“Now Pakistan also has the right to demand a civilian nuclear agreement with America,” Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani told reporters. “We want there to be no discrimination. Pakistan will also strive for a nuclear deal and we think they will have to accommodate us.”

The US-India pact enables nuclear-related exports from the West to a market forecast to exceed £15 billion by 2025. France has already emerged as a leading beneficiary after signing a separate agreement that paves the way for it to sell advanced electricity reactors to India. Once it relaxes its ban on exports to India, Australia is expected to emerge as a leading supplier of uranium to the country.

The fast growing Indian economy will immediately benefit from an overhaul of its existing nuclear power stations. Long term efforts to build new plants are expected to face significant hurdles from India’s arcane planning laws.

Pakistan wants access to similar facilities and has devised an “energy security plan” that increases its nuclear power generation from the current 425 megawatts to 8,800 megawatts by 2030.

While India’s status as de facto nuclear weapon state on par with the five permanent UN Security Council members and strategic weapon powers-Britain, China, France, Russia and the US has been recognised, politicians hailed the economic benefits of ratification.”

Telegraph, Oct 2, 2008.

You are a cool dude with some interesting things to say. I like your point about the difference between Chinese and Russian tactics and the West’s. For something completely uncalled for:

North Korea’s missile is called No-Dong? If that is not part of a joke in Team America World Police it should be.

Then with Bush, it became “you take down two of our buildings, we’ll take down two of your countries”. And suddenly *they* were the ones whining, crying and begging. For a while, any way.

Now with B. Hussein it will flip-flop again, and I wonder what it will take for us to equalize the equation again.

Have the Somali pirates tried to take over a Chinese boat? They’ve attacked Russian ones, I seem to remember. Maybe Pakistani terrorists have a different boy scout code than Somali pirates when it comes to kidnapping.

I don’t know the equipment you are talking about. It is not uncommon, however for us to put restrictions on the use of military equipment we sell.

As for the safety of Chinese technicians:

1) They are serving the maintenance of an Islamic nuclear capacity and that is a holy cause recognized by the ISI, Taliban, etc.

2) Some countries [China, Russia, etc.] have a different reaction to such things. We whine, cry, beg, etc. If we are especially exercised, the occupant of our White House may even offer “talks without preconditions”.

China and Russia tend to hunt down the perps and as many of their families as they can and kill them in unpleasant ways. It tends to discourage repetitions of the attacks. Since they are involved in the support of such groups, they have the connections to find out.

Subotai Bahadur

A year or two ago, America gave or sold some nifty-neat equipment to India which we then refused to sell or give the same thing(s) to Pakistan. And Pakistan was hollering racism and favoritism and generallly throwing a little terrorist hissy fit because they wanted the same nifty-neat stuff. What was that, do we know, and how would it enhance India’s performance vis-a-vis Pakistan’s performance?

(And why did we give it to them if we never intended to allow them to use it in the face of massacrees like Mumbai?)

I was able to pull up the data above, and update it, from a project I worked on a while back. It did not cover the Indian arsenal, being focussed …. elsewhere. A quick scan, with data about 5 years old, indicates that India’s arsenal is plutonium rather than enriched uranium based. Based on plutonium production rates, estimates as of that time were about 50-90 weapons. There are claims of having achieved thermonuclear weapons, but that is subject to debate based on the seismic data from their last known underground tests [also in 1998 like the Paks.] It may be a boosted fission weapon instead of a true thermonuclear device. There is an outlier data point from JANE’s that claims an Indian arsenal of up to 150 weapons in 2002.

There is a lot less data on delivery means, but they have 147 MiG-27′s and 88 European JAGUAR strike aircraft which are all nuclear delivery capable.

Missile data is somewhat hard to find. Estimates are that India has between 105-140 PRITHVI-1 Army missiles with a range of 150 km. The Indian Air Force may have 25-75 air launched versions of the PRITHVI-1 with a range of 250 km. There is a PRITHVI-3 which is the basis for development of a submarine launched missle, but that is far from operational. All are nuclear capable, and optimized for dealing with Pakistan.

The AGNI missile family is the basis of the modern Indian Strategic forces. The AGNI-1 is 7-800 km range, road/rail mobile, 1000 kg. payload. AGNI-2 is reported to have longer range [2500 km]. It is hard to get numbers for these, but two specialized units have been created to operate them; the 444th and 555th Army Missile Groups. As of 2002 the Defense Minister reported to Parliament that AGNI-2 production was 18 missiles per year.

The AGNI-3 was recently operational, and has a range of about 1300 miles. Once again numbers deployed seem to be hard to come by, which is not surprising. And as I have noted the Indian Space Research Organization can convert the satellite boosters to strategic purposes.

It has to be noted that unlike Pakistan, India has developed a re-entry vehicle [AGNI RV Mk. 2]package that seems to be enhanced to near MIRV capability. Further, there are reports that the Indians have developed a new coating technology that may increase missile range by up to 1/3. It is new enough that it probably is not widely deployed, but that adds to their capabilities.
http://www.domainb.com/aero/space/launch_veh/20080514_technology.html

This is both open source, and is comprised of only what I could come up with in about an hour. Add whatever grains of salt that you find appropriate.

Re: pfffft-edness

I have no data on that, but I note that the numerical majority of the deployed Pakistani missiles are based on Chinese missiles, not North Korean. Further, the presence of Chinese support staff may indicate that they are involved in maintaining the lot of them.

Subotai Bahadur

Good news is that they’re based on North Korea’s version, which as we’ve seen recently has a tendency to go pfffft at lift-off.

Bad news is there’s a lot more of them than I had realized.

I wonder if further good news might be that they haven’t been maintaining them, increasing likelihood of pfffft-edness.

so how many does India have?

As of a few years ago,here is what they had:
The majority of Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent is still carried in aircraft. #’s 16 and 25 Squadrons are equipped with Chinese
A-5 strike aircraft in the nuclear role. They are based at PAFB Peshawar.

#’s 5, 7,8, and 22 Squadrons are equipped with variants of Mirage which may be nuclear capable.

7, 8, and 22 are based at PAFB Masroor near Karachi.

5 is based at PAFB Rafiqui near Shorkot.

#’s 9 and 11 Squadrons are equipped with F-16′s, which can be used in a nuclear strike role. They are based at PAFB
Sargodha, near the city of Sargodha. The base is also home to the Central Ammunition Depot, which has a major role in
storage of Pakistani nuclear weapons and missiles. The missiles may be stored:

Indian intelligence agencies are reported to believe that the missiles are stored in a sub-depot near the Central Ammunition
Depot at Sargodha on Kirana Hills [at 31°57'N 72°43'E] near Lahore. The Pakistani military has constructed storage sheds
for the missiles and mobile launchers, as well as related maintenance facilities and housing for launch crews. Reportedly
soldiers have also been sighted practicing simulated launches with advice from visiting Chinese experts.

Similar dating on the missile data:

Shaheen missile derived from the PRC M-11 300 km range 500kg payload first launched 15 April 1999 IOC 1995? ~34-80? in inventory.

Shaheen-II derived from the PRC M-18 2,000 km range first launched 09 March 2004 in inventory unknown #

Ghauri derived from DPRK ND-1 1,350-1,500km range 700 kg payload first launched 06 April 1998 IOC 1998? in inventory unknown #

Ghauri-III derived from DPRK TD-1 2,500 km range may be operational soon

Tipu derived from DPRK TD-2 4,000 km range may be operational soon

PRC = Peoples Republic of China
DPRK = Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.

Most new Pakistani missiles are modified North Korean No-Dong and Taepo-Dong missiles.

I believe the last test detonations were in 1998. At the turn of the century, it was estimated that Pakistan had up to 48 HEU implosion devices ranging from 9-12 KT. I assume that production has continued and based on production rates in the 1990′s they would have another 16 devices. However, it is possible that more centrifuges are now operational which would increase the production rate.

Not all the missiles are carrying nuclear warheads, and not all the aircraft are standing hot alert. They don’t have enough nuclear weapons for all of them.

Keep in mind, that these are based on open sources, and may not be totally accurate.

Subotai Bahadur