Indian nuclear weapons are threat to world security: Kings College London report
Posted By: News Desk
LONDON: Apparently timed to appear before upcoming
plenary meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) from June 22-23,
King’s College London has released a damning report on Indian nuclear
programme.
The report by Project Alpha concludes that the strategic trade with India will enhance its nuclear weapons latency and enable it to push for a third ‘breakout’ of nuclear weapons.
This British assessment raises fears that India
surreptitiously superseded even the United Kingdom and France in their
arsenal size and could pose a serious threat to their security once
geopolitical alliances shift.
A similar conclusion was drawn by Harvard University
Belfer Centre’s recent report, titled ‘Indian Nuclear Exceptionalism’,
which concludes that India has ostensibly a fissile material stock worth
2,600 nuclear warheads.
A more modest assessment had appeared last year in a
petite book by four Pakistani scholars, who placed Indian nuclear
arsenal at around 500 warheads – still making it the holder Bronze Medal
amongst the nuclear-armed states.
The book titled ‘Indian Unsafeguarded Nuclear Programme’
posits that India has enough indigenous uranium to cover its weapons and
energy requirements of more than a century.
If these assessments are true, there’s no reason that the
NSG should even consider New Delhi’s application for membership because
nuclear trade will only help the country vertically proliferate and at
some stage become a threat even to its benefactors.
India’s nuclear self-determination as well as its
interests in keeping its future options open would prevent the country
from agreeing to other non-proliferation commitments, such as the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty
(FMCT).
The country has the largest unsafeguarded nuclear programme in the developing world and refuses to bring a substantial part it’s so-called civil nuclear programme outside IAEA safeguards.
Likewise, Indian refusal to sign CTBT is because it is
ostensibly developing thermonuclear weapons in a secret nuclear city in
Karnataka’s Challakere area – producing HEU in access of its needs for
fuelling nuclear submarines.
Within this context, the King’s College report highlights
that international trade and other cooperation with India is
contributing to India’s strategic programmes both directly and
indirectly.
This report also highlights the possible erosion of
political control of the nuclear arsenal. The Agni-V intercontinental
range capable ballistic missile is pre-mated in the same manner as the
pre-mated ballistic missiles used on-board Arihant-class SSBNs.
This will have a significant impact on nuclear policy and command and control. Indian entities are at onward-proliferation risk.
The potential danger lies with the re-export of sensitive items and knowledge out of India to foreign powers.
The domestic industry supplying India’s strategic weapons
complex and the country’s nuclear programme have reached sufficient
technical maturity to export expertise and tangible nuclear and
missile-related goods.
The supply of uranium from other countries allows India to burn this safeguarded fuel in
their safeguarded facilities whilst using their sizeable natural
uranium resources to breed plutonium and produce weapons-grade uranium
for an expansion of their nuclear arsenal.
It’s worth recalling that the NSG was created in 1975 as a
reaction to Indian nuclear proliferation since 1950s and testing of its
first bomb in 1974.
India’s scientific complexes (nuclear, missile, and space)
are poorly separated. The nuclear programme in India has been partially
submitted to international safeguards, but this remains limited and
allows India to exercise de facto nuclear weapons state privileges
regarding the production of special fissile material.
This unclear separation should raise concerns about the
unwitting or deliberate assistance of foreign entities when engaging
with Indian entities who are stakeholders in the strategic weapons
programme.
Nonetheless, this study confirms that such behaviour has
occurred in the past and may have waned in recent years as indigenous
capabilities increase and India’s ability to procure items from abroad
has increased.
The report also identifies and characterises entities
involved in India’s strategic weapons programme. KCL’s report is an
essential update on the record of Indian entities and will be of
interest to government and private sector customers dealing with
proliferation issues, particularly with regards to sensitive and
dual-use items headed for end-users in India.
This report shall be read carefully by the 48 participating governments of NSG before they meet in Bern in few days.
Alarmingly, 243 entities have contributed to India’s strategic nuclear and missile programmes as key weapon stakeholders, unsafeguarded nuclear fuel cycle entities, defence supply chain entities, developers of auxiliary systems such as vehicles, and entities conducted dual-use research of concern.
Alarmingly, 243 entities have contributed to India’s strategic nuclear and missile programmes as key weapon stakeholders, unsafeguarded nuclear fuel cycle entities, defence supply chain entities, developers of auxiliary systems such as vehicles, and entities conducted dual-use research of concern.
There is a wider and deeper network of suppliers and
researchers involved in this system. India’s strategic weapons complex
has explored and developed additional weapons systems that could be made
nuclear-capable should there be political will.
Historically, periods of capability breakout occurred
around India’s milestone nuclear tests in 1974 and 1998. In such
instances, the initiative of the strategic weapons complex in developing
technology demonstrators, has pre-empted political decision making to
adopt such technologies as
military capabilities.
military capabilities.
India has invested in new special fissile material production facilities. This large unsafeguarded nuclear fuel cycle
encompasses a number of entities performing dual civil and military functions.
encompasses a number of entities performing dual civil and military functions.
India has used informal forums such as the High Energy
Materials Society of India or Indian National Society for Aerospace and
Related Mechanisms as potential spaces for Indian strategic weapons
scientists to meet and exchange ideas with foreign scientists.
The process of Indian science developments taking the lead
over policy direction is why India’s technological latency should raise
concerns. Furthermore, an acute nuclear crisis in South Asia would see
India mobilise its science and technology potential to undergo a new
massive expansion of nuclear capabilities – a third breakout.
Indian Navy is on its way to build a naval nuclear
deterrent of at least six nuclear powered submarines by 2022 that will
carry more weapons than French and British navies combined.
The Indian government’s support for its domestic industry
in the face of international sanctions and technology denial has
continued since the normalisation of trade relations in 2008 with
exceptional American help. The US won a trade waiver to India that year
which has allowed it to sign a dozen nuclear deals since then.
Continued special treatment threatens to erode the
interlinked non-proliferation regime by demonstrating the viability of
achieving nuclear weapon state status outside the NPT and the
possibility of Indian reintegration without significant concessions.
This exceptionalism begs the question: how can the
abnormalities in the non-proliferation regime be addressed and the
technological apartheid can end?
The nuclear-haves are running with the hares and hunting with the hounds.