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India is just doing what great powers do

It wants to play with the Big Five, and playing the great-power game means you end up playing the nuclear-war game, too.

Hamilton Spectator - News

By Gwynne Dyer
Independent
More articles by this columnist
(Apr 14, 2007)

The test would hardly have made the news outside of India if the local air-traffic controllers had posted a warning in advance, but when an Indonesian airliner had to turn around in Indian airspace on Thursday and return to Jakarta to avoid flying into the missile's path, it was bound to draw attention. So now the whole world knows India has test-fired a nuclear-capable missile that can hit Shanghai and Beijing, and a few people (especially in China) may be asking: Why?

The Agni-III missile failed its first flight test last July, but this one seems to have gone off very well. The missile, which reportedly can carry a 300-kiloton nuclear warhead, was not tested at its full range of more than 3,000 km on this occasion, but that is the number that gets people's attention. India's main potential enemy is Pakistan, which is right next door, and it already has missiles that can strike anywhere there. The Agni-III gives India the range to strike the Middle East (but it has no enemies there) or southern Russia and Central Asia (likewise) -- or China.

China is not India's enemy, either, but there is a worrisome drift in Asian affairs, and the Agni-III is just the tip of the iceberg. To be fair, China has had missiles that could strike Indian cities for more than 30 years now (though they were actually built to reach American cities), so there is no monopoly of blame here. And neither China nor India is planning to attack the other. They're just doing what comes naturally for great powers.

Why is India doing this now, 30 years after China built its missiles? Because India, with U.S. encouragement, has finally decided, after a half-century of "nonalignment," that it wants to play the great-power game too. It has the resources these days, and it's just too galling to be left out when the Big Five get together to sort out the world. Even if playing the great-power game means you end up playing the nuclear-war game, too.

There's more. American strategists do not think that China intends to attack the United States, but they know that China is going to be the second-biggest economy in the world in 10 or 15 years' time. China is therefore a potential challenger to America's position as the world's sole superpower, and as such it must be "contained." So for the past five or six years Washington has been busy renewing old military ties and forging new ones with countries all around China's borders.

Of those countries, the two most powerful by far are Japan (already an American ally) and India. Japanese right-wing politicians are tired of being a special country that has foresworn the use of force in its international relations (in the constitution that the United States wrote for it after the Second World War). They want to be a "normal" country -- well, a normal great power, really -- so Prime Minister Shintaro Abe has pledged to rewrite the constitution in order to remove those unreasonable restrictions on sending Japanese troops overseas and so on.

And since India is now a "normal" great power, too, it is doing the things that normal great powers do, such as making alliances with other great powers. Specifically, with the United States, with which New Delhi signed a 10-year military co-operation agreement in 2005. (No, it's not officially called an alliance. It doesn't need to be.)

When you go to Beijing and ask Chinese officials (off the record) how they feel about all this, they swear that they are not going to panic. They understand that this sort of thing is just the reflexive way that great powers have always behaved, and that they know it doesn't mean that America, Japan and India are planning to attack them. Quite right, too, and as long as they hang on to that thought no harm will come of all this.

But if they do panic at some point -- maybe over some crisis in the Taiwan Strait or the disputed seabed between China and Japan or some stupid incident like the American spy-plane that collided with a Chinese fighter in 2001 -- then all the pieces are already in place for an Asian Cold War. Which would be a serious waste of half the world's time at best and a mortal peril to the whole planet at worst.

But they're all just doing what comes naturally to great powers. History doesn't repeat itself, as Mark Twain remarked, but it does rhyme.

Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.

Blademaster

Some people are saying that Agni III is already an ICBM missile if they reduce the payload to 1000 kg or less and that it can reach orbital heights and speeds. With a little adjustment, it can be easily a 8,000 km ICBM.

OOE, what does your rocket expert, Slade, say?

wkllaw

There seems to be a arms buildup in this part of the world, but I suppose this normal with the growth in this area of the world.

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Officer of Engineers

Don't need Stuart for this one. The very fact that the Indians have not announced such a capability is because they don't have the confidence in it. One of the very signs of a mature development is to know what you can do and more importantly what you cannot do.

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Chimo

Blademaster

What if they didn't want to upset Uncle Sam when they are currently in nuclear negotiations?

Officer of Engineers

Hitesh,

You've lost me. Why would the US be upset? And if the US was going to be upset? Then, why test? If the hypothesis is true about hidden AGNI III capabilities, how long do you think before the Russians, Chinese, Brits, French, Americans figure it out? And how long after that would the Paks learn of it?

Just doesn't make sense to me.

Blademaster

If you see the early history of Agni, you could see why Indian leaders are wary of upsetting the Americans because they have been subjected to extraneous US pressure. Even though India have withstood it, they don't wish to "rock the boat" so to speak. By keeping Agni less than an ICBM class, India doesn't "rock the boat".

Officer of Engineers

So India rocks the boat a little instead of a lot? I say testing is rocking alot.

jaguar

India missile test forces diversion of two airliners

JAKARTA, April 13: Two Garuda Indonesia flights heading to Saudi Arabia had to divert course and return to Jakarta due to a missile test carried out by India this week, an Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman said on Friday.

India’s ambassador to Indonesia would be called in to explain the incident, foreign ministry spokesman Kristianto Legowo told a news briefing.

“The ballistic test that was done by India caused two Garuda flights to Jeddah and Riyadh to re-route to Jakarta. We are trying to attain clarification from India about notification,” Legowo said. “We will immediately seek clarification from the Indian ambassador here.”

He said such information was usually passed on to the International Air Transport Association and the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

The spokesman did not say how close the missile was to the planes.


India missile test forces diversion of two airliners -DAWN - Top Stories; April 14, 2007

what is this about india did not tell air transport association
what if missile had hit the plane

gamercube

News From Sahara Samay:: ICBM with 5,500-km range can be developed in three years: DRDO

Archer

Col, BM has hit the nail on the head. India held off on the Agni-3 test till Peter Pace in his visit stated that it was "indias decision" to test the Agni-3 & the US was not concerned. It was a pretty revealing display in itself, both about the Agni (as to why India thought the US would be concerned) and the lack of strategic thought in the Indian Govt (no surprise!).

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