Is Thermonuclear India a Fizzle?

GlobalPost ^ | 09/29/2009 | Jason Overdorf

[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.

[spetznaz]

Hmmm PING.

[Rookie Cookie]

The article is precisely the reason why India MUST NOT buy weaponry from the US, especially under Obama administration. If India is actually planning on carrying out more nuclear tests, imagine what that's going to do to India's defense supplies coming from US.