Nation in a hurry

We had been saying that the treaty was discriminatory and that we won8217;t sign it. The people have no reason to disbelieve when the government denies any pressure from the US. A subject of supreme national securityinterest can8217;t be treated as lightly as a goodwill gesture made in return for deleting names of 51 firms from the Entities List8217;. Then, what is the hurry? Why this secrecy? And, if indeed it is the question of our children8217;s security,8217; is it not wiser to discuss it more transparently? If the nation is to benefit eventually, more the reason that it be told all about the deal. After all, we are not signing a secret defence pact with another country. We are asked to sign and abide by a treaty which is drafted to make this world a more peaceful place to live in.

As a nation, India is proud of its scientific talent. If the scientists are sure that we have sufficient data, expertise and skill for supporting our nuclear weapons programme through a very decisive phase 8212; realising the Triad8217; into the next couple of decades, the nation is ready to believe them. At the same time, one must not ignore the layman8217;s logic that the existing nuclear weapon states have reached a stage today where they can do away withfull-scale explosions and manage with sub-critical tests, only after five decades of efforts and scores of tests. And, if we say that after six tests including one contested thermonuclear we are at the same place as they are, they may seriously consider asking their scientists to take lessons from us. After all it has been billions of dollars and five decades8217; efforts that went up as heat and radiation.

If one goes by India8217;s draft nuclear doctrine, a credible, minimum, deterrent nuclear weapon capability is expected to be in place soon. It will be a Triad of land, air and sea-based systems. We have an ongoing missile programme of which only the short-range Prithvi has been announced ready as a military weapon. The flight tests of the strategically more important Agni have been termed as technology demonstrations8217;. It follows that we have some way, if not a long one, to traverse before the flight tests of various variants of the Agni family including the ICBMs can be reliably concluded to finalise thedesigns into productionable versions. Only at this stage would the designer be in a position to confidently talk about the behavioural parameters of these missiles as delivery vehicles.

The third and chronologically the last leg of the Triad to be realised will be the submarine-launched nuclear missiles. Going by the track record of those who have already achieved this feat and considering the nuances associated with a submerged submarine, one can safely assume that this missile will have a new design totally different from the Prithvi and Agni families. As for the timeframe, one can only say that nothing has been heard about it in the public domain.

Let us assume that we have a proven nuclear warhead design and a family of delivery vehicles missiles which are in various stages of development. If and when both are ready, next comes the very crucial phase which engineers call qualification8217; of the system the warhead integrated on to the missile 8211; as a complete weapon system. It is the process of makingsure, with a good degree of confidence, that the weapon will actually perform! Put simply, it is to make sure that the complex nuclear warhead will work even after a trip through thousands of kilometers on a missile travelling most of the time at a speed exceeding that of sound. One must not forget that a good number of comparatively simpler conventional warheads on the Iraqi Scud missiles failed to explode in the end during the Gulf War.

Of course, one doesn8217;t need to put a nuclear warhead on a missile and launch it to prove the weapon8217;s reliability. The warhead can be subjected to the rigours of a flight on a missile by simulation on the ground and later tested for functioning. But, to start with, the details of the rigours are required. The question is whether we have these details and whether we are equipped to skip the tests without compromising on the confidence levels.

Here is a treaty which asks us to stop nuclear tests for good. Its sponsors say that they, too, won8217;t test. Fair enough. They havereached a stage where they can manage without full-blown tests. The scientists say that we are ready. We believe them. But if we, by any chance, are not ready to meet the needs for another 20-30 crucial years, then, won8217;t agreeing to CTBT mean getting trapped into upsetting our endeavour to achieve a credible, nuclear deterrence? The existing nuclear powers can see through our claim since they have played this game, ball by ball, prior to us.

India cannot go on a stockpiling spree of nuclear weapons. Therefore, a minimum deterrence capability which is credible is a must. The stress is on credibility. And, coupled with our no-first-use commitment, the premium on credibility of our weapon systems is still greater.

We are a self-made nation. No one has ever called India an irresponsible country. Nor have we ever been accused of stealing weapon technology. In fact, India is the first country to offer a serious no-first-use commitment against a non-nuclear weapon state. When will this country rid itself of itscolonial hangover and see the writing on the wall?

Once the treaty is signed, it is told, there will be no room for debates, not even in Parliament. We will be bound by the letter and spirit of the treaty from that very moment. The issue has far serious implications on our security interests and certainly calls for an open, wider debate before the nation commits. Remember it is the same treaty which the US Senate recently refused to ratify on the grounds that it was against its security interests!

8212; The writer is a research fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi