Monitoring Nuclear Tests

Progress in CTBT Monitoring Since its 1999 Senate Defeat

“…Seismic data were detected by 62 stations, used by the prototype IDC, including the regional station at Nilore, Pakistan. 60 Eight regional stations in the completed IMS network would be expected to detect events of this type with a capability down to 2.5 m b . The test sites for the May 11 and May 28 events were readily located with commercial satellite images with 5-meter resolution by comparing pre-and post-images.…”

India's emerging nuclear posture: between recessed deterrent and ready arsenal

“…After various production inefficiencies and internal program decisions are taken into account, it is likely that-at least where India is concerned-New Delhi's inventory of weapons-grade material is much smaller than the generally higher estimates circulating in the public domain. 115 Consequently, the size of the notional-weapon stockpile is probably smaller than the numbers derived from these estimates. In the case of India particularly, three different factors account for this outcome: First, the separation of weapons-grade plutonium from reactor discharges has proceeded at 114 David Albright, Fact Sheet: India and Pakistan-Current and Potential Nuclear Arsenals (Washington, D.C.: Institute for Science and International Security, May 13, 1998), available at http://www.isis-online.org/.…”

“…In the case of India particularly, three different factors account for this outcome: First, the separation of weapons-grade plutonium from reactor discharges has proceeded at 114 David Albright, Fact Sheet: India and Pakistan-Current and Potential Nuclear Arsenals (Washington, D.C.: Institute for Science and International Security, May 13, 1998), available at http://www.isis-online.org/. 115 The most widely circulated public estimates remain Chow et al, The Proposed Fissile-Material Cut-Off, pp. 9-15, andDavid Albright, William Walker, andFrans Berkhout, Plutonium andHighly Enriched Uranium 1996: World Inventories, Capabilities andPolicies (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1997).…”

“…114 K. Subrahmanyam corroborated this view by concluding that "successive [Indian] Prime Ministers were technically truthful when they asserted that India did not have a nuclear weapon because the nuclear core and the rest of the weapon assembly were kept separate and, therefore, no weapon existed." 115 Subrahmanyam does not, however, describe whether any auxiliary capabilities were developed, asserting only that "since India was committed to no-first-use, the [need for] retaliation was not time critical." 116 This laconic remark presumably implies that the ancillary capabilities India required for nuclear operations either were not developed or existed only in embryonic form because the irrelevance of prompt retaliation allowed such capabilities to be either improvised or formalized whenever necessary.…”

Deception in Covert Nuclear Weapons Development: A Framework to Identify, Analyze, and Mitigate Future Long-Term Deception Efforts

“…Five tests were conducted -three on May 11 th and two on May 13 th -and some researchers have noted a discrepancy between the claims of the various yields and what was actually recorded. Monitoring stations reported readings significantly below what should have been seen for three detonations of the yield that the Indians claimed on May 11 th (Barker et al, 1998(Barker et al, , p.1968. There was no seismic data recorded during the two tests on May 13 th , though based on Indian claims of yield there should have been.…”