Keywords: Nuclear Energy, small modular reactors,  IAEA, India Nuclear energy, DAE, NPCIL

There is a palpable sense of enthusiasm around the idea of ‘Small Modular Reactors’ (SMRs). These are being seen as a solution to some of the persistent challenges of long construction times and high economic costs associated with traditional nuclear reactors. A race is underway within the nuclear industry, backed considerably by governments, to work on new designs and manufacturing processes that are expected to prove their commercial viability and make them operational within a decade. How realistic is this estimate? What kind of advantages will SMRs offer? What challenges are they likely to face? This issue of the column undertakes an assessment of SMRs, especially in the context of India’s energy mix.

What are SMRs?

As the name suggests, SMRs would have two main attributes– small and modular. In terms of size, they are to be fission reactors with a capacity of about 300 MWe or less. In terms of modularity, they are envisaged to be amenable to being centrally manufactured at a factory and then transportable to the desired site for assembly/installation. Much like a machine, and quite unlike the traditional nuclear reactors that are built on site, SMRs are expected to arrive at a site, be plugged in and start producing electricity. They would also offer the possibility of the addition of multiple similar reactors when desired. Also, these could be placed on land, on ships for off-shore deployment (which are known as floating nuclear power plants), or even in an underground or submerged environment.

Over 70 SMR designs are being developed in different countries around the world today. At different stages on the drawing board, these designs range from slightly modified versions of existing reactors to those involving completely new technologies. Staying abreast of the high level of activity around the new ideas, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has set up the SMR Regulators’ Forum to help countries share information on issues of common concern. It published a Technology Roadmap for Small Modular Reactor Deployment in 2021 that identifies, evaluates and promotes collaboration and knowledge sharing amongst technology developers, industry, users and regulatory bodies.

Expected Advantages of SMRs

Speed of Installation and Cost Savings

One of the main advantages of SMRs is seen in their ability to be manufactured as pre-fabricated and pre-tested modules that can be easily assembled/installed on site after being transported conveniently. Modularity in manufacturing and assembly is expected to reduce construction time. The idea, in fact, is to compress a large technological project into a relatively easy installation of a pre-fabricated product of standardised quality. A study in this regard has suggested that SMRs can reduce construction time by 3.5 years in comparison to the average 6.5 years required as of now.[1] Reduced gestation periods are then expected to reduce capital costs too, thus increase the economic competitiveness of the reactors.

Enhanced Safety and Security Features

Given the new technologies being incorporated by SMRs, these are expected to include enhanced safety and security features. On the safety front, the reactors are being designed to incorporate modern passive safety systems that minimise the need for human intervention in case of emergencies. On nuclear security, they would incorporate the concept of “security by design” to address concerns of sabotage, theft, attacks and proliferation. Since many of these designs are expected to operate for prolonged periods without the need for refuelling, there would be related benefits of reduced risks of transportation of nuclear materials too.[2]

Flexibility of Installation and Siting

SMRs would provide flexibility in siting options, especially their placement in remote, isolated areas that are currently dependent on diesel generators. Given their compactness, they are envisaged to need less land, as well as concomitant emergency zone requirements. Addition or removal of new modules, as considered necessary, would add to the flexibility advantage.

Baseload Power in Support of Renewables

Nuclear power has a major advantage of being a baseload source of electricity. With the current trend favouring a rapid deployment of renewable energy, SMRs could complement these sources to address their disadvantage of intermittency. So, SMRs could supplement solar, wind, small hydroelectric and tidal generation to ensure a continuous supply of electricity and thus help stabilise the grid. This combination would help overcome the challenge of storage that the use of renewables still poses. It would also allow renewable energy to enjoy a low-carbon backup source instead of relying on thermal plants for handling the problem of intermittency.

Better Waste Management

Spent fuel management has been perceived as a major challenge of nuclear plants. SMRs are trying to address this by experimenting with new ideas for dealing with nuclear waste. These include fast reactor designs that would ensure higher fuel burnup and hence a lesser amount of nuclear waste generation or the travelling wave reactor design that could consume the fuel that it breeds, thereby minimising the need to remove spent fuel. Likewise, other SMR technologies have been trying to develop a thorium fuel cycle, which too could reduce nuclear waste.

Better Resource Efficiency

SMRs are also likely to offer better resource efficiency, given their comparatively smaller physical footprint. Requirement of land would be less as compared to a traditional nuclear power plant. The latter needs an emergency planning zone extending up to 16 kms around the plant. In comparison, SMRs would require just about two kms.[3] They are also expected to be time efficient in deployment as well as require lesser maintenance.

Challenges that Persist with SMRs

While SMRs seem promising in addressing the long-standing challenges of traditional nuclear reactors, it needs to be understood that all these promises are currently expectations. The true economic viability of SMRs will be available for appraisal only when some designs have matured, become standardised and gone into factory production. This currently appears on the distant horizon.

Supply Chain Maturity & Price Advantage– Long Way Off

Modularity is being touted as the biggest advantage of SMRs. It is expected that SMRs will reap the benefits of serial factory manufacturing, which would enable optimum standardisation of components. Pre‑assembled modules will simplify on‑site installation. The problem, however, remains that for factories to sink in substantive capital investment to create the infrastructure for such manufacturing, they would need assurance of a sufficient number of orders. Only then will economic efficiencies emerge. Such orders, as of now, appear distant. It will take time before one particular design from the plethora currently being experimented with is sufficiently field-proven and accepted by a large number of companies, operators and regulatory bodies. Therefore, the supply chain maturity of SMRs will take time, even a few decades, to emerge.

Tussle between Industry and Regulators

Given the novelty of the concept, the nuclear industry investing in SMRs is facing challenges ranging from licensing to liability. The current regulatory regimes are designed for traditional nuclear plants. As the industry seeks changes, they are being met with overly cautious regulators who are not only careful about the novel designs being experimented with but also wary of the reality that many players in the SMR space are new to the nuclear industry. Both sides, therefore, are yet to find a level of comfort with each other.

Another challenge in this space would emerge when reactors that have achieved design approval in one country are exported for installation in another country as a pre-fabricated product. As per Current patterns, design approval secured by the regulatory agency of one country does not automatically become acceptable in another, and since different regulators place emphasis on different issues, any demand for design changes would defeat the advantage of modularity and stability of supply chains with pre-fab SMRs. Demands for changes would also drive up the cost of reactors, thereby negating one of the purported advantages of SMRs.

Liability Issues

Liability in case of an accident at a nuclear plant is also a matter of great concern and contention. The maximum concerns in this regard have been raised in the context of Floating Nuclear Power Plants (FNPPs). The first of these pertains to the very definition of such reactors under the existing conventions. For instance, the Convention on Nuclear Safety (CNS) defines a “nuclear installation” as “any land-based civil nuclear power plant under its jurisdiction”. Experts differ on whether a floating nuclear power plant at shore or off-shore could be considered a nuclear installation under the international third-party nuclear liability conventions. Questions have also been raised on what happens when the FNPP navigates through different maritime zones and high seas. The CNS only refers to the carriage of nuclear substances, i.e. nuclear fuel and radioactive products and waste, not a nuclear reactor. A discussion on the liability regime applicable during the carriage and operation of a nuclear reactor, therefore, becomes imperative. This is especially necessary to facilitate the insurance coverage of such installations and protect potential victims in case a nuclear incident occurs during the journey.

India: The Way Ahead with SMRs

Of the 23 nuclear reactors operational in India today, the majority of those indigenously built have a capacity rating of 220 MWe. India also has the experience of having built an 85 MWe reactor for its nuclear submarine. This shows that India has the capability to design, build and operate small reactors. While it has not utilised a modular factory process so far, the industry involved in manufacturing nuclear equipment can be expected to make this possible in case the nuclear establishment is keen to build such reactors.

Cognisant of the potential of SMRs, India’s Department of Energy has design teams working on the technology.[4] Speaking of SMR prospects for the country, K N Vyas, former Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, had stated in 2019, “Carrying out the design of new reactor systems and refinement in the already performed design is an ongoing process, which is always under focus to improve the designer’s capability. SMRs also need some technology development to fill-up gap areas. The process of technology development also needs to be completed before tasks related to SMRs can be taken up in a more serious manner.”[5]

While DAE is keeping abreast of SMR developments, its current priority is technological advances in the current stream of reactors. Having graduated from 220 MWe to 540 MWe to 700 MWe, India has striven to reach higher capacity reactors in order to ensure a rapid expansion of nuclear electricity generation. In fact, one of the primary motivations for the conclusion of the Indo-US agreement for peaceful nuclear cooperation was to enable the import of larger-capacity reactors. While these imports have remained embroiled in price negotiations and liability Issues, India’s indigenous efforts have yielded 700 MWe reactors.

Can SMRs be attractive for a country like India, where the demand for electricity is expected to continue growing? Indeed, in such a situation, the rationale for large reactors is loud and clear. However, SMRs too could be useful in a few scenarios. One of these could be to replace old coal plants that need to be decommissioned. In this regard, Srikumar Banerjee, another former Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, had rightly stated, “Some of the retiring thermal power plants can be replaced with small modular reactors.”[6] This would also help combat air pollution problems plaguing the country and meet its Paris Agreement goals. In fact, given the high induction of renewable power in a thrust to move towards green technologies, SMRs could supplement this by being a dependable base load and clean source of power. They might also come in useful for providing electricity in remote areas or islands.

However, it still remains unclear whether SMRs will become the force of transformation they promise to be. The buzz around them is certainly strong and fuelled by the urgent need to find low-carbon electricity generation sources. Not surprisingly, this space is being seen as a huge investment opportunity by the nuclear industry. India, too, should find ways, especially through the private industry route, to keep its options open. The DAE/Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) may offer to do some hand-holding for private players to help them build such reactors once a design has been created and proven through a prototype. Thereafter, private players can be incentivised by the government through, as has also been suggested, production linked incentive schemes for manufacturing such reactors. Some of the more recent nuclear cooperation agreements signed with countries such as France, USA,  South Korea and Russia mention possibilities of collaboration on SMRs too.

However, it needs to be emphasised that given the country’s electricity requirements, it need not feature at the top of the DAE’s priority list. Developed countries that are engaged with SMRs are doing so at a stage where their electricity demand and population growth are mostly stable and, in some cases, even stagnant. The new technology development, then, is actually a way for the nuclear industry to keep itself gainfully occupied and with a view to popularise new nuclear build for countries where reactor construction has stagnated or where there is potential to export them to nuclear newcomers. For DAE/NPCIL to divert any large part of its nuclear resources towards such a technology would be a diversion from its focus, which should be on the quick construction of planned nuclear reactors in order to enhance the country’s electricity supply with an environmentally friendly source. Long-term policy support is needed to bring the planned reactors of larger sizes to fruition and to do so within specified time schedules.

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Notes:

[1] Clara A Lloyd, “Modular Manufacture and Construction of Small Nuclear Power Generation Systems”, Research Gate, May 2019, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337937287_Modular_Manufacture_and_Construction_of_Small_Nuclear_Power_Generation_Systems. Accessed on October 03, 2021.

[2] The Department of Energy, USA, “Benefits of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)”, ENERGY.GOV, https://www.energy.gov/ne/benefits-small-modular-reactors-smrs#:~:text=SMRs%20provide%20simplicity%20of%20design,as%20demand%20for%20energy%20increasess. Accessed on October 02, 2021.

[3] “Small Modular Reactors: An Overview”, ANSTO, April 16, 2024, https://www.ansto.gov.au/news/small-modular-reactors-an-overview.

[4] “DAE working on Small Modular Reactors: KN Vyas”, Nuclear Asia, November 21, 2019, https://www.nuclearasia.com/news/dae-working-small-modular-reactors-kn-vyas/3307/. Accessed on October 16, 2021.

[5] Ibid.

[6] “Small modular nuclear reactors are now beautiful for plant makers”, Energyworld.com,

February 25, 2021, https://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/power/small-modular-nuclear-reactors-are-now-beautiful-for-plant-makers/81209735. Accessed on August 16, 2021.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Centre for Air Power Studies [CAPS])

The post Assessing the Promise of Small Modular Reactors from an Indian Perspective appeared first on CAPSS India.

Keywords: India’s nuclear power ambitions, KAPS, German nuclear phase-out, NPCIL

Two contrasting developments in the nuclear energy domain caught public attention last year. In Europe, Germany shut down the last of its 17 nuclear reactors and bid goodbye to nuclear energy in April 2023. Meanwhile, in Asia, India’s 23rd nuclear reactor, Kakrapar 3, began commercial operation in July 2023. Earlier this year, India announced an ambitious nuclear expansion, planning to add 18 new nuclear power reactors with a capacity of 13,800 MWe by      2031-32. The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) has announced that with these additional units, the total share of nuclear power in India’s energy mix will rise to 22,480 MWe by 2031-32 from the current capacity of 8,180 MWe.

Why is India steadfast on its nuclear power programme, though it is currently contributing only about 2 per cent to the electricity share, while Germany, which was once getting 22 per cent of its electricity from nuclear, decided to dispense with it? The answer to this question lies in the unique circumstances of each country which make it choose the sources of electricity generation in its national energy mix.

Understanding Germany’s Decision to Phase Out Nuclear Energy

Germany took the decision to phase out nuclear energy two months after the March 2011 nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan, which severely shook public confidence in nuclear safety. Succumbing to the pressure from Green parties, the government announced that all of the 17 operational nuclear reactors in Germany, which were then producing about 22 per cent of the country’s electricity, would be phased out by 2022. By 2020, 11 of the 17 plants had been shut down, and Germany was down to producing only 13 per cent of its electricity from nuclear energy. Thirty per cent was being generated from coal-fired plants and 47 per cent from renewables. To its credit, the country had, in a decade, become a front-runner in the use of renewables for electricity generation. However, several German business and industry leaders argued in favour of nuclear energy for the sake of having a reliable baseload source of electricity. Many expressed concern that the loss of nuclear electricity could end up pushing the country towards greater use of coal, thereby increasing its environmental emissions.

One challenge, though, that Berlin had not accounted for while taking the decision to shut out nuclear energy was the disruption in its energy relations with Russia, a major supplier of natural gas to Germany. The Russia–Ukraine conflict cast an ominous shadow on Germany’s energy scenario, and the country had to push back its planned date of shut down of the last reactor from 2022 to one year later so as to make time for securing electricity from other sources.

The German decision of a nuclear phase-out in 2011 was only in part triggered by the anti-nuclear inclinations of the political firmament of the time. It was also facilitated by several national socio-economic realities. These included a stable population with high per capita energy consumption of above 7000 kWh; a surplus national electricity market that had been exporting electricity to the tune of about 15 billion kWh; a forecast of as low as 1.1 per cent per annum growth of electricity; the option of making up for the loss of electricity caused by the shutdown of nuclear plants by importing more coal from Poland, more gas from Russia, and even electricity from France and Czechoslovakia. Germany, therefore, had the luxury of removing the option of nuclear electricity from its energy basket. Not many others enjoy this situation. India certainly does not.

Understanding India’s Need for Nuclear Energy

India faces a different reality. Some facts peculiar to India need to be understood to answer questions that are often raised about why India should continue to invest in a nuclear power programme when, even after 60 years of having been in the fray, it contributes only a small slice to national electricity generation. Should the focus not be on modern, renewable sources like hydro (including small hydel plants), solar and wind energy? Afer all,  in just the past decade new installed capacities in solar and wind have  taken the share of renewables from about 14 per cent to close to 40 per cent? Today, India ranks fourth globally in Renewable Energy Installed Capacity (including large hydro), fourth in wind power capacity and fourth in solar power capacity.[1] Solar energy has emerged as the star performer in this period, with more than thirty times increase in installed capacity from 2.5 GW in 2014 to 75 GW in 2024. What, then, is the rationale for retaining nuclear power in India’s energy mix?

This question cannot be answered without adequately understanding India’s unique socio-economic realities and energy compulsions. India is a developing nation with a population close to a billion and a half that is mostly young and aspirational. The country’s economy is dominated by the manufacturing and service sectors, which are energy-intensive. The first thing to note, therefore, is a continuous upward demand for electricity in the coming years. India’s power generation capacity has increased phenomenally from the total installed power generation capacity of a mere 1362 MW at the time of Independence to 400,000 MW today.[2] Today, India is the third largest producer of electricity in the world. These are all creditable developments, but India’s per capita electricity consumption is still at a mere 1255 kWh in 2021-22. This compares dismally with Canada’s 17179 kWh, 13338 kWh in the US, and about 5000 kWh even in China.[3]

According to the ‘Economic Survey’ tabled in Parliament in July 2019, India needs to quadruple electricity production to assure a reasonable quality of life to its citizens. To give one example, the World Energy Outlook 2023 predicts skyrocketing consumption of electricity in India based on a surge in air conditioner ownership. As temperatures soar to new highs, electricity demand for cooling registers a surge, with nearly 10 per cent of total electricity consumption attributed to space cooling. With household air conditioner ownership projected to increase nine-fold by 2050, this trend will further exacerbate energy demands and peak electricity requirements.[4] Besides growing ownership of such personal appliances, the Indian economy in general is expected to grow at over six per cent , concurrently increasing the demand for electricity too.

Unlike the situation a few decades ago when the government could have nonchalantly met this demand with the cheapest and easiest available fuels, mostly by quickly setting up coal-fired plants, an increased sensitivity to human and environmental health has changed the focus on kinds of fuel sources now found acceptable. Currently, India draws nearly 63 per cent of its total energy generation from thermal sources. Of this, nearly 55 per cent is met from coal and the rest from gas, with a miniscule amount from oil-fired plants. Such a configuration causes two types of worries. The first of course relates to the greenhouse gases emitted from such use of coal. India’s per capita carbon emissions stand at 1-1.2 tons, compared to the US’ 20 tons per capita. If a growing Indian economy continues to rely on coal, carbon emissions are bound to rise. This will have implications for national expenditure on domestic environmental and health measures and India’s global climate commitments. The second cause for concern comes from the fact that India imports a significant part of its fossil fuels. For a large and rapidly developing country, bulk fuel imports raise economic and strategic vulnerabilities.

Both these concerns explain the current inclination towards increased use of low-carbon sources. Amongst such sources that India has in its energy mix, the most important are renewables such as hydro, solar and wind. Of these, hydroelectricity from large hydel projects was the first to be exploited going back to the decade of the 1890s well before independence. Interestingly, in 1947, of the total installed capacity of 1362 MW, 508 MW came from small and medium hydropower projects. Soon after independence, the focus shifted to building large hydroelectric power stations. Work on the Bhakra Nangal dam and hydroelectricity project, for instance was initiated in 1948 itself.  Over the decades, however, interest in such plants has plateaued and they have become less popular owing to the related large-scale displacement and rehabilitation issues. Micro or small hydel projects are more common today, but these are only expected to meet the needs of a local community or industry.

Evidently, the contemporary focus is on solar and wind energy, and installed capacities of both have grown exponentially in the last decade, as stated earlier. However, their limitations should also be understood. Firstly, solar and wind energy generation is land-intensive. To give a comparison on this front, one can look at Asia’s largest solar park, which was commissioned in 2018 in Rewa, Madhya Pradesh. It is spread over 1590 hectares and produces 750 MWe. In comparison, the Kakrapar Atomic Power Station (KAPS), which houses two operational 220 MWe units and two 700 MWe reactors, occupies only 959 hectares. Of this area, nearly 500 hectares are covered by the green belt and 200 hectares by a township, with the actual plant site being a minor fraction of the total. In fact, nuclear plants offer the best land utilization factor. As explained by the Nuclear Energy Institute, wind farms require up to 360 times as much land area, while solar photovoltaic (PV) facilities require up to 75 times as much land area, to produce the same amount of electricity as a nuclear energy facility.[5]

Another handicap of solar plants is a high dependence on imported materials such as photovoltaic cells and battery and storage equipment, as compared to the Indian Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) that have become completely indigenous. KAPS 3 and 4, for instance, which are the largest indigenously designed PHWRs and the first to have advanced safety features, “have been designed, constructed, commissioned, and operated by NPCIL, with the supply of equipment and execution of contracts by Indian industries and companies, reflecting the true spirit of Atmanirbhar Bharat,” NPCIL has said. In contrast, India’s domestic solar photovoltaic (PV) module manufacturing has yet to come to the level of meeting the pace of solar capacity growth. While hopes are tied to the Production Linked Incentives programme offered by the government, the nation, for now, remains a net importer of solar PV modules.

Despite these challenges, renewables still merit a place in India’s energy basket. Given the country’s demographic growth, the aspirations of a young population, lack of indigenous fuel resources, and mounting climate change, India needs a long-term vision and commitment to safe generation of electricity that must include all sources. However, it must be recognised that the exploitation of renewables alone cannot take India to meet its net zero commitments because both solar and wind energy would need backup options for the time they are unable to generate electricity for want of sun and wind. Therefore, the advantage of nuclear energy as a baseload source of electricity remains indisputable.

Moving Ahead

It is not surprising, therefore, that India has indicated its plans to move ahead with nuclear energy expansion. At the recently concluded first Nuclear Energy Summit, Dr KK Mohanty, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary Department of Atomic Energy, said that “as a medium-term target, we aim to achieve tripling nuclear power generation capacity by 2030 from around 7.5 GW at present.”[6] In order to meet this objective, the government had approved the construction of ten indigenous new nuclear reactors. As these become operational, built in the fleet mode, there will be a steady increase in the country’s nuclear power capacity. Apart from this indigenous fleet, hopes are also pinned on reactors that are to be built with international cooperation and are at various stages of negotiations. Of course, Kudankulam  (KK) 1 and 2 built with Russian help are already operational, and KK 3 and 4, will be the next among the foreign ones to become operational. Negotiations with France and the US continue but these have not yet reached the stage of construction commencement. However, it needs to be noted that in every new civilian nuclear cooperation agreement that India has recently signed with nuclear supplier countries such as the USA, France and South Korea, the possibility of cooperation on small modular reactors (SMRs) has been mentioned. One of the future issues of NuClealry Put will explore the concept, advantages and disadvantages of SMRs.

For now, a question that is often raised is whether India needs foreign reactors at all, given that the Indian nuclear reactors have now graduated to 700 MW. The answer to this should be yes because imported nuclear power plants of a capacity higher than 700 MW would help India rapidly meet its electricity requirements. It must be remembered that India’s electricity demand remains on the ascendant. The rehabilitation of India into international nuclear commerce with the conclusion of the Indo-US nuclear deal has opened possibilities of newer technology induction for accelerated capacity expansion, and this should not be allowed to go to waste.

Nuclear energy, certainly, will have to remain a part of the country’s electricity mix owing to the vulnerabilities faced with other fuel sources. Fortunately for India, its nuclear programme is mature, and the industry is geared to perform its role, especially with the announcement on construction of a fleet of reactors.Another recent development of significance is the commencement of core loading of the prototype fast breeder reactor that has raised hopes that India’s move into the second stage of its nuclear power programme may be on the anvil.

For the future, a three-pronged approach is recommended to move India’s nuclear power programme up the ladder: firstly, the government must continue to offer its steadfast commitment and support to the nuclear sector including by providing predictability into the policy environment; secondly, the NPCIL must continue to provide safe operations and use of good management practices to ensure rapid induction of reactors to undercut the cynicism that is often expressed at the slow pace of growth of the nuclear sector vis a vis other sources of electricity generation.  In fact, it would be a further shot in the arm if the joint ventures already formed by NPCIL with NTPC and Indian Oil Corporation, as well as the recent reports on possibility of investments by  private firms, such as Reliance Industries, Tata Power, Adani Power, and Vedanta, could come to fruition; and thirdly, there is need for a continuous and proactive public outreach by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) to help the public better understand the need for nuclear power as part of the country’s humongous electricity requirement, its environmental advantages and the focus on safety aspects.

India needs every watt it can get from all safe, secure, and sustainable sources, and nuclear energy ticks all the three boxes.

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Notes:

[1] “Creating a Sustainable World”, Invest India, https://www.investindia.gov.in/sector/renewable-energy. Accessed on March 21, 2024.

[2] Ganesh Srinivasan, “OPINION: A narrative of the Indian power sector since independence”, The Economic Times, August 16, 2022, https://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/power/opinion-a-narrative-of-the-indian-power-sector-since-independence/93580873. Accessed on March 22, 2024.

[3] Daniel Slotta, “Annual per capita electricity consumption in China from 2009 to 2020”, Statista, January 03, 2024, https://www.statista.com/statistics/867590/china-per-capita-electricity-consumption/. Accessed on March 10, 2024.

[4] Trishant Dev, “IEA World Energy Outlook 2023: Fossil fuel demand to peak by 2030, urgent investment shift needed”, Down to Earth, October 30, 2023, https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/climate-change/iea-world-energy-outlook-2023-fossil-fuel-demand-to-peak-by-2030-urgent-investment-shift-needed-92538.

[5] “Land needs for Wind, Solar Dwarf Nuclear Plant’s Footprint”, Nuclear Energy Institute, July 09, 2015, https://www.nei.org/news/2015/land-needs-for-wind-solar-dwarf-nuclear-plants. Accessed March 13, 2024.

[6] Department of Atomic Energy, “India’s Statement at Nuclear Energy Summit Brussels 2024”, March 21, 2024, https://dae.gov.in/indias-statement-at-nuclear-energy-summit-brussels-2024/. Accessed on March 29, 2024.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Centre for Air Power Studies [CAPS])

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Keywords: nuclear energy, Homi Bhabha, KAPS 3&4, India’s nuclear power programme, CLNDA

On February 22, 2024, PM Modi dedicated units 3 and 4 of the Kakrapar Atomic Power Station (KAPS) to the nation. The construction of both units had started in November 2010 with a plan to complete it in five years. Eventually, it took double that time for KAPS 3 to go critical on July 22, 2020. It took another three years for some commissioning issues to be sorted out. Unit 4 achieved criticality on December 17, 2023 and was connected to the power grid just two days before the PM’s latest visit.

At 700 MWe capacity, KAPS 3 and 4 are the scaled-up versions of earlier variants of CANDU pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs) that India first built with Canadian help. Having graduated from the two 540 MWe that India had upscaled in the 2000s from the 220 MWe, they are currently the largest capacity reactors that India has indigenously designed and built. With these two, India now has 24 operational nuclear reactors with a total capacity of 8,180 MWe.

The target now is to get to 22,480 MWe by the start of the next decade. Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd. (NPCIL), currently India’s only operator of nuclear reactors, announced in February 2024 that it will add 18 more nuclear reactors to produce another 13,800 MWe of electricity by 2031-32. India wishes to avail advantages of economies of scale by standardising the design of 700 MWe capacity reactors for ‘fleet construction’. Ten of these have already been sanctioned to be built at Gorakhpur in Haryana, Kaiga in Karnataka, Chutka in MP and Mahi Banswara in Rajasthan and are at various stages of construction.

Will India be able to achieve these targets? Will these plants come up as expected, with one new plant being commissioned every year, as was announced by the Minister in charge of atomic energy at the start of this decade? Scepticism is natural given the experience in India of the long gestation of nuclear plants. On many occasions, ambitious targets have had to be revised. Why has India missed targets so often? Why has the perception grown that India’s nuclear power potential is over-promised but under-achieved?

Factors Responsible for the Fits and Starts

Early Initiation into Nuclear Energy

The Indian nuclear programme was amongst the first high-end science and technology efforts to be announced after independence as PM Nehru was laying the foundation of modern India. He had a worthy teammate in Homi J Bhabha, the architect of India’s nuclear programme, who had, in fact, written a letter on March 12, 1944, to the trustees of Sir Dorabjee Tata Trust proposing the establishment of an institute to train nuclear scientists. This was even before the use of atomic bombs by the USA. Bhabha expressed his vision thus, “When nuclear energy has been successfully applied for power production, in say a couple of decades from now, India will not have to look abroad for its experts, but will find them ready at hand.”[1] Nehru too acknowledged the importance of atomic energy in his Presidential address to the Indian Science Congress in 1947, where he said atomic energy “may be used for war or may be used for peace. We cannot neglect it because it may be used for war… we shall develop it, I hope, in cooperation with the rest of the world and for peaceful purposes.”[2] Therefore, the initial focus was to tap the civilian potential of the atom. Accordingly, India legislated the Atomic Energy Act on April 15, 1948, leading to the creation of the Atomic Energy Commission on August 10 of the same year.

It may be recalled that internationally, too, this was the period of nuclear euphoria[3] when people believed that nuclear electricity would be so cheaply produced that it would not require to be metered. US President Eisenhower announced the Atoms for Peace programme in 1953, whereunder the USA entered into nuclear cooperation agreements with many countries. This proved to be timely for India, as was Bhabha’s chairmanship of the International Conference on Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy in 1955. In his opening address, he highlighted the importance of this energy for developing nations: “For the full industrialization of the underdeveloped countries and for the continuance of our civilization and its further development, atomic energy is not merely an aid, it is an absolute necessity.”[4]

Making use of his contacts abroad, Bhabha secured nuclear cooperation for India from a number of sources. In June 1954, he requested Sir John Cockroft, his colleague from Cambridge and an important figure in the British atomic programme, to help India build a low-power research reactor. ‘Apsara,’ a research reactor that he designed with initial fuel from the UK, went critical in August 1956. The second research reactor to attain criticality, in 1960, was CIRUS–a 40 MW reactor built with Canadian help and with the heavy water supplied by USA. Canada also helped India set up its first power reactor, a PHWR, at Rawat Bhatta in Rajasthan. Meanwhile, the US helped India construct two 200 MWe (later 160 MWe) boiling water reactors (BWRs) at Tarapur. Built through a turnkey project, Tarapur Atomic Power Stations (TAPS) went critical in 1969 and provided India with valuable reactor construction and operating expertise, besides electricity to the grid.

It should also be mentioned that Bhabha had conceptualised a three-stage plan for India’s nuclear energy trajectory. After the first phase of construction of PHWRs, he planned the second phase with fast breeder reactors and then the third stage of thorium utilisation. The details of this plan and its relevance in today’s times will be discussed in a future column, but suffice it to say that India’s investment in nuclear energy was with a clear blueprint in mind. Nuclear energy was seen as a long-term commitment to achieve energy self-sufficiency.

First Shock of 1974

The plans, however, began to look shaky once India conducted a peaceful nuclear explosion (PNE) in 1974. Washington perceived this as a betrayal of trust by India, for it had used the heavy water supplied for CIRUS and the plutonium produced therefrom in its nuclear explosive device. Hence, under US laws, it ceased all cooperation with India and also reneged on its contractual obligations to supply enriched uranium to fuel the two power plants at Tarapur. India, however, maintains that it violated no contractual commitments in conducting the PNE since these, during the 1960s and 70s, were considered legitimate civil engineering purposes, with the US and USSR themselves conducting several PNEs. [5]

Notwithstanding this argument, India came under sanctions and was denied access to dual-use technology, the list for which went on expanding through the 1980s and 1990s. Therefore, India’s nuclear power programme was forced, after 1974, to rely on indigenous R&D and domestic industrial efforts. This resulted in time delays and cost overruns for existing projects. Installed capacity in 1979-80 was about 600 MWe, and it could climb to no more than 950 MWe by 1987. In fact, after RAPS 1 went online in 1973, there was a long gap until 1981 when RAPS 2 started commercial power production. Only two other power plants, MAPS 1 and 2 at Madras, became critical in the 1980s. Four more–NAPS 1 and 2 at Narora & KAPS 1 and 2 at Kakrapar–came online in the 1990s. By 2000, the total nuclear energy generation stood at a mere 2,720 MWe.

So, the PNE impacted the pace of India’s nuclear power programme by putting a hard stop to ongoing nuclear cooperation and compelling India to rely on its own scientific and technological resources. It brought India onto the nuclear proliferation radar and made it a victim of technology denial regimes, many of which were created as a consequence of the Indian action. Thereafter, the power programme struggled over the next two decades.

Second Shock of 1998

It was only by the second half of the 1990s that the nuclear power programme began to get back on its feet. Indigenous efforts led to the construction of the first 540 MWe nuclear reactor. Overall, seven plants were under construction by 1998. That is when India chose to overtly demonstrate its nuclear weapons capability. Though this time, the pace of work on power reactors remained largely unaffected, constraints on further growth of the programme began to be felt in the early years of the new millennium. These were felt not in nuclear technology, expertise or financing but in the availability of uranium as fuel for an expanding power programme. This challenge, and the desire of the DAE to rapidly enhance nuclear power production through the induction of additional imported, larger capacity power reactors, persuaded the government of the day to explore options for international civilian nuclear cooperation.

A window of opportunity opened when President Bush offered the promise of a constructive nuclear engagement with India. His vision was encapsulated in the joint Indo-US statement of July 18, 2005, signed when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Washington. This was an implicit recognition of India as a rising economic power with substantial energy requirements and as a “responsible state with advanced nuclear technology”. Therefore, from being viewed as an outcast to being chastised for “illegal” nuclear weapons possession, the then Indian PM described it in the Indian Parliament as a step where: “The existence of our strategic programme is being acknowledged even while we are being invited to become a full partner in international civil nuclear energy cooperation”.[6]

Nuclear Accident at Fukushima, 2011

It took three years of negotiations between India and the USA to arrive at an agreement on civil nuclear cooperation. Debates within both countries examined the pros and cons of such engagement. Meanwhile, Washington had to amend its own legislation to enable cooperation with India, and New Delhi had to envisage and engage in a separation plan to distance its civil and strategic nuclear programmes. Finally, in 2008, after fixing all the necessary national and international requirements, India and the USA signed the 123 Agreement. Thereafter, the Nuclear Suppliers Group granted a waiver to India to partake in international nuclear commerce.

Between 2008 and 2011, India signed several MOUs with many countries for the import of uranium as nuclear fuel and also for the construction of large-capacity imported nuclear reactors. Nuclear enthusiasm and dreams of rapid reactor expansion soared, only to be dashed by an accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plants in Japan in 2011. This cast a pall of gloom on nuclear energy programmes worldwide. Concerns about nuclear safety compelled governments to institute safety reviews and scale back expansion plans. India, too, became a victim of this even as it was getting ready to take steps towards opening up its nuclear sector to entry of domestic and international private players.

Nuclear Liability Law, 2011

Fukushima brought attention to civil liability in case of an accident. In the case of India, the NPCIL, created in 1986, had been the sole designer, constructor and operator of all nuclear reactors in India. Accordingly, the liability rested with the government of India. But, as the prospects of entry of private players into the field grew after 2008, it became necessary to enact the required legislation. Influenced by the experience of Fukushima, as also by that of the Bhopal Gas tragedy of 1984, when an accident in a gas plant run by an American company, Union Carbide, had led to the death of 20,000 people, the government drafted a stringent Civil Liability for Nuclear Damages Act (CLNDA). In fact, at the time that the Act was being debated in India, the verdict for the Bhopal gas leak accident was announced, and the public mood was critical of the inordinate delay in providing compensation to the victims and the inadequacy of the compensation amount. Therefore, the opposition parties then insisted on a strong nuclear liability law.

As it came into being, the CLNDA made both the suppliers and operators liable in case of an accident. While this was done to assuage public concerns, it was seen as a harsh move by the private industry, and it turned away prospective nuclear suppliers from wanting to invest in the nuclear sector. Subsequently, to reassure the suppliers that they would not be held liable and that the NPCIL as operator would be the one in charge, the government provided clarifications through a special notification in 2015. In 2016, it also set up an insurance pool to facilitate confidence by covering suppliers’ risk. A special Nuclear Liability Fund of Rs 2000 Crores was created to cover damages resulting from a nuclear accident in case they exceeded the limit specified at  Rs 1500 Crores for nuclear power operators under the CLNDA. However, private participation in the construction and operation of nuclear reactors in India has yet to see the light of the day. While private industry has long been engaged in supplying equipment to the NPCIL, the hope of their teaming up with NPCIL for a partnership has not yet occurred.

Meanwhile, another public enterprise, the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), did form a Joint Venture Company (JVC) named Anusakthi Vidyut Nigam Limited (ASHVINI) with NPCIL in 2011. Atomic Energy Act was amended in 2015 to enable such joint ventures of Public Sector Units (PSUs) to build, own and operate nuclear power plants in India. Press reports of May 2023 indicated that the JV will build the 2 x 700MW Chutka Madhya Pradesh atomic power project and the Mahi Banswara Rajasthan atomic power project, which has a 4 x 700MW capacity.[7]

Meanwhile, in another attempt to rejuvenate the possibility of private participation, it was reported in February 2024 that India would seek funding from private industries up to the tune of US$ 26 billion to accelerate the nuclear power programme as a way of reaching India’s commitment of 50 per cent electricity from non-fossil fuels by 2030.[8] Under the proposed plan, private companies like Tata Power, Reliance Power, Adani Power and Vedanta, will invest in the nuclear plants, acquire land, and undertake construction in areas outside the reactor complex of the plants since the right to build and run the stations and their fuel management will rest with NPCIL. But, the private companies are expected to earn revenue from the power plant’s electricity sales and NPCIL would operate the projects for a fee. It remains to be seen whether this hybrid model will receive enough traction from the domestic private industry.

The Future

With more than six decades of operational experience and 24 operating nuclear power plants, India’s nuclear establishment has shown its scientific and technological prowess. It is also clear that this experience can come in handy to enable India to meet its climate commitments. The benefit of nuclear energy as a baseload source of low-carbon electricity is unmatchable by the currently popular renewable sources such as solar and wind. But nuclear energy can make a worthwhile contribution to electricity generation only if it can see rapid expansion.

For this, the nuclear sector needs public-private partnerships. This partnership refers not only to NPCIL and private industry but also to a pact of trust between the nuclear establishment and the public. Interestingly, the international mood for providing help to India with nuclear fuel and technology is favourable. Fortunately, India also has the indigenous expertise and engineering experience to make the most of the time. However, domestic outreach to the Indian public is imperative to explain to them the need for nuclear energy as an environmentally friendly source of electricity and the amount of effort put into nuclear safety and security. This could help overcome some of the scepticism.

Several factors are responsible for why the Indian programme has not performed as well as it could have given the early start. This understanding is important to retain faith in this source of electricity generation, whose importance will only grow as climate change concerns require urgent mitigation and a growing economy demands more and more electricity. The value of India’s nuclear power programme should not be underestimated despite its low contribution to overall electricity production at this moment. If all things go right, including the operationalisation of the prototype fast breeder reactor that would herald the start of the second stage of its programme, the sector could yet take off. Further discussions on the opportunities and challenges will continue in future issues of this column.

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Notes:

[1] HN Sethna, Atomic Energy (New Delhi: Publications Division, 1972), p.1.

[2] As quoted by Itty Abraham, The Making of the Indian Atomic Bomb: Science, Secrecy and the Postcolonial State (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1999), p. 47.

[3] For instance David Dietz, an American journalist and Pulitzer prize winner wrote, “With energy as abundant as air we breather, there will be no longer any reason to fight for oil or coal…” in his Atomic Energy in the Coming Era (Dodd Mead: 1945) pp. 12-23. Glenn Seaborg , adviser to US Atomic Energy Commission in 1950s too described it as a “magician’s potion that could free industrial society permanently from all practical bounds”, in Seaborg and William Corliss, Man and Atom: Building a New World through Nuclear Technology (Dutton, 1971).

[4] United Nations, First International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy (New York, 1955), vol. 16, p. 33. Emphasis added.

[5] Germany too, in the early 1970s conducted a feasibility study for a project to build a canal from the Mediterranean Sea to the Western Desert of Egypt using nuclear demolition. This project proposed to use 213 devices, with yields of 1 to 1.5 megatons detonated at depths of 100 to 500 m, to build this canal for the purpose of producing hydroelectric power.

[6] PM’s statement in Parliament on 27 Feb 2006. Full text available in The Hindu, 28 Feb 2006

[7] “NTPC and NPCIL to jointly develop nuclear power plants in India’, Power Technology, May 2, 2023. Available at https://www.power-technology.com/news/ntpc-npcil-nuclear-power-plants/. Accessed on Feb 23, 2024.

[8] Read more at: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/renewables/india-seeks-26-bln-of-private-nuclear-power-investments/articleshow/107848710.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst/. Accessed on Feb 26, 2024.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Centre for Air Power Studies [CAPS])

The post India’s Nuclear Power Journey: Why has it Grown in Fits and Starts? appeared first on CAPSS India.

Keywords: Nuclear energy, climate change, GHG emissions, renewable energy, COP-28

Like the tides of the ocean, nuclear energy too has seen its highs and lows from the time that commercial generation of electricity from nuclear reactors started in the mid-1950s. The last ebb came after the accident at Fukushima in 2011 whereafter a phase of scepticism about nuclear safety led many countries to pause or slowdown their nuclear power plans. The mood, however, seems to be changing, largely owing to the recognition of the urgent need for energy transition to low-carbon sources as a way of addressing climate change concerns. Three recent developments indicate this trend.

The first of these was the last UN Climate Change Conference, called the Conference of Parties (COP), that took place in Dubai in November 2023. At this meeting, the 28th since the first COP took place in 1995, nations took the first-ever pledge to phase down fossil fuel use. Towards this objective, more than one hundred countries pledged to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030. But, it is even more interesting that 22 countries[1]  signed a declaration[2] to triple global nuclear energy capacity over the next 25 years to meet climate goals to reach net zero emissions by 2050. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) effectively used the COP to press its idea of ‘Atoms4NetZero’ in support of nuclear energy for climate mitigation. For the first time, the COP-28 final document included support for investments in nuclear energy amongst other low-emission technologies, a privilege earlier offered only to renewable energy technologies.

A second event where the spotlight shone on nuclear energy was the World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos that took place from January 15-19, 2024. An annual assembly of global thought leaders, the forum provides a platform to discuss pressing global issues. Climate, energy and nature were one of the main themes at this year’s meeting which included a discussion on technologies to ensure clean energy transition. In an attempt to broaden the energy focus at WEF, the IAEA director general drew attention to the role that nuclear energy could play in combatting climate crises while ensuring energy security. A lunch session on January 16, 2024, was devoted to the topic of new nuclear technologies, such as small modular reactors and fusion technology, and the conditions necessary to make them realise their potential. Drawing the attention of the business leaders to these developments can help channel the flow of investments into the nuclear sector. To further this cause, the IAEA has also teamed up with the government of Belgium to hold a World Nuclear Energy conference in March 2024, particularly to call for providing a level playing field for nuclear energy alongside other low-carbon sources of electricity production.

A third topical development that has raised the buzz around nuclear energy is the release of  ‘Electricity 2024’ by the International Energy Agency in January 2024. This annual publication forecasts electricity demand and supply, and CO2 emissions. This year’s edition provides a forecast up to 2026. It estimates that global electricity demand would grow at a faster rate over the next three years as compared to the reduced electricity demand in 2023 due to falling electricity consumption in advanced economies. Over the next three years, it is expected that electricity demand would jump from 2.2 per cent in 2023 to an average of 3.4 per cent during 2024-2026. China, India and countries in Southeast Asia are expected to lead this demand. In fact, India’s demand for electricity is galloping. It grew by 7 per cent in 2023 and is expected to continue to grow at 6 per cent for the next three years.[3]

It is also anticipated that as these nations prioritise the transition to clean energy, their additional electricity demand would be covered by technologies that produce low emissions. While renewables are expected to make up more than a third of total generation by 2025, nuclear energy too is expected to grow from 40% of global electricity generation in 2023 to 50% by 2026.[4]  In fact, nuclear power generation is forecast to reach an all-time high globally by 2025, “as output from France climbs, several plants in Japan are restarted, and new reactors begin commercial operations in many markets, including in China, India, South Korea and Europe. In fact, the share of Asia’s nuclear generation is expected to reach 30% of global generation in 2026.[5]

The Urgent Necessity for Low-carbon Electricity Generation

The surge in nuclear electricity generation is expected to come from the compulsion to meet the hunger for electricity through low-carbon sources. In fact, unless this is ensured, the world has no chance of meeting the climate change goals that it has set for itself. It may be recalled that in 2015, the international community adopted the Paris Agreement on climate change, pledging to hold the increase in global average temperature to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and if possible, to limit it to 1.5°C. Sadly, this objective appears shaky since the Earth’s global average surface temperature was reported to be more than 2°C higher than   pre-industrial levels in November 2023 for the first time, making it the hottest year on record.[6] Global and North Atlantic sea-surface temperatures too broke records, and Antarctic sea ice reached its lowest daily extent since the advent of satellite data. Interestingly, this news came when COP 28 was in session!

As is evident from the statistics that is pouring in, climate change is here and now. It is a major threat to humanity and the experience of the severity and frequency of adverse natural disasters has made nations sufficiently cognisant of the fact to be persuaded to make ambitious commitments. But, insufficient implementation of commitments owing to geopolitical or economic reasons remains a major hurdle.    For instance, the world invested a record-breaking US$1.7 trillion in clean energy in 2023. But, this was offset by nearly US$1 trillion investment in fossil fuel which countries were unable to avoid for political and economic reasons. In short, current efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions remain less than sufficient to arrest climate change. More efforts will have to be devoted towards refashioning activities that are emitting the largest amount of greenhouse gases. And, electricity generation tops this list.

Electricity generation is responsible for close to 40% of the global CO2 emissions produced by the energy sector, the other 60% or so is generated primarily through the use of fossil fuels in industry, heating in buildings and transport.[7] Hence the urgent need for moving away from fossil fuel sources, which are the biggest culprits on this front. In fact, not only is electricity generation from fossil fuels amongst one of the highest contributors to GHG emissions, it is also one factor whose transformation could have a bearing on all other activities. Since modern-day economic growth and development are so tightly coupled with electricity, it becomes imperative that electricity generation takes place not just through safe and secure sources, but also from those that best sustain the environment. This requires ambitious efforts to transform the energy sector from fossil fuel production and use, which is the main source of carbon dioxide (CO2), to carbon-neutral sources.

Renewables and Nuclear

Renewables (particularly hydro, solar, wind) and nuclear fission are amongst the low-carbon sources available for electricity generation. While hydroelectricity has been generated for a long time, it suffers from the handicap of being available only in specific locations. Also, the appetite for large hydro projects has significantly reduced owing to problems of displacement and rehabilitation that have lingered over decades. Meanwhile, solar and wind energy have emerged as the new favourites and the last decade has seen a phenomenal jump in electricity produced using these sources. Heavily subsidised and incentivised by governments, the cost of this electricity too has fallen over the years. However, their biggest drawback is that they are unable to provide electricity grids with stable, resilient and dispatchable power to maintain a  non-stop flow of energy. It has, therefore, been necessary to support fossil fuel plants with backup options to provide this stability. These have mostly been coal, oil or gas-fired plants. Given that they emit GHG emissions, it reduces the possibility of solar and wind energy being able to contribute towards achieving net zero emissions by themselves, even though they would make a substantial contribution.

It is in this context that the importance of nuclear energy as a baseload source of electricity that can effectively meet clean energy transition goals stands out. When comparing the cradle-to-grave journey of sources of electricity, nuclear energy has the lowest carbon footprint,[8] and uses fewer materials and land. To illustrate, solar power needs more than 17 times as much material and 46 times as much land to produce one unit of energy. The power density of nuclear energy beats all other renewables. According to one estimate, “A solar farm needs between 5 and 50 times more land to generate as much electricity as an equivalent  coal-powered plant, and a wind farm needs ten times more than solar.”[9] Put another way, nuclear plants can generate 500-1000 watts per sq meter while solar is at 5-20 and wind at 1-2 watts per sq meter.[10] Bill Gates emphasises that nuclear plants rank the highest in efficiently using materials like cement, steel and glass, which are electricity guzzlers themselves in their manufacturing processes. Nuclear plants use much less material per unit of electricity generated compared to others.[11] In fact, solar photovoltaics are the least efficient followed by hydropower and wind. This is an important consideration when accounting for the GHG emissions produced in the manufacture of this material. As aptly put by Rafael Grossi, Director General of IAEA, “To be pro-nuclear is to take our long-term responsibility to this planet and its future generations seriously.”[12]

Besides decarbonising electricity production, the use of nuclear power can also decarbonise two other processes that use energy: heating in industry and of buildings through direct utilisation of steam, and producing low-carbon hydrogen for transportation. Thus, it is anticipated that nuclear energy can be used to produce hydrogen on a massive scale and at an increasingly competitive cost, which would be a clean heat and transportation source of the future. The potential of nuclear energy for these applications would also be crucial for reaching net zero through the development and deployment of low-carbon options.

In fact, enhancing energy production and sustaining the environment is not an either/or choice. The world needs both. Governments owe it to their citizens to provide them with electricity while also ensuring the best quality of life from their health and environmental perspective. If economic development and decarbonisation have to be simultaneously pursued, nuclear power can offer a viable alternative to fossil fuels that must be prudently built and safely operated.

But, will nuclear energy be able to realise its perceived potential in the coming years? What are the head and tailwinds that it is likely to face? Where is it likely to grow? Which technologies are likely to reach fruition? How can one address public perceptions on nuclear safety? Where does India see nuclear energy in its own energy mix? The forthcoming monthly issues of ‘NuClearly Put’ in the year 2024 will examine these questions one by one to offer some clarity.

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Notes:

[1] Endorsing countries include Armenia, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Ghana, Hungary, Jamaica, Japan, Republic of Korea, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Ukraine, UAE, UK, and USA.

[2] Department of Energy, “At COP28, Countries Launch Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy Capacity by 2050, Recognizing the Key Role of Nuclear Energy in Reaching Net Zero,” December 1, 2023,  https://www.energy.gov/articles/cop28-countries-launch-declaration-triple-nuclear-energy-capacity-2050-recognizing-key#:~:text=Framework%20Convention%20on%20Climate%20Change,1.5%2Ddegree%20goal%20within%20reach.

[3] David Dodwell, “On the climate change front, its not all ‘gloom and doom”, South China Morning Post,  January 28, 2024, https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3250045/climate-change-front-its-not-all-doom-and-gloom.  Accessed on January 16, 2024.

[4] “Nuclear output to reach new record by 2025, says IEA,” World Nuclear News, January 24, 2024, Nuclear output to reach new record by 2025, says IEA: Energy & Environment – World Nuclear News (world-nuclear-news.org). Accessed on January 17, 2024.

[5] Rachel Millard, “Nuclear power generation to reach record high next year, IEA forecasts,” Financial Times, January 24, 2024, Nuclear power generation to reach record high next year, IEA forecasts (ft.com). Accessed on January 17, 2024.

[6] John Mecklin, Ed., “A moment of historic danger: It is still 90 seconds to midnight,” 2024 Doomsday Clock Statement, Science and Security Board, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, January 23, 2024, https://thebulletin.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/2024-Doomsday-Clock-Statement.pdf. Accessed on January 18, 2024.

[7] IAEA, Nuclear Energy for a Net Zero World, September 2021, https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/21/10/nuclear-energy-for-a-net-zero-world.pdf.

[8] “Life-cycle Assessments of Electricity Generation Options,” Report by UN Economic Commission for Europe Sustainable Development Goals, March 2022, https://unece.org/sed/documents/2021/10/reports/life-cycle-assessment-electricity-generation-options.

[9] Bill Gates, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need (UK: Penguin Random House, 2021), p. 96.

[10] Ibid., p. 58

[11] Ibid., p. 85

[12] Rafael Grossi, “Time to Level the Playing Field and Work Together Towards Net Zero,” speech delivered at the Second International Conference on Climate Change and the Role of Nuclear Power 2023: Atoms4NetZero, October 9, 2023, https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/statements/time-to-level-the-playing-field-and-work-together-towards-net-zero.

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Keywords: India nuclear strategy, nuclear deterrence, nuclear diplomacy

India marked 25 years as a state with nuclear weapons in 2023. Interestingly, when New Delhi conducted the nuclear tests in 1998, it was accused of blowing a hole into the non-proliferation regime. After all, the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) had just been granted a consensual, indefinite extension, and the focus was on getting nations to commit to a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). India’s tests, and the fact that Pakistan too followed suit a couple of weeks later, were dubbed a highly negative development, and the entire region was described as a dangerous nuclear flashpoint. The non-proliferation supporters had convinced themselves that a disaster was waiting to happen between the two new nuclear-armed states.

Fortunately, no such thing has happened in over two decades, despite the two countries having faced several crises. Many factors have been responsible for ensuring that such escalation is contained. Meanwhile, crises with nuclear overtones have erupted in other unexpected regions, pushing South Asia down on the list of contemporary hotspots. It is indeed ironic that the region that seemed to have given sleepless nights to the international community just over two decades ago stood out in 2023 as an island of ‘relative’ nuclear stability, even as nuclear risks have been palpably felt across other theatres.

Indeed, the year 2023 was lived in the shadow of multiple kinds of nuclear risks, the likes of which had not been seen for over the last thirty years. It may be recalled that at the end of 1993, the Cold War was in remission. With the fall of the Berlin Wall in the penultimate month of 1989, US-Russia relations appeared more amicable. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) II treaty had been signed earlier that year and, among other provisions, it banned multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles on missiles. The United States had agreed to purchase Russian highly enriched uranium from dismantled Soviet nuclear warheads and convert it into lower-grade uranium for electricity production. This became famous as the ‘Megatons to Megawatts’ programme. Also in that year, the US and Russia completed negotiations on a de-targeting agreement whereby both agreed not to directly target each other’s nuclear weapons. Overall, there was a trend towards de-emphasising nuclear weapons in inter-state relations.

Three decades later, the scenario is completely different. Nuclear weapons are back in vogue and being showcased as centrepieces of national security. In 2023, Russia did not hesitate to draw attention to its nuclear weapons as part of its continuing military operations against Ukraine; China has not been shy of the unprecedented expansion of its nuclear arsenal and capabilities or even insinuations of nuclear muscle flexing in contingencies involving Taiwan; American national documents brazenly seek expansion as well as upgradation of national nuclear capabilities to cater for two nuclear threats, Russia and China; there are reports about increasing activity at nuclear test sites of major nuclear countries; North Korea has not been inhibited to continue activity on advancing its missiles for nuclear delivery; and, Pakistan, which saw a relative quiet period with India this year, has nevertheless, as part of its traditional compulsive behaviour to destabilise India, continued to explore new methods of nuclear brinksmanship to support its cross border terrorism.  Meanwhile, there is a near-complete loss of focus on and hope for nuclear arms control.

Amidst such predominant nuclear trends, India looks almost placid on the nuclear front. There has been no visible change in the pace or nature of its nuclear build-up, revision of nuclear doctrine, strategy, or posture. In fact, the country stands out for being a beacon of nuclear stability, even as others are indulging in behaviour that encourages a cycle of hedging strategies and arms racing, thereby causing further security dilemmas.

What should India be doing?

Do the nuclear and missile capability enhancements taking place elsewhere, and especially those in India’s neighbourhood, not matter for India’s nuclear deterrence? How should India cope with these developments? The last eleven issues of NuClearly Put have examined these questions in some detail. This last column of the year pulls together some basic recommendations that are particularly worthy of consideration.

• • Nuclear weapons are not on their way out. Nuclear deterrence is likely to remain an important tool to shape and contain conventional crises. The Russia-Ukraine conflict has only reinforced this belief. But the requirements of credible nuclear deterrence can be relatively modest. Overspending on this capability would entail compromising on other, more effective military capabilities. Such a tendency should be avoided.

  • The credibility of nuclear deterrence is derived most potently from the ability to retaliate in such a manner as to make the first use of nuclear weapons extremely costly in terms of the risks of further escalation and the damage inflicted. India’s future trajectory of capability build-up must keep this as its guide to ensure that the country has the necessary wherewithal in terms of weapons, delivery systems, and command and control structures to retaliate in such a manner. This will minimise the possibility of deterrence breakdown, which is the primary purpose of India’s nuclear weapons.

  • India should not get into the numbers game with nuclear weapons and refrain from feeling compelled to match the arsenals of our adversaries, weapon for weapon. In any case, India has been slowly and steadily increasing its nuclear stockpile as per a plan based on minimum deterrence requirements that are sufficient for signalling credibility. That should continue to be the guiding factor, without any need for a panicky increase in response to the actions of others.

  • The first use of nuclear weapons, irrespective of how they are defined, tactical or strategic, can only bring ruin. The way nuclear escalation might happen remains uncharted territory, and there can be no promised guarantees of any kind. Therefore, deterrence by the idea of retaliation, rather than first use, is more likely to keep the use of nuclear weapons at bay.

  • Massive retaliation is not incredulous. In fact, given the nature of the weapon, this is likely to be the result of the use of even modest nuclear numbers.

  • Some emerging technologies, especially those that enable better intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and precision targeting, would have implications for the survivability of nuclear arsenals. These will have to be carefully monitored and intelligently countered.

  • Buttressing conventional deterrence capability is important to keep the nuclear threshold high.

  • Improving bilateral and regional security relations must remain a constant effort. While strategic patience will be needed to resolve some of the historical and structural disputes between India-Pakistan and India-China, the creation of crisis management mechanisms must be given due attention.

There is no doubt that nuclear India has charted its own trajectory and marched to its own nuclear drummer, irrespective of the rest of the parade. This ‘India way’ has emerged from its understanding of the basic nature of nuclear weapons and the impact of their use. Consequently, it has been found prudent to practise deterrence through punishment. In contrast, most other nuclear possessors (except China) have opted to establish deterrence by denial. Such a strategy leans towards signalling a capability to fight a war with nuclear weapons and hence requires multiple kinds, and more numbers, of nuclear warheads and delivery systems, besides the adoption of risky nuclear postures.

India consciously eschewed such a nuclear strategy. A sense of restraint or moderation in capability build-up, as well as a sense of responsibility in behaviour, has, therefore, been a natural dimension of its deterrence. The collateral benefit of this has been deterrence stability.

While India has been an ardent champion of universal nuclear disarmament and continues to aspire for the goal, it realises how distant it is in the current circumstances. Till such time as this ideal can become a reality, it is imperative that the possessors of nuclear weapons hold their assets of such high destructive potential with due understanding of the risks involved. India should proactively participate in all efforts aimed at nuclear risk recognition, reduction, and mitigation. In fact, doing so would be useful for India from both deterrence and disarmament points of view. On the one hand, it would reduce the chances of India being sucked into a crisis or arms race instability, and on the other, it could help create conditions that can gradually devalue nuclear weapons to enable their elimination. Therefore, India should step up its nuclear diplomacy at the global level. Today’s nuclear order is devoid of leadership, and India’s voice carries the credibility of good behaviour and responsible practise as a nuclear-armed state now a quarter of a century old.

The Column

NuClearly Put has been an effort to ‘clearly’ discuss complex nuclear issues in the 25th year of India’s existence as a state with nuclear weapons. Since issues around nuclear weapons can often be counterintuitive – such as, how can having fewer nuclear weapons than your adversary still ensure credible deterrence; how can leaving the onus of nuclear first use on the adversary be stabilising; or, why missile defence can be destabilising and retaining a state of mutual vulnerability be good for nuclear deterrence – each monthly column tried to explore and explain a subject and its nuances. All of these are available on the CAPS website.

I cannot conclude the last issue for the year without acknowledging those who helped me refine and sustain this effort over the last 12 months. I first shared the seed of this idea with my husband, Amulpreet, who then helped me hone it, select each topic, and patiently read through each piece to offer critical comments. Air Marshal Anil Chopra (Retd), Director General, Centre for Air Power Studies, was ever encouraging from the time I presented the proposal to him. Aditya Hazarika, until recently the copy editor at CAPS, painstakingly went through each piece, often under tight time constraints. I am grateful for the hours he must have spent over weekends polishing the pieces, including his offer to continue editing the column despite having moved on to another assignment in October. Lastly, Rohit Kumar and Gautam Kumar at CAPS for their help in formatting and uploading the pieces, always meeting the deadline despite my handing over the articles to them at the last minute. Meanwhile, the encouraging and even critical responses from the readers kept me going, and I remain grateful to all.

Wish each one of you a happy new year. I pray that nuclear clarity and sanity will be our guides in 2024 and beyond. I hope to continue this column in the next year with a primary focus on issues related to nuclear energy. The endeavour shall remain to clearly put in perspective another important dimension of nuclear issues that are so relevant to India and the world.

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(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Centre for Air Power Studies [CAPS])

The post Nuclear India in 2023: Reflections for the Country and the World appeared first on CAPSS India.

Keywords: Nuclear winter, nuclear deterrence, deterrence breakdown, nuclear use

It was 40 years ago, on November 20, 1983, that an American television film, ‘The Day After,’ was released on the ABC television network.[1] It was the peak of the Cold War, and the possibility of a nuclear war between the USA and the USSR was considered a real threat. Both had built large numbers of nuclear warheads that were routinely maintained on hair-trigger alerts, signalling readiness for use. Carl Sagan graphically described this situation as one in which two enemies were living in a room awash with gasoline; one had 9000 matches, and the other had 7000.[2] While both would die in case a matchstick lit up, each was constantly worried about the other gaining an advantage of pre-emption by being the first to set the room on fire, even though neither could escape the consequences!

However, to deal with the perceived risks of nuclear use, the populace, at least in the USA, was acquainted with the idea of nuclear war from the second grade onwards. Building public and private bomb shelters was the norm. Drills were regularly conducted. As sirens went off, people practised rushing into shelters, which were equipped as per set guidelines to ensure survival for a reasonable period.

While, thankfully, none of these were put to a real test, ‘The Day After’ did build a story around a fictional nuclear exchange between the US and USSR. The plot depicted rising tensions between the two countries leading up to the imminence of a nuclear exchange. Even before the actual detonation happens, however, the local situation can be seen quickly slipping out of control as people panic to evacuate to buy essentials, leading to a breakdown of law and order. Once the nuclear detonations take place, the electromagnetic pulse plays havoc with all electronics. So, cars don’t start. TV sets don’t work. Electricity and all related facilities of water, banking, hospital services, etc, come to a halt. In the movie, the city loses all communication with the outside world. All internal systems collapse. Ironically, though, some weeks after the disaster, when the radio crackles to life, the voice of the US President booms, “America has survived. We have not surrendered. Our values remain undaunted. The country is counting on your strength, will and courage to rebuild our great country.” Certainly, nations can rebuild themselves, but at what cost? As a commentator on the movie summed up, “Humanity survives but it does not look good for humankind.”

The subject of the consequence of the breakdown of nuclear deterrence with the use of nuclear weapons requires a revisit today because, even at nearly 80 years of age, nuclear weapons are going strong, immune to all efforts at dislodging them. The world has learnt to live with them in a delicate balance of terror and by building some forms of strategic stability. Mutual vulnerability is supposed to keep nuclear war at bay, and there is a fair bit of confidence that signalling well-considered plans of nuclear retaliation would avert possibility of nuclear use. Even in the movie, as tensions are building up, the view of some American citizens is, “They are crazy; but not that crazy.” There is a sense of confidence that the unthinkable will not happen.

This remains the predominant belief across the multiple nuclear dyads existing today. It is ironical that while nations make worst-case assumptions about their adversaries, there is nevertheless a tendency to accept a certain level of rationality on their part when it comes to nuclear use. After all, what political objective could be worth the cost of imposing and suffering so much damage, each reasons? But, for this question to elicit the answer ‘nothing’, there should be an adequate understanding of the nature and scale of damage that a nuclear exchange could cause. The visualisation of this damage can become fuzzy when militaries think of nuclear weapons in the same vein as conventional ones. Approaches that believe that nuclear deterrence is predicated on parity in warhead numbers and that nuclear warfighting can be conducted to achieve victory reflect a sub-optimal understanding of the effects of multiple nuclear detonations.

Meanwhile, even those that put their faith in the belief that rational, cool-headed thinking may be able to avert the possibility of deliberate nuclear use must nevertheless be mindful of other pathways to deterrence breakdown. The highest probability is that of inadvertent escalation because of miscalculation or misperception. In fact, many factors are exacerbating these risks today, such as stressed nuclear dyads where nations are refusing to hold strategic dialogues with one another, unchecked modernisation of nuclear capabilities, the collapse of arms control, the rise of hedging strategies, and the emergence of new technologies whose intersection with nuclear deterrence is not yet clear. What is even more worrisome is that there is no sense of shared risks among the countries. What we see instead is a swagger that escalation can somehow be controlled and managed.

All of the above developments do not give confidence that nuclear deterrence could not break down at some point. And if that happens, multiple socio-political, environmental and humanitarian crises can be expected.

Effects of Nuclear Use

In theory, the effects of a nuclear explosion are scientifically well understood. Of course, the yield of the warhead, height of detonation, weather, geographical conditions, the time of day or night when the detonation takes place, the amount of material available at ground zero that could fuel the fire, etc., would have a bearing on the extent of the impact. But some things are certain to happen. There will be a blast that will generate immense heat, firestorms, thermal radiation, blast overpressure, and immediate as well as long-term release of radioactivity. Besides, there will be secondary damage from the black soot that gets thrown up into the atmosphere blocks the sun and leads to cooling and variations of nuclear winter. We also know from Hiroshima and Nagasaki that nearly 150,000 people instantaneously vaporised. This happened with the use of only one 12-20 kiloton on each city. Any future nuclear use is unlikely to be restricted to such a singular use.

Military strategists have, of course, propagated the idea that the number of casualties can be reduced by conducting strikes on military targets, especially the adversary’s nuclear forces. But a recent study conducted by Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security has found that even if strategic launch bases were hit, “most of the Midwest would be bathed in a more than lethal dose of radiation, with a worst-case scenario seeing most of the US and Canada becoming uninhabitable. Even after four days of hitting the silos, between 340,000 and 4.6 million people would die—though the average death toll would be 1.4 million. They predicted that 300 million people would be at risk of a fatal dose of fallout.” [3]

Other scientific studies have highlighted many other consequences. These include the “significant economic disruption of the aggressor nation and acute food insecurity for a significant fraction of the population,” leading to the destabilisation of society.[4] Another report shows the possibility of ‘synchronous failure’ owing to the increase in the scale and speed of connectivity between human technological, economic, and social systems that have increased the size of the overall systems, leading to the “emergence of a single, tightly coupled human social-ecological global system for the first time in human history.”[5] So, irrespective of where the nuclear use takes place, the impact, direct and indirect, would transcend the immediate area.

Meanwhile, a renewed focus of research since 2007 on the nuclear winter scenarios has been possible with far more powerful modelling tools than were available in the 1980s when the first such studies were undertaken. Recent studies have shown how the firestorms caused by detonations in cities would generate an enormous amount of soot and particulates. Advanced climate science models developed to study the effects of global warming, volcanic eruptions, and massive wildfires have been used to model the effects of the soot, as it rises into the upper atmosphere and blocks sunlight. Of course, the scale of a possible nuclear winter will be determined by the scale of the nuclear war, the extent of firestorms generated, the amount of material that burns, the amount of soot injected into the atmosphere, global geographic variations, etc. However, some studies have concluded that the smoke in the case of a regional war between India and Pakistan that sees the detonation of even 100 Hiroshima-sized 15kt weapons would remain suspended in the upper atmosphere for years, block the sunlight, and cool the earth.

Moreover, once the smoke rises to the upper levels of the troposphere and lower levels of the stratosphere, it is expected to remain suspended there in the absence of precipitation, whose chances would be decreased because reduced sunlight would reduce evaporation and weaken the water cycle. Models showed a 10 per cent reduction in precipitation worldwide, drought in the lower latitudes, and a reduction in Asian monsoon rainfall by up to 40 per cent. There is expected to be a global average cooling of about 1.25°C lasting for several years, and even after ten years, the temperature is expected to be 0.5°C colder than normal. Less sunlight and precipitation, cold spells, shorter growing seasons and more ultraviolet radiation from ozone loss would all reduce or eliminate agricultural production.[6] So, human life will be affected in more than one way.

National and international capabilities to deal with the destruction of this scale and nature are difficult to envision. Coordinating a humanitarian response to nuclear weapon detonation scenarios would require providing assistance in areas of residual radiation. Requisite training of an adequate number of responders and customised equipment for such radiological environments in situations that are likely to have suffered widespread destruction of infrastructure cannot be an easy task for national disaster relief teams, which usually attend to a limited region in cases of natural calamities.

Nations tend to dismiss studies that bring up such uncomfortable findings to the realm of the hypothetical. It makes them double down on steps that they believe will make deterrence even more robust. Many of these steps, however, can create further security dilemmas by causing misperceptions and pulling countries into offence-defence spirals.

The fact remains that the possibility of nuclear deterrence breakdown cannot go away as long as nuclear weapons exist. Be that as it may, the risks of nuclear deterrence breakdown should be part of national and international discussions. In fact, knowledge of the humanitarian disaster that a nuclear exchange of even modest-sized yields and numbers of nuclear warheads would cause should enhance the desire to prevent such an event from happening. Knowledge of the impact of nuclear use should make nations realise the folly of building large numbers, touting the ideas of easy nuclear use, and notions of victory through nuclear war fighting. At the same time, it should underscore the sagacity of nuclear restraint in action and behaviour. Till such time as the elimination of nuclear weapons becomes possible, steps towards nuclear risk reduction must include mandatory education on the effects of the breakdown of nuclear deterrence. This would be in the interest of nuclear deterrence in the near term, and hopefully enable the possibility of universal nuclear disarmament in the long term.

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Notes

[1] Nicholas Meyer,  The Day After, ABC Circle Films, 1983

[2] “Carl Sagan Quote”, LibQuotes, https://libquotes.com/carl-sagan/quote/lbk4o5c. Accessed on November 22, 2023.

[3] David Pavlak, “SPIA Global Science and Security Program Reveals Devastation Linked to US Policy on Nuclear Missiles in Silos in Mid-West”, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, November 14, 2023. https://spia.princeton.edu/news/spia-science-and-global-security-program-reveals-devastation-linked-us-policy-nuclear-missiles. Accessed on November 24, 2023.

[4] Pearce, J. & Denkenberger D. (2018). A National Pragmatic Safety Limit for Nuclear Weapon Quantities. Available at https://doi.org/10.3390/safety4020025

[5] T Homer-Dixon, B Walker, R Biggs, et al. “Synchronous failure: the emerging causal architecture of global crisis”, Ecology and Society, vol. 20, no. 3, 2015. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26270255. Accessed on November 23, 2023.

[6] A Robock, & OB Toon, “Local nuclear war, global suffering”, Scientific American. Vol. 302, no. 1, 2010, pp 74-81. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/localnuclear-war. Accessed on October 12, 2023.

[Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Centre for Air Power Studies (CAPS)]

Recommended Readings:

• RECNA-Nagasaki University, Asia Pacific Leadership Network, Nautilus Institute, “Humanitarian Impacts of Nuclear Weapons Use in Northeast Asia: Implications for Reducing Nuclear Risk”, March 2023, at APLN: https://www.apln.network/projects/nuclear-weapon-use-risk-reduction/humanitarian-impacts-of-nuclear-use-cases-in-northeast-asia.
• Pearce, J. & Denkenberger D. (2018). A National Pragmatic Safety Limit for Nuclear Weapon Quantities. Available at https://doi.org/10.3390/safety4020025.
• Robock, A., Xia, L., Harrison, C. S., Coupe, J., Toon, O. B., and Bardeen, C. G.(2023). Opinion: How fear of nuclear winter has helped save the world, so far. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. 23, 6691–6701. Link: https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-6691-2023.

The post Understanding Consequences of Breakdown of Nuclear Deterrence appeared first on CAPSS India.

Keywords: Nuclear deterrence, survivability, SSBNs, mobile missiles, BMD

In earlier issues of the NuClearly Put series, I have often mentioned the importance of the survivability of nuclear arsenals for credible deterrence. I have argued that rather than worrying about nuclear warhead numbers, the focus of India’s capability build-up must be on ensuring the survivability of nuclear assets to let the adversaries know that they have no credible chance of carrying out a decapitating or disarming first strike.

‘Survivability’ involves developing capabilities, establishing systems, adopting procedures, and building organisations that are capable of mounting convincing threats of assured nuclear use even after taking a nuclear hit. This is particularly important for a country with a no-first-use (NFU) doctrine since it must signal the certainty of retaliation, which is possible only if the requisite capability and the resolve to use it can survive a first strike.

Ensuring survivability is a complex and multi-pronged exercise. Intuitively, one would think that the easiest way to ensure survivability would be to build a large arsenal so that some of it would survive a first strike. But, in reality, the calculations of what, how, and how much to make ‘survivable’ must be based on a complex matrix of the strengths and vulnerabilities of self and adversary.

What should be made survivable?

It is natural that a country undertaking nuclear first use would seek to degrade either one or both of the following kinds of targets: first, the adversary’s nuclear forces, such as weapon storage sites, missile silos, submarines, bomber bases, command and control nodes, etc., in order to degrade the country’s ability to mount retaliation; second, the adversary’s political will or determination to retaliate by undertaking counter-value strikes in the hope that the politico-psychological impact of nuclear attacks on population centres would paralyse decision-making, thereby reducing chances of retaliation.

Given the above, it is obvious that many elements need to be made survivable. Of course, the atomic bomb is at the heart of the matter and must survive for ‘nuclear’ retaliation to be mounted. But the survivability of the bomb alone cannot suffice. Credible deterrence demands the survivability of other enabling mechanisms and supporting structures too. For example, the nuclear weapon or its delivery mechanism would mean little in the absence of a living and able decision-maker at each level in a clearly defined chain of succession. Another essential pre-requisite would be a command-and-control system that provides timely and relevant inputs to the decision maker and a communication network that carries the decision down to the man in the field who is to execute the launch, besides providing him accurate targeting coordinates and other supporting logistic elements.

However, most importantly, the will to undertake retaliation must survive. The availability of others would be meaningless in its absence. While mathematical modelling can help calculate the chances of survival of tangible, quantifiable components, nothing can guarantee, or even exactly assess, the survival of political will. For instance, the news of high-level nuclear damage could either send the decision-maker into a state of shock and lead to action paralysis, or it could lead to immense anger and immediate action. Low damage from a nuclear attack could also make the decision-maker more susceptible to external pressures. The nature of the target of the attack could also influence the mental frame of the decision-maker. An isolated nuclear attack on an air base, a surface ship out at sea, or in a remote desert army unit would, in all certainty, affect the decision maker differently from a situation in which the adversary has mounted multiple counterforce attacks coupled with some countervalue ones too. In this context, it becomes extremely important for the political leadership to adequately understand and appreciate the intricacies of nuclear deterrence breakdown. Periodic briefings to those in the command chain are important requirements in this regard.

How to ensure survivability?

Nations make choices on how to ensure survivability based on considerations of their geography, technological capability, political system, and financial resources. While information on the exact modus operandi is mostly classified, some transparency is also important for enhancing deterrence.

An intelligent approach towards survivability would ideally be an optimal mix of measures such as secrecy, deception, dispersion, concealment, mobility, and defences. The determination of how much to conceal and where, or what to make mobile, and how and what to geographically disperse must be based on a cost-benefit analysis that takes the adversary’s and one’sown advantages and limitations into account.

Secrecy

Limiting access to information about the extent and location of nuclear assets by restricting information and hiding the identity of those who know is one of the simpler and low-priced ways to ensure survivability. In fact, this tactic is used to build a level of opacity by keeping  few people ‘in the know’ and by indulging in perception management on matters nuclear.

In the case of India, maintaining secrecy has deep historical and cultural roots. In the caste-based system, monopolising knowledge was the norm. The bureaucratic system developed by the British, as it exists today, also routinely uses secrecy. Most strategic organisations work on a ‘need to know’ principle. While this mode of functioning can hamper the development of a more formal and institutionalised system, it does enhance security. As explained by Ashley Tellis[1], “Since the entire organisational structure places a premium on extreme secrecy… potential adversary has to reckon with the prospect that there could always be some further strategic capabilities or technical resources held in reserve… unknown even to those few individuals otherwise thought to possess ‘perfect’ knowledge about the status and disposition of India’s distributed strategic assets.”

Deception

If secrecy is a passive measure for increasing survivability, deception is an active method to deliberately mislead through the willful communication of false information or by fomenting ambiguity through contradictory statements. For instance, Soviet President Brezhnev contributed to the myth of a ‘missile gap’ in favour of the USSR when he said his country was producing missiles like sausages, even though the reality was different.

Besides verbal misinformation, deception can also be practised by building dummy missiles or launch and storage sites in order to multiply targets and reduce the adversary’s confidence in a first strike that can hit all or even all the correct targets. In fact, this can be an effective and relatively inexpensive way of ensuring survivability, especially for delivery vehicles. China seems to be playing such a shell game of deception with the US by building silos that may or may not be populated by nuclear missiles.

Physical and EMP Hardening

Building customised physical structures with special materials that can withstand nuclear attack is another way of ensuring the survival of critical assets. It entails constructing structures, systems, and components to tolerate exposure to the effects of nuclear detonation, such as air blast, ground shock, electromagnetic pulse (EMP), heat, pressure, and radiation.

Hardened structures, however, are expensive and difficult to build, given the need for special materials and other considerations. In the case of missile silos, it would also involve hardening not only the physical outer structure but also constructing exact spaces for hosting nuclear assets in such a manner that even individual components can withstand violent ground motion. Power supplies, communication, and launch control electronic hardware of the delivery vehicle also need to be protected against thermal effects, ionospheric disruptions, and radiation effects.

Besides nuclear warheads and delivery storage, another component of the nuclear arsenal that requires hardened structures is the Nuclear Command Authority (NCA) and the Nuclear Command Post (NCP), as well as their alternates. The NCA is the decision-making body comprising the Prime Minister and other cabinet ministers tasked with the responsibility of authorising nuclear use. The NCP, meanwhile, is a robust communication centre with the ability to receive information and disseminate it. Gen Sundarji distinguished the two as, “If NCA is the brain, the NCP is the nervous system including the sensory functions.”[2] Obviously, the survival of both is essential for retaliation. In fact, knowledge of the measures taken to ensure survivability of such structures would not only provide confidence to one’s own side but also let the adversaries know that they could not hope to carry out a decapitation strike.[3]

Despite the importance of hardened structures, it must also be recognised that several factors impinge on their efficacy. First, their location has to be carefully considered, keeping the range of the adversary’s missiles/aircraft in mind. Second, the level of hardening would also need to take into account the adversary’s warhead and delivery accuracies. Thirdly, modern intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities that make detection easier and the development of highly accurate missiles that enable accurate counterforce targeting can erode confidence in fixed installations. Therefore, depending only on hardened structures cannot be possible given their cost, complexity, and vulnerabilities, which are likely to increase with incorporation of new technologies.

Mobility

One way of circumventing the vulnerability of nuclear assets in fixed structures is to make them mobile on an elaborate road and rail network. This would complicate the adversary’s ability to constantly monitor and accurately target these forces. This could be made more complex by adding dummies to the actual mobile forces.

However, two technological developments can constrain mobility: first, the ability to reconstitute forces quickly after an attack. If the assets are too widely dispersed, it might prove to be logistically difficult to quickly bring them together for retaliatory launches. This challenge, however, is not insurmountable and can be overcome through detailed pre-planning and the conduct of periodic drills to understand and overcome limitations; the second constraint arises from the need to ensure secure, hardened, and sufficiently redundant communication lines. Their absence or disruption could cripple the retaliatory system by making it difficult for mobile units to link up with one another or the NCA. Therefore, adequate attention must be paid to make these survivable so that the benefits of mobility can be maximised.

In fact, it also needs consideration whether the NCA/NCP should themselves be made mobile, either on an airborne platform or on land transportable vehicles. With the acquisition of an Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) and with aerial refuelling capabilities, India does have the possibility of making the command post airborne in crisis situations. Meanwhile, mobility on land is also offered by India’s extensive rail and now modern road networks. There would be a requirement for specially constructed camouflaged vehicles (whether rail bogies or road carriers). These will also need sufficient reserves of power to run complex data and communication systems, sufficient fuel for adequate movement, and other logistic requirements to ensure independence of movement. Given India’s variegated terrain of mountains, forests, and the expansive Deccan plateau, air, rail, or road mobility could offer options for the survivability of the NCA/NCP. Pre-planning with adequate forethought can offer possibilities of redundancy, thereby ensuring a sanctuary for the national leadership to survive an attack, assess damage, and exercise retaliatory options.

Dispersion

Dispersal of nuclear assets to ensure their survival can be done in two ways: one, these could be geographically distributed over several locations in such a way that no complete strategic systems exist as transparent targets. In fact, that is the state in which the Indian nuclear doctrine mandates the forces normally be maintained to be brought together as “fully employable forces” only in case of a crisis. This proffers the obvious advantage of multiplying targets to complicate adversary calculations. As was explained by Gen Sundarji, “It is not just a question of [finding] ‘needles in haystacks’ but parts of many needles in many haystacks which might be brought together when required within hours to days, to form full needles in yet many more different haystacks”.[4]

Of course, such dispersal poses the challenge of timely and effective reconstitution of the nuclear force during a crisis. It is normally assumed that any crisis between India and Pakistan or India and China would gradually develop over a period of time. Therefore, components of the nuclear force would have to be brought together in a period of ongoing conventional operations. The movement of nuclear assets during such a time would face challenges of their own. It would call for elaborate planning and coordination among different agencies to remain networked to ensure safe passage on every mode of transportation likely to be used.

A second method of dispersion is by spreading the nuclear assets over a range of delivery platforms. Historically, every state with nuclear weapons has used air delivery as the first option because of its ready availability. However, given the restricted range of aircraft and their limited penetration capabilities in a dense air defence environment, missiles – land-based and sea-based – have evolved as the preferred option. While mobility is an important aspect of land-based missiles[5], the highest level of survivability is nevertheless ensured by placing nuclear-tipped missiles with sufficient ranges on nuclear-powered submarines (SSBNs).

Predictably, sea-based deterrence is not without its own set of difficulties. For India, the construction of SSBNs has been particularly challenging given that the country has had to undertake a completely indigenous development of the vessel under technology denials, including dual-use materials and technology. Also, since the country’s nuclear energy programme has been based on the development of pressurised heavy water reactors instead of pressurised water reactors, the technology best suited for nuclear submarines, the country has had to develop a parallel track of technology for the SSBN reactors. Also challenging has been the development of submarine-launched ballistic missiles of adequate ranges. Another critical requirement of sea-based deterrence is the development of secure, constant, and reliable channels of communication with the submarine. Normally, underwater communications are possible through the extremely low frequency (ELF) bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. These, however, have a restricted data-bearing capacity and are slow. Also, their transmitting stations are large, fixed, and difficult to harden, making them vulnerable to a first strike. The US resolved this problem by having an airborne very low frequency (VLF) system coupled with satellite communications or by developing ELF communications. India, too, will have to find its own answers to this problem.

Another challenge to SSBNs is seen from improved anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities. Since SSBNs carry concentrated clusters of strategic capabilities (at least 12-16 multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle [MIRVed] missiles, their loss could be substantive. SSBNs are also most vulnerable when in port since they are difficult to hide. In the case of India, this problem is exacerbated by the non-availability of too many ports that could host the SSBNs, making their targeting by the adversary relatively simple. Also, unlike land-based nuclear capabilities that can be maintained in a distributed form, a sea-based deterrent presupposes complete systems on board at sea.

Despite these challenges, sea-based deterrence still offers enough advantages to be a viable and effective option for enhancing survivability. Indeed, for a peninsular nation like India, the vast seas around it provide large areas where SSBNs could remain hidden with a significant nuclear arsenal for long periods of time to mount retaliation if and when necessary. In fact, the credibility of a counterstrike is ensured once an adversary knows that a fully armed SSBN is out at sea.

Active defences

The deployment of air and missile defences around critical points is another way to ensure survivability. Point or area-specific missile defences can intercept incoming enemy missiles and neutralise them before they hit the target, thus ensuring the survival of what they are meant to protect. However, there can be little guarantee that every incoming missile will be intercepted in time. The financial and technological costs and complexities of building defences are not trivial either. Moreover, simple countermeasures can defeat ballistic missile defence (BMD), and it is relevant to point out that in the Indian case, this is especially important since China, over the last decade, has concentrated on developing effective countermeasures to defeat the far more sophisticated BMD of the USA.

For India, erecting point or area defences over some types of nuclear assets such as early warning systems, air bases for nuclear-capable aircraft, command posts, submarine communication centres, nuclear production facilities, and launch or storage sites in cases where mobility is not enabled is a feasible option. However, the erection of BMD over critical points has the disadvantage of exposing locations to the adversary, thereby subverting the advantage of concealment. This trade-off will have to be carefully considered.

Survivability is achievable through a number of measures. The challenge lies in making the right choices based on relevant parameters. The first set of these must be an assessment of the adversary’s ISR, target acquisition, and strike capabilities. For instance, in order to evade the better human intelligence capabilities of the adversary, it would be necessary to maintain a high level of secrecy regarding information about assets and their locations, capabilities, etc. Compartmentalisation of information within government, armed forces, and even strategic organisations would be necessary, besides elaborate and sophisticated personnel reliability programmes in every establishment and at every level.

On the other hand, a higher adversarial capability of peeping into one’s own territory through technical surveillance would entail greater emphasis on deception and mobility. Or, the capability of the adversary to conduct effective electronic warfare would imply placing greater emphasis on making own communication networks more secure and redundant. Evidently, consistent monitoring of the adversary is necessary to tweak one’s own survivability of nuclear assets for the sake of credible deterrence.

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Notes

[1] Ashley Tellis, India’s Emerging Nuclear Posture: Between Recessed Deterrent and Ready Arsenal (Santa Monica: RAND, 2001), p 422.

[2] Gen K Sundarji, The Blind Men of Hindoostan (New Delhi: UBS Publishers Distribution Ltd, 1993), p. 89.

[3] In the case of the USA, it is well known that the National Military Command Centre (NMCC) is situated under the Pentagon and the Alternate NMCC beneath Raven Rock mountain in Pennsylvania. The US also maintains an airborne command center or the National Emergency Airborne Command Post. In the UK, the Primary Command Centre, codenamed Pindar, is located beneath the MOD building in Whitehall and is connected by underground tunnels to Downing Street. The alternate PCC is an underground complex at Hawthorn near Bath.

[4] Gen Sundarji, “Indian Nuclear Doctrine –I: Notions of Deterrence”, as cited in Ashley Tellis, n. 1, p. 426

[5] Interestingly, the USA, given the luxury provided by its geography and the nature of its threat perceptions, has not built any land-mobile missiles.

[Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Centre for Air Power Studies (CAPS)]

Recommended Readings:

• Ashley Tellis, India’s Emerging Nuclear Posture: Between Recessed Deterrent and Ready Arsenal (Santa Monica: RAND, 2001).
• Gen K Sundarji, The Blind Men of Hindoostan (New Delhi: UBS Publishers Distribution Ltd, 1993).
• Manpreet Sethi, Nuclear Strategy: India’s March towards Credible Deterrence (New Delhi: Knowledge World, 2009).
• Austin Long and Brendan Rittenhouse Green, “Stalking the Secure Second Stike: Intelligence, Counterforce, and Nuclear Strategy”, Journal of Strategic Studies, 38, Nos. 1-2, 2015, pp 38-73.

The post Survivability of Nuclear Arsenal – What? How? appeared first on CAPSS India.

Keywords: nuclear testing, CTBT, Pokhran II, nuclear deterrence.

Based on satellite images taken by Planet Labs, an American Earth imaging company, some recent reports seem to indicate that each of the three countries, Russia, the United States, and China, have built new structures such as roads, storage facilities, and tunnels at their nuclear test sites in the last 3 to 5 years.[1] USA has, in fact, been open that it has added nearly 1000 square feet of underground laboratory space for conducting sub-critical nuclear experiments at its nuclear test complex at U1a, Nevada.[2] Meanwhile, expansions are also evident at Lop Nor, China’s test site in the far western region of Xinjiang, and at Novaya Zemlya, the Russian site in an Arctic Ocean archipelago. While one may not directly infer from these developments that a nuclear test by any of them is imminent, the heightened activity can be interpreted as a form of nuclear signalling at a time when relations between the major nuclear nations are highly stressed. Each maintains a state of preparedness to respond quickly in case any of the other were to conduct a test.

Why would the major nuclear powers need to return to nuclear testing? After all, the USA has conducted 1030 tests, Russia has done 715 tests, and China has conducted as many as 45 nuclear tests, which carried on till the conclusion of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996. In fact, the three countries have not undertaken any tests since then. Russia stopped its testing programme in 1990, USA in 1992, and China in 1996. The three signed the CTBT in 1996. But only Russia ratified it. The USA and China are amongst the eight holdouts, and the treaty looks irretrievable at this point in time.

Nevertheless, an elaborate network of monitoring stations and laboratories spread across 89 nations has been built by the CTBT Organization to verify any activity indicative of explosive testing. Over the last two decades, North Korea is the only country to have conducted six underground explosive nuclear tests between 2006 and 2017. Meanwhile, the P-5 countries are known to conduct sub-critical experiments and advanced computer simulations to refine and maintain their stockpiles.

Evidently, the recent buzz around the need for a fresh round of testing is to communicate a political message. Russia may like to undertake such an action to indicate resolve without having to resort to actual nuclear use. In the case of the USA, President Trump had spoken about nuclear testing as a way of putting pressure on Russia and China to join arms control. During his term, additional money was authorised to reduce the time to execute a nuclear test if necessary.[3] President Putin’s response has predictably been that “… if the United States conducts tests, then we will. No one should have dangerous illusions that global strategic parity can be destroyed.”[4] Meanwhile, today’s China, too, yearns for nuclear parity. So, as things stand, if any of the nuclear weapon states were to break the norm on nuclear testing, others are likely to follow, more for political than purely military reasons.

India’s Nuclear Tests and Related Opinions

In contrast to the motivations for nuclear testing by the major powers, if India ever felt the need to conduct nuclear tests again, it might be more for military reasons. In 1998, India conducted five nuclear tests. According to information in the public domain, these tests included designs of plutonium-based fission weapons with yields of 10 and 20kT and sub-kiloton weapons of 0.2 and 0.6kT. One of the designs was also that of a 45kT thermonuclear device.

In 2009, a debate broke out on whether India’s thermonuclear test had been successful or not. Some scientists from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), which is responsible for building missiles for nuclear delivery, and the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) claimed that the test had failed and that India did not have a credible hydrogen bomb. Doubts were cast on the veracity of the results announced on the thermonuclear yield of the test. Bharat Karnad, a vocal sceptic of India’s thermonuclear capability, too has opined that the “lone low-yield thermonuclear tests of May 1998 was, for all intents and purposes, a dud, an insufficient data base was created for ‘benchmarking’ computer simulations. And that, this in turn meant that Indian scientists cannot reliably correct tested design, modify or refine it, nor change its power-to-yield characteristics, and even less upscale the design for much higher, leave alone megaton yields.”[5]

Having an arsenal with megaton weapons has been deemed essential for the sake of credible nuclear deterrence, especially against China. In recent times, this argument has been especially pressed by Ashley Tellis in his book Striking Asymmetries. Describing the emergence of China as a “daunting strategic danger” for India, he notes that “India’s biggest nuclear deficiency” is the “absence of reliable high-yield weapons in its inventory”.[6] Citing the data put out by India on its 1998 tests and subsequent expressions of views by some scientists, he questions the weapons design base. He argues that India does not have the “cutting-edge sophistication that would be needed for their reliability in real-world conditions”. He, therefore, argues that India may feel the need to do more explosive testing in order to validate advanced nuclear designs. Tellis even recommends to Washington that when India decides to test, it should indirectly help by not applying sanctions or invoking the suspension or termination of the Indo-US nuclear agreement. For him, this would be “the best US contribution toward enhancing geopolitical stability in the wider Asian region at a time when Chinese assertiveness will be increasingly harder to deter”.[7] Tellis obviously espies American interest in a stronger Indian nuclear deterrent.

The above set of views, however, make up only one part of the story. These arguments have been refuted by scientists involved in the conduct of the tests in 1998. Most notably, Dr. R Chidambram has often reiterated that the thermonuclear test did produce the stated yield through the thermonuclear technique. Proof of this has been proffered in the presence of sodium 22 and manganese 54, both by-products of a fusion rather than a pure fission reaction. Meanwhile, three reasons have been given for keeping a low yield of the thermonuclear weapon: one, the geological structure of the testing range; second, the fact that the existing shafts could not be dug any deeper for fear of detection (a task that would have been necessary if a greater yield was to be obtained); and third, the villages close to the test site had to be protected against possible physical damage or venting of radioactivity. The DAE has claimed that the H-bomb established the efficacy of the design concept. In fact, a Press Statement by Dr. Anil Kakodkar and Dr. R. Chidambaram on Pokhran-II tests was specially released on September 24, 2009 which reiterated the conclusion that “Thermonuclear weapons of various yields up to around 200 kt can be confidently designed on the basis of this test.”[8] Elsewhere, Dr. Chidambram has also stated, “In a large complex system like a nuclear weapon, the performance of an integrated test nowadays is the culmination of a large number of precise laboratory tests of subsystems and validation of individual parts of the computer simulation package through benchmark experimental data.”[9]

Given the opposing views on the credibility of India’s thermonuclear tests, a definitive conclusion for a person outside the system is nigh impossible. However, irrespective of who one chooses to believe, the more important issue is evaluating the importance of hydrogen bombs for nuclear deterrence. Should India’s deterrence not be considered credible in the absence of megaton weapons? Do larger yield weapons deter more?

Appeal of Thermonuclear Weapons and the Indian Context

The appeal of thermonuclear weapons primarily lies in the economy of fissile material, their compact size and relative ease of delivery. According to one assessment, a 200kT fission weapon would require about 60kg of plutonium and 4000 to 8000lbs of chemical explosives. But, with the same amount of fissile material, one could make ten thermonuclear weapons, each of the megaton variety and weighing less than 1000 lbs.[10] Therefore, they provide better yield-to-weight ratios and can be more compact. However, besides these technical considerations, there are other political dimensions that need to be considered before reaching any conclusion on whether India’s deterrent is compromised without such weapons and conduct of more testing.

Firstly, doubts raised on the credibility of India’s nuclear deterrence purely on the basis of the difference between fission and fusion or kiloton and megaton weapons tend to overlook the regional reality of high densities of population in today’s megacities. Modern understanding of intelligent targeting based on detonation at optimum heights to cause the desired kind of damage has much improved since 1945. Relatively sparsely populated and built American and Soviet cities may have necessitated thermonuclear weapons to cause unacceptable damage. This is certainly not the case with India’s adversaries.

Let us not forget that the weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were only 15-20kT in yield. Yet, these fission weapons caused 80,000 deaths immediately and 200,000 later in Hiroshima, and 74,000 deaths and 75,000 casualties in Nagasaki, thereby affecting the lives of two-thirds of the city population. Describing the destructive potential of the nuclear weapons, McNamara wrote, “They indiscriminately blast, burn, and irradiate with a speed and finality that are almost incomprehensible.”[11] It is not surprising that they scarred the human mind enough not to merit a repeat performance. According to one study, the potential fatalities from a single 15kT detonation on the highest-density city of China would be 7,60,000 people with an air burst, 5,92,000 in case of the second highest density city, and 4,50,000 fatalities with ground burst blast and fire.[12]

If these figures look like acceptable damage, more lethality can be added by making the missiles more accurate. As explained by a strategist, “Increasing the warhead explosive yield and decreasing the miss distance both improve the lethality of a warhead.”[13] “Making a weapon twice as accurate has the same effect on lethality as making the warhead eight times as powerful… making the missile twice as precise would only require one-eighth the explosive power to maintain the same lethality. Hence, miniaturisation of warheads and precision of delivery has been the course of US nuclear weapons development.”[14] While this is not easy, repeated testing of missiles for accuracy is more feasible than nuclear warheads testing.

Secondly, it is also a scientifically established fact that a number of strategically dispersed fission weapons can cause higher damage. Multiple warheads mounted on missiles that are capable of carrying multiple independently retargetable vehicles (MIRVed), a capability that India has shown, offer a way of multiplying damage with kiloton weapons.It is also believed that nuclear weapons around 150-200kT would be far more effective than megaton sizes, which would only make the nuclear rubble bounce. Also to be noted is the trend that nations are moving towards lower yields as part of their idea of being able to fight ‘limited nuclear wars’.

Thirdly, over the years, advances in real-time computational power, algorithmic sophistication, and data analysis have aided weapons’ improvements. Further, given India’s three decades of experience in fusion and plasma physics, it is unlikely that an adversary could risk taking its thermonuclear weapons capability lightly.

What if India Were to Test Again?

At the end of its round of nuclear testing in 1998, India offered a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing. This was reiterated in 2008 in the context of the conclusion of the Indo-US nuclear agreement. Apart from these voluntary commitments India would not be violating any agreement if it were to decide to undertake fresh round of hot testing. So, legally, it would be within its rights to test.

However, it would be breaching a norm of non-testing that has been in place since 1996. Expectedly, there will be a diplomatic fallout from the action. Of course, if the US, Russia, or China were to reopen the trend of nuclear testing and India were to follow their example, the situation would be completely different compared to if New Delhi were to suddenly take such a call of its own. In the latter case, the Indian action would impact its many strategic partnerships with nations across the world. Economic sanctions and diplomatic backlash are certain, and there is a high possibility that Pakistan will follow suit. Pakistan currently has untested tactical nuclear weapons and would welcome the opportunity to establish their reliability with some more testing. Besides, it may also like to demonstrate its thermonuclear capability, especially since many members of the Pakistani strategic community have rued the fact that they need an arsenal big enough to be able to effectively deter a geographically expansive and materially more secure India.

Finally, it may be said that the question of whether India needs more nuclear tests for credible deterrence is a complex one. While additional tests could bring technical benefits, they would also carry significant diplomatic and geopolitical costs. Meanwhile, alternative means of achieving credible deterrence exist. Given the circumstances, while more tests may be desirable if international circumstances make them possible, they are not essential for the credibility of nuclear deterrence. This rests on a number of other factors besides the yield of the nuclear weapon.

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Notes

[1] Jeffrey Lewis, “Nuclear Test Sites are too Damn Busy”, Arms Control Wonk, September 23, 2023. https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1218750/nuclear-test-sites-are-too-damn-busy/. Accessed on October 23, 2023.

[2] For more on U1a complex, Nevada National Security Sites, https://nnss.gov/mission/stockpile-stewardship-program/u1a-complex/. Accessed on September 23, 2023.

[3] Eryn Macdonald, “Is the United States Planning to Resume Nuclear Testing?”, The Equation, Union Of Concerned Scientists, Jul 1, 2020. https://blog.ucsusa.org/emacdonald/is-the-united-states-planning-to-resume-nuclear-testing/. Accessed on September 23, 2023.

[4] Guy Faulconbridge, “Russia’s Putin Issues New Nuclear Warnings to West over Ukraine”,  Feb 22, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/putin-update-russias-elite-ukraine-war-major-speech-2023-02-21/.

[5] Bharat Karnad, Nuclear Weapons and Indian Security: The Realist Foundations of Strategy (New Delhi: Macmillan, 2005), p. 416.

[6] Ashley J. Tellis, Striking Asymmetries: Nuclear Transiitons in Southern Asia, (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: 2022).

[7] Ibid.

[8] Department of Atomic Energy, “Press Statement by Dr Anil Kakodkar and Dr R Chidambram on Pokhran II Tests”, Press Information Bureau, September 24, 2009.

[9] Chidambram, “The May 1998 Tests”, p. 19 as cited in Karnad, n. 5, p. 416.

[10] Karnad, n 5, p. 628

[11] Ibid.

[12] O. B. Toon, et al, “Atmospheric effects and societal consequences of regional scale nuclear conflicts and acts of individual nuclear terrorism”, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions, April 19, 2007 https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-7-1973-2007. Accessed on October 1, 2023.

[13] Robert C. Aldridge, First Strike: The Pentagon’s Strategy for Nuclear War (London: Pluto Press, 1983), p. 62.

[14] Ibid, p. 62.

[Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Centre for Air Power Studies (CAPS)]

Recommended Readings:

• Bharat Karnad, Nuclear Weapons and Indian Security: The Realists Foundations of Strategy (Delhi: Macmillan, 2005).
• Ashley Tellis, Striking Asymmetries: Nuclear Transitions in Southern Asia (Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2022).
• Michael Frankel, James Scouras and George Ullrich, “The Uncertain Consequences of Nuclear Weapons Use”, National Security Report , John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, 2015.

The post Is More Nuclear Testing a Deterrence Necessity? appeared first on CAPSS India.

Keywords: nuclear war, nuclear strategy, limited nuclear war, nuclear posture review

While nuclear weapons are designated as weapons of mass destruction, every now and then, the idea surfaces that the weapons can be custom-made and used in such a way as to restrict damage to limited levels. While there is no accepted definition of ‘limited nuclear war,’ it can be described as one in which a limited number of nuclear warheads with relatively smaller yields are employed to attack a limited military targets to impact a limited geographical space for limited objectives. Its purpose would be to signal deterrence by showing that levels of nuclear violence or the scope of nuclear use can be restricted by choosing military targets instead of cities, thereby making nuclear use more credible and even legally defensible. But can this be a workable proposition?

Origins of the Concept of Limited Nuclear War

The idea of limited nuclear war emerged to address the perceived limitations of deterrence premised on mutual assured destruction (MAD). As the increase in nuclear warhead numbers in the US and USSR established a balance of terror, it led to the view that attacks on cities would make nuclear war an unlimited war. This was seen as degrading one’s deterrence by making nuclear strikes less credible against smaller or less than existential provocations.

So, in an ostensible attempt to make the use of nuclear weapons more rationally feasible, analysts like Herman Kahn and Albert Wohlstetter in the 1960s and 1970s argued in favour of flexible nuclear use to conduct limited nuclear war. They contended that deterrence could be better signalled if a more effective use of nuclear weapons against military targets was made possible. Such thinking was both enabled by and also led to technological advances in the miniaturisation of nuclear warheads and the growing precision and accuracy of missiles that offered counterforce targeting options to conduct a ‘discriminate’ nuclear war. MAD was replaced by these ideas of nuclear utilisation target selection, or NUTS.

The idea of limited nuclear use was presented as taking the war back to the battlefield. US Secretary of Defence Harold Brown, in the Annual Report of the Department of Defence to the Congress in 1981, said, “large-scale countervalue attacks may not be appropriate to deter the full range of potential Soviet threats… instead we could attack in a selective and measured way, a range of military, industrial, and political control targets, while retaining an assured destruction capacity in reserve.”[1] It was also argued that a policy of attacking military targets that minimises unintended civilian fatalities would offer incentives for an adversary to reciprocate under similar restraints by attacking military targets, thereby reducing the chances of mass homicide on both sides. The purpose would be to showcase the destruction potential of nuclear weapons to shock and scare the adversary into agreeing to the termination of hostilities on one’s terms, but not unleash the complete fury of strategic use.

These ideas drove US strategy for many decades and even led to capabilities that offered flexible option to the US President. Simultaneously through, these was a pushback by the likes of Bernard Brodie, Robert Jervis, and many others during the same period, which contributed to much churning in nuclear discourse. The idea of nuclear war received a quiet burial once Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev pronounced the uselessness of nuclear war in 1987 and given the subsequent change in political relations with the end of the Cold War.

Return of the Prodigal          

After remaining dormant for about 15 years thereafter, the idea of limited nuclear war to “handle regional conflicts with small nuclear armed powers” [2] again sprung to life in the second half of the 2010s. Such an eventuality was particularly envisaged in the context of “a rogue state” that might not be deterred by thousands of American nuclear warheads and choose to cross the nuclear threshold even in a small, limited conventional conflict. To deter such eventualities, the US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) 2018 announced, “Expanding flexible U.S. nuclear options now, to include low-yield options, is important for the preservation of credible deterrence against regional aggression.”[3] The NPR also found merit in threatening the limited use of nuclear weapons to deter possible disruptive activities by Russia and China. Russia’s ambiguity on the use of low-yield nuclear weapons in response to aggression with non-nuclear weapons, widely referred to as ‘escalate to de-escalate,’[4] was cited as the reason for Washington’s search for a “range of limited and graduated options, including a variety of delivery systems and explosive yields.”[5] The US accuses Russia and China of having “introduced limited war techniques…. For Russia, ‘jab and grab’ land incursions; for China, the creeping militarization of maritime zones. Both techniques operate below the threshold of deterrence by punishment and seek to create territorial faits accompli that lower the costs of revisionism.”[6]

The latest US NPR of 2022 has retained the role of nuclear weapons to deter limited nuclear attacks with tailored deterrence. In order to make the threat of limited use look credible, a small number of existing SLBM warheads have been modified to provide a low-yield option so as to have a diverse set of capabilities “for responding to nuclear or non-nuclear strategic attack; and enhance deterrence by signalling to potential adversaries that their limited nuclear escalation offers no exploitable advantage…”[7] All of this is being justified as being technologically feasible, causing less of a humanitarian disaster, and hence being more legally defensible. But is that true? Can a limited nuclear war be credibly fought and won between two nuclear armed states?

Fighting a Limited Nuclear War

Nuclear war-fighting envisages operations in a logical and controlled manner with the idea of escalation dominance and cool control during a pre-conceived limited counterforce attack. But, wargame after wargame has shown the difficulties in containing nuclear wars that started with calibrated use to run along pre-determined pathways. There are two sets of challenges that can be identified in the case of a limited nuclear war.

Operational Military Challenges

The first of these arises from the uncertainty about the adversary’s willingness to play the game of limited nuclear war. In his 1981 book, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, Lawrence Freedman stated, “It takes two to keep a war limited.”[8] It can never be taken for granted that the adversary will read the signal of limited nuclear use as intended and respond likewise. In fact, the adversary might completely misread the intention, as can be seen in this statement by a Soviet Major General, “the assertion made by supporters of ‘limited’ nuclear war that it could be kept within pre-planned limits and made ‘controllable’ is altogether false.”[9] The Soviets interpreted the American building of counterforce capabilities as a move towards a credible first strike.

Indeed, the adversary can never know or be sure that the intent is to keep the nuclear use limited and that the first volley will not be followed by more, especially since the first user would also be signalling readiness for more attacks to deter the adversary’s retaliation. If the adversary chooses a more elaborate response than had been envisioned by the first user, could this then remain a limited exchange?

In fact, the probability of being able to undertake limited nuclear attacks with no or only limited blowback amounts to wishful thinking. Analytical studies on how to conduct limited nuclear wars can only make educated guesses on matters of critical planning. For instance, such a planner may be able to reasonably determine the physical effects of nuclear explosions based on the yield of weapons, the height at which they would burst, the amount of warning time the adversary may have, the time of the attack, etc. But, whether such calculations can completely factor in more complicated issues, such as the overall impact of the attack on the national psyche, or other immeasurable imponderables, such as “popular panic and administrative disorganisation,” can never be ascertained. That a planned limited nuclear use will remain within expected parameters is virtually impossible to determine, and it would be foolish to base one’s use of nuclear weapons on such an unknown.

A second practical difficulty in keeping the war limited can be seen in the context of the first user himself. Since the basic premise of limited nuclear war is to hit the adversary’s military targets in the hope that he would respond likewise, could result in “battles of great confusion”. Even if the casualties in these cases might be low, there is every chance that the troops would be left isolated, leaderless, with no or contaminated food and water supplies, even fighting equipment and spare parts, and with a low morale.

Political Challenges

The most serious danger that lurks in making the case that limited nuclear wars are fightable, containable, and even winnable is a heightened temptation to use nuclear weapons. It could lead to the belief that worthwhile military or political objectives are achievable through managed nuclear use. But, as stated earlier, there can be no guarantee that a nuclear exchange between two nuclear weapon states will remain limited. It may. But then it may not, and that might prove to be a risk that is too risky. In fact, a perception that the adversary is indicating greater nuclear swagger by getting away with ‘limited’ nuclear use could generate a greater sense of vulnerability and raise the incentives for pre-emption. This would make a nuclear exchange more likely, not less likely. Therefore, the deterrence effects of showcasing limited nuclear use need to be evaluated with care.

In fact, besides increasing the chances of deterrence breakdown, the pursuit of nuclear war-fighting capabilities (even if ostensibly for the purpose of deterrence) through the greater accuracy of nuclear-tipped missiles, elaborate intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance infrastructure, and damage limitation defences would also be a financially exhausting exercise.

A third consequential challenge comes from the harm that limited nuclear war would cause to the taboo against the use of nuclear weapons. The conduct of nuclear use in which the first user is able to show a successful ability to keep nuclear war limited could set a precedent that others could be tempted to follow. It would ‘conventionalise’ the use of nuclear weapons and make it appear normal to use small nuclear weapons in ‘limited’ ways. If this were to happen against non-nuclear weapon states, such as Russian nuclear use against Ukraine or Chinese nuclear use against Taiwan, it could spur proliferation. Non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS) would face a renewed sense of insecurity. In such a scenario, one can expect them to want to acquire nuclear capabilities of their own. Meanwhile, a ‘successful’ nuclear exchange between two nuclear-armed states could open another pandora’s box.

Another related danger would be the higher possibility of nuclear terrorism by non-state actors. The availability of nuclear weapons and related material and infrastructure in more states could not only raise risks of nuclear security but also raise the chances that terrorists, too, might feel liberated from the taboo against the use of nuclear weapons. If states can find the limited use of nuclear weapons useful, so can non-state actors. Therefore, a limited nuclear exchange is likely to bring about a sense of complacency in nuclear use that could not be conducive for international security.

Evaluating India’s Choices

India has a nuclear strategy based on deterrence by punishment. It does not believe that nuclear war-fighting can be contained with any certainty and, therefore, has refused to go down that path. It deters all kinds of purported uses of nuclear weapons, irrespective of how the adversary describes them, with its own ability to cause unacceptable damage through massive retaliation.

Does this make for an unlawful or immoral strategy? As far as legalities are concerned, it may be recalled that the Advisory Opinion rendered by the International Court of Justice in 1996 in response to whether the use of nuclear weapons can be lawful was unable to take a clear stand on this and had left it to the nations to make the judgement on whether they needed to use these weapons for self-defence. On the second issue of morality, while massive retaliation may conflict with the principles of distinction (of combatants and non-combatants), proportionality, or controllability of international humanitarian law, its articulation in India’s doctrine is premised on creating the maximum chance of non-use of the weapon. This, in fact, is buttressed by two other doctrinal attributes: maintaining a narrow role for nuclear weapons solely to nuclear deterrence and accepting ‘no first-use’ (NFU).

It is the fear of massive damage that is likely to be found more unacceptable by an adversary than the idea that ‘small’ nuclear wars can be tolerated. The latter, in fact, would likely enhance the chances of use. While the first use of the weapon might be carefully calibrated to cause minimal collateral damage, there can be no guarantee that the recipient of such an attack would follow along similar lines. Therefore, even a small use could eventually breach legal and moral constraints.

The world today is grappling with many nuclear risks. These range from stressed inter-state relations to unbridled nuclear modernisations and expansions, the deployment of dual-use delivery systems and nuclear entanglement, and eroding faith in taboos. It would be disastrous if the idea of limited nuclear war as a feasible proposition were to be added to this list. The more nations move towards the idea of being able to contain a small nuclear war, the closer we will move towards routinising their use. Eventually, when a small nuclear use turns into a big one or or a limited use into a little less limited one, would be anybody’s guess.

India should seize this moment to reinforce faith in its own nuclear convictions and remind others that nuclear weapons are not ordinary or even a ‘little more’ than ordinary weapons. These are extraordinary weapons of mass destruction. Deterrence is their main purpose, and that comes best with the ability to cause unacceptable damage. Making that damage acceptable by meting it out in controlled quantities, whether as a first or second user, is a dangerous and foolish idea that is more likely to cause deterrence breakdown.

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Notes

[1]  As cited in Louis Rene Beres, “Tilting towards Thanatos: America’s ‘Countervailing’ Nuclear Strategy” in Klaus Knorr, ed., Power, Strategy and Security (New Delhi: Asian Books, 1987), p. 83.

[2]  Jeffrey A Larsen, “Limited War and the Advent of Nuclear Weapons”, in Jeffrey A Larsen and Kerry M Kartchner ed., On Limited Nuclear War in the 21^st Century (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 2014).

[3] Office of the Secretary of Defence, Nuclear Posture Review, Feb 2018. Retrieved from https://media.defense.gov/2018/Feb/02/2001872886/-1/-1/1/2018-NUCLEARPOSTURE-REVIEW-FINAL-REPORT.PDF, pp. 17-18

[4]  There is much confusion about whether Russia has ever claimed this as its nuclear strategy. For an insight into this debate see Olga Oliker and Andrey Baklitsky, “The Nuclear Posture Review and Russia De-escalation: A Dangerous Solution to a Non-existent Problem”, War on the Rocks, Feb 20, 2018. Available at https://warontherocks.com/2018/02/nuclear-posture-review-russian-de-escalation-dangerous-solution-nonexistent-problem/

[5]  NPR, n. 3, p. 30-31

[6]  A Wess Mitchell, “The Case for Deterrence by Denial”, The American Interest, Aug 12, 2015. Available at https://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/08/12/the-case-for-deterrence-by-denial/.

[7]  Office of the US Secretary of Defence, Nuclear Posture Review, October 2022.

[8]  Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, Third edition, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), p. 104.

[9]  As cited in Klaus Knorr, (ed.), Power, Strategy and Security, (New Delhi: Asian Books, 1987), p. 85.

[Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Centre for Air Power Studies (CAPS)]

Recommended Readings:

• Bernard Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age (RAND: Santa Monica, California, 1959)
• Herman Kahn, On Escalation: Metaphors and Scenarios (Praeger: New York, 1965)
• Robert Jervis, The Illogic of Nuclear Strategy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984)
• Scott D. Sagan, Moving Targets: Nuclear Strategy and National Security(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989)
• Walter Slocombe, “The Countervailing Strategy”, International Security, vol. 5, no. 4, Spring 1981

The post Dissecting the Idea of ‘Limited’ Nuclear War appeared first on CAPSS India.

Keywords: Ballistic missile defence, nuclear deterrence, DRDO, no first use

Oppenheimer, the movie, has drawn widespread public attention to nuclear issues. This is a timely release since the memory of the death and destruction that rained down on Hiroshima and Nagasaki with just one atomic bomb each has been fading. The movie tells the story of the American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who led the team that built the first atomic bomb. It has triggered conversations about the effects of these weapons. It would, hopefully, rein in the causal references to nuclear weapons and encourage measures to prevent deterrence breakdown.

Once earlier, a movie had prompted a leader to relook at his country’s nuclear strategy. In October 1983, after watching The Day After, an American television film, the then US President Ronald Reagan noted that it was “very effective and left me greatly depressed.” Determined to protect his country against such fate, Reagan doubled down on his idea of building an elaborate missile defence that he had proposed earlier the same year as a “means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.”[1] The movie strengthened his faith in ballistic missile defence (BMD).

This was to mark the start of the end of the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) treaty, a bilateral agreement that the USA and USSR had concluded in 1972. This instrument had emerged from the offence–defence spiral that raged between the two superpowers during the 1950s-60s. With the maturing of technology for multiple independently retargetable vehicles (MIRV), where one missile could carry several warheads, the balance skewed in favour of offence, making defences difficult and expensive. Consequently, both sides saw prudence in accepting nuclear deterrence based on mutual vulnerability rather than building defences whose efficacy, even in theory, seemed doubtful.[2]

Thus, the ABM treaty was born. It limited the deployment of BMD to only one site each in the USA and USSR, leaving the rest of the country vulnerable to each other’s nuclear attacks. The treaty underscored that nuclear deterrence best functions on the ability to cause unacceptable damage, which in the case of the superpowers meant mutual assured destruction. It was agreed that defences destabilise deterrence by causing insecurities, forcing the adversary towards increasing offensive systems to saturate defence, countermeasures to defeat defence, and provoking counter-countermeasures to enhance defence.

While limiting BMD deployments, the ABM treaty, however, did not prohibit research and development (R&D) on missile defence technologies. With the end of the Cold War, as US threat perceptions changed to the need to defend against limited ballistic missile attacks from states with small missile inventories, advances in BMD technologies offered a viable solution. This encouraged the Clinton administration to legislate the National Missile Defense Act in 1999, which committed the US to “deploy as soon as is technologically possible an effective NMD system capable of defending the territory of the US against limited ballistic missile attack (whether accidental, unauthorized or deliberate)”.[3]

Moving ahead, President George W Bush Jr., in a speech at the National Defense University (NDU) on May 1, 2001, announced that “deterrence can no longer be based solely on the threat of nuclear retaliation”[4] because the world had become “a less certain, a less predictable one”. So, missile defence was included as a major plank of the US national security strategy. On December 13, 2001, Washington gave Moscow formal notice of its withdrawal from the ABM treaty, and six months later, in mid-June 2002, the US abandoned the treaty. Thereafter, the USA has been actively engaged in developing and deploying theatre missile defences for the protection of allies and a limited ground-based missile defence capability for the protection of the mainland. It has often been repeated that US’ BMD is meant to defend against the small arsenals of ‘rogue’ states and not to disrupt Russian or Chinese nuclear deterrence.

American statements notwithstanding, its BMD efforts have, not unexpectedly, evoked concerns in Russia and China about the erosion of the credibility of their nuclear deterrence, especially as technology advances. They fear that the confidence provided by a missile defence, coupled with the availability of highly accurate counterforce missiles, could embolden the USA to undertake a first strike. To avert such a possibility, both have engaged in building countermeasures, as well as their own missile defences. The deployment of MIRVed and manoeuvrable re-entry vehicle (MaRVed) missiles, hypersonic delivery systems, cruise missiles, and autonomous systems are all responses to BMD. More recently, Russia’s Poseidon underwater autonomous nuclear delivery system is an example of President Putin’s attempt to build an “invincible arsenal”.[5] China’s fractional orbital bombardment system (FOBS), tested for the first time in 2021, falls into the same category.[6]

Meanwhile, even after spending hundreds of billions of dollars on its BMD capabilities, Washington cannot claim absolute confidence in its missile defence, especially as countermeasures have improved. The BMD has created security dilemmas by pushing adversaries towards capabilities that could saturate or defeat the BMD. Is BMD then a useful capability? Should India be moving in this direction?

BMD Efforts in India

India’s BMD effort came into public view when the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) conducted an exo-atmospheric test 50 km above the earth on November 27, 2006. This involved the interception of a Prithvi ballistic missile by another modified Prithvi interceptor missile. On December 6, 2007, India fired a hypersonic interceptor missile that destroyed an incoming missile in a direct hit over the Bay of Bengal. This endo-atmospheric interception took place at an altitude of 15 km and reportedly used the Green Pine radar purchased from Israel for tracking and cueing. In March 2009, a third interception was carried out of a Dhanush missile (naval version of Prithvi) fired from a ship and intercepted by Prithvi Air Defence (PAD) at a height of 70-80 km. Then, in July 2010, yet another modified Prithvi simulated the enemy missile and was shot down by a supersonic interceptor missile from Advanced Air Defence (AAD) at an altitude of 15 km. Thereafter, in 2012, the first phase of a two-tier BMD, capable of intercepting missiles up to a range of 2000 km in the exo- and endo-atmospheres was announced as ready for deployment to protect “vital” Indian assets. DRDO also claimed that this system was better than the American Patriot system in “interception, range and altitude”.[7]

The second phase of the programme has been undergoing testing since 2017 to build the capability to engage missiles of a range up to 5000 km. On November 2, 2022, India announced the successful flight test of this phase using the AD-1, an interceptor missile designed for low exo-atmospheric and endo-atmospheric interception of long-range ballistic missiles as well as aircraft.

India’s advances in BMD are no mean feat, given that it has built indigenous capability in the face of technology denial. There have also been spin-off benefits for space capabilities, such as anti-satellite testing. But can a BMD be effective against the kinds of missiles, in quantity and quality, that India’s adversaries possess? What kind of BMD would India need? How should the capability be deployed? How should this be communicated to the adversaries to avoid creating security dilemmas? The following sections examine the nature of India’s missile threat environment and the likely best use of the BMD to mitigate these threats effectively.

Nature of India’s Missile Threat

For the USA, the BMD offered a solution to the threat from a handful of missiles from states of proliferation concern whose missile arsenals were expected to be in low, two-digit numbers and of modest capability without any sophisticated countermeasures.

The profile of India’s missile threat, in comparison, is far more complex. Both China and Pakistan have robust missile arsenals of substantive quality and quantity. In fact, both countries have spent the last decade enhancing their missile capabilities in terms of numbers, range, accuracy, reliability, and penetrability. The focus in both has been to move from liquid to solid propulsion technologies to enhance missile mobility. China has also worked on equipping them with countermeasures and making them MIRVed as well as MaRVed in view of its threat perception from the US BMD. Pakistan, too, has tested the MIRVed capability on the Ababeel missile and has indicated an intention to MarRV. China has, in the past, had no compunctions about transferring its nuclear weaponry, designs, and missile technology[8] to Pakistan for strategic gains, and the same applies to the transfer of BMD countermeasures, too, as was evident in China supplying Pakistan with the multiple object tracking radar to assist its MIRVed capability.[9] Both countries have also deployed a growing number of dual-use cruise missiles. Also evident in both nations is a focus on training with mobile missile units, many of which are claimed to possess both conventional and nuclear-capable missiles. China has also progressed on its own BMD.[10]

In view of such a challenging missile threat environment, an Indian BMD will have to be of high sophistication to offer even a modicum of effectiveness. This would warrant liberal spending on the development of a widespread network of early warning systems, the deployment of requisite numbers of interceptors, dedicated cruise missile defences, as well as dogged R&D to move towards boost phase interception given the need to intercept as far away from its own territory as possible. The table below provides a snapshot of some of the capability requirements of an Indian BMD in keeping with the missile threat environment.

Missile Capability Assessment and Implications for BMD.

So, how best can India use a BMD?

It is clear from the above that the technical capabilities of a BMD that can sufficiently defend India are going to be of a high order. Higher, in fact, than what the US had envisaged with its own threat perception. The costs of the system, accordingly, will be significant too.

Therefore, it is critical to have absolute clarity on the role that BMD should play in supporting India’s nuclear strategy. What should it aim to achieve – national missile defence; theatre defence? or point/area defence? Where should BMD be deployed? What kinds of national assets should it defend? What should be the declaratory position on this? These are important issues not just for the assurance of the public in a democracy but also for signalling the nature of the build-up to the adversary so as to shape his responses.

The guide for India’s BMD development and deployment should be its No First Use strategy. Given that India deters by suggesting assured retaliation to cause unacceptable damage, the BMD can best be used to protect retaliatory capabilities to ensure the imposition of such damage. Common sense suggests that BMD should protect the Nuclear Command Authority, the national capital, and the nuclear storage sites, delivery vectors, and communication nodes. Since no amount of BMD can guarantee a hundred per cent success in the interception of every incoming missile into every city, and since India cannot afford astrodome protection of its entire landmass, the effort should be restricted to the protection of assets most needed for credible deterrence. Such a BMD could be for limited, area-specific deployment to provide insurance against pre-meditated, mistaken, or unauthorised launches. It would complement other efforts towards arsenal survivability, such as dispersion, deception, hardening, etc.

India should be clear-eyed about the pros and cons of BMD. Technological advances invoke euphoria. But the right kind of technology build-up based on a considered assessment of threats and requirements is imperative. So is prudent political signalling that explains the limit of the enterprise so as not to get an alarmed adversary to create future security dilemmas. In fact, it might be worthwhile to examine the possibilities of ABM agreements.

Tempering the Lure of the BMD

Undoubtedly, the political and technological lure of the BMD is high. After all, which political leader would not want to assure his populace that he is taking steps to ensure their protection? It sounds politically incorrect and illogical to suggest otherwise. Also, scientists and technologists relish complex challenges. But there are political and financial implications of this exercise. And realistically speaking, there are no guarantees of its robustness!

Given the above, would it not be meaningful to explore a multilateral ABM treaty among all nuclear-armed states? Today’s vexed political relations between major nuclear powers and the conundrum of the extant strategic chains do not support the possibility of bilateral ABM agreements. But BMD could prove to be an issue to bring together the five NWS, alongside India and Pakistan. In fact, an ABM agreement that ropes in all the seven countries can not only be a useful confidence-building measure but also an example of modern arms control in the contemporary multipolar nuclear reality.

Such an ABM treaty could allow all nations to deploy BMD systems on one or two sites of their choice with a fixed number of interceptors. This would help them retain confidence in the survival of their retaliatory assets to cause unacceptable damage to an otherwise vulnerable adversary. Such reassurance could enhance deterrence and reduce the momentum of an offence-defence spiral. Most importantly, it would provide an opportunity for the nuclear-armed states to come together to discuss a win-win solution since BMDs are not fool-proof umbrellas, especially with the newer kinds of missiles on the anvil.

A change in political relations with the building of confidence over a limited, transparent, and, if possible, verifiable BMD would be a better guarantee of defence than a BMD that promises to put locks on the front door of the house but leaves windows open. The idea of a multilateral ABM treaty or agreement could certainly use more exploration.

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Notes

[Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Centre for Air Power Studies (CAPS)]

[1] “President Reagan’s Ambitious Star Wars Defence Plan”, Groovy History, https://groovyhistory.com/president-reagans-ambitious-star-wars-defense-plan/2. Accessed on 19 Jul 2023.

[2] Keith B Payne, “The Case for National Missile Defense.” Orbis, Vol 44, no. 2, March 2000, pp. 187–96. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0030-4387(00)00020-x.

[3] ”Missile Defence and the ABM Treaty: A Status Report”, SIPRI Fact Sheet, June 2001. https://sipri.org/sites/default/files/files/FS/SIPRIFS0106.pdf. Accessed on Jul 23, 2023

[4] “Remarks by the President at National Defense University”, The White House, May 1, 2001, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/05/20010501-10.html. Accessed on

[5] HI Sutton, “Russia’s New ‘Poseidon’ Super-Weapon: What you Need to Know”, Naval News, March 3, 2022, https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2022/03/russias-new-poseidon-super-weapon-what-you-need-to-know/. Accessed on  Jul 12, 2023.

[6] Demetri Sevastopulo & Kathrin Hille, “China Tests New Space Capability with Hypersonic Missile”, Financial Times, October 17, 2021.

[7] G Bharath and Harsh V Pant, “A Step Closer to Missile Defence”, Tribune, December 23, 2007.

[8] WikiLeaks cables amply document this by showing the several occasions on which the US raised the matter of Chinese firms providing Pakistan’s Heavy Mechanical Complex and National Development Complex, both involved in making of missiles, with ring rolling machines, flow forming machines for missile airframes as well as fibre coil winning machines and integrated optical chips.

Pranab Dhal Samanta, “Wiki: China helping Pak Upgrade its Missiles”, Indian Express, September 12, 2011.

[9] “Pakistan Gets Tracking System from China that could Speed up multi-warhead Missile Program”, The Hindustan Times, March 20, 2018.

[10] Manoj Joshi, “Decoding China’s BMD and ASAT Systems Efforts”, ORF Expert Speak, April 6, 2019, https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/chinas-bmd-asat-progress-49578/. Accessed on Jul 24, 2023.

Recommended Readings 

• Ernest J Yanarella, The Missile Defence Controversy: Technology in Search of a Mission (New Delhi: Knowledge World, 2011)
• Happymon Jacob, “Consider a Trilateral Asian ABM Treaty”, in Michael Krepon et al eds., Off Ramps from Confrontation in Southern Asia (Washington DC: Stimson Centre, 2019)
• Jerome Grossman, “The Politics of Star Wars: The Reagan Legacy and the Strategic Defence Initiative” The Notre Dame School Journal of Legislation, Available at: https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/jleg/vol15/iss2/4
• National Research Council of the National Academies, Making Sense of Ballistic Missile Defence, Consensus Study Report, 2012
• Manpreet Sethi, “Nuclear Strategies in the Age of Missile Defences”, Air Power Journal, vol.2, no.3, Jul-Sep 2005, pp. 159-184.

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