[By
launching the Agni 5, a ballistic missile capable of reaching Beijing and Shanghai , India joined a small club of nations with long-range nuclear
capability, including China , Britain , France , Russia , Israel and the United States . The missile was launched Thursday morning from a small
island off India ’s eastern coast, a day after the test had been scratched
because of weather.]
By Heather Timmons And Jim Yardley
Reuters |
By launching the Agni 5, a ballistic missile capable of
reaching Beijing and Shanghai , India joined a small club of nations with long-range nuclear
capability, including China , Britain , France , Russia , Israel and the United States . The missile was launched Thursday morning from a small
island off India ’s eastern coast, a day after the test had been scratched
because of weather.
Indian leaders celebrated the successful test, even as Pakistan and China reacted warily, amid growing international apprehension
about the increasing militarization of Asia .
The Obama administration, while still trying to extract
itself from Afghanistan , is now cultivating alliances with Asian nations and
redirecting its strategic and military focus toward Asia to
manage China ’s new military clout.
Still, many Asian nations, spooked by aggressive Chinese
claims on maritime rights and other issues, have welcomed a vigorous American
presence in the region.
The Philippines and the United States began joint military
exercises on Monday, including mock beach invasions along coastlines
facing China , as part of a strengthening military alliance between the
two countries. A contingent of American Marines arrived in northern Australia two weeks ago, the first of 2,500 troops to be deployed
there under an agreement signed last year.
Perhaps no Asian nation has been more unnerved by rising
Chinese power than India .
The two countries share a growing trading relationship and
are often aligned on global issues like trade and climate change. Yet many
Indian strategic planners now regard China , rather than Pakistan , as the country’s gravest military threat. In recent
months, India ’s military has been wracked with internal scandals and
personality clashes, yet defense officials have pushed ahead with a major
arms-buying spree that has made India the world’s biggest weapons importer.
“All of this, from the Chinese perspective, looks like a
movement from balancing China to containing China ,” said Graeme P. Herd, a security expert at the Geneva Center for Security Policy. He said the timing of the missile
launching, as the Chinese government is reeling from a scandal involving a top
leader, would heighten Chinese suspicions and also “increases the perception of
an arms race, and the reality of an arms race, in East Asia ,
particularly between China and India .”
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India praised the scientists who developed the missile and
called the launching “another milestone in our quest to add to the credibility
of our security and preparedness and to continuously explore the frontiers of
science.”
The United States , which led the criticism of North Korea’s missile launching last Friday, appeared to warily
endorse the Indian missile test. “We urge all nuclear-capable states to
exercise restraint regarding nuclear capabilities,” said Mark C. Toner, a State
Department spokesman. “That said, India has a solid nonproliferation record,” he added, and noted
that India had a “no first use” policy on nuclear weapons.
In Beijing, Liu Weimin, a Foreign Ministry spokesman,
played down the test and described India and China as “not competitors but
partners,” adding that the two countries should “work hard to uphold friendly
strategic cooperation,” according to news agencies. CCTV, China ’s state-run television network, questioned the accuracy of
the Agni 5’s guidance systems and said the missile’s 50-ton weight would force
it to be launched from a fixed location, making it an easy target.
Mansoor Ahmed, a defense analyst based in Islamabad , said that the missile added to India ’s growing second-strike capabilities, particularly if India can construct a naval version of the Agni 5 to deploy on
its nuclear-powered submarines. A sub-based missile “can be deployed beyond the
reach of a Pakistani first strike, thus ensuring survivability of its nuclear
force,” he said.
Although that advance would alter the strategic balance in South Asia ,
Mr. Ahmed called Thursday’s test “China-centric” and said it was unlikely to
have an immediate effect on Pakistan-India relations.
Pakistani Foreign Ministry officials said they had been notified
in advance of the test by India , and made no further comments.
The 51-foot-long Agni 5 reached an altitude of about 430
miles in the test, the Indian government said, and has a range of 3,100 miles.
By United
States
measures, that distance technically makes it an intermediate missile, short of
the 3,400-mile minimum that defines intercontinental ballistic missiles, though
such quibbling means little if China is the aim.
“Agni 5 will give India complete coverage of targets in China ,” Poornima Subramaniam, an Asia-Pacific armed forces
analyst at IHS Jane’s
Defense, said in an e-mail. “Agni 5 technologically narrows the
missile gap between India and China , while the strategic balance between the two rivals is
still tipped in China ’s favor.”
Analysts say that given India ’s skills in launching heavy satellites and planetary
probes, it could easily field a missile powerful enough to send warheads over
intercontinental ranges.
Despite India ’s insistence that the missile exists for deterrence only,
its range raises questions about the country’s aims and risks escalating the
regional arms race.
“Everyone forgets about U.N. Security Council Resolution
1172, which calls upon India and Pakistan to cease development of ballistic
missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons,” Paul K. Kerr, a
nonproliferation expert with the Congressional Research Service, said in an
interview.
He said that when China , India and Pakistan fire missiles, it “has potential ripple effects, and
there’s no arms control among the three.”
There was also opposition in India , where some questioned the wisdom of an expensive missile
program while hundreds of millions of the country’s citizens live in dire
poverty.
“It is ridiculous,” said Praful Bidwai, a researcher and
columnist associated with the Coalition of Nuclear Disarmament and Peace. “We
are getting into a useless arms race at the expense of fulfilling the need of
poor people.”
But the criticism was muted compared with the
near-universal condemnation of North Korea , which launched a rocket last week that fell apart moments
after takeoff. “India’s record stands in stark contrast to that of North
Korea,” the White House spokesman, Jay Carney, insisted, noting that the
Security Council had sanctioned North Korea over its nuclear weapons program.
That contrast served India well on Thursday.
“We have achieved exactly what we wanted to achieve in this
mission,” Avinash Chandra, mission director for the test, told the Times Now
news channel.