles.

ramdas wrote:The only reason the Indian test is in doubt is Dr. K. Santhanam's statements. Correct or not, they have cast a doubt given his role in the 1998 tests.

The Korean test should be viewed as a success from our point of view mainly because we ought to assume the worst about our adversaries' capability unless absolute proof to the contrary emerges.

Note that other than exaggerating the yield of the current NoKo test, Karnad has only said about it what RC said about S-1.

ramdas wrote:any national security conscious planner plans for the worst case situation in the abscence of full technical information. What else should be expected ? "Assuming the worst" is therefore, not a rhetorical argument.