Author : Colonel GG Pamidi,,

AN INDIAN PERSPECTIVE ON NUCLEAR AND BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENCE DEALS

  Colonel GG Pamidi and Wing Commander RK Singh**

 In response to the astute observations made by the acclaimed author on strategic matters, Michael Krepon[1], regarding the nuclear and ballistic missile issues, there are various aspects of convergence as well as a few issues in which there seems to be divergences from the Indian perspective.

a)    Firstly, the analysis seems to be still heavily weighed in the relics of the Cold War thinking, namely, restricting the strategic discourse concerning India to purely an Indo-Pak viewpoint and treating South Asia as something totally unique and not amenable to stability except by a balance of power equation.

b)    From an Indian perspective, we opine that a study about the implications of a nuclear and ballistic  missile defence in India cannot be analysed in isolation and needs to  analyse other related aspects :-

• Does economy play a significant role?
• What is the US interest in Asia in general and in South Asia in particular?
• What are the implications of an Indian BMD for regional stability? 
• What is India’s perspective on missile defence?

 Defence and US Economy

It is a well-established fact that the US economy is more dependent on its defence industry than on any other industrial output. Along with the defence industry, nuclear and space commerce are the other two significant areas in which the US is not only a major player, but also plays a dominant role in world commerce. Having created a strong research and development base in all these three core areas, and supported with a very robust industrial base to back up the production, US has been enjoying an era of unchallenged supremacy in these core technologies. This has resulted in the US gaining an unprecedented lead towards strengthening its economy. However, with new players emerging in all these core areas, there is a visible challenge to the US dominance in these areas, specially defence and space commerce. The smaller European nations are consolidating their strength with the EU on one side, and Russia (though declining, yet a force to reckon) and China and Israel also emerging as major challengers to the US leadership in arms trade. On one hand, the US leadership in world affairs is being challenged, on the other; its world trade is on the decline. This is causing a cascading effect on the US economy which is facing the worst recession continuously for the last four years. Not only did the US growth fall, its GDP too has reduced substantially.

The Truth behind the US-India Nuclear Deal

The situation worsened for the US as a result of the economic recession, rise of India and China in the Asia Pacific region and a paradigm shift in the Balance of Power from the EU to the Asian region. Nuclear energy being fraught with dangers to humanity, is not finding new takers in the world. The perceived myth about nuclear energy being green energy has been shattered and the world business in the nuclear commerce has taken a severe beating. Few of the EU members have even called for a ban on installation of new nuclear power plants in their country and instead are shifting to non-conventional energy for power generation. The US strategists correctly appreciated that India and China would be the new economic powerhouses of the 21st century. They seem to have analysed that because of rapid industrialisation in both India and China, there would be an ever increasing requirement of energy to sustain industrial growth. This energy deficit can only be met by dependency on nuclear energy. This gave a renewed hope to the US nuclear lobby to push forth their business. However, the Indian and the Chinese leadership had visualised the need of nuclear energy to sustain their economic growth well in time. The Chinese leadership, with active support of Russian technological help were able to work out an indigenous plan to build their nuclear power plants and being a nuclear power, could source nuclear fuel to generate optimum nuclear energy from their own nuclear power plants. Unfortunately India, which was facing international sanctions on nuclear technologies and even fuel sourcing, had to rely upon limited domestic nuclear fuel supply. This left India as the only country in the world with a huge potential for nuclear trade in days to come.

In addition, the phenomenal rise of China is posing a serious challenge to the US sole “super power” status. China is not only surging ahead with its economy doing splendidly well, but the frantic pace of modernisation of its armed forces, more so the asymmetric threats in terms of cyber and space, are a serious challenge to American security architecture. Hence, in the US scheme of things it was prudent for them to try and prop India as a counterweight to China in the Asian region. This prompted the US to allure India in whatever way possible, to be a future nation to counterbalance China. The US is trying to entice India into going in for the US weapon systems and nuclear trade. 

The Civil Nuclear deal was offered to India. This explains to a large extent the sudden reason for India to find favours with the US, which had all along strongly felt that the Pokhran – II nuclear tests were provocative, and had imposed stringent and punitive economic sanctions.

As to the reason why the deal was acceptable to India, perhaps it wanted to break free from nuclear apartheid. The benefits which have accrued to India, post the Civil Nuclear Deal can be summarized as follows:-

a)    Break out from the nuclear apartheid and acceptance as a State with Nuclear Weapons (SNS).

b)    Business with the Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG) for new nuclear technology.

c)    Sourcing of nuclear fuel from the NSG.

Indo- US Arms Trade

India has been the biggest importer of arms and armaments in the world. Though Russia has been the traditional arms supplier to India, the phenomenal growth of Indian arms trade made economic sense and there was a strong lobby working for a better US-India relationship. This lobby planned to capitalise on the Civil Nuclear Deal and foresaw an over-ambitious arms trade with India. To an extent, this has resulted in improved relations between the two and trade too has gained. There has been a quantum jump in the US arms trade with India and barring the MMRCA deal for F-16 and F-18, there has been a large number of US weapon systems in India, like supply of C-130 Hercules, C17 Globetrotter heavy lift aircraft, Boeing P-8I long-range maritime reconnaissance (LRMR) aircraft and light weight howitzers for the Army, to name a few.

BMD and the US Assistance to India

India has time and again proved that the trade sanctions by the West, led by the US, cannot affect its development process. The Indian scientific community needs to be lauded for their devoted pursuit in developing the niche arms technology and technologies in the nuclear and space fields. If India can rise to a respectable position in space technology, nuclear technology and other fields of science and technology, it can surely give the country a formidable indigenous BMD. In this regard Dr VK Saraswat, DG DRDO stated after the testing of ASAT by China “India is putting together building blocks of technology that could be used to neutralize enemy satellites. We are working to ensure space security and protect our satellites. At the same time we are also working on how to deny the enemy access to its space assets”. Thereafter, consequent to the launch of 5000+ Km range AGNI-V missile, Dr Saraswat spoke on feasibility of Indian ASAT, “Agni-V’s launch has ushered in fantastic opportunities in building ASAT weapons and launching nano / micro satellites on demand.” In his perspective, ASAT would include marrying Agni-V’s propulsion system with the kill vehicle (AAD) of the successful two tier BMD system.

Consequent to successful launch of Agni-V, the 5000 plus km missile and both indo and exo-thermic interceptors as a part of indigenous BMD programme, India’s stand on an indigenous BMD seems to be very practical and achievable.  Since there is no urgency to have a time bound BMD shield, the home grown BMD will not only make the country self-reliant, but will also bring laurels to the scientific community involved in this project. If the indigenous BMD will indeed be a case of national pride for India, then why depend for technological help on the US, which has not been able to finalise and deploy a credible BMD system of its own. It may be appreciated that the US BMD, though started with conceptualisation of SDI by the Reagan administration, but is yet to take a final shape, even after a lapse of so many years.

Implications of a Ballistic Missile Defence on Regional Stability

 To start with, as observed by Krepon[2] also, there is no consensus on the implications of a ballistic missile defence on regional stability and there are deep divisions. There are primarily opposing points of view. To summarise:-

a)  Stabilises. There are those who feel that it will provide protection from the ballistic missiles of an adversary. They feel that while a BMD system can be overwhelmed by a flurry of missiles or a low-flying cruise, it would be an important part of a nation’s defence against the danger of ballistic missiles.

b)   Destabilises. Others argue otherwise and say that it destabilises the existing offence-defence nuclear relationship – the mainstay of strategic stability.

The Indian BMD Project and Regional Stability

The drawbacks of the existing system in India have been covered in great detail, both Verghese Koithara[3] as well by Krepon, and our aim is not to repeat these or go into any of the technical aspects of nuclear or missile technology, rather it is to examine the international ramifications and consequent strategic implications of the Indian Ballistic Missile Project. While there is no doubt that India’s own indigenous missile defence shield originates from its threat perception from China and Pakistan, the dimension of the threat does not seem to be appreciated. China, with its huge arsenal of solid-fuelled missiles, is the most potent threat to India; and Pakistan, with its various short- and medium-range missiles, has the capability to hit major targets in India. The Chinese upper hand in force level and its intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBM) and medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM) that can reach India’s farthest corners increases India’s anxiety. Since the 1990s, India has been pursuing various options, including deliberations with friendly countries, to explore the best available systems to build a Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) network.^[4] Responding to Pakistan’s procurement of the M-9 and M-11 ballistic missiles from China, the Indian government bought six batteries of Russian S-300 surface-to air missiles (SAMs) in August 1995 to protect New Delhi and other cities. With Pakistan’s testing of nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems, and heightened tensions during the Kargil conflict, the progress of acquiring Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) system intensified^[5].

The Indian Ballistic Missile Defence Programme, an initiative to develop and deploy a multi-layered ballistic missile defence system, is a two-tiered system consisting of two interceptor missiles, namely Prithvi Air Defence (PAD) missile for high altitude interception, and the Advanced Air Defence (AAD) missile for lower altitude interception. The two-tiered shield will be able to intercept any incoming missile launched 5,000 km away^[6]. India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) publicly revealed its BMD programme right after the first test of PAD in November 2006. 

In November 2006 and December 2007, India conducted successful "exo-atmospheric," "endo-atmospheric" tests and incoming missiles were intercepted at 40-50 Km and 15 Km altitudes respectively^[7]. Further, the DRDO had claimed that by 2011-12 it would have developed the BMD capability to neutralise incoming missiles with ranges in the order of 2,000 Km and in the near future it will be possible to field systems that can thwart threats from missiles with ranges of up to 5,000 km. There have been reports that DRDO has told the government that while the Phase-I systems can be deployed from 2012 onwards, the Phase-II systems will come into operational play only from 2014 onwards at the earliest^[8]. It has also been reported that plans are also afoot to have space-based surveillance systems to ensure that a hostile threat can be detected even earlier than the present long-range tracking radars (LRTRs) used in the BMD system, which track the `enemy’ missile as well as guide the `interceptor’ missile in destroying it.

There are certain analysts in India that are cynical about the largely unproven BMD technologies and the massive costs involved in developing or acquiring such systems. Nonetheless, there is greater acceptance in the country on the need to invest in affordable interception capabilities, be it through the indigenous route or through other sources of technology assimilation.^[9]

India’s Perspective on BMD

BMD is therefore India's most likely countervailing asset in the foreseeable future. China does not appear to have any R&D effort comparable to India's BMD programme at this time^[10]. In this respect, China's ASAT capability doesn't really count, as ballistic missiles are to satellites as fighter aircraft are to armoured personnel carriers. Last but not least, India is significantly better than China at software development and programming, which are critical to BMD system effectiveness.

Finally, India seems to be closer to deploying submarine-launched ballistic missiles, the most survivable leg of the nuclear triad. The Indian BMD programme, especially its indigenous content appears to have sparked a tremendous amount of interest in China. Should India's naval missile programme follow the same timetable as India's other strategic naval and missile programmes, a BMD capability could add significant survivability to India's nuclear deterrent^[11].

Conclusion

It will be prudent for India to go ahead with its own BMD development, rather than once again depending on the US or any other nation. In fact, if the US help is forthcoming in the field of BMD, India should seek partnership with the US for co-development of BMD system as has been the case with BRAHMOS missile co-development with Russia. This has been a successful model of co-development and co-production of a weapon system, which is comprehensively meeting the Indian defence needs and fulfilling the technological obligations for indigenous development of niche defence technology. Even if the US assistance is provided to India towards developing a BMD (which will come with strings) there is no reason of concern for China and Pakistan, as the BMD is purely for defensive role. Therefore, the US assistance towards BMD cannot lead to a perceived three cornered nuclear arms competition between India, China and Pakistan. In this regard, it is pertinent to mention that there was never a nuclear arms race between India and China. However, the Indo – Pak history is full of hostility and arms race, be it nuclear or otherwise.

As regards nuclear trade, it is pertinent to note that there are no takers for the US nuclear power plants in the world. The countries which already have nuclear power plants do not require anymore and the ones, who don’t, apparently cannot afford it. Environmentalists the world over are pressing hard for closure of the existing nuclear power plants and the issue has compounded further after the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Diiachi nuclear power plant in Japan during March 2011. These developments have forced the US nuclear champions and industry leaders to explore new markets for their nuclear industry (Westinghouse, etc) and limit their liability in case of any accidents. While there is tremendous pressure on India regarding the liability bill, India can be counted upon to take action as she deems fit in its national interests alone.

Endnotes