India on US missile defence bandwagon

Hindustan Times ^ | Monday, May 27, 2002 | Vishal Thapar

[milestogo]

India on US missile defence bandwagon

Vishal Thapar

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India and the US have agreed to cooperate on the Missile Defence programme to ‘enhance security and stability’ in the South Asian region. Missile Defence is the logical next stage in missile warfare.

The Indian interest is in getting into the technology loop in the hope of blunting Pakistan’s threatening ‘First Use’ nuclear weapons posture, which the latter sought to assert by firing its Ghauri and Ghaznavi ballistic missiles on Friday and Sunday.

The missile defences, currently under development in the US, are intended to intercept enemy ballistic missiles. The programme is essentially aimed at rogue states with a nuclear weapons delivery capability by saturating defences.

The Indo-US Defence Policy Group (DPG), which met in Washington last week, decided to conduct a missile defence requirement analysis for India.

Also, the US will hold a missile defence workshop in New Delhi soon. India has also been invited to the missile defence conference in Dallas next month, and the June 2003 Roving Sands missile defence exercise.

India, which was earlier pathologically opposed to military alliances with the US, is now on board the US programme, although without any commitments.

Senior Defence officers term this cooperation a ‘prudent investment’ for India. Nothing is going to happen in a hurry: the US may take up to a decade to make the technology credible.

Also, the missile threats to India are perhaps more complex than those faced by the US.

The reaction time available to India, in the event of a missile attack by Pakistan, is just over three minutes, whereas the US would get between 18 and 22 minutes if attacked by its known adversaries.

But the official view is that it will be useful for India to know what the future of missile warfare and its technology is all about. And if the US programme comes good, India could get in early on it.

Mush is kidding

General Musharraf pronounced the Ghauri ’indigenous’, and his audience of Islamic scholars lustily cheered him after Friday's test firing of the inter-mediate range ballistic missile.

But the world knows he is kidding. Scratch the paint, and the Pakistani invaders, Ghauris, Ghaznavis, et-al, are imported.

It is widely known that Pakistan acquired its existing portfolio of ballistic missiles post-1991 after the failure of its indigenous Hatf-I & II programmes.

The Ghauri (Hatf-V), which was also test-fired in April 1999, is actually the North Korean Nodong. Ghaznavi (Hatf-II), which was fired on Sunday, is actually the Chinese M-11.

The Shaheen-II (claimed range 2,500 km), which Pak wields with more belligerence, is the Chinese Dong-Feng-25, while the 500-750 km Shaheen-I is the M-9. Pakistan also claims it has the Ghauri-III with a range (unconfirmed) of 3,000 km. This appears to be the Taepo Dong.

[My Identity]

A Patriot battery in New Dehli??

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Against this?

[texlok]

We have a lot more in common with Indian than you would think. Neither country wants to see the Islamic countries get power hungry and/or acquiring as many nukes and what not as possible. Neither country wants to deal with China alone, etc.

[AdA$tra]

To me India is always on the fence. But when it comes down to push and shove they will revert to their colonial heritage and side with the West. They are a democratic republic of sort, unlike almost every country in the region. More than that, every new country that comes on board with missle defense makes it all that more likely that some flavor of SDI will come to fruition. We could do worse as an ally when it comes to producing "rocket scientists" as well.

[Fish out of Water]

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