U.S. may play spoilsport on Arrow purchase

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI OCT. 25. Despite seeking close military ties with India, the United States may play spoilsport when it comes to New Delhi augmenting its ballistic missile capability. Officials expressed concern that if India obtained the joint U.S.-Israeli Arrow ballistic missile interceptor, it might heighten tensions with Pakistan, notes a U.S. congressional body report analysing the policy implications of missile proliferation in South Asia and providing information on India's and Pakistan's missile programmes.

India is following a two-pronged policy — creating an indigenous system and buying complete systems. A number of reports suggest that India is also interested in buying the Arrow missile defence system from Israel. Because the U.S. has played a major role in developing the Arrow, any legal Israeli export of the system might require U.S. approval.

But both the Senate and House Armed Services Committees have expressed reservations about a possible sale to India or other countries. "They fear that although the Arrow is a defensive system, it could possibly be reengineered into an offensive system, its sale could possibly trigger a regional offensive arms race and such a sale could violate the provisions of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).''

The Arrow 2 missile system can detect and track up to 14 inbound missiles at a distance of 500 km and intercept them as close as 16 to 48 km from the missile system. India has also reportedly been in negotiations with Russia since 1995 to acquire its anti-tactical ballistic missile system. Concerns have also been raised about current and proposed U.S. missile defence vulnerability to the supersonic Brahmos cruise missile being developed by Russia and India. "Could these missiles in the hands of hostile states and non-state actors provide them with a dangerous asymmetric military advantage? Another issue is how difficult would it be to develop a nuclear warhead for the Brahmos and what countries presently have the scientific and engineering capability to do so,'' poses the report.

The U.S. has long been concerned about the proliferation of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems in South Asia. This concern became acute after May 1998, when both India and Pakistan tested nuclear explosive devices. Since then, both have continued testing nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, and have established command and control authorities to oversee their nuclear arsenals. Although the status of weaponisation is unclear, a "slow-speed arms race'' appears to be under way on the Asian subcontinent, and the proliferation of missile capabilities in South Asia has been identified as a potentially major threat to regional stability and to key U.S. foreign policy goals.

The report states that estimates on India's nuclear weapons arsenal vary but a number of analysts believes that, as of 2002, India had between 30 and 35 nuclear weapons, possibly configured as aerial bombs or missile warheads. India would use Soviet-built MiG-27 aircraft, the Anglo-French Jaguar and the Sukhoi-30MKI aircraft bought from Russia, which gives India a nuclear deep strike capability. Pakistan's nuclear weapons arsenal is speculative but some analysts believe that it possesses between 24 and 48 nuclear weapons configured as both aerial bombs and missile warheads.

Early warning capability

Some analysts believe that India's network of communication satellites and its Technology Experiment Satellite, which reportedly has an optical resolution capacity of one metre, provides India with a strategic early warning capability that could help ensure the survivability of its nuclear forces. These satellites could also help improve India's military command, control, communication and intelligence capacities.

Both countries' nuclear weapons are believed to be stored in facilities separate from airfields and missile units. Many analysts, however, believe that the current state of alert in India and Pakistan is a credible deterrence posture and that any move by either country to increase its posture could have negative consequences.