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Nuclear parity or economics?

Andross

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Feb 19, 2011
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WHO stirs the South Asian pot? Islamabad has allegedly the fastest growing nuclear arsenal in the world, fuels the South Asian arms race and blocks Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty negotiations at Geneva.

Satellite images in the recent Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) report indicate a fourth military reactor is coming up at the Khushab nuclear site.

Many must wonder why an economically fragile and internally weak Pakistan even contemplates games played by waning, resurging and emerging powers. Isn`t Pakistan`s existing arsenal enough to deter or destroy an adversary? A deeper look and some figures will show how perceptions are different to reality.

The reports on asymmetry in nuclear weapons arsenals since negotiations at the conference on disarmament started last month are geopolitically motivated. It is interesting to note that scratching Khushab`s surface set alarm bells ringing but the inauguration of India`s Tarapur nuclear fuel reprocessing plant only days before the ISIS report made no ripples. Why?

Western military industrial complexes fuel the economy, wield political clout and compel their governments to sell sensitive technology to eager and conflict-prone states. Non-proliferation norms do not come in the way of geopolitical and politico-economic interests. It is fair game.

A comparison of the fissile materials and warheads of nine states with nuclear weapons dispels the perceptions. The December 2010 International Panel for Fissile Materials report (IPFM) holds that the global stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU) was almost 1,475 metric tons, worth more than 60,000 nuclear weapons. About 90 per cent of this material is held by Russia and the US. Their military needs are not compromised in the process.

Similarly, the global stockpile of plutonium is almost 485 tons and nearly half of it is used for weapons. The five permanent members of the Security Council hold almost 98 per cent of global stocks and stopped producing weapon-grade plutonium decades ago because the Cold War ended and their economic constraints dictated so. Though Israel, India and Pakistan are increasing their plutonium stock these are nothing compared to the P5`s.

According to the Federation of American Scientists, the US has about 9,400 nuclear warheads and it is yet to deliver on its promise to dismantle about 4,500. Russia possesses about 10,000, France 300, the UK 225, China almost 240, Israel 200, Pakistan 70 to 90, India 60 to 80 and North Korea fewer than five.

The recently concluded New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) bilaterally binds Russia and the US to reduce only the `deployed` strategic warheads to a mere 1,550 by 2018.

Smartly enough, the change is in deployment status and there is no talk of dismantling the weapons. Even if dismantling occurs, where will the warheads` fissile material go? Their insignificant reduction process is as good as the alleged appreciation in Pakistan`s stocks and warheads.

Recently, the US Department of Energy`s budgetary demands revealed that big-power nuclear programmes are swelling too. The department seeks an exponential 19.2 per cent budgetary increase for nuclear weapons programmes from $9.8736bn in 2010 to $11.782bn in 2012. Will American taxpayers question why the additional money won`t go towards healthcare, raising new jobs or as aid to poor countries?

As to the question of who has the fastest-growing plutonium-based programme in South Asia and why, the IPFM report says that India`s Dhruva produces 17.8kg and CIRUS reactor used to produce 7.1kg of weapon-grade plutonium every year. India has produced 630kg to date.

The Tarapur reprocessing plant has replaced CIRUS and has a 100-ton annual fuel reprocessing capacity. Besides this India can also get 95kg of weapon-grade plutonium — 13 warheads — every year from its eight power reactors that the International Atomic Energy Agency cannot watch.

It is estimated that Pakistan can produce somewhere between 7kg to 9kg plutonium per year from its existing Khushab reactors, which equals two warheads a year. The upcoming reactors will have similar production capacity once they are fully operative by 2014-2015. Pakistan is believed to have produced up to 100kg weapon-grade plutonium since 1998. This simplified comparison shows that the Indian giant will starve on what is a surfeit for the Pakistani dwarf.

Why should Pakistan and India pursue bigger arsenals if a single bomb is enough to inflict irreparable damage? To both security lies in their threat perceptions based on actual capabilities rather than each other`s intent.

Security paradigms cannot be quantified and hence no number of agreements on how many bombs is enough. India ostensibly pursues a 400-weapons-based triad. It is sensible to expect the more powerful states to scale down production and acquisition of force multipliers for others to take heed.

Nations do what it takes to address their mutual asymmetries and use propaganda to shape domestic and international opinion. The South Asian animus has grown since the US signed the not so civil nuclear energy agreement with India in 2006 and it has allowed New Delhi to expand its military power. It is not out of hate for Pakistan but primarily because India is a big market and can pay its bills. n

So what should Pakistan do? It has taken steps to militarily deter India. Has it done so in economics? Pakistan has to take steps to pay its bills and create incentives for investors. The atomic commission and the nuclear establishment cannot be as helpful as economists, politicians, businessmen, academics and commoners.

The writer is a research scholar at the Department of Strategic & Nuclear Studies at the National Defence University, Islamabad.


Nuclear parity or economics? | | DAWN.COM
 
Robert Green.Commander, Royal Navy (Retired)
Posted: February 25, 2011 03:46 PM
Breaking Free From the Nuclear Deterrence Scam

Yesterday I spoke at the EastWest Institute in Manhattan on the consequences of nuclear deterrence failure. I began by explaining that I will shortly fly home to my earthquake-ravaged city of Christchurch, in nuclear-free New Zealand. Friends describe it as a war zone, with over 110 dead, 160 badly injured, and 200 missing. My family are fortunate: apparently our house is trashed and barely standing, but it is reparable. Though likely to cost over $10 billion, Christchurch will be rebuilt; sewerage and water systems will be relaid, power reconnected; the land and survivors will recover.

As the only ex-British Navy Commander with nuclear weapon experience to have come out against them, I then recounted my experience of a public meeting in Islamabad in 2001. Anti-nuclear nuclear scientist Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy had persuaded General Aslam Beg, one of the "fathers" of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, to join a panel with him and me. Beg warned against raising awareness about the effects of a nuclear strike on a Pakistan city, "in case it scares the people." He had a simplistic faith in nuclear deterrence, ignoring all the added dangers of nuclear rivalry with India. He is not alone: my experience is that most believers in nuclear deterrence refuse to discuss the consequences of failure. This is why.

Economic Consequences. In April 2005, an internal report for US Homeland Security appeared on the web. Titled Economic Consequences of a Rad/Nuc Attack, it examined what it would take to recover from the detonation of just one nuclear device in various cities. Much depends on the size of bomb and level of radioactive fallout decontamination, but the authors concluded the costs would be catastrophic.

For New York, the Federal Bank estimated it would cost $11.9 billion just to replace the World Trade Center complex, equating to $193 billion per square kilometer. Across almost every cleanup level, the economic consequences for New York meet or exceed $10 trillion. This is roughly the annual GDP of the entire US economy. Just one Hiroshima-size nuclear bomb could do this, to one city.

Health Consequences. In 2004, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War published their findings regarding casualties from a Hiroshima-size nuclear warhead detonated over New York. Total fatalities were estimated at about 60,000. Another 60,000 would be seriously injured, utterly overwhelming any hospitals surviving the explosion. Again, all this from just one tactical nuclear bomb like the one I was trained to drop on a military airfield outside Leningrad, on one city.

Agriculture Consequences. A Scientific American article, published in January last year, reported on recent climate research about a regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan in which about 100 Hiroshima-size nuclear devices would be detonated over cities. Apart from the mutual carnage, radioactive contamination and destruction across South Asia, enough smoke from firestorms would be generated to cripple global agriculture. Plunging temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere would cause hundreds of millions of people to starve to death, even in countries far from the conflict.

Had a nuclear weapon been detonated over Christchurch, it would be a radiated wasteland. Water supplies would be poisoned; emergency teams could not be deployed without wearing heavy protective clothing. There would be unmitigated terror, and no hope.

In 1999, I landed at my former target, now St Petersburg's airport. I was shocked to see that my ten-kiloton WE177 tactical bomb would have caused huge casualties and destruction to Russia's beautiful ancient capital as collateral damage. When I confessed to my Russian hosts, they put me on TV, where I apologized for having agreed to carry out such a terrible order. Then I told the citizens of St Petersburg that I had learned nuclear weapons would not save me -- or them.

A nuclear weapon is not a weapon at all. Its unique combination of long-term health effects and unimaginably horrific explosive power make it the ultimate terror device. That made me implicitly a state-sponsored nuclear terrorist.

The American writer H L Mencken once quipped: "There's always an easy solution to every problem: neat, plausible, and wrong." As the only ex-British Navy Commander with nuclear weapon experience to have come out against them, I have learned that:

• Nuclear weapons have been exploited as a fetishistic currency of power

• Nuclear weapons did not end World War 2

• Nuclear deterrence has an insoluble credibility problem

• It did not work in Korea, Vietnam, the Falklands, Israel or Iraq

• It might not work against a paranoid regime

• It is worse than useless against terrorists

• It stimulates hostility, mistrust and arms racing

• It provokes proliferation

• It creates instability

• It is immoral and implicitly unlawful

• There are safer, more cost-effective, humane and lawful security strategies

Now the nuclear weapon states, admitting that extremists with weapons of mass destruction cannot be deterred, plan pre-emptive nuclear attacks in "anticipatory self-defense" of their "vital interests" -- not last-ditch defense of their homeland. Thereby, their unprovable claim that nuclear deterrence averts war is cynically stood on its head.

For all these reasons, I now suspect that nuclear deterrence is an outrageous confidence trick, a scam devised sixty years ago by the US military-industrial complex dominating and distorting American politics and foreign policy for its vested interests - which are gargantuan. Yet all but about 35 states feel more secure without depending on the delusions of nuclear deterrence; so they have seen through the hoax.

A surprisingly small network of individuals drove the campaign to abolish slavery. As with nuclear deterrence, slavery's leading apologists were the power elites of the United States, Britain and France. They argued that slavery was a "necessary evil," for which there was "no alternative." They were discredited as charlatans after a few courageous, committed ordinary British, American and French citizens mobilized unstoppable public and political support for their campaign to replace slavery with more humane, lawful and effective ways to create wealth. The analogy holds for nuclear deterrence, which can and must be discarded for more humane, lawful and safer security strategies if civilization and the Earth's ecosystems are to survive.

Robert Green served as a bombardier-navigator in Buccaneer nuclear strike jets and anti-submarine helicopters equipped with nuclear depth-bombs. On promotion to Commander, he worked in the UK Ministry of Defense before his final appointment as Staff Officer (Intelligence) to CinC Fleet during the Falklands War. His latest book, Security Without Nuclear Deterrence, is available on Amazon.com: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more.
 
As to the question of who has the fastest-growing plutonium-based programme in South Asia and why, the IPFM report says that India`s Dhruva produces 17.8kg and CIRUS reactor used to produce 7.1kg of weapon-grade plutonium every year. India has produced 630kg to date.The Tarapur reprocessing plant has replaced CIRUS and has a 100-ton annual fuel reprocessing capacity. Besides this India can also get 95kg of weapon-grade plutonium — 13 warheads — every year from its eight power reactors that the International Atomic Energy Agency cannot watch.It is estimated that Pakistan can produce somewhere between 7kg to 9kg plutonium per year from its existing Khushab reactors, which equals two warheads a year. The upcoming reactors will have similar production capacity once they are fully operative by 2014-2015. Pakistan is believed to have produced up to 100kg weapon-grade plutonium since 1998. This simplified comparison shows that the Indian giant will starve on what is a surfeit for the Pakistani dwarf.
This para is of utmost important.Its quite certain that india has been fueling nuclear arms race in south asia and world NSG make noise about only pakistan for their own strategic interests and keep mum about india.Pakistan is with in its right needs to expand its nuclear facilities just to protect itself from indian nuke blackmail.
 
This para is of utmost important.Its quite certain that india has been fueling nuclear arms race in south asia and world NSG make noise about only pakistan for their own strategic interests and keep mum about india.Pakistan is with in its right needs to expand its nuclear facilities just to protect itself from indian nuke blackmail.

NSG is not that worried about India because, India unlike Pakistan is not the "one of the worst proliferatior of nuclear weapons"
India is much more economically and politically stable or has the history is shown us.
Plus It is not asking rest of the world to bill its floods and cancel its debts, while using its own resources to produce nuclear weapons faster than any other country in the world
 
This para is of utmost important.Its quite certain that india has been fueling nuclear arms race in south asia and world NSG make noise about only pakistan for their own strategic interests and keep mum about india.Pakistan is with in its right needs to expand its nuclear facilities just to protect itself from indian nuke blackmail.



India has no first use policy and you are forgetting a bigger country next to India called China who also has many nukes and the capacity to build more.

Our nukes are only to deter others but Pakistan has over 100 nukes and is building more for only India?? even 40 nukes are enough to deter India why so many is what many people are wondering.
 
NSG is not that worried about India because, India unlike Pakistan is not the "one of the worst proliferatior of nuclear weapons"
India is much more economically and politically stable or has the history is shown us.
Plus It is not asking rest of the world to bill its floods and cancel its debts, while using its own resources to produce nuclear weapons faster than any other country in the world
India's nuke proliferation to iran in its nuclear program is not a hidden thing.
 
India has no first use policy and you are forgetting a bigger country next to India called China who also has many nukes and the capacity to build more.

Our nukes are only to deter others but Pakistan has over 100 nukes and is building more for only India?? even 40 nukes are enough to deter India why so many is what many people are wondering.
NFU doesnt mean that india wont use nuke first.NFU can be dropped anytime as war escalates at rapid speed.
 
even pakistan says its nukes are for india only to deter it so world must be assured that those nukes wont be lobbed at them except india. so why beat the drum:)
 
Because pakistan has the worst track record ever. Not to mention the rapid rise of extremism and America hate in Pakistan.
 
even pakistan says its nukes are for india only to deter it so world must be assured that those nukes wont be lobbed at them except india. so why beat the drum:)

Pakistan also said they will not proliferate nukes to other countries..we know how that worked out..so to put simply, world does not trust Pakistan's word anymore.
 
every nuke power has proliferated its only that pakistan is victimized.

Victimized..how so ..are they under any kind of sanctions?..like the ones on the countries it proliferated nukes too, Iran, N.Korea or Libya?
 
every nuke power has proliferated its only that pakistan is victimized.

1: Not true. Pathetic attempt
2: So what you're saying is forgive Pakistan and turn a blind eye towards its psycho proliferation, BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE HAS!
Two wrongs make a right eh?
 

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