(Evaluating India's military and technological prowess today and in the days to come)
This week India became the fourth nation to plant its colours on the moon, behind the United States, Russia and Japan. On this momentous occasion, the Oracle starts a round up of the nation's defences, prospects and prowess.
1. First, with Chandrayaan: With the success of Chandrayaan-I, India has shown that it is capable of "getting it right the first time", which, indeed is a rare feat, even for the handful of nations that have access to the moon.
Although India reaching for the moon by itself can be compared to reinventing the wheel, one should not ignore that the mission has important scientific objectives, such as mapping the lunar poles and searching for Helium-3. By carrying instruments from NASA, ESA and the Bulgarian Space Agency along with instruments of its own, ISRO has shown that the spirit of national pride can be carried alongside the quest for scientific delights. In contrast, China's space programme has the sole objective of intimidating possible adversaries, a menacing aspect that debauches the spirit of science. The ISRO should be proud of having achieved this major distinction, which has underscored the moral superiority of democracy. Of course, the fact that the jealous Chinese questioned the success of the mission using familiar "reality control" techniques has been one of the most satisfying aspects of Chandrayaan.
2) Other space projects: With the success of Chandrayaan, the ISRO has suddenly found itself to be much fancied by the media and the youth. With the launch of Astrosat next year, India will have the largest fleet of civilian satellites. Next year, the ISRO also plans to launch "Bhuvan", India's very own version of Google Earth, except that Bhuvan is reported to have much greater capabilities, such as resolution as high as 10m (compared to 200m from Google Earth and 50m from Wikimapia) and the listing of mineral components at various layers of the earth. Now that ISRO has raised expectations, it will be hard to satisfy zealous young Indians unless the Government generously expands ISRO's budget.
And then there are other projects that are still on the drawing board: the building of the astronaut training centre at Devanhalli near Bangalore, the construction of the solar probe Aditya and shaping Chandrayaan-II. The ISRO needs to tread carefully with Chandrayaan-II, since the lunar rover for the mission is due to be supplied by the Russians, who have, of late proved to be capricious and unreliable allies.
3) Aerospace command: The long standing need for a separate Aerospace Command has been scuttled for far too long. Ironically, it is not an enemy, nor a lcak of money, nor a lack of planning that has kept us from accomplishing this. The issue comes down to petty rivalries between the three existing arms of the military. The other two wings of the military suspect that the Air Force will exert the most influence over the Aerospace command. It is pathetic that such a small issue can make such a difference to national security.
Despite having a huge civilian satellite system, and indeed the world's largest, India's military surveillance and intelligence gathering capabilities are not significant, although the existing CARTOSAT-2A is believed to have some military uses. With the launch of Bhuvan next year, ISRO is expected to take another step towards building a remote navigation system that parallels the GPS used by NATO countries. So far, Indian efforts to build such a system jointly with the Russia, named the GLONASS, seem to be headed down a dead alley. The Russians have missed every single deadline on launching GLONASS satellites and the wait has been frustrating for India. Moreover, it is not advisable for India to have a remote navigation system jointly with Russia, since it compromises national security to the same extent as joining the GPS club with NATO would.
An aerospace command would bring projects such as remote navigation, spy satellites, etc. right to the fore. The competition has just been taken to a new level, since China has now demonstrated that it is capable of knocking satellites out of orbit. Stung by the Chinese leap, the US scrambled to put together its own system, which it finally test fired in Fenbruary this year. Currently, only the US, China and Russia possess an anti satellite weapon. India is behind. Although there have been efforts by all civilized nations to impose a moratorium on miltarization of space, given the human nature, militarization of space is an inevitability. India cannot ignore this reality.
4) The Air Force: Of late, the concerns about the state of the Air Force have become so severe that they have spilled out of the domain of geeky news gatherers into the consciousness of the general public. Although India's Air Force is sizeable and easily one of the most powerful in the world, the Air Force suffers from a lack of modern machines and from bureaucratic lethargy. There have been delays in ordering new planes when needed, although the government seems to have finally moved its rear end on this issue (but the Congress has still outperformed the BJP; the BJP could not even make sure the entire military budget was spent in 2002-2003).
India has made noises about acquiring more Russian aircraft, some of the Swedish Gripens and even the still somewhat mythical "Eurofighter" that is under construction. At the core of the problem is that India's plane manufacture capabilities are still nascent, a pity considering the fact that even the motley Swedes have the technology to make the versatile Gripen fighter.
Of late, however, India's technological establishment has seen a rise in prestige, which is, of course, contingent upon some success. The HAL Tejas Light Combat Aircraft is almost ready to be commissioned, since both the technology demonstrators seem to have performed successfully. The HAL Light Combat Helicopter is also due to be delivered in March 2009, a delay of three months from the target date of Dec, 2008. India is also rumoured to be close to completing the "Medium Combat Fighter" that will significantly increase India's strike capabilities.
Notwithstanding these gains, there remain even larger concerns over the availability and manufacture of the "less glorious" but essential units of the Air Force, such as training aircraft and heavy carriers. Currently, Lockheed Martin is building six C-130 Hercules planes to be delivered to India, as part of a $596 million deal. Once again, the key requirement of self sufficiency has not been met.
5) The Missile Programme: India's missile programme has registered some success in recent years, thus redeeming to the DRDO to some extent. After the embarrassing initial failure of Agni-III, the DRDO has successfully retested this missile, an act that has caused some heartburn in China. Nevertheless, the missile has not been inducted into the military as yet and hence most of the Chinese mainland is still out of reach for India. However, the stratagem of focussing on larger payload and lesser range has been a partial success, since India's potential enemies are located around its own borders, while the Chinese have had to strain themselves with building missiles that can fly all the way to the United States. This is in line with India's initial aim of establishing itself in Asia and then planning for worldwide power projection.
It is for this moment that India must prepare. Although government officials are yet to confirm its existence, India has been working on an ICBM for a while now, since 1991, according to some reports. The ICBMs Surya-I (and II) are expected to use India's GSLV rockets and Surya-I should be on display in a couple of years. The truly magnificient Surya-II, with its truly massive payload that will make it the most devastating in the world, is not due for a few years.
For now, India has to be satisfied with its Inter Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBM). A nuclear arsenal is almost a white elephant unless a country possesses the requisite delivery system. India cannot rely on planes to deliver its nuclear bombs. The Agni missile is fully capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, but the missile itself must undergo more tests before it can be pronounced fully reliable.
No assessment of India's military capabilites is complete without the mention of the Brahmos supersonic cruise missile. The missile has helped India's reputation grow manifold. Apart from this, India has readied the nuclear capable K-15 Sagarika submarine launched ballistic missile that is expected to be fitted onto the nuclear submarines (ATVs) when they enter service at the end of the next year.
(To be continued... focussing on the Army and the Navy in the next part)
No comments:
Post a Comment