Confusion over N-Deterrence

By B B Singh

15th December 2014 

The concept of deterrence is based on the idea that an enemy will not strike if it knows that it will be defeated or will suffer unacceptable damage in retaliation. This concept gained importance during the Cold War years of the last century and perhaps worked well vis-à-vis the US and the Soviet Union. The number of nuclear warheads that Americans and Soviets possess today is certainly far more than that required to eliminate all forms of life on this planet. They had actually entered into a nuclear race. The prohibitive costs of this race in terms of money and manpower necessitated the development of the concept of minimum credible deterrence—minimum nuclear with maximum credibility. Thus, the emphasis shifted from number and tonnage of nuclear warheads to their effectiveness and accurate delivery to targets. With this policy in mind, the British, French and the Chinese joined the race. India joined it theoretically in 1974 but effectively in May 1998 and Pakistan followed a few days later.

It is well known that India’s economy and regional influence has been growing steadily to the envy of the Chinese who aspire to be the global power and fear India. They discovered the India-hater Pakistan ever willing to cooperate with them in retarding India’s progress by encouraging proxy war—terrorism and border conflicts on the western front—while the Chinese themselves engaged in border skirmishes on India’s north and north-eastern sides.

India’s nuclear deterrence policy had to be, therefore, framed for two hostile neighbours, one on the West side with a comparable nuclear force and the other one being a bit superior. In this scenario, India needs to design nuclear warheads of convenient sizes with high explosive efficiency suitable for its triad delivery systems. It must be pointed out that the deterrence is a psychology-based concept and is not limited only to the development of muscle power but also requires public announcement of that power so that the adversary holds no doubt in its mind that the consequences of retaliation would cause massive and unacceptable damage. In this respect, India’s missile development is well publicised. So is also the capability of the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force. It is the nuclear weapons policy, hidden in uneasy secrecy, that partly needs rethinking.

Historically speaking, soon after the nuclear tests in 1998, India declared itself to be a nuclear weapon state. It also announced two far-reaching policies. The first is “No Use” against any non-nuclear state, if it is not aligned with any nuclear weapon state. In addition, India also pledged “No First Use” (NFU) that would mean the use of nuclear weapons in “retaliation only” when and if India faces an attack with nuclear warheads or other weapons of mass destruction like the internationally illegalised biological and chemical weapons.

India’s nuclear doctrine (2003) holds the NFU sacrosanct and even advocates specifically to strive for a “global NFU” as the only solution for peace on earth since the world cannot be rid of the existing nuclear weapons. In fact, a few more nations are very eager to and even are on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons. India, however, finds no takers for NFU. Nonetheless, its policy of NFU is not precise and free of uncertainties. Hypothetically, would India retaliate with nuclear weapons if its conventional forces capture an enemy nuclear installation and a device gets exploded damaging the Indian forces? Or vice versa, if enemy forces capture an Indian site of nuclear weapons and a device explodes accidentally or otherwise, should India retaliate and cause massive damage to the enemy country?

Voluntary moratorium on nuclear testing is India’s second policy declaration that states: “While India is committed to maintain the deployment of a deterrent which is both minimum and credible, it will not accept any restraints on building its R&D capability”. In the same breath it states further that “India should set up efforts in R&D to keep up with the technological advances in this field”. This is certainly in conflict with the moratorium on testing since every achievement of research and development (R&D) has to be field-tested. Should India then abandon its policy of moratorium and conduct full-scale tests at the risk of being isolated once again and thereby face denial of not only all nuclear materials and technologies but also cooperation in other fields like defence?

In view of the above constraints, India may opt for alternatives to full-scale nuclear tests such as hydro-nuclear tests where the chain reaction is controlled at different sub-yield levels. This may be considered as violation of the moratorium. In the alternative, India may conduct hydro-dynamic tests using non-fissile isotopes of plutonium and uranium that are subjected to high-yield conventional explosives and gather reasonably useful information. Still more direct, reliable and informative and within the moratorium pledge, would be the “sub-critical tests” where fissile material used is less than the critical mass, thereby no self-sustaining reaction can occur. The weapon material is subjected to high pressure and temperature generated from conventional explosives just as in the hydro-dynamic test. The US is believed to have been conducting such tests since 1997 and has announced its 27th experiment named “Pollux” conducted on December 5, 2012, at Nevada National Security Site. Russians are believed to be conducting such tests at Novaya Zemlya Test Site and it is rumoured that France and China are contemplating similar tests. Sub-critical tests are not nuclear weapons tests but provide very useful and direct information when data obtained from such tests are analysed using the archival data obtained from full-scale tests. The US and Russia have amassed archival data after conducting full-scale tests (1032 and 980 respectively). The French and the Chinese also have data on their earlier tests numbering 217 and 47 respectively. Their conclusions from sub-critical tests would carry more confidence and reliability in comparison to India having conducted only six full-scale tests. Nonetheless, India seems to have no other choice except any of such tests to verify its R&D achievements.

The author is a practising lawyer and a retired scientist formerly with BARC, Mumbai, and IAEA, Vienna.

Email:drbbsingh2010@gmail.com