INDIAN NUCLEAR POLICIES IN THE 1980S

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP06T00412R000200480001-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Sequence Number: 1
• Content Type: REPORT

PA,
039y
National Secret
Foreign UNCODED UUNCODED
Assessment
Center
STATODED
Indian Nuclear Policies
in the 1980s
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DOE review
completed.
State Dept. review completed
Secret
PA 81-10384
September 1981
Copy ...) i,
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National Secret
Foreign
Assessment
Center
25X1
Indian Nuclear Policies
in the 1980s 25X1
An Intelligence Assessment
Information available as of 10 September 1981
has been used in the preparation of this report.
The author of this assessment is 25X1
Office of Political Analysis. Comments and queries
are welcome and may be addressed to the Chief,
Political-Military Branch, International Issues
Division, OPA, 25X1
This report has been coordinated with the Office of
Scientific and Weapons Research, the Office of
Economic Research, the National Intelligence Officer
for Near East-South Asia, and the Special 25X1
Assistant for Nuclear Proliferation Intelligence.
Secret
PA 81-10384
September 1981
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Indian Nuclear Pnfiripc
in the 1980s _7DED
Key Judgments India would prefer not to begin a nuclear weapons program in the 1980s
but may be forced to revise its policy by nuclear developments in Pakistan.
25X1
New Delhi's assessments of Islamabad's nuclear effort will be a major
factor in Prime Minister Gandhi's decisions on Indian nuclear policy in the
1980s[
New Delhi probably would not authorize another
n ian nuclear test prior to one by Pakistan; it wants to ensure that
Islamabad suffers the full weight of negative international re25X1 I.
Uncertainty over Pakistan's nuclear intentions and capabilities could lead
India to initiate a peaceful nuclear explosion program, carefully paced to
match sporadic Pakistani tests until the nature of the Pakistani program
became clearer. A rapid series of Pakistani tests, however, would compel
New Delhi to develop nuclear weapons and touch off a nuclear arms race
between the two.
Fear of international economic and political reprisals will continue to be a
strong deterrent against an Indian attack on Pakistan's nuclear facilities.
Such facilities, however, probably would become targets in the event of a
general war with Pakistan.
China-not Pakistan-is perceived as the major long-term threat to Indian
security. This perception has propelled New Delhi to reject the Non-
Proliferation Treaty and full-scope safeguards in order to retain 25X1
nuclear weapons option.
India's technology for a credible delivery system as part of a nuclear
deterrent against China is not as advanced as its nuclear accomplishments.
This technology gap reinforces New Delhi's desire to avoid overt nuclear
weapons development before the late 1980s.
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PA 81-10384
September 1981
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Indian Nuclear Policies
in the 1980s
Assessing the Dangers
India, having exploded its first nuclear device in 1974,
is reappraising its nuclear policy to cope with the
security and foreign policy implications of a potential
Pakistani nuclear test.
Since the 1962 border war with China and the
Chinese nuclear test two years later, New Delhi has
considered Beijing a more serious long-term threat to
Indian national security than Pakistan. India avoided
nuclear safeguards and treaty commitments whenever
possible to preserve its option for future nuclear
weapons development. The delayed nature of the
Chinese nuclear threat also allowed New Delhi to
defer a nuclear weapons development program until it
developed the technology for intermediate range mis-
siles. India could have such means of delivery by the
mid-to-late 1980s if the political decision were made
to militarize the missile program
China's "opening" to the West in recent years led to
an Indian reevaluation of when Beijing might become
a more serious security challenge. New Delhi has
taken careful note not only of China's difficulty in
prosecuting the 1979 war with Vietnam but also its
option because of developments in Pakistan
pressing need for modernizing its economy and mili-
tary. Indian policymakers believe the latter effort will
result in a further delay before China can bring
pressure to bear on India. New Delhi, however, now
faces a decision on whether to pursue the weapons
The prospect of two nuclear-armed neighbors appears
to have induced India to consider proceeding more 25X1
quickly on weapons research and development than
previously planned. A decision to accelerate weapons
research-and, especially, to conduct nuclear tests-
would create a number of problems. An Indian pro-
gram undertaken to match the Pakistani effort would
threaten its relations with the United States and other
nuclear suppliers, possibly provoke China and set
back current efforts to improve relations, and damage
India's image within the nonaligned movement
(NAM).F----] 25X1
Nonetheless, the Indian Government cannot allow a
Pakistani test to go unchallenged because that would
threaten India's regional supremacy and international
prestige. New Delhi, therefore, seeks a policy that is
sufficiently responsive to the Pakistani threat yet does
not appear to be driven by Pakistani actions. Even
though a reactive posture might satisfy the security
expectations of the Indian electorate, it would tarnish
the image India wishes to project abroad as a regional
power and an emerging world power capable of
influencing events in the Indian Ocean area
New Delhi wants a nuclear policy that will permit its
security planners sufficient flexibility to repond to
whatever Pakistan does. Whether Pakistan will decide
not to test, explode one device, or conduct a series of
tests to refine weapons desi n are among the variables
that India has to evaluate 25X1
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The option of destroying Pakistani facilities will prob-
ably never go beyond the contingency planning stage.
India relies upon the Persian Gulf for about 60
percent of its imported oil. The possibility of a boycott
by the oil producers in the area in protest against an
attack on a fellow Muslim state is a risk New Delhi is
not likely to take. There is no doubt, however, that in
case of general hostilities with Pakistan, New Delhi
would strike at the Pakistani nuclear facilities.
Short-Term Policy Response
New Delhi is confident that it can match and exceed
all Pakistani technical accomplishments. The logical
first step, and one that appears to give the greatest
flexibility and independence to Indian foreign and
nuclear policy, is construction of a permanent test
site. Whether the political decision is made to conduct
another test before or after a Pakistani demonstration,
the early completion of a test facility will telescope the
time it will take India to proceed with testing.F__
stated in private discussions with US officials that it is
related to a peaceful nuclear explosives (PNE) pro-
gram. During discussions in mid-April in Washing-
ton, Indian officials were careful to assure their US
counterparts that no decision to test a PNE device
had been made but they would not discount the
possibility that such a decision might be made in the
India steadfastly argues that peaceful nuclear explo-
sions have useful applications and a considerable body
of technical literature in Indian journals maintains
the thesis that PNI? technology is a useful tool for
Indian economic development. Thus, New Delhi will
use this emphasis on peaceful nuclear explosions as an
explanation for its nuclear policy at least until Paki-
stani intentions become clearer.
India can thus be expected in this and other ways to
portray its actions as an "open and peaceful" under-
taking in contrast to Pakistan's "covert" weapons
program. New Delhi will also attempt to portray the
civilian control of its nuclear program as further
evidence of its peaceful nature and to attribute sinis-
ter motives to Pakistan's military-controlled effort. F
If New Delhi does not revise its assessment of the
timing of the Pakistani test, India will probably
announce the construction or completion of the "Po-
karan PNE Test Facility" some time within the next
year, describing it as simply an addition to its domes-
tic nuclear installations. The announcement might be
accompanied by press briefings, site tours, and other
publicity for the productive uses of PNE technology.
Such a campaign, detailing the benefits but vague on
a timetable for testing, would provide the mechanism
for a flexible response to the Pakistani program.
If the Pakistani nuclear effort turned out to be
protracted and designed more for domestic political
gains than as a credible deterrent to India's conven-
tional military superiority, New Delhi could suspend
its program or even conduct a peaceful nuclear explo-
sion for some legitimate mining or engineering pro-
ject. India might go so far as to invite foreign
observers to promote further the image of the pro-
gram's peaceful intent. Were the Pakistanis to appear
to be pursuing a weapons stockpile, however, India
would have an excuse to adjust from a "peaceful" to a
weapons program, placing the onus squarely on Islam-
future.
abad
India's efforts toward rapprochement with China
probably would not be jeopardized as long as the
"peaceful nature" of the program was maintained.
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Moreover, there is a strong possibility that Beijing
would not view a limited Indian stockpile of fission
weapons designed to counter Pakistan as a threat, so
long as India lacked an effective long-range delivery
system
Nuclear Relations With
the United States
The impasse with the United States over the supply of
enriched uranium for the Tarapur reactors confronts
the Indian Government with a policy dilemma which
Prime Minister Gandhi will probably try to resolve
within the next six months. New Delhi would like
relations with Washington to improve and specifically
wants US supplies of nuclear fuel to continue. Since
there is little likelihood that the US Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Act of 1978 will be amended to permit
further shipments of fuel, however, India would prefer
an amicable termination of the bilateral contract.
The Indian Government believes that plutonium ob-
tained by reprocessing spent fuel from Tarapur must
be available as a substitute before current stocks of
US-supplied fuel are exhausted. Prime Minister
Gandhi realizes that serious regional political and
economic dislocations could ensue if replacement fuel
is not ready in time and the Tarapur reactors have to
be shut down. Nevertheless, she will not start reproc-
essing the spent Tarapur fuel before the Indo-US
contract is officially terminated
When the agreement is eventually scrapped, India can
be expected publicly to contrast the unwillingness of
the US Government to amend its legislation to contin-
ue supplying fuel for Tarapur with efforts to modify
the Symington Amendment to permit the renewed
sale of arms to Pakistan. New Delhi might press the
argument that Washington's nuclear policies in South
Asia are designed to penalize India and favor Paki-
stan. It would probably also assert that US nonprolif-
eration objectives are "expendable" whenever they
conflict with the pursuit of "narrow" superpower
interests.
India may be willing to risk a further souring of
relations with the United States as a result of such a
propaganda attack, but it will be careful not to
undermine the international nonproliferation system
by revoking all its safeguards commitments at Tara-
pur when the US fuel supply agreement is terminated.
India does not want the opprobrium of being the first
nation to cancel a nuclear safeguards arrangement.
To avoid the appearance of yielding to US pressure,
India has quietly and unilaterally renegotiated a new
safeguards agreement with the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) to cover the reprocessing of
spent Tarapur fuel. It has no reason to abrogate the
safeguards applicable to Tarapur since any plutonium
extracted from high burn-up fuel would not be well
suited for weapons, yet could be used as a substitute
fuel in the Tarapur reactors.F___1 25X1
Any resumption of nuclear testing by India will not
only damage bilateral nuclear relations with the
United States but also with most other nuclear suppli-
ers. As long as India claimed it was perfecting its
PNE technology, however, New Delhi could probably
rely on the Soviets to continue to supply critical items.
All such transactions with Moscow would involve the
appropriate safeguards but it is unlikely that the
Soviets would press for full-scope safeguards. In
pursuit of its vital national interests, India seems
prepared to accept the economic dislocation, delay,
and increased costs that would result from a cutoff of
nuclear equipment and material from the West. After
the 1974 test, for example, India accepted the result-
ant setbacks to its nuclear program rather than
sacrifice its freedom of action
Nuclear Relations
in International Forums
25X1
25X1
Regardless of the future course of Indo-US relations
in the nuclear field, India can be expected to continue
its longstanding effort in various international forums
to question the existing safeguards regime, supplier
guidelines, and other nonproliferation initiatives, es-
pecially after Pakistan conducts its initial test. Super-
power "connivance" and supplier "greed" will be
targeted by India as being behind the "selective
proliferation" of not only Pakistan, but also Israel and
South Africa. Such posturing will serve to mask or
justify India's moves to pace its own nuclear weapons
program with whatever Pakistan does.
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New Delhi is likely to distort its IAEA safeguards
agreements to serve its own interests. It will cite the
"failure" of safeguards to prevent development of a
Pakistani bomb to justify its continued resistance to
safeguards coverage over subsequent additions to the
Indian nuclear inventory. India also will continue to
point out the contradiction between what it believes is
the primary mandate of the IAEA to promote the
diffusion of nuclear technology and the efforts of
supplier states to use the IAEA as a means to impose
stringent safeguards and technology denial to promote
nonproliferation objectives
India will seek forums other than the IAEA to deal
with the issue of nonproliferation so as not to dilute
that organization's primary role to transfer technol-
ogy. The framework of the consensus resolution
adopted at the First UN Special Session on Disarma-
ment (SSOD) in 1978 may allow India to pursue its
favorite themes at later sessions. In the SSOD any
treatment of nonproliferation objectives can be ex-
pected to be expanded by India and its supporters in
the Group of 77, the developing countries' UN cau-
cus, to cover vertical proliferation among the nuclear
weapons states and horizontal proliferation among the
nonnuclear weapons states. For years India has been
citing the passage of the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty by the superpowers and reduction of existing
arsenals as called for in Article VI of the Non-
Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a precondition for
making the treaty less "discriminatory" and therefore
India's growing nuclear capability. A likely Indian
rejoinder to such criticism would be that it, as a
member of the nuclear "club," has acquired the
requisite credentials to force others to address serious-
ly proposals on disarmament.
India will make every effort to continue participation
in the Nuclear Coordinating Group of the NAM,
which seeks to promote the unrestricted transfer of
nuclear technology to developing nations. As India
attempts to develop a nuclear export market in the
Third World, it will probably require compliance with
safeguards. To avoid possible criticism of its own
policy, however, India will not insist on full-scope
safeguards as a precondition of supply
worthy of joining
As a nonsignatory to the NPT, India can only func-
tion in the wings of such gatherings as the NPT
Review Conference. Prior to last year's review confer-
ence in Geneva, India was successful in persuading
several NPT signatories from the Third World-most
notably Mexico and Peru-to voice dissatisfaction
with lack of movement by the superpowers on Article
VI and to raise the prospect of withdrawing from the
treaty if positive action is not taken.
India can be expected to use the Group of 77 to
sustain pressure on the superpowers to adhere to
provisions of the NPT, to enhance India's credentials
as seeking disarmament, and to deflect criticism of
Other Nuclear
Considerations
New Delhi still needs some updated technology and
material for the smooth functioning of its nuclear
effort and doers not want to foreclose these channels
by violating existing safeguards commitments. None-
theless, if Pakistan embarked on an accelerated nucle-
ar weapons program, India would probably interpret
its safeguards obligations in a manner designed to
maximize its weapons production potential
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If Pakistan embarked on an accelerated weapons
program that India could not match by existing
stockpiles of unsafeguarded weapons-grade material
and available production, New Delhi probably would
judge that it could not afford to wait for new,
unsafeguarded reactors to come on line. It would then
have to consider removing one or more power reactors
from safeguards. This step would certainly be one of
last resort because it would risk the termination of
existing bilateral supply and technology relationships.
None are viewed as critical, however, and India seems
fully prepared to accept the political difficulties and
economic dislocations it might incur in order to
protect its most vital security interests.
If such an action were taken, the most likely candi-
date would be the second Rajasthan Atomic Power
Plant (RAPP II) at Kota. India accepted IAEA
safeguards on this facility only because continued
shortfalls in domestic heavy water production delayed
the commissioning of this reactor, and safeguarded
heavy water from the USSR was necessary to get it
into operation. To remove this facility from safe-
guards, India could argue that by substituting domes-
tically produced heavy water for the Soviet-supplied
material, safeguards would no longer apply. Spent
fuel and Soviet heavy water would be stored separate-
ly, subject to IAEA inspection and verification. This
"substitution" option will only be possible when the
problem-ridden domestic heavy water industry be-
comes capable of meeting all demands placed upon it.
Outlook
India is likely to remain reluctant to start a nuclear
weapons production program any time soon. With the
China threat seen as receding further into the future
and an overwhelming conventional military superior-
ity sufficient to maintain New Delhi's predominant
position in South Asia, India would prefer not to be
forced into a nuclear arms race with Pakistan in the
early 1980s. Having to match and exceed a Pakistani
nuclear threat is perceived as an unwanted escalation
in dealing with what is clearly a militarily inferior
adversary 25X1
If India were convinced that Pakistan would stop
short of detonating a nuclear device, New Delhi
would willingly defer resumption of nuclear testing.
Evidence that Islamabad was shelving its testing
program so as not to jeopardize the resumption of its
arms relationship with the United States might be
sufficient for the Indians to postpone PNE activities
and to leave the Rajasthan test site idle.
An Indian decision not to renew testing would remain
in effect only as long as New Delhi was certain that
Pakistan was not assembling a clandestine weapons
stockpile. Pakistani restraint over crossing the nuclear
threshold, at least until the mid-1980s, would allow
India to defer overt nuclear weapons development
while perfecting its delivery technology. Later in the
decade India would again assess the need to pursue
the nuclear weapons option in light of Pakistani
developments but, more importantly, in the context of
its security relationship with China.
In the interim, and until Islamabad's intentions be-
come clearer, New Delhi will complete its test site,
allocate manpower for a test program, and be poised
to match whatever Pakistan does. Any intelligence
that generated Indian uncertainty over whether Paki-
stan would settle for one demonstration device or
continue with a number of tests could well lead to a
series of reciprocal tests and a nuclear arms race on
the subcontinent
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