Asia Times: ANALYSIS: What price more nuclear tests?



	March 23, 1999	atimes.com

India-Pakistan

ANALYSIS: What price more nuclear tests?
By Praful Bidwai

Are India and Pakistan likely to conduct another series of nuclear tests before signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which must be ratified by September this year?

Both governments are under domestic pressure to test - in thecase of India from political hardliners and sections of thescientific-military establishment.

Conducting tests in the near future, and simultaneouslyannouncing adherence to the CTBT like France and China did inearly 1996, is for their policy-makers a tempting gamble.

Neither government has admitted it, but at the end of eightrounds of separate talks with U.S Deputy Secretary of StateStrobe Talbott in January this year, India is believed to haveoffered to try to sign the treaty as early as June and Pakistanhas said it will follow suit, if India signs.

The domestic political opposition in India does not favorsigning the CTBT. The Congress, India's biggest and oldest party,would like such signature as part of a larger strategic bargain.The left opposes the CTBT as ''discriminatory."

A government which signs the CTBT is likely to attract thecharge of capitulating to external pressure. The ruling right-wing Hindu-nationalist party thinks the best way out is to appear to defy thepresent global nuclear order by conducting tests.

In Pakistan, the domestic pressure for further testing isweaker. The compulsion would be largely reactive: Islamabad mustget even with New Delhi in matters nuclear, as it did last Maywhen it claimed to have conducted six tests - to match India'stotal (one test in 1974 and five that month).

The claim about the number and explosive yields of the testshas been widely questioned by scientists. Pakistan may haveonly conducted two to three tests, with yields lower thanofficially announced, 20 kilotons.

India's claim of a thermonuclear (hydrogen bomb) test, with ayield of 45 kilotons, has come under a cloud. Independent nuclearweapons designers, analysing seismic data from around the world,say that in all probability, the secondary (fusion) stage of thetwo-stage device did not go off. The real yield may only havebeen 12 to 20 kilotons.

A fresh test may be a way of demonstrating nuclear capability.Additionally, they may want to prove and harden the designsdeveloped 10 months ago and convince the potential users - thearmed forces - that the bombs are rugged and reliable.

Yet another sources of pressure is the rivalry in Indiabetween the Department of Atomic Energy and the Defense Researchand Development Organization.

And in Pakistan, between Dr. A.Q. Khan Laboratories (whichclaims the credit for the nuclear and missile programs), andthe Atomic Energy Commission and defense scientists.

Given the limited levels of technology absorption inmanufacturing in India and Pakistan, and the prevalence ofsloppy operational practices, it may not be easy to developaccurate battlefield-ready weapons designs that satisfy themilitary, without adequate testing. This is especially true ofsecond-generation weapons such as the hydrogen bomb.

India and Pakistan also plan to develop command and controlsystems to guide and target their bombs and prevent unauthorizedand accidental use. Further nuclear tests may be linked todevelopment of command systems.

Indian and Pakistani policy-makers hope they will get awaywith further tests by falling in line with the CTBT - just asFrance and China first outraged the world by testing even whilenegotiations on the treaty were in progress, and then announcingthe tests' cessation.

India and Pakistan have attracted economic sanctions and drawnflak not only from the UN Security Council and the G-8, but alsofrom the Non-Aligned Movement and regional bodies such as theASEAN Regional Forum.

They are embarking on a gamble. A new round of tests mightlead to a reversal of the process of easing of sanctions, inevidence over the past few months. This could set back theprospect for arms control and disarmament negotiations, althoughit will make the CTBT's entry into force more likely.

The most worrisome consequence of fresh tests would beexacerbation of regional suspicions and rivalries.

China is certain to respond with alarm and hostility toIndia's tests. It has already adopted a much harder line than theother nuclear powers, especially the U.S.

India's policy-makers today seem to be banking on the newtension that has emerged over the charge that China stole anuclear warhead design from the U.S. in the 1980s, and theSinophobia of America's extreme Right.

Domestically, a new exchange of militant rhetoric aboutnuclear prowess may weaken the welcome momentum towardsreconciliation that Indian and Pakistani leaders established lastmonth.

Their Lahore Declaration commits both to ''abide by theirrespective unilateral moratorium on conducting further nucleartest explosions.'' However, it also contains a rider: ''. . . unlesseither side, in exercise of its national sovereignty, decidesthat extraordinary events have jeopardized its supremeinterests."

It is hard to see how either side's ''supreme interests'' areso threatened by recent ''events''.

(Inter Press Service)

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