Israeli imprint in Indian missile interceptor test

NEW DELHI: In yet another indication of the deep but often covert strategic ties between New Delhi and Tel Aviv, it's now clear that there was an Israeli imprint in the incipient ballistic missile defence (BMD) system tested by India last Monday.

The crucial long-range tracking radar (LRTR) used in the Indian "exo-atmospheric" BMD system, which "successfully intercepted" an incoming Prithvi missile on November 27, owes its origins to the Israeli Green Pine early-warning and fire control radar. India had imported two Green Pine radars, which constitute a crucial part of the Arrow-2 BMD system deployed by Israel to counter the threat of Iranian and other missiles, in a hush-hush manner in 2001-2002.

"Other than the basic radar, which we modified to meet our requirements, all the other elements, hardware and software, are homegrown," said DRDO chief controller R&D, V K Saraswat. Since missile defence can take place both inside (endo) or outside (exo) the earth's atmosphere, DRDO will now test an "endo-atmospheric interceptor" in the next four-five months. The "exo-atmospheric" hypersonic interceptor missile tested on Monday destroyed the Prithvi missile at an altitude of 50-km.

The "endo-atmospheric interceptor", in turn, will shoot the "hostile" missiles much closer to earth with a 30-km range. "Our endo-atmospheric interceptor will be similar to the American Patriot-3 AMD system, which has a 15-km range," said Saraswat.

Though the indigenous BMD system is still several years away from becoming operational, as reported by TOI earlier, it will be a "unique" two-tier system once it is ready. The system will have a mix of the two types of interceptor missiles for a kill probability of 99.8%. "A couple of these missile batteries, for instance, should be able to protect Delhi," said Saraswat. "We have made a very good beginning. At least half-a-dozen tests would be required over the next three years before the system can become ready," he added.

DRDO claims to have modified the Green Pine radars, which can detect targets at ranges up to 500-km and can track them at speeds over 3,000 metre per second. The modifications included making the radar capable of tracking intermediate range ballistic missiles.

http://www.hindu.com/2006/12/03/stories/2006120312940100.htm

India developing new missiles Towards destroying hostile missiles

Sandeep Dikshit

`India developing complete suite of air defence missiles'

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Missiles to destroy incoming missiles closer to earth's surface on the cards First test will take place in first half of 2007, says DRDO --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NEW DELHI: "India is developing a complete suite of air defence missiles to destroy all types of hostile missiles," a top Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) scientist said here on Saturday. After successfully conducting a test aimed at intercepting intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBM) in the exosphere (uppermost layer of atmosphere) last month, India is now working on missiles capable of destroying incoming missiles closer to the earth's surface.

The first test would take place in the first half of 2007. DRDO would then undertake development of missiles with both capabilities.

"The entire project is likely to take three years to complete," said V. K. Saraswat, Chief Controller of DRDO's Missiles and Strategic Systems Division. The shorter-range interceptor missile would have double the range of the American Patriot missiles, he added.

Dwelling on interception by the liquid-fuelled Prithvi missile, Dr. Saraswat said the decision to destroy a missile at a distance of 50 km was undertaken in view of the likely threat perception from IRBMs. Defence scientists were looking at a pack of six missiles to decisively intercept the enemy missile with a kill probability of 99 per cent. They felt two missile batteries would be enough to defend a large city like Delhi or Chennai. The project for developing missile interception capability began three years ago. After several simulations and changes in guidance and control software, the target missile was launched on November 19 this year and intercepted electronically.

This gave DRDO the confidence to conduct a live test a week later. However, the planned launch could not take place because the software to check the health of the subsystems diagnosed the seeker as faulty. "We therefore decided to delay by a day to conduct reconfirmation tests,'' said Dr. Saraswat.

Except for the long-range tracking radar, all other elements were "totally home-grown'' by 35 private and public sector companies. Three million lines of code were written in India for the Mission Control Centre, the hub of software and hardware systems.

A shadow centre was set up to take over if the original centre got destroyed or inactivated.

Transmission links to the interceptor missile were based on jam-proof CDMA technology and multiple data transmission links were set up so that if one was jammed the others could function. In this trial, various data transmission and control centres were spread over a distance of 1,000 km. The DRDO modified the Israeli Greenpine radar to enable it detect IRBM missiles with a velocity of 5 km per second from a distance of 600 km.

A deeper motivation for those who oppose missile defense has been that it upsets the concept of mutual assured destruction (MAD). With MAD, there is a stability in the relationships between the United States and Russia (with China as the third major power and France and Britain on the U.S. side). Wars between the two states would be fought on the periphery.

However, to have MAD, you have to have two sides with rough parity. The transition from no bombs to bombs on both sides led to high anxiety in the early 1950s (and may have been why Stalin gave Kim Il Sung permission to invade South Korea). The transition from bomber-based to missile-based systems also was a period of anxiety and instability. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the highlight of this anxious time.

Missile defenses prevent MAD if there are enough missiles. The fear is that one side could survive a nation-killing strike, thus raising the likelihood of nuclear war. Perhaps this is so. However, other aspects of the development of nuclear weapons weakens the strength of this argument. The development of nuclear weapons by medium and small nations, with regional goals, has made the use of nuclear weapons more likely. India and Pakistan, after the attacks on the Indian Parliament (Lok Sabha) in New Delhi in December 2001, mobilized and nearly came to a fifth war. North Korea, as we know, as well as Iran, see nuclear weapons as the great equalizers with the Great Powers. Would we exchange Los Angeles for Seoul? Or Boston for Tel Aviv?

These smaller nuclear states reflect the Cold War on a continental scale. India and Pakistan are slowly reaching the means of stability in the same manner as the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., such as hot lines and clear doctrinal statements. Israel and the Arab states are another such quasi-stable area, though only one state possesses nuclear weapons against a large conventional military imbalance.

Missile defense provides a way to protect against smaller states launching an attack on a larger power, whether it be use it or lose it, or sheer temper tantrum nuclear strikes.

Yet another aspect making missile defense needed is the threat of conventionally-armed missiles landing on your homeland constantly. The Hezbollah and Hamas Qassam missile strikes haven't stopped Israel, but they are a great inconvenience and morale-shatterer, much as the V-2 was in England in 1944. Laser and other defenses mean they can be shot down without the need to cross the other side's borders, as happened in Israel's failure to win in 2006.

The era of missile defense is here. The world will be less stable as a whole, but in the areas with defenses, there will be pools of stability.

The world will be less stable as a whole, but in the areas with defenses, there will be pools of stability.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.

I believe you are simply wrong. It seems that you are claiming that the world was MORE stable during the Cold War...your evidence being "The US and USSR didn't launch missles againt each other, therefore, MAD worked as stated, and the world was more stable than now."

I disagree.

The mass of proxy wars that you mentioned in Korea, Vietnam, elswhere show the opposite to be true, from my perspective.

Dropping a limited nuke here and there caused immediate peace and tranquility in Japan. The threat of a 1500 missile holocaust caused more bloodshed by forcing the proponents back into conventional proxy wars.

All MAD did, over time, was to encourage offensive proliferation that haunts us still. End result being, when one side won that MAD war, that the other side crumbled enough to bleed refined nuclear technology all over the world.

MAD was bad. MAD never made anyone safer during, or even after such era.

But that's just my opinion.

FIRST: "The era of missile defense is here. The world will be less stable as a whole, but in the areas with defenses, there will be pools of stability."

NOW: "You have mistaken my reiteration of previous positions for agreement with those positions. We're more stable with missile defenses in place."

Listen gabby, I'm just trying to make sense out of your verbosity.

You're bobbin' and weavin' like a guy during a sobriety test video on YouTube.

Do you or don't you state that the world was more 'stable' during the US-USSR MAD 'parity' period?

"Sure it did. We had casualties in the hundreds of thousands instead of the tens of millions with MAD."

If you agree with that, and I must assume you do since you jut wrote it, then you are committing a myopic fallacy.

We are where we are today because of all that went before. MAD did NOT make for a more stable world then, and BMD does NOT correct that imbalance, even regionally.**

BMD is merely the continuation of the techno-economic arms race of the 50's. Keeping ahead in that military proliferation is the only thing that keeps us safe--regionally, yet temporarily. It's continually raising the ante--making the stakes ever more dangerous since before the JFK false bravado.

I take the position that all out nuclear war and world domination in 1947 was the only way to avoid the lopsided regional proliferation today, and to stop the communist purges of Stalin and Mao which consumed millions of people that you conveniently gloss over as 'not' part of the MAD casualties. Or maybe you don't. In the late 40's and early 50's, America could've won and stopped the treadmill as we stopped it in Germany and Japan. But we didn't, and it's not clear we have done anything but kick the can down the street so hard and so far that it achieved critical mass.

What could've saved the world was several kiloton nukes delivered early on throughout the world before the development of ICBM city-killers, which nobody has actually ever experienced.

Thus, I think your point is academic. ''It's more stable, it's less stable.'' Big deal. So the poker table hasn't fallen over. So what? Perhaps you're doing a research project on driving people crazy with oscillating vacillation!

**By the way, share your opinion on FR, by all means. But don't lecture to me about the cold war or the history of missile defense. I think you write it quite well, and I have no complaints, but I would appreciate it if you'd hold off on the lecture until you understand how well your ping'd audience is or is not informed on the subject. It's extremely condescending and annoying. Cheers!

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