Estimation of Indian Nuclear Arsenal.- Present and Future

no smoking

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My wild guess is that we have about 360+ nukes of different type and roughly double the number to be made in short notice (one month or more).

There is always one thing every indian forgets about nuclear weapon. They are damn expensive in production and maintenance.
 

bennedose

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There is always one thing every indian forgets about nuclear weapon. They are damn expensive in production and maintenance.
That is why China's taller than tallest mountain, deeper than deepest ocean, sweeter than honey beggar friend Pakistan has 150 nukes obtained partly from China in exchange for Poliovirus which China did not have for ten years. China's other sidekick now led by the young un" Kim Yung Un or whatever has nukes too. China has just given a 6 billion dollar grant to Pakistan to build a nuclear reactor. All rich countries sharing resources and technology with China

India can't afford them - need money to build toilets.
 

bennedose

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Yeah and we are doing it prior to 1974. So expense is spread over 50 years.
There is a particular type of rhetoric used by rich western nations to criticize turd world countries - and saying that something is "expensive" is one of them. The attitude is "We are rich. We know. We say its expensive. You turd world monkeys. You are beggars. You have starving people and have no toilets. You should not be trying to make nukes". The Chinese who are desperately scrambling to be counted as 'advanced and westernized" by western nations have also started speaking in this way - in yet another Chinese copycat act.

Fact is that China developed all its nukes when the Chinese were starving to death courtesy Mao's antics. NoKo and Pakistan are hardly economic superpowers.

Having said that lecturing countries that "nukes are expensive" is a pathetic attempt at expressing discomfort that what you thought was yours and yours alone is now also in the hands of people you considered starving monkeys - it is a feeble bleat, a cop out, like a man trying to tell his neighbour not to sleep with his flirtatious wife by saying "My wife is expensive to maintain".

hack thoo :taunt1:
 

ice berg

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There is a particular type of rhetoric used by rich western nations to criticize turd world countries - and saying that something is "expensive" is one of them. The attitude is "We are rich. We know. We say its expensive. You turd world monkeys. You are beggars. You have starving people and have no toilets. You should not be trying to make nukes". The Chinese who are desperately scrambling to be counted as 'advanced and westernized" by western nations have also started speaking in this way - in yet another Chinese copycat act.

Fact is that China developed all its nukes when the Chinese were starving to death courtesy Mao's antics. NoKo and Pakistan are hardly economic superpowers.

Having said that lecturing countries that "nukes are expensive" is a pathetic attempt at expressing discomfort that what you thought was yours and yours alone is now also in the hands of people you considered starving monkeys - it is a feeble bleat, a cop out, like a man trying to tell his neighbour not to sleep with his flirtatious wife by saying "My wife is expensive to maintain".

hack thoo :taunt1:
Another clueless post from you. When Mao died, China had less than a dozen nukes. None of them able to reach Mascow.
It was the US nukes who deterred the Soviet. Learn some history, kid.
And nukes are expensive to maintain. Just look at the Soviet.

A lesson well learned by both India and China. But I am sure fanboys such as you will keep the more is better slogans.
 

bennedose

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Another clueless post from you. When Mao died, China had less than a dozen nukes. None of them able to reach Mascow.
It was the US nukes who deterred the Soviet. Learn some history, kid.
And nukes are expensive to maintain. Just look at the Soviet.

A lesson well learned by both India and China. But I am sure fanboys such as you will keep the more is better slogans.
Like all Chicom apologists you are a liar. Or maybe just illiterate.

Mao died in 1976. By 1976 china had conducted 19 nuclear tests. Why not use Google yourself? Oh I know. It's blocked in China.
 
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Yusuf

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China had a dozen nukes in sixties not late 70s.
 

hit&run

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Like all Chicom apologists you are a liar. Or maybe just illiterate.

Mao died in 1976. By 1976 china had conducted 19 nuclear tests. Why not use Google yourself? Oh I know. It's blocked in China.
He has validated your stand that China had the nukes when they were dying of hunger, but alas! He cannot even comprehend his own written.
 

Bheeshma

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Why are people indulging in guessing game. The ones who need to know know and the ones who should keep guessing and asking India to define minimum deterrence.:rofl: FYI..India had more than 100 in early 90's. Take it for what its worth.
 

ice berg

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Like all Chicom apologists you are a liar. Or maybe just illiterate.

Mao died in 1976. By 1976 china had conducted 19 nuclear tests. Why not use Google yourself? Oh I know. It's blocked in China.
I keep forget your inability to read. It seems you didnt know the difference between nuclear tests and operational nukes.

And you had the gale to call others illiterate. Muhahhahahah.

Even a kid would know the difference between those two.

muhhahahaah
 

olivers

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India is not going to produce anything close to W88 and it's "prolate pit" without testing. Sophisticated thermonuclear weapons are order of magnitude harder to get right than conventional fission weapons, and something like W88 is even harder to do... to public knowledge only China and US have thermonuclear weapons with prolate pit's. Though PRC weapon (DF-31 RV) is probably closer to W87 since it's pit (Pu or HEU? not known) is rumored to be squeezed with insensitive high explosives (IHE).

You are ripping these estimations about Indian weapons out of your "rear area", if we look Indian tests there is no evidence what would suggests something like W88.
Lol, right. Do you think the Indian nuclear physicists are all duds? Yes, we don't have all of them "ready" to "deploy". India will definitely test again. We have W88 designs "ready to go" on the missiles in canisters. Please do look at the Shati Thermonuclear test device images which are open source. They are very w88 like in dimensions: length and diameter. There are at least 12 further thermonuclear device designs which have been ready since the 1998 tests. The 1998 test was a W88 like design. Which is why it is was a so called "fizzle". And the whole "fizzle" debate is always around the corner even in India whenever India is under pressure to "accede" to a four letter treaty. The Nobel loving politicians require a counter balance and every time we get near one, you will hear the old "it's a fizzle theory." The device tested in 1998 by accounts published in peer reviewed military journals in India, indicate they were sophisticated dial able three stage thermonuclear devices. India has always wanted this. You can read the pre 1998 publications on how the BARC went about achieving this. They separated tritium which is a key element decades ago from reactor waste as opposed to the more expensive route used by the americans. The fast breeder reactors that India runs are the second key to the compact warheads. The "reprocessed" fuel from these reactors will give India the ability to produce fissile material of extremely high purity. The problem here lies with the fuel mixture obtained.

I am NOT suggesting by the terms, "ready to go" and "ready" to "deploy" that "all" missiles in India will be W88. Nope we don't have the statistical confidence from the tests to do so. The current, missiles and their payloads and information in public domain indicate, missile which will pop their fuses at 12KT yield levels and also missiles which will pop their fuses at presumably higher altitudes, with larger throw weight. There are equally interesting missiles which have a slightly lower payload and are lighter.

So, to account for doubting toms like you and due to the current requirements of not testing, India is doing the following: (i) deploying a mix of w88 tipped missiles with MIRV; (ii) less sophisticated boosted fission warheads and less sophisticated "thermonuclear" warheads; and (iii) stockpiling fissile materials which if not used in w88 like warheads will build just over 1000 thermonuclear weapons.

You can take the numbers I ran based on western estimates of the enrichment plant and size and the centrifuge designs the Indians currently use to arrive at those numbers. So you can either believe that India is insane and by 2020 will have 1000 thermonuclear weapons which are fission boosted fission or approximately a 100 to 200 W88 generation designs. The choice is yours. Your talk about my "rear end" will not change those numbers. Pakistan and China are expanding their arsenals. We might sit on our "rear end" like you imagine or the "western reports" on the enrichment plants might show where India is going. As for the numbers, posted they are based on your "western" underestimates of Indian fissile material production.

India, has never followed a military policy of getting fewer weapons. All Indian acquisitions are massive. Point in case, the stalled and restarted and stalled again by the day Javalin. The US wasn't sure why the Indians wanted 8800 of those to start with. It didn't make sense to even the Americans.

As to "how" India will get to 100 or 200 W88 warheads. There will be further tests to "move" towards a reduced missile "presence" in a decade or two, where the 12KT and less sophisticated thermonukes and boosted fission warheads will be done away with leaving only the W88 like warheads. When the MIRV's are revealed, the west will suggest inevitably that India does not have the warheads. So unveiling the MIRV will "require" a nuclear test. India isn't ready to come out yet. So take your head out of your "rear end" pay heed to your country man, "Hans Rosling". It's an equation of economics. When it is no longer possible for countries to ignore India economically, Buddha will smile again. Everyone knows this. The reverse is also true, if there is an escalation of friction between India and China, Buddha will smile again.

The Indo-US nuclear deal was a deal meant to be broken later in time. India is the largest importer of US arms. Why do you think that is? Wake up and smell Asia getting back up there. That means India too. Either we have thermonukes of the same class of China or we become Asia's Canada. There are enough sensible people in the right places in India to see where this is going. There are also enough argumentative Indians who oppose this in the right place to keep things simmering and balanced.

Please look at where all the R&D money on Indian defense has gone into. Everything and literally the kitchen sink has been towards: (i) missiles of all sizes and shapes; (ii) submarines; (iii) nukes (iv) aerospace and (v) naval assets. Things are so lopsided in this equation, India cannot manufacture its own infantry guns(I know there is the INSAS but the military is buying something else too); is just now ready to test it's artillery guns after three decades; and it imports a large array of things which a missile wielding state should produce. The priorities and execution of the programs, with decade long delays is what everyone sees, but the grand design behind all of this and the single minded dedication with which these goals have been followed by every single government India has had shows how serious India is about these weapons of the high table.

I don't expect you to pull your head out of the rear end, because these are backed by numbers which you haven't challenged. So mate stop using the term "rear end" cos your head is in there!
 
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olivers

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Also compare the reentry vehicle of a recent "Agony" missile to pershing II. An Indian missile designer compared the "Agony" to a pershing of all missiles. If you can figure out why, you will understand why a 1970's missile which is no longer used by the US was referenced by the designer in India. It was a signal about the warhead, the reentry vehicle characteristics, bgrv and so on. The RV's or Agony have changed from the early 1 ton to the pershing II dimensions and MIRV encasing more of those "my precious" warheads with the W88 like design.

Please do note that we may not have a "w88 design" but something close enough to the W88 or even better than a W88. The Russian reaction after Shati was very tell tale. "The Indians are just 5 years behind the Americans on thermonuclear weapon design if they can dial the yield of a thermonuclear weapon to 45kt." Or we had a dud. So you can continue to have your head up your arse and believe it was a dud and India does not have W88 like warhead. All the evidence, all open source seems to point otherwise, if peoples heads are not up their arse.

BARC is as good as any other nuclear military and civilian research organization in the world in nuclear physics. Indian problems with nuclear energy and weapons has always been the lack of "uranium", not world class physics. The second problem in the 1980's used to be manufacturing base. No longer true. So we can close that discussion down.
 

Yusuf

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Lol, right. Do you think the Indian nuclear physicists are all duds? Yes, we don't have all of them "ready" to "deploy". India will definitely test again. We have W88 designs "ready to go" on the missiles in canisters. Please do look at the Shati Thermonuclear test device images which are open source. They are very w88 like in dimensions: length and diameter. There are at least 12 further thermonuclear device designs which have been ready since the 1998 tests. The 1998 test was a W88 like design. Which is why it is was a so called "fizzle". And the whole "fizzle" debate is always around the corner even in India whenever India is under pressure to "accede" to a four letter treaty. The Nobel loving politicians require a counter balance and every time we get near one, you will hear the old "it's a fizzle theory." The device tested in 1998 by accounts published in peer reviewed military journals in India, indicate they were sophisticated dial able three stage thermonuclear devices. India has always wanted this. You can read the pre 1998 publications on how the BARC went about achieving this. They separated tritium which is a key element decades ago from reactor waste as opposed to the more expensive route used by the americans. The fast breeder reactors that India runs are the second key to the compact warheads. The "reprocessed" fuel from these reactors will give India the ability to produce fissile material of extremely high purity. The problem here lies with the fuel mixture obtained.

I am NOT suggesting by the terms, "ready to go" and "ready" to "deploy" that "all" missiles in India will be W88. Nope we don't have the statistical confidence from the tests to do so. The current, missiles and their payloads and information in public domain indicate, missile which will pop their fuses at 12KT yield levels and also missiles which will pop their fuses at presumably higher altitudes, with larger throw weight. There are equally interesting missiles which have a slightly lower payload and are lighter.

So, to account for doubting toms like you and due to the current requirements of not testing, India is doing the following: (i) deploying a mix of w88 tipped missiles with MIRV; (ii) less sophisticated boosted fission warheads and less sophisticated "thermonuclear" warheads; and (iii) stockpiling fissile materials which if not used in w88 like warheads will build just over 1000 thermonuclear weapons.

You can take the numbers I ran based on western estimates of the enrichment plant and size and the centrifuge designs the Indians currently use to arrive at those numbers. So you can either believe that India is insane and by 2020 will have 1000 thermonuclear weapons which are fission boosted fission or approximately a 100 to 200 W88 generation designs. The choice is yours. Your talk about my "rear end" will not change those numbers. Pakistan and China are expanding their arsenals. We might sit on our "rear end" like you imagine or the "western reports" on the enrichment plants might show where India is going. As for the numbers, posted they are based on your "western" underestimates of Indian fissile material production.

India, has never followed a military policy of getting fewer weapons. All Indian acquisitions are massive. Point in case, the stalled and restarted and stalled again by the day Javalin. The US wasn't sure why the Indians wanted 8800 of those to start with. It didn't make sense to even the Americans.

As to "how" India will get to 100 or 200 W88 warheads. There will be further tests to "move" towards a reduced missile "presence" in a decade or two, where the 12KT and less sophisticated thermonukes and boosted fission warheads will be done away with leaving only the W88 like warheads. When the MIRV's are revealed, the west will suggest inevitably that India does not have the warheads. So unveiling the MIRV will "require" a nuclear test. India isn't ready to come out yet. So take your head out of your "rear end" pay heed to your country man, "Hans Rosling". It's an equation of economics. When it is no longer possible for countries to ignore India economically, Buddha will smile again. Everyone knows this. The reverse is also true, if there is an escalation of friction between India and China, Buddha will smile again.

The Indo-US nuclear deal was a deal meant to be broken later in time. India is the largest importer of US arms. Why do you think that is? Wake up and smell Asia getting back up there. That means India too. Either we have thermonukes of the same class of China or we become Asia's Canada. There are enough sensible people in the right places in India to see where this is going. There are also enough argumentative Indians who oppose this in the right place to keep things simmering and balanced.

Please look at where all the R&D money on Indian defense has gone into. Everything and literally the kitchen sink has been towards: (i) missiles of all sizes and shapes; (ii) submarines; (iii) nukes (iv) aerospace and (v) naval assets. Things are so lopsided in this equation, India cannot manufacture its own infantry guns(I know there is the INSAS but the military is buying something else too); is just now ready to test it's artillery guns after three decades; and it imports a large array of things which a missile wielding state should produce. The priorities and execution of the programs, with decade long delays is what everyone sees, but the grand design behind all of this and the single minded dedication with which these goals have been followed by every single government India has had shows how serious India is about these weapons of the high table.

I don't expect you to pull your head out of the rear end, because these are backed by numbers which you haven't challenged. So mate stop using the term "rear end" cos your head is in there!
I had written this after the Agni V test

The ease at which the international community took into its stride the ICBM test of India certainly indicates a growing acceptance and importance of a nuclear India in the context of changing world power structure. When India tested the Agni missile technical demonstrator in 1989, a lot of pressure was put on India to roll back both its nuclear as well as ballistic missile program. India all but abandoned the Agni program due to this pressure only to revive it in full force post Kargil.

Since then, India has conducted many tests. Though we faced condemnation for our nuclear tests from some quarters and sanctioned, those sanctions were removed in double quick time. Since then, indian economy has boomed and the US and India have been on a honeymoon notwithstanding Obama.

The US has been on a downward spiral for the last few years. China has been marching ahead and in fact caught the US strategic and military planners off guard with its military technological advances in the last few years. The J-20, DF21A "carrier killer" and also its moves to acquire aircraft carriers in a hurry has put Washington in a tizzy. So much so that Obama became more than willing to abdicate US pre-eminence to the Chinese and started the notion of G2 until he realized that the Chinese aimed to make the world a G1 place with the Chinese at the top of the heap.

So when India recently tested its Agni V ICBM, the US more or less welcomed it though not in direct words. There was no negative reactions.

"US is comfortable with Indian progress in the nuclear and missile fields", Lisa Curtis, senior research fellow for South Asia, and Baker Spring, research fellow in National Security Policy, at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank said in a commentary.

"India's successful test of the Agni-V, a nuclear-capable long-range missile, is a major step forward for New Delhi in attaining nuclear deterrence against regional rival China," they said calling it as "telling that no country has criticised India's missile test."
Curtis and Spring also noted that the US State Department simply called on all nuclear-capable states to exercise restraint and underlined India's solid record on non-proliferation and its cooperation with the international community on nuclear issues.
"This is a far cry from Washington's position on Indian ballistic missile development throughout the 1990s, when Washington pressured New Delhi to modify its nuclear and missile posture," they said suggesting "the new US stance also demonstrates a welcome evolution in US non-proliferation policy."
"The US change in position with regard to Indian missile capabilities demonstrates how far the US-India relationship has evolved over the last decade," Curtis and Spring said.
"Now the US views India as a strategic partner with growing economic and political clout that will contribute to promoting security and stability in Asia."

The above comments are telling. The US is probably comfortable with India pursuing an independent defence and foreign policy and allow it to grow its nuclear and missile stockpile to defend itself from the ever growing and aggressive Chinese military which is flexing its muscles in the South China Sea as well as trying to assert itself in the border dispute against India. The Chinese use of Pakistan as a proxy and proliferation of nuclear and missile technology is also not lost on the US.

In the next couple of years, India will further test the Agni V missile and also develop even longer range land based ICBMs and also SLBMs. This will only add to the pressure within the DRDO to make sure that the nuclear arsenal is reliable and also validate new designs and different types of warheads and yields to suit its growing arsenal of missiles. This means that another round of nuclear tests would be required.

At the current time, it may not be tenable for India to conduct nuclear tests, but as India's economy grows and the US and the west at large gets more involved in India and also face growing Chinese threats, India could well test the western governments by first testing a 10,000 km range ICBM for its reaction and also privately make it known to the west that India requires another round of nuclear tests to check for reliability as well as validation of technology that has been developed since the last round of tests in 1998. India could then announce a round of 12 tests or so over a period of 6 months or so which should include some higher yield warheads and also test the capacity to make megaton warheads just to check capability though it is not desirable to maintain a megaton arsenal.Along with that, we should announce that we will sign the CTBT. If there is no outrage with this announcement and it does not lead to any effect on the civil nuclear deal and other defence deals that india has signed over the last few years, India could go ahead with the tests. If the reaction is not conducive, we could wait for some more time. India should not try to conduct any tests on the sly without taking into confidence the US and other western nations with whom India is developing a very strong partnership.

I am more than certain that in a five year timeline, the situation will be ripe for India to conduct nuclear tests.
I think 5 years sounds ambitious now coz economy slowed down but we can say that 2020-2025 time frame will be the time we go for test.

Or if the pressure to sign CTBT is immense which can be IF the US ratified it, we may test again.
 

Agustya

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I wouldn't be surprised if the estimated total yield under the Vajpayee government amounted to 108 Megatons.
 
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Look at military fissile material reserves to get a better picture. India third in world.
 

olivers

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Funny. People thought I was crazy, estimating thermonuclear numbers from RMP expansion. Jane's seems to agree with my proposition from 2012(?).
Nuclear physics is fun. It's simple math too. Now, the question that isn't clear until the next Buddha smiles, is the composition of the outer blanket: W88 style HEU or just spent uranium from our reactors. If it is the latter, we are looking at over a 1000 warheads. If it is the former 100 or more warheads by 2020.

If you ask me I bet on 100 W88 warheads(they also fit in with the survivable nukes in submarines ambition).

Dil manage more and statistics mange more tests. We need to know how reliable our warheads are, we are bound to test.

Remember we have another 12 weapons designs to test and perfect. Don't know how many variants after these 12 designs have been made. Refining continues, until we get a signal to move again. Then we will do a blast which will silence the world once and for all. The tests will be followed by news that India will deploy it's warheads tested in submarines which are already operational and on patrol(two on parol and one for refurbishment and offshore). There will be at least three nuclear submarines by then. Another signal that a TN test(s) are nearing will be the test of MIRV (well at least a test which calls a MIRV an MIRV in a press release).
 
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sgarg

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India has a modest nuclear arsenal. The emphasis is NOT on numbers but on survive-ability due to no first use policy.

However India has the materials available for more than 1000 nuclear devices. So many devices have not been made though. The actual number may be only around 100.

The type of weapons are similar to the ones tested last time. There may be improvements in design but these are minor.

India's focus is on missile development, specially missiles that are mobile (both road/rail) and can be fired at short notice. The focus of research remains reliability and accuracy of such missiles.

India will rely on geographic scattering of its weapons rather than hiding if a war comes. Entire north India will be used for firing.
 

AbhishekDas

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In my opinion, by 2030 India will have more than 1,000 Nuclear Warheads in its arsenal & by 2020 the number will be around 300-400.......Pakistan to have 200 Nukes by 2020 & China to have 500-600 by 2020. So we should concentrate on developing 1,000+ Nuclear Warheads to threaten our adversaries-China & Pakistan...!!!
 

power_monger

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Funny. People thought I was crazy, estimating thermonuclear numbers from RMP expansion. Jane's seems to agree with my proposition from 2012(?).
Nuclear physics is fun. It's simple math too. Now, the question that isn't clear until the next Buddha smiles, is the composition of the outer blanket: W88 style HEU or just spent uranium from our reactors. If it is the latter, we are looking at over a 1000 warheads. If it is the former 100 or more warheads by 2020.

If you ask me I bet on 100 W88 warheads(they also fit in with the survivable nukes in submarines ambition).

Dil manage more and statistics mange more tests. We need to know how reliable our warheads are, we are bound to test.

Remember we have another 12 weapons designs to test and perfect. Don't know how many variants after these 12 designs have been made. Refining continues, until we get a signal to move again. Then we will do a blast which will silence the world once and for all. The tests will be followed by news that India will deploy it's warheads tested in submarines which are already operational and on patrol(two on parol and one for refurbishment and offshore). There will be at least three nuclear submarines by then. Another signal that a TN test(s) are nearing will be the test of MIRV (well at least a test which calls a MIRV an MIRV in a press release).
The thing which i am not able to understand is why are testing for 2 days in 3-4 decades. India could have easily tested few more deisgns back in 1975 when other countries like china was still perfecting the design or atleast during 1999 period when sanctions are on. Now that all the P5 countries have tested and miniaturized their systems to the core and mutually agreed not to test after 1992,we are stuck with the sanctions game.Hopefully next test just do not limit it to just 2 days and we perfect the design by then because i am sure the sanctions game will start again hurting our developing economy.
 

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