Intelligence Denial and Deception Critique: Strategies to Determine India’s Nuclear Testing Deception

Intelligence Denial and Deception Critique: India’s Nuclear Testing Deception
Student’s Name
Institution Name
Professor’s Name
Date
Introduction
Denial and Deception is a theoretical framework that signifies the methods used by military intelligence to carry out secret and deceptive work. The terms, denial, and deception are distinct in definition but when placed together, they have complimentary meaning. The difference between denial and deception is that while deception must be believable for it to be effective, denial must ensure that the complete truth about military actions remain unknown to adversaries. On the one hand, deception is considered a deliberate strategy where military manipulate minds of adversaries through both simulation and dissimulation. On the other hand, denial has a major goal of blocking information so as to hide information from adversaries. For example, carrying out concealment to prevent photographic surveillance and electronic monitoring by foreign intelligence agencies or preventing media agencies from leaking out sensitive information on diplomatic and military matters is denial. The act of creating a false reality by leaking out falsified information to an adversary for example by providing false stories to the media of decoy military formations is considered as deception. D&D are vital in military intelligence and have in the recent past forced adversaries to opt for decisions that often work against them. Denial and deception campaign has been integral to India’s nuclear testing process.[Caddell, Joseph. “DECEPTION 101―PRIMER ON DECEPTION”, (2004): 2.] [Roy, Godson, and J. Wirtz James. "Strategic Denial and Deception." In Strategic Denial and Deception, pp. 1-14. Routledge, (2017): 425-437.]
India’s Denial and Deception (D&D)
The strategic D&D carried out by India took place in 1998, when their military carried out an underground nuclear test in secrecy. India conducted a set of five nuclear tests between 11 and 13 May of 1998 in an event that would forever change India’s standing on the global scene. The world was headed in a direction where countries were being urged to reduce the number of nuclear weapons, they held but some nuclear powers, including America, had stalled the signing of the pact. The Indian nation was strongly against and refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, stating that it was a move being imposed on them by the nuclear powers. The bombs were targeted at their army’s test range in the state of Pokhran in the Western region of India and after 3 days of testing, India would go beyond the status of being a nuclear power but be acknowledged on the global high table.[Department of the Army. FM 3-13.4 Army Support to Military Deception, (2019): 1-92.]
The Indian military took several D&D measures beforehand to ensure that the international community was not aware of their plans. The first move carried out by them involved Indian scientists charting the course of two satellites that the U.S used for surveillance over the Asian subcontinent to be able to carry out the nuclear tests without America knowing. Monitoring these spy satellites allowed their military to dodge any eyes trained on them by the U.S and carry out the preparations for the test when the satellites were not in view of the area around Pokhran. The National Imagery and Mapping Agency of the U.S were responsible for monitoring the images fed to them by spy satellites to locate any signs of suspicious activity in overseas hot spots. However, the Indian nuclear test operators chose moments when the spy satellites had passed overhead to resume their activity. It created a window for them to operate in secrecy for fear of the test being interfered with and potentially being stopped by the U.S. In addition, India deliberately carried out their nuclear testing preparations in moments when their would-be frequent sandstorms blinded the photo imagery of the satellites and would erase any tire tracks on the site of testing.["Indian Test Deception Reported". 1998. Los Angeles Times. /archives/la-xpm-1998-may-20-mn-51736-story.html.] [Department of the Army. FM 3-13.4 Army Support to Military Deception, (2019): 1-92.]
The second move India carried out was a strategic deception that was carried out shortly before the first test on May 11. According to LA Times, the Indian military staged a movement of equipment used for testing a missile in a region that was thousands of miles away from the actual location of the nuclear testing, way over on the east coast. The equipment being moved was meant to divert the attention of the U.S satellites away from the actual nuclear testing grounds in Pokhran. Another move that was carried out by the Indians involved denial tactics that would allow them to work in secrecy. This play was carried out as a campaign of duplicity, where the U.S state department traced over 20 high-level contacts from India’s officials saying that there were no immediate plans to conduct nuclear tests. According to Burr, the Pokhran nuclear test was not a failure of the CIA, but a situation where India’s deception was better than the intelligence it faced.[Caddell, Joseph. “DECEPTION 101―PRIMER ON DECEPTION”, (2004): 5] [Burr, William. 2021. "The Clinton Administration and The Indian Nuclear Test That Did Not Happen - 1995-1996". Wilson Center. /publication/the-clinton-administration-and-the-indian-nuclear-test-did-not-happen-1995-1996]
The Pokhran Nuclear Test was an event that caught the attention of the whole world. The world was used to a certain kind of India, but the nation had plans to break free from the rigid structures of the major powers of the world. The main players of the 1998 Pokhran tests included the already established nuclear powers, U.S, China, Russia, and other nations who were involved in different capacities such as Pakistan. At the time, America was led by the Clinton administration and was acting as a world leader to carry out arms control around the world. Tension began when the U.S government’s concern about the tests had reached critical mass. On the top of the list of America’s agenda was to get India and Pakistan to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which both countries were reluctant to get on board with. Countries such as China, France, Russia, and the UK were stalling to sign the treaty while forcing others to commit themselves to the act. Pakistan acted as India’s major competitor and its main motivation to get nuclear capabilities. The history of the two countries is riddled with conflict and nuclear arms were the next logical frontier to take their fight to. As is the case, Pakistan developed its nuclear weapons soon after India had demonstrated its capabilities in Pokhran. Pakistan created for itself a sense of a ‘threshold’ by developing tactical nuclear weapons and testing them out in Kargil to keep the proxy war between the two rival nations still raging.[Krepon, Michael. 2018. "LOOKING BACK: The 1998 Indian and Pakistani Nuclear Tests | Arms Control Association". Armscontrol.Org. /act/2008-06/looking-back-1998-indian-pakistani-nuclear-tests.] [Department of the Army. FM 3-13.4 Army Support to Military Deception, (2019): 1-92.]
The achievement of acquiring nuclear capabilities can be looked at from different perspectives, and each of them telling a different story altogether. When considering the reasons why India embarked on this journey, the reasons that surface start to make sense. India’s first objective was to validate the statements that the country had made about being in possession of a nuclear deterrent back in 1974. According to the economic times, the new designs that were about to be tested in 1998 in Pokhran had been in development for over 20 years and the achievements were to be made to back the incomplete data that had been provided by the ‘Smiling Buddha test’. Another major objective that India held while carrying out the Pokhran tests was to put India in a position where it would be considered as a nuclear-weapon state. Getting this status would have drastic effects on the view that other countries had on India. For instance, any engagement that India had with the U.S after acquiring nuclear weapons was held in a different light as India now had a place on the high table with the world’s major players.[O'Mahoney, Joseph. 2020. "The Smiling Buddha Effect: Canadian and US Policy After India's 1974 Nuclear Test". Taylor & Francis. /doi/abs/10.1080/10736700.2020.1803561?journalCode=rnpr20.]
The third major objective that India had when they carried out the nuclear testing was to make the rest of the world come to terms with the fact that India stood as a responsible state that could be trusted to handle the responsibilities that came with owning such game-changing artillery. The defense that the nation used to support its claims of being capable of handling such a great responsibility stemmed from the fact that India had gathered an impeccable non-proliferation record since the year it had started carrying out research on nuclear weapons. The reasoning behind this excuse is that India did not want to go along with the push made by the U.N and America to make countries pledge to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Krepon states that India pulled out from negotiations of the treaty two years before they carried out their tests. The government gave several reasons for its last-minute withdrawal from the CTBT including the pact having aggravating terms, lacking a detailed and time-bound plan for carrying out nuclear disarmament, and having segments within the treaty that did not coincide with the negotiations.[Gentry, John A., and Joseph S. Gordon. "US strategic warning intelligence: Situation and prospects." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 31, no. 1 (2018): 19-53.] [Roy, Godson, and J. Wirtz James. "Strategic Denial and Deception." In Strategic Denial and Deception, pp. 1-14. Routledge, (2017): 425-437.]
In the discussion of the occurrences that took place during the nuclear testing in Pokhran, an important question arises on the reason why the Indi...