Did India Strike Pakistan’s Nuclear Sites? Very Unlikely OPINION

The Director General of Air Operations, Air Marshal AK Bharti, to a reporter’s question a press briefing, categorically denied that the Indian Armed Forces had hit Pakistan’s nuclear weapons storage site at Kirana Hills near Sargodha. “The Indian Air Force is neither aware of what is there nor did it target it,” Air Marshal Bharti said.For the past few days, unverified posts on social media claimed that the Indian Armed Forces had hit Pakistan’s nuclear weapons storage site at Kirana Hills, as well as a nuclear materials facility at Nur Khan Air Base near Rawalpindi, and the latter is now “leaking radioactivity”. It's crucial to delve into Pakistan’s nuclear assets as well as the risks and implications of these claims, unverified as they are and most likely unsubstantiable, to fully understand the risks at stake.When Drones Dare to Dump HellfireAlthough both uranium and plutonium can be used as nuclear weapons cores, plutonium allows for compact nukes. Pakistan has a well-established weapons-grade fissile material production complex, and it has been focused on the plutonium route in the past years. Uranium is mined and refined at Baghalehur, DG Khan, Issa Khel, and Qabul Khel, and then enriched at two main plants—Kahuta and Gadwal, both near Islamabad. Plutonium produced in the reactors at Khushab Complex, which lies west of Sargodha, is extracted from the spent fuel at the New Labs Reprocessing Plant at Nilore (east of Islamabad) and Chashma (Punjab province).Notably, China is constructing a new 1,200 MW reactor at Chashma. The International Panel on Fissile Materials estimates that as of 2023, Pakistan had an inventory of between 3,400 kg and 6,400 kg of weapon-grade highly enriched uranium, and between 330 kg and 670 kg of weapon-grade plutonium.Most of Pakistan’s nuclear warheads are manufactured at a facility in Pakistan Ordnance Factories near Wah, which lies northwest of Islamabad. Post-manufacture, they are transported in disassembled state to their various underground storage sites. Assuming the use of 15-18 kg of highly enriched uranium, or 5-6 kg of plutonium per bomb, the above fissile materials quantity is hypothetically sufficient for 188-436 uranium-based warheads and 55-134 plutonium-based warheads. Given milling, wastage, and obsolescence, the 2023 estimates of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS) peg Pakistan’s nuclear weapons stockpile at approximately 170 warheads of varying yields.It would be pertinent to clarify that contrary to popular perceptions, nukes are not weapons for warfighting, but are strategic tools—and terribly devastating ones at that—to be used only when a nation is facing an existential threat or state-extinction.Trump Cannot 'Broker' Kashmir or Indo-Pak Conflicts, MEA Must Say SoAs with most nuclear-weapons states, in order to preclude the chances of their strategic assets falling into the wrong hands or being easily destroyed by an adversary, Pakistan stores its nuclear warheads in deep underground facilities or inside mountains, each with extensive technical and physical security. In the last decade, the US had given technical know-how and $100 million to Pakistan for securing its nuclear arsenal. However, Pakistan took the money and the technology, but utilised technical assistance provided by China and Turkey to improve security. Since Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are stored across several secretive sites, the precise location of each and every nuke in its arsenal is not known.According to the BAS, for delivery of these warheads, Pakistan reportedly has about 114 launchers for eight different ballistic missiles (maximum range: 2,750 km with Shaheen-III), 12 launchers for cruise missiles (Babur), and 36 nuclear-capable aircraft (Mirage, JF-17, and F-16A/B). Pakistan develops and manufactures its nuclear-capable missiles and their mobile launchers at the National Defence Complex housed in the Kala Chitta Dahr mountains (west of Islamabad).Pakistan is also developing a submarine-launched version of its Babur cruise missile, which it hopes to deploy on one of its three Agosta-90B AIP-equipped conventional submarines, in an endeavour to complete its ‘nuclear triad’.For aircraft-related nuclear roles, Pakistan uses four air bases: Mushaf (Sargodha)Masroor (near Karachi) Rafiqui (near Shorkot)and probably Shahbaz (near Jacobabad)Notably, the associated nuclear weapons are not stored on the air base itself, but in deep underground facilities, such as the Sargodha Weapons Storage Complex (10 km south of Mushaf) and a site about 5 km northwest of Masroor.Insofar as missile delivery systems are concerned, these are based at: The Akro cantonment (near Hyderabad, Sindh Province)Gujranwala cantonment (Punjab Province)Sargodha cantonment (around Kirana Hills, Punjab Province)Khuzdar cantonment (near Sukkur, Balochistan Province)Pano Aqil cantonment (Sindh Province)Within its broader philosophy of “credible minimum deterrence,” Pakistan espouses a “full spectrum deterrence” nuclear doctrine with a posture aimed mainly at India, which it labels as its primary adversary.Modi's 'Muscular Nationalism' in Focus, Murmurs of Discontent in Saffron CampAs per Lt Gen Khalid Kidwai (retd), former Director General of Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division, “full spectrum deterrence” implies possession and deployment of nuclear weapons in all three categories: strategic, operational, and tactical, and an intent to use them if required.He, along with Pakistan’s Lt Gen Safdar Lodhi, have enunciated the country's 'nuclear thresholds' (that is, the quantum of loss at which they will consider using nukes) for territory, military force degradation, economic, political, industrial and destruction of urban centres—and more importantly, if anyone targets Pakistan’s nuclear assets.Since nukes are strategic weapons, every nuclear weapons state has a clearly stated policy, with its genesis in nuclear deterrence doctrines. That is, if an adversary attacks its nuclear arsenal, it will assume that the attack is a Disarming Strike (an attack which seeks to destroy that country’s nuclear deterrence) and a precursor to a larger nuclear attack—at which point the nuclear policy of “use it or lose it” will kick in for remaining nukes. That means they will launch at least some part of the remaining nukes aboard missiles and aircraft on the adversary. This is one of the main reasons why the US has not tried to take out the nuclear arsenal of even a country like North Korea.Yet, let’s assume that the precise locations of 80 percent of sites were known and a Disarming Strike could take out all 80 percent, the balance 20 percent would still be enough to cause appalling damage.So in sum, here are the concluding points:Nur Khan per se is neither a nuclear-mounting base nor has nukes on-site. It is, however, close to both Rawalpindi and Islamabad, and therefore, to the locations of Pakistan’s apex political and military headquarters. Hence, an attack on the air base would have definitely been unnerving — even though none of the nuclear facilities around it have reportedly been hit.The small uranium enrichment plant near Chaklala activated in the early 1970s is no longer operational—and the reports of “radioactivity leaking” remain unconfirmed.That said, if true, India needs to be worried as winds, depending on direction, tend to blow radioactive fallout all over. Post the Chernobyl accident in 1986, some 150,000 sq km in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine were contaminated even as the radioactive fallout was scattered over much of the northern hemisphere.It is unlikely that the sagacious, professional Indian Armed Forces would deliberately risk targeting nuclear assets of Pakistan unless it is fully confident of destroying each and every nuke in Pakistan’s inventory in a single disarming first strike.(Kuldip Singh is a retired Brigadier from the Indian Army. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

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Did India Strike Pakistan’s Nuclear Sites? Very Unlikely

Amid swirling reports of Indian precision strikes on Pakistan's nuclear sites, questions emerge on risks & fallouts.

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Topics: Indian Army India pakistan war India Pakistan Conflict