A comprehensive ban on nuclear testing should be acceptable in an age when breakthroughs in supercomputing can be more accurate than hot testing the reliability of a nuclear warhead in its boost and reentry phase. The U.S. has performed more than one thousand nuclear tests of various types before its indefinite moratorium. Such large number of tests should otherwise preclude the urge for more tests. The reliability of the warheads-stockpile can be checked by ostensibly the most advance means at its disposal.
If the U.S. can manage successful fusion experiments and is on the bleeding edge of the technology for cold testing, setting the precedent for others by ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty will reaffirm its leadership role in nuclear order but also freeze the technological advantage it enjoys in variety of warhead designs it has over its competitors and peers.
On December 5, 2022, when American scientists at the U.S. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) announced a “monumental breakthrough” in nuclear fusion, it generated mostly the wrong headlines worldwide.
Reeling from the soaring energy prices and devastating climate change effects, the world welcomed the achievement by focusing narrowly on the commercialization of nuclear fusion and the creation of clean and carbon-free electricity. Except that the power production is only a coincidence of the fusion research of American scientists at Livermore.
The primary objective of creating these extremely hot and high-pressure environments, like those in thermonuclear explosions, is to understand the physics (internal operations) of nuclear explosions virtually—that is without blowing up a nuclear explosive in the air or underground. The virtual testing of materials and weapon designs would ensure that U.S. nuclear deterrents are in the best possible working condition whenever their time for delivery arrives.
The U.S. stockpile stewardship program inter alia relies on all types of testing, including cold tests that it has preferred after the U.S. signed CTBT in September 1992. Since then, Washington has placed a unilateral moratorium on live underground nuclear explosions but there have been temptations to resume hot testing.
When The Trump administration dallied with the thought of resuming hot testing of nuclear weapons in 2020, nuclear scientists and policy experts countered the move. If the purpose of the hot testing was to demonstrate confidence or reliability of the existing stockpile and weapons designs, that purpose was served very efficiently at Lawrence Livermore, Los Amos National Laboratories, and Sandia National Laboratories.
Washington had already conducted about 1034 explosive tests, more than any other nuclear weapons State. A couple more physical tests would not help nuclear scientists understand nuclear physics any better than sub-critical tests and computer simulations do.
Beyond serving American interests, the such stunt would create once-in-a-generation opportunities for other countries with far lesser nuclear explosive testing experience to improve on their existing designs or try new ones.
India for one has been waiting for exactly such kind of an opportune time.
India’s scientific enclave and political leadership, especially the BJP, has a particular penchant for another round of testing. Their officials and think tankers are arguing for another hot test of thermonuclear weapon design. India’s previous hydrogen-bomb explosion, before its unilateral test moratorium in 1998, had reportedly underperformed.
While India’s political community has at times shown confidence over the years in the country’s deterrent capability, it left a door open for thermonuclear tests. Hence, some hawks and pragmatists alike contest the confidence in the ‘reliability of warheads.’ They insist on another live thermonuclear explosion to test the advanced or full-scale thermonuclear capabilities.
Conversely, American nuclear physicists have shown that lab-based experiments not only help them validate the work performance of the previous deterrent stockpile but also are instrumental in testing modern nuclear forces.
India’s potentially hot-nuclear explosive testing would therefore stand in sharp contrast to the decadal efforts of American nuclear scientists, major nuclear weapons states, and international organizations against blowing up nuclear material in the real world out there.
Strangely enough, New Delhi’s advocates in Washington DC propose that the United States could provide India with the designs and codes of the thermonuclear bomb. Since India conducted only a handful of tests, it doesn’t have sufficient data to validate the weapon designs.
There seems to be no other motive behind this insane demand than to implicate the United States as an accomplice in violating the nonproliferation treaty (NPT). (As a rule, NPT members cannot share nuclear weapon technology with non-NPT member states.)
To be sure, India has been developing thermonuclear weapon designs since the 1980s. It might have developed the technological finesse in a decades-long effort. It would be no surprise if Russia had already assisted India in mastering the hydrogen-bomb designs or supplied the country with a few of its proven designs of the hydrogen bomb covertly.
Russia has been India’s “long-standing and time-tested strategic partner,” and the largest source of “major arms” supplies. Russia has also been the only supplier of three nuclear submarines to India since the 1980s. Moscow has also provided or co-produced with New Delhi nuclear-capable supersonic and hypersonic missiles. That obviates the need for an American design as such.
But such an implausible and illegitimate demand follows the door-in-the-face tactic, where negotiators back down from extreme requests only to ask for less extreme favors as a concession.
India’s foreign policy advocates concede by requesting American waivers from potential sanctions whenever India reverts to setting off nuclear devices. And they make a wild claim that such a course of action would somehow “enhance geopolitical stability in the wider Asia”.
Instead, if India explodes its nuclear bomb, Pakistan could ineluctably follow up with its own kind of test. So, if Washington agrees to sign away sanctions on India, it will have to do that for Pakistan as well—and by extension for several other potential detonators. The aftermath of the American waivers would be tantamount to one that would emerge if the U.S. conducted its own live NE testing.
In the end, India would be wise to avoid the fallout of the sanctions and the explosive chain reaction of other states by reversing the decades-long unilateral moratorium on nuclear weapon tests. A far more pragmatic approach is to increase investment in its supercomputer simulations, subcritical tests, and all other legitimate experiments to validate the designs and performative efficiency of its existing nuclear devices. That would be a great trendsetter. Otherwise, India’s North Korea-like misadventures would essentially make fools of international norms against nuclear explosive testing and inflict irreparable damage to the strategic stability of the Asia-Pacific.
This article has been published in another form at https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3206066/us-fusion-breakthrough-reinforces-case-against-live-nuclear-tests-and-india-should-take-note
Riaz Khokhar
Mr. Riaz Khokhar is a Research Officer at the Center for International Strategic Studies (CISS), Islamabad.
