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Monday, June 14, 2010

India's nuclear deterrence lacks capability

India's nuclear deterrence lacks capability and the country needs to build up its stockpile of fissile material to correct this, a leading defence analyst said. "We need to build up our fissile material stockpiles because our deterrence lacks capability," Brig. (retd) Gurmeet Kanwal said at a seminar here on "Nuclear Arsenals post 2010" organised by the Indian Navy-funded National Maritime Foundation.


12 comments:

please dont quote Indiatimes

India times is a rubbish new organization like every Indian news organization.

Former R&AW official J.K. Sinha, claimed that India is capable of producing 130 kilograms of weapon grade plutonium from six "unsafeguarded" reactors not included in the nuclear deal between India and the United States.

A report by David Albright, published by the Institute for Science and International Security in 2000, estimated that India at end of 1999 had 310 kilograms of weapon grade plutonium, enough for 65 nuclear weapons. He also estimated that India had 4,200 kg of reactor grade plutonium which is enough to build 1,000 nuclear weapons. By the end of 2004, he estimates India had 445 kilograms of weapon grade plutonium which is enough for around 85 nuclear weapons considering 5 kg of plutonium required for each weapon.


Now quote what I have just proved above. Not some Rubbish Times of India article.


India has enough nuclear weapons in its stockpile to take care of every Asian Nation and then some.

Don't be fooled by the fake Indian democracy. The Military and Intelligence Chief of India have quite a stronghold on our Nuclear Stockpiles. Not some turban wearing robot named Manmohan

These are comments made by the Brig. (retd) Gurmeet Kanwal at a seminar here on "Nuclear Arsenals post 2010" organised by the Indian Navy-funded National Maritime Foundation.

What it has to do with Times of India ?

And you can see many articles published by international sources that have times and again claimed that India is lacking the in nuclear delivery capabilities and have same or smaller nuclear arsenal the Pakistan which makes India vulnerable as they have to face not only Pakistan but also the powerful nuclear arsenal of China

For example

Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal to overtake India’s: SIPRI


And

Status of World Nuclear Forces


I just hope that now Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Federation of American Scientists (Both of these are independent sources) and Hindu also don’t turn into rubbish sources

SIPRI has its own agenda. Their claims have been rubbished by Pak govt earlier. India has some 26+ reactors. All of them are plutonium breeders and many will remain unsafeguarded despite IAEA agreement. If India has enough plutonium to embark on fast-breeder reactors(now underway) one can be assured that strategic needs have been taken care of.

Lets use your sources over mine.

SIPRI"s agenda is to only showcase Pakistan, which is a Nuclear Proliferating nation as a threat to the region. The reason it compares arsenals of India and Pakistan is only to show Pakistan in a bad light.

Because of Pakistans instability, nuclear proliferation record, and terror organizations being supported throughout the Intelligence and Military organizations of Pakistan.

The whole point of SIPRIS report is to show the world how big of a threat Pakistan is to the a democracy like India, and to the rest of the world.


Now lets take accountability of my sources into this argument.

The DRDO chief along with Indias current head of Agni, have both stated that India has current capability of 200 KT warheads per device.

Now lets take into account the dept of Pakistan.

Then your will realize that 5 Indian Warheads are enough to take care of Pakistan.

And also lets look at China.

Almost every Ballistic Missle in Indias arsenals is and I Quote Avinash Chander and V.K Saraswat " are able to hit any city in China, as the range of Indias missiles are proportionate/ Inversly Proportionate to the size of a warhead"


So for the lamens, this means that a Agni 1's range can be effectively doubled by decreasing its payload by half.

Theres a reason why Indias Agni 5 is called a ICBM. Because in current day, the Agni 5's unclassified range in 5500 Km, doesnt make it Inter-Continental.

But real experts know, that the range is at maximum payload.

When the payload is halved for the Agni 5, its range is doubled to 10,000 Kms.

This is all quoted by DRDO Chiefs.

So basically, India can take care of Pakistan, China and any other country that is percieved as a threat.

Nuclear vs Nuclear is alot different than conventional vs conventional.


Even Pakistan at current day has enough capability to Melt India, China and U.S bases in the region without any problems.

This nonsense about Intercepters if garbage. When a Re-Entry Vechile/Warhead from Pakistan is coming down towards New Delhi at full speed from an Altitude of 300Kms, no Short range SAM, or BMD system will be any help.

Even if the Indians Manage to intercept the Warhead at 100km above the surface, the exposion of the Nuclear Device holds most effectiveness at higher altitudes, and would destroy most of Indias Command.

Read some literature on Nuclear Doctrines. This is kiddy stuff

You can always claim about the validity of the sources but FAS and SIPRI etc are independent sources that I will take any day over Pakistani and Indian sources. At the same time it is the high ranking Indian officials who are making claims like lack of Indian nuclear capability that support their assessments.


H-Bomb controversy and nuclear deterrence

Santhanam says it again: Pokhran-II a fizzle

Does India really need the H-Bomb?

Army affected by Pokhran-II doubts, need reassurance from scientists: Malik

More Indian scientists question 1998 nuclear tests

Pokhran II not fully successful: Senior DRDO Scientist K Santhanam

Why K Santhanam said Pokharan II was not a success



So far India has only tested its two ballistic missile interceptors four times and has been able to score three hits.

Prithvi Air Defence (PAD) was tested on November 2006 against the modified Prithvi-II Missile at an altitude of 50 km.

PAD was again tested on March 6, 2009 by DRDO against the ship launched Dhanush missile at 75 km altitude.

Advanced Air Defence (AAD) Endo-Atmospheric interceptor on 6 December 2007 against Prithvi-II missile at an altitude of 15 km.

Indians plan to conduct only three to four more tests of their ballistic missiles defense system which are insufficient to make the Indian ballistic missile system operational. We should also not forget that throughout the world most of these missile interception tests are conducted under the control conditions.


I am sure that you too have knowledge about this

Israel has tested its Arrow ballistic missile interceptor a joint project of Israel and the United States more than 18 times.

Same is the case with US ballistic missile systems which with all the advance technology and very high level of funding (compared to the Indians) are doing much more testing and in past have taken much longer then Indian claims and still we saw the PAC-III’s results were shaky


India surely have made a very good effort so far by testing these interceptors but will need much more time and investment to have operational ABM system. Examples of Akash and Trishul are already informant of us, where DRDO after almost every test made claims that it was a success, missile is superior to the patriot and missile is ready for induction, still it took more than two decades for the Akash to grab production order and trishul was terminated.

And I am sure all of us also know about the time and quality related problems with other Indian defence projects run by the DRDO

So I am not ready to take their claims at face value

India can certainly do enough damage to china to increase the cost of war to a level where they would feel that even a victory is not enough but in current state China has huge edge over India in nuclear capability inter of delivery systems and Nuclear weapons. Having said that we also know that China also have much more powerful enemies to face when compared to the Indians

Now about your second post

To put it simply no country wants to go into a war with a nuclear armed country but that’s doesn’t stop countries from exploring the ideas like cold start and preemptive strikes against its enemies and try to use its such plans or threats for the coercive diplomacy that sometimes can put you in position where either side might feel that backing from their point of view is sign of defeat thus creating a conflict that no one wants

I for one sincerely hope that no such situation arise

AD, do you ever research beyond public reports? Do you know anything about nuclear physics, about types of reactors etc? Here is a quick tutorial for you.
Fact 1. India operates over 2 dozen PWR.
Fact2. PWR consumes uranium and breeds even more plutonium. Plutonium is not consumed in these reactors.
Fact 3. PWRs are efficient at breading plutonium unlike Light warer reactors.
Fact 4. India needs plutonium for its upcomming 2nd phase of reactors. This is why India is opposed to FMTC and has been stockpiling plutonium for decades. This plutonium has not been used in reactors thus far.
Fact 5. The upcoming fast-breeder reactors will produce more plutonium than they will consume. India's fissile stockpile will thus only increase.
Fact 6. Though India faces uranium shortage for its PWRs still considering that they have been operating dozens of reactors, India's uranium enrichment program cannot be considered small specially compared to Pakistan which is operating just 1 or 2 small reactors.

Now you can do your own math.
Public statements are almost always motivated. India is trying to resist FMTC pressures and will find every excuse to keep stockpiling.
SIPRI and Federation of American Scientists highlight nuclear threat from rogue states to push the NPT agenda(nuclear Pakistan does scares the world).

Asian Defence,
There are infinite military options between a minor border dispute and an all out nuclear war. That includes Cold Start. Mushie proved that a conventional war is possible between nuclear armed nations. He also proved that nuclear deterrence will not deter the jihadi mindset. It is simple to understand why. When the Indian hellfire comes raining down after a Pakistani first strike, he and buddies with their families would have long absconded to far off lands before Pakistan is turned into a permanent land fill.

To Anonymous @June 15, 2010 7:34 A
I have done math so have these international organizations they just don’t sit and write few lines to publish their findings it takes months worth of time and efforts to update these stats.

So important question is where is your Math? Who reliable is it going to be?

All you are saying that this or that might be the case.

Most of what you describe presents Indian civilian nuclear power program.

FMCT will help both countries as India will not like to have capability anything less than china and Pakistan is also adding third and fourth plutonium production reactors


To bookz

There are infinite military options between a minor border dispute and an all out nuclear war. That includes Cold Start.

No you are wrong especially in Indo-Pak scenario

There are very limited no of options for a military operation
As it has been proved in this decade that even when India was ready for both Full scale war and limited preemptive strikes but ultimately had stand down
So far only one thing is sure that in case of a Nuclear war both countries will suffer a lose that they won’t be able to recover from for centuries.

This won’t be a nuclear attack like Japan. As tushar have said this is not conventional war where bigger country will have much advantage because beyond one point damage will be such that none of the nation will be willing to accept.

Both countries have nuclear material in range of atleast hundred nuclear weapons and are continuing and increasing the production lines.

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