From: gnreddy@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (G.Narotham Reddy)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: How Soon Can India Assemble A Nuclear Bomb ?
Date: 7 Jan 93 01:02:04 GMT
Organization: AT&T



* India Chooses to remain silent over Pak Nuke Reports

By N.V.Subramanian

The news was explosive enough. Recently the American TV network NBC disclosed 
that Pakistan had seven nuclear bombs of the type dropped on Hiroshima.
And, sometime during the spring of 1990, it was prepared to drop it
over India in view of the escalating crisis in Kashmir. The disclosure
had the attributes of a first rate scoop. It should have put chanceries
around the world on full alert. People in India should have been
worried. Parliament should have been convulsed. And the media should
have gone hysterical. 
	Yet nothing like this happend. The news came on the agency wires on
Dec 2. It was naturally front paged. Opposition parties demanded a
statement from the government but the same evening, doordarshan slotted
the item toward the end of its news bulletin which was dominated by
Ayodhya. The next day's news papers reduced it to a single column.
	At the end of the week, India and Pakistan were scheduled to play a
one day SAARC Cricket match in Dhaka ( It was postponed becuase of
tension in Bangladesh after the destruction of Babri masjid ) it was
business as usual. 
	Really ? 
	Wasn't New Delhi bothered? 
The truth is that India has chosen to remain silent. There is more than
one reason for this. 
	India has known for at least two years that Pakistan has assembled a
few nuclear weapons. Ofcourse, in the last fifteen years, much has been
revealed about its atomic program. 
	But the information that Pakistan had several operational bombs
came by chance. In the middle of 1990, Robert Oakley the American
Ambassador to Islamabad, and J.N.Dixit ( India's Representative, now
Foreign Secretary ) met at a diplomatic meeting.
	At that time, there was great tension on the western border.
Pakistan had increased its support to Kashmiri militants. V.P.Singh
said in Parliament that, if necessary, India would fight a 1000-year
war. And, Robert Gates, the US deputy national security advisor, had
flown back after failing to convince India and Pakistan of the need for
peace.
	What Oakley told Dixit, then, was significant. A former cabinet
minister who was privy to the conversation told this reporter, Oakley
said that Pakistan had nuclear bombs, and that it would use them not as
a weapon of last resort, but as a first.
	We raised the matter with Pakistan, the ex-minister said. Our
response was adequate and firm, and the Pakistanis backed down. 
	Did India threaten war, or hint nuclear retaliation? I can't answer
that question, he said. But let me assure you that we are not found
wanting. And then, early this year, came the second confirmation,
Pakistan's foreign secretary, Shahryar Khan gave an interview to the
Washington Post on Feb 7. He disclosed that his country had the
components to assemble atleast one nuclear bomb.
	Khan was suspiciously generous in filling in details for the
benefit of the Post's editors. He said that Benajir Bhutto, the former
Pakistan's Prime Minister, had stopped production of weapons grade
uranium just before her visit to Washington in June 1989. But this was
resumed in Spring 1990 as tension mounted between India and Pakistan
over Kashmir.
	Shahryar Khan concluded that his revelations were meant to bridge a
credibility gap created by the Bhutto government.
	The last definitive account of Pakistan's nuclear capability
appeared in the July/Aug 1992 issue of the bulletin of the 'Atomic
Scientist.' David Albright and Mark Hibbs, two nuclear experts wrote an
article called "Pakistan's Bomb: Out of the closet." Based on US state
department documents and interviews with privileged sources, they drew
three conclusions:

	* China may have given Pakistan the design for a small tritium
      initiator. ( An initiator starts the fusion chain reaction that causes
      a nuclear explosion ) and tritium initiators are harder to make but
      last longer than Polonium, Berelium initiators. Pakistan, therefore,
      has an almost nuclear trigger mechanism. 

    * The Kahuta gas centrifuge plant near Islamabad has produced
      between 100kg and 200 kg of weapons grade Uranium.

    * Assuming 15 kg per bomb, Pakistan has got anything between 6-13
      nuclear explosive devices.

	NBC then reported that Pakistan possessed seven Hiroshima type
nuclear bombs.
 	Officials of the India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) say that
they know of nine independent sites where they could be stored. 
	What is India doing to contain this threat ? Defensive measures are
few. NBC reported that in Spring 1990, the Pakistani Air Force (PAF)
planned to use a C-130 Hercules transport aircraft to drop an atomic
bomb.
	This is an old technique, used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. An
aircraft flying at over 30,000 feet drops a one ton bomb in much the
same way as food and supplies are dropped during the war and peace.
The plane escaped the after shock of the nuclear explosion. But it is
still slow enought to report the birth of a grotesque mushroom cloud.
	And yet this method as little chance of succeeding today. Suppose a
Hercules is sent up. Pakistan is just 400 km across. Any Indian radar
will detect it 150 kms within Pakistani airspace itself.
	Plus, the Herculeus is slow by modern standards. It will never get
pass air and ground defenses. If PAF fighters are scrambled to protect
it, its still wont help. Atleast two squadrons will have to be
deployed. And such a large number of aircrafts will "paint" on Indian
radar screens hundreds of miles from within Pakistan.
	The second problem is that  fighters have to slow down to cover the
Hercules. "And at the C-130's speed of 400 kmph, fighters fall out of
the sky," joked an air marshal of the Indian Air Force. "They will have
to do dubious maneovers just to stay airborne. This will reveal their
mission."
	It is another matter if the PAF uses tactical strike aircraft to
make a nuclear attack. The F-16 is equipped for this role. But the
Americans have denied the PAF crucial accessories that would help.
	"We have no evidence that they have modified F-16 or other strike
aircraft," disclosed a senior IAF officer. "And, if they have, we can't
counter them."
	Still, it isn't all that easy to make these modifications. Indian
defense scientists have been at it since 1988. And there is still
little reason to believe that they have done any better or worse than
the Pakistanis.
	Several problems come in the way. A transporter can drop any shape
of bomb. But a strike aircraft imposes limitations. The bomb has to be
aero-dynamic. This is because they employ a complex maneuver to drop it
on the target. 
	This is called toss bombing. A fighter flies slow and at high
speed. Fifteen kilometers from the target it undertakes a 45 degree
climb and the bomb is released. The projectile then takes a parabolic
path and strikes the target at a speed of 11,000 kmph.
	Indian pilots have acquired a degree of precision in this job. At
the Pokharam and Jodhpur ranges, they have scored hits within ten yards
of the target. But they have used conventional weapons. No one knows
how a nuclear bomb will behave.
	In the west, nuclear weapons are encased in a device not unlike
conventional drop tanks. It is strapped either to the fuselage or the
wings. It is made of alloys that can stand the high temparatures
generated at mach to speeds. Which means, the nuclear bomb is safe.
	But this equipment is not tradabale. Indian defense scientists
began work on this in 1988. They picked the Jaguar. Even the MIG-23 BNs
were tested becuase they have an inbuilt, toss bombing computer.
	The results, however, are not known. They could be comforting, of
course. But since the 1974 Pokharam implosion, India has never ridden
the technology tiger. There is an inbuilt resistance to adopt a posture
of nuclear offensive. Even this time, some defense analysts urged the
establishment formally to go unclear. 
	But New Delhi has stuck to a position that air commodore Jasgit
Singh, Director of Institute of Defense Studies and Analysis, quaintly
calls "recessed deterrance." 
	What does it mean? 
	"Simply, that we have the capability to produce nuclear weapons,
but they don't exist on the surface," explains Singh. "After Pokharam,
we do not have to prove anything to anyone. We have the capacity to
weaponise at a short notice. And we do not have to cross the threshold
unless pushed to the wall." 
	"This way, the initiative rests with us," says Singh. What about
the lag time ( between the order to produce an actual production
weapons )? "shorter than the time required by the other side to use
it," he replies.
	And yet, recessed deterrance has its limitations. Not only must
bomb be just a screw driver away from life, but political and military
systems must be in place for effective use of the weapon. In simple
words: it is just not enough to have a bomb. 
	You have also got to know how to use it.

Source: News India, Jan 8, 1992 ( Originally from Sunday )
 
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