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| India-Pakistan |
| Unconditionally Bad |
| 2006-06-26 |
| The Indian nuclear deal trades away our credibility on North Korea and Iran. By Henry Sokolski In a desperate attempt to get Congress to approve the U.S.-India nuclear deal free of any modifications, the State Department and the deal’s backers have been forced to defy the laws of physics, known geology, and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Their latest claim, made just before Congress prepares to mark up legislation to implement the deal this week, is that U.S. exports of uranium will not help India make more bombs in any way. This is a knee slapper. India currently produces 300 tons of uranium annually—just enough to run its current fleet of heavy-water power reactors. The additional 150 tons it needs annually to fuel its military facilities is being drawn from a pre-existing stockpile that’s due to peter out in the next 12 months. That’s why India’s own nuclear hawks (and recently a former top Indian intelligence official) are so supportive of the nuclear deal. As they have observed, if India gets access to foreign uranium (as the U.S. nuclear deal provides), it will not only allow India to expand its civilian power program, but will also free up most of India’s domestic uranium to build more bombs. Pakistan has already responded by announcing plans to ramp up its military nuclear production. Why are the deal’s backers so intent on denying this? Simple: They have to. Otherwise, the deal would be seen as violating the NPT’s central provision, laid out in Article I, which prohibits states like the U.S. from in any way (“directly or indirectly”) assisting the nuclear-weapons efforts of countries, such as India, that did not have nuclear weapons prior to the treaty’s completion. The deal’s backers sold the agreement on the grounds that it will be a clear net plus for nuclear nonproliferation. This is difficult to maintain if the deal violates the NPT’s central prohibition. How do they, then, go about denying this? They contend that India has such a large reserve of uranium—over 78,000 tons—that it already has all it needs to run its civilian nuclear program and to make thousands more nuclear weapons without any foreign uranium imports. This sounds persuasive until you realize that the uranium reserves they are talking about are not in some neat pile above ground and ready for use, but locked instead in very low concentrations well beneath the earth’s surface in strata that have yet to be mined and milled to produce usable yellowcake. Indian uranium is notorious for its poor quality. India has had great difficulty in expanding its uranium production beyond its miserly 300 tons mined and milled per year, largely because its uranium mines are so uneconomical and their possible expansion has drawn fierce environmental protests. It costs India approximately five times as much to mine and mill its domestic ore as it does simply to buy uranium on the international spot market. What’s blocking India from importing foreign ore? The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), of which the U.S. is a member. This control cartel prohibits nuclear suppliers from selling uranium to any nation that did not have nuclear weapons prior to 1967 unless it opens all of its nuclear facilities to international inspections—something India refuses to do. That’s why India is so keen on the U.S.-India nuclear deal: It obligates the U.S. to get the NSG to make an exception for India to allow it access to foreign uranium and other controlled nuclear goods. This isn’t a point the deal’s backers dwell much on. They hope their audience will buy their pitch, which conflates potential Indian uranium reserves—which they emphasize—with India’s actual meager uranium production—which they are loath to specify. When pressed, they do concede that India may be facing a “current shortage” of uranium but claim that this shortage is merely a “transient” production “bottle neck.” Perhaps, but the Indians can’t wait to get at foreign uranium fuel: They know that Indian production can hardly increase anywhere as fast as they need it to. What’s the rush? India’s dwindling stockpile of surplus yellowcake is one explanation. Yet another is India’s desire to upgrade its civilian reactor fleet and modernize its nuclear weapons—both of which will require using much more enriched uranium. Specifically, India plans to acquire more reliable, powerful and modern light-water reactors that use lightly enriched uranium. (So far, India has relied almost exclusively on less efficient, natural-uranium-fueled, heavy-water reactors.) India also wants to perfect more powerful, smaller, and readily missile-deliverable warheads that use both plutonium and highly enriched uranium to supplement India’s current generation of plutonium-only bombs. Relying on enriched-uranium fuels for civilian and military purposes, though, will dramatically drive up Indian demand for uranium and uranium-enrichment capacity. The only way this higher demand can be met is by immediately importing lightly enriched foreign fuel to run all of India’s light-water reactors. India has two U.S. light-water reactors operating, two modern Russian light-water reactors soon coming online, and is planning on buying at least another six before 2020. It takes 800 tons of natural uranium just to start one light-water reactor (i.e., nearly as much uranium as India’s total production for three full years). Multiply this figure several fold and you get the picture: Without foreign nuclear fuel, India’s nuclear-weapons modernization will be reduced to an unhurried slog. The urgency to secure foreign uranium for India’s power and military programs is compounded by India’s low uranium-enrichment capacity. All of India’s current enrichment facilities are dedicated to supplying India’s military. If any of this limited capacity had to be diverted to enriching uranium to make fuel for India’s light-water power reactors, it would deprive India’s military of the highly enriched uranium it is counting on to make smaller, more powerful warheads for India’s advanced missiles, including the Agni III—a system that’s now ready to be tested. Again, the only way out of this dilemma is to import foreign fuel, fuel that can only be had if the U.S.-India nuclear deal is implemented. These facts are hard to dismiss. The contention that the deal violates the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is hardly, as some of the deal’s more ardent backers contend, some “petty canard.” It’s a real problem—one which, as the U.S. and its allies plead their case against Iran and North Korea, is only likely to become more and more of a headache. This week, Congress will mark up legislation to implement the deal. Some congressmen will suggest that the U.S. get India to stop making fissile material for military purposes. Russia, the U.S., France, and the U.K. have already publicly announced that they've stopped such production and its rumored China has privately told U.S. officials it has as well. Other congressmen will recommend the U.S. require that India not use any more of its domestic uranium for military purposes than it did before the deal was struck. It’s unclear which if any of these ideas will prevail. If the deal is not conditioned by something like them, though, this much is certain: The U.S. will be joining the ranks of North Korea and Iran as NPT violators. The timing here couldn’t be worse. — Henry Sokolski is the executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington, DC, and is editor of Taming the Next Set of Strategic Weapons Threats. |
| Posted by:john |
| #10 The USA knows that the Commies-Maoists support India's various insurgent movements, including but not limited to Radical Islam. China's materiel' and advisory support of India's Communist, Socialist, and Radical Muslim movements is well-documented. IFF HISTORY IS ANY MEAUSURE, ONCE IN POWER BOTH THE INDIAN-SPECIFIC COMMIES-MAOISTS ANDOR RADICAL MUSLIMS WILL MOVE TO DESTROY ANY OPPOSITION. In addition, China is heavily involved in the GWADAR PORT DEV and other projects on both of India's flanks - the CCCC/CPC historically does not engage in any such activity unless it anticipates, i.e. planning to, eventually control the entire area or region, from origin to end. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2006-06-26 21:55 |
| #9 India doesn't have to be in our orbit. They can be part of the Anglosphere and help out where indicated. John, thanks for the info. Rantburg U. lives! |
| Posted by: Steve White 2006-06-26 21:38 |
| #8 In 2 decades, the Indian economy will be firmly integrated with the American one. Combine that with a security alliance aimed at combating Islamic terror and the threat from China and all Indian pretences at "non-alignment" will be dead and buried. And it is China that will probably drive India into the American orbit. A lot is written about India and China making up and forming an alliance. This will never happen. Ths history of bad blood is too strong. Today they started the eight round of talks on their border - the LAC - line of actual control from the last border war. It will probably be like the last seven rounds - going nowhere. China seized large chunks of Indian territory and still holds onto it. It claims most of an entire Indian state as Chinese territory. The Chinese transfer of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile systems to Pakistan, a country that lacks the ability to fabricate a high speed lathe, to say nothing of a tractor, is something that will never be forgiven - giving the ultimate weapons of mass destruction to the jihad dreaming enemies of India is an unpardonable affront. |
| Posted by: john 2006-06-26 19:31 |
| #7 George Bush and Condi Rice have a well thought out strategy for bringing India into the American orbit. I hope it still works in 2 or 3 decades. Somehow, I doubt India sees itself being in the American orbit. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-06-26 19:06 |
| #6 Hell, I'm for sending India D-5s if it comes down to brass tacks and ass kicking. |
| Posted by: 6 2006-06-26 18:51 |
| #5 And does forcing India to look for Uranium elsewhere make sense? The Canadian and Australian Uranium Ore deposits have about 20 % Uranium. The Indian deposits have 0.1 % That is not a typo. The waste tailings from the Canadian mines probably have far more Uranium in them than Indian mines. India would jump at the chance to mine the waste material from an Aussie mine. Yet they manage to produce Uranium yellowcake from this. It must be quite an efficient operation. Forcing them to turn to states not party to the NSG cartel - say Iran or North Korea that have large Uranium deposits makes no sense. Do we want the Indian mining technology to be used in Iran? What then would their yellowcake production be like? And what would NoKO or Iran want in return? Help with reentry vehicle design perhaps? I'm sure both would love to get their hands on an Agni RV - made of carbon-carbon-phenolic resin on a non-metallic carbon fibre aeroframe. That thing probably has a very low radar signature. Plus it has high alitude thrusters to maneuver during reentry. Plus GLONASS and GPS guidance, backed by C and S band terminal guidance - similar to the pershing -2 for low CEP (high accuracy). Iran bought Kilo submarines from Russia and then discovered that the Russian batteries sucked in warm water conditions. Guess who they turned to for submarine batteries? An Indian company that makes batteries for the Indian Kilos. Do we want the Iranians to get their hands on say, submarine launch technology for cruise and ballistic missiles (available from India)? George Bush and Condi Rice have a well thought out strategy for bringing India into the American orbit. Forcing them away, into the hands of rogues, isn't very smart. And for what? A desire to cap the Indian arsenal that is aimed at China? |
| Posted by: john 2006-06-26 18:13 |
| #4 Yes, that's a major reason for the agreement IMO. |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-06-26 17:39 |
| #3 The focus on capping the Indian arsenal is quite peculiar. India has had nuclear weapons since 1974 - more than thirty years - and has built a very small arsenal, far smaller than it was capable of. It has preferred to siphon off very small amounts of nuclear material from its civilian energy program rather than build dedicated plutonium production reactors (apart from two small reseach reactors that produce weapons grade plutonium) It was only in 1983 that Rajiv Gandhi ordered actual weaponization - an aircraft deliverable bomb followed by a missile warhead. Even today, 8 years after the 1998 second series of Indian tests, less than half of the modest Indian stockpile of weapons grade Plutonium (450 kg) has been separated and made into warhead pits. It has not run its heavy water reactors in low burnup mode to produce weapons grade plutonium. Each reactor can produce 150 kg of plutonium a year in this mode and India has 14 unsafeguarded heavy water reactors, in addition to 4 light water reactors, 2 more heavy water units, a prototype fast breeder, an experimental U233 reactor (the only one of its kind in the world), a test fast breeder that uses plutonium carbide fuel, plus its small research pool type NRX reactors. The Indian fast breeder is being designed to generate power, not simply produce Plutonium and Uranium 233. If it were operated in such a mode, it could make tons of weapons grade material in its breeder blankets. Forcing India to choose between operating the reactors in civilian or military mode will have one result - it will simply build more coal fired power plants (it is constructing ten 4000 MW coal units now) and use its limited Uranium to run the heavy water reactors in low burnup - making tons of weapons grade plutonium. It can't use coal in warheads but its limited Uranium can be used for other purposes besides power production. And Indian coal is particarly foul - high ash content that will pollute the entire Indian ocean region and beyond. India has agreed not to transfer missile or nuclear technology to any other state and its has an awful lot of tech that states may want - it mines uranium, produces yellowcake, fabricates its own fuel rods, enriches uranium to HEU level (it has centrifuge and laser enrichment facilities), builds its own heavy water reactors, reprocesses the fuel to produce plutonium, makes MOX fuel etc. Not to mention the weapons specific technology - the ability to make small thermonuclear weapons - up to 300 KT, perfect for a missile warhead. It has laser inenertial confinement facilities that are used for fusion research - quite usable for TN weapons design. The Indian PSLV has a solid rocket first stage that is one of the largest in the world.. perfect for a long range heavy ICBM. The PSLV and GSLV have delivered multiple satellites into different orbits, the basis for a MIRV capability. The Indian Agni missile has a manuevering warhead that is meant to evade Chinese ABM systems. Under the deal, all this stays locked away from states desiring this sort of technology. |
| Posted by: john 2006-06-26 17:26 |
| #2 we can safely consider it a friendly country I would not make so definitive a statement. While India having the bomb does not make me as uncomfortable as Iran or Korea, I'm not sure I'd rate it with the UK. It will be interesting to see what the long term implications of this decision are. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-06-26 17:18 |
| #1 Please be serious. India is a member of the Anglosphere, alias "The Axis of Good," alias "the short list of countries we can trust with nukes." I don't mind India having the bomb because, like Great Britain or Japan or Israel, we can safely consider it a friendly country that won't use the bomb against us or against our interests. To claim, as this writer implicitly does, that India having the bomb is morally equivalent to North Korea having it is to reveal oneself as being afflicted with Murtha-like levels of personal idiocy. |
| Posted by: Mike 2006-06-26 16:47 |