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| India-Pakistan |
| Nuclear balance to tilt in India's favour after US help |
| 2003-01-07 |
| Khalid Hasan for Daily Times The nuclear balance in South Asia is bound to be destabilised when the United States and India discuss missile defence, later this month. According to Stratfor, a Texas-based news and analysis service, India and the United States will discuss the expansion of defence cooperation, specifically in the area of missile defence, on January 15 and 16. The talks will take place under the auspices of the Indo-US Defence Policy Group. US Assistant Secretary of Defence Thomas Payne will lead the US delegation, while the Indian delegation will be headed by Sheelkant Sharma, joint secretary for disarmament in the Indian External Affairs Ministry. While the arrangement with India will not affect the US nuclear balance with Russia, that would not be the case should an ABM system drop into the stand-off between lesser nuclear powers such as India and Pakistan. In India's case, a decent Anti Ballistic Missile system might be enough to decisively shift the balance with Pakistan. What to the United States is just the kind of "little rogue" that the new ABM system is designed to thwart, is to India the primary opponent in a nuclear stand-off. India and Pakistan are not locked in a balance of mutually assured destruction per se - their arsenals are too small - but they face mutually assured pain sufficient to dissuade either from launching a first strike, says the analysis. This is a little further development of the natual alliance among the U.S., India, and Israel. Of the three, it's problematic which one will use an antimissile system for real first. My guess would be Israel, next month, but next time Lashkar e-Taiba decides to shoot up the Indian parliament, the Indos could end up using theirs, too. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #5 India's military has been underrated for years, in my opinion - it's big, well-trained, and dedicated. They're probably not up to taking on one of the big 3, but the Paks better be worried. |
| Posted by: mojo 2003-01-08 02:20:27 |
| #4 If the Israeli Arrow system works well against Saddam's Scuds, look for them to make the sale to India. Lot of low level cooperation right now, and a battle proven system is very inviting. Not to mention they both have a Islamic problem. |
| Posted by: Steve 2003-01-07 20:01:13 |
| #3 I find these reports of co-operation between Bush administration fiduciaries with an enemy of their Saudi Arabia principals, hard to believe. Bush's destructive engagement policy toward the terror state of Pakistan, has greatly strengthened the jihadi movement. A neo-Talibani party - MMA - controls two frontier provinces with Afghanistan, and is agitating for the removal of U.S. troops from the area. They also control almost 19% of U.S. aid to Pakistan. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-01-07 19:06:11 |
| #2 Actually this article is nearly dead wrong concerning the balance of power with Russia. The Indians not only want an antimissile defense system, but a complete command and control network capable of controlling the air forces, anti aircraft missile defenses, and strategic nuclear missile targeting, AND they also want the Russians cut in on the deal so that the US would provide all the C4I while the Russians provide the missile interceptors (their boosters are better than ours, probably the asbestos in their insulation) and some ground based radars which would provide raw data to this system. Nonetheless, the Russians get in on the ground floor of the ABM defense business and that would have implications about how their country might be defended against revisionist Chinese claims in the Amur Valley and Pacific Maritime regions. |
| Posted by: Tom Roberts 2003-01-07 17:56:25 |
| #1 I'd add Japan to this list. We announced last month that we are deploying (sounded more like beta testing to me) about 10 interceptors in Alaska in early 2004. Hope they work because Krazy Kim has a system (can't remember which Dong it is) that can reach the west coast, at least on paper. |
| Posted by: JAB 2003-01-07 15:56:16 |