Impact of the U.S.-Indian Nuclear Deal on India Security

Congrats to All......................................

The civilian nuclear deal with India paves the way for the first nuclear cooperation with the booming South Asian giant since India tested a nuclear weapon in 1974.

But critics of the India deal, largely in the nonproliferation community, say the deal will set back nonproliferation efforts by encouraging other potential nuclear powers to hold out for a similar deal. This deal has everything to do with being able to say we changed relations with India and with building good relations with the Brahmin elite of that country, but it has nothing to do with nonproliferation and will only set it back,

One of the central issues about the proposal is how the supply of U.S. and other foreign nuclear fuel to safeguarded Indian nuclear power reactors would allow India to use more of its existing domestic supply of uranium to produce fissile material (plutonium and highly enriched uranium) for nuclear weapons.

There is no debate that India possesses “uranium reserves.” But the fact is that India has been unable to exploit these reserves to the extent that advocates for the nuclear deal have claimed. As a result, India would be hard pressed to expand its nuclear energy output and maintain, let alone increase, the rate of production of fissile material for weapons unless it can significantly expand domestic uranium mining and milling and/or get access to the international nuclear fuel market.

India currently produces about 300 tons of uranium annually, which is almost two-thirds of what is needed to run its current heavy-water power reactors and support its production of highly enriched uranium for its nuclear submarine program and its current weapons-grade plutonium production rate (enough for approximately six to 10 bombs annually). India has had to rely on stocks of previously mined and processed uranium to meet the shortfall. The addition of new reactors in the near future will increase the total demand for uranium beyond projected increases in domestic uranium production.

There are several scenarios that could allow India to utilize foreign nuclear fuel supplies to help it increase fissile material production for weapons purposes from its current annual rate of six to 10 bombs worth to several dozen per year.

For instance, if India builds a new plutonium-production reactor (as it is reportedly planning to do) or decides to use one or more of the eight existing heavy-water reactors that would be excluded from International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards to augment its two existing military plutonium-production reactors (CIRUS and Dhruva), the additional increased consumption of domestic uranium supplies for plutonium production would be compensated for by access to imported uranium for safeguarded power reactors.

India has also kept the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) out of safeguards for the purpose of “maintaining long term energy security and for maintaining the minimum credible deterrent.” This reactor, to be completed in 2010, could produce up to 130 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium each year, which would be a four-fold increase in India’s current output and equivalent to another 25 nuclear weapons annually.