Author : Arun Prakash
Two important developments, within this
eventful month, have served to significantly alter India’s strategic
profile in the region: the commissioning of the nuclear-propelled attack
submarine, INS Chakra, and the successful test-firing of the
5,000-km-range ballistic missile Agni V. Since both convey strong
messages in the context of China’s hegemonic intent, they have the
potential to be regional “game-changers”; the former by altering the
maritime balance of power in the Indian Ocean, and the latter by
providing a much-needed boost to the credibility of India’s 14-year-old
nuclear deterrence.
The long-awaited launch of Agni V has led to justifiable jubilation
amongst DRDO scientists and aroused a degree of jingoistic pride among
the citizenry. The purists, who are quibbling over whether this range
entitles the weapon to be dubbed an inter-continental ballistic missile
(ICBM) or merely an intermediate-range missile, should note that the
distance from Jorhat in Assam to Khabarovsk, in the Russian far east,
right across China, is just about 4,200 km. However, those dancing on
the streets must also bear in mind that for India, committed as it is to
“no first use”, Agni V is neither a weapon of war nor a sabre for
rattling. It will become a vital component of India’s nuclear deterrent,
whose sole purpose is the prevention of nuclear war.
At the same time, the diehard pacifists in our midst would do well to
recall the ancient Athenian wisdom that, in a realist world, “The strong
do what they will and the weak suffer what they must.” Even short of
war, there is much that India needs to guard against — coercion,
compellence, arm-twisting and blackmail — in order to retain its
strategic autonomy. Given that our current geo-political environment is
fraught with hazards, Agni V should bring reassurance to our security
planners.
As we undertake a realistic assessment of the impact of this
weapon-system on our security, it is important to strike a balance
between hyper-scepticism, of which enough will be forthcoming from
foreign detractors, and delusionary self-congratulation that Indians are
prone to indulge in. In the strategic arena, it is important to keep
one’s feet firmly on the ground because others, especially potential
adversaries, will be undertaking detailed and painstaking appraisals of
our newfound capability on their own.
While it was heartening to hear the DRDO chief V.K. Saraswat declaring
Agni V to be 80 per cent indigenous, one hopes that the remaining 20 per
cent, which comes from external sources, does not pertain to vital
technologies such as the solid-propellant rocket motor or the
high-precision guidance system. The effectiveness of this missile as a
weapon of deterrence will be a function of its accuracy and the
explosive yield of its nuclear warhead. Since boosted-fission nuclear
warheads are India’s preferred choice, their limited yield of 200-300
kilotonnes demands much higher navigational accuracies so that
detonation takes place close enough to the intended target to inflict
“unacceptable” damage. This would require the missile to impact within a
few tens of metres after traversing 5,000 km. Given their past record,
Indian scientists are perfectly capable of mastering these technologies,
but should there be any gaps, they need to be bridged at the earliest.
India’s security planners have, so far, downplayed the significance of
numbers as far as nuclear warheads and their missile carriers are
concerned, and remained vaguely coy while defining a “minimum”
deterrent. However, numbers assume critical significance for a
“no-first-use” power such as India because it has to risk losing a major
part of its arsenal to a first strike, before retaliating with its
residual weapons. India’s tardy decision-making and slow production
rates have resulted in even Pakistan overtaking us in terms of number of
warheads and variety of carrier missiles. It is important that as soon
as Agni V completes its test programme, sufficient resources are
dedicated to its serial production in sufficient numbers.
In a related context, even the mobility of a containerised truck or
rail-mounted Agni V may not provide it immunity from an adversary first
strike because very little remains hidden from aero-space surveillance
nowadays. It is, therefore, essential that the technological gains of
this programme be used to produce a new class of missiles capable of
underwater launch from nuclear submarines like the Arihant, or her
sisters in the offing. Only then will India’s nuclear deterrent become
truly invulnerable and credible.
In the midst of all this excitement, it is important not to lose sight
of the overarching strategic vision which must underpin these
undertakings and where we seem to be lacking considerably. In the
paradigm that India has chosen to follow, the scientific lobby enjoys
exclusive and unfettered access to the apex political authority, whereas
the users of their end-product (the armed forces) have no say. Not only
has the PM been deprived of strategic advice from the end-user of
weapon systems, but time and cost overruns as well as performance
deficits in our strategic programmes go unchecked.
Now that India aspires to be a major power, it is essential that we
create institutions which will not only help us take major decisions
regarding strategic technological programmes, such as anti-ballistic
missile defence or space warfare, in a rational manner but also subject
them to close oversight.
(The writer is a retired chief of naval staff and the former chairman of
the National Maritime Foundation. This article first appeared in the
Indian Express on April 23.)why do men cheat on their wife
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