US put India's N-status more on par with Pak than China
TNN Sep 4, 2011, 02.08am IST
NEW DELHI: The US feels that by signing the civil nuclear deal, India has for all practical purposes chosen to forego future testing but its voluntary moratorium gave it the comfort of not formalizing a commitment never to test.
In a perceptive cable, after the 1998 Pokhran thermonuclear test was run down by a former defence scientist as a "fizzle", US diplomats argued "doubts about India's thermonuclear deterrent thus diminish India's strategic stature putting it more on par with Pakistan than China thereby stoking popular perceptions not only of insecurity, but also of inferiority".
The then national security adviser M K Narayanan rubbished the claims of an under-cooked nuclear bomb test.
TNN Sep 4, 2011, 02.08am IST
NEW DELHI: The US feels that by signing the civil nuclear deal, India has for all practical purposes chosen to forego future testing but its voluntary moratorium gave it the comfort of not formalizing a commitment never to test.
In a perceptive cable, after the 1998 Pokhran thermonuclear test was run down by a former defence scientist as a "fizzle", US diplomats argued "doubts about India's thermonuclear deterrent thus diminish India's strategic stature putting it more on par with Pakistan than China thereby stoking popular perceptions not only of insecurity, but also of inferiority".
The then national security adviser M K Narayanan rubbished the claims of an under-cooked nuclear bomb test.