The Indian leading scientists Dr V K Saraswat of Defense Research and Development Organisation recently claimed, “Within three years major cities such as Delhi and Mumbai would be under a protective shield. A county, which has a small arsenal, will think twice before it ventures.” It reflects New Delhi’s consistency in institutionalising a sophisticated missile defense system to destabilise the existing strategic equilibrium between India and Pakistan and shift a balance of power in its favor in the region.
New Delhi asserted that its missile defense system programme or anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system is indigenous and only for defensive purpose. This assertion is debatable. The Indian missiles programme — ballistic, cruise and ABM systems —assisted by numerous suppliers. In this group, the leading states are Israel, Russian Federation and United States. Nonetheless, in the recent years, Tel Aviv emerged as a source for the Indians for both Israeli and American sophisticated military technology. Since 1990s, the Tel Aviv has been assisting New Delhi in maturing the latter defense industry, especially in the realm of missile development.
India purchased from Israel Elta Green Pine radar for its air defense system against ballistic missiles in 2001. The Green Pine Radar system, which had already deployed in India, is a very advanced system. It is phased array L-band radar, having dual mode operation - early warning and fire control and long-range acquisition capability - several hundred kilometres. It simultaneous track dozens of Tactical Ballistic Missiles (TBM) and clearly discrimination between TBMs, aircraft and other missiles. It also has ECCM and transportability capabilities. (Israeli-weapons.com). These features makes Green Pine Radar capable to detect missile launches up to 500 kilometres away and is able to track targets at speeds over 3,000m/s.
Importantly, the Green Pine long-range early-warning radar is a part of the Arrow-2 missile defense system. The Arrow 2, with a launch weight of 1,300kg, was a jointly funded project of the United States and Israel. Hence, the Arrow 2 system can detect and track incoming missiles as far way as 500 km and can intercept missiles 50-90 km away (some sources suggest the engagement range is 16 to 48km). In February 2003, Israel Aircraft Industries signed an agreement with the United States Boeing to establish the production infrastructure to manufacture components of the Arrow missile in the United States. Boeing would be responsible for the production of approximately 50per cent of the missile components in the United States. The defense partnership between Tel Aviv and New Delhi certainly facilitate the transfer of missile components developed by Boeing to Indian Defense Research and Development Organisation, which would make use of it in its Integrated Guided Missiles Development programme.
On February 29, 2004 Israel's security cabinet finalised, US$1.1 billion sale of the Phalcon Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) — one of the world’s most sophisticated long-range warning and control systems — to India. The Phalcon deal was a three-way transaction involving Israel, India and Russia, one that will greatly enhance the surveillance capability of the Indian Air Force against incoming surface-to-surface missiles, while also providing India with the means to strike deep into enemy territory. Under the terms of the agreement, Israel purchased an Ilyushin-76 cargo aircraft from Uzbekistan, which will then be sent to Russia to be fitted with new high-powered engines. After structural modifications, the aircraft would be sent to Israel to be mounted with the AWACS radar system, and the complete aircraft would then be delivered to India.
On July 12, 2007 the Indian Cabinet Security Committee, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, approved the air and missile defense umbrella project worth of $2.5 billion with Israel. The air and missile defense umbrella is a network of batteries that could intercept incoming missiles, aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles. The defense umbrella would fire interceptors that could down enemy air assets at a range of 70 kilometers. Though, India had already developed and tested a short-range surface-to-air missile – Trishul and medium range surface to air missile– Akash, but these missiles performance in the combat was unreliable. Therefore, Indian military decided to acquire the Israeli harpy unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which are designed to detect and destroy enemy radars and missile defense umbrella network. Precisely, these different systems would collectively increase India’s surveillance and targeting capabilities.
The preceding discussion manifests that the ongoing missile defense cooperation between the Israel and India and the expected transfer of space technology from the United States to India would culminate in perfection and deployment of a missile defense system in the near future. In this context, the Indian strategic mindset was reflected in the comment of Indian strategic analysts K Subrahmanyan; “India needed to raise the uncertainty levels for Pakistan.” Though the missile defense systems sounds defensive in nature, but the deployment of anti-missile shield would destabilise South Asian strategic stability and necessitate India’s strategic competitor, Pakistan, to revise its technical strategy.
The aggressive weaponisation strategy of India with the assistance of major arms suppliers, i.e. the United States, Russian Federation, Israel, etc, obviously, unleashes a lethal and costly arms race in the region, which severely hampers the prosperity of the less developed South Asia. The new generation of weapon intensifies the Security Dilemma between India and Pakistan. Indeed, security dilemma is defined as “the dynamic in which one state’s efforts to increase its security are perceived as being achieved at the expense of another state’s security, promoting a spiral of competition that usually manifests itself in an arms race that, ultimately, leads to war. Such a situation is very challenging for Islamabad, because it has to interpret India’s missile defense system as an integral component of its offensive strategy.
To conclude, the strategic thinking or philosophy in India and Pakistan largely follows traditional patterns regardless of the continuity of Composite Dialogue between the belligerent neighbours. There is more continuity than change in their strategic relations. They have failed to adopt non-provocative ideas in their strategic policies and thereby have been living in both peace and war -- in a condition of radical uncertainty. Hence, the advances in the Indian weaponry especially missile defense system poses not only a serious challenge to the strategic stability in the region; but also oblige the makers of strategy in Pakistan to recommend the acquisition or development of costly missile defense system to Islamabad to solidify its defensive fence.
