Mohan, of course, this is a voluntary thread, and I for one will not insist (and if I did it would be to no avail) for my "prayer" to be answered. I think however, you might have misunderstood my request. I am not questioning (at least not in that post) India's possession of the "bomb", I am questioning the existence of any valid (legitimate or not) reason to actually explode one.
Many other countries have the "bomb" in an "undeclared fashion", their respective oppositions know of the existence of these doomsday tools and act accordingly, but none other is blowing these nowaday.
From a technical point of view (weapon development), there is nothing to be gained by actually blowing one. The technologists (I loathe using the term "scientists" for this special profession) certainly did not need any "additional" data to "improve" the devices. Each one of the elements that goes into either the fission device or the fusion device (and by the way, in most cases it is not deuterium which is used as the fusible fuel, but mostly lithium 3 and sometimes lithium deuteride), is well understood, and can be easily modeled on computers. The critical imploding elements can be tested completely without the nuclear charges and the critical fuses can also be tested independently.
My prayer was, since I can see no technical reason for blowing one of these devices, to understand what other motives, probably political, were at the root of the decision to blow five such devices so shortly one after the other. There certainly was no time between the explosions to analyze the data and make modifications in the next device derived from such analysis.
From where I sit (and the following is definitely conjectural, but since my prayer is not answered, I am taking the liberty to answer it myself with conjecture), the nuclear charges were getting old and those devices needed to be disassembled anyhow to renew the charges. Since these would have been "wasted" anyhow, when the new ruler came to power and the "defense establishment" submitted their "bomb renewal budget", the occasion was seized to blow them, to let both the domestic population and the neighbors know that a new "mood" is now pervading the corridors of power in New Delhi. Frankly, unless the economic conditions in India have deteriorated much more than we are led to believe, this is the only rational (but not necessarily legitimate) reason for blowing these devices. Now, if it was done to divert popular outcry on deteriorating conditions at home, it is even less "legitimate" than the former "reasons" presented. So, please, pray, tell me Mohan that I am dead wrong.
Zeev |
