Misguided missiles

By Deepanshu Bagchee and Matthew C.J. Rudolph

The new U.S. administration has finally rolled out its proposal for a national missile defence (NMD) system. Now that the details are on the table we may hope for some more sober consideration of the implications of NMD for India.

The Bush administration's aggressive pursuit of missile defence policies has not elicited the kind of Indian reaction one would expect. In the aftermath of the recent policy statement by the U.S. administration, the MEA has been effusive in its praise for the U.S. offer to significantly reduce its nuclear arsenal and to move away from offensive nuclear weapons to a defensive strategy.

This may be due to a misunderstanding of American missile defence policy. Two systems have been on the table for some time. Theatre Missile Defence (TMD) is the less controversial of the two. As originally conceived, TMD is a tactical system designed to protect U.S. and allied forces in a highly localised Gulf War- like regional conflict. NMD is intended to defend the U.S. mainland from a limited strike by a ``rogue'' nation. Advocates of NMD argue that a limited system can easily be overwhelmed by a large number of incoming missiles. Thus, they argue, NMD will not upset the deterrence relationship between the world's nuclear powers that is said to have maintained peace since the time of the Cold War.

Indians have tended to view TMD and NMD as clearly distinct systems posing separate policy problems. Indian analysts have been fairly sanguine about TMD, discounting its relevance to the Subcontinent because TMD is most likely to be deployed in distant East Asian and Middle Eastern theatres against adversaries such as China, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, or Libya.

But, this view ignores the recent convergence of the two schemes' proposed technologies. Under the new proposal, the U.S. will first build an NMD system capable of destroying missiles in their ``boost phase''. Low-flying missiles launched from nearby warships or land-bases will destroy missiles shortly after launch when they are slow and their rocket plume is easy to detect. This option which is cheaper than space-based and high altitude system, is conceptually and technologically akin to much of the proposed TMD systems. Thus, any lessons learnt in developing TMD will be used to improve the NMD system.

The new Bush plan also calls for two more ``layers'' to the system, both of which have TMD-like attributes. The second layer is an airplane-mounted laser system to catch missiles that make it past the boost stage. Finally, a third echelon of Patriot-like rockets will be used to destroy remaining airborne missiles. Indians who have discounted TMD as irrelevant to South Asia and who have thought NMD a far-off dream will now be forced to reevaluate.

There are several good reasons why Indians should worry about the Bush team's new missile defence plans. First, NMD is likely to provoke a Southern Asian arms race. If the Americans field even just the proposed limited NMD system, it will degrade China's strategic nuclear position. China's nuclear arsenal today consists of about two dozen missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland. Defence experts in Beijing evince concern that the additional margin of protection afforded by any missile defence system would undermine China's small deterrent force, and make U.S. decision makers more adventurous in a crisis situation. The most likely response will be an increase in both the size and sophistication of Chinese strategic forces in an effort to ensure that in case of war against the U.S. a Chinese nuclear strike will be capable of overwhelming the American system.

A ``minimum'' Indian deterrent of a few dozen nuclear- capable Agni-II missiles would then be an insufficient deterrent against an improved Chinese force. In the tortured trilateral logic of Southern Asian geopolitics, Indian improvements would in turn provoke a Pakistani race to catch up.

The American plan may also have a cascading weapons proliferation effect. A TMD system (or parts of an NMD system) deployed in East Asia is sure to upset China. In retaliation the PRC may once again step up their habit of selective proliferation, sharing missile and nuclear technology with North Korea and West Asian hard-currency customers. More worrying for India, of course, China may share more advanced technology with Pakistan.

Finally, the pursuit of missile defence will discredit the American non-proliferation agenda, making it even more difficult to recruit Indian assistance in this area. Indians have long accused the U.S. of bad faith in its commitment to the Non- Proliferation Treaty. NMD policies will reinforce this belief, and will certainly undermine any emerging anti-nuclear norm in the international system. Despite the U.S. announcement on reducing its nuclear arsenal, progress on NMD will very likely reverse the post-Cold War trend favouring moratorium on nuclear testing and the dismantling of weapons. Alas, at a time when there was talk of nuclear restraint and confidence building measures between Indian and Pakistan, progress toward NMD may indirectly raise the spectre of a new arms race on the subcontinent.

(The writers are, respectively, correspondent for the programme Worldview India on Doordarshan, and doctoral candidate in Political Science at Cornell University and also visiting research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing.)

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