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Publication: The Times Of India Mumbai; Date: Aug 28, 2009; Section: Times Nation; Page: 15


Forces gung-ho on N-arsenal

Navy Chief Confident Despite Scientist Calling Pokhran ‘Fizzle’

Rajat Pandit | TNN

New Delhi: Indian armed forces seem quite confident about the country’s nuclear arsenal despite the controversy over the “yields’’ of the 1998 Pokhran-II nuclear tests, which included a 15 kiloton fission device, a 45 kiloton thermonuclear device (hydrogen bomb) and three subkiloton devices.

    Outgoing navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta, also the chairman of the chiefs of staff committee, on Thursday said India had “a credible minimum nuclear deterrent’’ in line with its no-first use (NFU) policy. “We are a nation which maintains a credible deterrent...more than enough to deter anybody,’’ said Admiral Mehta. And should someone do the unthinkable by launching a first-strike, then the “consequences will be more than what they can bear’’.

    Asked about former DRDO scientist K Santhanam’s statement that the hydrogen bomb tested during Pokhran-II was actually “a fizzle’’, Admiral Mehta said, “As far as we are concerned, scientists have given us a certain capability which is enough to provide requisite deterrence...the deterrent is tried and tested.’’

    That may well be so but there are still some lingering doubts over whether India has a swift and assured secondstrike capability, crucial for a country like India whose nuclear doctrine is centred around the NFU policy.

    The doctrine declares that nuclear retaliation to a first strike will be “massive and designed to inflict unacceptable damage’’. This connotes a robust stockpile of nuclear warheads, safe and ready for use if needed. Estimates indicate India’s weapons-grade plutonium stockpile is enough for 80-90 warheads at present.

    Pakistan has deliberately kept its nuclear policy ambiguous in the belief it deters India from undertaking any conventional military action against it. Moreover, recent reports indicate Pakistan has pressed the throttle to enhance its arsenal much beyond 60 nuclear warheads as well as supplement its ongoing enriched uranium-based nuke programme with a weaponsgrade plutonium one.

    But more than the actual number of nuclear warheads, the worry of the Indian armed forces has been the gap in their delivery systems. Pakistan, for instance, is well ahead in the missile arena, borrowing as it has heavily from China and North Korea.

    China, with its long-range ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) and SLBMs (submarine-launched ballistic missiles), is in a different league altogether. Its road-mobile DF-31A missile, for instance, can hit targets 11,200 km away, while JL-2 SLBM has a reach beyond 7,200 km.

    India has no ICBM or SLBM. While it’s developing the 3,500-km Agni-III and 5,000-km Agni-V ballistic missiles, the only missiles available to armed forces as of now are Prithvi (150 to 350-km range), Agni-I (700-km) and Agni-II (2,500-km). But they, too, have not undergone the rigorous testing nuclear-capable missiles should undergo.

Cracking The Pokhran Tests

11 May 1998 3:44 pm Shakti 1: Two stage thermonuclear device 45 kt Shakti 2: Fission warhead using plutonium 15 kt Shakti 3: First stage of boosted fission device using plutonium 0.3 kt 13 May 1998 12:21 pm Shakti 4: Experimental fission device 0.5 kt Shakti 5: Experimental fission device using U-233 0.2 kt Yield: Total energy discharged by the explosion. Measured as equivalent to mass of trinitrotoluene (TNT) in thousand (kilo) tons. Figures are claimed yields

FISSION DEVICE (Atom Bomb): Material like U-235 or Pu-233 when collected in sufficient quantity undergoes chain reaction. Neutrons split the nuclei of other atoms releasing heat, radiation and neutrons which attack other nuclei and so on and on

THERMONUCLEAR DEVICE (Hydrogen bomb): It has a two-stage process: first, fission takes place and the energy released from it is then harnessed to fuse two types of hydrogen atoms. The fusion process releases a huge amount of energy, causing more fusion

BOOSTED FISSION DEVICE:

First a small fusion reaction is conducted and the energy released by this process is then used to carry out a bigger fission explosion

EXAMPLES OF YIELD Little Boy bomb, USA

(1945 Hiroshima):

12-15 kt

Fat Man bomb, USA

(1945 Nagasaki):

20-22 kt

Chagai I, Pakistan (test 1998): 40 kt

Ivy Mike (test 1952), USA, hydrogen bomb: 10-12 megatons







Former PM Vajpayee at Pokhran after ‘Buddha Smiled’