[sacw] S A A N Post | 1st Jan 01

Harsh Kapoor aiindex@mnet.fr
Sun, 31 Dec 2000 19:42:58 +0100


South Asians Against Nukes Post - 01 January 2001

---------------------------------------
#1. Nuclear tango in South Asia
#2. India: Sleeping with the bomb [in Pokharan]
#3. India: N-strike advised during Kargil war: Ramdas
#4. India seeks aproval of Nuclear Policy
#5. UK: Selective Morality
#6. Re: Indian Navy plans to lease Russian nuclear submarine

#1.

The Friday Times - 29 December 2000

Nuclear tango in South Asia

Ejaz Haider says South Asia's nuclear tangle needs inductive reasoning if
India and Pakistan want to avoid a spiraling scenario

Whether or not one agrees with his thesis, the fact is that Rear Admiral
Raja Menon's book "A
Nuclear Strategy for India," is a very interesting treatise on the subject.
A former Assistant
Chief of Naval Staff (Operations) - in which capacity he was responsible
for formulating
strategy - Menon tries to bring clarity to the subject through his
deductive model. His
reasoning, which springs from his penchant for numbers and his faith in the
deterrence
theory, is both his strength and his weakness.

His basic question is simple. South Asia has gone nuclear. What next? What
does it mean
when India and Pakistan say they are nuclear-capable? In conventional terms
when
someone says he is armed, that would imply, logically, that he is carrying
a gun and that this
weapon can fire. All other things being equal, this man's gun is supposed
to deter the other
man with a gun. Is the same logic applicable to nuclear-capability; or can
nuclear testing itself
create deterrence?

Menon's book seeks to look at this basic question. He is disconcerted by
the argument that
production of weapon prototypes itself can create deterrence. "The
implication is that behind
the technical capability implicit in the production of the weapon
prototypes lies larger
concurrent technological capabilities." (emphasis added). The word
"concurrent" is important.
Deterrence does not come into play merely through production of weapon
prototypes. It
involves a chain of technological capabilities that are then linked
together and put to use
through a clearly conceptualised strategy. This process begins with
developing the bomb to
testing and refining it to deploying it to creating command, control,
communication and
intelligence systems.

The size of the arsenal is important but it is not an open-ended process
without a rationale
(this, nevertheless, means that augmenting the arsenal and increasing
numbers of weapons
would occur). Menon relies here on the quantitative analysis done by
Richard Rosecrance in
terms of three probability models. The strategy is pegged to the likely
payoffs, "in which the
size of the arsenal, the will=8Aof the user, and the credibility of use all
add up to coalesce into a
perception upon the deterree.

The payoffs themselves relate to various probability scenarios with the
optimum meant to
convey the message clearly to the deterree. This, says Menon, needs to be
worked out
mathematically and not through "odd figures pulled out of the hat."

Deterrence, therefore, depends on a multitude of factors that go into
creating the optimal
probability scenario. The classical concept of deterrence relates to
reliability of the arsenal,
credibility (capability and will), survivability (second-strike capability
i.e., the certainty of
retaliation after ride-out) and transparency. Transparency is not only
meant to assure the
adversary that no ill intentions are being harboured but also to project
the actual capability to
the adversary. Given that such a situation is perceived to exist on both
sides, it creates the
mutual destruction equation that forms the core of deterrence.

Clearly, Menon's argument is predicated on the concrete. A force cannot
deter if it is not
deployed for war-fighting. And war-fighting necessitates operationalising
the force;
operationalisation means the existence of weapons and a set of actions to
clearly state how
these weapons might be used and controlled in a situation of crisis. This
is what
differentiates deterrence from mere bluff, which the adversary can be
tempted to call.

As a necessary corollary, Menon advocates more tests and overt deployment.
This puts off the
anti-nuclear lobby. Interestingly, his approach has drawn flak also from
advocates of credible
minimum deterrent. Menon wants more tests to make the weapons reliable and
he argues
for overt deployment because that stabilises the deterrent by bringing in
the elements of
credibility and transparency. Yet, he is not in favour of large arsenals.
He proposes arms
limitation talks so that "the level at which mutuality must occur should be
arrived at as early as
possible."

This is why Menon makes a distinction between risk reduction between India
and Pakistan
and risk reduction between their arsenals. He makes it clear that while the
former deals with
political-diplomatic efforts the latter is a highly complex technical issue
that needs to be taken
up seriously by experts. Menon does not think his thesis is a recipe for
disaster. Quite the
contrary. He argues that this is the only way to stabilise the situation in
South Asia. That is why
he advocates that India and Pakistan, irrespective of their other problems,
should sit down
and start talking about nuclear risk reduction and related matters.

His thesis throws up the very serious question of whether this is the only
path India and
Pakistan can walk. He thinks there is no other route. His thesis is also
linked to the
technology-pull argument. Technology has its own dynamics. If that is
accepted then it will
only march forward, creating its own new frontiers.

The essential point about Menon's logic is that it is linked to deductive
reasoning. Deductive
thinking first establishes overall concepts and then proves them through
specific, empirical
findings. This means the conclusion in deductive reasoning has to be based
on the
premises. The implication is that for the argument to be valid, it needs to
remain faithful to the
premise; in other words, it must logically follow from it. Deductive
reasoning therefore may not
challenge the premise. The sequence moves from theory (premise) to
hypothesis to
observation to confirmation. Menon's premises relate to the deterrence
theory and the
dynamics of technology. Once those premises are accepted, his arguments
become valid.

What happens if his premises are challenged? Peace activists refuse to
subscribe to the
deterrence theory. They find it abominable that the perceived "security" of
people should be
linked to the threat of their mass destruction. While this may be an
extreme argument and not
valid in a situation that calls for management of nuclear weapons, many
other experts, too, do
not agree with the concept of deterrence in its classical sense. This also
holds true for the
technology-pull argument. Is it inevitable for a technologically capable
country to move in the
direction of nuclear-weapon capability? Many countries have refused to
acquire that capability.
Also, the argument that "unproliferation" cannot be achieved after a
country has proliferated
ignores the cases of South Africa, Argentina, Brazil and even Sweden.
Countries cannot be
denied their peculiar historical, geographical and strategic circumstances,
but that some
countries did unproliferate remains significant. One could perhaps argue
that a qualitative
improvement in the strategic environment may induce a country to at least
freeze its capability,
if not entirely roll it back.

Perhaps a better approach would be to employ inductive logic, moving in the
reverse from
observation to a pattern to a tentative hypothesis to a theory. Menon
argues that technology
does not factor in socio-cultural differences. Therefore, deterrence theory
is as valid for South
Asia as it was for the US and the Soviet Union. He may be right, but there
are other
differences, the most important being the geographical contiguity between
India and Pakistan
and their relations within a peculiar historical context. This makes a
strong case for inductive
reasoning because that could lead to a new theory of deterrence.
Interestingly, the theories
Menon uses for his premises would not have been possible without inductive
reasoning. The
general relationship between inductive and deductive reasoning is that the
theory derived
from inductive logic usually makes up the premise of a deductive argument.

One may not accept the inevitable march of technology in the Orwellian
sense even though
empirical evidence may point to the contrary. This is where the efforts of
those who warn
against the dangers of such weapons come in. Technology per se cannot
create itself. It is
man's desire to create what he finds technologically feasible that accounts
for technology's
march. The inevitability argument is a convenient way of shifting blame
from lobbies whose
interests lie in expanding the frontiers of destructive weapons
technologies. Since the
exercise involves money, national prestige and strategic outreach,
technology is assumed to
have a life of its own.

Similarly, the inevitability of the military use of nuclear weapons is tied
more with the idea of
prestige than security. Security or its scarcity, are not conditions that
exist in a vacuum. There
is a political context in which states perceive security to be adequate or
scarce. That is why
before they are used for military purposes, the nuclear weapons are
political weapons. This
is a fact Menon eschews, because it does not sit well with his exclusively
militaristic
conception of nuclear capability.

It would be fair to argue that they could enhance their security by
attempting to change the
context in which their threat perception has evolved. In the case of India
and Pakistan this
could mean freezing their capability to present levels, entering into
negotiations to work
towards credible guarantees in regard to their existing capabilities,
entering into meaningful
talks to resolve the politically contentious issues that contribute to
their threat perceptions,
including reductions in conventional force capabilities, and generally
building upon a viable
and verifiable regime of confidence and security-building measures.

All this is possible but may not happen. With China, Menon brings in the
one factor that is
likely to keep South Asia tied up in the nuclear tangle.

_____

#2.

Outlook - 8 January 2001

POKARAN [India's Nuclear Test Site]
Sleeping with the bomb

by Soutik Biswas

THE desert holds no surprises. So you land in Jodhpur on a balmy morning
and drive through an unkempt town of opulent forts, garbage dumps,
faceless low-rise redstone dwellings, ersatz heritage hotels and a
National Cadet Corps building "for sale" before hitting the state highway
to Pokaran. For the next 168 km, as you drive through the misty scrublands
of the Thar, it is sheer tedium. An unending ribbon of tar cuts straight
through the great Indian desert. The pale driver struggling with a
typically hybrid Ambassador-"Sir, I put a Matador engine inside, but
forgot to install the fifth gear"-is also predictable, chugging away at 60
kmph throughout. Pencil-thin, bedraggled women breaking stones dot the
bleak wasteland, and an odd-tourist pulls up at another 'heritage'
motel-every redstone dwelling for the affluent is 'heritage' in this part
of the world. Weary-looking dogs look vacantly at the sparse traffic on
the highway every few miles, and a black buck sprints into the
nothingness. Then there's a hint of some excitement. A faded board dangling
from a telephone pole promises us the Hotel Pokaran-'the jewel of Thar'.

Hardly. You enter this dusty town of 25,000 people past a surreal and
gigantic roofless gas station with two dispensers and two snoozing
attendants and wind your way past an 83-year-old sooty madrasa, two dozen
public telephone kiosks, yet another redstone 'heritage' fort-hotel and
the 'Bajrang hairdresser' to reach the marketplace. There are shops
selling everything and a poster inside a gaudy studio warns 'Observe good
manners'. Around dayfall when the muezzin's call from the bazaar mosque
soars into the ochre-hued evening sky, somnolent Pokaran somewhat stirs to
life.

It's not that this sprawling sub-division of 150,000 people scattered in
215 sandy villages doesn't stir to life at all. It has stirred to life
very famously in the past. Twice, in fact. Twenty-six years ago, Indira
Gandhi exploded the first Indian Bomb in the desert and the Buddha smiled.
Two years ago, on a scorching May afternoon, Atal Behari Vajpayee exploded
three nuclear devices and the Hindus smiled. But the Hindus-and Muslims-in
Pokaran couldn't care less. They didn't care much in 1974 and they did not
this time around. This year they were more bothered by the drought-a third
of the villages have no water, and most of them have no fodder for their
livestock. "The atom bombs have burnt our skies," a villager told a
visiting hack a few months ago. It could be a piece of apocrypha too.

For, Pokaran sleeps easily with the bomb. Its residents are blase about
it. So when army trucks rolled into Khetolai, a dusty hamlet just 15 km
from the blast site, that May afternoon and asked the residents to
evacuate, nobody minded.

Two hours later, remembers Ram Karan, there was "a big sound, the earth
started moving and there was a lot of gas in the air". Then life went back
to normal. Oh yes, the explosion did crack some of the homes, and the
government doled out Rs 15 lakh to the village to fix them-till the next
explosion. It was different in 1974, says Karan, a shopowner. "The ground
shook and then mothers gave birth to disabled children." But this time, he
hasn't heard of disabled children, "maybe a few disabled calves". Small
mercies.

Forty km outside the barricaded scrublands where the blasts took place,
there is a field firing range. Armymen play war games here, beyond which
are the explosion pits. It's games without frontiers, war without tears.
"In Pokaran," says Vikas Ratnu, a political science undergraduate who
works as a carpenter and as a telephone booth operator in his spare time,
"all talent is buried underground."

So where's the faith and the patriotism and the pride that is Pokaran's
own for helping make run-down India a nuclear power? There's no sign of it
in the 450-year-old local redstone fort whose 17 humongously boring rooms
have been turned into Rs 1,000-a-night lodgings and where wiry, turbaned
watchmen sell sad-looking Rs 20 tickets to those who want to have a bird's
eye-view of the town: restless calves darting down the street, pigs ambling
in the bazaar, smoke-belching autorickshaws dressed up in kitsch art
moving slowly and an untidy crossword puzzle maze of whitewashed stone
homes. There's no evidence of it at the Ramdeora temple, some 12 km from
the town where more than a million devotees-"mostly scheduled caste and
tribe ones", whispers an official-throng during a festival in September.
The shocking-red-shamiana-covered Raj Photo Studio-it demands "full
payment advance"-stands next door to the temple and snares devotees to pose
inside, before and on top of an array of tacky cutouts-an orange heart
screaming Dil to pagal hai (My heart is mad) and another one of a
motorcycle with 'Bofors' written prominently on the sides are the big
favourites.

But there is, at least, some life here: mangy dogs follow devotees who
follow beggars with alms; a raunchy, excited voice belts out Pyar aa gaya
hai, pyar aa gaya hai (love has arrived, love has arrived!) repeatedly
through a crackling sub-woofer in a noisy music shop. But where's the
pride and patriotism?

The search ends rather feebly at the quaint railway station of two dozen
passengers (during rush hour). Just near the entrance, a signboard reminds
us 'Many religions, One Nation, Let us be proud of it'. Near the
plastic-strewn tracks, a fading signboard holds up another cliche -The
Nation Is On The Move. "Not much happens here and nothing really is
Pokaran's own," says Man Mohan Vyas, the genial sub-divisional officer,
forlornly.

He's right. The temple is patronised by families from Bikaner and visited
by people from Punjab and Gujarat. The bombs are exploded by politicians
and scientists from Delhi and Hyderabad. Seductive Jaisalmer is where
tourists travel to, bypassing Pokaran. Even Pokhran, the name the world
knows it by, is not its own. "It's pretty nondescript, this place,"
reminds Vyas.

So life goes on without much ado here. A quarter of the people live below
the poverty line, only one in every 10 residents has ever gone to school
and less than a dozen people live every kilometre in this inhospitable
terrain. Average land holdings can go up to 10 acres, but what use
wasteland? The unending drought has made transporting water to some
villages nearly impossible. Nomadic herders have set up desert enclaves in
at least 120 locations in 80 villages which are between 40 and 60 km from
the nearest water substation or pump! But in town, people like Babu Khan
are more enterprising. He runs a phone booth which also promises
'employamant visas for Saudi Arab, Dubai, Abu Dubai and Qatar' (sic).
Visas from Pokaran? "Oh yes, sir," he says. "There are 7,000 people from
the town living in the Gulf. They work as farmworkers, drivers, camel
racers. Life is good there." In Pokaran, as the callow political science
undergraduate said, all talent lies underground.

Even Pokhran, the name the world knows it by, is not its own.

_____

#3.

The Hindustan Times - 9 December 2000

N-strike advised during Kargil war: Ramdas

by P.K. Balachanddran

(Colombo, December 8)
THE INDIAN and Pakistani governments were advised to use nuclear weapons
during the height of the Kargil war, Admiral (Rtd) L. Ramdas, former chief
of staff of the Indian Navy, told the South Asian Peoples' Summit here on
Friday.

"You may not believe this. Over a dozen people on both sides advised the
use of nuclear weapons during the Kargil war," Admiral Ramdas told a
stunned audience of over 300 delegates of South Asian NGOs at the
Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall. He further said that
neither India nor Pakistan had a credible control system to prevent the use
of nuclear weapons by accident or design. "Momentary insanity could set the
bombs off," he warned. Quoting a Tamil proverb, Admiral Ramdas likened
nuclear weapons in the hands of India and Pakistan to a garland of flowers
in the hands of a monkey. They just do not know how to handle what they
have in their hands.

Admiral Ramdas argued that the nuclear weapon was a "cost inefficient"
weapon. "How can a weapon be cost efficient if it is not going to be used?
Every country says it is not going to use it."

Again, nuclear weapons are said to be deterrents but they have certainly
not deterred countries from waging long and costly wars. And countries have
lost wars despite being nuclear powers.

"The US and the then Soviet Union waged a long war in Vietnam and
Afghanistan respectively, while they were nuclear powers, both lost the
wars," he pointed out.

-----------

#4.

Japan Times online - December 12, 2000

INDIA SEEKS APPROVAL OF NUCLEAR POLICY

Japan and India share the same goal in terms of universal nuclear
disarmament and differ only in their approaches to achieve it, Indian
Ambassador to Japan Aftab Seth said Monday.

"(The two countries) have no difference in opinion. India is the only
nuclear power willing to negotiate nuclear weapons out of existence, " he
said during a visit to The Japan Times.

India shocked the world in May 1998 when it conducted a series of
underground nuclear tests. The events triggered fierce reaction, especially
from Japan.

Seth, who has served as ambassador since September, called for Japanese
people's understanding of India's nuclear policy, saying it believes
security can be only safeguarded by getting rid of nuclear arsenals.

He also suggested that Japan and India cooperate so they both can win
permanent membership on the United Nations Security Council. "We are not
competing for a seat but are partners. We have every right to be a
permanent member."

On an economic front, he said India has undergone rapid market-opening
reforms, symbolized by privatization of the airline and insurance sectors.

"There is a lot Japan can do in infrastructure," he said.

He said the two countries can cooperate in promoting information technology
in both countries by exchanging engineers.

--------

#5.

The News International - 28 december 2000 | Op-Ed.

Selective morality

by Brian Cloughley

On 6 April 1998 Britain ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the
CTBT, with much self-congratulation. The foreign minister, Westminster's
garden gnome, Mr Robin Cook, said in parliament that "The CTBT is a
cornerstone of international efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation."
One presumes he was unaware that the US had no intention of ratifying the
treaty, thus rendering it absurdly ineffective, or that his own country's
intelligence reports made it clear India's new government was at that very
moment examining its nuclear options intently.

A month later, the wee gnome again waxed eloquent in the British
Parliament, after India exploded its nuclear bombs. "Nuclear proliferation
is a serious threat to stability," he piped, "(and) we oppose and condemn
these nuclear tests." The extent of Britain's thunderous condemnation was
that "the World Bank deferred three loans to India for energy and highways
projects of almost a billion dollars as a result of objections by member
states, including Britain."

By Jove, the lion's roar was devastating. Not only this, said Mr Cook,
proudly, but "Last week we cancelled the visit by the Indian Chief of
Naval Staff and we have also cancelled a forthcoming visit by the Chief of
Army Staff." Wow! Tremble you Indians, for Mr Cook is VERY annoyed with
you. Or, rather, he was annoyed in May 1998, for a few days. He has since
been silent. Needless to say, the World Bank and almost every other aid
donor except Japan has reinstituted aid packages-not that India could care
less whether it gets aid or not.

One of Cook's helpers, a Mr Fatchett, said on the BBC at the time that
India's actions were in "defiance of the wishes of the international
community" and "everybody is surprised and disgusted." My, my:
"Disgusted." Now there is strong and undiplomatic language for us. So we
get the message: in May 1998 the British government was most upset with
the Indian government. But moral disquiet and righteous vexation on the
part of the British government have a habit of fading away, and their
length and depth appear to be in inverse ratio to the economic importance
of individual countries. (Sometimes, indeed, of individuals.) In the case
of India, the cancellation of visits to Britain by two senior military
officers was a futile gesture. The only reaction in New Delhi was genial
contempt, and it had no effect whatever on India's policy with regard to
nuclear matters or anything else. It was a waste of time, and nowhere is
this more evident than in the growing defence relationship between Britain
and India, and quiet re-emergence of the US-Indian defence nexus.

It is the national business of any sovereign country to obtain weapons
from anywhere it wishes. If it wants to make tanks, ships and aircraft,
then let it make them. If it wants to import these equipments, or any
others, then let it import them, provided there is no infraction of
international laws. It is arguable that there should be no concern on the
part of any third party about who sends whom what. Unless, that is, the
nation that is exporting weapons has a widely-publicised moral standpoint
about its policy concerning weapons' sales around the world and is
deliberately ignoring its own highly-principled stance for motives of
profit or political influence. Similarly with other military cooperation.
If a country states that it is disapproves of explosions of nuclear
weapons to the extent of calling the activity "disgusting", then presumably
it disapproves of nuclear weapons' programmes that originate from the
tests. There can be no question of Britain-or America-indicating
disapproval of the first while condoning the second, or participating in
any activity that might further nuclear weapons' development, deployment
or employment.

If Britain and the US felt and continue to feel so strongly about nuclear
tests, then they should have no cooperation whatever with countries which
they consider to have transgressed international standards. But
development of nuclear weapons continues in India, just as it does in
Pakistan, and it seems the outraged disapproval voiced by Britain and the
US of Indian and Pakistani nuclear weapons-entirely justifiable in regard
to both countries-is being replaced by serene economic concord and jovial
military collusion-with India.

The US imposed military sanctions on India after the latter's nuclear
tests, but is whittling them away. The main aspect of cooperation at
present being negotiated is conduct of military peacekeeping exercises, as
reported by The Times of India. The thin end of the wedge has been
inserted, and, as the months go by, there will be further relaxation of
post-nuclear sanctions, and military cooperation will, step by step, bit
by bit, be re-established. So far as Britain is concerned, the whole matter
of nuclear tests is over, finished, and never to be mentioned again. No
longer are they "opposed and condemned" nor are they considered
"disgusting", and military sales and cooperation are thriving.

India and Pakistan operate Sea King helicopters. There are problems with
obtaining spare parts for these machines, because, although they are made
in Britain, some instruments come from America. The British government
will not lift a finger to help Pakistan, but is anxious to help India, so,
according to Britain's defence minister, Mr Hoon, in New Delhi on 11
December, "We have used our influence" with the US so that "the matter of
spare parts for Sea Kings should be resolved in a matter of weeks (and
India) can have as many helicopters in the sky as they want." Mr Hoon
boasted that he expected a resolution to go before the US Congress "soon",
in order that the parts would be released. Mind you, if there is one thing
that Congress does not like-to put it mildly-it is some Englishman
informing the world what the US Congress is going to do or not going to
do. You would think that anyone with basic knowledge of foreign relations
might be aware that such a comment would be red rag to Congress bull, but
such is the amateurishness of Britain's politicians in its ministries of
foreign affairs and defence that one never knows when the next grave
idiocy will take place. So Mr Hoon could well end up looking a fool; but
that isn't important: the main point is that Britain is desperate to sell
Hawk aircraft to India, and India is keen to buy them, and all stops are
being pulled out to ensure the billion pound deal goes through.

Let me declare an interest in this. I recently completed a 50,000 word
report on India's defence production and procurement for a London-based
business organisation, Strategic Management Information. In my paper I
advocate purchase of advanced jet trainer aircraft by India, and I stand
by that. What I object to is the humbug of the British government in its
selective dealings with Pakistan and India, its total abandonment of
principle concerning arms exports, and its wishy-washy attitude to nuclear
weapons testing and manufacture. When Mr Robin Cook announced he would
abide by "an ethical foreign policy", even if it was altered to an "ethical
dimension" in foreign policy, I cheered. In the Blair government it seemed
there would be no equivocation, no fudging, no nonsense. If a country
failed to meet Britain's publicly enunciated high moral standards, then:
bingo!-that country would disappear from Britain's aid, military and
trading map. Quite right and proper. But it was not to be. Selective
morality would apply.

The Indian Air Force badly needs an Advanced Jet Trainer. It is nothing
short of scandalous and even criminal that successive governments in New
Delhi have delayed acquisition of a suitable plane, and thus have been
responsible for the deaths of scores-literally scores-of young pilots who
were fledged in outrageously sub-standard training aircraft. Generations
of politicians have blood on their hands and widows on their consciences.
The sooner the IAF gets Hawks the better. But the British government is
in-or should be in-a moral dilemma.

The Hawk aircraft cannot deliver nuclear weapons, although it is a most
effective machine that can in a few hours be altered to the conventional
fighter/ground attack role, in which it can shoot off rockets, bombs and
pods of napalm. But many aspiring combat pilots who will receive training
in Hawks will go on to fly planes which are, without question, capable of
delivering nuclear bombs. Some aircraft, indeed, are already modified to
do so. How does the "ethical dimension" of British foreign policy cope
with this? How can Britain claim to be a moral preceptor in its relations
with foreign countries when it ignores the fact that it is participating
in the training of pilots, some of whom will later fly aircraft configured
to deliver nuclear weapons?

Mr Hoon has said that a batch of Indian pilots will go to the UK to train
on the Hawk. Now these fellows are not rookies. They are the cream: the
best of the best: the instructors who will instruct instructors. On their
next posting they could be commanding nuclear-capable squadrons. How can
Mr Hoon and Mr Cook, and their boss, Mr Blair, be comfortable with the
fact that they are fostering expertise that can be used to deliver nuclear
bombs?

I do not argue against provision of Hawks to India. The sooner this
happens, the better, because instruction in the pupil's seat of a really
good training aircraft (and the Hawk is the best in the world) will save
the lives of many young men. I think, in my emotional way, of a youngster
at, say, Doon School, or Saint Paul's in Darjeeling, who will join the IAF
in a few years' time and whose life will not be prematurely ended in a
shattered mass of smoking metal, thanks to being trained in a good
aeroplane. But I object strongly to the blatant humbug of British
government ministers. They solemnly pontificate about their abhorrence of
nuclear testing and say that introduction of nuclear weapons in the
subcontinent has contributed to instability and the likelihood of nuclear
war, which is true. But they have become weasel-wording, deceitful
dissemblers as regards their public attitudes to further development of
these weapons, and are indefensibly biased against Pakistan.

It is amazing what a billion pound order for military equipment can do to
moral principles.

______

#6.

Tehelka.com

Indian Navy to lease Russian nuclear submarine

Delays in the indigenous Advanced Technology Vessel programme, integral to
India's minimum nuclear deterrence, are responsible for the Indian Navy
examining the possibility, but the US is likely to choppy, says Rahul Bedi

New Delhi, December 28
India is believed to be examining the possibility of leasing a Russian
nuclear-powered submarine to help bolster the development of its delayed
indigenous SSN programme (known as the Advanced Technology Vessel), which
forms an integral part of the country's minimum nuclear deterrence.

Official sources said that the Indian Navy (IN) also wanted a Russian SSN
to "keep alive" the training it acquired on INS Chakra, the Soviet
Charlie-I class submarine it leased in 1988 for three years. IN officers
were unwilling to comment on the proposed lease, saying that the matter
was with the government, but hinted that inducting an SSN into the fleet
would be "beneficial".

"All navies have aspirations (to operate nuclear submarines) and so do
we," Admiral Sushil Kumar, Chief of Naval Staff, recently told newspersons
in New Delhi. He was responding to a question on the induction of SSNs
into the navy.

Defence officials are circumspect about the success of leasing an SSN,
which they said would be strongly opposed by the United States, anxious as
it is to avoid an arms race in the region between India's enemies-Pakistan
and, to a lesser extent, China.

Official sources said that the Indian Navy also wanted a Russian SSN to
"keep alive" the training it acquired on INS Chakra

But they said that Russian President Vladimir Putin had defied the
global nuclear blockade against India by agreeing to provide it
low-enriched uranium for the US-built Tarapur atomic power station near
Mumbai in western India, and may even brave US pressure by agreeing to
lease an SSN to India.

Official sources said that the contract for 58 tonnes of Russian fuel for
the twin-reactor, signed during President Putin's recent India trip,
followed a separate but little publicised agreement on bilateral
cooperation on the peaceful applications of nuclear energy. Tarapur has
been severely short of adequate fuel, threatening the continuing supply
of power supply to India's principal industrial belt around Mumbai.

President Putin was also accorded the rare honour of being taken to the
Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) at nearby Trombay, which is closely
involved in developing India's nuclear weapons deterrence, principally
against its nuclear-armed neighbours, Pakistan and China.

Moscow has defended providing Tarapur the nuclear fuel on grounds that it
was within President Putin's post-election presidential decree to allow
the shipment of nuclear materials in "extraordinary situations".

But rigid Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) guidelines only permit
safety-related exports after consultations with its members to circumvent
a potential nuclear contingency. The punitive NSG restrictions make the
export of nuclear-related items conditional on the importing state
accepting international inspections of all its nuclear facilities, a
condition that India rejects, as this would rob it of its nuclear weapons
programme. So far, this had barred any country from selling India nuclear
items.

Russia is also building two large 1,000-megawatt nuclear power reactors
at Kudankulam in southern Tamil Nadu state for US$ 26 billion and is
anxious to construct more plants. Russia justified this deal, signed soon
after India's nuclear tests, on the grounds that the agreement was reached
"in principle", before the NSG tightened its guidelines in 1992 to include
the inspection facility clause. This agreement was a resurrection of an
old agreement with the former Soviet Union that lapsed after its breakup
in 1991.

Attempts to revive the deal were stymied by the United States, but it was
eventually pushed through in 1998; under the deal, Russia would supply
most of the critical components while engineers from the local state-owned
Nuclear Power Corporation would erect the plants by 2005-07.

Officials said that land acquisition and plans for the project were
complete and atomic engineers ready to build the plant whose reactor core
building will have "double containment" to ensure safety. The enriched
uranium for the two plants would be supplied by Moscow, while India would
reprocess the spent fuel and keep it under safeguards. Over the past three
decades, India has built 10 power stations, four research reactors, six
heavy water plants and a host of nuclear related facilities.

Nuclear officials said that Russia could sell more reactors to India,
provided it quits the NSG, of which it is a founder-member. It can also do
so if India is admitted as a nuclear weapons state or if NSG guidelines
are relaxed.

France, which also "sympathised" with India's security concerns
underpinning its nuclear tests, is also to keen sell Delhi nuclear
reactors. Two years ago, the two countries signed a strategic dialogue
focusing on nuclear arms control, closer cooperation in military affairs
and civilian nuclear energy generation in a bid to forge closer ties.

French President Jacques Chirac told Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee
during the latter's brief stopover in Paris in 1998 that France respected
India's right to conduct nuclear tests, opposed economic sanctions, and
was willing to help overcome the difficulties created by the sanctions.
Chirac added that France was committed to cooperation with India for
civilian nuclear power generation for its economic development and to
control pollution.

Officials said that Paris's renewed interest in India stemmed from a
survey undertaken by French ambassadors, in which they identified India as
one of the "future powers" of the 21st century, along with Russia, China
and Japan.

France, which also "sympathised" with India's security concerns
underpinning its nuclear tests, is also to keen sell Delhi nuclear
reactors

India is also understood to have asked Russia and France for help with
its nuclear powered submarine programme-known as the advanced technology
vessel (ATV)-which began in the mid-1970s and is at least a decade
behind schedule because of technical hurdles.

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is believed to
have completed work on the highly classified ATV design, but faces
problems with miniaturising its reactor, providing it suitable
containment, and mating it with the hull.

France has reportedly refused help with the ATV, but is involved with the
construction of two conventional Indian submarines. But collaboration on
the ATV was discussed with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebannov in
November 1999, but the outcome of the discussions is not known. The ATV
file, which includes a progress report, is kept in containment in the
defence minister's office to which only a handful of officials, including
the navy chief, have (infrequent) access.

Indian planners envisage the ATV as an effective platform for
nuclear-armed cruise missiles like Sagarika, presently at an advanced
stage of development with Russian help. The ATV has been configured into
India's minimum nuclear deterrence policy based on a triad of aircraft,
mobile-based missiles and sea-based assets.

Initiated in 1976, two years after India conducted its first underground
nuclear test, the ATV project received an impetus in 1988 after the Indian
Navy leased for three years INS Chakra, a Charlie-I class submarine from
the Soviet Union. This made India the world's sixth country to operate a
nuclear submarine, after the five nuclear weapons states of Britain,
China, France, Russia, and the US.

For three years, INS Chakra's operations were classified, with just a
handful of naval officers, engineers and Department of Atomic Energy (DEA)
scientists privy to its workings, particularly with regard to the spent
fuel. The presence of Russian technicians aboard the boat added to the
overall secrecy surrounding the project that continues till today.

The transfer of the 5,000-tonne Russian nuclear submarine-the first such
transaction between two countries-coincided with India's decision pursue
its nuclear weapons programme and conduct further tests as it realised
its inability in achieving its goal of global disarmament. After INS
Chakra's return in 1991, India had planned on acquiring four to six
nuclear submarines, but the disintegration of the Soviet Union put an end
to its designs.

Instead, it has decided to accelerate the ATV project through enhanced
funding and the recent appointment of Vice-Admiral R N Ganesh as the new
project head. As part of its long-term strategy of inducting the ATV into
service, the IN also conducted its first-ever manoeuvres in 1995 in the
Arabian Sea with nuclear submarines of the US Sturgeon-class.