The Reply From Islamabad

Its ironic that it was Nehru who first mooted the idea of a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing, way back in 1953. When CTBT finally came through in 1996, times had changed, attitudes had hardened and Indias stake in maintaining nuclear capability had increased sharply.

When the Buddha smiled on May 18 1974, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto vowed that Pakistanis would: Eat grass or starve if necessary, but we would be forced to build our own bomb. With a lot of help from China, thats just what our neighbours may have done.

Within 24 hours of your reading this, Pakistan may strut its tough stuff at the Chagai Hills in Baluchistan (see map). That would be the next stage of escalation in an arms race thats already in overdrive.

 

Nuclear deterrence does not consist merely of the ability to set up large explosions: reliable delivery systems are just as vital. Both Pakistan and India have attempted to acquire missile and nuclear capability. India with its large scientific base and its well-established satellite programmes and nuclear establishment would have had a headstart. But the Chinese have been totally nuclear capable since 1967 and the Dragon has had Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles since the 1970s. That helped balance the odds on Pakistans side.

Both sides are working hard to set up delivery systems with diverse ranges and payloads. Ghauri is reportedly a clone of the North Korean Nodong while Ghaznavi is probably cloned off some Chinese missile. The Chinese could have supplied upto 30 M-11 ballistic missiles to the Pakistanis as well as helped substantially with the Hatf-1/2 missile programme.

Meanwhile the Indian Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme with its Agni-Prithvi-Akash-Trishul-Nag quintet covers most ranges and payload options. Sagarika, with sea-surface capability, is reportedly on the drawing board. The Indian Satellite Launch Vehicle programme can be re-engineered in a matter of weeks for ICBM capability. It has developed cryogenic engines and its own supercomputers to handle complex calculations.

There are several stages of nuclear capability for a weaponmaker. First, fission capability. Fission is used in the atom bomb where energy is released by splitting heavy elements such as uranium and plutonium. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were fissions so was Pokhran 1974 and four of the five tests at Pokhran 1998. There is an upper limit of fission since the reaction stops below critical mass. Fission conditions can thus be simulated at sub-critical quantities and in super-computer simulations. Pakistan is assumed to have fission capability by most informed sources. We might know on Sunday.

The next stage is fusion capability the combining of light elements. Thermonuclear fusion is triggered by a fission explosion since fusion reactions require high temperatures of millions of centigrade to overcome repulsive forces between similarly charged particles. This is the hydrogen bomb where deuterium and tritium, which are the radioactive isotopes of hydrogen, combine to become helium. One Pokhran 1998 explosion was an H-bomb.

Multi-stage thermonuclear devices with a fission-fusion-fission-fusion cycle can generate yields of 50 megatonnes up. Thats 50 times as large as the largest possible fission devices. There is no upper limit on a fusion reaction it depends on the amount of fuel available. Thermonukes need testing to check design and calibrate yields the Americans test approximately 4 times per design, the French have an incredible 22 tests/design. Hence Pokhran 1998 was necessary assuming India needed to prove fusion capability.

The H-bomb at Pokhran was a very small controlled device (estimates range from 20-55 kilotons) which is extremely impressive technologically. Along with two sub-kt nukes and a low-yield device, India has developed the full range of nuclear weapons. An enormous breakthrough in tritium recovery by two BARC scientists apparently made this possible. Pakistan may or may not have fusion capability.

Pakistan came late to the nuclear arms race, setting up its first reactor in 1965. It suffered heavily from sanctions after Bhutto ate grass and carried out a large clandestine programme. In 1983, China reportedly supplied enriched weapons grade uranium for Kahuta where the weapons programme is centred.

India reached fission capability in 1974 and fusion capability after the tritium breakthrough in 1992. Scientists Sharad Dave and Himangshu Sadhukhan of Barc developed a cheap technique for extracting tritium from abundantly available heavy water. They used a 240 stage process at 4 Kelvin with a special catalyst.

This is much better than tritium extraction with an accelerator. Being a new technique, its implications escaped attention until Janes Intelligence Review in January 1998. By then, India may have had extracted upto 70 kgs of tritium just 4 grams are requi-red to seed a fusion device. America has only extracted 225 kgs since 1955. Its likely that India has a large lead here. But Pakistani also has a possible tritium processing centre at the heavy water power station in Khushab.

In 1996, a shaft for testing was excavated in Chagai Hills. A Gallup poll said that 80 per cent of Pakistanis supported a nuclear test if India tested first. That is now close to 100 percent since Buddha Jayanti. The shaft had not been filled in in the last two years. The next stage in the race will now inevitably start.

Both sides will now attempt to develop Mutually Assured Destructive (MAD) capability. Then they will try to develop second strike capacity to ensure they can hit back after a preemptive attack. At one estimate, the Indian nuclear programme swallows at least 1 per cent of GDP. Every Indian could be lifted above the poverty level if 2 percent of Indian GDP was annually deployed. The statistics are worse for Pakistan, especially with sanctions. Draw your own conclusions.

l Devangshu Datta

1 Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (Pinstech)

2 10 MW research rector; 27 kW research reactor; experimental-scale reprocessing facility small-scale reprocessing facility Center for Nuclear Studies

3 Qabul Khel: Future uranium mining site 4 Chashma: 300 MW PWR under construction 5 Kundian: Fuel fabrication facility 6 Mianwali:P Uranium exploration site 7 Chagai Hills: Possible nuclear test site 8 Karachi: 137 MW PHWR heavy water upgrading plant; Karachi Nuclear Power Training Center

9 Dera Ghazi Khan: Uranium hexaflouride UF6) conversion plant uranium milling site; uranium mining site 10 Wah: Potential nuclear weapons assembly site 11 Golra Sharif: Uranium enrichment facility *under construction?) 12 Kahuta: Uranium enrichment plant Dr A.Q. Khan Research Laboratories 13 Sihala: Pilot-scale uranium enrichment plant 14 Lahore: Uranium milling site

15 Multan: Heavy water production facility

Source: Center for Nonproliferation Studies