Page 2 of 2 China can't stop India's missile system
By Peter J Brown
"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.
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