[sacw] [ACT] SAANP (27 Jan 00)

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asians Against Nukes Post
27 January 2000
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#1. Pakistan: Ex official seeks N-capability upgradation
#2. India Atomic research facility claims developing technology to separate
fissile uranium
#3. India Eyes $3.75 Billion Nuclear Command Plan
#4. Nuclear Arms Didn't Bring Peace To India, Pakistan
#5. Perkovich's book reviewed
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#1.
The Nation Online (Pakistan Page)
Thursday, January 27, 2000

N-CAPABILITY UPGRADATION MUST TO ASSURE DETERRENCE: Agha Shahi

ISLAMABAD (APP) - A former Foreign Minister Aga Shahi on Wednesday said
upgradation of Pakistan's present nuclear capability is necessary to assure
the survival of its deterrence against India. He was speaking on, the
subject of" CTBT and Pakistan," at the Institute of Policy Studies here.
Shahi said Pakistan's, "minimum deterrence must not preclude an
upgradation of its present rudimentary nuclear capability to assure the
survival of the deterrent against India's capability for pre-emption and
interception of Pakistan's missiles", he said. The international community,
he said, has acknowledged India as a defacto nuclear weapon power and
that," it will not be denied the rights to sub-critical tests, computer
simulations and fusion research, India has little to lose and much to gain
from signing the CTBT."
Shahi said the only constraint that will flow from signing CTBT by India,
would be the obligation not to conduct any more underground nuclear tests.
Aga Shahi said the US has been brought round by the Indian Foreign Minister
Jaswant Singh to," conceding India's right to determine for itself what the
size, quality and components of its nuclear capability should be."
Explaining further, Shahi said, India will no doubt be conceded the same
rights that the US has," appropriated for itself and also to the other four
declared nuclear weapon powers." These privileges are to carry out
laboratory sub-critical explosions with no measurable fission yields,
computer simulation of atomic explosions and fusion research. The US
contends that such experiments and research fall outside the scope of the
CTBT as they are not in the nature of nuclear explosions which alone are
prohibited by the CTBT. "Pakistan needs to possess sufficient warheads and
delivery vehicles to sustain its retaliatory capability against aggression
and pre-emptive strike in future given the open ended escalation of India's
nuclear capability that is envisaged India's grand ambitious nuclear
doctrine aimed to project it power in the region and the world," he added.
He said, Pakistan has yet to formulate its own minimum nuclear deterrence
doctrine. Its nuclear programme, compared to India's is extremely modest as
a result of," a conscious decision to eschew an arms race." Shahi said,
"Pakistan, does not envision acquisition of sea- 1 ballistic missiles
launched from nuclear submarines, surveillance satellites, intercontinental
ballistic missiles, anti-ballistic missile systems (ABMs), ICBM and
thermo-nuclear weapons."
Aga Shahi asked whether the US would be prepared to concede to Pakistan
what it has conceded to India," the right to decide for itself what the
strength of its minimum nuclear deterrent should be." "To not acknowledge
that Pakistan also qualifies as a defacto nuclear weapon power would amount
to discrimination against Pakistan," he added. Some hope of equal
treatment may derive from the reported statement of US Assistant Secretary
of State Karl Inderfurth during his visit to Pakistan during last week that
CTBT signature does not compromise, Pakistan's right to a deterrent and its
sovereign right to determine its own defence needs.
But Shahi said, "the concern would not be dispelled, as the Senior Advisor
on Arms Control and Disarmament to the US State Department, Holum has
reiterated that Pakistan (and India) must sign the NPT as non-nuclear state
which is tantamount to Pakistan's surrender of its right to nuclear
deterrent. The statement that CTBT does not compromise this right is not
sufficiently unequivocal as to whether the US would extend to Pakistan the
same right to credible minimum nuclear deterrence that Strobe Talbot has
conceded to India in his 10 rounds of talks with Jaswant Singh. Talbot
said that he fully recognised that only the Indian government has the
sovereign right to make decision on what sort of weapons and force posture
are necessary for the defence of India and Indian interests. ( the Hindu,
January 14, 2000).
It is pertinent to ask if Pakistan be in a stronger position to receive a
fair deal for signing CTBT before India does? There is no sign or much less
evidence to warrant Pakistan to sign from whatever. Later speaking on the
occasion Prof. Khurshid Ahmad, Chairman Institute of Policy Studies claimed
that "delinking the issue of signing CTBT with India at this stage will be
a blunder." Prof. Khurshid said, the purpose of the treaty was not merely
to check the nuclear tests but also to check the activities which may lead
to enhance the nuclear capabilities of a country.
He was of the opinion that "we should make efforts to steer out of the
situation instead of walking into the trap."
___________

#2.
The Hindu
News Update as at 18.00 hrs (IST) on January 26, 2000
Science & Tech

BARC DEVELOPING TECHNOLOGY TO SEPARATE FISSILE URANIUM

New Delhi, Jan. 26 (PTI): Scientists at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre
(BARC) in Mumbai are working on a technology using lasers to separate
fissile uranium from one of its isotopes (a close cousin of the fissile
variety) in a cost-effective way.

The technology, expected to become commercial in the next five years,
would help boost India's nuclear energy programme by providing a means of
producing fuel-grade uranium in a cheap way, according to J. P. Mittal,
Head of BARC's Chemistry and Isotope Group.

The new technology uses infrared carbon dioxide laser to separate one
isotope from another in an energy-efficient way which in turn reduces the
process cost, Mittal told a Conference on Chemical Sciences at Delhi
University here.

Uranium-233 is planned for use in the third stage of India's nuclear
programme based on Thorium. A unit is being built at the Centre for
Advanced Technology (CAT), Indore, for this purpose.

However, most of the research in this field is kept secret due to the
strategic nature of the application areas. The last paper on the subject
was published in the U.S. journal Science in 1986, he said.

The existing gas diffusion technology (where uranium needs to be gasified
before separation) is costly. Separating one gram of uranium needs three
million electron volts of energy compared to the laser-based technology
that needs only six electron volts, he added.

____________
#3.

Defense News
January 17, 2000
Vol. 15, No. 2; Pg. 2; ISSN: 0884-139X

INDIA EYES $3.75 BILLION NUCLEAR COMMAND PLAN

A $3.75 bil, five year strategy for the establishment of a nuclear
command, control and communications infrastructure
has been devised by the government of India. Among other plans, the
project involves the development of satellite and
communication and intelligence gathering systems.
____________

#4.

The London Free Press
Page F6
=46orum
22 January 2000

NUCLEAR ARMS DIDN'T BRING PEACE TO INDIA, PAKISTAN
by Celia W. Dugger and Barry Bearak, New York Times

Just after New Year's, when most of the world's leaders were welcoming the
millennium like a flower about to bloom, the government in New Delhi was
denouncing its neighbour, Pakistan, accusing it of masterminding the
hijacking of an Indian airliner. Charges and countercharges of assorted
evils have since followed, as officials of the fledgling nuclear powers
busy themselves with what often seems their preoccupation: hating each
other.

Relations between predominantly Hindu India and overwhelmingly Muslim
Pakistan are now near the low point of 1971, when they fought their third
all-out war. Things weren't supposed to be this way-or at least that was
India's calculation when it unbottled the nuclear genie in May 1998 by
conducting underground nuclear tests.

But Pakistan responded quickly with matching nuclear tests. And rather
than making the subcontinent more secure, many experts on the region now
agree, India and Pakistan's open possession of the bomb appears to have
raised the risk of limited wars that could spiral out of control.

Their poisoned relationship has taken on a perverse dynamic. Smaller,
weaker Pakistan has been emboldened to view its nuclear arsenal as a magic
shield that will protect it from harm even if it endlessly gores India,
the dominant power in South Asia.

This has produced a war of "a thousand cuts" that is enraging India,
wearing its patience thin and prompting some Indian officials to threaten
stronger retaliation. Pakistan has consistently miscalculated India's
determination not to let possession of nuclear weapons deter it from
responding militarily. India's defence minister, George Fernandes, recently
boasted that "India can beat Pakistan anytime, anywhere."

The stark deterioration in relations between India and Pakistan has been
evident in a series of recent events, most immediately India's response to
the hijacking. But the decline began last summer, when Pakistani forces
occupied remote peaks in the Indian state of Kashmir, the Himalayan
territory that both countries claim, and India fought to root them out with
troops, artillery and fighter planes. Pakistan eventually withdrew, but
tensions have only grown.

The Pakistani government, led by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was toppled
in a military coup in October. The rise to power of Gen. Pervaiz
Musharraf, the army chief whom India holds responsible for Pakistan's
ill-advised summer adventure, has driven the two countries further apart.
Pakistani-backed guerrilla attacks on Indian security forces in Kashmir are
now at their worst level in a decade.

Gen. V.P. Malik, India's army chief, said recently the restraint that
India showed last summer- specifically its decision not to cross the
so-called Line of Control that separates the Indian-and Pakistani-held
portions of Kashmir-"may not be applicable to the next war."

He voiced the belief that the escalation of limited wars could be tightly
controlled, in part because the nuclear deterrent itself would help
prevent them from getting out of hand and in part because cool-headed
leaders would exercise discipline. In future wars, he said, "the escalation
ladder would be carefully climbed in a carefully controlled ascent by both
protagonists."

It is precisely such words that chill nuclear thinkers. Theories of
deterrence work only if those who possess the bomb believe that it is
dangerous to wage wars because violence may escalate frighteningly and
unpredictably. What if India decides to strike militant training camps
inside Pakistan next time? How will Pakistan react?

"My fear is that, at some point, the Pakistanis will be tempted to up the
ante," said George Perkovich, author of India's Nuclear Bomb (University
of California Press, 1999). "There will be another provocation. Somebody
blows up something big and India says, 'That's it,' and takes out targets.
Then you're on your way. Who's going to back down?"

India's assumption that unwrapping its nuclear capability would make the
subcontinent safer was perhaps best expressed by Jaswant Singh, the
nation's chief of foreign affairs, in 1998: "If deterrence works in the
West-it so obviously appears to, since western nations insist on
continuing to possess nuclear weapons-by what reasoning will it not work in
India?"

But that line of logic ignores a critical difference between how the Cold
War was fought and how India and Pakistan confront each other: With a
notable exception, the western powers and Soviets took care not to place
their own armies in direct military confrontation. The exception was the
Cuban missile crisis of 1962, which experts say was the moment when the two
sides came closest to stumbling into an all-out nuclear war.

The Indian and Pakistani armies confront each other constantly along the
Line of Control in Kashmir. More than 500 Indian soldiers were killed in
last summer's fighting, and with them died the trust of India's prime
minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, for Sharif, then prime minister. Peace
talks stopped. Just months earlier, Vajpayee, the Hindu nationalist leader,
had gone by bus to Pakistan, where he and Sharif shook hands and agreed
their nations would sort out differences over a bargaining table.

With U.S. President Bill Clinton planning to visit India this spring, U.S.
diplomats are trying to get India and Pakistan back to the negotiating
table. "The United States has repeatedly said, 'You have to be talking to
each other, not shouting at each other, especially when things seem to be
at their worst,' " said Richard Celeste, the U.S. ambassador in New Delhi.

But India has other ideas. In order to end the hijacking on New Year's
Eve, India traded three imprisoned militants for the hijacked plane's
passengers and crew-a choice that many in India, even some of Vajpayee's
allies, have depicted as a humiliating setback for his government. Since
then, India has aggressively pushed for the United States and other nations
to declare Pakistan a terrorist nation, isolating it as a pariah.

India claims to have evidence of a Pakistani plot for the hijacking, but
has yet to produce it. A high-level intelligence official asserted in an
interview last week that the conclusive proof lay in the fact that no such
proof exists. "This was a very professional operation and a professional
agency leaves no proof,'' he said, exhibiting a logic common to both
countries' military and political elites.

(c) Copyright 2000 The Toronto Sun
__________

#5.

India Today
24 January 2000
Page 82

Author speak GEORGE PERKOVICH Behind the Veil

Without doubt, India's Nuclear Bomb (University of California Press) by
George Perkovich is among the more comprehensive accounts of the country's
nuclear programme from 1947 till 1998. It is an attempt by the director of
the Secure World Programme of the W. Alton Jones Foundation -a
philanthropic institution in Virginia-to delve beneath the veil of secrecy
around India's N-ambitions.

The basic premise of Perkovich's book is simple. The common belief that
India acquired nuclear-weapons capability to redress threats from China
and Pakistan is incorrect. Instead, he summarises that domestic factors
such as a desire to display modernity and technical prowess, resistance to
colonialism, the exclusion of the military from power-making and so on
contributed to India's nuclear policy decisions.

What inspired Perkovich to write the book? "In 1992, I started spending a
fair amount of time in India talking to people who focus on nuclear and
strategic issues, and meeting with many of them when they visited the US,"
he says. "The more I listened, the more fascinated I became with the way
Indians have thought about N-weapons. I found much of this thinking to be
original and wise, more realistic and enlightened than some of the
doctrinal traditions in the US."

In addition to managing the Secure World Programme, Perkovich oversees a
$14 million Sustainable World Programme and has also advised several
agencies of the U.S. government on South Asian security affairs. He
believes that progress in Indo-US relations is possible only when both
sides become more businesslike and show a willingness to make pragmatic
compromises.

India's Nuclear Bomb is likely to be released in India this month by
Oxford University Press. The book, at 597 pages is a tad too long.
"Actually, I would have liked to make the book shorter, but I could not
find obvious items to cut given the commitment to tell a 50-year story in
enough detail to be useful," defends Perkovich. That is understandable. -
Nitish S.Rele