The independent Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
estimates that India already possesses between 90 and 110 nuclear weapons, as compared to Pakistan’s estimated stockpile of up to 120
India, according to former
Australian nonproliferation chief John Carlson, is
one of just three countries that continue to produce fissile materials for nuclear weapons — the others are Pakistan and North Korea.
The enlargement of India’s thermonuclear program would position the country alongside the United Kingdom, the United States, Russia, Israel, France, and China, which already have significant stockpiles of such weapons.
Robert Kelley, who served as the director of the Iraq Action Team at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 1992-1993 and 2001-2005, is a former project leader for nuclear intelligence at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He told CPI that after analyzing the available satellite imagery, as well as studying open source material on both sites,
he believes that India is pursuing a larger thermonuclear arsenal. Its development, he warned, “will inevitably usher in a new nuclear arms race” in a volatile region.
Retired Indian nuclear scientists and military officers said in interviews that India’s growing nuclear submarine fleet would be the first beneficiary of the newly produced enriched uranium.
India presently has just one indigenous vessel,
the INS Arihant, constructed in a program supervised by the prime minister’s office. Powered by an 80-megawatt uranium reactor developed by BARC that began operating in August 2013, it will formally enter military service in 2016, having undergone sea trials in 2014. A second, INS Aridhaman, is already under construction, with at least two more slated to be built, a senior military officer said in an interview. Each would be loaded with up to 12 nuclear-tipped missiles. The officer, who was not authorized to be named, said the fleet’s expansion gained a new sense of urgency after Chinese submarines
sailed across the Bay of Bengal to Sri Lanka in September and October 2014, docking in a port facility in Colombo that had been built by Chinese engineers.
A senior Obama administration official in Washington, who was not authorized to be quoted by name, expressed skepticism about the government scientist’s private claim.
The official said that India’s civilian nuclear programs, including power stations and research establishments, were actually benefiting from new access to imported nuclear fuel after the embargo’s removal in 2007 and now require almost “no homemade enriched uranium.”
India has already received roughly 4,914 tons of uranium from France, Russia, and Kazakhstan, for example, and it has agreements with Canada, Mongolia, Argentina, and Namibia for additional shipments. In September 2014, then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott signed an agreement to make Australia a “long-term, reliable supplier of uranium to India” — a deal that has sparked considerable
controversy at home.
The International Panel on Fissile Materials estimates that the Arihant-class submarine core requires only about 143 pounds of uranium, enriched to 30 percent —
a measure of how many of its isotopes can be readily used in weaponry. Using this figure and the estimated capacity of the centrifuges India is installing in Mysore alone — not even including Challakere — Kelley concluded that even after fueling its entire submarine fleet there would be 352 pounds of weapons-grade uranium left over every year, or enough to fuel at least 22 H-bombs
Previously, this meant the bare minimum required to prevent an attack on India, but
a new Indian doctrine in 2003 — in response to Pakistan’s increasingly aggressive nuclear posture
— altered this notion: “Nuclear retaliation to a first strike will be massive and designed to inflict unacceptable damage.” the retired official said.
U.S. and British officials affirmed that they have been aware of this discussion among Indian scientists and soldiers for years.
SOME HIGHLIGHTS FROM : India Is Building a Top-Secret Nuclear City to Produce Thermonuclear Weapons, Experts Say | Foreign Policy
This story was written by the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C., and wasoriginally published on its website.
The Center for Public Integrity’s national security managing editor R. Jeffrey Smith contributed to this article from Washington, D.C.
