Gunning for peace in South Asia By Siddharth Srivastava
Experts in India believe that Pakistan's missile program has the secret backing of China and North Korea.
Aug 13, 2005
NEW DELHI - Two recent defense-related happenings in India and Pakistan are of note. Pakistan has test-fired its first cruise missile, which India believes cannot happen without the help of the Chinese. Second, there are revelations of a quiet but steep climb in India-Israel defense relations, despite stiff competition from Russia, France and United Kingdom, the traditional big suppliers to India. The US, which has opened its arms arsenal to India, is expected to give Israel stiff competition.
The two developments in Pakistan and India are inter-linked. They show that despite confidence-building measures, peace talks, synergies in the Iran-Pakistan-India oil pipeline and the recent breakthroughs in trade-related matters, India and Pakistan continue to stockpile arms, and suspicions refuse to subside.
While some of the sources of defense inputs and material to Pakistan may be unknown (with indicators pointing towards China and North Korea), India is not averse to finding new partners and upgrading its weapons systems. The Israelis are known for cutting-edge equipment and fit the bill to modernize the Indian armed forces.
Many experts believe that Pakistan wants to quickly upgrade its weapons systems in response to India's burgeoning defense relations with Israel and the US, with their state-of-the art weapon system. The Chinese are more than willing to oblige as they are never comfortable with India rising militarily without an effective check by Pakistan. China's fears have been compounded by the new-found bonhomie between India and US.
The share of India-US arms relations is expected to pick up in the future as discussions have only begun. In June, a 10-year defense agreement titled the "New Framework for the US-India Defense Relationship", was signed between Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee and his counterpart Donald Rumsfeld. The US has offered joint production of weapons, apart from sales, that sets the tone of a long-term relationship.
India miffed India is predictably miffed with Pakistan successfully test-firing its first cruise missile this week, joining a select band of nations that have developed the ground-hugging projectiles. President General Pervez Musharraf hailed the launch of the Hatf VII Babur, which is capable of carrying nuclear warheads, as a "major milestone" in the country's defense program.
Experts in India insist that Pakistan does not have the know-how to build cruise missiles which, unlike ballistic missiles, do not leave the atmosphere and are powered and guided throughout their flight path. In an interview, former chief adviser (technology) of the Defense Research and Development Organization, K Santhanam, said: "China is peddling at least two types of cruise missiles in the international market ... My assessment is that this Pakistani missile is of Chinese origin, with a label change."
The US-backed Missile Technology Control Regime prevents the proliferation of missiles capable of delivering a 500-kilogram payload over distances of 300 kilometers and more. Although Musharraf hailed his scientists and engineers who "have once again done the nation proud by mastering a rare technology", experts in India believe that Pakistan's missile program has the secret backing of China and North Korea. The 750-kilometer range Shaheen-I and 1,500-kilometer Ghauri-I ballistic missiles are believed to be derivatives of the Chinese M-9 and North Korean Nodong missiles
But it is clear that Pakistan's bid to induct cruise missiles as well as pile up ballistic missiles is an attempt to balance India's declared intentions to incorporate a ballistic missile defense (BMD) system either from Israel or the US. India is already examining offers for the American Patriot-3 and Israeli Arrow-2 anti-ballistic missile systems. The BMD system can be effectively checked by cruise missiles.
Apart from inducting the Agni-I (700-800-kilometer range) and Agni-II (2,000-kilometer-plus range) ballistic missiles, India has its own cruise missile BrahMos, with a 300-kilometer strike range. The Indian navy is already inducting the BrahMos, which is believed to be similar to the American Tomahawk cruise missiles widely used in Iraq and Afghanistan. pls see: Onyx and BrahMos, The Deadly Duet #msg-6519496
Curiously, Pakistan did not give any prior warning to India of the cruise test, despite a recent agreement between the two to notify each other before missile tests and to set up a hotline to prevent an accidental atomic exchange. The deal only referred to ballistic missiles and not to cruise missiles, for which there was no agreement, Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Muhammad Naeem Khan said.
The India-Israel nexus There is reason for Pakistan to modernize its weapons systems, by any means. It is estimated that India will purchase arms to the tune of $15 billion over the next few years. This will include fighter jets, submarines, tanks and technological advancements.
This week, Mukherjee put a figure to the rising defense ties between India and Israel. The fillip to India-Israel defense relations happened under the previous Bharatiya Janata Party administration of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, but the current dispensation under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has kept up the tempo. Israel has now overtaken France, the UK and other countries to become the second-largest defense supplier to India. The value of military arsenal works out close to $1 billion each year for the past three years.
Russia remains India's biggest defense partner, notching over $1.5 billion every year due to the deeply entrenched relations between the two countries that hark back to the Cold War era. Three-quarters of the equipment in use by the armed forces is of Russian origin, requiring spares and maintenance. However, it is increasingly becoming apparent that the breakup of the Soviet Union has had its impact, with Russia unable to keep up with the latest upgrades in technology.
This major chunks of the modernization efforts of the Indian armed forces are now being sourced from Israel. One of the biggest deals has been the $1.1 billion contract signed in March 2004 for three Phalcon early warning radar and communications systems to fulfill the air force's long-standing demand for AWACS (airborne warning and control systems). Israel is supplying the latest technology that ranges from Green Pine radars and Barak anti-missile systems to Searcher-11 and Heron UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) and ship-borne electronic warfare systems. A major project is in place to modernize the Indian army, which includes night-vision capabilities, Tavor-21 5.56mm standard assault rifles, Galil 7.62mm sniper rifles and advanced VHF radios.
The Mukherjee-Rumsfeld agreement in June this year is also expected to open up new vistas for India. The deal is extremely vast in scope and envisages a broad range of joint activities, including engaging in multi-national operations, strengthening the two militaries to promote security and defeat terrorism, and deepening capacity to take on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. A new panel called the defense procurement and production group has been established to oversee defense trade and a joint working group will carry out a mid-year review to be overseen by the US-India defense policy group.
Peace may be the motto of the Indo-Pakistani talks, but there is no letting up on the arms race.
Siddharth Srivastava is a New Delhi-based journalist.
Bush is forging an even stronger alliance with India, a democracy he points to with pride as a fine example. #msg-7201378
-Am
(Reuters)
20 August 2005
IMPHAL - At least 2,000 people marched through the streets of the capital of the remote Indian state of Manipur on Saturday appealing for curbs on the Indian army’s powers and an end to human rights abuses.
They were asking the Indian government to repeal the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), which gives the army sweeping powers to search, arrest and even kill suspected militants.
London-based human rights watchdog Amnesty International says those powers have fostered a climate where security forces ”commit human rights abuses with impunity”.
Heavily armed police and soldiers flanked the demonstrators who shouted slogans and held placards saying “Repeal AFSPA” and ”Protect Human Rights”.
Amnesty’s Indian branch organised Saturday’s march to launch an international campaign to persuade India to repeal the law.
AFSPA was introduced to combat armed separatist militancy in northeast India, and protect the army from prosecution. It was later extended to cover the troubled state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Opponents of the law say the abuses committed under it, including torture, rape and murder, have only fuelled insurgencies in the seven states of northeast India, which are connected to the rest of the country by a thin strip of land.
Last year, Manipur’s capital Imphal saw two months of protests against AFSPA, with hundreds of demonstrators beaten and arrested.
The protests were sparked by the death -- and alleged rape -- in army custody of 32-year-old Manorama Devi.
The army says Manorama was shot while trying to escape and says it needs the law to give it legal protection while soldiers risk their lives fighting militants.
The Indian government set up an “expert committee” to examine AFSPA after the Manorama scandal. On his Independence Day address on Aug. 15, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said its report was being studied but gave no hint of repeal.
“We will take all necessary steps so that there are no violations of human rights under this act,” he said.
Protestors demand end to shoot-on-sight law in India’s revolt-hit northeast (AFP)
20 August 2005
GUWAHATI, India - Demonstrators poured into the streets on Saturday in India’s revolt-hit northeast, demanding the lifting of a law giving soldiers unlimited powers to shoot on sight.
Some 2,000 to 2,500 people marched along the main thoroughfare in Imphal, capital of the troubled tiny state of Manipur, shouting ”Stop human rights violations” and “Withdraw the draconian act”, police and witnesses said.
The demonstrators demand the withdrawal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act that gives security forces powers to shoot on sight and make arrests without warrants.
The protest was organized by the Manipur chapter of the London-based human rights organization Amnesty International as part of a long-running campaign to pressure the New Delhi government to lift the law.
“People are being killed and raped with impunity by security forces,” T. Singh, one of the rally organisers, told AFP by telephone from Imphal.
Army and paramilitary soldiers followed the protestors in vehicles to avert any violence. “The march passed off peacefully without any trouble,” said police official Dhiren Singh.
by Martin Sieff UPI Senior News Analyst Washington (UPI) Aug 23, 2005
The South Asian nuclear arms race, one of the most potentially unstable and dangerous on the planet, has gone global.
Not only are Pakistan and India feverishly racing each other to develop more sophisticated and powerful nuclear delivery and missile defense systems, they are looking increasingly to China and the United States to help them.
China is no newcomer to this race. The massive infusion of North Korean Nodong missile technology to the Pakistan nuclear missile program over the past decade would never have been possible without the active, covert support of China, which shares common borders with both nations and is a strong, consistently supportive ally of both.
The trade ran both ways. UPI's Arnaud de Borchgrave has reported how Abdul Qadeer Khan, the immensely popular father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, made many visits to North Korea providing crucial know-how for Pyongyang's own program that is now believed to have at least two workable nuclear weapons.
Bill Gertz of The Washington Times has reported the conclusion of U.S. intelligence that China has continued to provide expensive, rare-to-obtain chemicals that are crucial for the separation of nuclear weapons grade uranium to North Korea.
And as UPI has reported, U.S. intelligence chiefs concluded several years ago that Pakistan had far more reliable and accurate nuclear-capable intermediate range missiles than India, despite having a far smaller and less advanced industrial and technological base because China had provided to them far more advanced guidance systems and other technology than India was capable of coming up with on its own.
India and Pakistan, two nations with huge impoverished rural and urban populations mounting into the hundreds of millions, and the second- and fifth-most populous nations in the world, have also been spending ever larger sums of money on ever-more ambitious weapons systems to keep ahead of each other.
In March, Pakistan successfully test-fired its 1,250-mile-range Shaheen II missile that can hit many of India's populous northern cities.
Aware of the vulnerability of their much touted but relatively old fashioned and vulnerable nuclear missile bases, India has responded by taking a leaf out of Israel's book and has already deployed under its Eastern Command at least one submarine, the INS Sindhuvir, that is believed to be armed with Danush/Saganika cruise missiles, just as Israel has nuclear cruise missiles on three German-built U-boats to give it a survivable second strike deterrent capability against any surprise nuclear attack from Iran, Pakistan or anyone else. Israeli experts are widely believed to be advising India on its submarine-based second-strike cruise missile program.
Then, earlier this year, the United States infuriated India by announcing it was going to sell Pakistan 70 nuclear-capable F-16 fighter-bombers.
The planes would be far older than the more modernized F-16s and F-18s that the Bush administration has made clear it is prepared to sell to India, but even that would not balance the tremendous shift in the balance of strategic power if the deal goes through.
For instead of just having to monitor by satellite a handful of Pakistani missile bases to prevent the possibility of a surprise nuclear first strike, India would then have to keep track of up to 70 F-16s that are all small, maneuverable, can fly close to the ground and that have perfectly legitimate reasons for being in flight at any time of the day or night anyway.
Then, a couple of months ago, the long-term strategic balance in South Asia seemed to tilt back decisively India's way when the Bush administration made good on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's pledge to beef up India: President George W. Bush gave the green light to unprecedented close U.S.-Indian cooperation in ballistic missile defense development.
The United States is also preparing to sell India its state of the art Patriot PAC-3 anti-ballistic missile, the most advanced defense system of its kind in the world.
Pakistan's President Pervez Musharref at first put a brave face on this announcing that Pakistan's offensive strategic (that is to say, nuclear) ballistic missile capability was already so formidable that it could overwhelm however many Patriot batteries the United States was ready to sell or provide to India.
But in any case, Pakistan is pressing ahead with further offensive weapons development as well: Last week, Islamabad announced the successful testing of a new solid fuel cruise missile.
The new weapon is subsonic, and as the old German V-1 buzz bombs were in World war II, it will therefore be vulnerable to being shot down by regular Indian fighter defense planes.
But cruise missiles can be produced in great numbers very cheaply once one has access to the high-tech guidance systems that allow them to zigzag over the landscape. And just by deploying them in any significant numbers, Pakistan will be stretching India's air-space ballistic missile defense system very far, and forcing India to spend more of its limited financial and technological resources to combat the threat.
And as was the case with Pakistan's 1998 nuclear missile tests that followed within days of India's first ones, the new weapon may well have been built so fast because it employed "off-the-shelf" technology quickly and quietly delivered by China.
China in any case has been backing the brutal military dictatorship in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, and successive governments in Pakistan, both military and civilian, in order to preoccupy, distract, and drain India.
But now the U.S. strategic engagement with India has heightened the stakes of the game. India and Pakistan look like increasingly becoming surrogates of the United States and China, with Beijing and Washington increasingly drawn into the volatile, unstable arms race of South Asia.
That arms race has already put the combined populations of India and Pakistan, one fifth of the entire human race, in the cross-hairs of potential nuclear incineration. Now it threatens to draw in and polarize the two giant nations of the Pacific Rim as well.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
