India’s Missile Venture Scores Another Victory
A decade ago, India and Russia teamed up to develop a supersonic missile named BrahMos. On Wednesday, the BrahMos Aerospace venture, scored a victory for joint Indo-Russian cooperation and innovation.
A sea-based test of the BrahMos supersonic missile on a ground target was successful. The first of such a test (previous tests have only been done on sea-based targets), BrahMos now moves closer as a reliable second-strike capability for India’s armed forces. This two-stage missile is three-times faster than the U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missile and has a range of up to 300 km.
IBN Live has the details of Wednesday’s test…
On Wednesday, India sought to validate its navy’s land attack capability by pulverising a target on an uninhabited island in the North Andaman.
The weapon was a Brahmos cruise missile, and the launch pad a Rajput class destroyer 300 km away in the Bay of Bengal.
“The naval capability must acquire enough muscle to be able to significantly influence the battle on land,” says defence analyst Commodore C Uday Bhaskar.”
The Statesman adds…
All the logistic support to the missile test was provided by the Indian Navy’s Andaman & Nicobar Command. It deployed ten ships, three aircraft and three helicopters for mission support and the parameters set for the mission were kept extremely difficult, including the positioning of the target to achieve maximum output, the defence ministry spokesman said.
As the BrahMos technology progresses, it is likely that other nations will need to improve their own missile technology to keep pace.
South Asia Arms Race: Already Underway?
Last April, we posted about the obsession many Asian nations have with their missiles.
India’s latest testing of the BrahMos has led to renewed speculation of an imminent regional arms race, particularly with Pakistan.
From Ejaz Haider in the Daily Times in Pakistan…
India’s full-system test-firing February 26 of its submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), dubbed K-15, from an underwater pontoon has caused Pakistan’s Chief of Naval Staff to warn that the development is a trigger for an arms race in this region. The CNS, head as he does a near-neglected service, cannot be faulted for saying that. It is a signal, both to the world and to Islamabad which has always treated the Navy with step-motherly affection.
It may be that the arms race is already underway. Just this week, this blog wrote that China’s military spending will increase by more than 19 percent, some of which will certainly be spent on advancing the PLA’s weapons systems and missile technology.
India has also made a substantial increase in its own defense spending, which has certainly caught the attention of military leaders in Pakistan.
From Pakistan’s The Post…
India raised its defence spending on February 29 by 10 percent to $ 26.5 billion for 2008/09, enough for a gradual modernisation of the world’s fourth largest military. The Indian Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram increased the expenditure for the fiscal year ending March 2009 from the previous allocation of $ 24 billion, saying the security was of paramount importance. India is for one of its biggest ever arms purchases, a $ 10 billion deal to buy 126 fighter jets. US Defence Secretary Robert Gates was in India earlier last week to push the US bids for that deal. It also has the plans to spend $ 30 billion on imports over the next four years to modernise its largely Soviet-era arms. This would certainly trigger an arms race in the region.
The unprecedented increase is likely to be closely monitored in Pakistan that sees the nuclear rival India sparking an arms race by spending almost three percent of the GDP on its million-plus military forces. For the current fiscal year that ends on March 31, India increased its defence spending by 7.8 percent. Also, India set aside $ 125 million for the first time to be spent on the “urgent needs of development of border areas” such as Arunachal Pradesh that is claimed by China. Commenting over the test of a nuclear capable K-15 missile by India, completing its goal of having air, land and sea ballistic systems, Pakistan’s Naval Chief Admiral Muhammad Afzal Tahir said the other day that it would start a new arms race between the South Asian rivals. “We are aware of these developments, and these developments are taking place with a view to put nuclear weapons at sea and it is a very, very serious issue.”
Tags: BrahMos, China, defence, India, military, Neo-Cold War, nuclear, Pakistan, PLA, sinophile
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7 March, 2008 at 12:02 pm
[...] Read more… India [...]
21 March, 2008 at 3:34 pm
[...] India has also successfully tested several of its key missile systems, including the joint Indo-Russian Bahmos venture. A recent successful water-based test on a land-based target by the BrahMos two-stage missile, has demonstrated improvements in its overall technology and performance (see “India’s Missile Venture Scores Another Victory“). [...]