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| Devangshu Datta: Dropping a bomb | | Does India need more thermonuclear tests? |
| Devangshu Datta / New Delhi Sep 26, 2009, 00:55 IST |
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"What is truth?” It is often subject to multiple interpretations as in Kurosawa’s Rashomon. Any reporter who has collated varying eye-witness accounts of any given event knows that the fable of murder in medieval Japan is firmly rooted in reality.
It is only in the mathematical sciences that truth is defined absolutely. Even there, it is often obscured. For example, consider the five nuclear tests of 1998. Did India demonstrate thermonuclear capability? While this question is from the realm of hard science, so much hangs on the answer that any answer is suspect.
According to the Indian scientific establishment, it did demonstrate thermonuclear capability. According to a former member of the Indian scientific establishment, India didn’t. According to international analysis of the seismic signatures of the five tests, India probably didn’t.
Thermonuclear capability, or the ability to build a fusion bomb (known popularly as the “hydrogen bomb”), is the hallmark of an advanced power. Fusion occurs when the nuclei of a light element (commonly hydrogen) combine to produce a heavier element (helium) releasing excess particles as energy. Fusion powers stars. It is the cleanest, most efficient method of generating energy. It occurs only under stellar conditions of extreme pressure and high temperature.
The only way humans can initiate fusion is via fission. Fission is relatively simple as was demonstrated at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Assemble a super-critical mass of a radioactive substance. It splits into stable substances, with excess particles converted into energy.
Fission (as in an “atomic bomb”) is much more powerful than conventional explosives. But it’s dirty (releasing radioactive waste) and inefficient compared to fusion. In an A-bomb, less than 20 per cent of critical mass is converted to energy and the rest, scattered by the explosion.
An A-bomb creates heat-temperature gradients akin to the stars. So if an A-bomb is neatly packed together with fusable material, it can set off a fusion reaction. In a badly designed device, fusion will not occur and the explosive yield is far less. The seismic signatures are different, not only due to lower yields but also due to the number and timing of explosions.
In the 1950s and ’60s, the US, USSR, UK, France and China demonstrated thermonuclear capability. Nobody got H-bomb design right at first shot. Data was collected from failed tests and designs improved. But that research was done long before the era of cheap computing.
Supercomputers allow the simulation and study of virtual explosions and thus greatly ease weapon design. India claims its computing ability helped it succeed on debut. (Incidentally Pakistan didn’t demonstrate thermonuclear capability and neither has North Korea.)
Other weapons capability has been clearly demonstrated, at Pokhran II and later. India has missile systems of varying ranges. It has “suitcase” nukes (small, low-yield devices). The launch of Arihant shows it can park nuclear weapons offshore on an undetectable platform and hence, confers second-strike capability.
Does India need more thermonuclear tests? The scientific establishment doesn’t have a clear answer. On the one hand, conducting more tests may be interpreted as tacit admission of failure. However, the boffins know that one test (successful or not) does not generate enough data for reliable thermonuclear capability. Also, a continuing high-profile weapons programme would be a big victory in India’s bureaucratic turf wars.
The strategic analysts also don’t have clear answers. More tests will stress India’s diplomatic relationships. It may hinder trade in general, and the nuclear power programme, in particular. But it may also yield more diplomatic leverage in the long run.
What is the cost of further testing (including the opportunity costs) versus the potential benefits? Nobody in power appears prepared to even attempt a credible analysis. A great pity because that is really the question that needs to be answered in unambiguous terms.
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