[Dr RN Agarwal]
Small in stature, with a wizened appearance, Dr. RN Agarwal looked like something out of the Lord of the Rings. He is the only bania — from a community that routinely produces traders and businessmen partaking of the nation’s commerce, I have known whose eyes lit up when speaking of ejection velocities and servorocket motor firings for inertial guidance. When the history is written of the strategic programme, RN will be identified as the father of the Indian MIRV (Multiple Independently-targetable Reentry Vehicle).
After meeting him at an annual meeting of the DRDO Directors Conference in Delhi I addressed in the early 2000s, he invited me to Hyderabad to speak to the scientists and engineers at the Advanced Systems Laboratory. It was an instant bond with the man, and I lost no opportunity to cement it by meeting him whenever I was in the city, in his modest home on the outskirts of a DRDO unit. And each time, I came away with a better understanding of how the Defence Ministry and DRDO misfunction!
The memory of RN Agarwal needs to be treasured, because his MIRV took the Integrated Guided Missile Development Project initiated by Dr APJ Abdul Kalam in the 1980s that produced the Agni-series of ballistic missiles, several giant steps forward and into the force multiplier-mode. He ensured that a single Agni missile would carry as many as three to five nuclear warheads on divergent targets 150 miles apart. The nosecone geometry of the Agni-5 Prime missile has since been modified to deliver 12 warheads. RN developed technologies, such as the heat shield with the ablating “skin” to protect the warheads homing in on targets, from the intense heat (approaching 5000 degrees Fahrenheit) on reentering the earth’s atmosphere, for the MIRV project that he led and which, most significantly, as head of ASL, Hyderabad, he prioritised and propelled forward. He oversaw the MIRV development from research, design, and development to sub-assembly, assembly prototype-testing phase. The MIRV was ready for test-launch by 2002. A full TWENTY TWO YEARS later the Indian government got up the nerve to order a test launch of the MIRV-ed Divyastra Agni-5 Prime, four months ago in March.
RN’s greatest regret was he couldn’t persuade the lilly-livered BJP government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, to allow him to test the MIRV, even greater than his disappointment at being passed over for promotion to be the boss of DRDO and Secretary to the Government of India. The head of the Arjuna MBT project was selected to be the top honcho in DRDO Bhavan. So much for the government’s strategic thinking. As a sop, Agarwal was awarded the Padma Bhushan, that he’d have gladly traded in for a testlaunch of a MIRV-ed Agni.
In both these decisions — to not test the MIRV tech, and to not promote Agarwal, Vajpayee’s National Security Adviser and Principal Private Secretary, Brajesh Mishra, was the man who counselled caution. He feared that testfiring MIRV would upset Washington, and appointing Agarwal to lead DRDO would result in the fastforwarding of the MIRV tech, which would again be the proverbial red rag before the American bull. The tragedy is it is this fear of what the US would do/might do to India by way of sanctions, etc. that has animated India’s strategic policy ever since, topped by the 2008 Civilian Nuclear Deal negotiated by S Jaishankar, then Joint Secretary (Americas) in MEA and now Modi’s Minister for External Affairs. For all intents and purposes, by barring India from resuming thermonuclear tests, this Deal has frozen and capped India’s nuclear arsenal to the tested and proven low yield 20 kiloton fission level — Pakistan’s level, as the US government intended.
The two greatest damagers of India’s strategic national interest — the Mir Jaffers of the modern era, are firstly Dr R Chidambaram, who, from the Bhabha Chair he fills in his decrepitude in Trombay, still propagates the nonsense he did as chairman of the atomic energy commission and, for a decade and half as Manmohan Singh’s and then Modi’s “Science & Technology Adviser”, that the Indian thermonuclear bomb that fizzled in 1998 is, with a little computer-jiggery, fit to feature in the Indian Strategic Forces as a credible high-yield thermonuclear weapon/warhead! It was advice Chidambaram’s distant nephew, Jaishankar — yes they are related! — apparently took to heart when he surrendered India’s right to have reliable and trustworthy fusion weapons, which requires India to resume underground testing, whatever the cost, because the hydrogen bomb that was tested in 1998, failed — the technical word is “fizzled”. Without the high yield Hydrogen Bomb/warhead, there’s no way India can reach even notional strategic parity with China.
In fact, Jaishankar’s virtual American opposite number, Ashley Tellis, has now come to the same conclusion, that India does indeed need to conduct many more thermonuclear tests to obtain proven thermonuclear armaments. And he has advised his government to not impose sanctions, if India does test again. But timidity is by now so hardwired into the Indian state, the Modi regime is unlikely to take this open hint to go ahead and test! Tellis, it may be recalled, shepherded the nuclear deal at the Delhi end as adviser to US ambassador Robert Blackwill, and at the Washington end as National Security Assistant to President George W Bush. That open-ended testing was an imperative was a conclusion that a few of us had reached on May 11, 1998 after the S-1 thermonuclear test owing to telltale signs of failure. It was backed up by the demi-official letter to the PMO by the director, field testing, Pokhran, Dr K Santhanam, who reported the fizzling of the fusion device and urged new tests.
This lot of sceptics included Drs PK Iyengar, Chidambaram’s predecessor, AN Prasad, Director, BARC, who should have succeeded Iyengar but was sidelined by Dr Raja Ramanna who chose his IISc fellow alumnus, the wretched Chidambaram instead, and A Gopalakrishnan, ex-head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The failed fusion weapon test was the reason why we had all tried desperately hard, alas, in a losing cause, to stop that Deal in the period leading up to it in 2008, with a series of prophetic articles in the Press critical of it. (For those who are interested, these articles, still relevant, are collated in the book — “Strategic Sellout: Indian-US Nuclear Deal”, published by the local Pentagon Press in 2009.) In another setting, an enemy of the state, like Chidambaram, would have been sent to the Gulag.
The other enemy of state was Brajesh Mishra, who in many ways was much worse. He undermined two strategic technologies, when he sided with Chidambaram against Iyengar and, next, when he ditched the MIRV that Agarwal was pleading be tested. Mishra also negatived the policy I had proposed in 1998 in a meeting of the (First) National Security Advisory Board with the then Foreign Secretary, Krishnan Raghunath, of reciprocating China’s nuclear missile arming of Pakistan by nuclear missile arming all countries on China’s periphery, as an albeit belated, tit-for-tat gesture to equalise the strategic situations. This policy, in a diluted form, led to the Modi government — 20 years later — to selling the conventionally-armed Brahmos supersonic cruise missile to Philippines.
With Chidambaram in Trombay and an NSA like Mishra in PMO, what chance did the national interest have? Then again, Mishra was followed by ex-Foreign Secretary, MN Dixit, ex-chief, Intelligence Bureau, MK ‘Mike’ Narayanan, former Foreign Secretary, Shivshankar Menon, and now another former IB head, Ajit Doval. Between alternating IFS and IPS NSAs, India’s strategic fate has hung all along by a thread!
And true patriots and nationalists, like Agarwal, pass from the scene largely unknown, unheralded. Rest in Peace, Dr RN.
Security Wise 
Bharat: I think you should also credit Arun Shourie and Lk Advani, who stuck their necks out to first bring a no confidence motion against the MMS puppet government and then fighting elections of 2009 against the nuclear deal. Despite their political motives, credit should go to them even if the attempts failed. As you know electoral politics and strategic thinking do not mix well, especially in India.
First of all, my condolences to Dr. RN Agarwal’s family members for their invaluable loss.
Secondly, once again, you said the truth about the actual condition of true patriots and nationalists in India, which is very sad and unacceptable.
We could have achieved so much more in less time but these bureaucratic and political morons are everywhere to hinder everything!
Is the foreign minister’s view the same as the prime minister’s?
Like S. Jaishankar said in some interview a year or so back: “Look they (China) are a bigger economy. What am I going to do? As a smaller economy, I am going to pick up a fight with bigger economy? It is not a question of being a reactionary; it is a question of common sense.”
shebashish@ — Why drag the foreign minister into it? What was the Indian army doing when the PLA attacked them with clubs and stones? Why didn’t they use their guns? Had 200-300 Chinese soldiers been killed, I bet the Chinese army would have retreated to the so called “status quo” pre-aggression. Indian army is to be blamed for this loss of territory to the Chinese. They have become too politicized.
Jaanbazjat@ — What was Indian army doing when they were attacked with clubs and stones, answer is within what S. Jaishankar said that “It is not a question of being a reactionary, it is a question of common sense”
Indian army follows a chain of command which every decision even firing a bullet from their guns is taken from government of india. Our beloved Indian government has tied their hands for not to react when it is necessary! It’s a common sense at all if an enemy is attacking with an stone, then Indian army have to use stone only for retaliation…..that’s it!
what our beloved government doing behind is unnecessary meeting with china just as follows:-
https://www.mea.gov.in/press-releases.htm?dtl/37645/21st+round+of+IndiaChina+Corps+Commander+Level+Meeting
https://m.economictimes.com/news/defence/india-china-hold-29th-round-of-diplomatic-talks-discuss-disengagement-in-border-areas/articleshow/108836202.cms
And our so called beloved chosen minister’s says what about land encroachment by China, just read out the following articles below:-
https://english.jagran.com/india/defence-minister-rajnath-singh-refutes-reports-of-china-capturing-indian-land-10153638
2. Amit Shah (Home minister of india)
https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/lok-sabha/story/amit-shah-china-encroach-land-ladakh-assam-lok-sabha-elections-2525130-2024-04-09
3. S. Jaishankar (External affairs minister of india)
https://scroll.in/latest/1066574/china-has-not-occupied-any-indian-land-says-s-jaishankar
endless number of meetings with china, Which haven’t yet fetched any fruitful result and other hand, china just mocking these type meetings conducted by government of india by changing arunachal pradesh names in front of us!
I don’t know how much inch, mm, cm, Sq miles/km china has taken taken from us apart from Aksai chin and sakshgam valley due to lack of official sources.
I also don’t even believe what congressi buffoons are telling how much land has been encroached due lack of solid evidence.
but I still know that China has taken some land and Indian government reactionary is only meetings as mentioned above (core commander and diplomatic).
Indian government is hiding the facts from Public.
Indian government is indeed hiding facts but everything is in open domain if one reads articles by Bharat Karnad, Praveen Sawhney and other geopolitical experts in India.
Only a buffoon BJP Bhakt will believe what Rajnath, Shah and Modi say.
I know that Army follows a chain of command but in dire situations like what happened that fateful night more than four years back, one needs to retaliate fast and furiously.
Jaishankar wasn’t sitting in his office watching the border on his TV screen. If dacoits armed with knives enter someone’s house and the house owner has a gun, should he refuse to use his gun saying oh the intruders were armed with knives so I will also fight them with knives.
BJP’s balloon of pseudo nationalism and fake bravado has been busted by China so they are saving their faces by denying the Chinese capture of Indian land but the Indian army also proved its incompetence by falling into PLA’s trap and not retaliating strongly enough.
There is no point in having border discussions with China because China doesn’t want the resolution of the border problem with India.
The main reason for it is that China wants to forever control the higher heights of Himalaya mountains so that the flow of water into India is always in its control.
One fails to understand the obsession every government in Delhi has had with the babudom . The UPSC cartel has essentially hijacked India’s Strategy making and policymaking process with the blessing of Indian politicians. Why can’t we have academics ,strategic thinkers like Kissinger ,who have spent their entire lives studying China to formulate India’s China strategy or have a spirited scientist like Homi Bhabha, who would tell the government in which technologies it should invest in over the next 20 years.The Niti Aayog is a joke ,it produces even less policy ideas than its predecessor ,the Planning Commission . All the different Council and Advisory Boards set are filled with stooges of the bureaucracy. For once lets disrupt the system and unleash the prowess of the Indian people.It seems a distant dream even after 77 years of Independence .
@foodometry- The IAS, IPS lobby says if government is a mansion then we are the landlords and the politicians are the tenants.
Politicians keep on coming and going depending on the election results and the performance of their parties therein but these parasite babus have nice, comfortable jobs for life.
Even a so called honest IAS officer easily amasses properties and assets worth around 1000 Crores INR during his service tenure.
During our IAS training at Mussorie. We are told by our instructors that make the cake bigger so that everyone gets a good share of the pie.
During the 80’s, 90’s; 10% commission in every government scheme (state as well as centre) used to be the norm nowadays this percentage of adjustment in government spending has gone upto at least 50%.
No government department whether at state or at the central level is an exception to the aforesaid.
Email from Vice Admiral RN Ganesh (Retd), fmr FOCINC, Southern Naval Comand and head of the nuclear submarine project
RN Ganesh
Sun, 18 Aug at 7:12 am
Bharat – this is you at your hard-hitting best.
Thank you.
Ravi Ganesh
Both your books “Strategic Sellout: Indian-US Nuclear Deal”, published by the local Pentagon Press in 2009 and “Future Imperilled” are unavailable on Amazon as well as on Flipkart. Can you do something about it ?
Gagandeep@ — ‘Strategic Sellout’ may be had from Pentagon Press directly, see http://pentagonpress.in/BookbyCategory.aspx?this=Nuclear%20Studies. Penguin did not republish ‘Future Imperilled’ after the first print in 1994.
.@BharatKarnad, professor, do you publish any books or article regarding this topic as mentioned above “I had proposed in 1998 in a meeting of the (First) National Security Advisory Board with the then Foreign Secretary, Krishnan Raghunath, of reciprocating China’s nuclear missile arming of Pakistan by nuclear missile arming all countries on China’s periphery, as an albeit belated, tit-for-tat gesture to equalise the strategic situations.”
if have, please tell me or if not…..please make an article regarding above mentioned topic.
Yes, this is mentioned in almost all my books to-date!
Dear Dr Karnad,
I have been going through your books on Indian strategic situation and also at the same time I have been going through books by Western authors such as Sulaiman Wasif Khan on the Chinese grand strategy. Here are my understanding after comparing India and the Chinese grand strategies.
typhoonmax@ — Agree but with two caveats. First, India too is a revisionist power, but an easy going one. It wants to be at the “top table”, as I have argued in my ‘Why India is Not a Great Power (Yet)’, but without the will to put out the necessary effort, and muster the requisite sustained policy focus, discipline, and resources because, well, it is too much of an inconvenience to do all this! As a status quoist country, it hopes to ride some great power’s coattails to the top! Second, the two great advantages China has is that it is an autocratically run, severely heirarchical state and the people are, owing to its traditional culture and also by instinct, disciplined — both attributes of the Confucian mindset.
I will be the proud owner of last copy of “Strategic Sellout : India-US Nuclear Deal”. And it will not go into reprint because of its extensive size. I had to mail the owner of Pentagon Press who reverted back and arranged direct purchase. Fearing that I might miss out on other books , I have ordered “India’s Nuclear Policy” too. And the irony is it might be its last copy as well. I kept delaying the purchase seeing its forbidding price, but now I find them priceless. Meanwhile I’m thoroughly enjoying your last suggest ‘Maritime Strategy and Continental Wars’. I have immense regard for you professor ! But, what after you ?
Thank you, Gagandeep. Hope to be here for a while yet! But I don’t worry — there will always be someone from a younger generation
to pick up the baton.
Dr Souradeep Sen from the North Bengal University is a worthy successor of Dr Karnad. His views on the Indian strategic scenarios and geopolitics and grand strategy closely resemble Dr Karnad’s. Please look out for his writings on these topics on different forums.
Australian Senate has in a landmark decision given a tight slap to Chinese Communist Party (CPC);
https://focustaiwan.tw/politics/202408220017
A few excerpts from the aforementioned;
The Australian Senate passed an “urgency motion” Wednesday in support of Taiwan’s sovereignty and participation in international organizations.
Senators agreed by vote to move the motion: “That United Nations (U.N.) Resolution 2758 of 25th October 1971 does not establish the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) sovereignty over Taiwan and does not determine the future status of Taiwan in the United Nations, nor Taiwanese participation in U.N. agencies or international organizations.”
Supported by lawmakers from across the political spectrum, the motion was co-sponsored by Senators David Fawcett of South Australia and Deborah O’Neill of New South Wales, both of whom visited Taiwan last month.
Senator Pauline Hanson of Queensland voiced her view that Australia and the rest of the world “should recognize Taiwan for the independent sovereign nation it has effectively been since the 1950s.”
Modi government if it has any guts or self respect should endorse this stand of the Australian Senate but I am 100% sure that Modi won’t do it because of his fear of the Chinese establishment.
Sir
i want to read your “Nuclear weapons and Indian security” book
could not find it anywhere it’s a request please provide me the purchasing link or contacts of the publishers or a book store that can deliver it in Delhi region.
Thank you
Order the book from Amazon.in at https://www.amazon.in/Nuclear-Weapons-Indian-Security-Foundations/dp/1403926476/
Sir the book that you provided the link of in amazon is a bit out of reach is there low cost edition?
Someone else raised the price issue on this post. Please read my response.
Respected Sir
A question:
Don’t you think that in this new age megaton warheads are becoming useless they were used back in 1980s when missile accuracy was very low. Today a 200kt warhead with low cep can cause as much damage as a 1.2 megaton monster. I mean i am not an expert in nuclear related field. As per what i found out that the P5 countries are shifting to below 500kt weapons. Assuming that all this open source info is correct and authentic.
i)Americans have w88(475kt) for their SSBNs ,w87(300kt) for minuteman missiles and a 400kt b63 bomb for Airforce.
ii)UK also has MP w88 on their nuclear tipped missiles submarine.
iii)French warheads on their SSBNs are too in the range of 100-300kt followed by a 100kt cruise missile ASMP for French air force.
iv)Russians have 150kt warheads on their Boreis,500kt on their air launched weapons and 500-750kt on their ICBM they are retiring their megaton weapons.
v)However i do accept that the Chinese do have some Vintage megaton nukes only a small fraction of their total arsenal on their DF4,DF5 and Julang 1.If you look at the modern Chinese missiles like DF41 they have restricted the limit to 150-250kt .Overall 70-77 percent of the Chinese force is below 400kt.
Then why do you aggressively promote megaton weapons in Indian arsenal.
In one of the podcast you only told that Agni missiles are the crown jewel of Indian deterrent and they have a very low CEP.Is a 500kt weapon not sufficient to Vapourize Shanghai ,Beijing or the Wealth producing region of China. Are megaton warheads really needed aren’t they useless.
Kindly answer my question.
patrol@ Briefly, (1) megaton weapons to have deliverable parity, and, more importantly, to blunt China’s psychological edge (with standard issue 3.3 MT on their DF-3s,4s,5s), (2) If you discount previous point, then 125KT would make-do, except there has been NO physical test of 125KT yield, (3) And that leads to the basic foundational weakness — WITHOUT OPEN-ENDED THERMONUCLEAR TESTS OF VARIOUS YIELDS UP TO MEGATON RANGE, NO high yield nuclear weapon in the Indian arsenal is in the least CREDIBLE. Meaning the only usable, yield- certifiable weapon India has is of 20KT yield last tested in 1998. And India cannot resume testing because of the 2008 nuclear civilian cooperation deal negotiated by S Jaishankar as MEA official that Manmohan Singh signed.
For these points in detail, see my books and other writings.
So basically you are saying that a 20kt Indian weapon vs a 3000kt Chinese weapon and we already lost to them psychologically because they can inflict much more damage on us then we can on them.
What is the cost exchange ratio wrt to China Pakistan you told it is 2 Indian cities Wbt China.
Vajpayee Government said that 200kt S1 test was a success. So that was lie.
Can’t we trash the 2008 deal it is a radical idea i mean we can give any excuse. Is there any book on this topic the nuclear deal
patrol@ — It is not all that radical an idea. All great powers have historically trashed inconvenient treaties. The US and Russia have together junked some 4-5 fundamental strategic arms control treaties in just the last 20 years. Have argued in ‘Why India is Not a Great Power (Yet)’ and since that one of the metrics of great power is its disregard for treaties it signs, and India should follow this track record and wastepaper not just the 2008 N-deal with the US.
Sir in one of the podcast you said that Pakistan cannot afford to go nuclear against India as the cost exchange ratio does not suit them .You said that 2 Indian cities vs whole Pakistan. Now i may sound silly but why did you assumed that the jihadi arsenal would target only 2 Indian cities .Considering how much they hate us they would try to take out half of our population and industrial Centres.At least they too have some 150 warheads force which is only India centric unlike us we have to divide our force for both China Pakistan. And how many warheads does india need to neutralise pakistan as a state i mean number of strategic targets.
The number of targets is classified info. What we have to bear in mind is the stake the Pakistan Army in the game. It will lose a country it lords over, and the huge commercial interests — chemicals, cement and tyre factories, road transportation system, etc that continuously enrich the officer class.
Don’t you think that for killing non believers the Paki army would accept the lose of above mentioned things.
Sir if you were a Indian policy maker what excuse would you have invented so as to trash the civil nuclear deal and how would you have justified the nuclear testing in future
Sir if there were to be a nuclear strike on India let us assume.
How will the common civilians like me and the people of India protect Themselves. Or is it the end game for us. Why isn’t the government teaching about nuclear defense all guidelines what to do in an event of crisis i think Americans too have such a Programme.
patrol@ — all the issues you have raised are in my books. I can’t keep repeating the same things over and over again.
.@BharatKarnad, professor, Recently I ordered three Books of your including Strategic Sellout: Indian US nuclear deal which I couldn’t find strategic Sellout book anywhere else including Amazon, flipkart, padhegaindia, pentagon press etc.
is there any way I could find that particular above mentioned book or it’s gone forever?
Other two books are are on the way i.e. Why india is not a great power yet & Staggering forward (receiving both tomorrow).
please if I can find Strategic Sellout book anywhere else or ebook also works fine for me. want to read this book.
Sorry, but if the Pentagon Press does not have Sellout then, I am afraid, it is sold out. It is a 2009 book!
Prof. Karnad, if you were to argue against a G2 b/w US China, what wud be ur arguments?
Hate to keep repeating this! But read my views against G2 in my last two books. Becuse I can’t keep reprising my arguments on this blog.
Sir
can you please write a article or a detailed blog on the induction of ins arighat(s3 arihant class)SSBN.The follow up SSBN of Indian Navy,their significance and and when can we say that India has a credible second strike capability
Sir a question.
I want to buy one book either Indian nuclear policy or nuclear weapons and Indian security what is the main difference between them is it content,number of pages which one would you recommend to a beginner.You are the author so the best person to ask this question.This will probably be my first book on nuclear related topics.
So please help me pick one it is a request 🙏
Phantom@ — Depends on what you want. If you want a concise history of the dual-use nuclear energy programme, including induction of canisterised Agni missiles and how it enhances the nuclear options, etc — ‘India’s Nuclear Policy’, is fine. If, on the other hand, you want a comprehensive read of the country’s strategic thinking (including in the first chapter elaboration in the Vedas of weapons of mass destruction and of the concept of deterrence!), policy, programme, and strategy, the larger, more detailed, ‘Nuclear Weapons and Indian Security’ is the book for you.
Got it thanks professor I am going for the first one
Sir
Regarding this project 75 alpha(SSN) if we can build SSBN like INS Arighat Aircraft carriers like Vikrant.Then what is stopping us from making and designing our own SSN class.I am assuming that SSN are easier to make as compared to SSBN please correct me if I am wrong.Why india has to beg in front of France,USA or Russia for SSN technology.
Vikram — We still don’t have submarine design capacity. SSBN and SSN are different types of boats for very different missions. In fact, SSNs may be more difficult to build.
@BharatKarnad,professor if in future Iran explodes an underground nuclear device then obviously Saudi Arabia will follow too. Do you see that as an opportunity for India to test its own as you have been advocating thermonuclear warheads??
Would it be a wise or a foolish decision?
Resumption of thermonuclear testing by India is long ioverdue, and has never needed an excuse. But our weakwilled political leaders have never had the guts to order it.
@BharatKarnad,professor just recently a top diplomat from Singapore has proposed an idea that the government of united kingdom should abandon its permanent seat at UNSC and hand over it to India. Is this even possible i mean only a brain dead government would leave such a influential seat.
i would love to know about your thoughts on this topic
Neither UK nor France deserve to be in the Security Council, but India, Germany, Japan, and Brazil do. But it won’t happen until the current international system and order is undermined which, as I have argued, is what India ought to do — push the UN into irrelevance to build a new
global governance edifice.
but how exactly should we do that ??
What actions of ours will increase the irrelevance of UN .
By being nasty?
Look, UN is fast losing credibility even as a talk shop. Best is to ignore it, and reduce our diplomatic staff for more effective deployment elsewhere. And not partgicpate in any of its forums including, especially, as observer to the NPT talks, etc.
@BharatKarnad,professor i was interested in reading your strategic sellout book. After a little bit of browsing i found the book on Flipkart for 629 so ordered it today i received a completely different book, topic and author applied for replacement and ordered why India is not a great power yet. Do you know any publisher or book store in Delhi which can ship strategic sellout or its completely sold out any E-book??
Not sure there was an E-book version of the book. Contact Pentagon Press directly — they may have a few copies left over.
@BharatKarnad,sir is total disarmament possible in this selfish world considering how much nuclear weapons hating groups are advocating for it.
or its just a myth created by the P5 to stop other nations from acquiring Nuclear weapons. Will it ever happen in future total disarmament or as you have said that nuclear weapons are ultimate weapons of war, diplomacy and deterrence.
I would love to know your opinion on disarmament
Disarmament is a joke, completely unrealizable.
professor it is impossible for india to reach the US nuclear force level but let’s assume the government is bloody minded and focused how much time will it take for us to develop a 500 nuclear weapons force.
A lot of time because, thanks to the 2008 N-deal with the US negotiated by Jaishankar, India has put the bulk of its weapons-usable fissile material producing natural uranium reactors under IAEA safeguards.
Jaishankar?? the current FM of India. Sir Pranab Mukherjee was the the MEA at that time how did Jaishankar came into the scene.
Jaishankar was Joint Secretary (Americas) in MEA and lead Indian negotiator. (Please read my books, at the very least, my posts on this issue!)
@BharatKarnad, professor is the Indian ballistic missile defence programme really effective as advertised by the GOI I read somewhere that it has 85 percent accuracy.Let’s take a scenario that the chinese have fired their 10 dongfengs missiles on indian mainland.Can this system shoot all of them.Or it’s just another fantasy like the aircraft carrier.
I would like to know your opinion on this sir .
No anti-ballistic missile system anywhere are any good against incoming missiles fired in salvo.
Really sir them why do countries like israel and usa have blind trust on their arrow 3 or thaad system.Is this showcasing of BMD a part of detterence.
Should ascertain from them.
Bharat Sir,
You earlier said (also in your 2008 book) that Agni-5 can carry 8 warheads. Has that configuration been improved upon to 12 warheads? Was the recent test, however, with just 3-4 warheads
12 warheads, apparently.
Do you mean to say that the test in March was with 12 re-entry vehicles?
No. 3-4.
@BharatKarnad,professor during a naval warfare debate one of the admirals who was supporting to build more aircraft carriers for Indian navy argued that if aircraft carriers are sitting ducks and of no value then why is China so aggressively building why are the Americans using them since ww2.Despite the advancement in hypersonic missiles.
What is your counter reply to the admiral?
Because USN and PLAN have very large fleets and can afford to hive off warships as escort for carrier protection. IN has less than 50 capital ships, therefore, taking out a large force fraction for escort duties would reduce IN’s sea presence in the IO. Read my 2015 and 2018 books on this issue.
professor are those 50 ships you are talking about warships, destroyer because just saw that indian navy claims to operate 150 ships maybe they are patrol vessels reconissance ships.
please clarify what does 50 capital ships mean?
carriers, missile destroyers and frigates
professor i think with the recent trends indian navy focusing on submarines they have understood that instead of investing money on carriers it is better to get submarines. Just read an article today that the navy has set an ambitious target for completing a fully operational powerful SSBN fleet.
@BharatKarnad professor my question may be silly if k santhanam the field director said that the 200kt weapon failed is there a chance he deliberately said it to cause confusion in adversary mind as a part of detterence
it is upto china to decide whether we have thermonukes or not and china should take the risk of attacking india and get surprised in exchange
is this angle possible?
No
professor what about israel then israel unofficially claims to have 500kt warhead design and the public still do not know how and where have the israelis tested their weapons.
Israel got its design successfully tested in South Africa when the latter was pursuing N-weapons.
professor my question may be a bit wierd but please
can’t we form a partnership or a deal with our friendly alies/partner mainly France and Russia for thermonuclear weapons design.Russia has mastered the art of making megaton miniature warheads.France has also done more than 30 thermonuclear tests.I mean if Israel and south africa can adjust and make together why can’t we ask/request them for designs.
Russia is also currently very desperate and need alies so we can be a bit smart,selfish and ask them the designs.
what is your thinking about this?
A better bet would be to get tigether with the Israelis
i agree that Israelis are one the best option
but why not france or Russia I mean if we sign a few more defense deal maybe more rafales and s500 we may get the design
do you doubt the credibility of french and Russian
professor is this true that france offered laser megajoule nuclear facility and laboratory for correcting our weapons design in exchange for the 36 rafale deals.
At the time of the Rafale and Scorpene deals, that’s what I advocated we get in return (see my posts on this Blog) — access to the megajoule. Not sure we pushed, tho’ France would have conceded had we done so.