Economic and Political Weekly
September 6, 1997
NUCLEAR NOTEBOOK
By Achin Vanaik
India's nuclear elite and the members of its so-called strategic
community
carry on with the pretentious posturing that their negative and
obstructive
stand against such restraint measures as the CTBT and the Fissile
Material
Cut-off Treaty are really sincere, courageous contributions to the
struggle for greater nuclear sanity and against hegemony.
THREE important developments took place recently. The Indian government
became the first anywhere to reject the Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty
(FMCT) even before the negotiations have begun. To be precise, New Delhi
has said it will not be a party to a FMCT unless it is part of a
time-bound
schedule for global disarmament. Secondly, the US decision to go in for
subcritical tests was seized upon (as was to be expected) by the nuclear
elite in India as a vindication of India's stand on the CTBT, which, of
course, it is not. Third, recent reports of Chinese updating of its
medium
range missiles and of its nuclear-related collaboration with Pakistan
were
again made an excuse for nuclear tub-thumping by our hawks.
On the FMCT, India's position was anticipated. But by announcing it even
before negotiations have started, the Indian government also indicated
its
contempt for those negotiations, and indeed for the concerns and efforts
of
a whole host of nonnuclear weapons states (NNWSs) which do take the FMCT
seriously. New Delhi's call for a time-bound schedule for global
disarmament is simply to provide (as in the case of the CTBT) an excuse
and
a justification in advance to cover up its real reasons for not acceding
to
the FMCT. It is because it fears that abiding by this would greatly
devalue
its nuclear option by preventing it from accumulating over the coming
years
an adequate stockpile of weapons-grade fuel.
The difference between the CTBT and the FMCT is a real and significant
one.
The former is a powerful restraint measure on the nuclear weapons states
(NWSs) including the US and involves a genuine sacrifice on their part.
But
merely cutting off future production of fissile materials does not entail
a
sacrifice by NWSs, especially the US and Russia. They have huge
stockpiles
already and there is also the additional weaponsgrade fuel available from
dismantling some of their warheads as they are now having to do under
existing START II agreements, with the possibility of more disarming to
come. That is why a meaningful FMCT must not simply address the issue of
cutting off production but aim at systematically and progressively
reducing
existing stockpiles by, say, an agreed percentage yearly. This is exactly
what most NNWSs especially outside Europe (including Pakistan) want, and
rightly so. Incidentally, one of the countries adamantly opposed to
stockpile reduction being brought within the aegis of the FMCT is - guess
which? India.
Since the NWSs are strongly opposed to stockpiles being brought in, and
since merely cutting off production, while necessary, does not impose a
sacrifice on the NWSs, it is vital that the FMCT issue be linked to other
concerns. Not in the way India wants, but a linkage nonetheless. What ki
nd
of linkage? India's call for a time-bound schedule for global disarmament
is really putting the cart before the horse. Before you can hope to even
put effective pressure for achieving such a measure, you first have to
institutionalize some multilateral body empowered to negotiate and carry
out global nuclear disarmament. The body must be multilateral and not
just
confined to the nuclear weapons states or nuclear capable states. All
states must be party to the process of such disarmament because this is a
genuinely global issue on which the voices of non-nuclear states must be
heard and must carry weight.
There are two realistic candidates for such a body - setting up a nuclear
abolition convention, or the setting up of an ad hoc committee to discuss
and negotiate global disarmament. Both avenues can be pursued
simultaneously but the chance of having the first is much slimmer than of
getting the second. Indeed, NNWSs have pushed for setting up just such a
committee in the CTBT negotiations, and if India had been interested in
playing a leading role among the NNWSs, it could have pressed for such a
body during those negotiations as the price to be paid for its accession.
Of course, it was never interested in making such an effort and didn't.
But
with regard to the FMCT, many NNWSs are insisting on linkage between such
a
treaty and the setting up of such a committee, and rightly so. While some
NNWSs would settle, as a first step, for an ad hoc Committee with simply
a
discussion (but not a negotiating) mandate because they want above all,
to
get such a body into existence for the first time ever (itself a major
advance), other NNWSs are pressing for a committee with a negotiating
mandate. The NWSs are more amenable to the first which could come about
if
enough pressure is brought upon them through hard bargaining. Again,
India
could have played a leading role in pushing for this but is not
interested
in making any genuine efforts in this regard. At the same time, India's
nuclear elite and the members of its so-called strategic community carry
on
with the pretentious posturing that their negative and obstructive stand
against such restraint measures as the CTBT and FMCT are really sincere
and
courageous contributions to the struggle for greater nuclear sanity and
against nuclear hegemony.
SUBCRITICAL TESTS
With regard to the issue of subcritical testing, the claim by the Indian
government and by the country's nuclear elite that India's stand on the
CTBT was vindicated is simply fraudulent. Do these tests violate the
letter
and text of the CTBT? No they don't. Do these tests violate or go against
the larger spirit and wider intention of the CTBT? They certainly do.
Does
the carrying out of these subcritical tests render the CTBT worthless and
pointless? Of course, they do not. There have been any number of
antinuclear activists and groups in the US, Europe and Japan that have
publicly protested these subcritical tests, but which have supported (and
continue to do so) the CTBT. By contrast, the general reaction of the
Indian nuclear elite was of the "I told you so" type - a response which
is
both narrow and dishonest.
Much has been made by our hawks of how subcritical testing, inertial
confinement fusion, computer simulation make the need for explosive
testing
in which a nuclear chain reaction takes place (which is banned by the
CTBT)
redundant. France's Laser Megajoule Project (LMJ) and the US National
Ignition Facility (NIF) Project (both under planned construction) are
seen
as the institutional embodiments guaranteeing this redundancy. They are
mistaken. There are three aspects when it comes to producing and
deploying
nuclear weapons, even assuming that the issue of having a carrier for the
weapon in question is resolved. These three aspects are cenification,
weaponisation and development. A bomb may be developed but neither
weaponised nor certified. Or it can be both developed and weaponised but
not certified which makes its deployment highly unlikely but not
impossible. What then does the CTBT do and not do?
It rules out all possibility of certification. It does not rule out the
production of new weapons within the existing generation of nuclear
weapons
although it makes it difficult to make more than marginal improvements in
the existing level of technology. So the US has produced a new B-61
earth-penetrating bomb to attack facilities deep underground. But the
CTBT
does rule out not only the certification and weaponisation but even the
development of new third generation warheads.
The US and Russia today operate with second generation nuclear weapons.
But
even here, within the range of second generation weapons, the CTBT
prevents
weaponisation of low-yield warheads by the US. In the case of Russia, the
CTBT prevents both the development as well as the weaponisation of second
generation low yield warheads. Neither the Laser Megajoule nor the NIF
can
alter the basic restraint on developing third generation nuclear weapons
imposed by the CTBT.
So what do these facilities do? They can play a key role in the designing
of new types of weapons since such designing advances are not prevented
by
the CTBT. But for third generation weapons there is an impassable barrier
between laboratory designing and engineering accuracy which can only be
resolved through a series of actual tests which provide the actual data
on
which crucial corrections can then be made. No amount of simulated or
subcritical testing can replace the need for actual testing of such
weapons. Amidst all the 'technical' waffle which the Indian hawks throw
at
the Indian public, this is the hard-core scientific and technical
reality.
So the LMJ and NIF can help the nuclear elites of France and the US
position themselves much better in the future to make the final leap to
producing third generation weapons provided the CTBT is at some point
repealed or flagrantly violated. The weapons labs and the hawks in the US
recognised fully the restraining impact of a CTBT and that is why they
opposed it. They were partially appeased by the promise of these
facilities
which even others who support a CTBT can also want because it makes a
future 'break-out' from the CTBT to a qualitatively higher level of
weapons
development and deployment that much easier. But a 'break-out' there has
to
be. What this shows is not the irrelevance or redundancy of the CTBT but
its enduring relevance and importance and the necessity that it always
remain in place.
Too many of our hawks are not people who are genuinely committed to the
integrity of argument but to salesmanship. They make their case for India
going nuclear or for not signing the CTBT not only on the basis of
arguments which they believe to be better and stronger than those of
their
opponents but also in a much more cavalier way. They will use whatever
arguments they feel can help 'sell' their case and accuracy or integrity
of
argument be damned. Anti-nuclearists should not mimic this style but
argue
with complete honesty. That is why, while antinuclearists oppose the
arguments of those who say India in its 'national interest' should not
sign
the CTBT because of China or prestige or whatever, and would say these
arguments are wrong, they would nonetheless not say that such arguments
are
disgraceful or dishonest. But what has been thoroughly dishonest is the
way
the genuine restraining effects of the CTBT were denied by the Indian
nuclear elite.
This genuine restraining effect has already been pointed out in the case
of
third generation weapons. Indian hawks, however, are shamefully cavalier
not only in regard to their claims about what subcritical testing,
laboratory simulation and the LMJ and NIF can do in regard to third
generation weapons, they are also so in the claims they make for how
these
activities and facilities can be relied upon to produce fourth generation
weapons. The real truth is that the distance in basic physics between
third
and fourth generation weapons is much greater than that between even
first
and third generation weapons technologies. It is a leap into the unknown
and nobody knows what is required for their development, weaponisation
and
certification. Therefore, no one can say what the precise relationship of
the CTBT to such fourth generation weapons is because no one can say with
confidence today and for a long time to come what the problems and
difficulties will actually be, presuming the effort to produce them
carries
on. It is not impossible that these might be produced without explosive
testing of the kind prevented by the CTBT. But there is no warrant for
saying either that these can be produced or will be produced or that the
CTBTcannot prevent this. Indeed, the most intelligent and sober technical
evaluation is that having a CTBT may or may not make it impossible to
develop such weapons but in any case will certainly make their emergence
very difficult, which is a good enough reason for having it. In any case
the emergence of fourth generation weapons is an issue of great
uncertainty
and the effort is fraught with immense obstacles because of the paucity
of
existing knowledge.
CHINA
Recent reports in the US press about Chinese deployments of new medium
range missiles were picked up by their Indian counterpart and used by
hawks
to promote their standard "see what China is doing to us" syndrome. China
is alleged to have replaced its CSS-2s by an upgraded CSS-5 version and
this was made out to be a matter of great concern to India. China is
engaged in modernising its nuclear forces. This means replacing liquid
fuel
missiles with solid fuel ones which makes such missiles more mobile
because
of various technical restraints concerning transport and fuelling of
liquid-based missiles. Specifically, missiles cannot be placed
horizontally
for transporting purposes if full of liquid fuel because of fears that
this
will rupture the missile owing to the weight and the instability of such
fuel. So missiles have to be transported empty, then placed in a vertical
and completely still position before liquid fuel can be injected. This
takes time, involves a cumbersome set of back-up facilities for fuelling
to
accompany launchi ng procedures. Thus preparing for launching in case of
enemy attack is a 'dangerously' time consuming affair. Solid fuel
eliminates these difficulties. But the more mobile and solid fuel CSS-5s
that are replacing the older CSS-2s also have a range which is shorter by
a
third, which makes them less useful than ever for targeting major Indian
cities and not just the more easily reached but outlying parts of India
which are nearer the bases from which such CSS-5s can be launched. Thus
these new deployments, ironically, show less preoccupation with, or
'hostile' capacities and intentions towards, India, than before.
One member of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis, Swaran
Singh,
in a Times of India article ('US Cries Wolf to Scare India', July 26,
1997)
did in fact make this point in an indirect way. He correctly pointed out
that China considers India irrelevant to its nuclear planning and does
not
make preparations or deployment with India in mind. What neither he nor
anyone else has pointed out is that the US reports of what the Chinese
are
doing are not the only ones that emerged in recent times. A few months
ago,
a small paragraph appeared even in Indian national (English language)
newspapers reporting that the Chinese are alleged to have abandoned
production of those missiles most dangerous to India because of their
range. But this brief news item was buried in the inside pages. It was
not
highlighted in articles, editorials or even picked up for critical
dissection by the members of our 'strategic community'. It was as if,
giving any kind of credence to such a report would highlight the possible
lack of Chinese nuclear danger to India, which in turn would undermine
the
whole elaborate edifice of arguments justifying the keeping or exercising
of the Indian option on the grounds of the "Chinese threat"; which of
course it does.
Eric Arnett of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
(SIPRI)
in an article 'What Threat' in the March/April 1997 issue of The Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists stated that the Chinese have cancelled
production
of the Dong Feng 25, a missile with a 1,700 km range (which had been
intended to replace its outdated Dong Feng 3A, the first of its missiles
deployed in 1972), capable of striking India but which were actually
targeted on US bases in the Philippines. This cancellation, he argued,
once
again revealed how irrelevant India was to China's nuclear preparations.
Moreover, if the report is correct, then it means China has no missiles
capable of reaching important targets in India. How does this square with
the reports emanating from the US press? Are they compatible? Are the US
press reports more motivated and therefore likely to be inaccurate in
part
or whole?
In any case, both reports, as they stand and when properly evaluated, do
not indicate hostile intentions or preparations by China towards India.
Incidentally, has any Indian hawk emphasised publicly that China has
deactivated its nuclear bomber force since 1984? It has finally closed
down
its Xian Aircraft Corporation, the production centre for such bombers. It
no longer has any bombers capable of reaching India. By way of contrast,
India's Soviet-supplied Tupolev bombers are capable of flying anywhere in
China and dropping its currently available crude bombs. This doesn't
indicate Indian intentions, and the Tupolevs are assigned to fly patrols
over the Indian Ocean. But it does indicate Indian capacities. Should the
Chinese counter-prepare according to these capacities as sensible
military
thinking would presumably tell them to do, or are they wiser not to?
Since neither Chinese nuclear preparations today within its territory nor
its past history of nuclear behaviour indicate hostility of a nuclear
kind
to India, a much greater burden of argument is then imposed on the
Chinese
nuclear collaboration with Pakistan to provide proof of China's hostile
intentions or 'calculated' planning to potentially or actually undermine
Indian nuclear security. None of our Indian ambiguists or hawks are
prepared to point out that if it is this Chinese-Pakistani
nuclear-related
relationship that most worries India, then the best way to eliminate this
potential or actual danger is to go along with a South Asian Nuclear
Weapons Free Zone since that takes care of all dangers of a nuclear
threat
from Pakistan 'aided or abetted' by China. No, such a course, we are
repeatedly told, is disastrous because of the potential Chinese threat
from
within its own territory, although evidence of such a threat can only be
based on an assertion of China's capacities in the abstract, and on
nothing
else.
But let us put this Chinese collaboration with Pakistan on
nuclear-related
matters (i e, with regard to missiles, and with regard to civilian
nuclear
facilities which can also produce weapons grade fuel as a by-product of
its
civilian power production) into proper perspective. This, of course, our
hawks will mostly not do because of their vested interest in crying wolf
in
order to push India into exercising its option, or failing that, to
further
develop the quantitative and qualitative level of its bomb option. There
have historically been three kinds of nuclear relationships between
countries.
First, there are those relationships which come closest to being
characterized as 'nuclear alliance' relationships. The two historical
examples of this type have been the US-Britain relationship and the
China-Soviet nuclear relationship of the 1950s. In both cases, the senior
partner has been adamant in not sharing its most important nuclear
secrets
and technologies. Britain has been kept as a lapdog, dependent on latest
US
weapons, e g, today on the Trident. The former USSR refused to help China
produce the bomb, which became a major factor in promoting the subsequent
Sino-Soviet split.
The second type of relationship has been a nuclear patron-client
relationship. The closest approximation to this is the US-lsrael nuclear
relationship. Neither the China-Pakistan nor the US-Pakistan
nuclear-related relationship has been of this kind. It is truly amazing
how
so many ex-diplomats, ex-soldiers and ex-bureaucrats who should know the
importance of language and nuance have not had the slightest hesitation
in
trying to make out that the China-Pakistan relationship has been of an
alliance or near-alliance type. Even the general political relationship
between these two countries has changed greatly after the end of the cold
war and the collapse of the former Soviet Union. It made sense for China
to
pursue a closer relationship with Pakistan when the USSR was seeking a
closer relationship with India as a counterweight to China. That era is
gone and no such political weight of the older level can now be put on
the
current China-Pakistan connection.
The third and most common type of nuclear-related association is one
simply
of nuclear co-operation and mutual trade and technology benefits, with at
most, minor political spin-offs. It is of a kind that many countries
engage
in, be it Germany and Argentina, India and Russia, China and Russia, etc.
Should Russian-lndian collaboration to set up nuclear reactors and to
have
the latest Sukhoi-30s be seen by Islamabad as evidence of a near-nuclear
alliance between the two countries directed against Pakistan? Does the
fact
that the Russians are today supplying SS-18 ballistic missiles and Cruise
missiles to China indicate a near-alliance relationship? The simple
reality
is that China has long been prepared to sell its nuclear related
expertise
(for setting up nuclear power generation or for supplying parts) and its
missiles and general armaments to any number of countries that are
willing
to buy them. It has sold missiles to Saudi Arabia and Iran. It has
nuclearly co-operated with not only Pakistan but Algeria and other
countries keen on expanding nuclear energy production.
One extraordinary argument put forward by a well known Indian hawk, who
best exemplifies the point about the concern for salesmanship repeatedly
overcoming the scruples for sound and sober argument, is the claim that
China is engaged along with Pakistan in an effort to improve its
political
strategic connection with key west Asian countries and that this has a
political-strategic consequence for India. Unfortunately for such
irresponsible speculation (and conventional realist thinking or so-called
strategic thinking is invariably of a highly speculative and superficial
type), the country with which the Chinese have the strongest military
relationship of buying and selling arms is Israel. One might as well
equally irresponsibly speculate that China is pursuing a
political-strategic relationship with Israel implicitly aimed at other
Islamic west Asian states.
The basic point is that far too much of what passes for sensible
strategic
evaluation of Chinese nuclear behaviour with India's neighbours is
nothing
of the kind. It is neither objective nor balanced evaluation but is
unbalanced and irresponsible speculation of a strongly motivated kind;
motivated by the need to paint a picture of "strategic threats" so as to
justify a more hawkish stand on India's part in regard to the nuclear
issue.
Economic and Political Weekly September 6, 1997
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