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2005-05-19 Afghanistan/South Asia

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Posted by Steve White 2005-05-19 00:30|| || Front Page|| [1 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 India, which has not signed the global non-proliferation pact, is anxious to reassure Washington it can be trusted.

So sign up then. Burning the candle at both ends isn't going to work.

Posted by Bomb-a-rama 2005-05-19 01:17|| 2005-05-19 01:17|| Front Page Top

#2 I'd trust the Indians more than I'd trust the UN tranzis in charge of non-proliferation.

Posted by phil_b 2005-05-19 01:22|| 2005-05-19 01:22|| Front Page Top

#3 Hasn't it been said here that the pebble bed reactors are not like the old-fashioned breeder reactors? How about setting India up with those?

Posted by trailing wife 2005-05-19 06:32|| 2005-05-19 06:32|| Front Page Top

#4 India is not likely to sign the NPT since it cannot sign as a nuclear weapon state. It will not give up its nuclear arsenal.

India builds heavy water reactors (derivations of the CANDU type reactors) of 200MW, 500MW and lately 700MW capacity and has complete fuel cycle tech (from ore to reprocesssed plutonium) as well as high enriched uranium.
It has developed a process to cheaply extract tritium from the heavy water CANDU coolant.

It is presently constructing the first of several 500MW fast breeder reactors that will burn plutonium/uranium and irradiate thorium, producing even more fissile uranium 233.

While it has vast amounts of thorium ore, its uranium stocks are limited. It is not allowed to buy fuel on the international market. It cannot buy nuclear reactor technology. These restrictions have been in place for thirty years (since the first Indian weapon test in 1974).

It would like to purchase (a) fuel (b) larger reactors such as the 1000 MW GE light water reactors that China is buying.
This would greatly accelerate the growth of its nuclear power generation capacity.

Almost every Indian state suffers from severe power problems. There has not been the needed investment in power plants (of all types).

It has offered to have complete IAEA safeguards on any reactors or fuel it purchases from outside .
However NSG rules prevent this. These rules stipulate that ALL nuclear facilities must be under IAEA safeguards. This would effectively stop its nuclear weapons program.

What it is looking for from America is an exception from these rules for itself: a de facto (if not de jure) acceptance of its nuclear weapon status.

Posted by john 2005-05-19 07:03|| 2005-05-19 07:03|| Front Page Top

#5 Thanks John, good backgrounder. The point I was raising that even when trans-national treaties look good on paper, they rarely work in practice. The NPT has been and continues to be a failure as nuclear proliferation continues. It penalizes states like India (which in my view has just as much right to nuclear weapons as China and particularly because China is a nuclear state)) because of some view of the world in 1945. Its time to recognize that India has a right to be a nuclear state. Unfortunately it won't happen because the world is locked into an anachronistic and impossible to change NPT. Its time for the US to establish nuclear relations with India and ignore the NPT. I don't have to point out to RBers the absurdity of the USA providing nuclear technology to a potentially hostile state, while not providng the same technology to a potential ally.

Posted by phil_b 2005-05-19 07:30|| 2005-05-19 07:30|| Front Page Top

#6 And It would poke a nice finger in Putin and Chirac's eye.

Posted by raptor 2005-05-19 08:46|| 2005-05-19 08:46|| Front Page Top

#7 Its time to recognize that India has a right to be a nuclear state.

I'd be careful about tossing around that right-to-be-a-nuclear-state thing. Too easily invoked by other parties....

Posted by Bomb-a-rama 2005-05-19 10:55|| 2005-05-19 10:55|| Front Page Top

#8 I'm all for arming/giving India nuclear tech. Along with Japan and Tiawan. Powerful economies, powerful militaries, powerful nukes. Would make China and N.Korea think twice about any move they make.

Posted by mmurray821 2005-05-19 10:56|| 2005-05-19 10:56|| Front Page Top

#9 I don't have to point out to RBers the absurdity of the USA providing nuclear technology to a potentially hostile state, while not providng the same technology to a potential ally.

Especially when that potentially hostile state (China) has, in the past, proliferated nuclear weapon technology (complete bomb designs, down to the outer weapon casings) with full fabrication instructions to essentially rogue nations like Pakistan and North Korea who have in turn proliferated the Chinese tech to other countries.

I haven't read of any instances where India has proliferated its WMD tech to any other nation.
It has had all of the technology of concern: weapon design expertise, reactors, uranium enrichment, plutonium reprocessing, ballistic missile, satellite technology, chemical and biological capabilities for literally decades but has not shared it with other states.

Posted by john 2005-05-19 12:00|| 2005-05-19 12:00|| Front Page Top

#10 Indai can follow the path of China and wait till the next Democratic Administration. They will be happy to sell or give the technology for campaign cash.

Posted by BrerRabbit 2005-05-19 12:45|| 2005-05-19 12:45|| Front Page Top

#11 The key is that India is a democratic nation with a burgeoning middle class. That pretty much precludes the chance of nuclear idiocy on the weapon side. There are too many rational voices that will have a say and there is simply too much to lose, so won't happen unless they are jammed into a corner. We should be doing everything we can to build our relationship with India.

Posted by remoteman 2005-05-19 12:53|| 2005-05-19 12:53|| Front Page Top

#12

Indai can follow the path of China and wait till the next Democratic Administration. They will be happy to sell or give the technology for campaign cash.

Well, it didn't work during the Clinton Administration; India's new LCA fighter (which was meant to replace all those migs that keep crashing) used an American engine, but when said administration put sanctions on India for testing nuclear weapons, they had to go to developing one of their own, which has pushed the program back most of a decade.

Posted by Phil Fraering 2005-05-19 14:24|| http://newsfromthefridge.typepad.com]">[http://newsfromthefridge.typepad.com] 2005-05-19 14:24|| Front Page Top

#13 More than technology, it is access to fuel, either prefabricated or just the ore/yellowcake that India really wants.

Some of its best uranium deposits are essentially off limits because they are in tribal lands in the northeast. The Indian gov't would lose in the courts if they attempted to force the mining issue since the tribal people are guaranteed their communal lands rights (with prohibitions on outsiders) by the Indian constitution itself.
Other sites are near inhabited areas and local activists have stopped attempts at surveying or mining.

It doesn't help matters that there is no clear demarcation between the Indian civilian and military nuclear programs.
Right now India is constructing a superconducting collider (cyclotron) for particle physics experiments. Some of the scientists in that project are involved in the nuclear power generation and also in weapon design.

India doesn't have dedicated military reactors.
Some of the civilian reactors thus do double duty.
They use the CANDU type (natural uranium fuel with heavy water as a moderator) which produces plutonium and tritium.

In exchange for a continuous supply of IAEA safeguarded fuel, India may perhaps allow most of its power reactors to be placed under safeguard (right now only four older ones are; two that the Russians are constructing will also be safeguarded).
It will probably keep a few of the CANDUs for military use or build some dedicated graphite moderated/gas cooled ones for weapon production.

This is assuming the US will bend the NSG rules to accomodate India.

Posted by john 2005-05-19 15:45|| 2005-05-19 15:45|| Front Page Top

#14 I would not assume that India will always behave in a sober and rational fashion. They have their own religious (Hindu) wackos, as well as a nuclear-armed islamic neighbor with whom they've gone to war multiple times in recent memory.

Posted by thibaud (aka lex) 2005-05-19 17:03|| 2005-05-19 17:03|| Front Page Top

#15 "... but when said administration put sanctions on India for testing nuclear weapons..."

Only because they didn't contribute enough to the DNC, so they were made an example of.

Posted by Jackal">Jackal 2005-05-19 17:04|| home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html]">[home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html] 2005-05-19 17:04|| Front Page Top

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