Posted on 02/09/2003 3:22:11 PM PST by spetznaz
India was planning to test a long-range ballistic missile that can hit targets deep inside China, sources said as the United States warned the move would escalate tensions in South Asia.
Highly-placed sources from the defence research organisation said Friday the earliest probable launch of Agni-III, with a range of 3,000 kilometres (1,860 miles), would be after the end of the Indian monsoon season in September.
"The probable window of launch could be after the monsoons when the weather is perfect for us to read all the parameters and functions of the system," a source said.
Agni-III can carry a one-tonne nuclear warhead, according to the sources who did not elaborate on the nature of the weapon or its possible yield in terms of megatons.
India in early 1999 reportedly began developing Agni-III and reports suggest that a planned variant of the ballistic missile will be able to achieve a range of 5,000 kilometres (3,100 miles).
On Thursday, India's chief defence scientist V.K. Atre made a similar announcement but without giving details.
"Hopefully, we will test the missile by the end of this year," Atre told reporters during an international airshow in the southern Indian city of Bangalore.
He also said India would also soon kick off a sub-sonic missile project and added that his experts could increase the range of India's only cruise missile BrahMos, being developed jointly with Russia.
BrahMos travels 2.8 times the speed of sound and can hit targets 290 kilometres (180 miles) away with a 300 kilogram (990-pound) non-nuclear warhead.
A US State Department spokeswoman in Washington, meanwhile, said she was "disappointed" at India's plans to fire the long-range Agni-III, adding that it would raise tensions in South Asia.
"We have said frequently in the past that we are disappointed by ballistic missile tests in South Asia," said spokeswoman Tara Riggler.
"Such tests contribute to regional tension and make it harder to prevent a costly amd destabilizing nuclear arms and missile race. Such a race would be a further threat to regional and international security.
"We continue to urge both India and Pakistan to take steps to restrain their nuclear weapons and missile programs including no operational deployment of nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, and to begin dialogue on confidence-building measures that could reduce the likelihood that such weapons would never be used. This could be part of a broader dialogue to reduce tensions."
China has not reacted to the announcement but last month Beijing asked both India and Pakistan to work for peace.
Indian experts assert the upcoming Agni-III test is part of an ambitious project to bolster national security and is not aimed at provoking an arms race with nuclear rival Pakistan.
India last month carried out three short- and medium-range missile tests in 11 days, attracting sharp criticism from Islamabad, which has generally followed such an event with a rival launch of one of its own nuclear-capable missiles.
Already-soured ties are likely to worsen further as India is planning to accelerate the pace of a 20-year-old project to locally develop warhead delivery systems with experiments with new missiles, military sources said.
Agni's first prototype was flight-tested in 1989 and the second in 1992 failed to achieve parameters. The next two experiments were in 1994 with the last one, Agni-II, achieving a range of 1,450 kilometres (900 miles).
Agni-I, re-tested last month, has a range of up to 800 kilometres (496 miles) and is the deadliest of the siblings because of its quick-fire and mobile launch capabilities.
Besides the ballistic missiles, India has nuclear-capable surface Prithvi missiles, with a maximum range of 350 kilometres (217 miles), and an array of other systems built over the past two decades.
(Excerpt) Read more at sg.news.yahoo.com ...
As for the US State Department spokeswoman who said she was disappointed" at India's plans to fire the long-range Agni-III, what i would like to ask her is what India should do? India faces two great threats ....one being China which has been at war with India in the past (and is now by far stronger), and the other being Pakistan, which although not even nearly as potent as China still has nuclear weapons, and furthermore Pakistan is more apt to use nukes (because it is a crazy jehadist nation) than virtually every other country in the world.
India faces a greater threat of nuclear attack than any other nation in the globe (far more than the US and Israel). And according to reports that surfaced last month Musharaff had authorized a pre-emptive nuke strike during the last little sabre-rattling between India and Pakistan last year. And it is no secret that there are those in Pakistan's military who believe they should just attack India and get it over with (even if India would counter-attack and destroy Pakistan as a viable entity ....i have posted links to such stories for a long time).
So, what is India to do? Lay low and unilaterally disarm? Pakistan is not the former USSR ....at least the former Soviet Union was by far more logical (and not consumed by the ludicrous passions of Islamic radicalism). Pakistan would immediately assault India with nukes if India ever decided to do away with nukes.
Anyways it is sad that spokeswoman is 'disappointed,' but i doubt the Indian government and populace is losing any sleep because of her disappointment.
More power to them.
Far from criticizing India, we ought to be encouraging American factories in China to pack up and move there. Hindus, unlike Marxists and Islamists, have not shown a desire to spread their religion by the sword.
Of all of the would-be proliferators, India appears by far the most rational to me.
I know it's a bummer for US born programmers to see the trend towards off shore development (my consulting rates are affected too) but the benefit may be a strong ally in the fight against Islamic fascism. And lets face it, India has a lot of personnel they can put on the ground should it come to that.
Unfortunately, I'd suspect that prospect doesn't do much to make unemployed American programmers sleep any better at night.
And lets face it, India has a lot of personnel they can put on the ground should it come to that.
Sure, but will they? The Islamic fascists are relatively weak - they only have the capacity to actively threaten one foe at a time. When they intrude across the LoC, they threaten India and not the U.S. When they fly planes into American buildings packed with people, they threaten the U.S. and not India. Unless there was a military alliance (a la NATO) involving both us and the Indians, I don't see how relevant it is that the Indians have a lot of personnel. They're not about to put them on the ground for our fight any more than we are for theirs. Maybe in the future when the Islamic totalitarians are more powerful, they'll pose a worldwide threat and necessitate a unified response but so far they're not there... and judging by our President's actions vis a vis Iraq, it doesn't look like we're about to let them ever get there.
Actually India started work on thermonuclear weapons and tritium (from Lithium-6 isotope isolation) in the late seventies, some years after detonating its first atomic weapon.
Most people forget that India tested its first atomic weapon in 1974 .....over 2 decades before the more famous 1998 tests.
The thing is that in 1998 India managed to perfect its nuclear technology (they were no longer fission but fusion explosions) ....but before that India had been working on tritium purification for almost 2 decades .....as well as warhead miniturization and other nice stuff. Actually the new India super-sonic cruise missile .....the Brahmos...(jointly developed with Russia ....and that is being converted for submarine launch) and that can be armed with a 990-pound non-nuclear warhead is actually thought to be in reality a nuclear second-strike weapon ...launched from a submarine (India has been tinkering with its subs to make them launch sub-launched cruise missiles, nuclear sub-launched cruise missiles .....which is what Israel has also been doing by the way) just in case its landbased nuclear deterrent is wiped out in a surprise attack.
Anyways what i am trying to say is that India already has nuclear weapons (fusion) as well as fission weapons, and India now leans primarily on fusion weapons.
Here is an exerpt from the Federation of American Scientists website: India's pursuit of nuclear weapons was first spurred by a 1962 border clash with China and by Beijing's 1964 nuclear test. India conducted its first nuclear detonation, described by India as a "peaceful nuclear explosion," on 18 May 1974. This test, which may have only been partially successful, demonstrated a claimed yield of perhaps 12 kt. It is reported that Western intelligence estimated the probable yield at 4-6 kilotons. Subsequently, India made significant progress in refining its weapons design and fabrication capabilities, including reducing the size of weapons and increasing their efficiency and yield through boosted fission using tritium. At a formal level, Indian officials and strategists denied that India possessed nuclear weapons and refered to India's position as an "options strategy," which essentially meant maintaining the nuclear weapons option and exercising it should regional and international conditions so warrant. India probably began work on a thermonuclear weapon prior to 1980. By 1989 it was publicly known that India was making efforts to isolate and purify the lithium-6 isotope, a key requirement in the production of a thermonuclear device.
On 11 May 1998 India carried out three underground nuclear tests at the Pokhran range. Two days later, after carrying out two more underground sub-kiloton tests, the Government announced the completion of the planned series of tests. The three underground nuclear tests carried out at 1545 hours on 11 May were claimed to be with three different devices - a fission device with a yield of about 12 KT, a thermo-nuclear device with a yield of about 43 KT and a sub-kiloton device. All the 3 devices were detonated simultaneously. The two tests carried out at 1221 hours on 13 May were also detonated simultaneously. The yields of the sub-kiloton devices were claimed to be in the range of 0.2 to 0.6 KT."
The sub-kiloton and low yield devices are most probably for the cruise missile development program, while the thermonuclear set-ups are for the land-based ballistic missiles.
Russia has even more advanced versions of supersonic sub-launched cruise missiles (one of them is even stealthy), but Russia will not be launching against the US.
Obviosuly China also has similar missiles (using Russian tech that was either stolen or accrued through bribery), and even uS analysts say such missiles would be a major threat, but China will not be using them (unless ofcourse the attack Taiwan and we are forced to defend our Taiwanese allies).
The biggest threat is the Jehadi angle ....because they do not care about the fact any attack on the US would immediately cause the mighty military machine of the US to smash the offender! Islamic radicals do nto care about death, hence if they got their hands on one of those missiles then things would be dire.
China on the otherhand (or the former USSR even) were logical, even though devious. They did not do stupid stuff like fly planes into the WTC!
This is why Rumsfeld was worried last October about the threat of terrorists acquiring cruise missiles (which they could launch against US cities from freighter ships). If they got themselves, for example, a land-attack variant Yakhont, and they launched it from 100KM out (it has a max range of 300Km), and let's say it is armed with a nuke warhead (it can carry a 500 pound conventional warhead, or a several kiloton range nuke tip), then a coastal US city could be seriously hit. And there is basically nothing we could do about it. And that is why Rumsfeld was ruffled with the whole deal of cruise missile proliferation.
Obviously for a terrorist group to get their mits on a Yakhont is extremely hard .....and for them to get their paws on the miniturized nuke warhead to go on the Yakhont is even harder ...however that is where China comes in! It is theoretically possible for China to 'lose' one of their cruise missiles to a terror group, and have them launch it some months before China attacks Taiwan. A nuclear hit, even a small kiloton range one, on an American city would throw the whole US economy to the pits (imagine what 9-11 did, then make that nuclear)! And China could engage Taiwan 6 months later while the US tries to gather itself together (if 9-11 erased close to a trillion dollars a nuke attack on NYC would do considerably worse in my estimate).
Now, there is a huge gamble there for China. The gambit being that if US intelligence picked up Chinese involvement that US nuclear missiles would be streaming toward beijing in droves. That would be a major problem for the Chinese ....in that they would ahve to cover things up.
And if they used a Yakhont that would be problematic (although the evidence would most likely be destroyed in the atomic blast, hence negating all links). But to be on the safe side they might use safer methods ....maybe just giving the terrorists a working nuke and a ship. Remember that the Chinese started to control (own) the Panama canal a few years ago, hence it is quite possible for them to use a freighter with a 100 kt nuke in its bowels, and the ship heads for NY harbor (it would be NY due to its significance). A 100KT nuke will not destroy the city physically, but it will ruin the economy of the US.
And it is much harder to link a nuke in the works of a ship freighter than to link a supersonic cruise missile. The ship could have come from anywhere, and the nuke could also be from anywhere (at least it would be hard to prove it was the chinese).
I would be more worried about that than sub-launched nuclear cruise missiles!
It's good to see another major power grow, that is as opposed to Chinese agression as we are.
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