by SAILENDRA NATH GHOSH
Recently the DRDO’s former senior scientist, Dr K. Santhanam, raised a controversy that the Pokhran-II test for thermonuclear device was unsuccessful and that fresh nuclear tests were necessary to face the threat from China. Two former Chairmen of the Atomic Energy Commission, Dr P.K. Iyenger and Dr Homi Sethna, supported his contention. Whether Pokhran-II was successful or not is a question of science and technology. But whether fresh nuclear tests are necessary to meet the defence needs is basically a question of policy, which should be informed by science and technology but not wholly determined by it. Even if Dr Santhanam’s assessment is accepted—despite strong evidences to the contrary—there is no warrant for fresh nuclear tests in the context of (i) the carefully and very correctly formulated India’s Nuclear Doctrine, (ii) the changed global political situation, and (iii) some consideration basic to survival of life on Earth.
India’s Nuclear Doctrine
The Nuclear Doctrine drafted in 1999, was subse-quently formalised, with some modification, in 2008. It decided not to embark on a nuclear arms race as is done by countries ready for a massive first strike on the adversary country’s offensive weapons in strength (in kiloton yield) or number, but just develop arms as the instrument of minimal nuclear deterrence. What is enough for effective deterrence is a matter for judgment. In response to some other country’s first—even if massive—attack on us, our capacity to inflict an order of damage which the attacking country will find unacceptable, cannot be precisely quantified. But a realistic calculation is possible. The simple uranium-based 15-kiloton atomic device which was dropped on Hiroshima killed about one lakh people.1 The plutonium-based 20-kiloton atom bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki killed a somewhat lesser number (about 80,000) because of the latter’s hilly terrain. Those bombs were “mere firecrackers” compared to today’s—including India’s—smallest atom bombs; and the cities—ours as well as theirs—are also more populous than in those days. Therefore, in case of a nuclear attack by an adversary country, India’s capacity to inflict “unacceptable damage” need not be in doubt. What is more important is the capacity of our early warning system and the efficiency of our delivery system. Fresh tests are irrelevant for both purposes.
Vastly Changed Global Context
The world has been changing fast. The world’s foremost nuclear hawks of yesteryears are now campaigning for a nuclear-free world. Henry Kissinger, George Shultz (two former US Secretaries of State), William Perry (former US Secretary of Defence), and Sam Nunn (former Chairman of the USA’s Senate Armed Services Committee) have been playing leading roles in this campaign. They have found a large number of prominent public figures in their country as fellow-participants. Twenty of them held positions of policy-makers in the US Adminis-tration. As many as 79 religious organisations representing Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims in the USA registered their protests against George Bush’s plan to reactivate the US nuclear weapons manufacturing plants.
The above-mentioned “gang of four” (Kissinger et al.), in an article in the Wall Street Journal, dated January 4, 2007, said that nuclear weapons, far from promoting security, are bringing more insecurity. With the cessation of the Cold War between the USA and Russia, that is, between the two largest possessors of nuclear arsenals, these weapons have become obsolete for deterrence for them. However, “deterrence continues to be a relevant consideration for many states with regard to threats from other states”. But in their case, too, “reliance on nuclear weapons for this purpose is becoming increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective”. Increasingly hazardous because the new nuclear nations do not have the benefit of years of step-by-step safeguards to prevent nuclear accidents, misjudgments, and unauthorised launches. Decreasingly effective as deterrence because the plethora of weapon states, harbouring various sources of conflicting interests, will always tend to push headlong into war. “The need today is to take the world to the next stage—to reversing the reliance on nuclear weapons globally, and preventing proliferation into potentially dangerous hands.” (’Potentially dangerous hands’ mean fanatical states and non-state terrorists.)
In the UK, another “gang of four” – Lord Douglas Hurd, Sir Malcom Rifkind, Lord George Robertson, Lord David Owen, who were earlier among the staunchest supporters of British nuclear deterrence—started campaigning since 2007 for “ditching the nuclear bomb”. They noted that “there is a powerful case for dramatic reduction in the stockpile of nuclear weapons” and called upon Britain and France to join in renewed multilateral efforts to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in existence and to consider what further contribution they might make to “achieve a non-nuclear weapons world”. “Nuclear weapons are security problems—not a solution.”
Mainstream for more