India Joins the Star Wars

[foxhound]

Salaam.....an old but interesting article...

ref:India Joins the Star Wars - Army Technology
India Joins the Star WarsA plan by India to deploy a ballistic missile defence system by 2010 could spark a new arms race in the region. It also underlines the country's growing military ties with the US, according to Anthony Beachey.
http://www.army-technology.com/features/feature_images/feature2001/1-agni-missile.jpg
[IMG]http://www.army-technology.com/features/feature_images/feature2001/1-agni-missile.jpg
Date: 29 May 2008

India announced in January 2008 that it has developed a two-layered ballistic missile defence (BMD) system to counter enemy missiles. The system, comprising 'exo' and 'endo' atmospheric interceptors, destroys incoming ballistic missiles at altitudes above 40km and below 25km, respectively.
This followed a surprise announcement by the Indian Ministry of Defence in November 2006 that it had successfully destroyed a simulated incoming enemy ballistic missile while it was 78km above the Bay of Bengal, still outside the earth's atmosphere, which was greeted with scepticism.

Most analysts did not believe that India's missile defence programme was that far advanced.

However, another 'exo-atmospheric' interception was successfully completed in November 2007, and a further trial demonstrating the interception of a live ballistic missile was held in December last year. It now seems clear that India does indeed have the military capabilities to join an elite club of countries – the US, Russia and Israel – that have the technology to destroy incoming missiles.


INDIA'S MISSILE GROWTH
It is now apparent that India began developing a BMD capability in 1995, after New Delhi learned that Pakistan had obtained the M9 and M11 ballistic missiles from China. The missile trials will continue for two years and commercial production will start after three years. The long-range tracking radar and the multifunction fire-control radars were developed in collaboration with Israel and France.
Following the December 2007 interception, India's top military scientist, Dr VK Saraswat of India's Defence Research and Development Organisation, said that within three years major cities such as Delhi and Mumbai would be under a protective shield.

India is also building up its offensive capabilities. It has unveiled a nuclear-capable missile (the Agni-III) with a range of 3,700 miles – far enough to hit Beijing or Rome. When deployed, the missile will boost India's second-strike capability as it can be launched from anywhere using a mobile launcher. India is also designing Agni-IV, which will carry a nuclear warhead and will have the capability to hit targets more than 5,000km away.
These developments have sparked concerns that a new arms race will get under way in the region. India's traditional foe, Pakistan, has already reacted with alarm. Following the announcement of India's plan to have a missile defence system in place by 2010, Ayesha Siddiqa, a defence analyst, said that "the first impulse is to ask how does Pakistan get [such a missile defence system]" and "the next will be to increase the number of missiles to make sure it [Pakistan] has enough to evade the shield."
China, too, is concerned. Beijing believes that the US is trying to 'encircle' China by using India and allies such as Japan and Australia as proxies, and thereby contain China's increasing military might.
"Japan has developed a two-layered ballistic missile defence (BMD) system to counter enemy missiles."China can legitimately point out that its fears are underpinned by growing military ties between the Washington and New Delhi in a number of areas, including missile defence.

India had shunned US defence equipment in general until recently, buying Soviet weapons during the Cold War, for example. However, in a watershed deal, India agreed to buy six C130J transport planes for around $1bn in January 2008 – a shift from its previous reliance on Russian transport aircraft.
The US is also involved in the race to win an $11bn deal for multi-role combat aircraft. New Delhi is expected to award the contract within the next two years.

INDIA AND LOCKHEED
In January 2008, India entered talks with Lockheed Martin, apparently with the aim of seeking collaboration in developing a ballistic missile defence (BMD) system. Furthermore, in February, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates confirmed that the US and India would discuss the possibility of a joint missile defence system.

India had previously said it would develop its missile shield domestically, closing off a potentially lucrative market to American manufacturers Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman – the biggest players in the emerging ground, air, sea and space-based US missile defence system.
Dennis D Cavin, vice president of international air and missile defence strategic initiatives (IAMDSI) at Lockheed Martin, said that India could be looking for US help in developing 'hit-to-kill' technology for its interceptor missiles. But In his press briefings, Dr Saraswat said that India had used 'proximity fragmentation' in missile interception already.
The US, by contrast, uses a direct 'hit-to-kill' method to destroy incoming missiles. Lockheed has developed the PAC 'hit-to-kill' anti-missile system for the US. PAC missile systems have been delivered and deployed around the world with US forces and US allies.

Lockheed is also the prime contractor for the terminal high-altitude area defense (THAAD) anti-missile system. The THAAD missile system is an easily transportable defensive weapon system, whose function is to protect against hostile incoming threats such as tactical and theatre ballistic missiles at ranges of 200km and at altitudes of up to 150km. PAC-II, III and THAAD will form essential components of the multi-layered missile defence system that the US is developing.

While the PAC-II and III systems are being deployed to tackle the threat from air-breathing cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), the THAAD system is developed to take care of threats from 'exo' and 'endo' atmospheric ballistic missiles. The Americans are likely to deploy the THAAD system between 2009 and 2010 to give cover to US troops operating overseas. Washington has offered to sell PAC-II and III BMD systems to India, but it hasn't commented on whether THAAD could also be made available to the nation.

"India has unveiled a nuclear-capable missile (the Agni-III) with a range of 3,700 miles."A POLITICAL DEFENCE

However, political obstacles will have to be overcome if any such collaborative venture is to proceed smoothly. Indian defence deals are characterised by delays, political interference, a lack of transparency and allegations of corruption. Most importantly, there is still a substantial body of political opinion in India that is opposed to what is seen as the US's global 'hegemony'.

A civil nuclear agreement, seen by many as the centrepiece of India's strategic relationship with Washington, has hit obstacles in New Delhi, where it is opposed by the Indian government's communist allies. The agreement would allow New Delhi to access US nuclear fuel and reactors by overturning a three-decade ban imposed after India conducted a nuclear test while staying out of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Either way, given that the US leads the world in BMD technology, the lack of alternative suppliers and the growing threat posed by Pakistan and China as they pursue ambitious missile programmes, it seems likely that India will indeed seek to develop a BMD shield in collaboration with the US.

 

[tallboy123]

India has 2 nuclear armed enemies..
Ballistic missile defense shield is must for india..

 

[Time Assassin]

All i can say is waste of money, u don't really need to go that far. I said this before n ill say it again, both India and Pakistan have a strong defence, they should cut some money n spend it on its people that live in poverty. This rule applies to India much more specailly with all the slums n poverty there.

 

[tallboy123]

Building Ballistic missile shield is not an offensive move it's defensive move..
Its in development..
I hope they deploy by 2012..

 

[aabe-hayat]

A plan by India to deploy a ballistic missile defence system by 2010 could spark a new arms race in the region.

no need to read after first sentence.2010 will be over in next 23 hrs.

 

[Frankenstein]

uff aaj kal ke fan boys ko tu deekho zara, itna kheech keech ke lmbaa kar ke batate han jase pata nahe kya ho gya ha , jase ham ne abi ankh khole ha,

Guys India is developing LCA since 1980s, and other under developed famous inventions

Zada uchalne ki zarorat nahi ha, in comparison to agni 3, pakistan has one IRBM under development, shaheen 3 and ghuari 3 is already developed with the range of 3,000-3,500 km

My signature is the famous example for such Fan boys and there followers

"You can swim all day in the Sea of Knowledge and still come out completely dry. Trust me most people do,"

 

[Dalai Lama]

It's about time! With our lovely neighbour's first-use policy...

EDIT: Btw sir, can we please have the source. I want to know when this was published.

Thanks!

 

[foxhound]

ref:http://www.army-technology.com/features/feature56250/feature56250-1.html

India's Missiles Fly Up the Learning Curve Recent strategic missile tests in India demonstrate the country's evolution in the field. Richard B Gasparre reports.
ref:India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) publicly revealed its BMD programme right after the first test in November 2006, less than three years ago. - Army Technology

Date: 03 Jun 2009 Email Article Print Link To Us

A truism in many sports holds that offence gets headlines, but defence wins championships. Although it is only roughly analogous to sport, war and military technology exhibits the same skew in media coverage, as the evolution of India's strategic missile capability shows. Judging by recent test results, the second half of the equation may hold as well.

The defence doesn't rest: programmatic outperformance
Sandwiched between successful 2009 trials of the BrahMos cruise missile on 5 March and the Prithvi II nuclear-capable SRBM in mid-April, the 7 March test of an indigenous ABM missile was equally successful in terms of test objectives (although it received a fraction of the coverage, judging from Google hit statistics). Taken in programmatic context, however, the ABM test is much more impressive in three ways: success rate, development speed and technical challenge.

Success rate
So far India has gone three for three in ABM interceptor flight trials, each of which had a different test profile. In the first trial, a two-stage interceptor missile later named the Pradyumna incapacitated the target, an incoming Prithvi-II missile, at the upper edge of the stratosphere, 48km up. A year later, a single-stage missile developed under the advanced air defence (AAD) programme defeated another Prithvi-II 15km up (the altitude of many transcontinental plane flights). In the most recent test, another Pradyumna sporting improvements such as a gimballed directional warhead achieved an explosive kill of its target at an altitude of 75km, well into the mesosphere.
"India's ABM test is impressive in three ways: success rate, development speed and technical challenge."In contrast, the Prithvi SRBM itself failed three of its first six trials, and the newer Agni-III MRBM failed its first test. Failure rates of 50% in the first few tests of new weapons are neither unusual nor portents of ultimate futility, but this makes the Indian BMD track record even more impressive.

Development speed
India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) publicly revealed its BMD programme right after the first test in November 2006, less than three years ago.

At that time, Indian programme managers conceded that BMD research had been underway 'for years', but given that DRDO had tried diligently to make the Trishul SAM work in ABM mode for years, as well, the Pradyumna programme couldn't have been DRDO's primary initiative. In any event, ABM weapon testing could be completed by 2010 given current rates of progress, according to VK Saraswat, head of missile development at DRDO.

In contrast, DRDO has pursued offensive ballistic missile development since 1983, when it initiated the integrated guided missile development programme (IGMDP). Even now, according to one Indian commentator, the Agni-I is the only fully operational nuclear-capable ballistic missile in India's arsenal. Most of this protracted development cycle has consisted of post-testing production and field integration delays, which should quell undue optimism about the young BMD programme, but even so, both ABM interceptors are ahead of all previous IGMDP timetables.

Technical challenge
Judging technical difficulty of a mission by the number of nations that can execute it, BMD is the most challenging military task, as only the US and Russia have independently fielded fully indigenous BMD systems (the Israeli Arrow is a US-Israel joint venture). The anti-satellite task is actually second (US, Russia, and China), and long-range ballistic missiles currently run third, although this club seems to be in the process of doubling.

If any nation can benefit from BMD, it's India
Indeed, ballistic missile proliferation in Asia makes India's BMD programme even more significant in the long term than its offensive nuclear ballistic missile programmes.

"So far India has gone three for three in anti-ballistic missile interceptor flight trials, each of which had a different test profile."First and foremost, the November 2008 Mumbai attack and the current spread of Taliban influence in Pakistan have raised the spectre of Pakistani missiles and/or nuclear warheads falling into the hands of terrorists, against whom traditional deterrence is at best uncertain.

Beyond the Pakistani threat, whether national or subnational, India's offensive ballistic missile programme lags behind that of its main regional rival, China. Although DRDO has improved its success rate for offensive tests recently, China has just as much momentum and occupies a more advanced position, especially in terms of long-range ICBMs either operational or in the pipeline.

BMD is therefore India's most likely countervailing asset in the foreseeable future. China's high-altitude SAMs can engage some ballistic missiles, but only to a 30km ceiling, and evidently China has no R&D effort comparable to India's BMD programme at this time. In this respect, China's ASAT capability doesn't really count, as ballistic missiles are to satellites as fighter aircraft are to armoured personnel carriers. Last but not least, India is significantly better than China at software development and programming, which are critical to BMD system effectiveness.

Finally, India itself lags in deploying submarine-launched ballistic missiles, the most survivable leg of the nuclear triad. Should India's naval missile programme follow the same timetable as India's other strategic naval and missile programmes, a BMD capability could add significant survivability to India's nuclear deterrent.

Can failure breed success?

To be fair, India's offensive ballistic missiles don't deserve direct managerial comparison to the BMD programme. As noted previously, the BMD programme hasn't yet reached the point where Indian R&D usually derails; as Saraswat himself cautioned, deployment rates are 'not in [DRDO's] hands'.

"Failure rates of 50% in the first few tests of new weapons are neither unusual nor portents of ultimate futility."More important, early failures pave the way to ultimate success: as Thomas Edison said in response to derision at the thousandth failure of the prototype light bulb: 'now we know a thousand ways that it won't work'. Current BMD development benefits from the advances and setbacks of IGMDP, which included the Akash and Prithul SAM projects as well as the Agni and Prithvi. In fact, the Pradyumna ABM was originally called the Prithvi air defence (PAD) missile because it used the generic Prithvi missile design. Conversely, the DRDO strenuously attempted to give the Prithul ABM capability before ultimately admitting failure.

However, other factors may underpin programmatic BMD outperformance. In no particular order:
•The one way in which interceptor missiles are less complex than offensive ballistic missiles is that modern versions of the former don't carry nuclear warheads.
•The BMD was not developed under the auspices of IGMPD, suggesting that the latter may have been (or would become) too bureaucratic.
•The BMD programme not only post-dated the IGMPD, but also probably started during, and quite possibly because of, the ramping up of Pakistan's missile capability. In this regard, the 1999 Kargil conflict occurred just a year after Pakistan detonated its first nuclear munition.

Is true danger the mother of efficiency?
There is in fact an exact historical precedent for the correlation of serious perceived threat and speedy weapons development: the first generation of US strategic nuclear missiles.

By 1952, nuclear warheads had become small enough to put on missiles, but the US missile programmes did not really kick into high gear until 1957, when the Sputnik launch, along with faster-than-expected Soviet development of its first ICBM (the SS-6), created fears of a Soviet-US 'missile gap'. Consequently, the USAF and USN made development of ICBM and SLBM systems their top priority, creating all-star teams of scientists and engineers with essentially unlimited resources.

The effect of concentrating talent, subordinating bureaucratic processes to a tight deadline, enabled by top-level political support and underpinned by strong psychological fear, produced results. A 1958 US catch-up plan called for full operational deployment of nine Atlas squadrons and four Titan squadrons by March 1963. By October 1961, the Strategic Air Command subsequently activated 13 Atlas and six Titan squadrons – 18 months early. The Polaris SLBM project was similarly successful: the first successful test launch was in 1960, just four years from project initiation, and IOC occurred in 1961.

"India's ballistic missile programme lags behind that of its main regional rival – China."In contrast, the second generation of US strategic nuclear weapons systems came in behind schedule, over budget, and arguably under promised capability – at a time when nuclear weapons had become much more survivable and effective in their deterrent role.

If past is prologue, then India's long record of military procurement frustration might be ending – at least in the strategic nuclear weapons space. Indeed, the DRDO is on a roll with its recent tests of offensive missiles; even the January 2009 BrahMos test failure was rectified within weeks.

In the end, the best military procurement principle may have come from essayist Samuel Johnson: 'nothing so wonderfully concentrates the mind as the prospect of hanging in the morning'.

 

[tallboy123]

In future ,
It doesn't matter How many nuclear warheads u have and how much range and how much yield.
The main thing matters is how many Anti-ballistic missiles u have and how much effective it is..

With all the Success of BMD by DRDO,I'm sure they will develop a solid BMD in future...

 

[Trichy]

Indian BMD Phase -1 Deployed with in 2012
Indian BMD Phase -2 Deployed with in 2016

Thats the time frame...

 

[foxhound]

interesting points raised here.........is ABM system really effective or not?

ref:The Space Review: India’s missile defense: changing the nature of the Indo-Pakistani conflict

India’s missile defense: changing the nature of the Indo-Pakistani conflict
by Taylor DinermanMonday, January 26, 2009Comments (6)

During a panel talk at New York’s Asia Society on January 21, Professor Ashutosh Varshney of Brown University claimed that some “right wing” forces in the US and India were interested in seeing Pakistan break up and that they imagined that somehow India would be able to “neuter the nukes” and prevent them from getting into unfriendly hands, something he considered highly risky and likely to lead to catastrophe. During the same event former Pakistani diplomat Munir Akram claimed that any war between India and Pakistan would escalate uncontrollably and go nuclear quite quickly.

Even if they give missile defense a big budget and a high priority, it will be many years before India has a moderately effective, indigenous missile defense shield. At this moment, they are both right.

The India-Pakistan nuclear stand-off is stalemated to Pakistan’s advantage, in that they can launch (or allow) terror attacks such as the November 2008 one on Mumbai and India can do essentially nothing in response. The unmistakable smugness of the former Pakistani diplomat made this evident. However, this situation will not last forever. India is now seeking way to neutralize the majority of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and within a decade or perhaps a little longer they may come up with a solution.

In 2006 India began testing a missile defense version of its Prithvi medium-range ballistic missile. This test is just one sign that New Delhi is seeking to develop a multi-layer complex that can defend against Pakistan’s nuclear missiles. Due to its liquid-fueled first stage, the Prithvi Air Defense (PAD) is certainly not an ideal system, but it is both available and locally made. The Indian military is comfortable enough with this weapon’s effectiveness to make it their main battlefield ballistic missile for both conventional and nuclear applications.

Even if they give missile defense a big budget and a high priority, it will be many years before India has a moderately effective, indigenous missile defense shield. The claim last year by the head of the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) that they will have a multi-layered system ready in 2010 is taken with a grain of salt by observers both inside and outside the subcontinent. However, unless the geopolitical situation radically changes, there is no doubt that India will continue work on the systems for the foreseeable future.

If they wanted to they could buy systems from the US, Israel, or Russia, and they have already bought themselves a pair of Israeli Green Pine radars originally designed for the Arrow ABM system. If they were ready to spend the money they could combine, for example, the US PAC 3 version of the Patriot with the Israeli Arrow and have an effective but limited defense system within a fairly short timeframe. While the US may have blocked India from buying the Israeli system in the past, this no longer would be the case.

What is more likely, though, is that they will continue to build up their own technology while procuring a few items from overseas and entering into collaborative development programs with carefully selected foreign firms. The hard part may not be the interceptors themselves but building up the network of sensors and command and control systems needed to make the whole thing credible.

One requirement will be for some sort of space based early warning system to supplement the powerful long-range radars they will have to deploy both in the air and in the western Himalaya mountains. India is lucky in that it does have a few good places where it could place radars that, if they were powerful enough, could cover most of the possible launch sites. But they will still need satellites to cover the whole of Pakistan and to provide a secure and unambiguous warning of a launch event.
India could, if they wanted to, gain access to the US DSP (Defense Support Program) and SBIRS (Space Based Infra Red System) information the same way that NATO, Israel, Japan, and South Korea all have this data available to one degree or another. However, given the history of the subcontinent, and the shaky basis on which the new US-India relationship rests, the government may not be willing to put its trust in Washington’s goodwill.

They may choose to build their own heat detecting satellites. The IRS (Indian Remote Sensing) and Cartosat series of remote sensing spacecraft have given India some of the expertise required to build an equivalent of the DSP. Such a system does not have to be as heavy or as sophisticated as the US one; it could, in fact, consist of a larger number of small satellites in low Earth orbit. This would certainly be expensive by Indian standards and would take at least as long to develop and deploy as the indigenous interceptor missiles themselves.

India could, if they wanted to, gain access to the US DSP and SBIRS information, but given the history of the subcontinent, and the shaky basis on which the new US-India relationship rests, the government may not be willing to put its trust in Washington’s goodwill.
Another factor that will add to the expense of this project is the fact that India is a big country and will need a fairly large number of long-range and short-range BMD missiles. The better that they can do in the boost phase the better off they will be, but there are few signs that they, or anyone else except the US, are seriously looking at this capability.

As long as India vigorously pursues this capability it will put Pakistan into the same kind of dilemma that faced the Soviet Union after President Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) program in March 1983. Islamabad has neither the resources nor the technology to compete with India in this field. Indian missile defense will not, by itself, prevent a Pakistani “loose nuke” situation, but it will reduce the value of their atomic stockpile.
They also lack the resources to build up a very large and diverse force of reliable, sophisticated, nuclear-tipped missiles that could overwhelm an effective Indian defense system. If they tried to build such a force they would either have to weaken their already limited conventional defense forces or spend themselves into economic oblivion. India’s robust and growing economy is a strategic asset that is slowly but surely making itself felt in the military balance between the two subcontinental rivals.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Taylor Dinerman is an author and journalist based in New York City.

 

[foxhound]

another point.......system not effective?

ref:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/10/21/what_missile_defense?page=0,1
What Missile Defense?

Missile defense will be strategically useless against the nuclear threats from Iran -- or anywhere else.
BY YOUSAF BUTT | OCTOBER 21, 2009

Barack Obama's administration has characterized its new missile defense plan as a more judicious alternative to George W. Bush's expensive (but untested) Eastern European-based interceptor system. Writing in the Financial Times last month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called it "a stronger and smarter approach than the previous program," noting it will be deployed faster and less expensively, so as "not [to] waste time or taxpayer money." That may sound like a winning combination, but in reality, the main difference between the old and new plans is that the latter doesn't step on Russia's toes. Otherwise, it will be just as strategically ineffective as the original.

More... Speaking broadly, missile defense comes in two different flavors. The first is tactical missile defense, such as the U.S. Patriot system, which protects a theater of battle against short-range conventional rockets. The second category is strategic, or national, missile defense: systems meant to guard against adversaries' nuclear-tipped missiles. While the first of these types is conceptually sensible, the second is not and may even make the world a more dangerous place.
The reason for this is quite simple. A 70 percent effective tactical missile defense (to pick an optimistic number) makes a lot of sense. If 10 conventional missiles are headed your way, stopping seven is undeniably a good thing. Stopping seven of 10 nuclear warheads, however, is less decisive since even one will visit unacceptable devastation upon the United States. Just one nuclear-tipped missile penetrating your missile shield is about the equivalent of a million conventional missiles making it through.
So even after the United States has set up and activated a national missile-defense system, it still will not have neutralized the perceived threat from Iran. Not only that, but Washington's strategic calculations toward Tehran will remain unaffected: The United States will still need to be just as worried about Iran's missiles, since the destruction of even one U.S. city or region is simply too high a cost to bear. For that security equation to change, national missile defense would need to intercept 100 percent of incoming nuclear warheads -- an unattainable goal for any piece of machinery.

Fielding a missile shield may even encourage adversarial countries to build up missile and warhead stockpiles to ensure that some make it through unstopped. A good way to encourage the North Koreans to build more missiles would be to surround them with missile-defense interceptors.
Lastly, a national missile-defense system may also embolden future U.S. political leaders to stake out policies that they otherwise wouldn't have risked, in the mistaken belief that they would be protected from any possible attack. In this scenario, missile defense could provoke its own test run, triggering a nuclear war. If you believe this to be a vague academic possibility, think about hurricane insurance: People endanger their lives and property on a regular basis by building on unsafe ground in the knowledge that they are "covered" for catastrophic events.

The Obama team says that its new plan will provide better protection more quickly from the threat of Iranian missiles. Unfortunately, better is not good enough; Washington would need a perfect missile defense. Anything less is strategically useless, and downright dangerous.

 

[foxhound]

within the chinese context......some interesting points raised!
ref:Asia Times Online :: China News, China Business News, Taiwan and Hong Kong News and Business.
Greater China
Jan 16, 2009


China can't stop India's missile systemBy Peter J Brown

India considers its emerging anti-missile system an absolute necessity. As each day passes, the signs of instability in Pakistan become more troubling and the drum beat grows louder from Pakistan's Swat Valley, where a militant culture is taking root which is neither tolerant nor passive in nature.

Beijing cannot be happy about India's anti-missile plans and what this might mean for China's long-term strategic interests in the region. More than anything else, it is the uncertainty of the outcome that is causing it such discomfort. The US seems determined to surround China with US-built anti-missile systems. Using North Korea as a valid excuse at first, the US anti-missile

footprint could soon extend from Japan - including Japanese cruisers stationed offshore - and South Korea to Taiwan and India. Sure, China's trade with India is growing quickly, but that may prove to be inconsequential. According to Dr Jing-dong Yuan, director of the East Asia Non-proliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Non-proliferation Studies, besides substantial progress in Sino-Indian relations and defense cooperation, trade between the two countries grew to more than US$38 billion in 2007, and the target for 2010 is $60 billion.
China is keenly aware that India's ties to the US and Japan have grown even stronger at the same time.

Writing in World Politics Review in late November in the article "Chinese Perspectives on a Rising India", Yuan said, "Beijing is also wary of New Delhi's eastward strategy of developing greater economic and military ties with Japan and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries. Indeed, the increasingly warm ties between New Delhi and Tokyo have been carefully watched by strategic analysts in Beijing."
Having transformed Seoul and Tokyo into perhaps the best-defended capitals in Asia as far as anti-missile capabilities are concerned, the US is now a persistent player behind the scenes in New Delhi. (See India and the US talk missile defense, Asia Times Online, Jan 14.)

Among other things, just days ago, Foreign Policy magazine designated the US-India joint anti-missile program as number four on its list of the "The Top 10 Stories You Missed in 2008." The magazine's team wrote:
[A] US-facilitated missile shield in India could become a flash point for great-power struggles for decades to come. The plans are likely to add to fears in Beijing that the United States is attempting to temper China's growing influence in Asia. [US Secretary of Defense Robert M] Gates's trip to New Delhi was part of a tour of three of the region's democracies - India, Australia, and Indonesia - which could be used to counter China's regional ambitions if relations with the United States turn frosty. Even more troubling, an Indian missile shield risks triggering a crisis in the nuclear rivalry between India and Pakistan.A year ago, V K Saraswat, a senior India Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) official, told the Associated Press that India was on track to start comprehensive tests of its own missile defense system in 2009 using radar technology for tracking and fire control which the DRDO developed jointly with Israel and France. The DRDO did not respond to questions from Asia Times Online.

According to Subrata Ghoshroy, a research associate at the Science, Technology and Global Security Working Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who heads the Promoting Nuclear Stability in South Asia Project, India has already demonstrated its ability to track missiles and launch an interceptor fairly accurately, and also the capability to perform onboard data processing to handle ground-based radar updates until an autonomous seeker can take over for the homing phase.

"India has conducted two intercept tests with an interceptor that is basically a Prithvi missile, their workhorse. I do not know how scripted the tests were. The target surely was not maneuvering," said Ghoshroy.
According to Eric Hagt, China program director at the World Security Institute in Washington DC, India's successful test in a two-tiered system - an exo-atmospheric and the more difficult endo-atmospheric anti-ballistic missile defense systems - "does not necessarily make these systems operational as more tests under more stringent conditions are needed for that, but these successful tests still send a strong message that India is dedicated to acquiring a multi-tiered system, and is making substantive progress toward that goal".

In addition, two new anti-ballistic missiles that can intercept intermediate-range ballistic missiles and inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBM) are in development, according to Hagt.

"These missiles, the AD-1 and AD-2, are being developed to intercept ballistic missiles with ranges of 5,000 kilometers or more. Test trials of these systems are expected some time in the next two years," he said, adding that India's significant work on its support infrastructure for operational missile defense systems - on the ground, in the air and in space - is attracting very little attention as this unfolds.

When China conducted its controversial anti-satellite (ASAT) test in early 2007, India lit up immediately. Dr Sharad Joshi at the Monterey Institute Center for Non-proliferation Studies wrote at length about India's reaction to this ASAT test in his March 2007 special report for the journal WMD Insights. He mentioned Jasjit Singh's role in shaping the debate. A well-known Indian military expert, Singh called attention to the failure of India's military to become engaged in India's space program.

"He expressed concern that China's anti-satellite expertise and its increasing focus on anti-missile defense capabilities could significantly degrade India's strategic nuclear deterrent," wrote Joshi. "He also highlighted the potential threat posed by China's growing cooperation with Pakistan in developing multi-mission satellites, which will increase Pakistan's surveillance capabilities, even as China's anti-satellite weapon capability makes India's emerging space-based surveillance system more vulnerable.
"The analyst also stressed that while China's military related space capabilities are being expanded as a response to US dominance in space, Beijing's growing prowess in this environment could easily be used against India in a future confrontation."

Mindful of China's space might or not, not everyone in India is so willing to endorse a combining of India's military and civilian space teams.

"I do not believe that the India Space Research Organization's (ISRO) success will have any direct impact on the missile defense program. ISRO seems to be focused on demonstrating advances in space technology and missions in direct competition with China and also commercialization through Antrix," said Ghoshroy. "The ISRO brass is still very much civilian and would like to maintain its distance from the military."

At the same time, the ISRO's proud space record has instilled a definite sense of confidence in India's high-tech defense sector.

"The US is hoping to sell India the Patriot Advanced Capability(PAC)-3 missile defense system, [but] the Indians are more interested in building their own systems than buying some from the US," said Victoria Samson, senior analyst at the Washington DC-based Center for Defense Information. "They have had some tests of an air defense system that they built themselves, but this used "proximity fragmentation" instead of a hit-to-kill interceptor. They have approached the US about collaborating to develop a hit-to-kill capability."

Earlier this month, reports about any US-Indian anti-missile cooperation were quickly dismissed by the US Department of Defense.

"China obviously is following this with great interest, since a close US-Indian cooperation in missile defenses not only is an indication of their shared strategic interests, but also has implications for China since they can defend against both Pakistani and Chinese missiles," said Yuan. "Beijing now is more confident that India is not very likely to cede its autonomy in foreign policy and be - and be seen as - part of a US-orchestrated scheme against China. China may not like what it sees, but can live with them."

India has ordered Akash surface-to-air missiles from Bharat Electronics Ltd, which Nathan Hughes, a military analyst at the Texas-based geopolitical intelligence company Stratfor, labeled "an important act of financial investment, even if the [Indian] military reportedly continues to have reservations about its capability".

"The limitation for India has not been the lack of a desire to field the systems, but the technical limitation that they are not ready. Even though it is buying the Akash, it is not at all clear that the missile has meaningful operational capability against Pakistani missiles and Pakistani cruise missiles which present a very different targeting challenge," said Hughes.
"One cannot overstate the technical complexity of sufficiently capable missile defenses," he added. "New Delhi still has years and years of development work to do. The more limited range of Pakistan's arsenal simplifies things somewhat, but places much higher demands on reaction speed."
While India can benefit by studying the different paths being taken recently by countries such as Japan and Turkey, for example, the fact that Israeli satellites are so welcome at ISRO's launch facility on India's southwest coast points to a dynamic and potent partnership.

"[India has] a relationship with Israel that some are worried may
lead to [Israel] selling missile defense technology to them. If they did, that would be the Arrow Weapon System which the United States co-developed with Israel and a move which Washington would have to approve - at least for all of it to be sold," said Samson. "If India decided it wanted to buy a missile defense system instead of developing it indigenously, it could follow Turkey's move. Turkey has been coy about its intent for its missile defense system and has been assiduously courted by the United States and Russia to buy their missile defense systems."
According to Hagt, although attempts by India to acquire the Israeli Arrow II have been unsuccessful thus far, the accompanying Green Pine radar system was sold to India.

"Indian sources have also [said] that New Delhi has agreed to pay $2.5 billion to co-develop an air and missile defense system with Israel," said Hagt. "The project envisions a network of 18 batteries that could intercept incoming missiles, aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles. India and Israel are natural partners as India needs missile and air defense systems, where Israel is strong, and Israel is short on space-launch facilities, where India has an advantage."
According to Rick Fisher, senior fellow at the Washington DC-based International Assessment and Strategy Center, India has designed a system to counter short- to medium-range Pakistani missiles and does not appear able to able to counter Chinese intermediate or inter-continental range nuclear missiles

"While there have been reports of Indian interest in longer-range Russian anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems like the S-300V, that has not been realized. India's current priority has been to acquire technologies that it can absorb to develop its own missile defenses, and so far, it appears that India's preference has been to cooperate with Israel and perhaps France," said Fisher.
The George W Bush administration's attempts to sell India a US missile defense system began more than five years ago, and it has been an uphill climb from the start. One viewpoint portrays India as a very cautious if not downright stubborn party, not at all eager to retire Russia as its chief arms supplier despite recent signs of US enthusiasm for a much closer strategic partnership. Ghoshroy disagrees with this view, and detects a definite shift in attitude towards Russian weaponry.

"The new strategic partnership with the US is playing a big part in this shift, including the US-India nuclear deal," said Ghoshroy. "Among the scientists and engineers, there is close collaboration with Israel. Curiously, there is talk of an Israel, India [and] South Africa nexus to thwart the US. This might seem far-fetched, but each of these countries despite their ties to the US, dislikes it for many reasons."

On the other hand, India may simply be reluctant to shake its Cold War apprehensions of US policy, and missile defense cooperation may develop only after a warmer consensus emerges in Delhi.
"Even though India may currently be coy, it remains in US interests to aid the emergence of an Indian missile defense capability," said Fisher. "First, this can help deflect a regional concentration on offensive weapons, and if there is then an offensive-defensive balance, the chances for negotiated limits will increase. This dynamic can also eventually help China to consider that a declining utility for offensive nuclear weapons can increase the attractiveness of negotiated verifiable nuclear limits."

No matter in what direction India turns, China can be expected to sell Pakistan a corresponding anti-missile capability, according to Fisher.

"Pakistani sources already expect that China will sell a future anti-theater ballistic missile defense or (Area Theater Ballistic Missile Defense) ATBMD-capable version of the HQ-9 surface to air missile," said Fisher. "India's development of missile defenses is likely to increase the People's Liberation Army's desire to break out of its now 'stealth' ABM program, likely being done in parallel with its anti-satellite program. China will likely deploy an anti-ICBM capable ABM system before India does so."

China no doubt sees India's anti-missile defense effort as destabilizing. Among other things, as India moves to deploy its system, China fears that Pakistan might counter "by changing its nuclear weapons deployment posture by moving them closer to Indian border for quicker reaction time and making them more difficult to defend against, or by putting them on higher alert status by mating warheads with delivery vehicles, etc. Whatever the reaction by Pakistan it will lead to greater destabilization", said Hagt.
"Some in China suspect that India ultimately has ambitions to become a dominant player in the Indian Ocean and even further afield in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, along which energy and other interests lie. As such, India's nuclear build-up and missile defense targets China's nuclear force," adds Hagt. "The fact that India is working on a range of intermediate and longer range systems beyond the requirements of addressing Pakistan security concerns, appears to support this theory."
In addition, any integration of India into the US global missile defense system, whether it involves interceptors, or the stationing of tracking infrastructure would profoundly affect China's own security.

"China sees this as part of US strategic encirclement of China. This is particularly sensitive for China since its northeast and northwest regions are currently blindspots for US radar systems," said Hagt. "That will disappear with Indian-American missile defense integration. The region would be 'thoroughly exposed', thus vastly decreasing China's 'strategic depth' advantage in this region. This, in essence, would be another 'Poland of the East' in terms of having another overseas missile defense base, this time pointed at China's heart."

Despite what was said earlier about ISRO wanting to maintain its distance from the DRDO team, any missile defense system would dovetail neatly with India's bold space objectives.

"Let us not forget, missile defense systems can be used as ASATs as well, as the US-193 NRO satellite shootdown last year demonstrated," said Hagt. "There is only indirect evidence that India has this in mind in developing missile defense, but the lessons of the Chinese ASAT test were certainly not lost on the Indians."

Peter J Brown is a satellite journalist from Maine, USA.

 

[Dalai Lama]

"Some in China suspect that India ultimately has ambitions to become a dominant player in the Indian Ocean and even further afield in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, along which energy and other interests lie. As such, India's nuclear build-up and missile defense targets China's nuclear force," adds Hagt. "The fact that India is working on a range of intermediate and longer range systems beyond the requirements of addressing Pakistan security concerns, appears to support this theory."

In addition, any integration of India into the US global missile defense system, whether it involves interceptors, or the stationing of tracking infrastructure would profoundly affect China's own security.

Hmm... more Chinese paranoia. For the bolded part, have a look at this:

http://www.defence.pk/forums/wmd-missiles/86486-icbm-pakistan-intercontinental-missile-underway.html

The Pakistanis are working on an ICBM capable of 7000 km (ie. more than necessary to address their perceived Indian threat.)

If the Chinese fear US encirclement, they need to understand that India fears Chinese encirclement. Bottom line is: if you're going to make India's security more vulnerable then you need to expect the same in return.

 

[Dalai Lama]

Thanks foxhound! A lot of very useful information.