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Destabilizing Missile Defense shield
May 11, 2012
The alarming reality is that India’s mastery in defensive missile shield would shift the strategic balance between India and Pakistan to the advantage of the former, and thereby New Delhi would assume a more aggressive posture in its dealing with Pakistan. Such a shift in the strategic environment compels Pakistan to develop a more robust deterrence, which would be the likely response, leading to an increase in the number and category of nuclear delivery systems and fissile material.
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The economic prosperity and cementing strategic partnership with the United States have been instigating New Delhi to demonstrate its primacy in the region. The recent Indian Defense Research and Development Organization’s offensive-defensive missile capability demonstrations were intended to exhibit that India is a ‘Great Power’. The strategic superiority obsession of Indian ruling elite not only amplifies security dilemma of Pakistan, but it also severely undermines the socio-economic prosperity of Indian people and alarms other Asian nations.
Since the successful test of Agni-V, three-stage solid-propellant ballistic missile, the Indian scientific bureaucracy has been celebrating its achievements and manifesting that Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) is one of the most advanced scientific establishments in the region. It is capable to elevate India into the elite club of countries to have successfully developed and tested both offensive and defensive ballistic missiles. In short, the DRDO is competent to provide India a reliable defensive missile shield in near future. These promising claims certainly convince the Indian ruling elite to provide colossal budget to the DRDO, but severely undermine the regional strategic environment.
It is an open secret that India has been endeavoring to develop missile defense shield with the support of foreign contractors since 1983. In the beginning it was entirely relying on the former Soviet Union’s technology, such as surface-to-air missiles (SA-2) which became model for the Prithvi and Advanced air defense system with Anti-tactical ballistic Missile capability i.e. S-300 PMU-1 and S-300V. The Russians backwardness in the anti-ballistic missile technology and India’s too much fascination with manufacturing the weapon through reverse engineering impeded the entire Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme project of the Defence Research and Development Organization.
The end of Cold War and demise of former Soviet Union shifted United States’ strategic focus on to China. The American strategic analysts declared China as a strategic peer of the United States in the twenty-first century. They also professed that India would be the only Asian power which could check the Chinese rise in South East Asia in particular and Asia in general. This understanding about India’s role in the global strategic environment in the twenty-first century and the United States’ restart of missile defense program after the formal recommendation of Rumsfeld Commission report in late 1990s and Washington’s withdrawal from 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in June 2002 resulted in Indo-US cooperation in the field of space cooperation. Indeed, the shift in Washington’s strategic policy and weakening of Moscow facilitated the creation of Indo-US strategic partnership.
The strategic titanic-shifts in the global politics boosted India’s both offensive and defensive missile programs. Consequently, Tel Aviv, with the tacit approval of Washington, has emerged as a major source for the sophisticated military technology for New Delhi.
Since the 1990s, Tel Aviv has been assisting New Delhi in maturing the latter’s defense industry, especially in the realm of ballistic missiles development. For instance, India purchased from Israel Elta Green Pine radar for its air defense system against ballistic missiles in 2001. Green Pine Radar is capable of detecting missile launches up to 500 kilometers away and is able to track targets at speeds over 3,000m/s. The Green Pine long-range early-warning radar is a part of the Arrow-2 missile defense system. In addition, Israel has been transferring to India, its Arrow Anti-tactical Ballistic Missile (ATBM) and Phalcon-Airborne Early Warning (AEW) aircraft. The Arrow system was designed to protect against short and medium-range ballistic missiles. More precisely, India’s missile defence shield systematically evolved with the foreign assistance during the last decade.
On May 6, 2012, the DRDO successfully conducted tests of all the elements involved in the ballistic missile defense shield, such as long-range radars and tracking devices, real-time data-link and mission control system. The DRDO announced that its tested missile defense shield which was comparable with the US Patriot 3 system. The DRDO chief, V. K. Saraswat, stated: “The Ballistic Missile Defence shield is now mature…We are ready to put phase one in place and it can be put in very short time.” The DRDO also declared that the Ballistic Missile Defence Shield would be upgraded to the range of 5,000 kms by 2016.
The Agni-V was not a Pakistan specific offensive missile, and, therefore, it failed to receive much attention from the Pakistani strategic enclave. But the recent revelations about the missile defense shield and its deliberate projected capabilities, definitely, are not ignorable. On May 6, 2012, Mr. Saraswat stated: “We have carried out six successful launches and demonstrated the capability for 2,000 km targets...We have demonstrated it in two layers that is endo-atmospheric (inside the Earth's atmosphere) and exo-atmospheric (outside the Earth's atmosphere).” Though scientifically the projected accomplishments of the DRDO in the field of missile defense shield are debatable and even questionable, one cannot ignore the negative impact of these claims on the prevalent deterrence stability between India and Pakistan.
Hypothetically speaking, the Missile Defense shield, having capability to destroy hostile ballistic missiles having ranges up to 2000 km during the mid-course and re-entry phases, is capable to knock out both medium and long-range Pakistani ballistic missiles, i.e. Ghauri-I, Shaheen-I, Shaheen-1A and Shaheen-II. If one agrees with the DRDO chief’s claim, one should be alarmed and be pessimistic about the credibility of Pakistani nuclear deterrence potential. This hypothesis certainly warrants critical examination of the Indian missile shield potential and also necessitates Pakistan’s nuclear posture transformation.
New Delhi’s consistency in institutionalizing a sophisticated Missile Defense Shield reflects that it is determined to reverse the prevailing strategic equilibrium between India and Pakistan, which was corrected by nuclear explosions in Chaghi on May 28, 1998, and again the credibility of Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine was reassured by the successful test of short range-ballistic missile NASR on April 19, 2011and Shaheen-IA on April 25, 2012.
Admittedly, it is debatable whether the Indian Missile Defense Shield would have any practical military significance in the Indo-Pakistan geo-strategic environment. Nevertheless, it is obvious that it would have repercussions for the deterrence stability in South Asia. It is because, the introduction of a new system of weapons which undermines the balance of terror or destabilize balance of power even theoretically would affect the prevalent strategic equilibrium between India and Pakistan.
The alarming reality is that India’s mastery in defensive missile shield would shift the strategic balance between India and Pakistan to the advantage of the former, and thereby New Delhi would assume a more aggressive posture in its dealing with Pakistan. Such a shift in the strategic environment compels Pakistan to develop a more robust deterrence, which would be the likely response, leading to an increase in the number and category of nuclear delivery systems and fissile material.
Islamabad’s strong and calculated strategic response based on both strategic and tactical nuclear weapons to changes in its strategic balance with New Delhi would inevitably raise the strategic temperature between the belligerent neighbors, something that would have an adverse impact on the nuclear deterrence stability in the region. Accordingly, a more aggressive and unstable nuclear relationship may emerge in the region which is neither in the interest of the Indians nor Pakistanis. Hence, it is imperative that the Indian ruling elite understand the devastating consequences of the buildup of both offensive and defensive missiles and act rationally.
In the nuclearized strategic environment, the policy-makers do not miss the authenticity of loose-loose affairs. Simultaneously, Pakistani ruling elite should not be oblivious to the demands of credible nuclear deterrence.
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