S-400,NASAMS,BMD and Now THAAD !! Is India preparing to tweaks it’s Nuclear Policies?

[Hellfire]

i appreciate.very good and informative post.i can see a pattern too.india believes in first strike policy but they are making us fool by denying this fact.i think we should focus more on air defense systems.

Yes and no.

Indian No First Use is very much a policy. However, there is a very specific line wherein it was defined as to under what conditions will India consider use of Nuclear Weapons - 'The threat or use of Nuclear Weapons against Indian territory or its military forces'.

When one considers the same, then, any move to prepare for a strike against Indian territory or Indian forces, will entail a strike by India, irrespective of whether an actual strike has taken place or not.

 

[CriticalThought]

You know, we could definitely use someone like you in the upper echelons of decision-making.

I bow my head to the might of your lead hat. And while I am at it, allow me to bow out of the conversation as well. But that point about being seen as an equal had to be made.

 

[Hellfire]

He is actually "informed" with plenty of gaps. For example, when he gives the example of BN Mullick and the failure to assess the intelligence inputs, need one remind him that the intelligence inputs clearly stated that there was a Chinese build up North of Thag-La in response to forward location of Indian troops beyond the McMahon Line and establishment of the Dhola post and likelihood of Chinese attack could not be ruled out? It was Nehru who persisted with a political directive to negate those inputs. The so called 'checks' and 'balances' do not work as he is trying to put them across as working, for he has no clue. Even the CCS is hardly aware of the actual planning/execution of military operations, often given a post-facto briefing to align the various organs of the Government for the apparent reasons.

What is being done is merely to streamline various processes for example the plethora of Special Forces and Special Operations Cells into an unified structure, in order to streamline the information sharing and dissemination, which is, at any given time of the day, a mess.

Ajay Shukla, as usual, made a political opening statement instead of actually commenting upon the actual committee.

As for the point regarding PMO, it is an open secret that the PMO is very active under the present PM, unlike the previous dispensation, where 10 Janpath was more active

Today, every JS is scared of sitting idly at his desk, twiddling his thumbs. The rule is clear - any officer at any ministry, may put up a proposal/noting to JS and wait for action. If, after a couple of days, there is no action, the same can be put directly to Minister concerned, wherein, if not acted upon within 3 to 4 days, the same can be mailed directly to PM (PMO). Oh, it is fun to see decisions being made .... the contention decision making will become sluggish had me in peals of laughter.

 

[Arsalan 345]

Yes and no.

Indian No First Use is very much a policy. However, there is a very specific line wherein it was defined as to under what conditions will India consider use of Nuclear Weapons - 'The threat or use of Nuclear Weapons against Indian territory or its military forces'.

When one considers the same, then, any move to prepare for a strike against Indian territory or Indian forces, will entail a strike by India, irrespective of whether an actual strike has taken place or not.

okay.i don't think that we will use nasr.i think first we will try to defend.if things gets out of control then we might initiate something else before final and last nasr.i believe pakistan is making chemical weapons.i know india is making it too.for us,anything that can stop indian army is useful.i don't believe that we use nasr directly during the initial phase of war.indian policy is very cunning.they know last weapon is nasr so if we use,they will use nuclear weapons as well.what if pakistan can't use nasr and repel advancing indian army? i think chemical weapons can deny indian excuse of nuclear attack on it's army and hence india will not be able to nuke pakistan.the policy is simple.if you attack,indians will attack but what if other methods are use to stop?in this case,india will be left with no choice but to avoid nuclear weapons.it's the job of our army to find another solution.nasr can't be the last weapon to stop indian army.united states will put sanctions on both india and pakistan if we admit publicly that we are making chemical weapons.

 

[Marinejeger]

NASAMS is for critical infrastructure defence against aircraft, not missiles. Despite using NASAMS to protect DC airspace, the US is investing in the Israeli/American Iron Dome from cruise missile defence of US territory as NASAMS was deemed less effective versus cruise missiles. The version India is buying is mobile, but fixed to a location.

NASAMS is used by a dozen countries including the US, Norway, Spain, Oman and Finland, has orders from Australia, India and Indonesia and has seen deployment through NATO airspace, such as in Poland during NATO Command conferences.

A high mobility variant is in development with several difference launch vehicles being trialed.

 

[randomradio]

I was referring to the SFCs, which already could mobilize in a few days. Now I believe they can mobilize within 24 hours, specially the Airforce SFC.

Yep. The SFC. It's possible, what you said. There may even be concerted moves to move away from the NFU, at least in Pakistan's case. After all, it's just a flimsy bit of paper, we can back away from it anytime we want to.

Yes, but Nasr was introduced because of India started working on a new doctrine. This is a never ending cycle.

But the idea behind the new doctrine was to keep the war below the nuclear threshold without being an existential threat to Pak. So, if anything, it's Pakistan that's unwilling to compromise on even the possibility of a limited war.

I can assure you this, there is no 'defanging' Pakistan, it is way too late now.

Maybe not 100%. Maybe not even 50%. Maybe only 25%. That's still 30 less nukes to worry about.

Of course, it will take a decade (at least) before India has any sort of 'umbrella' over its major cities. But Pakistan must plan ahead, therefore the counter-measures.

What do you think would work as countermeasures in Pakistan's case?

I personally believe that the only good an Indian BMD could do is to defend against an rogue launch, which has an almost zero probability of occurring. Against a coordinated launch at a mass scale, using all available resources...its pointless.

We wouldn't invest in a BMD that couldn't stop a massive strike.

 

[Joe Shearer]

He is actually "informed" with plenty of gaps. For example, when he gives the example of BN Mullick and the failure to assess the intelligence inputs, need one remind him that the intelligence inputs clearly stated that there was a Chinese build up North of Thag-La in response to forward location of Indian troops beyond the McMahon Line and establishment of the Dhola post and likelihood of Chinese attack could not be ruled out? It was Nehru who persisted with a political directive to negate those inputs. The so called 'checks' and 'balances' do not work as he is trying to put them across as working, for he has no clue. Even the CCS is hardly aware of the actual planning/execution of military operations, often given a post-facto briefing to align the various organs of the Government for the apparent reasons.

What is being done is merely to streamline various processes for example the plethora of Special Forces and Special Operations Cells into an unified structure, in order to streamline the information sharing and dissemination, which is, at any given time of the day, a mess.



Ajay Shukla, as usual, made a political opening statement instead of actually commenting upon the actual committee.

As for the point regarding PMO, it is an open secret that the PMO is very active under the present PM, unlike the previous dispensation, where 10 Janpath was more active

Today, every JS is scared of sitting idly at his desk, twiddling his thumbs. The rule is clear - any officer at any ministry, may put up a proposal/noting to JS and wait for action. If, after a couple of days, there is no action, the same can be put directly to Minister concerned, wherein, if not acted upon within 3 to 4 days, the same can be mailed directly to PM (PMO). Oh, it is fun to see decisions being made .... the contention decision making will become sluggish had me in peals of laughter.

That is a very interesting response: not necessarily one that I agree with, coming as I do from a different point of the compass, but certainly reasonable and coherent.

No because A is an idiot of highest grade.

No matter how much A spends on weapons, they cannot neutralize Pakistani ballistic missiles threat at all due to close proximity with the neighbor. More ever, B is clever enough to develop strategic and tactical weapons which can neutralize any top rated defensive mechanism in the form of MIRVs, sub sonic cruise missiles hence putting A's billions $$$ into waste.

This, of course, based on the logic that B will threaten to commit suicide and everybody backs off.

Not to indulge in conspiracy theories, but do you think at any point, the interests of Australia japan or India may collide with american interest? Don't you think when india or japan develops they may assert themselves as a military and economic powers and may have to go against America.


Lol there is no poverty in india? Indian living standards are best in the world. Troll.

There is poverty in India. Indian living standards are in the bottom one-third of the list. Does that alter the asymmetry? Is this part of you the same as the part that gave the earlier response? No reason to suspect trolling; look at the bombast on display and think through the responses for yourself.

A good read and a valuable information gained from the posters through this thread. I think Mods should make a new section in the PDF open for discussion and no trolling. Anyone trolling there should be kicked out or banned from the site. It will really help the guys looking for genuine information. i hope Mods will look upto this...

I was strongly tempted to give this an outright positive rating.

 

[randomradio]

NASAMS is for critical infrastructure defence against aircraft, not missiles. Despite using NASAMS to protect DC airspace, the US is investing in the Israeli/American Iron Dome from cruise missile defence of US territory as NASAMS was deemed less effective versus cruise missiles. The version India is buying is mobile, but fixed to a location.

NASAMS is used by a dozen countries including the US, Norway, Spain, Oman and Finland, has orders from Australia, India and Indonesia and has seen deployment through NATO airspace, such as in Poland during NATO Command conferences.

A high mobility variant is in development with several difference launch vehicles being trialed.

NASAMS and Iron Dome are two very different systems.

And NASAMS would work better against CMs than the Iron Dome since the NASAMS have far more sophisticated missiles with their own seekers.

Iron Dome has been designed to stop short range ballistic targets, particularly artillery shells and rockets. And also PGMs.

 

[Nilgiri]

We wouldn't invest in a BMD that couldn't stop a massive strike.

The assumption among some here is that BMD is not modelled and tested and re-modelled and refined and re-tested etc...against exactly that (and make every successful Kt delivery that much more costlier/unlikely to the opponent, forcing commensurate investment escalation on their end....lowering threshold after all just makes assets that much more vulnerable to conventional first strike even). Over time it makes sense for the bigger opponent to leverage its economic size disparity this way.

There is a reason that the USSR folded in a hurry in the late 80s and early 90s...ending the cold war....with an arsenal several times larger than the subcontinent + China + UK/France put together (and also appreciably larger than the US). Not to mention the USSR was not that much smaller in total economic bulk compared to the US either...rather the US had developed and maintained a drastic qualitative edge from its championing of free market economics (which could better let multi-stream R&D at the frontier compete more broadly).

It is often overlooked (yes the Afghan war was a major drain on resources and the fiscal pressures from the brezhnev era stagnation were starting to really catch up too....but it was really the mere threat of SDI that sent their military analysts into a real tizzy and resource clamouring that really muddied the core policy response/resolve and was the straw that broke the camels back).

In hindsight the US probably should have pushed Nike-Zeus hard and early esp while they had massive strategic warhead ratio over the soviets...but they got involved in Vietnam fiscally instead...which was what really got the 70s "detente" on the table.

There is much to learn from all of that...applied/scaled to even more advancements made today.

 

[randomradio]

The assumption among some here is that BMD is not modelled and tested and re-modelled and refined and re-tested etc...against exactly that (and make every successful Kt delivery that much more costlier/unlikely to the opponent, forcing commensurate investment escalation on their end....lowering threshold after all just makes assets that much more vulnerable to conventional first strike even). Over time it makes sense for the bigger opponent to leverage its economic size disparity this way.

Something to add to that. S-300 exercises in Russia.

https://army-news.ru/2010/10/kompleks-s300-vpervye-porazil/
In addition, during the past academic year, the anti-aircraft missile units of the Northwestern Air Force and Air Defense units took part in the Air Force Combat Conference at the Ashuluk training ground, where they showed high proficiency and professionalism in conducting air combat. “ The impact density reached six targets per minute, and in just two minutes of the battle, 14 target missiles were destroyed - analogs of the prospective enemy’s promising air attack weapons ,” the general said.

 

[CriticalThought]

The assumption among some here is that BMD is not modelled and tested and re-modelled and refined and re-tested etc...against exactly that (and make every successful Kt delivery that much more costlier/unlikely to the opponent, forcing commensurate investment escalation on their end....lowering threshold after all just makes assets that much more vulnerable to conventional first strike even). Over time it makes sense for the bigger opponent to leverage its economic size disparity this way.

There is a reason that the USSR folded in a hurry in the late 80s and early 90s...ending the cold war....with an arsenal several times larger than the subcontinent + China + UK/France put together (and also appreciably larger than the US). Not to mention the USSR was not that much smaller in total economic bulk compared to the US either...rather the US had developed and maintained a drastic qualitative edge from its championing of free market economics (which could better let multi-stream R&D at the frontier compete more broadly).

It is often overlooked (yes the Afghan war was a major drain on resources and the fiscal pressures from the brezhnev era stagnation were starting to really catch up too....but it was really the mere threat of SDI that sent their military analysts into a real tizzy and resource clamouring that really muddied the core policy response/resolve and was the straw that broke the camels back).

In hindsight the US probably should have pushed Nike-Zeus hard and early esp while they had massive strategic warhead ratio over the soviets...but they got involved in Vietnam fiscally instead...which was what really got the 70s "detente" on the table.

There is much to learn from all of that...applied/scaled to even more advancements made today.

Something to add to that. S-300 exercises in Russia.

https://army-news.ru/2010/10/kompleks-s300-vpervye-porazil/
In addition, during the past academic year, the anti-aircraft missile units of the Northwestern Air Force and Air Defense units took part in the Air Force Combat Conference at the Ashuluk training ground, where they showed high proficiency and professionalism in conducting air combat. “ The impact density reached six targets per minute, and in just two minutes of the battle, 14 target missiles were destroyed - analogs of the prospective enemy’s promising air attack weapons ,” the general said.

Nothing beats saturation attacks. And the offending side can use blanks to cause attrition of expensive BMD missiles. Advantage offenders.

 

[randomradio]

Nothing beats saturation attacks. And the offending side can use blanks to cause attrition of expensive BMD missiles. Advantage offenders.

It's not easy to fool a sufficiently modern system. Especially when it's integrated with other radars. Also, optical systems are ridiculously accurate, so they are pretty quick to judge the nature of the warhead after reentry.

 

[CriticalThought]

It's not easy to fool a sufficiently modern system. Especially when it's integrated with other radars. Also, optical systems are ridiculously accurate, so they are pretty quick to judge the nature of the warhead after reentry.

Nopes. There is no way to identify how much damage a given warhead will cause, and what is its true nature.

 

[randomradio]

Nopes. There is no way to identify how much damage a given warhead will cause, and what is its true nature.

Decoys are generally much, much smaller than a warhead. So they do not have the same heat or radar signature and the ballistic coefficient is also different.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/b...n-now-take-decoys-thats-really-big-deal-28627

 

[CriticalThought]

Decoys are generally much, much smaller than a warhead. So they do not have the same heat or radar signature and the ballistic coefficient is also different.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/b...n-now-take-decoys-thats-really-big-deal-28627

That is merely an unsubstantiated claim. You think Pakistan doesn't have IR cameras and radars to verify that our decoys look the same as actual warhead? You think we can't control the weight distribution to simulate actual warhead trajectory? Well, you can keep thinking what you like, but when you actually publish a research paper, please post a link here.