Repairing the Regime: Preventing the Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction by Joseph Cirincione

Author:Joseph Cirincione [Cirincione, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, International Relations, Arms Control
ISBN: 9780415925952
Google: BmxfvgAACAAJ
Goodreads: 1114931
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2000-01-15T13:19:30+00:00

SUPPLEMENT ON FISSILE MATERIAL AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

By David Albright

Estimating the size of India's and Pakistan's inventory of separated weapon-grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU) has become more difficult following their nuclear tests in May 1998. Both countries treat the size of their nuclear material stockpiles as highly classified information, partly because such estimates provide a direct indication of the number of nuclear weapons they possess.

In the case of Pakistan, it can be surmised that it has resumed full-scale production of HEU, following a declared moratorium on such production since 1991. Abdul Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's uranium enrichment program, announced soon after Pakistan's nuclear tests that his country had never stopped making HEU. Although his comment has been greeted skeptically, it indicates that Pakistan may have resumed production of weapon-grade uranium well before its tests in May 1998.

Exactly how long before the tests Pakistan resumed making weapon-grade uranium is not too important in these calculations. During its moratorium, Pakistan produced low-enriched uranium (LEU), which can be upgraded to weapon-grade uranium relatively rapidly. Given the length of the moratorium, this stock of LEU is relatively large and can lead to a rapid increase in Pakistan's stock of weapongrade uranium.

In addition, in April 1998 Pakistan announced that the Khushab reactor had begun operating. There are few reports, however, indicating whether the reactor is operating consistently, or if its irradiated fuel has been processed into separated plutonium. This reactor, in theory, could make enough plutonium for a few nuclear weapons per year.

With regard to India, information suggests that it is trying to increase the size of its stock of weapon-grade plutonium, and perhaps HEU. There has been some discussion in India of building a new plutonium production reactor. India also may be considering using its civil power reactors to increase its stock of weapon-grade plutonium. In addition, the debate about whether one of the Indian tests used reactorgrade plutonium is unresolved, leaving unanswered whether India considers its civil unsafeguarded power reactors and plutonium stock, at least potentially, a part of its nuclear weapons program.

Faced with a swirling mixture of solid and ambiguous information, the author used a new analytical approach to estimate India's stock of weapon-grade plutonium and Pakistan's stock of weapon-grade uranium. This new approach specifically aims to capture the varying and conflicting information about key parameters affecting estimates of the size of the inventories. Rather than using a best estimate of a specific parameter, such as lifetime reactor operating capacity, a distribution of possible values is derived. In this way, various choices can be assigned a probability of being true. U.S. officials, for example, have recommended strongly that India's Cirus and Dhruva plutonium production reactors have a lifetime capacity factor of about 40 percent. Indian officials have stated that the average capacity factor for is significantly greater, as large as 60 to 70 percent. In this estimate, the most likely choice is selected as 40 percent, while values up to 60 to 70 percent are given a diminishing probability of occurring.

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