INDIA'S REACTIONS TO NUCLEAR DEVELOPMENTS IN PAKISTAN

• Document Type: FOIA
• Keywords: PAKISTAN
• Keywords: NUCLEAR WEAPONS
• Keywords: NUCLEAR WEAPONS
• Keywords: PAKISTAN
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0005403744
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: June 23, 2015
• Document Release Date: December 16, 2009
• Case Number: F-2006-00752
• Publication Date: September 8, 1981

Director of
Central
Intelligence
APPROVED FOR RELEASED
DATE: 11-30-2009
India's Reactions to Nuclear
Developments in Pakistan
(b)(1)
(b)(3)
SNIE 31/.32-81
8 September 1981
Copy 3 4 2
 Sources an
(WNINTEL)
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 INDIA'S REACTIONS TO NUCLEAR
DEVELOPMENTS IN PAKISTAN
Information available as of 1 September 1981 was
used in the preparation of this Estimate.
 THIS ESTIMATE IS ISSUED BY THE DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL
INTELLIGENCE.
The following intelligence organizations participated in the preparation of the
Estimate:
The Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security
Agency, and the intelligence organizations of the Departments of State and Treasury.
Also Participating:
The Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Department of the Army
The Director of Naval Intelligence, Department of the Navy
The Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence, Department of the Air Force
 Pakistan is pursuing a nuclear explosives development program
which, if carried to the production of weapons, would be regarded by
New Delhi as a direct threat to India and to its regional and global am-
bitions. The available evidence is insufficient to predict India's response
to this threat. Prime Minister Gandhi has dealt with the problem
through indirect pressure and, although that course is unlikely to be
adequate over the long run, we do not believe that Gandhi has made a
decision to take any direct action. India is developing contingency
options for destroying Pakistan's nuclear facilities, for responding to a
Pakistani nuclear test by exploding an Indian test device, and for coping
with an established Pakistani nuclear weapons capability.
An uncertainty in estimating what Gandhi will do about the
Pakistani problem in the near term is the extent of Indian concern about
US arms sales to Islamabad, particularly the F-16 aircraft. India has
long exaggerated the threat posed by US arms sales to Pakistan in order
to discourage the United States from providing Islamabad with sophisti-
cated arms.
The US proposal to sell F-16s to Pakistan is now being associated by
New Delhi with the potential Pakistani nuclear threat. Reporting
received since.7 June, when Israel used F-16s to destroy a reactor in
Iraq, indicates that high-level officials in the Indian Government are
genuinely alarmed about F-16s going to Pakistan and the extent to
which this limits India's options for dealing with Pakistan's nuclear
activities. India fears that, with the F-16, Pakistan has the capacity to
counterattack effectively against some Indian nuclear facilities. More-
over, it fears that a rearmed Pakistan backed by a US commitment will
become more adventurous and hostile toward India.
In the extreme case, if Indian concerns increase over the next two
or three months, we believe the conditions could be ripe for a decision
by Prime Minister Gandhi to instigate a military confrontation with
Pakistan, primarily to provide a framework for destroying Pakistan's
nuclear facilities. We judge that the sense of urgency in New Delhi is
not likely to dissipate in the coming months.
Over the next 12 to 24 months, our estimate nonetheless is that In-
dia will follow a wait-and-see strategy-waiting for Pakistan to conduct
 a nuclear test, with the intention of exploding an Indian device in
response and assessing Pakistan's further ambitions. If Pakistan persists
toward nuclear weapons production, or if Pakistan moves to acquire a
strategic stockpile of nuclear material, then New Delhi will face a
choice of accepting the high probability of a nuclear arms race or
destroying Pakistan's nuclear facilities. Any final Indian decision is
likely to depend critically on political and strategic circumstances
prevailing at that time.
 1. India is following Pakistani progress toward a
nuclear weapons production capability with growing
concern. In India's view, Pakistani production of nu-
clear weapons would pose a direct threat to Indian
national security. India's broader goal of becoming a
major global power through its preeminence in South
Asia would be threatened by a Pakistani nuclear
challenge to such preeminence. It would dilute the
effectiveness of India's superiority in conventional
military capabilities and would require New Delhi to
authorize a costly Indian nuclear weapons production
program. Therefore, the Indian Government has been
considering ways to prevent Pakistan from becoming a
nuclear weapons state.
2. Pakistan is approaching a capability to produce
plutonium and highly enriched uranium for use in a
nuclear explosives development program, Prime Min-
ister Gandhi evidently responded to the threat by
authorizing Indian nuclear test preparations. In Febru-
ary excavation was begun in the Thar Desert to permit
the underground explosion of an Indian test device on
3. In May preparations bad
been completed by India for a 40-kiloton nuclear
test-presumabl reparation of the
device itself, as excavation at the test site was still
under way. India reportedly was to explode the device
about one week after the expected Pakistani test,
prevent Pakistan from conducting a nuclear test.
Evidently, the Indian Government calculated that a
Pakistani nuclear explosion per se would not constitute
a national security threat, and that the damage to
India's image of preeminence in the region could be
minimized by a resumption of the peaceful nuclear
explosive (PNE) program.'
4. A small group of Indian strategists who have
argued for nuclear weapons production since China's
nuclear test program began are now citing the Paki-
nuclear deterrent on two fronts. Prime Minister Gan-
dhi approved the publication of a long editorial by one
of these nuclear weapons advocates. Work under way
s intended to
give India by late 1982 its first supply of plutonium
totally unencumbered by any international controls
and therefore usable in nuclear weapons. We believe,
however, that India probably is preparing for contin-
gencies rather than beginning a weapons production
program. As New Delhi's primary objective is to
prevent Pakistan from producing nuclear weapons,
Indian deployment of nuclear weapons would be
' There is some evidence that India's plans for resuming its PNE
test program include efforts to develop a thermonuclear device.
After India's test in 1974, Indian scientists spoke of plans to develop
a thermonuclear PNE as a logical next step in their explosives
program. That program appears to have ceased shortly after the
1974 test, but recent indications are that various laboratories in
India's Department of Atomic Energy have been tasked to work on
the development of a hydrogen test device. Estimates of the time
and effort required to design a successful thermonuclear device vary
widely, but the complexity of the design problem probably would
not deter the Indians from attempting the development of a
thermonuclear explosive. India is aware that China's third test was
thermonuclear and that it occurred only 17 months after the first
Chinese test in 1964, and much useful information has been
published since then. Pakistan's explosion of an initial fission device
would pale in the light of an Indian thermonuclear test, serving New
Delhi's objective of showing to Islamabad the futility of a nuclear
arms race and attempting to show to the rest of the world that
India's regional preeminence remained secure.
 likely in the near term only if other efforts failed to
stop the Pakistanis.'
stroy the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq and the
announcement days later of US plans to supply F-16s
to Pakistan. Before the Israeli raid, Indian leaders may
have been resigned to the sale of F-16s over their
protests and they seemed to regard Pakistan's nuclear
activities as a separate threat. Since then, however,
Indian concern about the two threats has intensified.
ings by top officials in the Ministry of External Affairs
indicate that this reaction by the military probably is
widely shared. The Indian Government probably is
concerned that its options are. narrowing-that its
contingency plans for stopping the Pakistani nuclear
program by force could not be implemented without
inviting reciprocal attacks which, if conducted with
F-16s, could not be adequately thwarted by existing
Indian air defenses.
6. In mid-July the Indian service chiefs reportedly
were to consider Indian arms requirements as a result
of Pakistan's expected acquisition of US arms. The
results of the intended meeting are not known. At the
time of the meeting a senior Indian defense official
reportedly was considering the possibilities of starting
began to arrive. Earlier in July a senior Indian defense
official stated that, though no decision had been made
keeping this option ready,
not in question.
from the plant. The difficulty of acquiring necessary
components and rebuilding the plant probably would
shielding surrounding the equipment. Nevertheless,
enough damage almost certainly would be done in an
9. Prime Minister Gandhi probably has not yet
October or November, according to one report), the
conditions could be ripe for Prime Minister Gandhi to
estimate, however, is that India will follow a wait-and-
see strategy. As the shock of the Israeli strike fades,
is still under discussion. Political strategists probably
will focus attention on the potentially extreme political
The reprocessing facilities will begin to contain highly radio-
active material as soon as they begin to treat irradiated nuclear feel,
did not consider the possibility of local radioactive contamination to
be a driving factor in determining the feasibility or timing of an
 Gandhi has been told that, if the United States were to
halt the sale of F-16s, Pakistan would undoubtedly test
and produce nuclear weapons. India probably would
react to a Pakistani test by conducting an Indian test in
response. New Delhi would hope that an Indian test
(and the predictable wave of international pressure)
would deter the Pakistanis from proceeding with a
nuclear weapons program, but in all probability Paki-
stan would continue producing weapons-usable nu-
clear material. If that were the case, India would have
to consider whether to try to destroy Pakistan's nuclear
facilities before a nuclear stockpile rendered the mili-
tary option ineffective. Alternatively, Pakistan may
decide to delay a nuclear test while awaiting the full
implementation of the US arms deal. If Pakistan
defers nuclear testing, the Indians will face the pros-
pect of Pakistani accumulation of a significant stock-
pile of nuclear material for eventual weapons use.
Thus, in this case too, India would confront a decision
either to strike Pakistan's nuclear facilities or to face a
high probability of eventual Pakistani production of
nuclear weapons.
11. A critical factor in estimating what Gandhi
would do, when ultimately faced with the choice of
either attacking Pakistan or allowing Pakistan to pro-
duce a stockpile of weapons-usable nuclear material, is
her attitude toward exercising India's own nuclear
weapons option. If the Indians were adamantly op-
posed to developing their own nuclear weapons, they
probably would try to destroy Pakistan's nuclear facili-
ties before a significant stockpile of nuclear material
could be produced. If, on the other hand, the Indians
are seriously considering the establishment of their
own nuclear strike capability against China, destruc-
tion of Pakistan's nuclear facilities would become a
less attractive option. From the Indian perspective, it
would have the serious drawback of inviting Chinese
intervention. Moreover, the international reaction to
an Indian attack probably would be severe, Reliance
on the option of building a nuclear deterrent force to
deal with the Pakistani nuclear threat would extend
India's time for reaction until nearly the point when
Pakistan actually began to produce deployable nuclear
weapons, which probably would not occur before late
PNE tests, perhaps permitting a thermonuclear test,
recommendations have recently been
made in favor of exercising the nuclear weapons
option and that the detailed recommendations were
circulated widely in the Indian Government. We have
also noted that Gandhi has at least some interest in this
viewpoint. But we do not know whether the Prime
Minister favors that course, and we have not observed
any activity by the Indian military that would suggest
authorization for a nuclear weapons program. The
considerations discussed in the annex suggest that
India would ultimately choose to meet the Pakistani
nuclear challenge by establishing a superior nuclear
force, but the decision is likely to depend critically on
the prevailing political and strategic circumstances,
13. If India chose to rely on nuclear deterrence, the
present pace of Pakistan's nuclear program would
point to nuclear testing by both countries in late 1982
or 1983. India's basic objectives (as noted in paragraph
1) would require Indian efforts to be more impressive
than Pakistan's accomplishments. It is possible that
Pakistan would be sufficiently impressed by India's
capability to decide that its best course lay in avoiding
a nuclear arms race. Even so, mutual suspicion and
miscalculation probably would defeat such restraint.
14. If, on the other hand, India chose to attack
defeat, presenting the United States with the dilemma
of direct involvement or seeing the defeat of a security
partner. The Soviet Union might attempt to exploit the
hostilities, for example, by launching limited strikes
under Afghan colors against insurgent camps across
the Pakistani border.'
' For a discussionof possible Soviet actions against Pakistan, see
SNIE 11/32-81 ,?"'~ The Soviet Threat to Pakistan,
12 August 1981.
 favor o producing nuc ear weapons applicable to use
against China includes two Indian considerations. The
first is that China poses a threat to Indian freedom of
action in South Asia. Either by coercive diplomacy or
by supporting insurrection in small neighboring states,
China is likely eventually to restrict India's control
over events in the region unless deterred by a strong
and determined government in New Delhi. The sec-
ond consideration is that China poses a more direct
threat to India's security because it is likely to encour-
age and support Pakistani aggression against India by
providing military equipment to Islamabad or by
tying up Indian troops along the northeastern border
during an Indo-Pakistani conflict. Nuclear weapons,
according to Indian proponents, would end the present
dangerous degree of asymmetry between China's
power and that of India and could, in time, produce a
climate conducive to improving relations between the
two countries.
2. Also, Indian nuclear weapons advocates regard
production of nuclear weapons as a means to reassert
India's regional preeminence in the face of increasing
Soviet and US activity in the area. Events in Iran and
Afghanistan and the subsequent reactions by super-
powers probably have led many Indians, including
Gandhi, to conclude that New Delhi is nearly helpless
to influence the resolution of important problems in
the region. Nuclear weapons, according to some In-
dian strategists, would lead the superpowers to accord
India greater respect, if not as the nation having
overall responsibility for maintaining peace in the
region-the status to which India ultimately aspires-
then at least as an equal participant in resolving
regional crises.
3. Despite these incentives, there are several techni-
cal and political reasons why the Indian Government
might prefer to delay launching a nuclear weapons
program. India's early pledges to use its Canadian-
supplied research reactor only for peaceful purposes,
for example, may make Gandhi reluctant to use this
facility for weapons production, and India's other
operational reactors are covered by international non-
proliferation safeguards. India is building a research
reactor and a power reactor that will be able to begin
producing unsafeguarded plutonium in large quanti-
ties in late 1982, if all proceeds according to plan.'
Thus, Gandhi would find it expedient to defer weap-
ons production, at least until about 1983, In the
meantime, unsafeguarded plutonium from the Cana-
dian-supplied CIRUS reactor could be used to conduct
"peaceful" underground nuclear tests.
4. The Indians would have some economic consid-
erations in deciding whether to become a nuclear
weapon state. Although the cost of producing a small
stockpile of fission bombs would probably not be great,
Gandhi probably would realize at the outset that
embarking on a nuclear weapons program would
entail a commitment to ever-increasing defense bud-
gets. One Indian proposal is to spend $10 billion over
five years-presumably by increasing the defense
budget somewhat from its current level of about 3.5
percent of India's gross national product-to pay for
the production of several hundred nuclear-armed mis-
siles and aircraft recommended for deployment
against China. Another major cost of establishing a
nuclear deterrent would be the expense required to
' The plan includes using domestically produced heavy water in
the reactors. India's persistent problems in producing this water, and
its critical need to increase electrical power generating capacity, will
create conflicting desires. India will want to start up the power
reactor as soon as possible, which means using heavy water available
from the Soviet Union under safeguards. The Indians would like to
operate the power reactor without safeguards, however, which
might require postponing the startup date. India might choose to
keep its new research reactor free of safeguards-to support a
weapons program-while using safeguarded heavy water in the
power reactor to ensure its timely startup; this course would argue
for a deferral of overt weapons development until the Soviet Union
had finished supplying the desired heavy water.
7
'*SL`am
 create a nuclear strike force with adequate personnel,
training, and command and control procedures. Hid-
den costs would take the form of increased require-
ments for nonnuclear equipment and capabilities-
costs relating to enhanced early warning systems, for
example.
5. Costs would not prohibit India from becoming a
nuclear weapon state, but they would relate impor-
tantly to the pace at which India's nuclear force would
grow. Although India could rapidly outpace Pakistan
in the deployment of simple fission bombs without
straining its economy, the government would wish to
minimize the time between declaring itself a nuclear
weapon state and establishing a credible deterrent to
Chinese aggression. The present state of Indian nu-
clear and missile capabilities is such that the creation
of a nuclear weapons force in the near future probably
would call for a greater infusion of funds-more of a
crash effort-than would be required later in the
decade.
6. India possesses the technology necessary to de-
velop a ballistic missile system of sufficient range and
payload capabilities to strike important Chinese tar-
gets. This technology is embodied in work being done
by the Indian Department of Space, which has pro-
duced and tested a satellite launch vehicle, designated
the SLV-3, similar to the US Scout. Designed to be
deliver a nuclear payload) to a
target 0 kilometers distant. A strap-on
booster engine under development could increase
either the range or payload. India, however, lacks the
production capability needed to support a ballistic
missile program. Also, a more accurate guidance sys-
tem probably would be required by the military.'
Several years probably would be required, therefore,
before India could begin to produce intermediate-
range ballistic missiles.
' Historically, the military has not been noted to be involved in
the work of India's Department of Space, although the Ministry of
Defense is believed to be developing missile-propulsion and inertial-
guidance systems.
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