ante_climaxBy your logic the TN weapons of P-5 are just prestige issue and the military planners are just fools to have those , when they could do with fission weapons ?
And they would just use fission weapons to depopulate the cities and thats good enough of deterrence.
So we tested it just because of prestige issue and the claim of RC that the TN was ~ 300 kT type was just for prestige.
Its a perfect case of grapes are sour 😀
The TN weapons are good to have. But not necessary for a CMD.
If you 300 KT war heads you use it, but that is not necessary.
The P5 has an Arsenal to destroy the world several times over ? Is that necessary :rolleyes:
ante_climaxSecond strike means ability to withstand the first strike and having enough weapons and robust command and control system and means to retaliate which mean employing triad for a fail safe response.
Second strike does not mean hitting population centers with the word go , any military/political leadership will try to eliminate command and control centers and key nuclear targets like silos or mobile systems , wheather first or second strike.
I repeat no military or civil leadership are civilization slaughterers
Please tell me if we did not need TN weapons as part of CMD , why did we test it at the first place ?
If 25kT was enough , why did we test a TN weapons with 45 – 300 kT yeald as confirmed by RC ?
Strategic Nuclear strikes are mostly aimed at cities, You can see that from Hiroshima, Nagasaki thing to doctrines after. Tactical weapons are used against military sites.
The threat of civilian causalities prevent war. Because most governments are responsible for their citizens lives. This is the basis of MAD.
TN weapons are a luxuary and not a necessity, they may be needed as a prestige thingy to be admitted into the nuclear club proper. But not necessary for deterrence.
ante_climaxUh, yes. But Iran (along with DPRK) is what this shield is supposed to protect us against in the first place, so.. BTW its hartwarming to se a non-European guy caring so mouch about our safty, and to a souch a degree that you obviousely can decide (without a shadow of doubt) what’s good for us and whats not. Good job, o Master 🙂
Actually these are not my original views its what some European commentators write about in the Guardian and other papers which make its way to Op-Ed pages of many Indian dailies.
Do you think the Missile Shield was against Iran and Korea :rolleyes:? It was apparently aimed at Russia and that was why the Russians were upset. You see while i kinda like the neocons i do not swallow their reasons for doing things.
WMD in Iraq, Missile Shield against Iran etc. are just means to greater ends. 😉
ante_climaxKilling 10 lakhs people wheather in any big Indian or China or US city , is the last option for any military planners , the military and its political leadership are not civilization slaughterers.
Indian nuclear doctrine is based on no first use. So basically our Nukes are a deterrent. And deterrence is achieved mainly by the fear that a lot of civilian population and infrastructure will be lost.
In terms of a first strike policy taking out military installations and launch silos will be the key, but that is not the basis of our Nuclear policy. For second strike or threat of it Fusion bombs of 25 KT+ are enough. If we can get 8 of those into MIRVs then about 8-10 missiles like that should be detterrent enough.
ante_climaxWell ~ 200 -300 kT was deemed as a yeald that is capable of taking out the most hardened C&C centers , deep ops center located 100’s of meters below mountain ,super hardened missile silos and other fortified nuclear/military installation with 100 % effectiveness.
One needs to factor in CEP of missile when dealing with such targets.
Please understand no body wants to drop a Nuclear missile over Shanghai to wipe out civilization , but to have effective deterrence against hardened military targets.
The TN bomb that India designed and which now we know has failed had a variable yeald of ~ 50 – 300 kT , giving military planners the right tool to do the job.
So testing a TN device which already factored the yeald is just patching and getting things right and a weponisible TN device , which originally went wrong.
Do not mix up ability to demonstrate the physics of TN , with a military usable TN device , the former can be proven with just one test if it goes right , the latter needs 2 – 3 test to demonstrate military level ruggedness, safety and other factors of the warhead
That is one of the reason very advanced countries even with decades of experience , test their warhead repeatedly to get it right.
You are very wrong Austin. The basis of any Nuclear Deterrent especially with out current policy is to inflict unacceptable damage on the enemy. So cities like Beijing and Shanghai are the targets and NOT military installations.
Any responsible country as Rajaram said cares more about its civilians than military. 50 Nuke warheads is good deterrent against china each have 50 kiloton yield what we must develop is SLBMs and ICBMs with MIRVs. :diablo:
Since we have many fission warheads, the nation is not exactly depending on the fizzle or success of a TN weapon. The best way to demonstrate the TN weapon succeeded is by weaponizing it.
ante_climaxPost of these people have hidden Agendas swerve many are very uncomfortable with the close Indo-Western ties.
ante_climaxDUD H- BOMB DEMANDS NEW NUCLEAR PLAN
By Manoj Joshi
FACTS have consequences, especially verities that are inconvenient.
The fact that India’s hydrogen bomb failed in its first and only test is one such truth.
It has consequences for the country’s nuclear doctrine, force posture as well as foreign policy issues relating to the US and China, and our approach to the comprehensive test ban treaty and the fissile material cut off treaty.
In such circumstances what was considered true in the past must be discarded and new choices must be made.
Take the most important one. Should India resume nuclear testing? There will be some who argue that the logic of the situation demands just that. I, for one, am agnostic. India is not a bold country. Our conduct during the 1998 nuclear tests itself suggests that.
Having broken the informal embargo on nuclear tests, we rushed in indecent haste to reassure the world of the goodness of our heart.
This took two forms — first the offer of the pledge of no first use and a defensive nuclear doctrine.
The second, the commitment to a unilateral moratorium. Both were made hurriedly and did not benefit from a wider debate in the government or the country.
Testing2009 is not the same as 1998. The most important difference is the relative power of China and the US. The last time around, a quick genuflection to the US, prevented the wrath of Beijing. Recall, that in the wake of the tests, the UN Security Council had passed Resolution 1172 which demanded, among other things, that “ India and Pakistan immediately stop their nuclear weapon development programmes, refrain from weaponisation or from the deployment of nuclear weapons, cease development of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons and any further production of fissile material for nuclear weapons.” Even as late as 2000, China was pressing the world community to act on this resolution. It was only when it became clear that Washington was using the Indian dissonance with China to build bridges with New Delhi, that Beijing changed tack.
In the present circumstances, renewed testing by India could be hazardous to our health.
Things are not likely to play out as they did the last time.
Fresh tests would terminate the Indo- US nuclear deal because the Hyde Act that enabled it only provides for a waiver for Indian nuclear tests till May 13, 1998. It would also pit India against the international system which is now readying itself to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Fissile Material Cut- off Treaty.
Fire- eaters will argue that India should bash on regardless and stick it out as a pariah in the international system because its security is paramount.
I would argue for a middle- path because we know India lacks the stamina to make it alone as China did in the 1949- 1970 period.
Also it would confront us with the choice of forfeiting our economic destiny.
We must make do with what we have and this time we must do it well. Till now the Indian effort at weaponising its deterrent has been as fitful and lethargic as the pace of its missile programmes. Both are seriously lagging that of even Pakistan. For obvious reasons we could not weaponise the flawed thermonuclear design, but we do have a reliable fission weapon which yielded 25kT in the May 1998 test.
This design could be safely boosted to a weapon of at least 50kT. A great deal of work remains to be done in the missile field. The Agni series needs to be locked down by a series of tests to prove its reliability and accuracy. The Brahmos needs to be transformed into a longer range cruise missile capable of reaching 900- 1500 km. Both the weapons and the missiles should be handed over to the armed forces, though the country may still choose to keep its weapons in a dis- assembled form.
Doctrine
But first we need to alter our nuclear doctrine so that it can guide us to a different kind of force posture.
The doctrine of 1998 was a slapdash job. It did not arise from Indian practice or goals, but was imposed top down to convince the world that our arsenal was purely for defence and that it would be a minimalist one, though its credibility would be assured by the fact that it was in a triad of land and sea- based and air- dropped weapons.
Just how incomplete a job it was became apparent when India confronted Pakistan in the wake of the attack on Parliament in 2001 and found that our doctrine did not cover the possibility of nuclear strikes on Indian forces operating outside our national territory.
The biggest hole in it was that at the time it was enunciated, India did not have the wherewithal for the massive retaliation, or to use the politically more correct term, inflict “ unacceptable” destruction and punishment on the adversary, that it promised.
While doctrines may precede capability, we are now confronted with the fact that we do not have the key weapon we thought we had for inflicting massive retaliation — a thermonuclear bomb.
The Indian doctrine implied that since we had offered a “ no first use” pledge, we would sustain a first strike by an adversary and then retaliate massively.
This assumed that some of our already minimalist arsenal would also be destroyed in the adversary’s strike. And so there was need for, first, measures to secure our weapons against such strikes. And, second, to have weapons that would inflict the crushing retaliation.
If you take these two factors, it implied that an Indian retaliation would be of the “ counter- value” type, targeting cities and population centres. These “ city- busting” strikes rested on the possession of 200- 300 kilotonne weapons, which cannot but be of the fusion or thermonuclear kind.
Capability
The revelations about the failure of the thermonuclear bomb means that new choices will now have to be made about our force structure since it could take 15- 20 bombs of the 25 kT variety to obtain the kind of destruction a single 200 kT thermonuclear bomb wreaks.
So out goes the minimalist posture. If we are to have a credible force, we need to redo the sums about the size of the arsenal. We also need to work out different ways of deploying and using our weapons and getting our armed forces into the picture, instead of keeping them out as is the case now.
Our new doctrine and reengineered capabilities must be able to re- endorse the credibility of our retaliatory capabilities— minus the thermonuclear bomb.
A “ no first use” pledge could be a luxury in the present circumstances.
What we need is a system that will provide a guarantee that a nuclear attack on India will meet with assured retaliation.
ante_climaxOk please tell me another source of vast gas supplies we can get within the next year? You clearly do not have the slightest idea of the dimensions we are talking about. There are other pipeline projects with other ex-Soviet states like Azerbaijan but those projects take ages.
The other option is to get a pipeline from Iran. But I would rather trust Russians than those lot. 😉
The Onus is on Europeans to find cleaner energy, it may save them from Global Warming and Russia 🙂
Russia is the only country which would benefit from climate change considering the Artic claims and Siberia coming out of permafrost.
ante_climaxRe: Hitler/Chamberlain
Who is going to be the next Churchill if it goes down that way.
Sarah Palin :diablo:
ante_climaxIts for power projection rather than anything else and ofcourse prestige. Showing the world that Brazil has arrived.
ante_climaxAdditional Indian rover on Chandrayaan-II
KOCHI: A small Indian rover, wheeling the country’s hopes on the lunarscape, will travel to the moon on Chandrayaan-II.
This will be in addition to the Russian rover, one of the main payloads on board the second moon mission, making this one of the first missions to carry two robotic payloads on it.
While the Russian rover weighs about 50 kg, the Indian one is smaller and weighs only 15 kg. The Russian rover, which is significantly more advanced and versatile, will carry out all the major explorations while the Indian one will separately undertake chemical analysis and the search for availability of materials on the surface of the moon.
The design is totally indigenous. And a significant part of the rover, including the crucial communication links, is being fabricated in Kerala. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has a twin objective in sending up a desi rover. One aim is to gain experience in robotic payloads but the main idea is to achieve the capability of remotely controlling a system to execute various commands communicated from the Bangalore station. India needs to perfect its deep space communication as the space race is so dependent on effecting transmission of commands to the payloads and reception of data collected by them.
At the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), ISRO scientists are working to develop radio frequency transmitters.
These transmitters will travel on the rover, controlling its movement on the moon and directing it to collect samples. The ISRO, however, is not planning to do serious chemical examination on the rover.
Apart from achieving communication prowess, ISRO hopes to learn valuable lessons in soft landing payloads on alien surfaces through the rover experiment.
The Russians have handed over the design and specifications of its rover for fabrication of its traction in association with ISRO using facilities in ITTs like Kharagpur.
The only experience ISRO has in landing payloads is what it gained through the crash-landing of the moon impact probe (MIP) sent on the ill-fated Chandrayaan-I. Since the MIP was intended to crash on the lunar surface and cause dust displacement for understanding of the terrain, not much thought was given to landing techniques.
With ISRO deciding to carry two rovers, the possibility of flying free payloads remains a moot point. In fact, the decision to carry 11 payloads on Chandrayaan- I and whether it affected its thermal management is being actively debated. Scientists feel that had the spacecraft been less congested internal heat could have been more effectively ventilated. This could restrain ISRO from inviting free payloads from other space agencies or universities.
ante_climaxNo voice vote over result: Mishra
Former national security adviser ( NSA) Brajesh Mishra has dismissed ex- Defence Research Development Organisation ( DRDO) scientist K. Santhanam’s contention that the 1998 meeting to ascertain thermonuclear ( TN) device yield was decided by ” voice vote”. Instead, Mishra claimed the meet satisfied all ” suspicions” over the yield.
Santhanam has claimed that Mishra had convened a meeting in late 1998 to discuss a report prepared by the DRDO of actual seismic readings of TN tests vis- a- vis values predicted by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre ( BARC).
Mishra recalled he had convened a meeting to clear the suspicions and doubts that arose in the minds of some, particularly Santhanam, about the yield of the TN test.
The meeting – attended by Dr R. Chidambaram; Dr S. K. Sikka, the scientific head of the BARC team; APJ Abdul Kalam, the director general of the DRDO; Dr V. K. Aatre, the chief controller of the DRDO; Dr Anil Kakodkar and Santhanam – allayed all doubts, said the former NSA. ” All doubts, if any, were put to rest.
The meeting was convened for that purpose. There was no question of any voice vote,” he said.
On why the government did not conduct a sixth nuclear test in 1998 to clear the doubts, Mishra said it was not necessary as all five tests were successful. ” The question did not arise at all. In fact, there were never any doubts in my mind regarding the tests.
After the tests, Kalam had called me from the Pokhran test range and conveyed the results of the tests. I was satisfied.” In fact, in a statement in September 1998, Kalam had clarified that the yield of TN test was 45 kiloton and that it was successful, Mishra recalled.
Kalam claimed that from the data obtained by seismic and radioactive measurements, the project team had established that the ” design yield of the TN test has been obtained”. The former President said, ” After the test, there was a detailed review based on the two experimental results – seismic measurement close to the site and around and radioactive measurement of the material after post- shot drill in the test site.”
ante_climaxI am against further Nuclear tests till we have indigenous production capability of all our weapons and sub-systems. All wars are goning to be limited in nature, for that the MRCA fleet or Tejas is more important than an H bomb. We must not sign the CTBT or NPT we must bide for our time before we can get real indigenous power and weapon production capability then we can test and they can sanction all they want.
ante_climaxI think there is no need for us to test a fission weapon at the point. Because a single test will not be enough. We already have CMD. We must divert our energies on missile technologies and develop a true ICBM with MIRVs and fast track the development of SLBMs.
We do not need the power to destroy the whole of China, We only need power to bring down majority of their cities, and one that is survivable in the event of a first strike.
I am against signing CTBT or NPT but it can be considered if the trade off is benefical.
ante_climaxHow many bombs does India need?
India already has more than 100 fission weapons, each enough to kill up to two million people. This is deterrence enough, says Praful Bidwai.
What’s with our security and space-science establishment? Why does it miss targets, exceed budgets, produce shoddy results, and still claim success after stellar success?
Why do we keep showering upon its managers (wrongly called ‘scientists’ because most stopped doing science decades ago) more awards and honours than in any other field?
Isn’t it odd that A P J Abdul Kalam received the Bharat Ratna in 1992, six years before Amartya Sen did for work of infinitely greater value than the ‘Missile Man’s?’ Isn’t it anomalous that Sen was given India’s highest honour only after receiving the Nobel Prize?
Doesn’t the winding up of the Integrated Guided Missile Programme launched under Kalam in 1983 signify its terminal crisis? Why doesn’t India have a reliable intermediate-range missile barring the Agni-I?
If the Defence Research and Development Organisation is a grand success, then why hasn’t it completed a major project without obscene delays and cost overruns — including the Main Battle Tank (launched in 1974, not ready despite a 10-fold bloating of costs), and the Light Combat Aircraft (started in 1983, but still lacking an engine)?
Why has the nuclear submarine’s cost risen 30-fold? And why did the Department of Atomic Energy have to get critical Russian designs and equipment for its reactor despite working on it for 34 years?
The DAE and DRDO have long been unmatched for their shoddy work, targets unrelated to capacity, boastful ‘achievements’ which on closer scrutiny get deflated like a balloon, and worse, a culture of excessive secrecy. But with the failure of the Chandrayaan-I, the Indian Space Research Organisation, which had a reputation for transparency and honesty, has joined their league.
Its Moon mission had to be terminated because the orbiter got overheated, leading to malfunctioning and collapse of vital subsystems, including sensors which control the craft’s orientation. Eventually, it lost terrestrial radio contact.
It’s not the mission’s premature termination that warrants concern. Failures aren’t uncommon in space programmes, as with ISRO’s INSAT-2D and -4C. The cause for worry doesn’t even lie in ISRO’s miscalculation of the temperature at the craft’s surface. This was estimated at 750°C, but turned out higher, necessitating the deactivation of certain payloads and abortion of experiments.
Such miscalculations could be part of the learning process. Again, ISRO did some fire-fighting by raising the craft’s Moon orbit from 100 kilometres to 200 km. After the star sensors failed, it tried to stabilise the orbiter with gyroscopes.
ISRO’s real, unforgivable failure lay in misleading the public and its scientists. ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair clamed that the orbit was raised to enable a better view and ‘further studies’ of the moon — when it was actually a desperate means to avert a breakdown.
Entire teams of scientists were kept in the dark for three months or longer about the overheating crisis which necessitated rearguard action way back on November 25 — barely one month after launch. ISRO’s bosses issued a gag order on researchers against public statements.
Three senior ISRO officials publicly asserted in May that there was ‘nothing wrong’ with any of the craft’s systems.
ISRO also kept its overseas collaborating scientists in the dark for a month after the first sensor failed.
It is this unethical hiding of the truth that’s ISRO’s greatest sin. Nothing is more antithetical to good science than non-transparency and non-disclosure of the whole truth.
Truth is an even greater casualty in the nuclear weapons arena. This is the holiest of the Holy Cows of national security. Nuclear bureaucrats never do anything that’s not a scientific feat or earth-shaking technological achievement. This explains the glowing terms in which the May 1998 nuclear explosions were described.
Their greatest achievement, supposedly, was the testing of a hydrogen (fusion/thermonuclear) bomb on May 11, along with two other devices: a fission bomb similar to that detonated over Nagasaki in 1945 to kill 70,000 people, with an explosive yield of 12 kilotons (12,000 ton of TNT), and a sub-kiloton device.
However, claims Dr K Santhanam, a DRDO official who was part of the Pokharan-II core team, the H-bomb fizzled out. The fusion assembly, the bomb’s heart, didn’t ignite or did so on a minuscule scale. Both DAE and DRDO strenuously and peevishly deny this. They have challenged Dr Santhanam to produce hard evidence, knowing well that under the rules of secrecy, he’s unlikely to possess such data.
National Security Adviser M K Narayanan has called Dr Santhanam ‘a bit of a maverick.’
Dr Santhanam may well be a maverick — as are many DAE-DRDO officials. But that cannot demolish his claim. Why he chose to remain silent on the H-bomb ‘fizzle’ for 11 years remains a mystery. As does his motive in making the disclosure in a closed-door conference in Delhi [ Images ] on August 25, leaked to the media in violation of Chatham House rules.
Instead of issuing a denial, Dr Santhanam repeated his claims on television. Such conduct raises uncomfortable questions about the culture of our military-science establishment.
However, what’s the truth about the H-bomb? Is Dr Santhanam saying something new? Does it warrant rethinking on India’s moratorium on future nuclear testing, announced in May 1998 and reiterated in 2005?
Dr Santhanam isn’t saying anything original. Soon after the Pokharan-II blasts, several weapons designers and seismologists questioned the claim that a thermonuclear bomb was successfully detonated with a yield of 43 or 45 kt. A University of Arizona seismologist, using publicly available seismic data, concluded that the combined yield of the three May 11 explosions was 10 to 25 kt, not the claimed 55 kt.
According to weapons experts at the US Natural Resources Defense Council, the mid-point of the range of their probable yields was about 12 kt. Soon, Nucleonics Week, the global nuclear industry’s trade journal, reported that Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory analysts concluded that the second stage of the two-stage fusion assembly failed to ignite as planned. Some retired Indian scientists had similar assessments.
The DAE called these ‘baseless’ and said the tests were ‘perfect’. India had conducted their ‘full complement’ and ‘obtained three robust bomb designs.’ Indeed, the DAE revised its May 11 yield estimates to 60 kt (including the H-bomb’s 45 kt and the fission bomb’s 15 kt). It had a curious explanation of the H-bomb’s low yield was so, when it normally should be 1,000 kt-plus.
It kept the yield ‘deliberately low’ to avert seismic damage to the villages close to the test site. It also contended, quite incredibly, that there were discrepancies between Indian and Western seismic readings because of ‘wave interference’ caused by simultaneous explosions. But if such interference were real, it would have been reflected in India’s sensors too.
I discussed this whole issue in my book (co-authored with Achin Vanaik) South Asia On A Short Fuse: Nuclear Politics and the Future of Global Disarmament (Oxford, 1999). On balance of probability, the rational conclusion is that the H-bomb didn’t perform as planned.
Even if it did, a single test can’t give weapons engineers and the military adequate confidence in its design. States conduct multiple tests on a design under different conditions before it’s considered usable.
But the DAE took shortcuts. DRDO has similarly declared missiles battle-ready after just one or two test-flights — when technologically advanced countries conduct 10 or more test-flights.
We should further debate the H-bomb issue. But the debate can only proceed if more information is put into the public domain. However, we shouldn’t fall into the trap of demanding that India should test again to develop the H-bomb. That bomb doesn’t even belong to the official doctrine of ‘minimum credible nuclear deterrence.’
As this column has repeatedly argued, India does not need nuclear weapons. They are irrelevant to defence. Rather, they generate insecurity, instability and a potentially ruinous arms race. If India really believes in a nuclear weapons-free world, it should proceed towards regional and global nuclear disarmament.
However, even temporarily leaving aside the compelling argument for abolishing nuclear weapons, no plausible case can be made for a hydrogen bomb. You don’t need hydrogen bombs to deter an adversary.
India already has more than 100 fission weapons, each enough to kill up to two million people. This is deterrence enough.
There’s a lesson here from the US Atomic Energy Commission’s General Advisory Committee, which included top-level scientists like Enrico Fermi and Robert Oppenheimer, who were in the Manhattan Project. It urged President Truman in October 1949: ‘It is clear that… (a hydrogen bomb) would bring about the destruction of innumerable human lives; it is not a weapon which can be used exclusively for the destruction of material… or military installations… Its use therefore carries much further than the atomic bomb itself the policy of exterminating civilian populations.’
The advice was ignored because of the first Soviet nuclear test in August that year. But its wisdom remains valid today. Taking the hydrogen bomb route will wantonly raise our capacity for mass destruction without giving us security. It will also draw India into an escalating arms race with China, with horrible consequences. We must say no to further testing.
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