The safety inadequacies of India's fast breeder reactor----Ashwin Kumar and M.V. Ramana (Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists) 21/09

India's Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) is planning a large expansion of nuclear power, in which fast breeder reactors play an important role. Fast breeder reactors are attractive to the DAE because they produce (or "breed") more fissile material than they use. The breeder reactor is especially attractive in India, which hopes to develop a large domestic nuclear energy program even though it has primarily poor quality uranium ore that is expensive to mine.

Currently, only one fast reactor operates in the country--a small test reactor in Kalpakkam, a small township about 80 kilometers (almost 50 miles) south of Chennai. The construction of a larger prototype fast breeder reactor (PFBR) is underway at the same location. This reactor is expected to be completed in 2010 and will use mixed plutonium-uranium oxide as fuel in its core, with a blanket of depleted uranium oxide that will absorb neutrons and transmute into plutonium 239. Liquid sodium will be used to cool the core, which will produce 1,200 megawatts of thermal power and 500 megawatts of electricity. The reactor is to be the first of hundreds that the DAE envisions constructing throughout India by mid-century.

However, such an expansion of fast reactors, even if more modest than DAE projections, could adversely affect public health and safety. While all nuclear reactors are susceptible to catastrophic accidents, fast reactors pose a unique risk. In fast reactors, the core isn't in its most reactive--or energy producing-- configuration when operating normally. Therefore, an accident that rearranges the fuel in the core could lead to an increase in reaction rate and an increase in energy production. If this were to occur quickly, it could lead to a large, explosive energy release that might rupture the reactor vessel and disperse radioactive material into the environment.

Many of these reactors also have what is called a "positive coolant void coefficient," which means that if the coolant in the central part of the core were to heat up and form bubbles of sodium vapor, the reactivity--a measure of the neutron balance within the core, which determines the reactor's tendency to change its power level (if it is positive, the power level rises)--would increase; therefore core melting could accelerate during an accident. (A positive coolant void coefficient, though not involving sodium, contributed to the runaway reaction increase during the April 1986 Chernobyl reactor accident.) In contrast, conventional light water reactors typically have a "negative coolant void coefficient" so that a loss of coolant reduces the core's reactivity. The existing Indian fast breeder test reactor, with its much smaller core, doesn't have a positive coolant void coefficient. Thus, the DAE doesn't have real-world experience in handling the safety challenges that a large prototype reactor will pose.

More largely, international experience shows that fast breeder reactors aren't ready for commercial use. Superphénix, the flagship of the French breeder program, remained inoperative for the majority of its 11-year lifetime until it was finally shuttered in 1996. Concerns about the adequacy of the design of the German fast breeder reactor led to it being contested by environmental groups and the local state government in the 1980s and ultimately to its cancellation in 1991. And the Japanese fast reactor Monju shut down in 1995 after a sodium coolant leak caused a fire and has yet to restart. Only China and Russia are still developing fast breeders. China, however, has yet to operate one, and the Russian BN-600 fast reactor has suffered repeated sodium leaks and fires.

When it comes to India's prototype fast breeder reactor, two distinct questions must be asked: (1) Is there confidence about how an accident would propagate inside the core and how much energy it might release?; and (2) have PFBR design efforts been as strict as necessary, given the possibility that an accident would be difficult to contain and potentially harmful to the surrounding population?

The simple answer to both is no.

The DAE, like other fast-reactor developers, has tried to study how severe a core-disruptive accident would be and how much energy it would release. In the case of the PFBR, the DAE has argued that the worst-case core disruptive accident would release an explosive energy of 100 megajoules. This is questionable.

The DAE's estimate is much smaller when compared with other fast reactors, especially when the much larger power capacity of the PFBR--and thus, the larger amount of fissile material used in the reactor--is taken into account. For example, it was estimated that the smaller German reactor (designed to produce 760 megawatts of thermal energy) would produce 370 megajoules in the event of a core-disruptive accident--much higher than the PFBR estimate. Other fast reactors around the world have similarly higher estimates for how much energy would be produced in such accidents.

The DAE's estimate is based on two main assumptions: (1) that only part of the core will melt down and contribute to the accident; and (2) that only about 1 percent of the thermal energy released during the accident would be converted into mechanical energy that can damage the containment building and cause ejection of radioactive materials into the atmosphere.

Neither of these assumptions is justifiable. Britain's Atomic Energy Authority has done experiments that suggest up to 4 percent of the thermal energy could be converted into mechanical energy. And the phenomena that might occur inside the reactor core during a severe accident are very complex, so there's no way to stage a full-scale experiment to compare with the theoretical accident models that the reactor's designers used in their estimates. In addition, important omissions in the DAE's own safety studies make their analysis inadequately conservative. (Our independent estimates of the energy produced in a hypothetical PFBR core disruptive accident are presented in the Science and Global Security article, "Compromising Safety: Design Choices and Severe Accident Possibilities in India's Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor" and these are much higher than the DAE's estimates.)

Turning to the second question: In terms of the stringency of the DAE's design effort, the record reveals inadequate safety precautions. One goal of any "defense-in-depth" design is to engineer barriers to withstand the most severe accident that's considered plausible. Important among these barriers is the reactor's containment building, the most visible structure from the outside of any nuclear plant. Compared to most other breeder reactors, and light water reactors for that matter, the design of the PFBR's containment is relatively weak and won't be able to contain an accident that releases a large amount of energy. The DAE knows how to build stronger containments--its newest heavy water reactor design has a containment building that is meant to withstand six times more pressure than the PFBR's containment--but has chosen not to do so for the PFBR.

The other unsafe design choice is that of the reactor core. As mentioned earlier, the destabilizing positive coolant void coefficient in fast reactors is a problem because it increases the possibility that reactivity will escalate inside the core during an accident. It's possible to decrease this effect by designing the reactor core so that fuel subassemblies are interspersed within the depleted uranium blanket, in what is termed a heterogeneous core. The U.S. Clinch River Breeder Reactor, which was eventually cancelled, was designed with a heterogeneous core, and Russia has considered a heterogeneous core for its planned BN-1600 reactor. The DAE hasn't made such an effort, and the person who directed India's fast breeder program during part of the design phase once argued that the emphasis on the coolant void coefficient was mistaken because a negative void coefficient could lead to dangerous situations in an accident as well. That might be true, but it misses the obvious point that the same potentially dangerous situations would be even more dangerous if the void coefficient within the core is positive.

Both of these design choices--a weak containment building and a reactor core with a large and positive void coefficient--are readily explainable: They lowered costs. Reducing the sodium coolant void coefficient would have increased the fissile material requirement of the reactor by 30-50 percent--an expensive component of the initial costs. Likewise, a stronger containment building would have cost more. All of this is motivated by the DAE's assessment that "the capital cost of [fast breeder reactors] will remain the most important hurdle" to their rapid deployment.

Lowered electricity costs would normally be most welcome, but not with the increased risk of catastrophic accidents caused by poorly designed fast breeder reactors.

Copyright © 2009 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. All Rights Reserved.
Source URL (retrieved on 07/27/2009 - 17:42):
http://thebulletin.org/node/7471

America's Nuclear Game...Shireen M Mazari, The News...08/07/09

Obama is certainly stretching his global goodwill to its limits. After critiquing the US invasion of Iraq when out of power, he has upped the military ante with the surge in Afghanistan; refocused on the military centric approach in Pakistan with a massive increase in drone attacks against Pakistani civilians (just so much "collateral damage" for the US of course) on the one hand, and with the successful goading of the Pakistan military through the Zardari nexus into FATA where the quagmire is already unfolding in the terrible deaths of our soldiers and innocent civilians while the terrorism issue shows no signs of abating. Pakistan has come out the worst in Obama's policies especially in terms of the growing intrusiveness the US is acquiring in our daily lives with US inspectors now promising to hover in all our bureaucracies to see that the "aid" they are giving is spent as they see fit – not to mention the $.9 billion that will immediately go back to the US for the rebuilding of its embassy in a more imperial design. However, it is not just Pakistan that is suffering from what is effectively a right-wing Obama agenda. Now Obama has teamed up with Russia to fool the world in terms of nuclear disarmament. The US and Russian leaders declared in a grand fashion that they have agreed to reduce their existing nuclear stockpiles but failed to tell the world that most of these reductions would be of redundant weapons which will create space for the new ones. After all, neither side avowed to stop adding to their arsenals! An even more dangerous development has been the gradual taking over of critical international institutions by the US and its preferred personnel. We first saw the UN effectively become a tool in US hands with the Secretary-Generalship going to South Korea's Ban Ki Moon – a look at the UN record post the Moon takeover will be self-explanatory. Now we have seen the IAEA once again coming under the US and its allies' control with the election of Japan's Ambassador Yukiya Amano by the IAEA BoG followed by his formal appointment by the BoG. Now the General Conference will confirm this appointment later in September. This election of Amano is unfortunate since the strong positions taken by the present DG, El Baradei stand threatened as the Japanese have always gone along with US positions – something Baradei did not do and therefore fell afoul of this super power. Competing with Amano was South Africa's Abdul Samad Minty – a respected and strong diplomat, which is why the US had nightmares. Till the last ballot, the stalemate persisted but in the end one vote changed it all and the Indian media has been agog with how their last minute reversal to an abstention allowed Amano to win. No one will ever know but having seen Minty in action two years ago, he would have been the more desirable strong man to follow Baradei and maintain IAEA's independent positioning on issues like Iran. So now the US has won back control of the UN and IAEA. Apparently, the US is already using the Japanese to wield pressure where it cannot do so itself too overtly. In this connection, recently a Japanese team visited Pakistan demanding access to Dr Khan but were not successful. Now with Amano at the helm at the IAEA, what sort of Japanese pressure will we see vis a vis Pakistan? Perhaps it is time we drew more attention to Japan's massive civil nuclear programme and its controversial reprocessing agenda. Nor is this all in terms of US seeking to implement its nuclear agenda globally. It has got things moving again at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on the Fissile Material Cut off Treaty (FMCT). Perhaps after what happened at the IAEA on the Indian safeguards agreement, we should not be surprised to find that our highly competent head diplomat in Geneva also buckled under (or was made to) and accepted the US-pushed programme of work for the CD. This does not specifically include the issue of existing nuclear stockpiles in relation to the FMCT so has Pakistan shifted its position to its permanent disadvantage under US pressure once again? Also, while the programme of work has identified four issues – FMCT, Nuclear Disarmament, PAROS (Prevention of Arms Race in Outer Space) and Negative Security Guarantees – by delinking these issues the attempt is clearly to move on the FMCT without conditionalities relating to the other three issues. This is again a major shift because many states including China wanted linkages between the FMCT and PAROS for instance. Now it would appear that the US will again move on the FMCT as it did on the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in the UN in the sixties. When states like Pakistan had raised issues of negative and positive security guarantees to be linked to the NPT, the US insisted that first the NPT should be approved and then the security guarantee issues could be dealt with. The result was that the Conference on the security guarantees followed the passage of the NPT and the US was not prepared to even provide negative security assurances in any form whatsoever to non-nuclear weapons states. For Pakistan all these issues, and none more so than the issue of reduction of existing stockpiles of fissile material, are very crucial in the context of the FMCT and even if we have to go it alone we should, because otherwise we will be at a permanent disadvantage. But the way things are unfolding it appears we may have made some fatal compromises already in this regard.It is in this overall context of the US pushing its nuclear agenda globally that we must raise our voices of concern over what seems to have become a covert official US policy – to allow Israel to deal with Iran's nuclear facilities. Most recently Biden (New York Times) stated that the US would not "stand in Israel's way" if it sought to take action against Iran's nuclear facilities. It was amusing to hear Biden talk of Israel being a "sovereign" state taking its own decisions! Now when did the US ever respect any state's sovereignty – as we in Pakistan have continuously experienced and still do so! Be that as it may, the Biden statement was threatening because it came alongside a 5th July 2009 Sunday Times story that Israel's Mossad chief had informed his prime minister of Saudi Arabia's assurance to him that it would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets flying over Saudi air space to conduct attacks against Iran's nuclear facilities. Early this year it had also been reported that the Mossad Chief, Dagan, had met Saudi officials. So a new and threatening pattern is emerging even as Obama seeks to woo the world with what is now becoming his glibness rather than a serious intent to alter the course of US policies on security issues. Is it a mere coincidence that we are now seeing unprecedented violence breaking out in the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi? We know that the East Turkmenistan Movement still has its offices in New York. So what is the US intent? To send a hostile message to China? What exactly is the Obama administration up to? Is it all a matter of old wine in new bottles rather than any major shift away from a neoimperialist mindset that has been the hallmark of US global policies for some time now? Too bad. So many had expected so much from Obama – the thinking, intelligent and more world-sensitive US president. But what we are seeing around our part of the world is more of the same – with the new veneer eroding fast. More force; more aggression; more dictation. Just as our leaders crumble once again before the US demands, the US leadership offers little that will compel us to alter our perception of a neoimperial power set on a military-centric course for this part of the world. As before, this course will bring them to ruin but must we go down the same suicidal path?

The writer is a defence analyst. Email: callstr@hotmail.com

‘US helping modernise Pakistan’s N-arsenal’ --- Anwar Iqbal

‘US helping modernise Pakistan’s N-arsenal’
Anwar Iqbal
Dawn News---29/06/09

WASHINGTON: The United States is helping Pakistan modernise its nuclear arsenal in hopes to make them safer, says a report released on Sunday.
Andrew Cockburn, a renowned author who has written several books on security issues, says that the official aim of US technical support, at an estimated cost of $100 million a year, is to prevent accidents and to ensure that they are out of the extremists’ reach.
But in pursuit of this objective, ‘it is inevitable that the US is not only rendering the warheads more operationally reliable, we are also transferring the technology required to design more sophisticated warheads without having to test them’, the report adds.
The author quotes a former national security official as saying that if the US is involved, ‘we can make sure they don’t start testing, or start a war’.
This system known as ‘stockpile stewardship’ was conceived after the US forswore live testing in 1993. It allows scientists to ‘test’ weapons through computer simulations. This vastly expensive programme not only ensures the weapons’ reliability but also the viability of new and improved designs.
The report says that in 2008, the Pakistan military approached Bruce Blair, president of a Washington-based World Security Institute, seeking advice on means to render their weapons more secure.
‘Their aim was clearly to render their nuclear force mature and operational,’ says Mr Blair. In the same way, says Mr Blair, a few years ago an Indian military delegation turned up at the Russian Impulse Design Bureau in St. Petersburg, to ask for help on making their weapons safer to handle. ‘They said they wanted to be able to assure their political leadership that their weapons were safe enough to be deployed.’
The author argues that the United States has allowed Pakistan’s nuclear programme to continue because it needs Islamabad’s help in other issues.
In 1979, Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former US national security adviser, underlined that to get full Pakistani cooperation against the Soviets in Afghanistan, the US required ‘a review of our policy toward Pakistan, more guarantees to it, more arms aid, and, alas, a decision that our security policy toward Pakistan cannot be dictated by our non-proliferation policy’.
The author also recalls that when President Reagan was asked for his views on Pakistan’s nuclear ambitions, he replied ‘I just don’t think it’s any of our business.’
The author claims that ‘during the years Dr A. Q. Khan was peddling his uranium enrichment technology around the place, his shipping manager was a CIA agent, whose masters seem to have had little problem with allowing the trade to go forward’.
The Obama administration also has not changed this policy of tolerance towards Pakistan’s nuclear programme.
‘Most of the aid we’ve sent them over the past few years has been diverted into their nuclear programme,’ a senior national security official in the current administration recently told the author.
Most of this diverted aid -- $5.56 billion as of a year ago –was officially designated ‘Coalition Support Funds’ for Pakistani military operations against the Taliban.
The author also quotes US Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mullen as saying recently that the Pakistanis have been urgently increasing their nuclear weapons production.
‘Pakistan’s drive to build more nukes is an inevitable by-product of the 2008 nuclear cooperation deal with India that overturned US law and gave the Indians access to US nuclear technology … despite their ongoing bomb programme,’ the author notes.
The Indo-US deal, the author argues, blew an enormous hole in the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The Nuclear Non-Option

The Nuclear Non-Option
Christina Jung
The Korea Times
06/24/09

The time has come for South Korea to lay its cards on the table and openly discuss what is to be done about North Korea.News of sanctions and "stern'' measures are now widespread, and play a necessary part in curbing the North's deeply misguided nuclear ambitions. While there may never be a final resolution to this highly complex issue, South Korea would do well to steer clear of one option that appears to be gaining traction in conservative circles ― the acquisition of its own nuclear weapons in order to conclusively deter the North.Acquiring a nuclear weapon to balance the ostensible South-North power asymmetry may provide immediate relief and perhaps a thinly veiled sense of security, but it would nonetheless be devastating to the South's long-term interests in a number of ways. The most obvious result of the acquisition of nuclear weapons would be further regional destabilization. It would needlessly flare up tensions between the South and its neighboring countries, particularly China and Japan. More significantly, a nuclear South would aggravate tensions with the North, and may culminate in a North-South arms race in a worst-case scenario. None of these outcomes would be conducive to any of the goals that the South wishes to achieve, both within the peninsula and throughout the greater Northeast Asian region.From a more global perspective, the acquisition of nuclear weapons would undermine the international status that the South has built as a non-nuclear weapon state. South Korea is a signatory to numerous international and regional treaties on nuclear weapons, the most central of which is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Acquiring a nuclear weapon would thus effectively render null and void its participation in all of these significant agreements, which prohibit nuclear proliferation and possession. The South's inconsistency would also undoubtedly draw the criticism and ire from its allies and partners, dealing a significant blow to its credibility in global affairs.And if there was ever a surefire way to ensure that the North never gives up its nuclear weapons, it would be for the South to acquire its own. One significant leverage the South maintains over the North lies in its nuclear weapon-free status, for it gives the South a legitimate right to demand that the North dismantle its nuclear capability. Without this leverage, the South would be a hypocrite to demand nuclear dismantlement from the North, and would give the North even more reason to cling to its nuclear program. The suggestion of a nuclear option therefore defies all logic in the context of the South's foremost aims toward the North, which is to persuade the hermit regime to relinquish its nuclear weapons program.Furthermore, those who argue for the South's acquisition of weapons base their claims on the weak presumption that the North's nuclear weapons pose an existential threat to the South. To be sure, we cannot entirely preclude the possibility that the North will consciously seek to impose nuclear destruction on the South. Nonetheless, we can be fairly certain that this scenario is unlikely, as any pursuit by the North to destroy the South would inevitably bring self-destruction in the form of retaliatory strikes. While it would be unwise to underestimate the physical threat posed by nuclear capability, it is now apparent that, for the North, nuclear weapons have become a tool of power consolidation domestically and of bargaining leverage internationally ― and not much more. Combined with the assurances of protection under Washington's nuclear umbrella, we can therefore be reasonably confident that no direct existential threat exists.Finally, there is always the classic concern over human error. As history attests, humans are particularly prone to blunders involving judgment on delicate issues. Obviously, the only way to guarantee that no nuclear mishaps occur is to deny their possession; once a nation acquires nuclear weapons, there will always be an infinite number of opportunities for error and misuse.And this should be at the heart of South's pursuit to dismantle the North's capabilities ― the potential for error is always too large.South Korea possesses globally competitive nuclear power plant construction technology, and the country could easily exploit this expertise to develop its own nuclear weapons program. To do so would be tragic, however. Such technology should remain a force for good ― as an invaluable tool to export peaceful nuclear energy use worldwide, especially in high-risk areas ― and must not be abused as a means to satisfy a myopic desire for power.Instead of wringing hands over whether the South should or shouldn't acquire nuclear weapons, the nuclear acquisition card should be pushed aside in favor of those more in harmony with its long-term interests. One card off the table will help the South's decision over the North, if even marginally.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2009/06/137_47354.html

Christina Jung is a Seoul-based writer and editor. She can be reached at jung.christina@gmail.com.

view: Mystery of Indian scientist’s death —Haleema Saadia

view: Mystery of Indian scientist’s death —Haleema Saadia
Daily Times --- 22/06/09
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\06\22\story_22-6-2009_pg3_5

Stories surrounding the nuclear scientist’s suicide seem quite dubious. Mental health professionals generally agree that anyone contemplating suicide desires a swift death. Why would Mahalingam choose torturous and slow death? Did somebody throw him in the river?The dead body of an Indian nuclear scientist Lokanathan Mahalingam was found six days after he mysteriously went missing. According to the police he committed suicide by jumping into the Kali River in Kaiga township in Karwar, Karnataka.The stories surrounding the nuclear scientist’s suicide seem quite dubious. Mental health professionals generally agree that anyone contemplating suicide desires a swift death. Why would Mahalingam choose torturous and slow death? Did somebody throw him in the river? Was he injured or murdered before his body was thrown into the flooded Kali River? Whether Mahalingam was thrown into the river or he willingly offered his life to the powerful currents is going to remain a mystery since his remains have been cremated. A DNA test was performed to ascertain the identity of the dead body because his family members feared that the authorities might have handed over the dead body of someone else. They expected foul play which is why they demanded DNA testing. But that also raises the question: why was he cremated in such a hurry even before the results of the DNA test and the post-mortem report? The presence or absence of air in his lungs, any signs of torture on his body and the level of decomposition could have pointed out to the circumstances in which he met his final end.It is also intriguing that shortly after his body was found by the naval divers, the police announced its verdict that the scientist had committed suicide. The conclusion was premature since Mahalingam left no suicide note, another normal practice with those planning to commit suicide. How could the police state with certainty if the death was suicide? Reports suggest it could be an attempt to quash rumours of the scientist’s kidnapping and subsequent murder. But by acting thus the authorities have disregarded the efforts and contribution of Mahalingam to the Indian nuclear programme and have done a disservice to his family. By ignoring the possibility of target killing, they have subjected their nuclear scientists and engineers to a life of threat and danger. What would be the response of Indian nuclear establishment if another one of their personnel having access to sensitive nuclear information met a similar end? Even if this version of Mahalingam’s death is accepted, the suicide of an Indian nuclear scientist who worked in a sensitive field is not an ordinary event. It points to the shaky human and personnel reliability in the Indian nuclear complex. Till his apparent suicide Mahalingam was working on a sensitive and important post at the Kaiga Atomic Power Plant. Kaiga Atomic Power Plant is not a civilian nuclear plant and is not under IAEA safeguards. It is part of India’s nuclear weapons complex and is designed for plutonium production for nuclear weapons. Mahalingam had a quarter-century experience of working on nuclear reactors. He was by no means a junior officer as wrongly claimed by some Indian newspapers. Interestingly, he had past record of absence without permission. After returning from his worrisome absence, ten years ago, he claimed to have gone in search of spiritual solace. It was the responsibility of the Indian nuclear security apparatus to verify his claims and keep an eye on his activities. Had any action been taken, this mishap would not have happened. It seems that no thought is given to maintaining personality profiles of scientists working in the sensitive areas of the nuclear programme in India. Nuclear weapons possessor states have designed Personnel Reliability Programs (PRP) to ensure that only the most trustful, reliable and dependable individuals exhibiting excellent conduct and responsible behaviour are assigned sensitive jobs. PRP is a measure to prevent proliferation and minimise the threat of accidents due to deviant behaviour and potentially dangerous activities. To top the recklessness shown by those responsible for ensuring security of India’s nuclear complex Mahalingam was given the sensitive task of training young scientists. Until his disappearance he was working in the Simulator Training Division of the Kaiga Atomic Power Plant. A simulator is a precise replica of the control room of a nuclear power plant and the personnel working in that particular area are carefully chosen. The simulator control room mimics the situations and events taking place in the operational control room of nuclear reactor. Scientists and engineers are trained on simulators before they assume their duties on the nuclear plant. Personnel in the control room are highly experienced and have inside knowledge of the all the operations taking place in the nuclear reactor. A slight mistake or a small error of judgement on their part can create havoc. These individuals are responsible for the safe operation of the nuclear reactor and they have to be vigilant enough to deal with any emergency that might arise at any point in time.Apart from the current debacle, Indian nuclear programme has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. This is not the first case of mysterious disappearance and death of an employee of India’s strategic programme. A few weeks back another employee Ravi Mule of the same Kaiga Atomic Power Plant was murdered and his dead body was found in jungle in Kaiga township. Dr Anil Kumar Tiwari, the Director of Uttaranchal Space Application Centre, was assassinated on November 11, 2006. Both cases remain unsolved to date. Also, many cases of uranium thefts and smuggling from Indian nuclear facilities have been reported in the past several years. Indian scientists have been found involved in proliferation activities and have provided crucial know-how to Iran and Iraq. The US had imposed sanctions on two former chiefs Dr YSR. Prasad and Dr C Surendar of Nuclear Power Corporation of India in 2004. The United States, which has cut a nuclear deal with India, should stress upon India to clean up its act and put in place stringent safety and security measures as well as develop a reliable PRP. India claims to be a responsible nuclear power but that responsibility should be evident in its practices as well.

Haleema Saadia is a research fellow at SASSI, Islamabad. She can be reached at saadia.haleema@gmail.com

N-strategy for dummies ---------- The News-18/06/09

N-strategy for dummies
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Rabia Akhtar:The defence analyst. Email: rabois@gmail.com

Nuclear weapons are weapons of the weak because they embolden the weaker state through security that nuclear deterrence provides. There is enough evidence in history to reveal that deterrence as a strategy with its various phases from flexible response to mutually assured destruction (MAD) held value for the two Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, only to deny the other 'nuclear superiority' or 'nuclear advantage'. But with the demise of the Soviet Union, the unipolar world order emerged and the US, being the mightiest, moved away from MAD to the doctrine of pre-emption which made much more sense because there was no point anymore in threatening the enemy when it could be beaten ten times over. The powerful state will not rely on deterrence as much as it will rely on pre-emption (either through conventional or nuclear means) because it can afford to. But for the weak states, nuclear weapons are power personified. However unfortunate the situation might seem, there is simply no comparison of states like Pakistan with the United States where an overwhelming conventional capability is absent thus deterrence through MAD seems not only plausible but the only rational doctrine to adopt. For those who do not respect deterrence for what it is worth for the weak and think of the bomb as a liability, history needs to be read backwards. While the critics of deterrence may like to believe that deterrence failed to prevent Vietnam, Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Egypt-Israel conflict, Kargil crisis when one or the other parties involved were nuclear-weapon states, the lesson learnt is that deterrence works best when it is direct and mutual. In all the cases cited above with the exception of Kargil, blaming the bomb or deterrence is simple ignorance about the facts of Cold War history. For instance, had Egypt possessed even a small nuclear force at the time of the Suez crisis, Anglo-French involvement in the conflict would have been on different grounds altogether; Czechs possessing a few nuclear weapons would have seen a different Russian response and North Korea and Iran have already brought the superpowers to the 'negotiating table'. For Pakistan and India where deterrence is direct and mutual, I believe that it is the minimalist form of MAD coupled with a credible minimum deterrence doctrine that has helped prevent escalation between India and Pakistan and has denied India escalation dominance in every crisis. It has become rather fashionable for analysts at home and abroad to find parallels between the Cold War and the two South Asian rivals instead of founding new theories about crisis behaviour of Pakistan and India. The Cold War history of deterrence witnessed the shift from MAD to the discourse on defence. The cornerstone of the US nuclear security strategy remained reliance on MAD and Robert McNamara, the then US secretary of defence, articulated it well by stating that quantitative improvement in strategic weapons other than those required by MAD was not necessary simply because there was no longer any such thing as nuclear superiority, thus rendering defence useless. As bizarre or uncomfortable the notion might be for the peace nicks; for the weak states nuclear weapons still make sense. The very fact that Pakistan has the capability to threaten the Indians to escalate the conflict by 'threatening' to use nuclear weapons, denies the Indians the advantage of launching and fighting a conventional war in South Asia. This is the 'stability' that MAD provides between Pakistan and India which borders on rationality from the weaker states' perspective. The key, however, to sustain credible deterrence in a hostile crisis-prone environment for Pakistan is to continue to deny Indians the nuclear advantage they are seeking by gradually strengthening its nuclear deterrence.

Comment: Riedel and the Pakistani Bomb —Naeem Salik

Daily Times - Site Edition
Thursday, June 18, 2009

A person of Mr Riedel’s stature should be very careful in gathering and verifying his facts and should also avoid using unsubstantiated stereotypes and sweeping statementsIn the past month or so, there has been a concerted media campaign in the United States raising concerns about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear assets. Alarmist press reports were interspersed with some reassuring statements by responsible officials, including President Obama himself, Admiral Mullen and General Petraeus.Not to be left behind was Mr Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official who served in the NSC during the Clinton administration and is currently a senior fellow at the Saban Centre for Israel and Middle East at the Brookings Institution at Washington, DC. But more importantly he is one of the senior advisors to President Obama on the so-called ‘Af-Pak’ policy. For that particular reason, Mr Riedel’s diatribe against Pakistan and its nuclear security — “Pakistan and the Bomb: How the US can divert a crisis” — published in the Wall Street Journal of May 30, 2009 is being viewed in Pakistan as very disturbing.Mr Riedel has an axe to grind with Pakistan. He came to Pakistan as part of Strobe Talbott’s team in an emotionally charged atmosphere after the Indian nuclear tests in May 1998 on an impossible mission to persuade Pakistan from following suit. Unfortunately for him and his team, they were meted out very roughshod treatment by senior Pakistani diplomats and he still carries the scar of that experience. He has written in the past on issues related to Pakistan in terms not very favourable to Pakistan, which is perfectly understandable given the fact that most of these papers were commissioned by the Centre for Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania.In his WSJ piece, Mr Riedel has made some very positive points, such as calling upon the US to have constancy and consistency in its policy towards Pakistan and to avoid using double standards when treating India and Pakistan. He has also debunked the idea floated around by some in the US political as well as think tank circles of ‘securing’ the Pakistani nuclear arsenal by force, calling it unrealistic and counterproductive.He has also grudgingly acknowledged that there is no evidence to suggest that there has been any proliferation activity involving any Pakistani national since 2004. He has also conceded that Pakistan’s arsenal is well protected, concealed and dispersed. However, he has added so many qualifiers in the form of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ that he has more or less nullified the positive side of these comments. While one does not contest Mr Riedel’s right to have and express his opinions, he should be mindful of the fact that such utterances would not be viewed in Pakistan as his personal views due to his official position. More importantly, a person of his stature should be very careful in gathering and verifying his facts and should also avoid using unsubstantiated stereotypes and sweeping statements.For instance, it is surprising that Mr Riedel has named Yaqub Khan as Pakistan’s military ruler in 1971 instead of Yahya Khan; maybe a quick glance through the country fact file of his old employers would have given him the correct answer.Similarly, on the issue of whether the assistance given to Pakistan has been utilised to expand Pakistan’s nuclear capability, Mr Riedel did not have to look very far. The Pakistan Aid Table compiled by Alan Kronstandt of the Congressional Research Service has given the breakdown, which clearly illustrates that $5.7 billion have been disbursed under the head Coalition Support Fund, which essentially means reimbursement of money spent by Pakistan in providing logistical support to US forces and the expenditure incurred by Pakistan in its own counterterrorism operations.But facts don’t seem to be Mr Riedel’s strength as is evident from his unsubstantiated statements about the ‘shaky’ security of Pakistan’s ‘fastest growing nuclear arsenal in the world’ as a result of the ongoing military operation against the Taliban. He says this without establishing a causal relationship between the two events. He also alleges that Pakistan is constructing ‘several’ new reactors — again without any factual basis.The funniest comment is about Pakistan’s efforts to ‘buy more reactors from China to increase its production of fissile material’. Mr Riedel should know better: Pakistan has so far purchased two nuclear reactors from China which are under IAEA safeguards, and if it purchases more of the same, those too would be covered by similar safeguards. Secondly, these reactors are light water or boiling water type reactors that are not suited for producing fissile material even if they were not safeguarded.Mr Riedel has also termed Pakistan a ‘unique’ nuclear country, which has both obtained and proliferated nuclear technology. Just a brief recap of US nuclear history would tell Mr Riedel that all the scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project were European expatriates — none except one had US citizenship — who had escaped to the US with their ‘stolen’ nuclear secrets from Germany, Italy, Austria and the Scandinavian countries.It is no secret that US later helped Britain and France; Russia helped China; India was assisted by Canada, the US, Britain and France; Germany helped South Africa and Brazil; France virtually built the Israeli nuclear infrastructure; and he only needs to ask Seymour Hersh about the ultimate destination of large quantities of fissile materials stolen from US labs. Then how is Pakistan ‘unique’?There are many more factually incorrect, loaded and deliberately twisted statements that cannot be possibly be addressed given the limitation of space. But one can only hope that responsible people like Bruce Riedel will be more careful with their facts next time around and will be mindful of the fact that unlike journalistic statements, their comments carry serious implications and create doubts in the minds of the Pakistani people about the sincerity of the US’ commitment to Pakistan. Finally, with regards to Mr Riedel’s fears about a ‘jihadist’ takeover of Pakistan and his overblown concern about Pakistan itself falling into wrong hands, one only needs to look at the results of the national elections of February 2008, which unequivocally dispelled these misplaced fears which were also being expressed on the eve of the elections.

Naeem Salik: The writer is a retired brigadier and a defence analyst