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The stakes for India are high if it conducts nuclear tests. All nations who supplied nuclear hardware and technology may ask for their return. India may become a pariah state along the same lines as in 1974 and 1998, when it conducted nuclear testing. If India held tests, the United States and Europe may impose other commercial, financial and technical sanctions on the country. It could cost India anywhere from 2 to 4 percent in economic growth.
On the other hand, consider what the supplier nations have to lose. The construction of nuclear power plants in India is likely to grow to become a US$100 billion business over the next 20 years. Add another US$100 billion for ancillary industry, which is part of nuclear trade, to keep the nuclear plants going. The sum total of the India-related nuclear business would be about US$200 billion. If half of this amount is for import items, then US$10 billion a year is a significant amount of business. This will create 100,000 new high-paying jobs in the “Big 4” suppliers of nuclear power reactors – the United States, Great Britain, France and Russia. These supplier nations will have a lot to lose by applying rigid nuclear rules against India.
Yes, there would be sanctions if India conducts a test. The degree of severity of the sanctions would vary, depending on whether India conducts nuclear tests today or ten years from now. Ten years from now, the “Big 4” of the NSG will have as much stake in nuclear trade as India, resulting in less severe sanctions.
Does India have to conduct new nuclear tests?
India’s 1974 nuclear test was a declaration to the world that India had nuclear capabilities, but it backfired. The entire Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty regime was established in order to discipline India, and the country’s dream of nuclear development suffered for it.
India conducted five more tests on May 11 and May 13 in 1998, using hastily assembled nuclear devices, just one month after a new government took office. The West had been completely unaware of them beforehand, and so had no time to figure out what happened. However, several of the tests were viewed as failures. On the other hand, India maintained its view that the testing had been a complete success, but would not release any data to back its claim. The tests on May 11, 1998, involved the simultaneous detonation of three fission devices with a yield of 12 kilotons; yet it was the devices used in the tests on May 13 that had greater significance. These were thermonuclear – or hydrogen – bombs, each alleged by India to have a yield of about 43 KT and a sub-kiloton device.
This is where the controversy begins. Seismic data from the United States and independent observers in the United Kingdom registered a lower yield than that claimed by India. They drew the only logical conclusion that India had not yet perfected their hydrogen bomb technology. Long after the U.S. scientific community inferred this, the U.S.-based Livermore National Laboratory concluded that India had tried to detonate a thermonuclear device but that the second stage of the two-stage bomb had failed to ignite. What this would mean today is that India’s next logical step is to continue with more tests, until success is achieved.
Did Indian scientists fail in their objective?
The truth might be found midway between the complete castigation by the Western scientific community and the claims of success by the Indian scientists involved in the tests. India has consistently maintained that testing was a success. In the last ten years since then, the world has undergone huge scientific and technical advances. Those advances are reflected in the area of nuclear deterrence as well. A huge nuclear bomb can be carried onto an aircraft and released in free fall toward a target; that much has already been achieved by India. It is in the areas of miniaturization and the ability to load a nuclear bomb into strategic missiles that India faces difficulties. Many scientific and tactical breakthroughs have been made toward reaching this capability, but until tested, the possibility remains part of a laboratory model.
The United States achieved its current status of an advanced nuclear power by conducting 1,054 nuclear tests since 1945. Many other nations, including the former Soviet Union, China and France, have done nuclear tests as well. Many of these tests were conducted in the atmosphere; therefore, it was easy to determine their yield and quality. India’s tests were done underground and were completely contained, so the scientific methods to determine yield and quality of the detonations are not precise. It is possible that Western scientists relying purely on seismic data may be unable to accurately calculate the yield.
Cold testing is another alternative. The secretive science of cold testing is used to test all components of nuclear weapons, without using the fissionable Uranium 235. Instead an inert material, such as Uranium 238, is used. If India has cold tested its weapons, not a word has been spoken about it. Much is known about Pakistan’s cold test in the early ‘80s, because Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan chose to boast about it. The cold test is not a complete nuclear test, since it does not test the core; this leaves a big gap in predicting true capability.
What will happen in the next ten years?
For India, it would be wise not to conduct nuclear tests for a while. It should wait until full-scale nuclear trade is at its peak, while also waiting for two major events to take place. First, another nation should test before India does. Second, India should work harder to get permanent membership on the UN Security Council. Both of these conditions would help minimize the impact of potential sanctions after a test. That is how China got away with sharing nuclear secrets with Pakistan. If China had been sanctioned, it would have used its position on the Security Council to veto, and the United States would have had to move on to another nation. That is why the United States and other nations decided to turn a blind eye to China’s proliferation moves.
Success or failure during India’s 1998 nuclear tests is unimportant. Technology is undergoing advances much more rapidly than ever before. Whatever new weapons India designs now will have to be tested and India has to wait for the right moment.
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(Hari Sud is a retired vice president of C-I-L Inc., a former investment strategies analyst and international relations manager. A graduate of Punjab University and the University of Missouri, he has lived in Canada for the past 34 years. ©Copyright Hari Sud.)
