Deterrence

[Manish_Sharma]

NRao

I am not a fan - at all - of comparing various nations' nuclear deterrence posture.

I know, but sometimes you also have taken the examples of US & RU reducing the size of their nuclear warheads from MT to 300 to 475kt to justify india not going for Bigger Warheads. I also don't see much in common of india's situation in Nuke scenarios compared to RU and US either. Whose only issue was ideological. No shared boundaries, nothing else to fight about both caucasian countries both christian.

But your point I was responding to was:

His argument (since this interview) is that India has "minimum deterrence" of the nuclear doctrine, but does not have the "unacceptable damage" part of the nuclear doctrine.

What I say is:
unacceptable damage = deterrance
they are not two things.

Let us take the 71' war example:
When India decided to go to war to stop the genocide of Bangla muslims by Pakjabi muslims, we must have factored in that some of our soldiers will become shaheed in the process 100, 500 or 5000. Still it was taken as an acceptable damage and we liberated the country.

Now losing 1/3rd of Shanghai may not be acceptable damage to China for now against taking over Arunachal. But who knows something may happen in future maybe 15-20 years......... that this may not be enough. And when the unforeen time comes we should have enough.

And, three-digits is from 100 to 999!!!

I would feel safe if india continues effort to get to the figure of 25kt in 600 numbers.

[NRao]

I know, but sometimes you also have taken the examples of US & RU reducing the size of their nuclear warheads from MT to 300 to 475kt to justify india not going for Bigger Warheads. I also don't see much in common of india's situation in Nuke scenarios compared to RU and US either. Whose only issue was ideological. No shared boundaries, nothing else to fight about both caucasian countries both christian.

Even IF you consider US vs. USSR (Not RU), USSR should have had a different posture WRT China. "Deterrence" will change with oponent and perhaps even over time.

The decline in Kt/nuke is - I suspect - has a lot more to do with the CEP of missiles than anything else. So, 1 Mt will do damage, but I am fairly sure that it would do more than damage - that is intended damage. My read is that the smaller nukes will do just "about right" damage (if one can see any logic in that).

Having said that I am not too sure which is better: killing millions or letting millions live without proper/any resources.

But your point I was responding to was:

His argument (since this interview) is that India has "minimum deterrence" of the nuclear doctrine, but does not have the "unacceptable damage" part of the nuclear doctrine.

What I say is:
unacceptable damage = deterrance
they are not two things.

Sure, I understood that. BUT, "deterrence" does not have to mean ONLY nukes. It is also a mind game. The other KS:

There is a second component of the nuclear doctrine: the credible minimum deterrent. It is that component that may call for some adjustments if the potential enemy’s arsenal were to increase. Even that is not a necessity from the point of view of deterrence, but a question of influencing the perception of the adversary.

Let us take the 71' war example:
When India decided to go to war to stop the genocide of Bangla muslims by Pakjabi muslims, we must have factored in that some of our soldiers will become shaheed in the process 100, 500 or 5000. Still it was taken as an acceptable damage and we liberated the country.

Now losing 1/3rd of Shanghai may not be acceptable damage to China for now against taking over Arunachal. But who knows something may happen in future maybe 15-20 years......... that this may not be enough. And when the unforeen time comes we should have enough.

And, three-digits is from 100 to 999!!!

I would feel safe if india continues effort to get to the figure of 25kt in 600 numbers.

I do not agree with comparing conventional and nuclear value sets. It is not the same.

"losing 1/3rd of Shanghai" is a gross under statement IMHO. China IMHO stands to lose much of what she has built so far and perhaps even never to regain her current might.

[shiv]

I would feel safe if india continues effort to get to the figure of 25kt in 600 numbers.

India's arsenal consisting of 25 kt alone is for "ahead of curve" BRF onlee. On BRF anyone who says that India has anything bigger will have a Santhanam (and a couple of others) bomb thrown at him. If you want to talk about the real yields of India's weapons you need to do it outside of "ahead of curve" BRF.

[Umrao Das]

tsk tsk
While some were researching
BARC RC claims,
Santanam shot puts,
weary Chari Freudian analysis,
PK(Iyengar) Sober analysis...
The Village cracks...

BRF surged forward on the curve and is at point of concluding the obsolescence of Nuclear weapons. For that matter even Ombaba is reciting the mantra of Rajiv Gandhi initiative and Hillary sees a ray of hope in India leading the lights....

[shiv]

This is my theses; from this certain conclusions pop out automatically. In another 60 years, NW capabililty woud be most likely be within the reach of every country. When Yemen, Somalia, Bolivia could easily make them. Then pragmatically it would be become impossible to impose this current regime of denial. The AS (with cooperation from PRC, SU etc.) would go all out for a complete ban of NW's. That tipping point is not there yet, but is visible---and you see chatter about a complete ban. Then the moral principle in the AS world would be "Complete Elimination".

(NOTE: This theory also explains why you see a complete ban of Chemical & Biological weapons (because the barrier to make them is dramatically low.))

Excellent post Surinderji.

In some ways the "world" is at a cusp. Many news items speak of disquiet in the US because the old generation of bomb makers made their last bombs prior to 1992 and that generation is gone and the US has not tested - so keeping weapons up to date and reliable is difficult.

There are two ways out of this and the behavior of the US might point the way to the future:

1) The US might think "We might need to test nukes again" and fail to ratify the CTBT
2) The US might have gone far enough ahead in developing technology for low yield 2-10 kiloton (4th gen) fusion warheads for tactical ("war winning") use making them confident that signing CTBT now will allow them to develop the new warheads outside the ambit of CTBT while they allow their nuclear weapons to gradually become obsolete over the next half century.

[Umrao Das]

One should also be cognizant that

The Anglo Saxons have had first hand experience in being at the receiving end of Chemical warfare, however in case of Nukes they have only had the experience of dropping one and enjoying the benefits of that. Hence the reluctance to give up Nukes and rather co opt late entrants very reluctantly...

Acceptable chemical warfare



Read here to see "what's in name a Chemical warfare by another name still spells death" due apologies to Shakespeare.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/P ... 5abyvw.asp

[surinder]

Johann,

Yes, you are indeed right. In many ways, the biological weapons require a far more sophisticated science & technical know-how. However, their foot print remains small, making them easy to hide when being developed. Nuclear weapons technology, even when in grasp of a state, is messy. Testing it requires a country to have large areas of uninhabited land; the explosion signature is easily detected; large supplies of scarce metals like Uranium are needed; radiation control, metallurgy & electrons require many different disciplines to be integrated. Biological weapons & chemical weapons can be invented in small labs by small number of "mad" scientists. Russians are beleived to be masters of the game. The unknown cause of the death of KGB agent in UK few years ago was interesting. They used some kind of a gas to clear the terrorists in a theater in Moscow many years ago. Many beleive it was KGB which was responsible for Zia's death, because of the possibility of some kind of gas emanating from that crate of mangoes.

The tipping point may be too near. The noises from Kissinger, and Obama in the UN Security Council all point to a post-NPT picture.

Shiv,

I may not have written it clearly or it may not have been obvious from my post, so I will state something here explicitly. You are indeed right that Nuclear denial regime is a very new kind of approach to propagate dominance wherein a weapon is sought to be denied to *ALL* opponents. This did not happen with arches, or swords, or chariots, or tanks. But it is being done (successfully, I may add) for the last 60 years. [as an aside, I may add, this deniance regimes also exist for missiles (ICBM's especially).]

One could look at it & say that this is a new phenomena---something humanity has not done before. But that is so only if we assume that there is peace (or absence of war). But that is not so. But if we admit the alternate hypotheses that the AS's have been at a state of continous "war", then it is not a new phenomena. In most senses of the word Amerikhaans have been at war with everybody for the last 60 years, making sure that no upstart can develop new weapon systems without serious risk; if they do, they risk an all out open war. The sustained campaign against Iran's nuclear weapons serves to illustrates this point. This is a state of war even though open war has not been declared. Absence of war (called "peace") is only at the surface, but the implications of open war is evident. Hence this denial regime is not inconsistent with past human behavour---coercive denial of capabilities for a hostile at-war state has existed as long as mankind has. As a further note, this state of aggressive warfare exists not just for non-proliferation regimes, but for a whole slew of actions which the Khan determines to have crossed certain lines. E.g. coercing India & blunting it power against TSP is really an act of war (even though on the surface the states are not at war).

I hope I clarified my position a little better.

[D Roy]

The true impact of Biopreparat is still a matter of conjecture. May be frightening.

[Atri]

Biological weapons can be an excellent choice for decreasing the population of region OR to selectively kill off an individual. However, its deterrence value is minimal. The more dramatic the display of destruction, more is the fear instilled and more is the deterrence value. The lack of "Bang" in biological weapons make it a silent and efficient assassin, but not effective deterrent. Chemical weapons can be of more deterrence value than biological ones.. You can't let people know what strains of deadly Influenza virus OR Ebola Virus OR mutated and engineered Small-pox virus is present in your inventory. It is too easy for the enemy to device some measures to be save their asses. It has to be in complete secrecy. It is totally opposite of deterrence which insists on enemy knowing your capability.

Biological weapons are truly strategic weapons. They are to be used over large area for longer duration of time (six months to one year) while the population on the user's side should be properly vaccinated against the antigen. And it should be used in tandem with conventional forces after particular window period. This can greatly sap the strength of enemy beyond redemption. Just like Cortez captured small-pox infected Aztecs. A company of 200 spanish soldiers conquered Inca capital because most of the population was decimated due to small-pox.

With time, it is easier and cheaper to induct BW. The integration of computers and Biology and ability to perform in silico experiments have made it easier to model the biological systems and their behaviour. It was expensive for soviets because they were too ahead of their time. It is far easier to build such weapons (with tactical usability) provided the large base of semi-skilled work-force in India. It is rather easier to train a 12th STD passed individual to work in lab, follow protocols and produce a genetic mutation in any given system; he will work cheap and won't understand the bigger picture of what he is doing. Even the R&D can be distributed this way. It is getting exponentially cheaper and cheaper. It will be wise if India invests in this today.

[Kanson]

NRao

His argument (since this interview) is that India has "minimum deterrence" of the nuclear doctrine, but does not have the "unacceptable damage" part of the nuclear doctrine.

But isn't only:
unacceptable damage = minimum deterrance
in other words acceptable damage which has been factored in during the wargaming/planning by the supposed to be deterred country cannot deter.
obliteration many times over (like US and SU) = crosses minimum deterrance or an overkill

If i can comment, which may be..may be considered as OT( over the target ), the statements like "This will certainly not be in the category of what we call inflicting unacceptable damage" stand on weak legs or better to say on "borrowed" legs.

Almost immediately, the international seismological centres, including those with decades of experience of monitoring underground testing, put out their assessment that the 45 KT yield claimed for the thermonuclear device didn’t happen. It was instantaneous, it was not inspired, it was not racist. You can’t give any such labels and say that they were deliberately doing it to downplay India’s success.

Based on the criteria give here , i.e. "instantaneous" and "immediate" are the only guiding factor to ascertain the truth, then with same emphasis we can say whatever BARC were/are saying is 101% correct based on the 'Press Conference' given just three days after the test(this point to be noted) which was described as "This conference was notable, even unprecedented, in the level of detail about the tests that was released - discussing yields and the general characteristics of the devices." They talked about the waveforms much earlier, to say. And not after the Santhanam's bomb.

Q: Do we have the technology to gauge the size and power of Pakistan's bomb?

A: (RC) - Before or after they detonate? Of course we have methods of detecting their tests using teleseismometers. I have no idea of their programme. I have never been to Pakistan. In our tests the waveforms recorded have been confused because the detonations were simultaneous. In fact the American IDC has recorded our tests as an earthquake.

And Santhanam has only to say this:

And when did you bring it to the notice of the leadership?

By the end of May 1998, we came and spent considerable time in analysing the data from the DRDO’s instrumentation for the tests. We checked, we double-checked and triple-checked. We submitted a report to the government saying these were the expected readings based upon BARC predictions and the actual readings are lower than that. This was given in a classified report to the government. But clearly, the attitude of some people was ostrich-like. They were virtually saying, ‘I have made up my mind, don’t confuse me with facts.’

And regarding the "Deterrence" there is no minimum or maximum or acceptable and unacceptable as long as the "Deterrence" works. And Deterrence is dynamic. It keeps changing from time to time.

[Kanson]

Both sides possessed stocks in WWII, but neither side used them, even in the strategic bombing campaigns. It was a matter of tacit agreement that stemmed not just from utility, but from the horror with which gas was remembered on all sides. What is the use of a weapon you're not willing to use even in war, and does not deter war?

The same can be said about Nuclear weapons. Even though US had more N weapons at that time during the Korean war and with explicit planning of its use, somehow it was not used. That changed the landscape of N warfare far ever.

What is the use of this weapon ? If it could not help to win the war not it could deter the adversary from marching forward.

[Sanku]

And regarding the "Deterrence" there is no minimum or maximum or acceptable and unacceptable as long as the "Deterrence" works. And Deterrence is dynamic. It keeps changing from time to time.

That appears to be the fashionable view now (after the TN went into doubt), that any deterrence == all deterrence (thus by some truly inspired extension one 20 KT nuke is as good as the entire Soviet Inventory), unfortunately the world does understand the concept of escalation ladder and extents of deterrence on that ladder etc. That's why we have blokes slogging over MCD, CMD, MAD etc and figuring out how much any given stockpile is likely to be effective in various scenarios.

Of course in the ultimate picture, deterrence == total deterrence where you can out destroy the adversary, whose extension some times becomes MAD. (there is a difference between out destroying your adversary and mutual total destruction of course)

[NRao]

So, ............. until some thing "escalates", that 20 Kt is still valid?

Which is why deterrence is fluid.

And, yes, a 20 kt could be equal to the entire Soviet inventory, as long as the 20 Kt deters as well as the entire Soviet inventory.

The blokes slogging are only trying to figure out whether a 20 kt is equal to a soviet inventory. Or is it 200 Kt.

[Johann]

Both sides possessed stocks in WWII, but neither side used them, even in the strategic bombing campaigns. It was a matter of tacit agreement that stemmed not just from utility, but from the horror with which gas was remembered on all sides. What is the use of a weapon you're not willing to use even in war, and does not deter war?

The same can be said about Nuclear weapons. Even though US had more N weapons at that time during the Korean war and with explicit planning of its use, somehow it was not used. That changed the landscape of N warfare far ever.

What is the use of this weapon ? If it could not help to win the war not it could deter the adversary from marching forward.

Kanson,

When I said war, I meant total war - full mobilisation on both sides, and a fight to the finish. Very different from the 'police action' of Korea. Macarthur was fired by Truman for his repeated attempts to escalate a limited war in to a total war.

Total wars by their nature mean all weapons of mass destruction are on the table. Dambusters, nuclear weapons, chemical and biological weapons, incendiary weapons, conventional carpet bombing of cities, all of it. If there hadn't been the same bottlenecks in fissile material production, and the Soviets hadn't reached it first, Berlin, not Hiroshima would have been the first city to be nuked.

What nuclear weapons did was to shift the calculus of states against total war. The dilemma of any universal nuclear disarmament will be how to prevent a return to the days of total war.

[Umrao Das]

The spanish starting from Columbus used bio weapons to eliminate an entire race, with a simple strain of small pox.

[svinayak]

The spanish starting from Columbus used bio weapons to eliminate an entire race, with a simple strain of small pox.

Destroying symbols of civilization and religious wars with conversions are also total war.
Social engineering is also another form of long term total war.

[Johann]

I don't know of any evidence that the Spanish knowingly spread disease as a weapon in the Americas any more than the black death was knowingly spread from Central Asia to Europe, when a third of the European population was wiped out. There was no one to take advantage of that since the Middle East and the Mongols were also hit hard by disease, perhaps harder.

In any population of humans that have been long separated there will be differences in disease evolution and immunity.

People from the Old World came carrying a host of diseases that the new world was unprepared for - not just small pox but plague, TB, measles, typhus, etc.

The same thing took place when the old world came in contact with Australia and Polynesia, especially Hawaii and Tahiti, but also New Zealand.

On the other side, syphilis probably came from the new world.

Colonial settlers also died in huge numbers from disease - mortality in places like Jamestown from a range of diseases was unbelievable. The difference is that Europe's population was far larger than that of the America's even before contact, and they had somewhat greater resistance. Without a constant flow of immigration Spanish, Portuguese, and later French and Anglo-Scottish settlements would have also died out.

Disease was even more serious in Africa, which is perhaps the biggest reason it was never colonised by Europe in the way that Americas, Australia and the Pacific were even though it was closer to Europe and in longer contact, and had similar conditions of technological superiority, tribal societies, and relatively low population density.

Sorry for the tangent

[Johann]

Surinder, Chiron,

I would agree that the

- the threshholds and possibilities in biological warfare are rapidly expanding, and costs decreasing with the development of genetics, nanotechnology, computing and lab tools
- they are not yet suitable for deterrence

However, the amount of knowledge required to actually direct the development of tailored bioweapons, the size of the facilities required to weaponise on a massive scale, the preparations required to reduce the vulnerability of your own or third party populations that are geographically or genetically adjacent still puts them in a very special league.

I would also point out that global responsiveness to pandemics and humanitarian crisis has *hugely* multiplied precisely because in a globalised world disasters anywhere matter. I am not sure that any massive biological weapons usage can be *both* secret and crippling at the same time. Total war does not sit well with globalisation.

The only way to effectively use such weapons would be in conjunction with a breakdown in access - i.e. in conjunction with war.

p.s. Surinder, it is important to distinguish between competition, conflict and war. Otherwise the the term war loses all meaning.

[surinder]

Johann, in my mind I am not using the word war interchangebly with conflict & competition. I am, however, using the word war for both actual war, but also for threats of war, associated acts of war a country makes during & before active war (diplomatic, financial). I am myself weary of the use of word war to describe "war on drugs", "war on illetracy" as wars.

Given that, I could of course be wrong in my reading of the situation & would love to be pointed out. My assertion is that AS's have used war (threat of war, or other acts of war) to dissuade potential nucluer seekers. The raison-daitre of 2nd Gulf war was WMD's, after all. What is happening to Iraan is financial & diplomatic actions that take place during & before war. The threat of actual war is fully & clearly present, which everyone is aware of. As these exmaples & numerous others illustrate, the non-proliferation is imposed upon most of the non-NW states by acts & threats of war.

[vishnua]

The colonial settlers (mostly of English origin) in Massachusetts used small pox blankets to wipe out native americans near Amherst, Massachusetts.

Please read People's history of America by Howard Zinn. I know, he is considered as leftist/liberal but the facts he mentions in this book are unmistakeble.

[surinder]

The colonial settlers (mostly of English origin) in Massachusetts used small pox blankets to wipe out native americans near Amherst, Massachusetts.

Please read People's history of America by Howard Zinn. I know, he is considered as leftist/liberal but the facts he mentions in this book are unmistakeble.

Dutch settlers used the same tactic.

[Johann]

Surinder,

I think we have to distinguish between the GWB administration which took counter-proliferation to its military limits and other US administrations.

Between 1968 (the NPT's introduction) and the Soviet collapse in 1991, how many uses of force, and how many threats of force were there in the cause of non-proliferation?

The US did not use threats of force against the RoK and Taiwan to prevent them from pursuing nuclear weapons. Instead they threatened to cut off military assistance (both weapons and troops), while renewing promises of the US nuclear umbrella, conventional arms sales, assistance in the event of a conflict, etc.

With Pakistan in the 1970s, they pressured the French in to suspending the reactor sale. In fact it was the US's lack of action on the French reactor sale to Iraq that led Israel to take unilateral action against Osirak, to the fury of the US Secdef, and the displeasure of the Vice-President.

There is little evidence of effective US action against Argentina, Brazil, South Africa in their pursuit of nuclear weapons, or at least their very serious pursuit of the nuclear option.

Concerted action against Iraq only came after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and constitutes something of an exception.

Essentially during the Cold War the US was never willing to risk war to stop *any* state - friendly, hostile, allied, or non-allied from nuclearising. The most it could do was use economic and military aid as levers, providing it did not interfere with larger cold war goals.

Vishnu,

That was in the 18th century, only a decade before the American revolutionary war, when the colonial population of eastern north America was already well established.

Small pox had *already* decimated the peoples of the new world by that time. The proposed plan was what you might call mopping up.

The most densely populated, and most economically/politically/technologically sophisticated areas in the Americas were Central Ameria (Aztecs, Maya, etc) and the Andes (Inca,etc). These collapsed 3 centuries earlier. I've never seen anything that either the Spanish, or those they encountered had any idea what disease was going to do, or that they were able to influence the course of disease transmission.

[surinder]

Johann, Thanks for providing the historical context. You do have a point.

[Kanson]

And regarding the "Deterrence" there is no minimum or maximum or acceptable and unacceptable as long as the "Deterrence" works. And Deterrence is dynamic. It keeps changing from time to time.

That appears to be the fashionable view now (after the TN went into doubt), that any deterrence == all deterrence (thus by some truly inspired extension one 20 KT nuke is as good as the entire Soviet Inventory), unfortunately the world does understand the concept of escalation ladder and extents of deterrence on that ladder etc. That's why we have blokes slogging over MCD, CMD, MAD etc and figuring out how much any given stockpile is likely to be effective in various scenarios.

Of course in the ultimate picture, deterrence == total deterrence where you can out destroy the adversary, whose extension some times becomes MAD. (there is a difference between out destroying your adversary and mutual total destruction of course)

I never ever think and talk in a fashion implying TN is a dud. Let me ask can Santhanam say there is no TN weapon ? Thats a different topic.

Deterrence is not some magic number. MCD, CMD, MAD are different facets of Deterrence. Even in MAD, mutually "assured" destruction that US adopted, they never felt that they could completely destroy the SU arsenal. Deterrence is more related to what the adversary "perceive" as unacceptable. In simple that's a mind game.

[shiv]

Could someone please explain the difference between "out destruction" and "unacceptable destruction"?

[Kanson]

The same can be said about Nuclear weapons. Even though US had more N weapons at that time during the Korean war and with explicit planning of its use, somehow it was not used. That changed the landscape of N warfare far ever.

What is the use of this weapon ? If it could not help to win the war not it could deter the adversary from marching forward.

Kanson,

When I said war, I meant total war - full mobilisation on both sides, and a fight to the finish. Very different from the 'police action' of Korea. Macarthur was fired by Truman for his repeated attempts to escalate a limited war in to a total war.

Total wars by their nature mean all weapons of mass destruction are on the table. Dambusters, nuclear weapons, chemical and biological weapons, incendiary weapons, conventional carpet bombing of cities, all of it. If there hadn't been the same bottlenecks in fissile material production, and the Soviets hadn't reached it first, Berlin, not Hiroshima would have been the first city to be nuked.

What nuclear weapons did was to shift the calculus of states against total war. The dilemma of any universal nuclear disarmament will be how to prevent a return to the days of total war.

Police action which went to the brink of Nuclear war. With so many casualties you can hardly call that as police action.
http://www.rt66.com/~korteng/SmallArms/casualty.htm
Is that not a total war when every industrial town and even every villages were destroyed. People were forced to live in caves, isnt it? Is napalm not a incendiary weapon ? Is Truman a peacenik ? Didnt he authorized the usage of N weapon during Korean war ? Didnt he deliver a speech on that? So with so many casualties and destruction why did not US made use of N weapon advantage at that time. There was as high as three dozen N weapons planned for use and atleast half dozen weapons where kept ready. Why US has squandered away an opportunity. It ended in a stalemate with so many casualties, right?

The reason why Bio/Chem weapon was banned becoz they have more powerful weapon in the form of N weapon while others are still groping. Otherwise there wont be any treaty on that. In one or other way same goes for space and other 3 and 4 letter treaties.

[negi]

I believe major reason why P-5 and other countries (which either possessed nukes or were on brink of possessing one reached a consensus on Biological and Chemical weapons ) was the latter are easier to produce and proliferate and at the same time dangerous to handle something which the WEST is always scared about ; the nukes obviously are capable of more dammage are difficult to acquire and proliferate (relatively) but are not gonna be banned any time soon for obvious reasons.

Ironically IRAQ was bombed back to stone age in the name of Biological/Chemical WMDs .

[Umrao Das]

Could someone please explain the difference between "out destruction" and "unacceptable destruction"?

There was no mention of

"out destruction"

it was "all out destruction"



Limit Destruction 0<="unacceptable destruction"=>"all out destruction"

when limit of destruction ---> (tends to) infinity it is "all out destruction"

When limit of destruction > 0 < some number (less than inifinity) its unacceptable destruction which will lead to retalliation. in contrast to all out destruction whennothing is left to retalliation or survival.


this some number is paramete specific to country, capacity, strategic thinking economic clout and political will.

in case of India this "some number" pretty high (say even if 500 hundred are killed it may just provoke exchange of files and faxes with the enemy) where as some countries like USA they may go to war or extraidite the culprit hook or crook... (unless not acting is in the economic interest like TSP killing Daniel Pearl, he was expendable...)

[shiv]

Ironically IRAQ was bombed back to stone age in the name of Biological/Chemical WMDs .

The expression "bombed back into the stone age" is an interesting one. It was (according to Wiki) first used by Gen Curtis LeMay when he said that the Vietnamese would be "bombed back to the stone age"

The expression is mostly used to describe overwhelming superiority and an adversary who is assumed to have "progressed beyond the stone age". The problem is the latter part.

Many Vietnamese had not progressed far beyond the Stone Age in lifestyle. Many Indians today still lead lifestyles that are not much ahead of that in the stone age. A whole lot of people in FATA still live that way.

Bombing such people "back" to the stone age has no meaning. That is why it does not work. In addition - the people who live stone age lifestyles nave easy access to modern weapons like firearms. These people offer a "Catch 22" situation for those who seek to defeat them in war. They are already at the bottom rung when it comes to lifestyle. They cannot be "bombed back" any further without killing all of them. And killing all by mere aerial bombarding has never been achieved. You need to have troops on the ground committing genocide.

But these stone age people can get deadly arms and when those arms are used against a 20th/21st century society - that society does not want to go back to even 19th century, leave alone stone age. This is exactly the meaning of asymmetric warfare. Asymmetric warfare works, and that is why even one nuke in the hands of a stone age society can deter a 21st century society with ten thousand nukes. Now imagine a stone age society with 10 or 25 nukes threatening a 21st century society while the same 25 nukes will only make a fellow-stone age society ROTFL and say "You can't make us any worse than we are now"

[shiv]

Could someone please explain the difference between "out destruction" and "unacceptable destruction"?

There was no mention of

"out destruction"

it was "all out destruction"

O faithful supporter garu - a re-read is needed

there is a difference between out destroying your adversary and mutual total destruction

Or maybe the Spinsters of the 1990s who were always ahead of curve will explain the differences between "out destroying your adversary" (actual words used) and "out destruction" (words actually not used)?

Santhanamantics - oops I mean semantics.

[NRao]

there is a difference between out destroying your adversary and mutual total destruction of course

"out destroying" = you destroy (your enemy) more than your enemy (destroys you). A comparative destruction.

[Umrao Das]

He meant but did not spell "all out destruction" you have to peep into great peoples thought process, thats why I posted and you responded as expected. (a little piskology if you dont mind)

{{.... where tomorrow comes.....}}

stimulus ----> causality

input ----> Black box ----> out put

If black box is in deterministic system for a given input a expected out put is highly likely, even then there are sanatanan questions cropping up and venting occurs.

[shiv]

there is a difference between out destroying your adversary and mutual total destruction of course

"out destroying" = you destroy (your enemy) more than your enemy (destroys you). A comparative destruction.

That was my guess too. But that was not my question.

In terms of nuclear war, could you or someone else explain (using examples if necessary) what "out destroying your adversary" means as opposed to inflicting "unacceptable damage" or "unacceptable destruction" on an adversary. That was my question.

[NRao]

In terms of nuclear war, could you or someone else explain (using examples if necessary) what "out destroying your adversary" means as opposed to inflicting "unacceptable damage" or "unacceptable destruction" on an adversary. That was my question.

(I guess Sanku will need to clarify what he meant......................... but..........)

I have to guess that "out destroying" means just that you destroy more than he destroys you - some quantitative stuff: people, sq Kms, cities, brain power lost, Sq Km of agriculture area lost, whatever the ridiculous measure is.

"Unacceptable damage" is your perception of beyond what amount of damage your enemy will feel the real pain (and IF he is convinced that you can inflict that pain will not be the (nuclear) aggressor).

[shiv]

I have to guess that "out destroying" means just that you destroy more than he destroys you - some quantitative stuff: people, sq Kms, cities, brain power lost, Sq Km of agriculture area lost, whatever the ridiculous measure is.

"Unacceptable damage" is your perception of beyond what amount of damage your enemy will feel the real pain (and IF he is convinced that you can inflict that pain will not be the (nuclear) aggressor).

This seems a reasonable explanation and that is what I thought too. Which is what set off the following thoughts before I asked my question:

When one speaks of "out destroying" an adversary one is saying "I know you will inflict damage on me and I know how much damage I think you can inflict on me and I have decided that I will base my ability to destroy you on my assessment of how much you can damage me, so that I can out destroy you. When we fight - My destruction of you will be more than your destruction of me"

In the case of "Unacceptable damage" to an adversary the thought process (seems to me to be, IMHO etc). "I know that you can damage me very seriously and any damage to me is unacceptable. If you do start the process of wreaking such damage on me I promise to hit you back and cause pain that is unbearable to you. I am making no promises that I will stand back and think that you are causing me "X degree of damage and therefore I will cause you "X + 10 percent" damage" In other words "my promise" of hitting you hard is not based on how much you may be planning to scare me with your numbers. My idea of hitting you is not going to be based on my entering into a numbers game with you seeking to say that "My destruction of you will be bigger"

[Rien]

Rien above posted the most important argument against getting large numbers of nuclear weapons (or any WMD): statistical probability of a screw-up/ theft approaches 1.0 very rapidly.
I have never been able to understand why there hasn't yet been a nuke explosion triggered by some nutcase using a stolen weapon, given what little I know of the general screw-up probability (SUP) of people in nuke-possessing nations.

The SUP of straight fission warheads is much more than fusion warheads regardless of number. It's much easier to make a fusion warhead safe because at least 4 things must happen exactly right:

Conventional explosive detonate -> fissile material fissions-> fusion->fission of tamper.

There is no way to make a fission warhead safe, even in theory. The jehadis are explosives experts. So iff India has fusion warheads, and designs them the American RRW way, they will be much safer. Also, they will be a better deterrent because of the properties of CL-20, which is now being manufactured in India. Instead of being stored seperately from the missiles, they can be together.

Which equals a much more survivable deterrent. Already assembled and ready to launch warheads have a much better chance of surviving. It isn't just about having lightweight, more lethal and greater numbers of weapons, but much safer weapons as well. It does not matter if you have such weapons if your dushman does not know it. China and Pakistan must know, 400% certainty, that India has these weapons, and the only way for them to know is via testing.

Pakistan's MCD
High-end projection of India’s future nuclear forces, we assume that it increases its number of nuclear weapons about four-fold (to around 400) and developsone Mt yield missile warheads. It would be very difficult for Pakistan to match these developments. Even greatly expanding its number of fission warheads would not allow Pakistan to come close to matching the destructive power of India’s arsenal. Pakistan’s only hope would be to receive major Chinese aid to develop its own thermonuclear weapons. As long as Pakistan continued to rely on land-based ballistic missile systems, it would be vulnerable to a possible disarming Indian first strike due to the great increase in the destructive power of this Indian arsenal.

The above analysis is as true for the India of today, with only 50 kt warheads proven. And China has 900 ballistic missiles, with an uncountable number of tomahawk style missiles, backed up with up with the undisputed authority of 3.3 Megatons. It has enough fissile material to build at least 2900 weapons.

[Sanku]

Umrao, Shiv and NRao, sorry for the confusion with less than well defined terms in the post, at the same time thanks for giving value to the post, this does make me feel that perhaps trying to clarify what I meant is useful after all.

Overall what I was trying to say (and have been for a while) is what as I see Umarao expressed far more lucidly using the mathematical terms.

We have a equation representing chain going from 0 to all out destruction of the enemy, at the same time the damage that enemy can inflict on you is also in the range 0 to all out destruction.

MAD is a situation where both you and the enemy fall of the scale on the higher end, in any rational or even irrational society this provides sufficient deterrence, the only society it will not give deterrence against is one which has deliberate death wish.

MAD is the ultimate deterrence since it almost guarantees that none of the side will make the first move and try their luck with the chain.

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Now for less than MAD scenario --> in such a case it is given that of two sides there will at least be a side which is less on the destruction potential than the other.

Say S1 can inflict 90% damage on S2, and S2 can inflict 30% damage on S1. Thus S2 is weaker than S1.

In such a scenario, we start getting into the various games of Minimum credible, credible minimum, unacceptable, acceptable deterrence etc where people pour in energy to figure out what the safe point is (that is what damage can you cause for what damage you are ready to take in return) as NRao said, a truly ghastly calculus but one which needs be done never the less.

Which brings me to the final point what should a nation which expects to climb this route do (which is any nuclear power expecting a war with a nuclear rival) -- that again brings to what Umrao said....

Plan on a damage to enemy greater much much greater than he can impose on you and try and take it towards all out destruction, since all out destruction ability is likely to be built slowly over time, plan for damage with that end in mind.

So plan for civilization all out destruction even if not a clear numerical all out destruction (as defined by all glass scenario)

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I suppose I have not answered Shiv's original question in the above though that is because between Shiv and NRao, Shiv has answered his question himself on the distinction between the terms.

I should say that I agree with what NRao and Shiv have said in those posts about what those terms would mean and their consequences, at the same time also add that while I was trying to say what has been said in those posts (but did not say well), I was also trying to go ahead and say that what would deterrence in absolute terms mean (if there is to be a complete unqualified meaning of deterrence)

1) If we need ONE meaning of deterrence, it has to be a all out destruction of enemy,
2) The thinking of some deterrence = deterrence is not one which finds echo in the world of doctrines, where some deterrence is sought to be qualified by the level of deterrence it will provide.

[vishnua]

As per comparative destruction isn't what Gen Sunderji said during 2002 mobilization that if pakis are thinking of using nuclear weapons then pakistan will be wiped out of the map...

What did he mean wiping out of the map? Entire 160 mil will be kabum?

The question is do we have same capability for China..?? It reaches a static point like amerikhan or ruskies when you have enough to destroy 6 billion or 7 billion....

[Sanku]

As per comparative destruction isn't what Gen Sunderji said during 2002 mobilization that if pakis are thinking of using nuclear weapons then pakistan will be wiped out of the map...

What did he mean wiping out of the map? Entire 160 mil will be kabum?
.

Apparently yes, this was reinforced during discussion later during the NDA regime where Indians told the US that if Pakistan tried the nuclear route, we were ready to lose even up to 500 million but then Pakistan would cease to exist in completeness.

[Muppalla]

What did he mean wiping out of the map? Entire 160 mil will be kabum?

Is it really possible? Wiping out entire 160 millon? How many different types of bombs are needed to wipe out cities and also those in mountains and desert? Do we have any document/analysis paper that has details? I guess it is important as we hear this often.