India continues to adhere to an unrealistic strategy of massive retaliation as the corner-stone of its so-called No First Use doctrine. Experts in New Delhi are suggesting that a fully fledged thermonuclear weapons programme is a crucial part of making deterrence more flexible.
India claimed on May 11, 1998, to have detonated a thermonuclear bomb as a part of its Operation Shakti-1. However, several international experts suspect that the test was a failure at that the fusion stage. Some Indian scientists too believe that the fusion device failed to produce the anticipated results.
Independent researchers reported in 2012 that India was building a secret nuclear city at Challakere in Karnataka. The city was meant to be the largest military-run complex housing nuclear centrifuges, atomic research laboratories and weapons and aircraft testing facilities. Once completed, it would boost India’s nuclear weapons capabilities and alter the balance of power in the region. The facilities would enable India to modernise its 90-110 nuclear warheads.
Indian weapons scientists are advising the government to avoid signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, arguing that it needs to carry out more tests with thermonuclear devices. The Defence Research and Development Organisation has given the government the green signal for more nuclear tests
Some experts have inferred that India is building the nuclear city to produce nuclear fuel from domestic reserves. India has never issued a comprehensive description of its nuclear arsenal or the place of the Challakere facilities in its strategic plans.
In 2014, IHS Jane’s published a report saying India was expanding a covert uranium enrichment plant at the Indian Rare Metals Plant to be able to produce about twice as much weapons-grade uranium as New Delhi will need to fuel its nuclear powered ballistic-missile carrying submarines. Jane’s concluded that the excess enriched uranium would be used for the development of thermonuclear weapons.
Several reports internationally suggest that India has extended its domestic nuclear facilities to stockpile weapons-grade material for use in its military modernisation programmes. It has been suggested to the government that the strategic stockpile be expanded to 300-400 nuclear weapons.
Research at Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs indicates that India is working to set up more than five fast breeder reactors to increase its capacity for production of weapons-grade plutonium to 700 kg a year. A similar expansion of its centrifuge enrichment programme will enable it to produce 160 kg highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons every year. Should the activity continue India will soon have enough nuclear materials to produce more than 2,600 nuclear weapons. India has the fastest growing nuclear programme outside NPT safeguards. India has kept most of its nuclear reactors out of the monitoring regime of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Its membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group will allow it to expedite its efforts to enhance its capabilities and re-commence nuclear testing to complete the development of a thermonuclear device. Having acquired nuclear fuels from international sources through the NSG, India is eyeing an extra stockpile of enriched uranium from its domestic facilities to use in hydrogen bombs. The international partnership for building the world’s largest nuclear fusion reactor will make the task easier to accomplish.
Indian weapons scientists are asking the government to avoid signing CTBT arguing that it needs to carry out more tests with thermonuclear devices. The Defence Research and Development Organisation has given the government a green signal to conduct more tests. It has certified its capability to conduct nuclear tests at short notice.
The conventional wisdom says Pakistan should not trust the unilateral moratorium on nuclear weapons testing announced by India. Pakistan has already proposed a bilateral arrangement on a nuclear test ban. Should India be serious about not resuming nuclear tests, the proposal is practical and eminently worthy of consideration.
The author is an MPhil scholar at the Defence and Strategic Studies Department of Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad