Monthly Archives: January 2023

Jaishankar on Vajpayee and 1998 Tests

Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar recently commented on former PM Vajpayee’s post-1998 tests diplomacy:

Within a space of two years after the tests, we had engaged all the major countries of the world, had actually brought them around. When you had the visit of a president (Bill) Clinton, PM (John) Howard, PM (Yoshiro) Mori, visit of president (Jacques) Chirac. It was actually the post-test diplomacy, which I think anybody who is in the field of diplomacy, should look at and seek to draw lessons,” he said.

USG BW Program Definition

Not sure if this is new, but the 2022 State Dept compliance report contains a definition of a BW program:

The United States’ definition of a state biological warfare (BW) program is a leadership-approved effort intended to acquire, develop, modify, produce, or retain biological warfare agents for use or potential use as a weapon. A biological warfare program would probably include one or more of the following:

Researching, acquiring, developing, modifying, producing, retaining, or testing BW agents and/or BW agent dispersal devices for use as a weapon;

Facilities producing or intended to produce BW agents and/or BW agent dispersal devices for use as a weapon;

Training, doctrine, or plans for use of BW agents as a weapon; and,

Use or attempted use of a BW agent as a weapon.

India and Nuclear Cooperation

Here’s a December 2022 DAE response to a parliamentary question concerning “the problems faced by the country’s nuclear power programme in terms of
achieving the desired efficiency:”

The problem faced by the country’s nuclear power programme in earlier period
was due to the technology denial and international embargo regime that
persisted from 1974 to 2008
and the constraints of availability of financial
resources. The programme then had to depend solely on budgetary support
and also the challenges posed by set of people primarily opposing nuclear
power. However the earlier constraints have now been overcome and the
nuclear power programme is poised for rapid expansion.

Deep Russia Thought

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has given us the closest thing in a while to a real-world experiment in nuclear deterrence’s effectiveness. Yet no one can prove any of their competing deterrence claims, nor is there any real way to resolve them.