Posted on 10/02/2009 9:26:42 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Days before President Barack Obama told the United Nations that he hoped to push through a universal treaty to ban all nuclear weapons testing by the end of 2010, a top Indian scientist threw New Delhi's security establishment for an atomic loop.
Kasturiranga Santhanam, the coordinator of India's 1998 nuclear tests, went public with allegations that India's much heralded Pokhran II test of a thermonuclear bomb 11 years ago was actually a fizzle.
"We are totally naked vis-a-vis China, which has an inventory of 200 nuclear bombs, the vast majority of which are giant H-bombs of power equal to three million tons of TNT," Santhanam told reporters in New Delhi this week.
Naturally, the bizarre exercise in reverse brinkmanship ("About that bomb we told you we have...") did not go down well. India's 1998 demonstration of thermonuclear capability -- fission-based bombs with a force of 100 kilotons or more -- was the cause of great celebration in a country still fighting for a voice in global affairs and sandwiched between a belligerent, hereditary enemy in Pakistan and a frightening potential future adversary in China.
By calling its success into question, scientist K. Santhanam, who was director of test site preparations for Pokhran II, shook the country's confidence in its nuclear deterrent at a moment when the long, frustrating peace process with Pakistan seems as futile as ever.
(Excerpt) Read more at sitrep.globalsecurity.org ...
I think Britain faked one of their tests also.
Wouldn't surprise me. It was a prestige club, and people forget how hot the Cold War was at some points in the late forties/early fifties -- a lot of history ignoramuses think the Cuban Missile Crisis was the only "near thing."
The NoKoreans had a very low yield in the one test we actually have confirmed and that wasn't even an H-Bomb. Some analysts thought it might actually be a conventional high explosive test it was so feeble. I believe that probably means it was Plutonium.
Also take into account the fighting spirit and capability of India’s Sikhs, who are a minority in India’s armed services (army, navy, air force).
And there’d be no Cold War as we know it.
What you're describing sounds like flint lock rifle technology applied to nuclear weapons - click, clack, fiss, boom.
Amen to that, brother, and several million Russians would still be alive. Patton was right - we should have taken Russia while we were there and had the Germans to fight with us, although I totally understand why nobody wanted to keep fighting. Even with a fire brand like Patton, invading Russia would have been an extremely risky proposition, but I'm sure he had already thought of that, given his knowledge of military history.
Yes. Their mistake may have been using just one fission trigger, instead of multiple.
The North Korean test in 2006 was a fusion dud, too, I believe.
I don’t think your diagram is accurate. That device would FIZZLE.
After uncovering the camps, no one wanted anything to do with the Germans...
Check up on your history, China has attacked India in the past.
That might be more than offset by the Muzzie uprising within India.
India should stop buying Russian weapons NOW and buy our stuff. In the end, Russia will stab India in the back if there is global conflict against the US by Russia and China.
Plus, we need the ally in the region. India has the potential of being very powerful with their help. And yes, we should help them with their nuclear weapons program.
I read a recent report of some border troubles in the area where the 1962 war was fought between China and India.
And creating a whole different set of 'em.
You can also make a case for forestalling a lot of the worlds past and present problems if the Germans had won the first world war.
Or he’s got a side biz working with a foreign gov to destabilize India.
I don’t see it being true, had it been a fizzle 11 years ago, India would have worked to make it happen.
So? Check up on my post. I don't say anything about that.
A thermonuke is none other than a hydrogen bomb
a bomb whose violent explosive power is due to the sudden release of atomic energy resulting from the fusion of light nuclei (as of hydrogen atoms) at very high temperature and pressure to form helium nuclei (webster)
BZZZTT! Thermonuclear bombs are fusion bombs — H bombs — not fission bombs — A bombs.
I think I read a book about this once. The Jesus Factor?
parsy, whose memory is going downhill
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