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Missile defence a long way off

The boffins of India’s missile programme have good reason to be satisfied. In a test carried out on December 6, a new, fully solid interceptor missile developed at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) successfully destroyed a Prithvi missile fired five minutes earlier. It was in November 2006 that the DRDO first demonstrated its capabilities in missile defence with a modified Prithvi missile successfully intercepting another Prithvi that played the role of attacker. The new Advanced Air Defence interceptor missile that has just been tested is said to compare favourably with the U.S. Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3) missile. Although Israeli radars were used to pick up the incoming target missile, the DRDO needed to carry out considerable software development so that the attacking missile’s course could be deduced from the radar data and the interceptor missile despatched accordingly. Many more tests will be needed. The DRDO has said that next April two interceptors would be fired against a single incoming target missile. It will also be necessary to demonstrate that the system can cope with attacks by multiple missiles. So a workable missile defence shield for the country is a long way off.

Neighbouring Pakistan has in its armoury a range of missiles that can carry nuclear warheads. With a 700 kg payload, it is estimated that the Ghaznavi could have a range of about 350 km, the Shaheen-I of about 495 km, the Ghauri of over 920 km, and the Shaheen-II of more than 1,100 km. The longer the range of the missile, the faster the warhead is propelled and the more difficult become the problems of interception. India’s unease with so many dangerous missiles right next door, and that too in a country showing alarming signs of instability, explains its eagerness to have some form of defence against those missiles. But New Delhi must also recognise that a missile defence shield is a highly uncertain — and potentially destabilising and dangerous — proposition. Pakistan is hardly likely to stand by idly; it might, for instance, choose to deploy a large number of missiles carrying decoy warheads to overwhelm Indian missile defences. Even the U.S. missile defence system is aimed at countering relatively unsophisticated long-range missiles. So an impenetrable missile shield against a nuclear-armed neighbour is a very tall order indeed. If even a few nuclear warheads were to get through, the devastation would be unimaginable, especially if one or more of those warheads were to fall on large cities. What the world — and India — needs is a Pakistan that neither feels threatened nor is a source of threat to others. Firming up India-Pakistan détente is one of the keys to this.

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