Continuing the Bed Time Reading series, and a previous post related to India's Espionage Leaks, this book is a great retrospective on the U.S Nuclear Intelligence from Nazi Germany to Iran and North Korea.In-depth review with an emphasis on India's counterintelligence tactics:
"India's success in preventing U.S. spy satellites from seeing signs of the planned tests days to weeks in advance was matched by its success in preventing acquisition of other types of intelligence. India's Intelligence Bureau ran an aggressive counterintelligence program, and the CIA, despite a large station in New Delhi, was unable to recruit a single Indian with information about the Vajpayee government's nuclear plans. Instead, the deputy chief of the CIA station in New Delhi was expelled after a botched try at recruiting the chief of Indian counterintelligence operations. Former ambassador Frank Wisner recalled that `we didn't have... the humans who would have given us an insight into their intentions'." Ambassadors do not keep aloof from the CIA's work, evidently. Their denials are false.
NSA's eavesdropping activities did not detect test preparations. "It's a tough problem," one nuclear intelligence expert told investigative journalist Seymour Hersh. India's nuclear weapons establishment would communicate via encrypted digital messages relayed via small dishes through satellites, using a system known as VSAT (very small aperture terminal), "a two-way version of the system used by satellite television companies". Good show. At the end of the day, Americans admitted that even if they had been better informed, they could not have prevented Pokhran II just as they could not deter Pakistan from staging its tests at Chagai."
Was the USSR's tactic of helping the enemies of their enemies, thus ruining the Nuclear-club monopoly by making the A-bomb a public secret, the smartest or dumbest thing they ever did? Monopolies are bad by default, but balance is precious as the "rush must always be tempered with wisdom". How about a nice game of chess instead?
Related resources and posts:
Nuclear
Who needs nuclear weapons anymore?
North Korea's Strategic Developments and Financial Operations
Japan's Reliance on U.S Spy Satellites and Early Warning Missile Systems
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