CAT has nothing to do with the bomb.
There is no LIF capability at CAT Indore.CAT merely designs and builds various laser systems and no - it has not invested in anything that remotely resembles an LIF experiment.
Just because words like "hohlraum" or "equation of state" turn up in a CAT annual report does not mean they are investing in an LIF capability. Making anything that CAT already does look like an LIF experiment will not serve India's interest or CAT's interests.
It costs an ungodly amount of money to do these LIF experiments - it is simply cheaper to test a few designs and see what happens. The only reason one would justify doing this work is if there was fusion based energy generation option that we were developing. The Americans have clearly indicated that they are going to do everything in their power to prevent fusion from being an energy source. We do not have the strength to fight them on this issue at this time and there are significant technology barriers to fusion based energy generation happening in India right now. For us the Thorium route is more feasible at this time.
People on the forum constructing imaginary bomb related LIF experiments at CAT is no different from Pakistanis inducting imaginary F-22s into the PAF.
CAT cannot validate any thing related to the bomb design. That is outside of its capability.
CAT's role is to develop high end laser, electron beam, and x-ray technology with an eye on the industrial market for lasers in India. There are two emerging laser markets in Indian industry - high stability frequency narrowed lasers as aids for various measurments and high power lasers for cutting applications. Another sector that will take off in the next five years, is biological spectroscopy - as you know India is emerging as a hub for a lot of bio related R&D and most government planners have anticipated a need for locally developed and maintained x-ray/electron beam, and laser sources.
CAT has a small group of people who work on interesting physics problems because that is the only way to create benchmarks for the laser technology it does develop. Ultimately you have to demonstrate the quality of your product and a physical phenomena serves as natural calibration point. And that is all it does.
I can understand it if some American or German company wants to hegde against a potential peer competitor for the Indian laser market by fucking CAT's chances at producing technology India's industry can use.
I can completely understand it if some foreign company wants to have CAT blacklisted to hobble its potential for profitable international cooperation.
This is normal behaviour in the business world.
What I do not understand is a how a bunch of people who call themselves rakshaks are falling for that sort of thing.
When the BJP government tested in 1998, the yeild was questioned by the NPA for two reasons - firstly to publicly reassure the Pakistanis by feeding their notions of Indian incompetence and secondly to gain as much information as possible about the Indian bomb. This is a good fraction of what the NPA are paid to do and they did what they were paid for. After the Pakistanis felt reassured the NPA stopped asking questions and the controversy over the yeilds died down as the NPA asked the media hounds to back off.
Now the nuclear deal on the anvil and the NPA's false god is under threat - the NPA are once again acidly provoking a discussion on India's nuclear capabilities. They are keen to find out how the proposed transfer of technology and nuclear fuels will affect India's nuclear weapons capabilities.
The position of the Indian national security setup is that the proposed ToT and fuel is purely civilian in nature and does not affect the Indian nuclear weapons program. Per the Indian point of view, conveyed via several channels, India's nuclear weapons options are completely dictated by its perception of its general security needs. If the US wants India to pick a fight with China to get the Chinese to cough up more loans for the failing US economy - India will need to pursue larger yeilds and ICBM development. If on the other hand the US wants India to help it loot Iranian oil, India will have to expand the size of its arsenal to hedge against potentially damaging proliferation scenarios in the Islamic World.
The US can't expect India to partner up on their screw-China/ screw-Iran ideas and simultaneously cut down on its weaponisation options.
This fact is known to the NPA - and so they are out fishing to find out what we are really capable of. If the find out what we are capable of - then US negotiators peddling screw-China/Iran ideas can gain traction point.
I simply point out that we are under no obligation to tell them.
There is no love lost between us and the NPA and frankly, we are disappointed by the NPA's inability to arrest proliferation in the US. One simply does not see the RRW becoming a replacement for older warheads - as far as any one can tell the US simply intends to make more warheads and call them "Reliable Replacement Warheads" without actually dismantling the old "unreliable" ones. This is a proliferation far in excess of Iran's 1-2 bombs and Saudi Arabia's 10 bombs and the NPA have no say in this. It seems the NPA are completely useless when it comes to stopping real proliferation and their only purpose is to make informed sounding noises about irrelevant shit.
The OFBJP types are very keen to block this deal because of legacy issues and most of them are a little too susceptible to the "sky is falling" type stuff. The NPA appear to have convinced them to pursue the idea that India somehow needs a bigger bomb. They are aiding the NPA fishing trips.
posted by maverick @ 6:39 AM
247 Comments:
Hi M,
Now the good Subbarao's brought into the mix! What's BK (or the OFBJP point man or whoever) feeding the UberRakshaks? :(
-Anand K
Hi M,
from the previous thread, I must confess that my knowledge of the scriptures is abysmal ... so I can't comment ...
my knowledge of CAT is somewhat better ... I agree that I did not see any signs of an LIF type activity so I was surprised to hear the call for such a facility on DF ...
they are a good tech group ... perhaps the best in India in terms of what they do ... IIRC, they built some cavities for LHC ... they are also involved in ADR system for Thorium utilization ...
and yes, the stance of Khan Sa'abs on fusion research surprised me ... the Ombudsman Bill of 2008 cut off funding for ITER ... the boondoggle called NIF at LLNL has sucked life out of every other group at that Lab ... it used to be a happening place that now resembles a sinking ship ...
alok_n would really appreciate if you can elaborate on the acronyms used in this post. LIF? OFBJP? I suppose i can stretch my imagination to come up with imaginary organizations or whatever, but use of obscure (from general public) acronyms does remove from the clarity of a post. May i mention that blogs are read by non-core readers as well.
thanks in advance.
n
>> Acronyms
Me me me me meeeee!
NPA-Non Profileration(sic) Ayatollahs (Bolton, Kimball)
NIF-National Ignition Facility
LLNL-Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
DF-Disreputable Forum (BRF)
OFBJP-Overseas Friends of the BJP
RRW-Reliable Replacement Warhead
It's a slow day...... :)
-Anand K
My, my! For all your looking down on DF you still frequent it :-)
So people who disagree with whatever you say are OFBJP eh? Will wonders never cease :-)
I see you are hanging around with like minded people, Enjoooooooooooy maadi, just make sure your beard doesn't turn a darker shade of green.
-definitely not the point man :-))
Hi Anand K,
The manner in which the young people are being systematically fed crap is truly disheartening.
Hi Alok N,
There is no money to make this Laser Induced Fusion setup without a benifit on the energy side.
The Accelerator Driven Systems are actually a hidden pillar in the entire 3-stage program and CATs participation in those types of programs has earned it the "proliferation sensitive lab" moniker in the NPA world.
The NPA insist that ADS only be used to make once through fuel "proliferation resistant".
Dear Anonymous,
I read all sorts of things.
I even read the NPA websites and Pakdef.
When the LeT used to have a website I used to read that too.
However nowadays - I don't have to do that. I can get all the exact same opinions from the DCH pied pipers - all neatly arranged in one place.
Do you propose I thank them for that?
I simply refuse to join this piss-on-the-DAE parade. I am quite frankly stunned that a place that used defend the GoI has sunk to such levels.
I am apolitical and it seems they have only pretending to be apolitical.
If you have any other way in which I can express that feeling of distaste - then please do tell me.
In 1998 these very same people defended the test results because the BJP was in power. And now they are questioning it - but somehow we are to believe that the BJP is not at fault for not ordering more tests. It was all the DAE that said more tests were not necessary. All those things about the yeild related debates were known to the BJP leadership when the decision to not test further was made.
Why did the braves not question that decision?
Was is not simply political loyalty that made them keep their peace?
So now there is a Congress government and all the "doubts" are emerging.
When ABV was in a position to defend himself, all these people dared not utter a word. Now that he is unable to do - this rubbish are coming out of the woodwork.
Hi Anonymous,
One more thing - regarding the "OFBJP" comment.
I *unfortunately* know both sides of this.
I know who *exactly* is making all the statements on there and I know why they are doing it. I know who started this and why they did it.
I have told the concerned people *repeatedly* that they should ignore "political compulsions" and look at matters in the national interest. My advice to them on the nature of bipolar provocations has fallen on deaf ears.
I am deeply disappointed that a particularly abrasive tack is being pursued to make politcally motivated statements. The same political points could easily be scored without any abrasiveness.
Deliberately the bomb has been turned into a device for the DCH's amusement. Utterly half-assed notions of numerical deterrence are being touted with little or no thought to the economic aspects.
And the icing on the cake is that Subbarao is being paraded to comment on the capabilities of Dr. Raja Ramanna.
Yeh din bhi dekhna pada!
mav, time for you to rejoin DF then?
Hi Maverick,
AFAIK the DFite who's going *BALLISTIC* in the Nuke Thread is simply... misguided. Forgive the pun.
What I ain't sure of is how exactly someone like him was convinced of this "Great Betrayal by Chidambaram, Sikka, Kakodkar etc" (and of course the "silencing" of Kalam, the senility of K. Subrahmanyam and the charlatan MK Narayan). The All Seeing Shaman-cum-URL Delivery Boy of the DF says they got something explosive that resulted in their current stance. (Talk about shaped charges, eh!) The Tech discussions of the bomb look like some surreal, absurd inversion of those first discussions in BRF. You know these DFites are technically QUITE qualified (though not exactly in nuke weapons/tech) so it must have taken some blinding gobbledygook, beyond their expertise, to convert them. Praise the Lawd! It ain't simply the work of some savvy new-age Knickerwaalah run by the "Aspiring Statesmen" of the BJP. They got help from somewhere. (This is assuming that this ain't simply the personal politics of the said DFites in the first place.) You have seen that even the senior denizens of the DF tend to be dazzled by someone bringing in "fresh perspective" or fundae that's new to them. Remember the "White Masjids" and Johann's early stunts.... let alone Ravi_CV's knawlidj of the "Bum" and the recent brand of jingoism-plus? I also remember how the n00b Ray was savaged when he brought his perspective of the Army (which counts more than the rest of the DF put together) simply 'coz it didn't fit into their ideas....
And BTW, what about the counter-point of "Are these folks right after all?"
Well, if the vitriol was just in terms of number of warheads-weaponisation pace (or even the Autonomy-H&D-Manifest Destiny thingie) I wouldn't mind. I won't even mind if it's simply a Legacy Issue for the BJP. Everyone can ride their favorite pony. But this.... this has now turned into a question of the validity of the Indian Deterrent and the work of the Shakti team. WTF? And wonder of wonders the Subbarao skeleton (which they quietly buried long ago in an unmarked grave in a moonless night) is dancing in BRF! Why Raja Ramanna... and why NOW?
I saw right at the beginning that they and other DFites are blowing it out of their a$$es when they talk about the Power and Energy angle and their "projections and charts". (Trust me!) I lost a great deal of my faith in the prowess of some senior folks and the very credibility of the DF. Back then I thought that it's all simply an argument-point and could be excused in the light of an emotive/political issue such as the Deal. NOW, putting all this together, I feel that was just the opening shot.... a build-up leading to the final encore against the Indian Nuclear Establishment. I'm going out on a limb here but this prolly means these good DFites friends are feeding them crap and these "friends" in turn are compromised (either simply due to political compulsions and intra-party fights or alliance with some NPA Turd-Sandwich). IMO and all that.
The opposition MPs or the senior BJP leaders (the ones who have long roots and are answerable to the establishment) won't dare badmouth the Team and the deterrent even if they wanted to. The Intelligence Leak to the INC during Kargil would pale in comparison to what the establishment would do to the next BJP Govt if the NDA openly pi$$ on the establishment in the race to the Gaddi. The next best thing the vested interests could do is do a false-flag: shower some shit on the Team/Establishment through some internet warriors/bitter rabble-rousers/chota strategist with political ambitions.
-Anand K
PS: Remember Lewis's "Rattehalli: Proliferation Point" baloney? That was the last *targeted* fishing expedition, right? Is there something in CAT the *Core NPA* are interested in?
Hi anandk
DF was right to run you out - or you left on your own- eitherways a great boon for DF! Ray now counts DF as one of the best places to hang out on and himself has said he was deliberately coy and posting under his daughters ID. So much for that strawman.
Fact is that you have no locus standi to call ArunS misguided - he knows more than you and forever will, as far as this domain is concerned. And unlike you jholawaalah patriots and NRI-academia posers, he is playing a valuable role in pushing for a qualified deterrent. Fact is whether the DF likeS or dislikes the BJP is immaterial, its a simple thing that there are improvements to be made and national interests to be safeguarded. Your verbose histrionics dont do much to dispel the reality. Grow up.
Anand K/Maverick
There is a theory that it was a combination of Ravi CV and one of the two strategic thinkers with their names beginning in B that gave the DF rocket expert knawledge that the Indian bum is a dud. So he converted (LOL, no, no has not become an EJ) and now attacks the Indian nooklear house.
The problem with this theory is that the idealogical spine behind that cabal in DF is the "resident astrologer" who sees a EJ behind every tree (and probably under his bed every night! LOL) and wants to erase 1300 years of Indian history. So even if you take the "rocket expert" at face value, the question is how much of this "conversion" (and pardon the pun), is a purely saffron knickerwalla kind of push for political purposes.
So why did these "sources" keep their mouth shut for the last 9 years if the tests were a dud? Why did the exalted thinker (whose name begins with B) and who was part of the BJP government not open his trap anytime sooner. After all, he was part of the security policy set up in the BJP government. His eyes have suddenly opened? I wonder why? Maybe because there is a non BJP government negotiating this agreement?
The problem is that the old DF always relied on publicly available information to frame a debate. In the new DF, hearsay, private conversations and information given out by people of unknown credentials to some Admns, is accepted as the "ultimate truth". The aam janata on the forum is then supposed to fall in line with this new knawledge and thinking imparted to a select chosen few on high and begin wholesale bashing of the Indian nooklear establishment.
There is also the ever present reference to a "hindu resurgence" in every other post. If there were an equal number of references made to Muslim triumphialism or Christian renessiance, the knickerwallas on DF would go ape-shit. And yes, I think DF has completely become a knickerwalla hangout where it has become impossible to have any rational discussion without reference to religion.
If the knickerwallas think that the BJP was God's gift to India, they have to only look at the results of the last Lok Sabha election. 85 million votes for the BJP, 102 for the Congress out of eligible voters who numbered some 650 million odd. If the people of India thought that the BJP was God's gift to them and especially after 5 years of BJP rule, they would have given the party a big majority. But what the knickerwallas in their elitism fail to see is the ultimate insult given to them by the people of India who preferred a foreign born, white, Roman Catholic women to the "herrows" of the knickerwalls. Should make them think, you think, but no, LOL. In their pomposity and ingrained feeling of superiority of how every else is a dhimmi, or a fool, or a commie, or a traitor, or a liar or a sellout, or the tool of an EJ, they look everywhere else but within themselves for the roots of the problem. 1300 years ago when Islam first landed in the Indian sub continent, why were the knickerwalls not around to defend the country? After all, there were no Muslims, no EJs, no US, no Johann (LOL) to put a spoke in the knickerwalla's chaddi.
Today, India is a composite culture. You have to take India as is and find solutions. The knickerwallas solution of a Hindu rashtra is a road to disaster and division in India. If they still havent figured out that after 5 years of BJP rule, only 85 million Indians voted for them and preferred a white Roman Catholic women because the non RSS part of India wanted somebody to protect them from the RSS idealogues, they are either brain dead or total unmitigated fanatics. And it is this lot who is now the driving force behind DF.
I wonder why the sane DF admins are in hiding?
Maverick, I am sorry if I have abused your hospitality by this post. Please delete it if you think it has crossed boundaries.
Anon-in-India.
So in your opinion, why cant India pass an Indian equivalent of the Hyde Act to dispel all doubts. That should take the primary wind out of the nay sayers.
it would be best to avoid this line of posts ...
fwiw, Arun had told me about 6 months ago that the explosive info would be made public in "about one year" ... I am waiting ...
let's not dismiss other folks ... Arun is noone's dummy so I would want to hear him out ...
if the info is too sensitive to be talked about then it should never have been brought up in the first place ...
Anon in India,
Suffice to say there is a reason why BK and others have now openly come out with data on S-1. It is because the current regime headed by your favourite UPA- whose arse you probably lick every night and whom you voted for, is compromising Indias interests to the point that a partially successful series of tests wont do. As a fellow Anon in India I will gladly vote for the NDA over your non elitist jholawaalah UPA because they have shown themselves to have far more character than these minority pandering, reservation everywhere SOBs that you love so much. Fifty years of screwing India and we have yet another cretin from the Gandhi family to continue the process. Thanks to people like you, this nation will be stuck in the middle ages, while other NRI idiots like the fellow who runs this site will bloviate on CAT and what not. One thing is for sure, none of you fools is remotely connected, pretensions apart, to the Indian establishment. If you were, you'd know what BK writes is nothing but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the overwhelming dismay in the strategic sector of some of the actions of this Govt and others. And the angst over what RC did in 98 by misleading an elected Govt and by steamrolling his peers. Continue to live in your fools paradise.
And anon in India, or Amit, next time you bloviate about knickerwallahs and what not, pls do expect a suitably temperate response on DF as well. Running with the hares and hunting with the hounds doesnt always work.
Alok_N, of course Arun is a dummy according to the worthies on this site. time and again, i have read snide posts alluding to DF and Arun S being Hindu fascists, a RSS knickerwala and the admins being suborned by some RSS/BJP cabal which is dragging the erstwhile oh so pure DF to depths which the other gents on this forum wont touch. If AnandK, Maverick and the other posters on this site had the gonads to tell ArunS, Shiv, JEM etc on their face what they thought of them, it'd be one thing. Instead they sit here and snipe, whereas on the other hand, DF wonders where these same worthies who are now trashing DF have gone. talking sh*t is easy, lets see bigmouths like AnandK try to take on ArunS et al on DF about how their "knawlaj" is flawed and what not.
Hi Anonymous,
I don't have time to pick fights with anyone on DF.
If my comments here are interpreted as "sniping" etc... so be it.
I admit I am powerless to stop them.
Hi AnandK,
It is Cohenesque or Perkovich scale loss. When these people came to us ages ago they too were given a lot of access and they turned and bit the hand that fed them.
It is a shame to see the forum go down that way. They too have succumbed to journalistic instincts.
None of the people on the forum know anything about building a bomb. They are all speculating - just the NPA are.
The NPA go fishing and very quickly run into a wall of security compartmentation inherent in this kind of exercise.
The Rakshaks find themselves facing the same wall of silence but usually unlike the NPA who are curtly turned away - more dulcet tones are used to push the Rakshaks aside.
You see the GoI does not distinguish between those claim to hate it and those who claim to love. It keeps information from those who need to know.
Ultimately it feels like a rejection and some people can't take it. This lack of acceptance makes them susceptible to subversive thinking. That is precisely what has taken hold here.
I know that I personally don't want to know the details of the brahmastra. That is simply too great a responsibility for me to shoulder. I know how much this burden weighs on those that know about this and I don't want it.
In my interactions with friends over tea and biscuits, I never offer advice and I never ask my opinion be taken serious because I write on some website. I only offer my opinion when I am specifically asked.
This is boundary many do not know to respect and that is where a mismatch between ambition and perfomance develops.
anonymous,
you are not really helping matters ...
as for DF, the point is simple ... a forum that chokes dissenting voices is no more than an echo chamber ... this has nothing to do with nuke deal, just a general comment ...
I have visited several forum websites over the last year and tested them out for their integrity and intellectual honesty ... they all fail ... sooner or later some admin type comes and bans you ...
that is why I like this website ... there is no membership, no ban, no admin, nothing ...
just state your views and sign your ID if you want or stay anonymous ... simple and honest ...
as for folks you mention, I consider them all to be friends ... we occasionally exchange emails ...
so, lets not make this about individuals ... its about the principle of how a forum is run and how voices are suppressed/banned etc ...
From BRF:
[quote]For Arun_S:
Quote:
People on the forum constructing imaginary bomb related LIF experiments at CAT is no different from Pakistanis inducting imaginary F-22s into the PAF.
Arun: I think you can guess, where is this being said. I will leave it to you, to respond here or ignore and/or delete this post entirely.
All I will say is, the folks who have left the forum because they thought that BRF is becoming an echo chamber are grouping to create what another echo chamber?
Contrasting views are the essence of debate. Can we all grow up and leave our personal egos aside and state your views, in what you believe to be the national interest.
You guys are reading this forum but refuse to put your views across here. One statement by a Ramana or Arun_S or Shiv or a ban from diligent rule follower Rakesh, ruffles egos of members up so much that they leave in a huff and puff.
Yes, The admins are gods of this forum but how long can even a God resist the call of truth? The Gods may slaughter you a few times but I will tell you from personal experience, it is possible to change the nature of these gods on some issues but a pre-requisite is that you post on this forum and let your views be known.
IMO: Folks who think they are apolitical et al, have not yet grown up or reflected enough on, what that statement means.
Apologies, if I have exceeded my brief, but have been watching the tamasha for quite some time now.[/quote]
AnandK,
>>Is there something in CAT the *Core NPA* are interested in?
Probably - the ADS (Accelerator Driven Systems) work.
In the three stage cycle, ADS platforms will be used to launder out unwanted isotopes. No one has thought of doing it like this and frankly even the conceptual charts I have seen for this are startlingly complex.
We are looking at an engineering exercise that approaches the LHC/RHIC technical complexity level.
It is all perfectly civilian stuff but the mere idea that a country like India can do something like this, scares the living shit out the NPA.
Hi Anon-in-India,
I have no problems with anyone's ideas of India.
I have no problems with disagreements over the issue of what is the best yeilds for our needs.
I also understand the role of verbal transmission of views in this kind of debate because no one is allowed access to the actual data.
I question the need for public debate on this. This is why I have repeatedly hinted that the two Bs should really find something else to talk about.
I simply do not see why the debate has to be in such abrasive terms. This where the attitudes on the forum are really depressing.
I do not see why the discussion has to be conducted in a way that is likely to prejudice CAT's interest. That is where I draw the line. This kind of talk is not in our interest.
If people want to oppose the nuclear deal for whatever reasons - there are ways to frame their objections in ways that do not run afoul of national interests.
If you want to propose higher yeilds - you do not have to question the existing results or attack the SciComm.
alok, there is no forum which can operate on a full freedom principle. for the fellows like anandk who (because his family were died in the wool kangressis) keep harping DF is BJP whatnot and make it partisan politics, there were many bjp types banned from DF who set up other places. fact is that every forthright poster triggers an email storm and depending on which admin he pisses off, the forum in question will make a choice on taking the easy way out. now you have the honesty to admit that you interact with these DF guys without rancour and know how the forum system (doesnt) work well at times..but look at the comments prior...apparently because DF is no longer listening to the bloviations of self serving armchair experts, it is now an echo chamber! fact is that till date nobody has been able to effectively counter arunS's assertions because he is a serious chap and looks before he leaps. the political BS can be left apart of whether it is BJP or UPA driving this deal.
but when a guy like that comes up with his own research and conviction of what needs to be done, you have maverick et al insinuating that he doesnt know squat ("none of the fellows on the forum know anything about building a bomb") or implying its all a NPA saadish or that GOI conned DF and BK ("You see the GoI does not distinguish between those claim to hate it and those who claim to love. It keeps information from those who need to know. ")
this is all horseshit. first GOI does not operate like the stasi. there are a hundred people out there and many are willing to talk. this is what i meant by saying maverick is being a ponga pandit, iow somebody with no connections to GOI or the establishment but pretending to speak for them. fact is what is been said on DF is well known in indian circles. only that kissa kursi or pension ka makes people shut up, not to mention lifelong commitment to STFU. but this Govt has irritated folks to the extent that even this barrier has been breached. if maverick was a serious chap instead of a "let me talk for the sake of talking"- he would ponder over this. but boss, he is in love with the sound of his own voice, egged on by the likes of anandk who will post reams of verse of speculation!
allakh niranjan!
Dear Anonymouses,
I do not intend to get into a fight with anyone at DF. I don't have the time to do that.
Honestly that is why most of the old disreputables have left - the sheer volume of crap the forum churns up is too much to respond to and frankly people have simply moved on in life.
I read the forum from time to time and now I am telling people what things I see there that I feel prejudice the interests of CAT and of India.
Long ago I was basically told that my viewpoint i.e. "my government is always in power" was unwelcome on this forum. For some reason the self-appointed "Gods" were keen to court anti-GoI opinions.
I was uninvited there because I refused to play along with allegedly "DCH friendly"-GoI-dissing strategies.
I can understand if my views are too staid and bureaucratic to be "sexy" to the DCH. And I can understand if sounding a little "anti-government" may actually useful or helpful to get a point or two across the DCH or to NRIs.
The Gods and I had reached a parting of ways. I chose the way down from their heaven.
I am quite comfortable letting the Gods sit in their heaven and periodically telling them that the "Rang De Basanti" world they are building is perilously close to falling on our heads!
Dear Tanaji,
I have absolutely no connections to anyone and I have no political loyalties. My only viewpoint is that "my government is always in power".
Now that we are both clear on that - all I want you to reflect on - is the simple question -
Is this rubbish about CAT's involvement in the bomb program prejudicial to CAT's interests?
Also while you are thinking about that - please consider this other question:
How does believing in the existance of imaginary weapons capabilities help Indians connect with the cold harsh realities of our national security scenario?
The Pakistanis induct imaginary F-22s into the PAF and these forumites create imaginary fusion experiments. How are the two different?
BTW- Tanaji, the question above is rhetorical and is not really aimed at you. You are one of the old hands - do you remember who first suggested that was the difference between the Indians and the Pakistanis?
I am making that statement to point out to him that - finally - it seems that difference has been erased.
anonymous,
isn't it refreshing to be able to post what you just did?
:)
boss, i am not tanaji and i am not an old hand either, i was a disreputable lurker since my harsh criticism of the govt once had the admins ban me..i think i was pissing off people by adding to the jassoo mithaiwaala chorus.
allakh niranjan is just a good phrase to sum up what i wanted to say.
but dear maverick, pls understand that "your govt is always in power" doesnt mean that you own the govt of india or automatically speak what is in indias interests 24/7. this is a fable of your creation and your parting of ways which i watched from my lurk on high was because the admins were apparently even to my novice eyes fed up of hearing your convoluted explanations of what gois interests were and how any opinions contrary to yours were anti-GOI and hence censorship was required of aforesaid views.
in toto, what you then do, is then ascribe motives - make those critical of the current ruling dispensation, OFBJP or NRI super jingos, or DCH- such sobriquets only show how you are simply unable to accept the fact that you can be WRONG.
ArunS is right in this case, if there is a lacunae in the indian strategic arsenal then signing upto a deal which can limit future testing is dangerous. indias bureaucratic obsession with secrecy harms us many times over. pls understand this, for all your love of mumbaiyya slang and desire to project the GOI as selfless mandarins, the GOI is made up of equally incompetent turf protectors who run the country on the whims of their political masters and many decisions taken are NOT in the overall interest of the country, but escape censure thanks to a code of omerta which protects the fat behinds of worthies who want to protect their clout come what may. kindly visit india for an extended period of time and move in the circles which you so love to defend, the dirty laundry is not just about personalities but the system itself is broken and people like BK are in effect patriots for risking political ire by raking up issues which they could easily use to instead curry favour and political largesse. children like anandk will not understand this, his family loyalty to the congress topi overcomes logic and emotion, but you- who claim to speak for GOI- stop defending GOI but defend INDIA which is MORE than just the elected Govt of the day and their hand picked cosy mandarins. when you realise this basic fact, you will become someone who moves from the status of an intelligent, but opinionated "voice" on the net to someone who truly matters and can make a difference.
Alok sir,
indeed! and to that the credit does accrue to maverick.
boss, the era of doing everything behind an elaborate smokescreen and then claiming that it was peaceful onlee is gone. if cat is to be used for the bum, it has to be - if a national ignition facility has to be set up, let it be. if more tests have to be done, they have to be, and so on. this wink, nod, nudge method of decision making has crippled indian defence. as i said kindly spend an extended period of time with our defence planners and scientists and service personnel and the degree of frustration they have over the current state of affairs will shock you.
lastly pls realise this - arunS has publically boosted the value of the indian deterrent by impeccably detailing the quality of the indian missile program. till date, even the GOI was unable to do this, as usual hamstrung by their execrable media management and obsession with secrecy with their own people while giving goras guided tours of BDL and BARC. his contribution to the indian security scenario is already a huge one, for the first time, folks are beginning to grasp the fact that india can hit back and hit back hard. to watch fools like anandk rubbish his efforts to put india on a strong footing when he points out what needs be done, is seriously lunacy. at the very least understand where he comes from. as a fellow living in india, i can tell you, if aruns's efforts lead to the strengthening of the indian n effort, he deserves a padma shri. but that is not how things work in our blessed country, whistleblowers and those who point out that the powers that be have no clothes are tarred and feathered, which is what happened to BK. who despite his occasional misfire is an out and out indian and wants the strongest possible deterrence regime. by painting him in lurid colours, and by insinuating that arunS and others like him are merely DCH and what not, you do india a severe disservice. at the very least acknowledge what they aim to do, which is wake up this apathetic security establishment from its fits of somnolence or ensure that it moves the right way. and lastly BK is not the only person who has criticised the way things are, the dissension is enormous, if you were clued in dear sir, you would know this. and no saying this is not harming india, we already have enough to deter the pakis and prc, but the issue is of whether the "Common minimum deterrent" was arrived at in a logical manner and whether it will stand up to the PRCs aggressive modernisation drive. understand, consider and then talk.
Ach so, the Rakshak(s) are here.... in anonymous mode as usual. Recognized (300% sure) an old friend anyway. Howdy anyway!
ADS! Bingo, Maverick.
Now I am sure you closely follow NI and guess where this 1300-plus crore (and the 900 Crore the year before) went. BTW, I don't buy into that simplistic alternate explanation of this "gap"... maybe it's because of my Kangress Topi that makes my brain radioactive. The casual reader notices the dip the figures; mind it the slash IS massive in the Power Project Outlays and the whole thing looks treasonous at first glance. But then one reads about the new 700MW units being "mass produced" and see those key power related PSUs surge in capability, ops and production and private parties overloaded with orders in ancillary items. MRS's article was attacked just recently in the DF but long time ago (i.e. when DF hadn't still "turned") AK hinted at some action with the ADS and the Fuel Cycle. Why do I have a feeling "things" are not so far down the road?
More later, gotta go for now.
-Anand K
Dear Anonymous,
My apologies for mistaking you for Tanaji.
My viewpoint "My government is always in power" simply means that it is not my place to criticise the GoI.
I do not own anything, as I have said before I am not connected to anything but my own mouth.
Any suggestions that I own anything or that I seek or ever sought silencing of views contrary to mine are purely a fable created by minds too weak to stand up in the field of reasoned debate.
I was uninvited because there was a desire to court this anti-GoI image and I simply did not fit in. What I said was sufficiently informative so as not to be ignored and it simply fouled up the "Rang De Basanti" mood that "Gods" had decided bring up on the forum. I was a killjoy and that meant I had to go. Given my previous service to the website I was given the honour of being dispatched with a polite wave.
This is all old stuff - I go over it because I fear I may forget what happened so long ago.
I am human and quite capable of being wrong. I realise now how wrong I was to associate with the forum in any way. Had I even guessed that the forum would turn so venomously against GoI, I would never have visited there in first place.
This is all spilt milk right now. When I think of this - my sadness only grows.
Currently I am pointing out that in as much as deterrence can be reinforced by writing certain things about India's missile capability on a website - the interests of India and its scientists can be damaged by writing irresponsible garbage about things like LIF experiments.
Regardless of your opinions of "government secrecy", "turf wars" etc... I can assure you that in no country that I am aware of are details of this kind discussed with people who don't need to know. That is quite simply the way it is. If you like it - fine ... don't like it...that is fine too.
My explanation of the two Bs and their problems is that they did not need to know and they were not told. Now they are profiteering by appointing themselves prophets of the "people who were not told". To me this proves their desperation to avoid irrelevance in the broader scheme of things. I have no problems being irrelevant and like the Bs I was never told anything either, but you don't see me dropping my biscuits into my tea.
Inventing comingling schemes that never existed is not benificial. CAT's interests are not served by people accusing it of doing an LIF experiment - when it has not done anything of the sort. This is simply a case of inventing things to pander to the DCH. It could simply be a misfire, but I cannot speculate that as to whether there is forgiveness for misfires.
I generally think before I talk, and I assume that people have thought before they speak to me. You seem to assume that because I am talking, I have not thought about things. I find this a curious assymetry in your perceptions.
So let me tell you that I have thought about this PRC angle and I have this to say.
The idea that India intends to pick a fight (nuclear or otherwise) with the PRC has more traction in America than it does in India.
Now in my experience, there is considerable overlap between the people in the US who push the idea of a India-China conflict and those that push the idea of a India-Islam conflict. And somehow the sum of these two ideas seems to converge on an India that is somehow more in line with American views of how it should be in the first place.
Listening to such things bores me.
coming back to this whole LIF business ... can any of the proponents actually explain what it is that an LIF would do for India?
as I said earlier, the one that I am somewhat familiar with is an incredibly complicated waste of resources ...
so, why should India build one? ... an answer like "because China has one" doesn't cut it ...
[failure to post a reason would only enhance the "echo chamber" view of DF ... ]
Posted by Anon-in-India.
Posted by foul mouthed Anon to me:
>>the current regime headed by your favourite UPA- whose arse you probably lick every night and whom you voted for<<
Posted by foul mouthed Anon to Alok N:
>>If AnandK, Maverick and the other posters on this site had the gonads to tell ArunS, Shiv, JEM etc on their face what they thought of them, it'd be one thing. Instead they sit here and snipe, whereas on the other hand, DF wonders where these same worthies who are now trashing DF have gone. talking sh*t is easy, lets see bigmouths like AnandK try to take on ArunS et al on DF about how their "knawlaj" is flawed and what not.<<
Posted by Alok N:
>>fwiw, Arun had told me about 6 months ago that the explosive info would be made public in "about one year" ... I am waiting ...<<
So foul mouthed Anon wants us to "have the gonads to face the oracles of DF" and Alok N says that Arun said six months ago that he will give proof in 1 years time. But in the meantime a vicious campaign has been ongoing for the last 6 months against the DAE and GOI using the pages of DF. If Arun has proof let him submit the proof now otherwise hold his peace. He should have submitted the proof 6 months ago before this vicious campaign of name calling against civil servants who cannot defending themselves in public was launched.
As foul mouthed Anon says, talk is cheap. Let us see the proof. If the proof is valid, ofcourse Arun will be vindicated, but in the meantime he should hold his peace.
Posted by Anonymous (defender of DF):
>>fact is that till date nobody has been able to effectively counter arunS's assertions because he is a serious chap and looks before he leaps. the political BS can be left apart of whether it is BJP or UPA driving this deal.
but when a guy like that comes up with his own research and conviction of what needs to be done, you have maverick et al insinuating that he doesnt know squat<<
Again, please submit the proof on DF or any other public forum.
Posted by the same anonymous (Defender of India).
>>fact is what is been said on DF is well known in indian circles. only that kissa kursi or pension ka makes people shut up, not to mention lifelong commitment to STFU. but this Govt has irritated folks to the extent that even this barrier has been breached.<<
So the UPA govt has pissed off some people and they have breached a barrier. Tomorrow a NDA government will breach somebody else's barrier and then those dissatisfied babus will speak out and curse and rant? We all know GOI's shortcomings including its woeful record on project implementation. But this dirty caimpaine of slander on DF is not how issues are resolved.
Maverick, apologies again if I have come across too strongly for your tastes, but somebody has to defend the babus. LOL !!
Anon-in-India
My apologies for mistaking you for Tanaji.
maverick, no apologies necessary. I used to post as PramodB on the DF till the admins saw fit to send my ass to jhumri talayya for cursing Jassoo Mithaiwaala. after that lurkee lurkee onlee
Regardless of your opinions of "government secrecy", "turf wars" etc... I can assure you that in no country that I am aware of are details of this kind discussed with people who don't need to know. That is quite simply the way it is. If you like it - fine ... don't like it...that is fine too.
again, maverick, this shows how firmly out of touch you are with the reality in india. there is no stasi in india. details about the so called hush hush stuff are openly known in so many circles that you would be shocked. no matter how much you keep insisting the two b's and arunS are wrong, they arent. accept that and then think of the possibilities afterward, good use for your (and our) gray cells
My explanation of the two Bs and their problems is that they did not need to know and they were not told. Now they are profiteering by appointing themselves prophets of the "people who were not told". To me this proves their desperation to avoid irrelevance in the broader scheme of things. I have no problems being irrelevant and like the Bs I was never told anything either, but you don't see me dropping my biscuits into my tea.
gawsh maverick, no need to be so bitter. fyi, the two b's are very well connected and very much in the loop regarding many aspects of indian security - and thank goodness for that. its only that the current political dispensations namby pamby idea of security flies directly against the 2 b's concept of strength flows from barrel of a gun etc, so they are "officially" not in the loop. but i assure you the two b's and half of delhis establishment know what is being discussed on DF is true. only difference is many of these types, apart from 2 b's and df types dont have the intelligence to put 2+2=4 and hence report some junk and some truth. think about it
anon in india ie amit,
a foul mouth is a matter of perception - no point in turning the other cheek to worthies like you. so while u grovel to maverick whilst engaging in barbed talk, a more honest way would be to speak your piece and be open rather than engage in crap and then say delete if u want and what not..
So foul mouthed Anon wants us to "have the gonads to face the oracles of DF" and Alok N says that Arun said six months ago that he will give proof in 1 years time. But in the meantime a vicious campaign has been ongoing for the last 6 months against the DAE and GOI using the pages of DF. If Arun has proof let him submit the proof now otherwise hold his peace. He should have submitted the proof 6 months ago before this vicious campaign of name calling against civil servants who cannot defending themselves in public was launched.
As foul mouthed Anon says, talk is cheap. Let us see the proof. If the proof is valid, ofcourse Arun will be vindicated, but in the meantime he should hold his peace.
what vicious campaign hainjee? if you want sacred cows to be untouched, thats one thing and its ridiculous. df has better things to do than act as a rah rah sound stage. what is funny is if arunS provides proof, because BK is not good enough for you armchair warriors, then of course he takes the risk while you can slander him as well. what a joke!
So the UPA govt has pissed off some people and they have breached a barrier. Tomorrow a NDA government will breach somebody else's barrier and then those dissatisfied babus will speak out and curse and rant? We all know GOI's shortcomings including its woeful record on project implementation. But this dirty caimpaine of slander on DF is not how issues are resolved.
no they wont. this is probably one of the most underperforming Govts in indias existence, in many ways yet the omerta is so strong that no serving official has spoken up against them. but ppl like bK will continue to defend indias interests via data provided 2 them whether it is NDA steel knees Vajpayee or UPA I cant sleep at night MMS in power. that is their dharma and it is good for india that they do so. such facts will fly over your head at super speed but think for a change before you wet your undies thinking about the scary knickerwaalahas under ur bed spoiling beloved bharat!!
Maverick, apologies again if I have come across too strongly for your tastes, but somebody has to defend the babus. LOL !!
and the ji huzoori continues!
Maverick, apologies again if I have come across too strongly for your tastes, but somebody has to defend the babus. LOL !!
MAV,
I agree that US would love to see India and China go to war and thankfully the idea doesnt find traction in India.However what if china DOES want a showdown?Something ala kargil in tawang? I thought after olympics coming out thingie they would have tried something funny,but given this tibet riot happening and loss of face with it,they would be very very tempted to put India in its place so to speak.Should we not take that into account.
Abhisheik
Posted by Anon-in-India.
Posted by PramodB to me:
>>a foul mouth is a matter of perception - no point in turning the other cheek to worthies like you. so while u grovel to maverick whilst engaging in barbed talk, a more honest way would be to speak your piece and be open rather than engage in crap and then say delete if u want and what not..<<
This blog belongs to Maverick, he set it up, he may have certain rules and boundaries he does not wish to cross. So courtesy requires that you offer him the option of deleting certain strong posts.
But you are ofcourse arrogant beyond belief and believe it is your birthright to crap where you want and when you want and that others will pick up the droppings after you. The same entitled, elitist mentaility which now prevails among certain DF circles. You must have been turfed out of there during the old DF days when politiness counted for something.
As for "half of Delhi" knowing everything, let me tell you, "half of Delhi claims to know everything". In reality they know nothing. It is the old habit of "self importance" and trying to be "self important by association". When you actually ask these "well connected all knowing" people to actually perform using their so called "connections", they fall flat on their face and avoid your phone calls, because their bluff has been called. So much for "half of Delhi" knowing everything.
Anon-in-India
Dear PramodB,
It is important to distinguish between the claim of knowledge and actual knowledge.
Whoever knows exactly how to make a Brahmastra will have the ability to kill millions of people. If everyone's claim to such knowledge was credible - then we would have as many nuclear powers *inside* India as people willing to write opeds on nuclear weapons.
That does not appear to be case right now. Consequently not everyone who writes an oped on nuclear weapons can claim to know what they are talking about.
None of the commentators you mention have actually worked on a nuclear weapon. I know who the two B's are "connected" to. One of the B's was reeducated after 1983. And as I said, I cannot speculate on forgiveness for such things. The other B, well... I don't see anyone cowering in fright because he knows something that might enable him to push any buttons. He is one of the proponents of the "bigger" and "more is good" theory but at the end of the day - he has yet to convince me of its merits. He has never convinced me that he has any plan on how to get his proposed expansions to pay for themselves.
Given the way that information regarding the weapon is compartmented, working on a piece of the weapon does not constitute *certain* knowledge about the workings of the entire weapon.
All the information currently being paraded as "sensitive design information" comes from a handful of sources whose claim to special access in the program has never been fully evaluated.
Everything that we are seeing on DF is purely out of the inferences drawn about the design by certain posters. None of these people have worked on a bomb or any other much simpler real world physics experiment.
I am not saying that people can't draw inferences - but I can only point out that such theories are not credible. This is about as credible as someone on Pakdef claiming to know how the Pakistani nuclear bomb works because he made a website about it.
No physicist worth her/his salt will draw conclusions based on data they have not seen. Any one who does this kind of thing suffers from a credibility gap. To me people like C. Sublette etc... suffer from a credibility gap. Remember I argue that in a few years time - the US will have zero credible people to talk about is nuclear weapons because not a single person who has seen an actual test of a configuration she/he has designed will be alive.
Many people cannot accept that such a credibility gap exists. By contrast any physics student knows about this gap. Until you are the one doing that experiment your comments on the details can't be considered very mature.
This is the exact same trap that B. K. Subbarao ran into way back in the day. He claimed that he had some divine insight into the design of a submarine naval nuclear reactor when he had never actually built any naval power reactor - much less anything that had an actual nuclear reaction going on inside it.
His "deep insight" came from his readings of writings on other submarine reactor programs. However because he was someone with a rank in the armed forces, and it was important to keep the armed forces' perspective in mind when doing such things, a third party who shall remain unnamed because *she* is no longer with us to speak about this herself - examined Subbarao's claims personnally. Unfortunately for Subbarao's personal political fortune she too found the credibility gap unbridgable. Specificially she concluded that most of Subbarao's own opinions were based on a rather small body of work whose credibility could easily be questioned because of the manner in which the information contained in it was sourced. By contrast the DAE team actually knew something substantial about designing reactors.
Things ended badly for Subbarao, after grappling with rejection inside the establishment, it is said he took his troubles to the Americans. They had their own reason to offer him a shoulder to cry on - they want to know more about the Charlie's reactor.
This created problems at the highest possible level between us and the Russians and I feel created a paucity of options at our end. Beyond a point our hands were tied with regards to Subbarao.
Those wishing to follow in Subbarao's footsteps should know what fate awaits.
I don't intend to go down that road, I am happy in my ignorance of big things like "nuclear weapons design" or "rocket motors" etc... I am a simple fellow who drinks my tea and thanks people when they give me marie biscuits.
I am not in the business of flying too close to the sun.
If the Bs and others are in the business of seeking the truth, they have to be open to the idea their personal p.o.v must be wrong. So far I don't see them admitting to that possibility.
I am merely pointing out that accusing CAT of doing things it has not - really really really undermines CAT's own interests.
Dear Abhisheik,
If China wants a fight we will have to deal with very differently than if the Americans want us to fight China.
There is a different language to be used depending on the conflict under discussion.
Traditionally Tawang, Tibet etc... is all China's way of telling us don't get too close to the Americans. Until China actually deploys operational nuclear weapons in outer Tibet, as far as I know there is no nuclear dimension to this.
If the discussion is about more direct India-China issues, then words like Burma, Indo-China, SEA, Malacca Straits, Gwadur, Pakistan turn up in the debate.
MAV,
I doubt China would introduce Nukes in picture.Given that they begin and end with a political end in mind,they would want to cut India down to size.They also happen to believe this Tibet thing was orchestrated by India and US.And no i dont belive it was some spontaneous riot.Too many tibetans that I talked to were hinting beforehand of such a thing.
I hope India is ready to repulse any chinese misadventure.Seems its 62 redux.
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1159482
Abhisheik
This blog belongs to Maverick, he set it up, he may have certain rules and boundaries he does not wish to cross. So courtesy requires that you offer him the option of deleting certain strong posts.
dear anon in india, if the blog is indeed mavericks, then he will delete your posts whenever he wants to and mine as well. your constant barbs and then delete my posts if u want are simpering schoolyard tactics to suck up. not really impressive
But you are ofcourse arrogant beyond belief and believe it is your birthright to crap where you want and when you want and that others will pick up the droppings after you. The same entitled, elitist mentaility which now prevails among certain DF circles. You must have been turfed out of there during the old DF days when politiness counted for something.
arrogance is again a matter of perception. some of us prefer to respond to shit slingers with shit of our own others prefer to take polite way. i dont have patience to sit down and feed you hamdard ka gripe water to make u get over your bidwai fear of knickerwaalahs and bad rss. so i respond to ur stinky tactics with some stink of my own. of course being so humble, you only complain when ur given the language which u use for others. grow up bacche
i was turfed out because i spoke my mind and took up a tiff with an admin but unlike u i am not harboring permanent grudge against DF see all forums have tinpot dictators or real rules, play by them or not ur choice i made mine and i lurk
As for "half of Delhi" knowing everything, let me tell you, "half of Delhi claims to know everything". In reality they know nothing. It is the old habit of "self importance" and trying to be "self important by association". When you actually ask these "well connected all knowing" people to actually perform using their so called "connections", they fall flat on their face and avoid your phone calls, because their bluff has been called. So much for "half of Delhi" knowing everything.
my my so much bitterness. it is the usual tactic of those who dont know anything but then complain against those who do. let me tell u something, india is an open bucket leaking with info and there is no stasi. information is routinely exchanged and there is so much of it that most ppls dont even bother cross checkin..when dey do. u guys have a heart attack and piles at the same time. take a charminar yaar and cool down. the rss hiding beneath ur bed wont kill you, dont worry
maverick,
that was a good post and ur points are to a large degree understandable and logical. even so, i must agree 2 disagree with u on certain others. anyways, as u remarked going down this road of breaking up the debate into more & more detail is not gonna help our country, so lets stop here. but i will say this - dont write off 2 b's, they are very well connected and many fears they raise are very valid..u gotta talk to folks in dilli and otherz to know they are regarded with serious ppl and not humpty dumpty ppl
Hi Anonymous,
Again, I am not impressed by the Bs and their connections.
One fellow's antics earned him a re-education lesson and the other one does not seem to have an economic foundation to his thinking.
People may meet the Bs and talk to them, and they may be connected, I simply question their competence to convey the views their connections impart them.
Neither of them have made a bomb themselves. I can't take such views seriously.
If people want to that is their business, I only remind them that there is a credibility gap where these people are concerned.
This is all beside my original point that the discussion should not be conducted in a way that prejudices the national interest - specifically dragging CATs name into imaginary LIF experiments is not in CATs interests.
arre anonymous bhai,
even though I have quit smoking, the chaarminar offer sounds very good ... here's what I suggest:
1. I proceed to Plan Chaarminar and you proceed to collect info from the "leaky bucket" ...
2. When you are ready, post the answer to a) what happened to the secondary yield of S1? and b) how will an LIF fix it?
there is a very simple way to end this debate and its outlined above ... hurry up with the answers because I don't want to be hooked to cigarettes again ...
and lastly bk doesnt mince any words. so whose do i take, given stds as expressed by the ppl here, anonymous posters or former member off nsab:
Thus, for example, another test is an absolute imperative to test a reworked thermonuclear weapon design. The one tested in May 1998, many scientists even here believe, fizzled out. The doubt is about whether or not the shock wave set off the ‘secondary’ (meaning, the store of thermonuclear fuel). Reading into the test data, the dissenting scientists who, incidentally, are in a majority, are convinced that most of the yield was due to the boosted fission trigger (or the ‘primary’) and that there was virtually no thermonuclear burn
and u think this is a chamcha of BJP for gandhi topi and congress undie types :
The earlier impression of the ‘security dialogue’ as going nowhere is giving way to a view of a fatal Indian compromise in the offing, which was strengthened by Minister for External Affairs Jaswant Singh’s lengthy interview to The Hindu (29 November 1999). In it, he made the case for India’s signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) soon, notwithstanding its rejection by the US Senate and its non-ratification by the other major nuclear weapons states, Russia and China.
The haste in signing this wretched treaty is foolhardy in the extreme.
oh he doesnt hesitate to whack jassoo mithaiwaalah too
oh is gurmeet kanwal also BJP?
the need for more tests if weapons in the megaton class or even 200 kiloton (kt) fusion warheads are to be developed, India will have to develop a suitable strategy to find a way around the CTBT to enable further testing without inviting a fresh round of sanctions and international opprobrium. In case India's nuclear warhead capability remains confined to 15 to 30 kt fission warheads, it will lead to the sub-optimal utilisation of India's meagre fissile material stockpile. With negotiations for the FMCT staring it in the face and the likelihood of an early agreement being reached, India would be hard put to stockpile adequate fissile stockpile for the total number of warheads that its retaliatory strategy and targeting philosophy may require. These are the tough issues confronting the development of a potent nuclear strategy. While there are no easy answers, a determined diplomatic stance and a tough negotiating position with some hard bargaining can achieve the desired results. The world is gradually getting used to the idea that a "cap, reduce, eliminate" policy is no longer feasible and that India's nuclear weapons, born primarily out of the need to safeguard national security, cannot now be rolled back.
wake up "indians"..or be as amartya sen proudly calls u all, argumentative and wear that badge as something to be proud of
Hi Abhisheik,
I doubt this Tibet thing has any angle on our side.
As far as I know we have repeatedly told His Holiness that the Han migration has no counter measure and that the Tibetans are welcome to stay as long as their heart desires in India. Tibetan Buddhism has many great contributions to make to India, and we welcome anything wisdom he chooses to share with us.
India has no interest in embarassing China during the Olympics. We do not think that this will help the Tibetans in any way.
Some Western countries are keen on that. If you see all the protests on TV, the people protesting are all westerners, there are hardly any Tibetans there.
There are a lot of Tibetans in India - it is completely understandable they want to protest the Olympic Torch relay.
In India we allow people to protest on issues of such deep emotional significance.
Using force against their self expression will not help the Tibetans view India as a place to settle down in.
There is a paradox at work here, the Chinese should please take note of it and not expect us to use harsh security measures.
We do not seek to confront China on its affairs in Tibet and we do not intend to be unkind to our Tibetan friends either.
Hi Anonymous,
BK's claims of anonymous sources do not bridge the credibility gap.
The comment of JS cannot be taken out of the context in which it was made.
GK analysis is coherent with the DAE's public admission no weapons of ~100kT yeild have been tested.
MAV,
Sorry I should have been clear about it.I didnt mean Indias involvement.Its just that i met many tibetans who had just returned from SF and europe in DU.they had a strange glee in their eye although they only talked about peace march in India on 10 march.I am putting two and two together to say that in mainland tibet riots were not exactly spontaneous.I should have been clear on this.
Abhisheik
PS: I dont belive india was involved but china does.thats what i wanted to say
maverick, bk a former member of the nsab has more credibility than an anonymous consultant on the internet, no? so who is judging whose credibility?
Dear anonymous, Given your views about BK being in the NSAB giving him credibility...what would you say about Sanjaya Baru's views on nuclear weapons. Mr. Baru was part of the NSAB too, if you ask the wise oracle of the times (google).
with knickers on,
anonymous
the chaarminar's long gone ... the leaky bucket has yielded nothing but highlighted/boldfaced cut&paste stuff ...
thought so.
dear alok n,
cut paste is good enuff for replying 2 the likes of those who constantly drain info but cant provide anything in return. i have no intention of spoonfeeding u. meantime arunS has let the cat out of the bag on DF, so u can go there to get your voyeurism in gear, hopefully they havent IP banned u and u can still read.
cheers
pramod
dear anon (with knickers on), pls read in context, BK is a weapons strategist, a former member of the NSAB and comes from a very "well connected" background - use google if u like it. sanjaya baru was, is and will always be a political flunky, even his fellow upa chamchas dont like him, and are glad to be rid of him as he escapes for the usual singapore trip.
and lastly for the freeloaders like shri AN @1:42 pm, this humble fellow lives in india unlike you savants and the blog poster so, i have enuff brains to realise what to post on the net and what not to. dear alok n, let me see you posting everything about unkils weapons designs and what not on the net, and lets see how quickly you pick the next flight (with or without cavity searching) back to country of origin, hain?
talk sense.
this is why ppl like the 2 Bs are doing a yeoman job, by speaking up they take a risk. there is no stasi, but as vk singh is discovering, whistleblowers have mazaa
my, my ...
I see a large chip with some dude pramod's shoulder attached to it ...
this is the same dude who was defending forum Admins and is now abusing this space ...
"leaky bucket" and what nots replaced with pure and simple ad hominem ... LOL!
I am done exchanging views with you ... crawl back into your hole in peace ...
:)
Hi M,
I'll take a break until the monkies are calmed down ...
unlike them, I have ArunS on speed-dial on my cellphone ... I don't need to post BS on the web to prove anything.
Cheers.
dear tri-partite, if you engage in adhominems and call ppl monkeys, solicit info via barbs- and only a complete fool would deny ur attempts to bait info @ 10:35 and @ 1:42, then some heat goes ur way too no? looks like ur one of those overseas jingos who worry maverick so much. ur right this place is indeed refreshing, one can treat u like u treat others, without some admin type banning u once u go running to him.
Dear Anonymous,
He has not participated in the making of the bomb.
This is the root of the credibility gap.
NSAB membership and a few opeds on nuclear weapons do not bridge the credibility gap.
As far as the working of the bomb is concerned, he claims to know someone who did work on the bomb and who choose to transmit their views via him.
However we cannot comment on how accurately he transmits these views.
Unlike such people, I make no claim of knowing anything about the bomb. I have never worked on it.
And honestly if I had, I would not be talking about it - certainly not to people who obviously have an agenda. And I can't imagine why anyone who knows anything will.
The difference between me and others is that I don't need a faded letter that says "I almost became a Joint Secy. GoI after gheesing onto the NSAB" to make my point.
Hi Abhisheik,
The Chinese have been told what our limitations with regards the Tibetans in India are.
We cannot be expected to control Tibetans in SF or Europe.
If we point out to the Tibetans in India that they are going to be used by the West to serve its own agendas against China, I doubt they will listen to us. Their sense of anger with China is too great to be set aside like this.
Hi Alok N,
Yes,I don't see any new points emerging here.It is the same old "the bs are credible" stuff.
I think most of this rang de basanti stuff will wind down.
Now is as good a time as any to take a break.
See you around.
Hello,
I just want to summarise everything that has been brought up here.
The Bs and others go around as if they have "connections" and "contacts" with people who made the bomb or made a missile. This is creating an aura of credibility around them.
I am pointing out to readers everywhere that as long as one has not worked on the bomb itself there is a credibility gap that cannot be filled by writing opeds or websites.
There are a lot of people who are convinced that this deal with the US means that that India will have to give up certain weaponisation options.
I do not feel this is true.
People want to see more debate on the issue of the nuclear deal and they want to see a greater clarity on the security impact.
I think this desire is laudable, but honestly, there is a limit to the discussions one can have. One cannot actually have discussions on the bomb design and one cannot have discussions on the team and the locations involved. These discussions compromise national security in an obvious way.
Some people want to see India strong and they associate strength with having big and powerful weapons. These people convinced themselves that because a "Hindu Majority Party" had ordered the tests in 1998, the bombs could be ascribed imaginarily large yeilds.
This is not what the DAE said in its public utterances. The DAE said that a Fusion Boosted Fission device had been tested in 1998. The DAE stated in public that the device had a yeild of 40-50 kT and that the yeild was scalable to 150kT. At no point did the DAE claim that it had a full thermonuclear burn and whenever asked the DAE clarified that testing such a device was impossible given the limits at the test site. The DAE also clarified that an atmospheric test of higher yeilds could not be carried out due to PTBT limitations and without compromising the secrecy of the design in the age of air sampling.
I went back to the forum yesterday and I saw a large amount of utter garbage posted about there about interpersonal dynamics in the DAE. I am simply too old and I have heard rubbish like this many many times before.
This stuff is completely unverifiable, and it sounds like really juicy stuff, the NPA love this and talk endlessly about it. Peddling knowledge of this stuff is how Indians wanting to become NPA gain acceptance among their non-Indian colleagues.
It is my opinion that the forumites have fallen victim to such an NPA wannabe.
This brings me to BK. BK is a self made authority on nuclear affairs. He is wedded to a "more is more" agenda and that colours everything he writes. I personally find his views lack an economic foundation. I value him as a Peter-Kahnesque figure who argues issues on general grounds. I think debate in India is enriched by such a viewpoint. But BK has never worked on a nuclear bomb. He is not technically trained. This makes his commentary on technical issues unreliable. On these matters BK is hostage to his sources and we are all hostage to BK's limited grasp of technical affairs.
On to BC. BC is self made national security expert. He has no experience in actual national security management. He is a capable orator and I like watching him on TV. However as I am a very sick old bastard, I tend to remember tiny little things. I recall that during Bluestar BC's loyalty was questioned and he was subsequently educated about the error of his ways. I cannot take such a person's views too seriously.
Now about the forum personalities.
The forum has always been populated by young people who love to rail about shit and are addicted to hype. The forum leadership has evolved over the years to service such desires. Unfortunately, a few years ago, there was a big fight inside the website team. One group wanted to take a harsh line with youngsters and shift the debate away from excessively militaristic visions of India and another group wanted to pander to whatever the young people desired. This debate damaged the site, and the panderers won out and those advocating a harsh line simply left.
Unfortunately for the website, among the young people on the site, there was a substantial number of Hindu-far-right elements. These people tended to accuse anyone who did not agree with them of being a anti-Hindu Christian/Muslim fundamentalist.
Another unfortunate consequence of the split was that the website lost people that would check facts. The result is that the amount of unsourced "conjecture" on the website proliferated. A culture developed where imaginary weapons were inducted into India's arsenals.
With a pandering strategy as the only option, the forum leaders were left with no alternatives to fanning wave after wave of righteous outrage from a younger audience. The disreputables who had once helped the stablise the forum became silent. The forum's capacity for thought provoking debate declined.
The result of this mess was a "Rang de Basanti" atmosphere on the forum. Today the slightest thing produces uncontrolled frothing at the mouth on the website. Forum members at once wail everytime a single child is killed in terrorist violence in India but then ten seconds later jump with joy everytime a bomb goes off in a school bus in Pakistan.
I confess this is a post-mortem discussion. There is no way to fix this. At this point the amount of energy and time invested by forum personalities in bad mouthing leading personalities in India leaves no way back. At the end of the day, these people will recant their words and that will destroy any credibility they have. And with it any webpages they may have made will lose standing as well.
Dear Ananya,
I am sorry but I missed replying to your comment.
I do not know what the Counter-Hyde Act would be like, and that is a matter for the honourable members of the house to decide.
So I have no opinion on this.
Also I am not an elected representative, and I feel it would be inappropriate for me to publicly comment on this issue.
Alok N,
Posted by you some troll on this blog:
>>2. When you are ready, post the answer to a) what happened to the secondary yield of S1? and b) how will an LIF fix it?<<
As always you ask thought provoking questions. And thats why I miss your presence on BRF or DF as it is known as here.
Did some reading up on the NIF after reading your question above. My feeling is that the basic research there is geared towards:
1. Checking on the status of existing pits by subjecting stockpile cores to the "laser treatment" in NIF. Given the large number of US warheads this makes sense for them. For India however, a far cheaper way to overcome any nagging doubts older stockpile warheads is to simply remanufacture the pit, given the far smaller number of warheads.
2. My sense is that the second major objective behind the NIF is to do cutting edge research on essentially substituting the "primary" in a multi stage device and producing the X-rays/plasma which sets of the secondary/tertiary by other yet to be perfected means. This could be deemed to be a new generation warhead if and when it is perfected. I see very little if any applicability of this for India.
As such, I concur with your views entirely, that there is little India will gain at this stage purely from a military preparedness standpoint by having a LIF. An LIF could contribute towards fundamental civilian research, but then CAT is already doing such research as Maverick has written in this latest post of his.
Having said this, I am sure you have further unique insights into this issue. It will be a pleasure to listen to them.
ldev
ldev,
hello from Oxfordistan ... I was going to stay away but I will make an exception to respond to an old friend ...
the phyzzx of a plasma is very simple in some respects ... accessible to anyone with a science background in high school ...
the variables of interest are simple, namely, density, temperature and pressure ... these are basic thermodynamic variables ... note that I left out "volume" as the other variable of interest in basic thermodynamics ...
the reason is again simple ... in gigaboom context volume is considered as a constant and hence not relevant as a variable in the much touted EOS (equation of state) ...
this is true unless, of course, volume ceases to be a constant ... for example, if the vessel designed to contain the volume fails to do so ...
now, why would a vessel fail do to its job? ... likely because the wight of such a vessel was minimized in order to ensure that said vessel could be chucked for large distances ...
so, what does one need to optimize the vessel design ... IMO, a few computers costing about $10K is enough ... a $1B facility will help you measure the parameters of the EOS ... who needs that and why?
there, I have posted the real issue in 5 minutes that 1 year of monkies jumping up and down have failed to do ...
and that includes BK and BC ... I respect the old fogies, but they have failed to display a kindergarten level of understanding of the issues ...
given more leeway I can post more crap off the top of my head than these luminaries have posted in megaton worth of newsprint ...
now, I will bow out gracefully because unfortunately I have real arguments to post that can not stand the scrutiny of jumping monkies ...
Cheers.
Maverick,
I am going off memory here but I seem to very clearly remember the DAE stating at the time that S1 was a two stage thermonuclear device. Later on GF revealed that the first stage of S1 was a fusion boosted fission device.
Alok N,
>>so, what does one need to optimize the vessel design ... IMO, a few computers costing about $10K is enough ... a $1B facility will help you measure the parameters of the EOS ... who needs that and why?<<
Brilliant, absolutely brilliant! - exactly, given that India already has a ton of data on the parameters of the equations of state via the 5 Shakti tests, a straightforward redesign of the casing of the primary will do the job. And I am sure it has already been done - a long time ago.
>>and that includes BK and BC ... I respect the old fogies, but they have failed to display a kindergarten level of understanding of the issues ...
given more leeway I can post more crap off the top of my head than these luminaries have posted in megaton worth of newsprint ...<<
Certainly look forward to carrying on this discussion on your return from Oxford. And look forward to you posting "more crap". Good hunting!!
Hi Sparsh,
The confusion in the initial press releases was because someone handling the media latched on to the word Fusion in the term FBF. This turned the FBF into a thermonuclear device.
A clarification was issued at the DAE press conference the very next day by RC himself but by then the media was saturated with echoes of the comments made the day before about the relevance of an FBF trigger. In early interviews RC pointed out that the FBF usually serves as a primary in at TN device.
At that time the NPA's friends in the Indian media had come fishing and they pushed hard to learn more about the design. It was at this time that the "Failed TN" idea emerged as a ruse to fish for more information.
You may recall dear friend, that in the US, the proponents of the H-bomb ran into a lot of opposition from their own colleagues in the bomb community. A group associated with Oppenhiemer believed that a weapon of this size was unnecessary and unsafe to keep in an arsenal. Another group featuring Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam at its core pushed for the creation of a bigger bomb citing the possibility that Russia could make such a weapon. In the 1946-50 period considerable hostility built up between these two groups and I suspect it contributed in some way to Oppenhiemer's ouster from positions of influence.
Maverick,
That was the primary reason for Oppenheimer's downfall. His reluctance to proceed with the thermonuclear program, and his increasing discomfort with the weaponization of nuclear power provided the necessary ammunition for his enemies to brand him a communist.
Hello Faizi,
That is exactly my point!
In the US during the "Red Scare" period, the word "communist" could be used to discredit anyone and question their competence.
In India as we do not have a "Red Scare", I think we have to question competence and loyalty in more direct ways. The language on the forum is a direct lift from the McCarthy days. One wonders if these are Indians posting or merely very culturally attuned Americans recyling ideas from the pre-McCarthy period. The ease with which the forum has succumed to this soverignity fever seems curious, it is all too reminiscent of the ways in which everyone in the US saw something red under their bed.
In the US in the 50s, a larger portion of the bureaucracy was guided by the desire to prevent Russia from gaining an upper hand. Also the leadership of both the US and the USSR was desensitised to violence - in fact both Stalin and Eisenhower were military men of some kind. They accepted the logic of megadeaths easily.
That is not where India is nor will it ever be. India has the benifit of hindsight - we have seen the difficulties that the Americans and the Russians have in maintaining weapons based on the complex Teller-Ulam/Layer Cake designs. The enthusiasm for bouncing rubble is tempered by a deep sense of economic costs.
The world has moved beyond a point where the megatons give mega results. Survivability factors in nuclear strikes these days. An MT bomb's effectiveness against such hardened targets is a matter of debate. Larger yeilds imply larger weights and that means bigger launch platforms. Improvements in satellite surveillance and communication mitigate against the survivability of such large launch platforms especially in the Indian context where mating warheads to weapons imposes a massive escalation cost.
Geez, you go away to the deep mines of Kalgoorlie for a week or so and the bats come outta the belfry. . .
Still, glad to see you folks are having a fun time. :)
Alok, Anand, Maverick, others etc.
If you folks have a spare moment, please look up a new term I've recently been hearing - "Peak Uranium".
Note: Peak Uranium not Peak oil.
As usual, Google is your informative but slightly retarded friend.
Later,
kg.
Hi,
The claim that members of the forum now have a deeper appraisal of yeild-to-weight ratios of likely warhead designs than people who participated in the bomb effort is utterly absurd.
The core idea being synthesized on the forum appears to be that somehow India will only be considered a global power unless it has credible demonstration of megaton yeilds. Given India's expanding global business status, it needs visible strength in the form of bigger yeilds to secure itself.
Frankly, this is an absolutely legitimate argument that can be made in a stand alone fashion.
You don't need to talk about S-1 design or Agni MIRV or anything technical to make this bloody point!
This entire mythology about a DAE that misled people stems from a bunch of "BJP First"-Rakshaks who now want to backtrack from the inflated yeild claims they peddled after 1998.
Hi,
I am sorry this is just too much rubbish for me to bear.
How does anyone outside the actual design team know the "design yeild"?
Why on earth will the design team release that information?
Incidentally how does one calculate the error bars on a hypothetical design yeild? How do you put an error on the empirical/fudge factors?
Do factors of order unity matter?
Maverick,
Glad to see that you are following the discussion on the forum ( I shall follow your example and not call it either BRF or DF. Ha! Ha!). Interesting what? The point I am trying to get across there is that basically all boats rise in a rising tide i.e. all components of a country's competitive capability (military, economic etc. will rise together. You cannot pursue one capability exclusive of the other otherwise you risk becoming the USSR or Pakistan. So this TN at all/any cost push exhibited on the Forum is not advisable. Furthermore, how does anybody outside GOI know that India does not already have a TN device in which GOI has a high level of confidence?
KG,
Interesting thing about Peak Uranium - the reading I did recently on NIF at Alok N's provocation, threw up interesting nuggets about directly causing fusion without having a fission primary i.e. a pure fusion weapon. Are preparations being made for a world without uranium?
Hello ldev,
They cannot contribute anything constructive any more.
It seems they feel they know more than the entire bomb and missile teams combined.
The disconnect between reality and photoshop is deliberately missed.
This is beyond absurd.
There are many imperatives that Indian policymakers face to further development and become a "global power". I don't think feeding a growing military industrial complex, at the expense of important developmental and economic agendas is one of them. As ldev points out, we have enough demonstrated capacity w.r.t nuclear weapons for any responsible nation to take seriously as a deterrent. There is no need for us to go for the giant megaton stockpiles of the cold war (it is just insanity, who do we have as an enemy that we are willing to totally destroy ourselves and our neighbourhood for?). Going for this is akin to the foolishness of Bhasmasura, an analogy that hopefully, the OFBJP should understand.
Secondly, only people who are well fed and economically secure can worry about their global status and the perception in other countries. People who are not economically secure don't have this luxury, and have more immediate requirements, of education, economic opportunity, and at a more basic level, food, clothing and a house over their heads. Playing status games by building bigger nukes is not going to satisfy these requirements, and is a foolish and unnecessary waste of valuable and scarce resources.
As Maverick points out, we have the benefit of hindsight and can learn from other people's mistakes. We don't have to go for an expensive weaponization program when what we have is pretty sufficient for the required deterrent. We could build up our strike and delivery capabilities to solidify the deterrent. Spending money and political capital on expensive weaponization programs and testing is plain foolish.
ldev:
Not so much a world without Uranium, but a world where *all* supplies are so tightly controlled that Russia, yes Russia is trying to buy Uranium from Oz.
When the Russians with their mighty Ural mines and infinite Siberian fields are trying to ensure their own supplies from Oz, you can understand the choke hold that exists - vacuous fantasies about India tapping into African U-sources free of the NSG not withstanding.
There simply are *no* such sources, *anywhere* on the globe, available at a cost economic to an energy program of our *scale*.
Expecting our internal sources to be sufficient is like expecting Bombay High to supply all our oil needs. Claiming Kazakhstan or some other stan or africa will supply our needs is like claiming that our armed forces needs can be entirely sourced from former Soviet republics and so we don't need to deal with the Russians.
This is so vacuous as to be barely worth responding to.
There simply is no yellowcake and ancillary tech sources on the SCALE we need outside the NSG.
The current situation is as if someone had said in the 60's and 70s that "All the IAF needs is the Marut. Anyone supporting Indira and saying we need Migs and have to sign the treaty with the Soviet union is a traitor. All other planes for the IAF we'll build ourselves".
Well, in those circumstances, I reckon there'd be a clear idea as to who were the real traitors . . .
kg.
Bhai.. democracy mein government ko criticize karna is the utmost dharma.. that is what distinguishes democracies from totalitarian regimes !!!
seriously, what is the fuss about?
fuss is about the proUPA congress types getting worked up about the DF poking holes in their theories. so all the crying about OFBJP, BJP Rakshaks, NRI superhindus and etc from Maverick and friends
Hi Pahari,
The fuss is about personal attacks on the government officials and about the manner n which people are provoking discussions on the details of the bomb design and weaponisation options.
All the points being made on the forum can be made sans personal attacks or informed sounding technical rubbish.
Also there is absolutely no need to drag India's labs into imaginary weapons related experiments.
It is completely unacceptable for people to start claiming that the GoI intends to build everything thing they can photoshop.
Hi,
Here is my bottom line.
If you did not participate in the actual bomb making effort or in the design of the warhead your views on technical affairs have absolutely no credibility.
If you absolutely want to talk about technical matters despite an obvious lack of competence, I request that you make sure your discussions do not damage the national interest.
Provoking discussions on the design of the devices *IN ANY COUNTRY* will only slam you face first into a wall of absolute secrecy. Sure you will be mobbed by people who claim to know something, just like Osama Bin Laden had a parade of people selling him "red mercury"!
All the debate about appropriate deterrence strategies for India's future etc... can occur without a technical discussion.
No one in the establishment in India has claimed that India has a working thermonuclear bomb. If you think India needs one, please justify your thoughts on general arguments only - please leave out technical sounding bullshit - because you simply don't know anything. You skills at photoshopping a nuclear weapon does not translate into material knowledge about the issues involved.
Please justify the desire for a bigger nuclear bomb solely on a desire or percieved need to kill millions of people at once. That is what a MT yeild thermonuclear bomb does - so please tell me why you think you want to kill millions of people. I will listen.
I confess so far I have yet to see any viable argument that says megaton yeilds are essential to deterence stability in any context.
In my opinion, the hardening of targets and the growth in ABM countermeasures mitigate against viability of large missile platforms for delivering MT yeilds on to targets. The long range ballistic missile is largely obsolete. Its original role, as a means to suppress a retaliatory strike by taking out command and control structures is untenable. Its secondary role as a deterrent against a sudden attack is questionable given the proliferation of assymetric warfare techniques. A long range ballistic missile today are largely a hole in the ground.
You want to put money into a hole in the ground, you tell me where the money is going to come from.
I am sick to the brill of people speaking without an ounce of economic sense.
I am disgusted with the manner in which the Scicom has been attacked solely to enable photoshoppers to back away from their outrageous claims.
Tomorrow if the IAF's Su-30s or the IA's T-90s don't do what the photoshoppers claim, they will blame the IAF or IA for incompetence. This is the only likely outcome of a "rang de basanti" atmosphere that the forum is sliding into.
Hi Maverick, dont you think calling ArunS a photoshopper is taking things too far? Why dont you contact him and thrash out the issues of debate and inform all of us. Its very sad to see 2 Bhishmas of DF come to such terms.
Ravi
Hello Ravi,
I have talked offline to everyone concerned with this at the forum and what I said was ignored.
Now I am reduced to speculating as to why that was done. The OFBJP compulsion and NPA provocation are my best guess as to what is at work here.
I honestly do not know what is going on back there.
The vicious personal attacks indicate a desire to discredit the Scicom.
Using K Santhanam's statements to impeach RC is something straight out of the NPA playbook.
It is getting hard to tell the two apart.
Photoshopping Agni RVs that are disconnected from DAE's public statements and then insisting that the DAE is not doing enough to make them is basically buying a one-way ticket to Subbarao-land.
Hi Ravi,
One more thing:
If someone on the forum calls MMS, RC, PKI, AK etc... names and question their credibility - then it is all fine.
But when I state a fact about their overpowering photoshop expertise, then suddenly everyone remembers how thin the foreskin really is.
This is an interesting twist on an old tale.
If you are a public persona, and that entitles you to the kind of nasty personal criticism that is levelled everyday on the forum against the PM and the Scicom, then surely the act of developing a website of imaginary weapons should entitle you to the same benifits?
maverick, lets cut to the chase here. My belief is that S1 was a thermonuke where the secondary failed to detonate. Your contention is that S1 was not a thermonuke but a boosted fission device that did its job perfectly. Correct?
Now, would or would not a thermonuke weigh less than a boosted fission device of the same yield (lets say 300 kT)? If so would or would not a given missile having a given throw weight be able to carry the thermonuke to a further distance than a boosted fission device? If so, would not a thermonuke make better sense from your stated claim that bigger missiles are no good in today's world. Surely a smaller sized and weighted warhead would require a smaller missile?
AFAIK, the need for a thermonuke is because it uses lesser fissile material for a given yield than a thermonuke and is also smaller and lighter enabling the same missile to carry it further. Nobody except perhaps the two Bs are calling for megaton yield warheads. They are just calling for more efficient, lighter and smaller warheads.
The photoshop thing is interesting, please elaborate.
Hi Anonymous,
I think the failed thermonuclear test is an NPA fishing lure aimed at gauging our true capabilities.
All the things you say are plausible, and I suspect there may even be tradeoffs to be made with safety,stability,serviceability etc...
I don't know how anyone would know which tradeoff is ideal without direct knowledge of detailed issues. Though I imagine this is much easier in a photoshop framework than in real life.
Maybe it is just me but I am skeptical that anyone with direct knowledge would want to see this made a topic of illinformed public debate.
With regards to the MT yeilds, again I accept this argument that those are part of the big power status. I do not see how this shoe fits our foot but I am open to discussions on this so long as technical matters about our capabilities are left out of it.
Hello Anonymous,
Here is the clarification of the photoshop issue.
When the DAE was asked to pucblicly comment on its capabilities after 1998, the stance taken was that it had demonstrated a yeild of ~50kT and that the basic design was scalable to 150 kT. No claim was made of having a full thermonuclear capability.
Very limited public information is available about the nature of India's warhead designs and less still is known publicly about the Agni's payload constraints.
In the real world, reconciling the design to the warhead and the warhead to the platform and get something that gives a particular yeild per weight is something quite complicated.
Photoshop enables the user to completely bypass complications and create a imaginary 300kT warhead that fits without hassles on to a missile of the artist's choice with the flick of an electronic pen.
It is all fine - everyone can do what they like.
However the GoI can't be berated for not meeting an artist's conception or the false hopes it may have raised.
Maverick,
If one is so inclined, any negative statement against actions of GoI personnel and further resultant investigation into the causalities behind those actions (which would lead to further negative statements against those personnel) can be easily labeled as personal attack. Isn't crusading against such alleged personal attacks, the first step towards stifling public discourse?
Also, isn't your labeling of BRF as disreputable forum a personal attack against the collective intelligence of the whole BRF community, even though some of them might not even be following the nuclear thread?
And how does speculation by a bunch of highly educated and under worked people with no influence in GoI decision making compromise national interest? It's not as if NPA are gonna get any new ideas by following BRF, that is assuming they even lurk around in BRF.
Personally, I feel that the greatest contribution of BRF is to disentangle the web of lies and psy-ops that surround us every day. Especially, psy-ops that belittle the Hindu past of Bharat. Prior to lurking in BRF, I absolutely loathed BJP and considered Congress the lesser evil. Now, its the other way round.
Please realize that by belittling BRF, you are belittling a rare pond of knowledge that has in its own small way contributed to the awakening of the nation towards its own history. A history that far from being ashamed of, is something that one can be objectively proud of.
****Especially, psy-ops that belittle the Hindu past of Bharat. Prior to lurking in BRF, I absolutely loathed BJP and considered Congress the lesser evil. Now, its the other way round.*****
Pahari,
Prior to lurking on BRF, I thought that the RSS and by association the BJP was unfairly demonized. Now, having watched the fanatical knickerwallas so obsessed with religion that they have to mention it in every other post and attack every other religion , I think the secular parties are right. This fanatical RSS menace which was rightly banned after assasinating Mahatma Gandhi is showing its true colours again. The only reason the knickerwallas are attacking Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi is that he is Sikh and she is a Christian and they are shocked that after the Shining India campaign the people of India kicked them out and choose this Christian to lead the nation. In turn, she choose the person who was the best manager to do the job and he happened to be a Sikh. The knickerwallas have still not recovered from being kicked in the teeth by the people of India in that election after 5 years in power and their fury is seen in DF. They are showing their true colours. The more fanatical they are, the less votes they will get in the next election. You mark my words.
Anon-in-India
Pahari,
AB Vajpayee overcame his Jana Sangh roots and appealed to a broad number of Indians who were secular Hindus, some Sikhs, some Christians and even some Muslims. Thats how he won in 1998. He knew how to appeal to a wide number of people. Now that heis no longer at the top, the BJP going back to its RSS roots. Without somebody like him at the top, they will never win. And I used to hear when he was PM, the hardcore RSS crowd thought that Vajpayee had sold out the idea of this "Hindu Rashtra" which you knickerwallas keep on talking about and so were not happy with him. So this hardcore RSS lot will never allow another moderate leader like Vajpayee to become leader and without somebody like Vajpayee, the BJP is doomed to become a fringe party again, only appealing to the kind of knickerwallas you see on DF.
Anon-in-India
Hi Pahari,
BRF used to be a place for disreputable people like me to gather. That changed a few years ago. Disreputables like me have left the forum, though it still retains the stains of the association with people like me.
We were considered disreputable because we questioned the NPA and the South Asia Pundits. That made us pariahs among our friends in US academia. We never pointed our guns at GoI.
The truth is that designing an imaginary warhead on photoshop is a lot easier than actually doing that work in real life. The lies are right there on the website - that non-existant 300kT warhead.
The manner in which people continue to ignore this truth makes me question whether Pakdef and forum have secretly joined hands,
The NPA use a relatively simple strategy to gain information. They raise doubts and then simply listen for what people are saying. It is a very workable strategy probably outlined in some chapter of the Arthashastra and certain alluded to in the MB.
When I see people using psychologically loaded terms like "real","truth","historical" etc... as a substitute for informed debate, I feel - a stage has been reached where the forum is doing more harm than good.
If the credibility of MMS, RC, PKI and AK can be impeached because they are public figures, what makes a webmaster whose talents at photoshop are so well known - such a total authority on what is truth and what is not?
Anonymous,
I am not too sure about Vajpayee overcoming his Jana Sangh roots. Such world-view changing events don't happen so late in the life of any person. It was compulsion of coalition politics.
Personally, I am all for inclusion of non-Hindus in the growth of India. In fact, there can be no other way. However, this cannot and should not happen at the cost of legitimate Hindu concerns. Appreciating Hindu concerns is something that is anathema to Congress and other pseudo secular parties.
Ram Sethu, Ayodhya temple, govt. control of Hindu temples, complete negation of anti-Hindu conversions by unethical means, Tibet etc. demonstrate clearly that Congress does not identify itself with the soul of India - Hinduism.
Hi Pahari,
I don't know if you want to call what I am saying "True Hindu History" or not, but AFAIK apart from a small group of people who insist on calling everything they invent "Hindu History", no one on the forum has the slightest interest in this brand of "truth". Everyone I knew on the forum retained an overwhelming sense of humility in their definitions of faith and never let it interfere in their judgement of events around them.
Per its own definitions and guidelines, the forum is not a place to discuss religious affair or even push sectarian views of things.
About two years before the disreputables left it - the forum splintered and a forum dedicated to "Hindu" views was formed as a separate entity and on a completely different website.
After this split, it was decided that the forum itself would remain devoted to the national security affairs and wider aspects of culture etc... would "outsourced" to another place.
In pursuit of this agenda, some admin decided to wear two hats and a small group of posters aggressively participated on both fora.
The creators of the "Hindu" issues forum went on to setup a foundation dedicated to researching issues of their interest.
If you are looking for a discussion on "Hindu" perspectives of events, you are in the wrong place.
Hi Maverick i think the world and india have moved on, and you and the unfortunate anon-in-india are unable to grasp the reality, as it is and which is reflected in the forum. Perhaps its best you left since it takes time to adjust and everyone will look forward to your return once you can make that mental adjustment. Fact is that in India today, there is a huge - and I repeat- HUGE- underswell of resentment at the minorities and the manner in which their political organizations and religious leaders have abused the spirit in which India was declared a secular republic. To deny this is to claim the moon is made of cheese. Its but natural that the forum will reflect these opinions. Now, anon-in-India may heap contempt on the knickerwaalahs and what not, but its a fact of life that the "times they are a changing" as Dylan said. The fact is that it takes two hands to clap, now you & the anon-in-India chap may ignore this and declare everything a OFBJP ploy or a rabid section of NRIs overdosing themselves on jingoism, but they are nothing compared to what I can make out amongst everyday Hindus who deeply resent the manner in which minority organizations have constantly disparaged the majority religion and are seeking power via conversions and what not. To imagine that their views will not influence the discourse on the forum is to live in a fantasy world. I think DF is a much worse place without you and the Australian guy who used to post those long acerbic posts on Cohen (sp?) and otherwise, but to blame the forum for how India is, is without merit.
Ravi
Hi All (too many names to list here),
Arun lost whatever last shred of credibility he had when he started making pretty pictures of what he claims are India's nuclear weapons, complete with absurdly nonsensical claims of how much plutonium is used in the primaries down to an accuracy of a *100 grams*. And this is just one of many such outrightly incredulous claims made in those pictures. Just how dense do you have to be to take these pictures and the person who makes them seriously? How is this any different from the much derided Chinese drones and their photoshopped wunder-weapons?
sparsh, aruns pictures are quite logical - do some basic reading on n's and design methods and you'll realise the same. and before you heap contempt on the man - do understand, he is a very good engineer. w/o anything but a basic understanding of the stuff, he came up with an estimate of the ATV and other design specs which later on some other gurus on BRF validated and sandeeps report also bore it out. he was also the first one to come out with the agni 3 derivative stuff, which news reports came out with. and he always says ~ the tilde symbol ie approximate when he is doing calculations. so dont know why you have to heap contempt on the man. no harm in admitting that the bugger, all his faults and hair trigger temper apart is an engineering "maverick" -:-)
as our maverick is to strategy
Ravi
a last thing, way back when i used to try and post on the forum narayanan (is he still around, havent seen him in ages) and arun had a discussion on the akash, what i vividly remember is how they started out fighting and came to mutual respect. both guys were doing back of the envelope calculations and crosschecking each others assumptions. btw, most of the real rock solid engineers i have known, are almost always back of the envelope guys who can design and verify a host of stuff which fuddie duddies like me will take ages to read but still wont understand. there was this discussion on radar on BRF which simply flew above my head, only arun and some other guys from the field knew what was what and guess what, it was correct because i checked their assumptions with a domain expert. so i wouldnt write the fellow off as you are doing. granted, like maverick says, he should be more circumspect about the scicom but i think he is very worried about the lack of a viable deterrent without thermonukes and stuff. my 2 cents.
Ravi
Ravi,
Ultimately any groundswell of support against alleged abuse of the secular Indian society by minorities will be reflected in the Lok Sabha elections in the BJP vote, because the BJP has tried very hard to capture any dissatisfaction with the secular parties into votes for itself. Look at the details of the last Lok Sabha elections and compare them to the 1998 elections, especially % of votes for each party. If anything the BJP lost support inspite of being in power? Why did it happen? Because the average voter realized that the BJP inspite of the nationalist credentials on which it ran was just like all the other parties. The same number of scandals, kickbacks, corruption. Do you think there were no kickbacks on big government purchases made during the NDA term including for the armed forces? So the people saw all this and when the elections came around they delivered their verdict. The verdict says that Hindu nationalism is not as important as good governance. So where is this groundswell of support that you talk about? And for the next elections, the BJP will be without Vajpayee and retreating to its hardcore followers such as the ones on DF. Their numbers are finite. On their own they cannot win elections in India. Look at the fragmentation of the vote in India, (check out the Wikipedia article on the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, it is an eye-opener) the dissatisfied Indian voter who happens to be Hindu is not going to vote for the BJP but for regional people such as Mayawati. That splintering is bad for India, but the diehard RSS lot on DF could not care less, for them it has to be Hindu Rashtra or nothing.
Anon-in-India
quick comment folks ...
our friends in DF have brought up an interesting issue of hydrodynamic instabilities as possible reasons for alleged gigaboom bust ...
clearly, this is a very plausible scenario ... it would be intellectually dishonest to dismiss it ... the relative strength and/or amplification factors of presumed deformities/imperfections is still an open question, but a question worth pondering ... if you are technically inclined, that is ...
however, I still insist that such nuances are no reason to insinuate wrongdoing by some babu/neta combine ... therein lies the path to anarchy ...
as an individual, I firmly believe in anarchy (study it before you complain) but I will not wish it upon a country such as India that suffers a delicate balance between forces that anarchy would obliterate ...
cheers all.
jumping monkies be warned ... this is just an attempt to achieve a new milestone on this blog: 100 replies!
so, relax and have a chaarminar ... :)
#100 it is!
:)
Alok,
If the yield in the primary was on target, the cause of the instabilites would have to be the secondary. If one assumes that it was the classical two stage design, then it throws up two possibilites:
1. The manufacture and machining of the outer shell was not what it could/should have been.
2. My second point and its a part question is if the outer shell was not the cause of the instability, how imporant is symmetry in the fuel bundle inside the secondary shell?
The other issues that comes up here is:
Is the data from S1 sufficiently adequate to pinpoint where the instability occurred i.e. the outer shell or the fuel inside, if the fuel inside plays a pertinent role in the instability?
Look forward to your enlightment on this issue :)
Hi Ravi,
As far as I can remember there has always been a resentment of "minorities" - India is a country of minorities - everyone is a minority and gets off on claiming they are entitled to special status. Some minorities are better than others at leveraging their minority status and this creates jealously among the rest who lose out.
The current "ground swell" you speak of is more a reflection of the rise in the number of vocal middle castes i.e. OBCs that are spouting off against "Muslims"
"Christians" etc... if you listen to the stuff that comes out of their mouth on a good day about all other castes - above or below their percieved position in the great scheme - you will turn green.
The OBCs are now the core of India's democracy - they are the bulk of the country - politically, administratively and economically, they can quite literally make or break it. OBC identity politics is highly competitive arena and I am deeply skeptical of the effectiveness of some of the Hindutva models to capture critical elements of OBC identity.
In fact I am even more deeply skeptical to what extent most of the self-appointed proponents of Hindutva understand how badly things could fail if their models do not effectively engage the OBCs in the democratic process or worse still the OBCs simply walk away from the empowerment agenda.
The Hindutva agenda is increasingly dominated by young loudmouths rather than old seasoned political operators. The behaviour of self appointed hindu Rakshaks on the forum displays this tendency in vivid detail.
That is the "big change" you are seeing around you. You are revelling in the "shift" you see when you hear random people launch attacks on "minorities". Boss, people like me have been hearing that for ages - it simply doesn't have that effect on us. My kind watched as one Kashmiri Muslim after another turned against the Hindu neighbours in a matter of days. My kind have watched as policemen defected to terrorist organisations and highly trained armymen simply walked of regimental grounds to join Khalistani groups. If you think people like me are going to break into a sweat because a few more people feel the need to mouth off about "minorities" - I think you are sadly mistaken. We know how to deal with Yasin Malik types all too well.
There is a need to distinguish between the needs of OBC identity politics *in* India and the desires of the OFBJP/USNRI variety *outside* India. The OFBJP/USNRI knows very well that unless the Hyde framework is removed - there will be no prospect for them to profit from the Indo-US nuclear deal. From the Indian perspective we just need energy - we don't much care who brings it to it. This is the root of the angst on the forum.
I agree it takes two hands to clap - but the clapping sound occurs when some OFBJP/USNRI manages to say things that inflame the passions of the OBCs in India. This connection (only) *to* *the* *extent* that it impedes our access to nuclear energy resources needs to be severed.
My point simply is that you can't have people clapping about this.
Hi Ravi,
Making a nuclear weapon is very different from making SAM or an airplane or a radar. There are far more SAMs and Airplanes and Radars than there are nukes.
There are a lot of people on the forum who think they know how to make airplanes or write computer codes to simulate solve a differential equation. There is no one on the forum who knows how to make a nuke and if there are they are bound to eternal silence by unwritten laws.
Information about nukes is kept closely guarded and unlike SAMs and airplanes you can't do hundreds of tests of them to get at the details of they work. There is little published data on the details of the things that were photoshopped.
You can do estimates, and "back of the envelope" calculations and so on but it is all bullshit. You calculation is full of fudge parameters which you can't put any errors on and basically it is about as credible as Wallace etals interpretation of teleseismic data on the 1998 tests.
Look boss, unless you actually build a nuke, or actually test it, or make a warhead or fit a warhead on one of your missiles and try to hit something with it - you have no information of value to contribute to a discussion on this. It is another story that if you know any of those things, you will know enough that unless you keep your mouth shut, terrible things will happen.
You can do all the photoshopping you want - but that is no different from the Chinese stealth fighter photos. It is a very big joke. I am 50000000% convinced China has a stealth fighter because I saw a webpage about it yesterday and hey if they can make a webpage - they must know how to make low RCS far from stability aircraft.
I am not impressed by the "details" being similar to what some reporter wrote elsewhere, especially when the reporter happens to be someone who is close to people on the site. That simply means that the likelihood that they influenced each others' views is high. Also there is the possibility of plagiarism. A number of articles from the defunct BR Monitor would turn up in other Pakistani journals or even mainstream publications like Time Magazine. For what it is worth other reporters not associated with the site have written diverging accounts.
I cannot comment on the ATV and its design. I am sure the NPA would like to know exactly what is inside it but as with the nuke designs I chose to be ignorant about those details of whats inside.
Put plainly when I see some technical stuff put up on a website by a self-appointed expert about a special access program in India - I conclude it is disinformation.
The only question in my mind is what is the target of the disinformation?
Usually the NPA target tech savvy Indians with informed sounding garbage about bombs and weapons. They put in some random unverifiable crap about US weapons and whatever they dredged about Soviet systems and then use that position of apparent intelligence to make provocative comments about Indian systems. This usually forces a response out of someone in India and before long the "debate" environment produces an "answer" to the NPA bullshit. The NPA would fish out this "answer" and claim that they had achieved a major intelligence breakthrough. The NPA promptly publish a paper on it as some sort of novel intellectual property and give press interviews. This gets them more funding from the parliament and then they mint money by writing the same tripe into books. Boss, it is exactly analogous to rackets run by some of the high level people foreign embassies in India, you pay a reporter to write your opinion as news - then pay an editor to work the "news" into an oped and then resubmit the oped to supervisor in London or DC and claim that you have "influenced opinion" among the darkies.
It is possible that the Agni webpage could have had some disinformation value, however it increasingly appears the target of this disinformation was *in* India.
I am reduced to speculating about the motivations behind such a move.
To borrow one of your own phrases .. boss you need to "open your eyes" and "see the truth".
Hello Ravi,
People can worry about whatever they want, but constructing imaginary warheads and then lashing out at the GoI for not making them seems like a waste of time if you call yourself a rakshak.
Maverick,
I don't know where you got the idea that the OFBJP (I guess called EB in that other forum) types in the US are against the deal because they won't personally benefit from it. In private conversations every OFBJP types I have spoken with had made one or more of the following points:
a) They do not trust America because it is a white Christian nation and they would never be well wishers of Hindus.
b) They do not trust Congress to protect India's interest because it is led by a white Christian woman.
c) An important deal like this can only be struck when a "strong Hindu leader" is in power.
Now, this type of arguments are so vile in nature that no politician worth his salt would say them in public, but foot soldiers have no problem in saying them. In fact point A & B cited quite often in that other forum.
Additionally, I guess a number of OFBJP types are angry at the insult meted out to their Modi Bhai.
- Sri^108
Hello Sri,
Not a single OFBJP/USNRI type, I have seen openly comes out and says that they have personal economic motives for blocking the deal - everything they are doing is "for the better of society in India".
Those points you make - I have heard those as well. The sharp language elegantly captures the uncompromising nature of their stance.
They are prefectly happy living their lives out in a "Christian America" but they simply do not trust the GoI to make a deal of this nature unless someone they approve/anoint makes it.
And what will this approved leader do differently? oh.. thats right pass a "counter-Hyde" act that will punish the US for implementing its *internal* legislation - the infamous Hyde act which will penalise anyone the "Christian Americans" don't like. :rolleyes:
The logic of this is fairly transparent. The OFBJP/USNRIs want India to punish the US for implementing its own laws.
The lobbying effort for the passage of the deal saw these same groups going to great length to secure passage of the "undiluted" 123 agreement.
I do not have any problem with what they are doing. These are Americans, albeit of Indian origin, lobbying their US government for favourable policies.
I think it is perfectly natural for the USNRI/OFBJP types to lobby their cousins in India for a "counter-hyde" act. Hey if some US MNC can lobby parliament in India to change environmental laws, or if some Saudi sheikh can ask his Indian muslim "brothers" to shoot some Indian policemen - then I don't see why a USNRI can't ask his cousin to oppose the deal in parliament because it compromises his personal economic interest.
In both cases, I find their conduct acceptable.
However as an Indian, I reserve the right to comment on the subtle yet significant difference between the needs of these people and the needs of India.
Also as an Indian I feel it will be detrimental for Indian society to have excessive coupling between the internal political dynamics - ie. the exact strategy to ensure that the OBCs remain fully embedded in the democratic process and external factors like the economic needs of US based NRI groups. For example, the use of religion based strategies to induce democratic participation form OBC groups is an *internal* matter for Indians to decide. This is not something that US NRIs should feel free participate in.
Broadly speaking the USNRI tends to take something from the US and put it into India to see if it works. This is part of their social acclimation process in the US. However on the sociological level, the US is a primitive society with nascent idea of civilisation. By contrast India is an ancient and advanced society that is simply too sophisticated a social organism to be described they crude tools that are used to capture critical dynamics US society. I think it is okay for Indians living the US to "go native" and buy into the popularity of crude tools, however it is not okay for them to use those crude tools to understand India.
Also from a very neutral perspective, I also would like to observe at this time, that the US parliament appears to have failed to meet the needs of its constituents of Indian origin in framing the Hyde Act.
Hi Sri,
One more thing.
When I first commented on the failure of the Indo-US nuclear deal - I stated that I felt the deal failed because there was a failure of communication between the two governments.
Specifically, I stated that the unauthorised channels had led to miscommunication and suspicion in India's national security community and this had killed the deal.
One of these channels was the NPA and their hirelings in India. Anti-deal sections of the US DOS in my opinion, had also allowed the NPA to use older DOS communication channels to directly address the Indian public outside of the White House's control. Most of this illicit communication was captured and contained via the Left's channels to the NPA.
The second "unauthorised" channel was via USNRIs who sought to push personal economic agendas via the deal atmosphere. Most of this was captured and encapsulated via the NDA/BJP's contact points in the US.
I wish to commend both political parties for doing a wonderful job containing the effect of the miscommunications.
The forum gives us a ringside view of this entire affair and allows us sift out the irrelevant.
Thanks to this ridiculous spectacle, most of my readers should now be able to focus on the deal purely in the context of India's energy priorities and fiscal abilities.
Ah dear friend - the infinite simplicity of the bania's way of life.
:)
Dear Ravi,
I am estatic at your comparison of my "expertise" at strategy to the honourable webmaster's "expertise" in photoshop.
However, I fear, the webmaster may not like such a comparison to be made. And I confess, I am still trying to make my skills of "strategy" half as good as the webmaster's skills at "photoshop".
I am a simple humble self-appointed defender of the even humbler servants of the people of India. The even humbler servants of the people of India are after all merely descendants of the great Chakravartin, who was merely devanampriye piyodasi.
How can you compare me with someone that has the title of "Master" after all I am simply a self appointed humble servant of humbler servants?
Can I and my idle musings on this small little shanty on this wind swept bluff on the internet truly compare to the majesty of a full colour jpeg heavy website?
You are comparing an idiot like me who writes a few quatrains with the Imam of Jama Masjid who write entire sermons. My only claim to fame is that I put the emphasis on the end of the phrase "Allah hu AKBAR".
In view of your endless skills at flattery, I nominate you for my "Most Valued Poster" award.
Feel free to pin a thums-up "bottle cap of valour" to your shirt at work.
Your photo shall adorn the hall of fame next to my good friend from the PAF.
But dear friend in the interests of honestly, please take note that his download time is much larger than mine.
Hi,
At this point the Indo-US nuclear deal is a political affair. The technology related consultancy side of this is complete.
The resolution of the political aspects of the deal are beyond the Scicom's competency and the Scicom should not be dragged into political matters by people who understand neither politics nor technology.
Hi,
This alleged statement by PKI about design yeild being 10kT and test yeild was 8kT is sourced from an article by Gupta and Pabian where the authors claim to have had a conversation with him during a conference at the Stimson Center.
This claim has never been verified by the PKI.
It is interesting to see how much stock the forum puts in these NPA stories.
It appears every third link on the forum is something that C. Sublette, or Douglas et al wrote.
Very very interesting indeed.
Maverick,
Look closely at the language by DF "Rocket Man" in some of his recent long posts. It does not appear to be his language. I think Rocket Man is receiving dictation from some other person on the yield argument via email etc. From who I wonder? Is it one of the two Bs or is it the NPA crowd? Very unhealthy situation where DF is being used in this way by certain parties acting behind the scenes and using Rocket Man as their mouthpiece.
Maverick,
Rocket Man's excuse for not responding to certain posts put by his "opponent" and asking for 48 hours to respond because of "personal reasons", appears to confirm my theory that Rocket Man waits for emails from his "backers" on how to respond.
Very very unhealthy situation.
Anon-in-India
Alok_N, congrats on the 100 and thanks for that earlier post about "phyzzx of plasma"! So many IB4TLs are going to waste without your rib-tickler comments in DF and so many ISPR news releases are being left unconnected to a Jigar Moradabadi couplet or two. Your constituents are still waiting. Incidental election komissars and their past rulings should be forgiven :)
M-saar,
I do not have a fight with any of you, but it troubles my "equal representation of all the people of India" oriented mind:
The rules you are saying here
1) You cannot speak if you went critical. So dont speak to me.
2) you did not go critical because you spoke. So shoo!
Now (purely IMO) that is a decent castle that you have build around your arguments. But to me, castles are things that has dubious value. Particularly if you are attempting to reach out to a wider world, which I am sure you are.
So my question: is there nothing in between these two rules? And we do not stop hunting because the vultures (NPAs) will feed later on our hunt. Should we?
I do not want to know what I am not to know. Always followed that rule. Then there is this fear of the unknown. Confused onlee :)
wow, a lot of dirty laundry being aired at DF ... and some behind the scene inputs being made ...
anon is right ... what's up?
hnair,
good to see you here ... since you asked, here is something ...
had Jigar been watching inter-forum commentary, he may have said this:
yoon hi dil kae tadapane ka kuch to hai sabab aakhir
yaa dard nae karavat li hai, yaa tumanae idhar dekhaa
maathae pae paseena kyon, aakhon mein namee si kyon
kuch khair to hai, tumanae kyaa haal-e-Jigar dekhaa
Behind the scenes inputs are OK if the poster is new or a novice or does not know the subject.
But when a so called master who is using the platform of a long standing forum such as DF to attack India's nuclear establishment, himself needs inputs and is obviously using pre-cooked words fed to him by other hidden parties, whose agenda is unknown, it has destroyed DF's credibility.
Maverick is correct. DF should stick to photoshopping.
Anon-in-India
anon-in-india,
there is nothing more pathetic than somebody who is not even able to post a cogent reply on df, but has to hide behind the scree of anonymity to take cheap shots at others and then whine and wail about credibility. btw, that refers to you. grow up. df doesnt give a shit for you, so who cares what you think.
Hello Hnair,
If one has done things of this sort by ones' own hand, then one know better than to talk about it public.
Someone who has done things by their own hands is better placed to understand the tremendous personal responsibility that this carries.
Somebody who has worked on these things would easily understand if dangerous knowledge gets into the hands of mentally unstable people.
In a poor country like India there is also an overriding desire to prevent degradation of any limited capacities or capabilities that one might have.
So it seems to be that it is unlikely that any responsible member of the team/s in India would be willing to talk in public about the kinds of matters that hon. webmaster is keen to display his knowledge of.
Also, if someone were to appear at my door and claim that she or he was a bomb maker in India and proceeded to tell me stories about personality politics inside DAE and went on to suggest that this was holding back the bomb in India etc... I would be at least inclined to know what his personal agendas and politics was before I proceeded to air anything he said. I would be concerned that this was an irresponsible individual or perhaps a penetration of some kind created to selectively provoke debate. One does not know if the Hon. Webmaster thought about these possibilities.
I also wish to confess that at this time, I do not know how the Hon. Webmaster simultaneously claims to know the real and design yeild of Fatman.
I would find this sort of statement credible if someone like Norris Bradbury/J. Carson Mark/ Robert Oppenhiemer/ Enrico Fermi/ Niels Bohr were to claim it, however I am more/less certain even their *estimates* of the real yeild would be sensitive to error bars on the estimates of the height at which fatman actually detonated. With the exception of someone like Norman F. Ramsey, I wonder how many people in the US know exactly what altitude Fatman detonated at.
The sense of absolute certainity in the hon. webmaster's statements is very curious. There are very few in the US that I imagine would have that sort of access required to repose the level of confidence in statements about the real and design yeilds of Fatman. Perhaps he is in touch with them too, and then a natural follow on would be why/how was this access secured.
As you know I obviously cannot claim any knowledge of the 1974 POK1 device, however I do note that the Hon. Webmaster's suggestion that it was "a nagasaki type device" implicitly holds out the possibility that somehow knowledge of the Nagasaki device leaked from the US to India. Furthermore he reiterates the claim on the NTI website that India had access to device designs or the "Ploughshares" series. Again I have not seen that publicly confirmed by any sources in India.
Also in the US itself, the American made Venn Diagram shows no overlap between India and the US. Similar unsubtantiated claims of overlap between India and Russia have been made by the likes of Subbarao.
It does seem - from my naive observation that the Hon. Webmaster's views contain a strain of NPA's thinking.
Dear Hnair,
one more thing.
I think people should feel free to learn whatever they think is necessary to be comfortable with the idea that India has nuclear weapons.
However, people should also be aware that detailed knowledge of these things comes with a deep personal responsibility.
The manner in which the debate on the forum is revolving around personal attacks, acidic barbs, and unsubstantiated claims of information which seem like they come from the NPA is in my opinion unhealthy.
I would normally I would just bring this up privately with friends and with a little bit of luck matters would be quietly resolved to mutual satisfaction.
However in this particular instance the entire episode is being deliberately instigated by member of the Admin team itself and that makes me *very* *very* *very* *very* *very* *very* *very* *very* uneasy.
I am at a loss as to how to convey to people that this kind of behaviour is too disgusting for my taste.
The forum has always had a bizarre streak in it, where members often think they are smarter than the GoI. It appears this kind of thinking has been allowed to become the defining feature of the forum.
I am very saddened to see a place that I once participated in become something like this.
It is noteworthy that after the administration of "jhapad," you do switch from “photoshopper” to "Hon. Webmaster". Your pakiness does show under minutest of stress.
Oh..BTW: it is also noteworthy that your shrill cries here to "protect" Indian interest are also noted. You can't even let go your "H&D" to visit the DF to defend. Your H&D is more important than your sense of "protecting" the interest of India. Again..don't we know that is also a sign of pakiness..H&D before everything.
There was a reason why everyone got pissed at your pompousness and self importantce of being the inside voice..pick the MEA statements and stand by it as if they add anything to the debate..well I do remember your 6 sec conversation with somebody and that was enough to pick a fight with a bradmins.
Well man..all I can say is you carry humongous *imaginary* burden and I am sure it is tough.
well said..all the bs about arun S being a photoshopper got punctured moment gerard posted the pdf with designs remarkably similar to what arun S had worked out on his own..now of course maverick will call them npa stooges, photoshoppers, fake engineers and what not. fact is a fact, that arun S has access, maverick doesnt, so suck it up and move on. wailing about lost h&d is impressing nobody
Dear Anonymous,
Please tell me what pdf did Gerard put up that showed designs that were "remarkably similar".
I cannot find this reference you speak of. Please show me where this pdf is.
Reactor-Grade and Weapons-Grade Plutonium in Nuclear Explosives
The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor and the Nuclear Weapons Proliferation Implications of Thermonuclear-Fusion Energy Systems
http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0401110
Pgs 76 -80.
Dear Anonymous,
There is no shift in my position, the "hon. webmaster" has exceptional photoshop skills.
I do not visit the forum because I was uninvited there by a member of the admin team. So participating there is out of the question, I have no desire to impose on his hospitality.
Whether I have access or not is not the question here. If it makes you feel more comfortable, please feel free to believe I have no access.
I freely admit, I do not have any burden of knowledge. As I repeatedly told NPA heroes and forumites alike, I do not know any details about the bomb in India - AND nor do I want to know such things.
As far as the hon. webmaster's access to "knowledge". I do not doubt that there is access, I only question who he has access to.
It has to be someone who simultaneously claims access to stuff that goes on inside some Indian scientist's "head" and the details of the exact design and demonstrated yeild of Fatman. Both of these pieces of information can only come from word of mouth of the people concerned.
For example, to make the claim that the Hon. Webmaster knows what is in "RC's head" he would have to have RC tell him. Also to know the exact design and real yeild of Fatman down to error bars of 10%, he would have to speak to someone inside the US-NNSA who does historical work or perhaps directly to someone who directly worked on Fatman and was involved in the bomb damage assessment that followed the Nagasaki attack.
Afaik, there is only group of people who *act* like they know enough about both things - that is the NPA. And yes, their photoshop skills are legendary and yes they have big websites too.
Honestly, I am just not impressed by how big your website is.
India's interests in the context of international nuclear commerce can be easily defended without recourse to vacuous debates about yeilds of India's weapons or photoshopped ideas of Indian nuclear warheads. This entire debate can happen without personal attacks on the bomb team and/or the PM himself.
Dear Anonymous,
Firstly, if you read their biographies and do some google searching, you realise both the authors are technical experts in the NP community. They work closely with fora like INESAP. I do not know how correct their views are or if this is disinformation planted there to create a specific policy direction (eg. don't put ITER in Japan because they have never forgiven the US for Hiroshima/ Nagasaki). This is my problem with the NPA, I can't detach their technical comments from their political motivations. It makes them suspect in my eyes.
Secondly, the figures are declassified DOE data, not GoI figures and numbers. By suggesting that this is what GoI's options are - one is conflating India's options with the NPA's views of the same. I don't think that constitutes a sensible way to debate anything relevant to India.
The document only increases the appearance of proximity between the Hon. Webmaster's views and those of the NPA.
The lack of information about India's options precludes any technical discussion on the weaponisation options in the public arena. Relying on NPA views of how things are does not make for meaningful discussion.
If this is the access that the "hon. webmaster" has, then I think the matter of credibility has been resolved.
This entire episode has been nothing but another NPA provocation.
Dear Anonymous,
Yes I am saying this report is an NPA creation/invention.
The ease with which you and the "Hon. Webmaster" dismiss that aspect of it and simply cut and paste it on to India's aspirations is ... well curious.
I am defending the servants of the people in India. Sure, occasionally I admit, I may get carried away doing that.
You seem to revel in attacking the servants of the people, ... are you getting carried away in doing that?
Let me give you an analogy reminiscent of the gentleman who politely asked me to stop posting the forum.
Because some random NPA guy you see on the web tells you that his aunt has balls, and all real men have aunts with balls. With your manhood at stake, you go around insisting that that your aunt has probably has balls. After you have convinced yourself of this fact, you go around telling the world that this means your aunt is actually your uncle.
This NPA guy then quickly points out that technically your aunt can't be your uncle - so promptly you burst into tears and hurl abuses at your aunt because she doesn't have balls and is not your uncle.
Boss, from the perspective of your aunt - this kind of behaviour is total bullshit.
Yes I am saying this report is an NPA creation/invention.
i am thinking you are an automated bot, which repeats the same bs irrespective of the data.
"sky is blue"
npa
"earth is round"
npa
"drink your milk"
no mommy..its npa
....
substitute npa with photoshop and we have ur 2nd fixation
congrats! bye bye to this blog
its amusing lunacy but lunacy anyways
I do not visit the forum because I was uninvited there by a member of the admin team. So participating there is out of the question, I have no desire to impose on his hospitality.
so previous anon was correct hain? u were basically told to get lost. no wonder
I am defending the servants of the people in India. Sure, occasionally I admit, I may get carried away doing that.
more like broken record
Hi Anonymous,
Boss, every single piece of "information" and "insight" behind the webmaster's postion appears to come straight from some NPA source.
The hon. webmaster himself puts up long posts replete with references to NPA websites and papers that the NPA published in journals.
If this is not an NPA inspired affair what is it?
It seems the NPA filled the Hon. Webmaster's head with ideas of what India's nuclear options are and now they have convinced him that the Hyde Act/Indo-US nuclear deal restrict these "options" - so he is lashing out at the Scicom.
Or would you rather believe that some high-ranking members of the national security establishment suddenly cast aside all their national security vows and responsibilities and decided to cry like children on the hon. webmaster's shoulder because he has great photoshopping skills?
Do you really believe that the latter happened? and not the former?
Dear Anonymous,
I have always said to anyone who cares to ask me that I was kicked off the forum by admin for having pro-GoI opinions.
I am not reflexively opposed to everything on the forum, but I am not afraid to call out what I see as blatantly foolish behaviour.
Again, I would have dealt with the privately as I had on earlier occasions, but in this particular case, one of the forum leaders is convinced he is being fed some sort of "insider information" on the Indian nuclear bomb and everyone I talk to is positively tickled by thinking that they are getting "some gen" on the bomb makers.
This is the same kind of behaviour I faced when I *defended* Bangaru Laxman's actions during the Tehelka saga. People were more drawn to the idea of scandal than the bland reality of political donations.
No one is listening to me anymore. The kindest thing I have heard from people is "he is very easily convinced of certain things".
This doesnot make me feel any less uncomfortable and that is why I have chosen to make my views public. I was aware that such plain views would run afoul of the Jpeg-Mpeg cult that has been cultivated on the forum after my departure.
The only broken record I hear here is people claiming that all this information - that is obviously rehashed from NPA sources - is somehow "deep" "insider" information obtained from "the horse's mouths" in India.
Yaar, in my eyes, the credibility of this is very very low.
People can believe whatever they want but it really upsets me to see people like ABV, the PM and the Scicom insulted on a place like the forum.
This kind of behaviour really saddens me.
When I repeat my original point of view, I am -
a drone,
a bot,
a broken record,
an idiot who knows nothing,
a moron who has no access,
and
a fool who was told to get lost by one of the forum admin,
But when the Hon. Webmaster repeats something some NPA published ten years and that too without proper accreditation, he is a Great Hero and Indian Nuclear Expert.
That is truly a masterpiece!
What next? replace Jai Hind with Jai Photoshop?
hmm ... anonymous has said his goodbye so posting anymore may be a mistake in case it brings the dude back ... :)
however, I couldn't just watch the site turned into a tamasha where old gas-spooner's stuff is posted with reverence ...
M, you nailed the ITER tricksters ... but, things do turn around ... both Japan and US are pulling back from funding ITER ...
When I repeat my original point of view, I am -
a drone,
a bot,
a broken record,
an idiot who knows nothing,
a moron who has no access,
and
a fool who was told to get lost by one of the forum admin,
But when the Hon. Webmaster repeats something some NPA published ten years and that too without proper accreditation, he is a Great Hero and Indian Nuclear Expert.
That is truly a masterpiece!
What next? replace Jai Hind with Jai Photoshop?
b-r-o-k-e-n r-e-c-o-r-d
u missed mandatory name dropping reference to speaking for GOI btw
arre anonymous bhai,
kyaa khaali-peeli broken recaard ka panga?
relax, have a charminaar, because everyone is into CDs or MP3 .... broken records are no longer an issue ... :)
Dear Anonymous,
Allow me extend my broken record with a few questions.
Can you tell how doing everything that the "gora Rakshaak" does is any different from the core aspect of being "Dhimmi"?
If the NPA say its right - it must be right?
Is this the new logic on the forum?
Arun does have "access". Pity is he doesn't understand whats just happened to him and what his "access" to his "friends" and "gurus" has done to him.
Let me state it it in a way older folk will understand:
[b]Arun_S has now become the new Ravi Rikhye[/b].
You see he, his friends and the patsies here, the forumites, are not the first to think they know more than GoI and; in *their passion* to look out for India, end up doing the work for others.
That's the situation now. Ravi Rikhyes in the 80's and Arun_S now.
The system being what it is, save for the fact that he and the "forum" are now marked as such, the penalties for that type of behaviour in India are virtually non-existent.
The Mark remains. The rush of blood to the head involved as they fight what they fondly believe to be (like Ravi in the 80s) the "good fight", means they won't care about this now or understand what this will entail later for their passions.
Well that's the way these things go.
Pity though. Arun had the potential to be one of our best. What a terrible waste.
kg.
Heh Heh.... the Rikhye thingie wasn't that far ago, eh? The n00b Jumping Monkeys and Captain Obviouses (like some of our brave anons here) prolly won't know but the long timers sure were around when RR was sent to count trees in Siberia. AFAIK all he did was trumpet "the other angle" of Brasstacks! That was way milder than what's happening in the DF now.
And the epithets/innuendo and direct accusations thrown about by the camel riding Adminullahs and their faithful Abduls:- Manmohan Kaur, Constable Singh, Economic Hitman, Macaulyite, Brown Sahib, Traitor RC who deserves to be kicked in the a$$ by 1.1 billion Indians, traitors AK/SS/PKI, Boot Licker, A$$ Licker. The HICAF was shut down for less....
Quite a fall for a place where the most popular fundae are the centuries old Psy-Ops on the Indian People and 500 year global conspiracies and boasts of four Master Shamans.
-Anand K
The RSS fanatics on DF with:
1. Their hair trigger predispostion to get offended at wrongs done 200-500 years ago by other countries.
2. Their burning desire to "avenge" past "injustices" by establishing a Hindu Rashtra.
3. Their burning desire that India should have 1000s of nukes, preferably thermonuclear and should immediately test dozens of them.
is all making onlookers elsewhere peturbed as to the kind of loonies that have been let loose by the BJP. They are asking," Is this fanatical, burning-for-revenge, chip-on-the-shoulder, RSS mob going to in charge of India's nukes?"
I dont think the DF cabal has any clue as to how much damage they have done to their own cause by this foolish hijacking of DF by the RSS fanatics.
I cannot understand why they cannot be normal folks with confidence in themselves and in India's abilities? Interact with the rest of the world with confidence rather than this chip-on-the-shoulder, inferiority complex attitude.
KG has made the perfect observation - Arun does not realize that in his fanaticism he has become a patsy for some NPA group.
What is amazing is the inaction of the DF "seniors", seen and unseen? Beyond courageous attempts made by JEM to bring some order to the madness, the others are either in hiding or have they just written the place off? Is that webmaster in chief in London snoozing?
Another thought that occurred is:
The entire "campaign" to change the direction of DF and have *democracy at work* in DF initiated some time ago now appears to be a deliberate attempt to hijack and takeover the Forum led by the "double hatted" Admins who are co-hosting the other Forum which broke away some time back. The "democracy at work" notion, works by flooding the Forum with *drones/monkeys* (call them what you want) as can be seen on the Nuclear thread,the Psy-ops thread, the Distorted History thread etc. who spout their nonsense with the blessings of the "co-hatted admins". Some of the drones/monkeys have visited here. The drones are dispensable. If one is banned by one of the few remaining courageous Admins, he is let back in under a new ID by one of the "turned Admins".
Very, very sad.
Anon-in-India.
It is true that http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/physics/pdf/0401/0401110v3.pdf has been released in 2008. However the document is merely a rehash of other technical claims that were made in earlier documents.
The DOE reports on which the Teller-Ulam-Sakharov design discussion is based have been around since 1994.
The diagrams Figure 2. and Figure 4 which "confirm" the views of the Hon. Webmaster are from INESAP Tech. Rep. No. 1, which was first released in Sept 1999. This report can be obtained online for $25 from this non-proliferation website - http://www.inesap.org/publ_tech01.htm
As discussed in the above link - the objective of the "independent disarmament experts" who wrote this report was to point out that the " the construction of hydrogen bombs is in fact much less difficult than is generally assumed".
This "technical information" is liberally lathered with NPA ideological slants.
All technical conclusions that one draws from such documents are merely poisonous fruits of a poisonous tree with poisonous roots.
If I am a broken record, so are the NPA and frankly I can't understand why would you want to listen to an NPA drone any more than a GoI drone.
How can you possibly define the idea of a strong and *independent* India based on photoshopping stuff that the NPA pull out of their posteriors?
Are you any less of a "Dhimmi" when you think like this? Are you any less "Macaulayite" when you think like this?
Why does this idea of "Hindu" pride involve imitiating everything western?
The unfortunate part about free speech is that you cannot stop people from saying stupid stuff.[1] However, when people are pretending to play strategic games and have been lent credibility by their peers, they cannot turn around and play politics with that relationship. The "strategy" of reducing the creds of one's own nuke is a self-goal, and one does not have to be a strategic master and part-time chef Hojo [2] to figure that out.
Just passing through the Car wash.
Citation Index:
[1] Constitution of large western country with tall buildings.
[2] Mandrake the magician. Indrajal Comics. Vol. MCXXX.
Hark! A Mandrake Fan?
By Hojo's most magnificent moped, these are the times I miss being on DF... particularly the Nukkad Thread! :)
-Anand K
PS: Sorry, me couldn't just resist the call of the wild! Incidentally moi favorite Mandrake story-arc is the one where Hojo (whose true identity is unknown sans Mandrake and Chief) is kidnapped by Octon's agents. You know, those coat-suit guys who face the Incinerator Gun if they fail and got radio-detonated bombs surgically implanted behind their ears as an insurance....
Dear Anonymous,
Boss, what is happening here is not my first choice. I tried a hundred different thing before but this embarrassing behaviour refuses to die down.
Photoshopping imaginary nuclear weapons and attacking the Scicom's credibility leaves me with few options.
If there an alternative to peer politics here - I am open to it.
Say hello to Jed.
Maverick, I do not mean you are playing politics, but that various webmasters are going around forcing the issue without understanding the rationale for the decision made. They are being used as mouthpieces by the very same people (NPA) that they apparently despise....what does one say about that kind of brilliance?
Anand K., I have one of the three cubes and you don't. :P
Gesturing hypnotically
Theron
Dear Theron,
Many thanks for making that point.
I really do not like the way this situation is progressing.
I am open to suggestions on how to make this stop.
MAV,
I agree with your views on OBC's(I should know, technically I am supposed to be one), I disagree and disagree big time with your views on EJ's as they are called on DF.Will mail you regarding it. However if it helps in halting the debate on DF, I am posting a few links and a relevant extract from Stuart Slade an actual nuclear weapons Targeteer(Praise be upon him).
The links are
http://homepage.mac.com/msb/163x/faqs/nuclear_warfare_101.html
http://homepage.mac.com/msb/163x/faqs/nuclear_warfare_102.html
http://homepage.mac.com/msb/163x/faqs/nuclear_warfare_103.html
here are the extracts that might be helpful.This one is in last link
[B]One of the preconceptions that plague discussion of a nuclear war aftermath is the assumption that the cities will be totally destroyed write-offs but, in reality, the situation is by no means so simple. There's a few things that are important here. One is that big devices are a rarity. There are no 100 megaton devices, very few 25 and 10 megaton devices and not all that many 5 megaton weapons. The largest devices in widespread use are 1 megaton weapons and the majority of strategic weapons are in the 350 -150 kiloton bracket. 50 kiloton strategic weapons are quite common. The reason is quite simple. The destructive power of an explosion is distributed in three dimensions (actually four since the time component is very important) so the destructive power of a device is directly proportion to the cube root of its explosive power. Even worse, the destructive effects of a device are like many other distance related phenomena; they obey the inverse square law. Double the distance from the blast center and the effects are reduced by a factor of four. Therefore, a 1 megaton device is not 1,000 times as destructive as a 10 kiloton device, its ten times as such and those effects attenuate rapidly with distance. However, very big devices are MUCH heavier than small ones and consume disproportionate amounts of fissile material. Put all this together and its much more productive to have a large number of small devices than a small number of large ones.[/B]
Reading this along with second link(a must read) the Impression I get is
1)A fool proof ballistic missile defence is a national imperitive and we need to do it fast.no and I dont have pukis in mind while saying this.
2)more imporatant than yield at the moment is Development of ICBM if 360 azimuth deterrent as it is known is to be developed.
3)ICBM need to be in large numbers in order to overcome counter measure.As you say we dont have industrial capacity for the same plus it poses massive escalation costs on us.So option 1 is a real must.
So what do we do in retailation if deterrence is breached?
If your answer is same as that of S.Valkan and Kgoan in DF archives(yeah went through them a few days ago) then I am honestly a bit queasy about it.
Abhisheik
PS:I am no strategist or something.Plain curious.
http://homepage.mac.com/msb/163x/faqs/nuclear_warfare_101.html
http://homepage.mac.com/msb/163x/faqs/nuclear_warfare_102.html
http://homepage.mac.com/msb/163x/faqs/nuclear_warfare_103.html
hope the links work now
Abhisheik
Abhisheik,
You seem to have found an NPA who is also trained in Madarsa Math ...
"... Therefore, a 1 megaton device is not 1,000 times as destructive as a 10 kiloton device, its ten times as such ..."
Maverick, I think the answer to all this nastiness may like in the Kubler-ross grief cycle.
"In the Kübler-Ross Grief Cycle, the seventh and final stage is one of positive acceptance. In order, the stages are: Shock, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Testing, Acceptance."
Maybe some of the forumites are rapidly switching between Anger, Bargaining, and Depression, after all the initial shock and denial phases..maybe we can hope that acceptance is not far off.
If only these folks could follow Homer Simpson's example and go through the stages in under 10 seconds, it could save a lot of pain and suffering all around.
-----------
Dr. Hibbert: Now, a little death anxiety is normal. You can expect to go through five stages. The first is denial.
Homer: No way! Because I'm not dying!
Dr. Hibbert: The second is anger.
Homer: Why you little...
Dr. Hibbert: After that comes fear.
Homer: [cringes] What's after fear? What's after fear?
Dr. Hibbert: Bargaining.
Homer: Doc, you gotta get me out of this! I'll make it worth your while!
Dr. Hibbert: Finally, acceptance.
Homer: Well, we all gotta go sometime.
Dr. Hibbert: Mr. Simpson, your progress astounds me.
------
good point, anonymous ...
however, this kubler-ross thingie is due for an upgrade ...
a lot of folks, especially in India, start out life with acceptance ... you see, it is very natural for folks who have an Indic bent of mind ...
the problems start when folks like kubler-ross and their EJ accomplices (ha, ha) execute situations that lead to shock, anger, depression blah blah ...
they would do well to write a 7 step piece of crap that deals with how the EJ brain manages to stay intact while washing itself constantly with some white stuff ...
there, now you can call me an RSS goon or OFBJP whatever ...
IMO, several different issues have gotten muddled up into one gigantic mess ... let me try to list a summary:
1. some DF AdMonkies are just that ... clueless monkies who jump ... they are the problem lot.
2. Other DF Admins are well meaning good folks (Shiv, ramana, JEM) who are doing one hell of a job running a website despite the monkies ...
3. The Nuke Deal issue and the EJ thread both been very contentious debates in which emotions have run high ...
4. However, there is one major difference ... in the EJ issue, the admins killed the thread while in the Nuke case they have continued to not only allow it but provide succor with implicit patronage ... this is dishonest if not outright monkey behavior ...
So, sitting from afar this is the major criticism that I can find of DF ... it is not about Arun_S who I know very well and I can assure everyone that he is a very sharp dude and possesses a fine Indic mind ... I don't know why he is indulging in a public debate about sensitive matters but that is his choice ...
So, in order to reach some closure, let us just drop this whole
fight about who is more patriotic and who has the bigger balls ... some random anonymous dudes have posted real bile that has given them the pleasure that they sought ... the rest of us can ignore them and move on ...
I truly enjoy this weblog which is free of cost and free of Admin Pollution ...
lets post our thoughts here and continue what was shaping to be an attractive intellectual exchange ... DF be damned ... Cheers.
Alok_N,its quite possible that he is a NPA, I wont know other wise.This article is courtsey my friend who happens to be a gunner in InA and he seems to be a fan of it.Oh and its quite possible that since we both are DCH as MAV calls them we wont know otherwise(not being sarcastic).lol.And if this guy is really a NPA then and belive what he has written we are in soup.I mean this guy was a nuke targeteer.Doesnt say much about weaponeers in west.lol.
Abhisheik
I have come up with a more complete answer to your question.
All this talk of evaluating competency by comparing "design yeilds" and "actual/test yeilds" is utter nonsense.
In India, design yeilds have never been released to the public and the actual/test yeilds are the subject of targetted psyops. It was these targeted psyops that had a potential to create deterrence instability in 1998.
Inventing yeilds with the sole purpose of claiming that they are more than the DAE's publicly acknowledged test yeilds is indistinguishable from an adversarial fishing expedition.
Despite the mounting evidence to the contrary, I am willing to consider the possibility that this entire episode on the forum is merely a misfire on the part of the Hon. Webmaster and not a fishing expedition.
However, even in this charitable view, the Hon. Webmaster has displayed a tendency to make serious errors of judgement. This is likely to colour perceptions of his credibility.
Hi Maverick/Alok_N,
Webmaster alluded to K. Santhanam commenting on webmaster's missile article and being in touch through email. May be this is all because of KS having an issue with RC and feeding webmaster. KS was pro-deal in 2005, don't know his current position. Webmaster started going ballistic after that ATV article came out. The article mentioned megaton and webmaster+ramana said nuke deal is nuked and hinted that BK told them about megaton. It has been down hill since then.
Hi,
Someone of K Santhanam's stature does not need a mouthpiece.
Now I note that the forumites want India's nuclear weapons designs to "peer reviewed".
Wow... err.. should DAE publish the design in Current Science?
Peer reviewed by whom? a bunch of internet photoshop experts?
Or would the forumites prefer just giving our design to the NPA directly and letting them decide how competent India's scientists are.
Hi,
The NPA are sock puppets of various energy and technology cartels in the West.
Scaring a sock puppet is different from scaring the puppeteer.
India's national interests cannot be defined by notions of scaring the puppets.
Wow...now this masterpiece.
"Openly declare" tests, peer review, openly dig shafts...
Any other bright ideas to deal with the situation when the stealth bomber openly flies over head and drops a nuke on the "openly dug" shaft?
Any brilliant web design ideas on how to deal with the media when the same NPA you are trying to impress turn around and say that the Stealth bomber strike was actually a case of an Indian device malfunctioning?
Wow!
First you invent the need for a weapon in India by copying what you are told the West has.
Then you invent an imaginary weapon in the Indian arsenal with photoshop.
And then you turn on your government for not making your imaginary weapon.
And when publicly exposed, blame the government not being "open" about critical national security affairs.
How do you not expect me to take a dim view of this kind behaviour?
NPA being fronts of energy lobbies, here is the cliched carrot-stick...
http://tinyurl.com/5d9b9y
http://tinyurl.com/4xu4gq
Am waiting with bated breath for the chorus about the "endangered pigeons" of Muppandal who gets smashed by the evil "Tanti Turbines"....
Well, you can all rest easy now. The self-appointed "protector of indic civilization" has declared victory and moved on. But his court jester is urging HRH to exile the heretic.
Expect a few weeks of one-sided frothing at the mouth until some other brave soul decides to step forward and dare to strike a dissonant note in the echo chamber.
- PBDHH
anyone who can say stuff like "protect Indic culture" is by definition clueless about Indic culture.
what's with this anonymous monkey behavior? Just join them. Ha!
Anon Bhai,
You should take it up with the person who claimed to be the protector of Indian civilization, or sump'n like that. You see, that's why he took it upon himself to single-handedly battle the "traitors" in India's weapon project.
Anyone who makes extravagant claim like that should be prepared to face ridicule.
- PBDHH
hi,
This is far from done.
This entire thing was an attack on the bomb team.
The claim repeatedly made here is that devices had design yeilds that were much higher than what was demonstrated. The implied suggestion here is that the bomb team failed to deliver and that responsibility for this failure lands at RC and PKI's door because they were team leaders.
The entire affair appears to have been inspired by "RaviCV", who claimed to have been involved in the bomb program and claimed to have participated in the design of the Thermonuclear part of the S-1 device tested in 1998.
"RaviCV" offered "insider" knowledge which just happened to agree with everything the Hon. Webmaster had divined about the nuclear weapons design from documents published by the NPA on the issue.
Armed with such "knowledge" the Webmaster proceeded to launch a direct attack on the entire Scicom via the webportal at his disposal.
When confronted with the extent of NPA influence on his "knowledge", the webmaster chose to wrap himself up in the usual "True Hindu" stuff.
Now an attempt is being made to use an old BRM article to justify his claims. The BRM article used the NPA's own information to support the claim that the *actual* yeilds were what the DAE said they were. This was necessary because the NPA were very keen to push the idea that the actual yeilds were very low. The BRM article essentially told them that they were contradicting themselves.
Now the Hon. Webmaster wants to use the very same information of NPA origin to argue that the *design* yeild was much higher than what the actual yeild was.
This approach is logically flawed.
If you know the design yeild, you can estimate the safe depth at which the device is to be placed.
You don't have to bury it at the calculated safe depth - nothing stops you from placing it deeper than the safe depth and enjoy an added layer of protection.
You may feel you need extra protection if for example you weren't sure that the empirical relation you had read about was entirely accurate if that exponent changes from 1.3 to 1.5 ... the likelihood of a venting rises dramatically. Or if the concrete poured into the shaft fails for any reason, you can also create a situation that results in a venting. RC only said that Pokhran was *similar* to NTS, he didn't say it was the *same* as NTS.
If you don't know the design yeild, you can't back out the yeild from public reports at which the device was placed. The public reports of the depth, when combined with a detailed knowledge of the relevant seismic parameters of the site can give you a possible upper bound to the yeild of the device.
This upperbound is does not have to be the *design* yeild.
From the quick withdrawl I surmise this is far from over.
I anticipate that "drive-by" attacks on the bomb team from NPA inspired events will continue.
I am more than a little disturbed to see the forum and the website become a staging ground for such actions.
I am speechless to see that people who consider themselves guardians of all things Indian would allow themselves to be prostituted in this fashion.
Hi,
The only things I see here are
- the Hon. Webmaster is too easily convinced by claims of "insider" information.
- people on the forum appear to have lost their capacity for logical reasoning and are easily sucked in by high sounding words and unnecessary dramabaazi.
- the website is sliding into a rang de basanti type atmosphere. The gentleman who politely kicked me out should please take note of this.
Maverick,
Sorry for the late response. Have you read yesterday's article on Rediff by a senior EB?
I quickly checked the forum, and sure enough some of the participants have also started saying the same thing: viz. so what if the GDP growth rate slows down by a few percent? We can live with it, but the deal must not be signed. One gentleman was even proclaiming that "state-led self reliant growth is the only way!"
Now I know only the left has said something similar. The red-green alliance probably thinks that if they can knock 3-4% off India's growth rate they can: 1) protect Zhongguo's interest and 2) the left parties can remain viable politically in future.
Recent reports of energy crunch in China makes me think that the folks in Beijing must be getting rather anxious to see the elephant stumble.
But I am noticing EBs using the same logic nowadays. Have the Hindu Right been infiltrated by the left? Is this the sign of a "resurgence of Hindu Left?" :-)
What do you think?
sri^108
Hello Sri,
I think "left" and "right" in the Indian definition do to melt neatly into their western meanings.
However, as you point out, it does appear to be an unusual convergence of interests.
Ultimately anti-incumbency wins/loses elections.
The convergence will abate when the anti-incumbency sentiments require expedient handling.
That is all I want to say about this now.
Hi,
As I said - this is not over.
Apparently there is "no time" or "too tired" to respond to specific questions but .. enough time to indulge in attacks on the DAE.
Now a discussion about the Copper cooling fins of the Plutonium sphere accompanied by explicit suggestions that
1) AK's "incompetence" was the cause of the failure and
2) The lack of heat dissipation somehow distorted the effect of the explosive lens in the POK-1 device.
All this is accompanied by a wise crack about not knowing how to design copper cooling fins which is apparently something something
that is known a "plumber".
Again - there is one small problem with this that our engineering experts - i.e. our dearest Hon. Webmaster and his ardent admirers -- it is not the thermal expansivity of Copper that is the problem. It is the thermal expansivity of Plutonium at those temperatures that is poorly understood.
This is a classic example of what happens when people who don't understand anything try to talk about it and act like they know something.
Plutonium has a bizarre and poorly understood thermal coefficient. This has something to do with it changing its internal lattice structure. Predicting the exact temperature where the phase transition between various lattice structures will occur is a problem that no one - even today - knows how to solve. The phase transition is always sensitive to impurities - you can't predict the exact temperature at which water will boil - much less Pu will change its lattice constant.
You might be able to do it today with a large computer, but back in 1974 - CDAC did not exist and most of todays Oracle Operators were little more than a gleam in their father's eye.
Weapons Of Peace, does not tell us how the "problem" was solved.
The assumption on the part of the forum's self-appointed nuclear experts is that they simply removed the cooling fins and that destroyed changed the implosion properties.
Now any plumber will tell you that when something doesn't fit - you can do two things - you can heat the outer part or cool the inner part and get them to fit.
All the military men in the world will tell you that when you dig a deep hole in the ground - the temperature inside the hole is much less than the temperature outside the hole.
Ofcourse that possibility has never occured to our resident savants.
It is much easier to accuse Dr. Kakodkar of incompetence than to admit or realise that you are simply talking utter rubbish.
Here are two relevant links:
The thermal expansivity of copper http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/pmd/section6/pmd643.htm
The thermal expansivity of Pu.
http://hypertextbook.com/physics/thermal/expansion/
Oh wait!
Fantastic - they think this was in 1998!...
It keeps getting better and better with each turn of the wheel.
Hi
I see that once again people are bringing up the press conference.
I am once again going to try and clarify that the colloquial and technial use of the word "thermonuclear" are distinct.
Colloquially the word "thermonuclear" refers to the "Hydrogen Bomb" - a device that achieves yeilds in the MT range.
Technically, any device in which a primary/first stage charge that creates the temperatures needed to drive a fusion reaction is a "thermonuclear" device.
What was tested in 1998 was primarily a Fusion Boosted Fission device which usually serves as a primary to a much larger bomb. There was no attempt to really demonstrate anything beyond the ability to achieve a *small* controlled fusion burn. As indicated in several public statements by the DAE, the desire to test higher yeilds was limited by the constraints on the site itself.
The DAE makes absolutely no claims to having tested a bomb that had yeilds in the 100kT range. The DAE was not trying to test a "thermonuclear" (as used in the colloquial sense) bomb in 1998. There is no public record of any statement by any Indian government official that suggests that India wants to develop "thermonuclear" (as in the colloquial sense) bombs. Only BK talks about this and he perpetually whines that no one besides him wants to go down this road in India.
Looking at some experiments going on in India and passing them off as "bomb related" experiments is counter productive. It plays into the hands of people of the Gsponi/INESAP variety who want to attach this "bomb technology" stigma to any efforts at seeking out fusion based energy systems or ADS type ventures.
The NPA are always going to point to something and cry foul. You can't take stuff they say seriously and develop imaginary weapons.
This is a very very very poor way to concieve national strength.
Hi,
NPA are very keen to point out the possibility of Iranian or Saudi proliferation.
The error bars on the NPA estimates is about 5-10 weapons. That is where the 10 weapons number comes from.
I am questioning why the NPA make such a big deal out of 5-10 weapons in the hands of Saudi Arabia or Iran, when remaining utterly silent about the US's own plans to introduce hundreds of new weapons with no commitments to take apart old unstable ones.
Ultimately, I evaluate the credibility of the NPA on the basis of their ability to make a difference where numbers matter. Even if one chooses to ignore that neither KSA nor Iran have ever used a nuclear weapon - intellectual honesty demands that we place the act of bringing more nuclear weapons into the world on the same moral plane. The NPA show interest in such honesty.
I can understand it if Indians who fear muslims of KSA and Iran share the NPA's distaste for these nations acquiring nuclear weapons, but ultimately I find it curious that while those very same people also claim to fear "Christian fundamentalists in America", but refuse to raise the slightest objection when the US makes more nuclear weapons.
Either such people are idiots or .. they have other motivations.
I am not contradicting RC or AK or PKI - I leave that level of "expertise" to the Hon. Webmaster.
I am merely pointing out that the DAE has used the word
"thermonuclear" in its *technical* sense - not in the *popular* sense of a megaton yeild bomb that levels an area ~ 10 square miles. The DAE cannot be faulted for misinterpretation of its utterances by people who were interested in hype. You cannot hold DAE to account for your personal lack of understanding of technical details.
As the DAE suggests publicly and repeatedly, the country's needs for deterrence are not lacking in way, shape or form. However the DAE has never said that it has tested a actual weapon with with the kinds of yeilds that the Webmaster is keen to dream about mounting on his Agni.
Constructing imaginary scenarios where the DAE as an organisation is sullied purely for your political aims, is simply too fantastically stupid.
Time and time again, the "experts" of the forum have displayed an inability to exercise basic judgement and logical reasoning skills.
I cannot comment on the "thermonuclear" part of the design because I don't know what it is. As per AK and RC's statements in public, the yeild can be *scaled* to 150-200 kT.
This does not mean we have demonstrated a weapon that offers those yeilds. It certainly does not mean that we have tested a warhead that can house a weapon of that kind. It certainly does not mean we have a 300kT warhead in our arsenal.
That is purely the Webmaster's overactive imagination.
Specifically the DAE has publicy said that the bomb was *designed* for a lower yeild due to constraints at the testing site. Why the webmaster chooses to ignore this aspect of it is curious. It is also curious that quite suddenly the webmaster has revised his thinking to directly reflect the beliefs of the NPA on the 1998 tests.
Everyone knows the DAE cannot comment on the bomb in public - yet forum "experts" persist in making illinformed technical comments and then push motivated tripe and personal attacks on the bomb team.
It is really not possible for me to take this well.
One cannot expect me to pander to this excessive sense of self importance.
I have repeatedly demonstrated, that these people are relying on NPA released data for any claims they make.
As the this latest allegation about "distortion" due to thermal heating in the Plutonium shows - they really don't know what they are talking about.
I cannot take any claim these people make about "knowledge" of how nuclear weapons work seriously.
Consequently, once again - I ask that they please limit their comments to non-technical aspects of the nation's nuclear needs.
And I remind them that desist from making personal attacks on the Scicom. When they do such things, it is very hard to see the difference between them and the NPA. This behaviour is no different from that of a Pakistani poster who comes up on the forum and abuses the COAS.
As regards names - I know quite a few too - but I am not in the business of dropping them around for everyone to see.
Those that need to know my name - already do.
I am strictly a chai and biscuit guy with a finely tuned bullshit detector and I am calling it as I see it. All these claims of "incompetence" in the DAE are bullshit - they are made by people who grasp of technical aspects is poor.
Dropping names will do little to restore the credibility that has been lost in this fiasco.
Please realise the credibility of the entire website has been sacrificed in the pursuit of "RaviCV's" claims. This represents an irreparable loss.
Yaar,
Get real!
The "Fall of Nahusha" has already happened.
Everyone associated with that website has just had their credibility completely trashed by irresponsible conduct of one person.
A website dedicated to bharat-rakshaking is now attacking the organisation responsible for defending the country.
And all this because of the unsubstantiated utterances of one "RaviCV" whose credentials and identity has never been verified.
What greater "fall" can there be besides this?
Hi,
More rubbish.
LANL does not compete with LLNL.
If there is no competition is Indian science - then the Hon. Webmaster should ask where opinions like the RaviCV he values come from.
It is not in India's interest to have the Webmaster's friends at LLNL and LANL review anything regarding its nuclear weapons.
S-1 was thermonuclear (in the technical sense) device - it was not a thermonuclear (in the popular sense) device. You can't fault the DAE for your misinterpretations of their words. I am going to keep repeating this until it sinks through forumites' heads.
If there was no attempt to ignite a high yeild TN burn then why should DAE claim to it? Only the NPA and the "USIC" has made this claim via mouthpieces like Mark Hibbs.
Anyone making open ended statements like "S-1 was a flop","failed test" etc... should be smart enough to anticipate what kind of consequences that has.
Silence can imply a lot of things - ultimately you choose what it means. What you choose to make of it - says as much about you.
Look if you talk like this - ultimately you pay a price - that price is credibility.
Credibility is like virginity - you can't get it back.
As a long time forumite, I find the attacks on "PKI, RC, AK and crew" quite disturbing. Just what the hell is going on?
I'm cringing, just waiting for the other show to fall, namely APJ Abdul Kalam. He has also been silent. Will he also be attacked?
RaviCV's appearance was quite suspicious. At the time I suspected him to be an American NPA masquerading as a desi or one of their Indian minions. I vividly recall one comment he made regarding Perkovitch's book cover photograph that Shiv pointed out was actually an IAF firepower demo. After Shiv posted, suddenly RaviCV was acquainted with the firing range.
The traitor Subbarao is an innocent wronged by the evil RR? The physicists who actually built the Indian bomb are traitors?
This is bizarro world? WTF?
arre bhai boss log of various flavors,
thoda ruko aur socho ... pretty please?
all these claims into unknown territory should give pause to everyone ... for example, what is the coefficient of expansion of Pu? ... How the hell is anyone supposed to know unless you have had access to a piece of Pu and measured it? ... I mean, how would I know the coefficient of expansion of Copper if I didn't have a piece of Copper or a book that listed the answer? ...
So, what's with this train of thought?
the same thing with yield/shield of S1 patakha ... bhai log, do you appreciate what 10^-22 secs is? ... that is the timescale for nuclear forces ... do you appreciate what 10^-12 secs is? ... that is the timescale for weak forces ... do you appreciate what 10^-9 secs is? .... that is the time scale in which a plasma has to form in the much maligned secondary ... do you appreciate what 10^-3 secs is? ... that is the time in which the shock wave of the primary dude comes and destroys any potential secondary dude ...
please try to assemble these decades in your head before you even post anything semi-technical about the TN patakha ...
cheers.
Alok, Mav
IMO.. if the failure of a second rate brokerage house can bring about fears of financial armageddon and committees to save the world, what difference does it make if the nuke is 40KT or 200KT ? Nukes of this yield are enough to deter any western adversaries. IMO, this line of thought is common knowledge.
Having said that, *IF* a nuke with design yield of 200KT was tested, GOI and the Indian govt. security apparatus felt that there was a need for this kind of weapon. (Perhaps to deter China ?) If this weapon then fizzled, there was definitely a coverup, but nothing that GOI of the day was not involved in. So wheres the question of SciCom misleading anyone ?
** Heres why I think that it was indeed a 200KT weapon that was tested. Reports claim, that the S1 device contained 8kg of plutonium. For a 12KT FBF primary, anywhere from 2-3 kgs of plutonium may be reqd (considering 1kg plutonium = 23KT yield, Nagasaki device's efficiency was 14%, an FBF device would be at least twice as efficient). This leaves 5 kgs for the secondary.. There is no way this fissioned efficiently and produced only ~30KT of yield.
sudeep,
you are falling in the same trap ...
in order to make sense of these various analyses, I will post my competing analysis ... see if you can defeat my superior reasoning:
1. the price of aaloo is Rs 20/kg.
2. AK eats Gobhi.
3. PKI is against baigan.
4. Hence, S1 was made of Mooli.
5. I understand Gajar, so all you guys are full of Gobar.
6. but, but, I had perfected my knawlij of lauki! do I get a chance?
I am getting slowly convinced that RaviCV, Maverick and Arun_S are in reality one and the same person, or at the very least 2 people that work for the same organisation .
Both of them have spectacularly succeeded in obfuscating and confusing everyone regarding the Indian nuclear deterrent.
Has anyone seen these 3 in the room at the same time together?
I am getting slowly convinced that RaviCV, Maverick and Arun_S are in reality one and the same person, or at the very least 2 people that work for the same organisation .
Both of them have spectacularly succeeded in obfuscating and confusing everyone regarding the Indian nuclear deterrent.
Has anyone seen these 3 in the room at the same time together?
ROTFL ROTFL
Brilliant, brilliant
Alok
Whatever I am posting here, is done under two basic premises.
1) It don't matter to GOI what I say on some 'disreputable' blog/forum.
2) If I can follow a line of reasoning, so can others. I am no fanne-khan. If I am thinking of something today, smarter folks have already polished the thought 10 years ago. :-)
So whatever posts I make, I make for my own personal edification and sheer curiosity.
I am not sure I understood what you wanted to imply by your ghia-torai post. I will be the first to admit that my knowledge about Indian nukes, or nukes of any other provenance is near non-existant, apart from understanding the non-technical descriptions of how these things work in magazines etc.
Having said that, I just dont get how 8 kg of plutonium yield 45KT, at 20% efficiency, when even first gen. nukes functioned at 14% efficiency. This when the weapon is supposed to be 98 vintage.
Now the 8kg figure itself may be wrong, or my line of reasoning may be wrong, or there may be other possibilities that are not within the realm of my horizons.
But I don't see why my guesswork, or thoughts, are to be ridiculed or attacked, unless an average citizen should not think about Indian strategic imperatives/armed forces at all !
Sudeep
sudeep,
I was not attacking you, rather simply pointing out that any analysis is only as good as the input info ... pure garbage IN can result in pure garbage OUT even though the analysis itself may be exquisitely perfect ...
we don't know what the designs are/were ...
we don't know who was lying and/or deliberately spreading misinformation ...
we don't know who doctored which seismographical data ...
we don't know who photoshopped satellite imagery ...
we don't know which coefficients in the open source domain have been altered ...
in fact the question to ask is this: "is there anything that one knows for sure in this business?"
given all this, why not just have some chai-biskoot instead of trying to figure out GigaBoom stuff?
:)
I visited a deep mine lst week ... pretty good shaft with a nice wide elevator ... pretty darn deep too ...
that reminded me ... the depest working mine in the world is in Kolar in India ... TIFR developed the infra at that mine ...
wanna go DeepGigaBoom?
[in case you are wondering, I hate the nomenclature MT ... a purist would not mix two units ... we should simply use GKg ... ]
uh oh ...
just realized that GKg is equally silly ...
the correct unit is Tg or Terra-gram ... LOL!
so, TerraBoom it is ... sounds appropriate ... something that will destroy Terra-firma ...
alok_n,
Always a pleasure to see your posts which hark back to fundamentals and common sense and restore sanity.
FWIW, I distinctly remember in my acrimonious exchanges with RaviCV (before the Forum heavyweights got into the act)at one stage he thought that I was RC (posting as ldev) and said something to the effect, " If you are RC I apologize for my rude behaviour sir. You may remember me from so and so occasion" and he referred to a meeting where a number of people had met.
Ldev,
Not RC but someother name (the name escapes me) but I am sure it was not RC.
Because your name ends with dev..someone with the similar (atleast) name
-SA
He was pretty mad at RC and said that the laws of nature should have to take a hike if what RC claimed is right. So..IMO there is no question that he will mistake you for RC and refer you as 'sir'.
Extreme times call for extreme de-hibernating...
I am totally convinced that Alok_N and ananya are in reality one and the same person, or at the very least 2 people that work for the same organisation.
Both of them have spectacularly succeeded in obfuscating and confusing everyone regarding the main debate going on and introducing humour like a pre-emptive attack.
Has anyone seen these 2 in the mushaira at the same time together?
- Manne
ldev,
the reference was to Dr. Raj Baldev ...
hello Manne,
good to see you here in these wide open spaces ...
is the chai-wallah arguing POK-I yield with the bus driver these days?
I find it amusing that it was actually Ldev himself that has quoted Dr. Baldev Raj to RaviCV afterwhich he has mellowed down on Ldev and wished the conversation was different.
Now, ldev himself is trying to say that RaviCV has mistook him for RC.
ldev miyan..you are one cunning bastard and spinmaster.
-SA
I also recall Ldev was hunting down and humiliating RaviCV thinking that he was maverick (aka Vijay J). Yes, he will easily chicken out that he did not name Vijay J but he was only poster of reput to have been shown the door. I am sure he will take patli gali on this.
Now ldev conveniently uses his blog to spread venom. LDev..you may very well belong to the ultimate group (NPA) that maverick has nightmares about everyday, every minute.
-SA
Above should read:
Now ldev conveniently uses his blog to spread venom. LDev..you may very well belong to the ultimate group (NPA) that maverick *supposedly* has nightmares about everyday, every minute.
what is with this tendency to accuse folks of spreading venom? ... as far as I can tell, folks are simply posting opinions ...
I defended Arun_S and his right to interpret data and make projections ... how seriously one should take such analyses is up to the individual ... it is sort of like those Economists who pontificate on TV about what the m,arket will do, knowing fully well that they are indulging in Massive GIGO ...
Similarly, I defend ldev ... he is analysing the data that are available to him ... and so far I have not seen him add "venom" to the equations of his analysis ...
so, what is my own analysis? ... very simple ... without any MegaProof, here is the conclusion:
PARTIAL KNAWLIJ IS 400% DANGEROUS
Cheers all.
hmm ... I just read the latest on DF ... two interesting developments:
1. Dr. Gerard is talking of how sub-kt were undetected and how going deeper will help ... hmm ... what a coincidence just when I was thinking KGF ...
2. lakshmic has an interesting plot ... sign a deal for $20B with uncle for airplanes, wait a few months (just long enough for all the blue collar crowd associated with this money to get excited) and then go TerraBoom ...
LOL! wicked! ... what will POTUS of the day do? sanction all the blue collar dudes away from their paychecks?
GogaInteresting suggestion, IMO ...
a third observation from DF ... John Snow dude (who always makes posts that only reach 70% on any meter) has made yet another pointless post that appears to be sensible ...
recall that plasma generation in doosra stage is an electromagnetic process ... but it is NOT a waveguide ... and it is NOT a chemical combustion ...
[even a physicist knows what an exalted ENGINEER SAHIB should know ... for a waveguide treatment to apply, the risetime of the signal should be much smaller than the propagation time ... the propagation time for an EM wave over 1 m is 3 nanoseconds ... what is the risetime of the primary? ... even a physicist may guess that it is not in the ns regime considering that it is a characteristic timescale of a chemical explosion ... but then, who are we to question ENGINEER SAHIBs who understand things in REALITY ... :) ]
hence, in short, the post is totally useless ... what a poor job of destroying a song I really like ... instead I will post this for ENGINEER SAHIB's benefit ...
Sawan ka mahina, pawan karae sor
arre baba, sor nahin Shor
Pawan karae sor ...
Jeeyara rae jhoomae aisae, jaisae bagiyaan naachae more ...
-------
if the implications are not clear to ENGINEER SAHIB, there is more:
Raamaa gajab dhaayae, yeh poorvaiyaa
naiyaa sambhaalo kaisae khoyae ho khaviyaa
aree marzi hai tumharee, lae jawo jis oar
jiyaraa rae jhommae jaisae bagiyaan naachae more
-------
take a chill pill ENGINEER SAHIB ... stop posting those silly little pieces of CRAP ADVERTISEMENTS like "Spinster 98" etc ... there is no need to DATE your embarrassments ... :)
ok, I'll take a break ...
one of these days, I want to read some crappy claim like this:
"blah blah Bessel Function blah blah"
-- Spinster 2008
:)
Thik he na. In the end we need a credible infallible deterrence capable of strategic damage. even if thoda bohot failures tha in 98 me to jada farak nahi pada in long term. exact numbers to bilkul matter nahi karte. bohot sare options he. nuclear, bilogical or em.. bio or em me to ab hum bohot age nikal gaye he aur unkeliye delivery guaranteed mechanism bhi in place he. cost and safety wise accha he ke hum don't keep chasing bigger the better thinking. Sorry if my words above sound stupid lekin kitne bahas karenge yeah pe aur DF pe.
alok_n, guys,
You are right. RaviCV mistook me for BR i.e. Baldev Raj not RC.
Hi Anonymous,
The coherence between RaviCV's views and those of the NPA is mysterious. It is true that the NPA seemed to very keen to spout details of the Indian design after 1998 and it took them less than a month to start talking about a "failed TN" test.
It is *not* entirely surprising is that the Hon. Webmaster is buying into it. He has certain predispositions and this plays to those.
What is surprising is that the Hon. Webmaster has never questioned Ravi CV's credentials or his political motives.
It appears the Hon. Webmaster, never asked Ravi CV, why despite his admission of participation in the nuclear effort he chose to speak ill about his teammates *while* admitted to be holding a job *in* the US.
Ldev,
I recall that Ravi CV mistook you for Dr. Baldev Raj, who he met in the presence of Dr S.V. Lawande.
Ravi CV had no problems abusing RC, AK, PKI. He offered no apologies in that regard.
If you know so well what happened, you should know that the first spat on that day was between Arun and RaviCV. It went to an extent that there was bad blood.
Mav, you are being dishonest and I am sure your claims are all bogus too. Not for nothing that people call you ponga pundit.
-SA
BTW: he didn't abuse people you have quoted there and hell he didn't abuse anyone except questioning. Again...ponga pundit that you are can say anything.
Hi Anonymous,
I am definetely *NOT* the Hon. Webmaster or Ravi CV.
I could never make any comments about the design of the weapon - as I have no idea what it is. I have never been told and believe me I don't want to know that sort thing.
As I indicated earlier - I am aware of the burden that knowledge creates and I DON'T want that responsibility.
The line between the Hon. Webmaster and Ravi CV is increasingly blurred. This is mostly because the Hon. Webmaster has never questioned Ravi CV's credibility. He simply believed everything that Ravi CV said without daring to call him out.
I strongly suspect that the Hon. Webmaster has convinced himself that any wrinkles in Ravi CV's narrative are due to his desire to "discredit" himself.
I am not trying to introduce any confusion into this debate.
As far as the DAE's public statements go - the 1998 tests only involved devices whose yeild could be scaled to 150-200kT. A yeild of 40-50kT was demonstrated mostly from an FBF configuration. While S-1 is a "thermonuclear" weapon, it was designed to achieve a small controlled amount of fusion. It was not designed in 1998 to be a city-killing-MT-yeild nuclear warhead.
The DAE has never said anything about the S-1 device being used to make 300 kT devices. DRDO has never said anything about the being able to mount a S-1 type warhead/descendant on any Agni missile. There is quite simply no credible public commentary on this yet and I have nothing to say about this.
The entire "failed TN" test image of the S-1 design is an idea that appears only via NPA channels after 1998. I suspect that the only focus here is to fish for India's capabilities in the Thermonuclear arena. That I suspect is why DAE never said anything about how much fusion yeild S-1 was designed for.
The Hon. Webmaster has become convinced that India can indeed mount an S-1 type device on a warhead in the Agni and that the S-1 yeild is 300kT. He has also become completely convinced that Ravi CV knows what he is talking about and that Ravi CV's opinion that the S-1 device is a failed test - is accurate. The Hon. Webmaster, also believes that Ravi is justified in using strong words against the Scicom, and that by repeating his words in public, the Hon. Webmaster will somehow be able to scrape off Ravi CV's credibility.
I fear the Hon. Webmaster is too easily convinced. I wonder if Ravi CV and all the NPA talked of the "failed TN" test has the same source. I do not have a satisfactory resolution of any of this.
I feel all the arguments favouring development of higher yeild thermonuclear weapons can be made without any personal attacks on scicom and even without any reference whatsoever to technical details.
The deliberate manner in which the DAE team and the PMO are being attacked under the guise of debate on India's nuclear options makes me very suspicious. I am beginning to doubt the Hon. Webmaster and his friends' sincerity in the debate.
Dear SA,
Please explain yourself. I do not follow you.
All I have said is that the Hon. Webmaster is too easily convinced. What about that is untrue?
Hi SA,
What little I saw on the forum that day - looked like abuse to me.
I have seen the Hon. Webmaster use strong language against RC, AK and PKI and then edit it out when he gets a warning from Ramana.
Feel free to insult my caste or the pandits but honestly what sort of a person does the Hon. Webmaster come across as?
How can such a person have any credibility?
Any btw... I only have the DAE's public utterances to back my points up - I don't have a website to back my credibility and I don't claim to know anyone who worked on the Bomb.
I am an anonymous voice on the internet - I am completely disconnected from anything but my own mouth.
If an anonymous moron like me can unmount the mighty Hon. Webmaster and his mightier charge - and turn his vaunted credibility into utter crap - then what does that say about him?
Is there any credibility in anything he says?
Dear SA,
One wonders if Hon Webmaster ever attempted to contact Dr. Baldev Raj or Dr. S.V. Lawande and ask them if Ravi's credentials were accurate?
If this relatively simple check was not performed then one wonders what is going on on the forum.
A number of older people on the forum have told the Hon. Webmaster and his cohorts to simply take it elsewhere and to keep the debate at a civilised level.
And somehow all the old bastards like me are failing to get this point across to Hon Webmaster.
Look boss - No one is gathering here because to listen to me because I once shook hands with a Miss India contestant or that I had chai bisuit with Sagarika Soni or I made a cucumber sandwich for Penaz Masani - I don't think people know any of those people.
People are only gathering here because the tone of debate on the forum is irresponsible.
I no longer have the ability to petition the forum admins for moderation. I can't seem to get my point across to any of the guys inside the site. My situation is like that of the old thakur whose hands have been cut off! I am reduced to mumbling rubbish about old times in the hope that Jai and Veeru come by and do something.
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