Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (4053)	4/17/1999 10:23:00 AM
From: Mohan Marette	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12475

SECURITY-Show of strength-Agni Indian ballistic missiles targets China. (courtesy:Far Eastern Economic Review) Show of Strength China is target of new Indian ballistic missile -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Sadanand Dhume in Princeton, New Jersey, with Pramit Mitra in New Delhi -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- April 22, 1999 India has provided dramatic new evidence of its quest to become a serious military power. With its successful April 11 launch of Agni-II--a ballistic missile with a range of 2,500 kilometres--New Delhi demonstrated its capacity to deliver nuclear weapons deep inside China, which is seen by many Indian policymakers as the country's biggest long-term potential threat. "This plugs the last missing link in India's nuclear deterrent against China," says Brahma Chellaney, a nuclear-weapons analyst and a member of India's National Security Advisory Board. "India has broken China's nuclear monopoly in Asia and developed the ability to strike the Chinese heartland." Agni--it means "fire" in Sanskrit--is designed to be the mainstay of India's yet-to-be-defined "minimal nuclear deterrent." A shorter-range version was last tested in 1994, before pressure from the United States put the programme in cold storage, only to be revived with last year's election of an avowedly security-conscious government led by the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. Officials say the new version of the missile is a major improvement: It flies a third further than the Agni-I and has a state-of-the-art satellite-guidance system. Moreover, it uses solid fuel, which makes it easier to transport and launch in a hurry. The test, on Inner Wheeler Island, Orissa, in the Bay of Bengal, had been in the pipeline since January. But India delayed it in the hope of extracting concessions from the U.S., with whom India has held eight rounds of nuclear talks since last summer. Analysts say a U.S. deal failed to materialize, and India began to consider a launch date before May; poor weather would have forced the test to be put off until November. But the immediate catalyst was apparently the withdrawal of a key ally's support for the wobbly BJP-led coalition, leading to the prospect of a change of government and perhaps elections later this year. "They wanted to go down in history as the people who gave India both the nuclear deterrent and the missile deterrent," Chellaney says of the BJP. This time, criticism of India was remarkably muted. A U.S. State Department official expressed regret over the tests and said that the U.S. hoped that India would provide tangible indications of restraint. Britain also expressed its disappointment. China warned that the Indian test "could trigger a new round of arms race in South Asia," but did not otherwise comment on a weapon most Indian analysts describe as China-specific. According to analysts, the test is not likely to have much impact on India's talks with the U.S. on signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Analysts say the low-key U.S. response reflects that Washington saw the Agni-II test as inevitable, given India's declared intention of acquiring a minimal credible nuclear deterrent. "It was highly predictable," says Stephen Cohen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think-tank. "India has put a lot of money into the programme and it would have taken some kind of heavenly intervention to dissuade them." Heavenly intervention may also be what the government is looking for this week. It has made India a nuclear power and set the stage for further military development, but the prospect of a BJP prime minister presiding long over India's shiny new missiles appears to be slim.