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But does this all mean that the procurement of S-400 LR-SAMs is a foregone conclusion? Absolutely not. Significant questions still remain over the yet-to-be-demonstrated effectiveness of the hypersonic 77N6-N and the 77N6-NI missiles. In addition, a lot will depend on Russia’s ability/inability to ramp up series-production of such missiles over the next five years. Also, exercising the Russian option means that India will have to invest cost-prohibitive financial resources on deploying a network of space-based early-warning satellites, since Russia has diminished capacities in this arena. But most importantly, the US is not sitting by and let Russia and Israel have the cake and eat it as well. Since 2012, the US has been taking keen interest in India’s plans for acquiring exo-atmospheric/endo-atmospheric interceptor missiles, especially after the latter officially decided not to field a new generation of solid-fuelled tactical ballistic missiles—be they conventionally armed or nuclear-capable—for replacing the liquid-fuelled Prithvi-1 NLOS-BSMs of 1990s vintage. What this essentially meant, was that unlike Pakistan, India will not use ballistic missiles of any type that are conventionally armed, since such weapons have zero counter-force/counter-strike value. Pakistan, on the other hand, views conventionally armed ballistic missiles as weapons that can be employed as ‘terror weapons’ against civilian targets like large Indian cities as part of an effort to demoralise the civilian population residing in cities that are either India’s financial hubs, or technological hubs.
Therefore, if Pakistan wants to secure the deterrent value of its strategic WMD arsenals against an Indian TMD shield, it can only do so if it formally adopts a ‘no first-use’ doctrine with universal applicability, at least for its strategic WMD inventory, if not for the short-range TNWs that are presently intended for use only in battlefields within Pakistan. Whether Pakistan will be willing to, or forced into adopting such a posture following the forthcoming meeting between US President Barack Obama and Pakistani Prime Minister Mian Mohd Nawaz Sharif (slated for October 22), remains to be seen. Prior to this meeting, however, there will be a series of meetings held in Washington DC between the Pakistan Army’s COAS, Gen Raheel Sharif and his SPD Director-General on one hand, and their counterparts from the Pentagon.
If Pakistan decides against adopting the a ‘no first-use’ doctrine, then the US will have two policy options to act upon: firstly, degrade and diminish the credibility of Pakistan’s nuclear WMD assets by offering to supply India with the hypersonic (Mach 8.2) Theater High-Altitude Air-Defence (THAAD) TMD system that has been jointly developed by Lockheed Martin and Raytheon; and secondly, initiate contingency planning along with India, the UK, Afghanistan and possibly Iran, for physically confiscating or destroying Pakistan’s entire arsenal of nuclear WMDs.
It is in this light that one ought to view the symbolism of Indian Prime MinisterNarendra Modi’smeetingwith the Chairpersonof Lockheed Martin, Ms Marillyn Hewson, inNew York on September 24, 2015. That India’s national security decision-makers will favour the THAAD over the S-400 is hardly in doubt, since they are already convinced about the superior performance parameters of the US-origin TMD solution. At the military-industrial level too, both Lockheed Martin and Raytheon have already established their reputations in India as worthy industrial offsets partners and leading network-centric solutions providers. For instance, the systems integration software for the Indian Navy’s Gurgaon-based, Rs.452 crore state-of-the-artInformation Management and Analysis Centre (IMAC), which was commissioned on November 23, was provided entirely byRaytheon, with the computing servers coming from CISCO. In future, the IMAC will morphe into the ‘nodal fusion centre’ of the Navy’s Rs.1,003 crore National Command Control Communications and Intelligence Network (NC3I).
For the IAF’s countrywide, quick-reaction TMD network too would such a‘nodal fusion centre’ be required, along with the requirement for networking with the vast array of space-based early warning satellites that the US presently deploys. Therefore, if the IAF opts for the optimum TMD solution that makes use of THAAD, then India for sure will be required to ink theBasic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geo-Spatial Cooperation (BECA), which is the key to securing access to ballistic missile early warning alerts from the US Air Force Space Command’s satellite networks.
