Beijing in the indian crosshair

An analysis done by Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists suggests how India's nuclear strategy, which has traditionally focused on Pakistan, now appears to place its emphasis on China.

According to the report, India continues to modernise its nuclear arsenal to complement or replace existing nuclear-capable aircraft, land-based delivery systems, and sea-based systems. 

Several of these new systems are nearing completion and will soon be combat-ready.

DEFCON 5

There are currently no imminent nuclear threats against the United States at this time, but let us go summarize the today-and-now status quo regarding the main actors on the main stages of a possible WW3

UNITED STATES vs RUSSIA

As the United States continues to consider withdrawing from the intermediate range nuclear weapon treaty, Russia has warned of an “efficient response” if the United States deploys intermediate-range missiles in Europe, implicity threatening any country that hosts U.S. nuclear weapons.

INDIA vs PAKISTAN and CHINA

• India’s first domestically built nuclear-powered submarine has completed its first patrol in a signal to both Pakistan and China and now says its nuclear triad is complete.
• China has begun construction on third aircraft carrier

IRAN

Iran has test-fired a medium range ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple warheads.

NORTH KOREA vs UNITED STATES and SOUTH KOREA

• North Korea has threatens to restart nuclear weapons programme if U.S. does not provide sanctions relief.
• It must be noted that North Korea has continued to expand operations at its main nuclear site and that South Korea spy agency have reported that North Korea is continuing to miniaturize nuclear warheads.
• United States say it may resume large-scale joint military exercises with South Korea if there continues to be no tangible progress on the denuclearization of North Korea.

RUSSIA vs UKRAINE

• Russia has attacked and captured Ukraine vessels in the Sea of Azov.
• While Ukraine makes noises of war, no other country seems to be moving in that direction.
• The United States has stated that the current crises is an European problem, indicating that the U.S. will not get involved.
• Additionally, Germany has refused a request to get involved.
• This does not mean that escalation is not possible.
• This is highly dependent on what Russia will do and how NATO will respond. 

Pakistan quiere entrar en el NSG

En 2010, Washington anunció el respaldo a la India para ser aceptada en el NSG (Nuclear Suppliers Group).

Esto no fue visto con buenos ojos por Pakistan, quien desde entonces está molesto con la administración USA por esta y por otras muestras de favoritismo hacia su vecino y rival.

Más concretamente, Estados Unidos no sólo ha respaldado a India en lo referente al NSG, sino tambien respalda su presencia en el Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), el AG (Australian Group) y el WA (Wassenaar Arrangement).

Pakistan quiere ser tratado de igual manera que su vecino, y denuncia que la admisión de la India en estos cuatro organismos pondría en peligro la paz en el sureste de Asia. Sin embargo, Estados Unidos mira con mucho recelo a Pakistan, a quien consideran un país de quien difícilmente se pueden fiar, dadas las buenas relaciones que mantiene con grupos terroristas como Al Quaeda, así como por sus buenas relaciones con China, Irán, y Corea del Norte.

Por lo que se refiere a China, Pakistan está forjando alianzas de cooperación con el gigante asiático al objeto de seguir avanzando en el desarrollo de su programa de armamento nuclear. Esto ha despertado los recelos del CFR (Council on Foreign Relations) quien ha advertido sobre el riesgo que supondría el desarrollo de un programa que posibilitaría a Pakistan consolidarse en tan sólo diez años como la cuarta superpotencia nuclear mundial. 

India: Éxito en el disparo del Agni-V

Hace unas horas ha sido lanzado el misil de largo alcance Agni-V. Según la DRDO, la prueba ha sido todo un éxito y, si bien este lanzamiento de prueba no es el primero que se efectúa con este misil, sin embargo es el primero que se efectúa desde lanzadera móvil. Esto otorga mayor capacidad de respuesta a las fuerzas armadas hindúes ante un eventual ataque proveniente de China y/o Pakistan.

David del Fresno Consultores

Asesoría en Manufactura Aditiva

http://daviddft.wix.com/david-del-fresno

India prueba su nueva bomba planeadora de 1 Tonelada

India ha probado hoy su nueva bomba planeadora de una tonelada, capaz de alcanzar objetivos localizados a 100 km. de distancia. La bomba de precisión fue probada en la bahía de Bengala y se lanzó desde un avión de la Fuerza Aérea Hindú. Guiada por su sistema de navegación a bordo, se deslizó a lo largo de casi 100 km antes de dar en el blanco con "gran precisión", según ha informado la Organización de Investigación y Desarrollo de Defensa (Defense Research and Development Organization - DRDO). Según el Dr. G Satheesh Reddy, Director del Laboratorio Imarat, encargado del desarrollo de la bomba de planeo, "India se ha hecho autosuficiente en el área de bombas de precisión guiadas."

A diferencia de los misiles, las bombas de planeo no tienen motor a bordo y son por lo tanto mucho más baratas de construir y mantener que los misiles. Su funcionamiento se basa en pequeñas aletas de control que dirigen el arma hacia el objetivo siguiendo un rumbo marcado por el ordenador a bordo conforme a los datos proporcionados por el buscador con que cuenta esta bomba. El buscador en sí mismo puede ser óptico, de infrarrojos o una combinación de los dos. Por si esto no bastase, el ordenador puede recibir datos vía satélite para alcanzar su objetivo con máxima precisión. Gracias a su alcance de 100 kilómetros, esta nueva bomba de planeo puede ser lanzada por el ejercito de la India hacia objetivos terrestres que estén más allá del alcance de la mayoría de misiles tierra-aire disponibles actualmente por los ejércitos de China y Pakistan. En otras palabras, esto significa ni mas ni menos que podrían lanzar un ataque desde un caza y escapar antes de entrar en el radio de alcance de los misiles tierra-aire del enemigo.

David del Fresno Consultores

http://daviddft.wix.com/david-del-fresno

China, angered

China's foreign ministry rebuked the U.S. Congress after legislators passed a bill allowing the sale of second-hand warships to Taiwan, the self-ruled island which Beijing claims as a renegade province.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said the bill's passage was an "interference" in China's internal affairs: "China is resolutely opposed to this and has already made solemn representations to the U.S. side. We hope the U.S. Congress stops carrying forward this legislation," Hong told reporters at a regular press briefing. "We also hope the newly elected authorities can prevent the implementation of this legislation to avoid influencing the development of China-U.S. relations," Added.

The bill, which includes provisions on the transfer of warships to Mexico, Thailand and Pakistan, still has to be signed into law by U.S. President Barack Obama. The U.S. Senate unanimously approved the bill last week, authorizing the sale of four Perry-class guided missile frigates to Taiwan. China expressed anger in April when a similar bill passed in the U.S. House of Representatives. U.S. weapons sales in recent years to Taiwan have attracted strong condemnation in China, but have not caused lasting damage to Beijing's relations with either Washington or Taipei.

While Taiwan and China have signed a series of landmark trade and economic agreements since 2008, political and military suspicions are still deep, especially in democratic Taiwan where many fear China's true intentions.

Spears and Shields: A brief look

America’s National Intelligence Council said in 1999 that China and Russia had devised numerous countermeasures to protect offensive missiles and were probably willing to sell the technology.

A statement in May by the office of the assistant secretary of defence for research and engineering noted that the proliferation of such advanced countermeasures was rendering America’s missile defences “no longer practical or cost-effective”.

Among nuclear powers, neither North Korea nor Pakistan is presently capable of building a ballistic-missile triggering system that is able to detonate a nuclear payload if an interceptor was drawing near. But with time and enough effort, this could change: At least one type of nuclear device detonated by North Korea “is not inconsistent” with efforts to build a bomb designed for an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) attack. Effects of a EMP depend on factors including the altitude of the detonation, energy yield, gamma ray output, interactions with the Earth's magnetic field and electromagnetic shielding of targets, but in any case rapidly changing electric fields and magnetic fields may couple with electrical/electronic systems to produce damaging current and voltage surges. The threat grows as potential attackers continue to acquire “more complex, survivable, reliable and accurate” ICBMs equipped with countermeasures

Land- and Sea-Based Spears: ICBMs

The trajectory of an ICBM runs in three consecutive phases: Atmosphere-Space-Atmosphere. The first phase is the "easyest" one in order to incercept the ICBM, so it is neccesary to place interceptors close enough to reach the missile before it leaves the atmosphere... But it is not easy, indeed. Ronald Reagan hoped to put interception satellites into low orbit, but the “Star Wars” scheme, as it was known, presented three main handicaps:

1. It would have required a lot satellites costing billions of dollars.
2. Satellites could be shot up with missiles
3. Satellites could be blinded with lasers

Space-Based Spears: Satellites

• In December 2012 North Korea launched a satellite on a southerly track. The launch reveals a vulnerability in missile defences which could be exploited for an EMP attack.
• A nuclear device fitted into a subsequent southerly launched satellite would circumvent America’s defences against long-range weapons because these are positioned to hit warheads flying from over the North Pole, not those coming from the south.
• A nuke concealed in a satellite in an orbit used by many civilian satellites could be detonated on a flyover above America. There is no point in having a missile-defence system that cannot prevent such an attack.

Air-Based Shields: Lasers and interceptors

• MDA believes that aircraft-mounted anti-missile Solid-state lasers may “play a crucial role” in defeating ICBMs during the boost phase. Experiments have begun with General Atomics’ Reaper and Boeing’s Phantom Eye drones.
• Dale Tietz, a former senior Star Wars official, says that North Korean missiles could be prevented from reaching space by just three interceptor-armed Global Hawk UAVs.

Sea-Based Shields: Aegis

• 30 of America’s warships carry Aegis anti-missile systems, but these were designed to strike shorter-range missiles.
• With recent upgrades, Aegis is thought to be capable of intercepting warheads in space, in limited circumstances.
• With additional radar near America’s east coast, Aegis destroyers in the Atlantic could theoretically intercept ICBMs coming from Europe and Asia.

Ground-Based Shields: GMD

• The GMD system consists of an “exoatmospheric kill vehicle” with steering rockets and its own X-Band Radar system.
• There are 30 GMD interceptors at Vandenberg AFB and Fort Greely in Alaska.
• The MDA has begun work at Fort Greely to prepare for a field of silos that will contain an extra 14 interceptors by 2017.

¿Is India ready to defend itself against the Chinese threat?

After decades of pursuing Pakistan-centric war planning, the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force are recalibrating their sights towards the hitherto neglected northern frontiers with China, giving a hard push to improving its war-fighting capabilities against its more powerful neighbor.

But the Chinese need not worry, as it will take almost a decade for India to come anywhere near the infrastructure that the Chinese have built just in TAR (Tibet Autonomous Region): Since the 1990s, China has built a network of roads, airports and railway in the sparsely populated TAR which gives the People's Liberation Army (PLA) a distinct advantage when it comes to mobilizing its forces if needed in double quick time.

Pakistan test-fires Hatf IX (Nasr) missile

Pakistan has conducted a successful test fire of Short Range Surface to Surface Missile Hatf IX (NASR).

According to Inter Services Public Relation (ISPR) the test fire was conducted with successive launches of 4 x missiles (Salvo) from a state of the art multi tube launcher. NASR, with a range of 60 Kilometer and in-flight maneuver capability is a quick response system, with shoot and scoot attributes.

Turkey: The Chinese Headache

NATO member states are strongly opposed to Turkey’s decision to purchase a Chinese-built missile defense system, with one NATO official calling the missile system a “virus,” according to a report in the Turkish newspaper, the Hurriyet Daily News.

An unnamed NATO ambassador in Ankara, was even blunter, telling Hurriyet: “I have no idea why the Turks do not see the simple fact that the alliance’s security threat perception in the next 20 years is based on China. Air and missile defense will be the top defense issue in the foreseeable future, with China being under the magnifier.”

The Hurriyet article suggests that the main concern among NATO officials with Ankara’s purchase of the HQ-9 missile system is the lack of interoperability. In particular, the NATO officials interviewed expressed concern about integrating the HQ-9 with NATO’s Identify Friend or Foe (IFF) system, which operates on “Mode 5,” a code that enables the system to distinguish between friendly and adversary aircraft.

Meanwhile, State Department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, expressed concerns with the fact that the Chinese company involved in the deal has repeatedly been sanctioned by the U.S. for its deals with countries like Iran, Pakistan and North Korea. “The main concern here was that the Turkish government was having contract discussions with a U.S.-sanctioned company for a missile defense system that was not operable with NATO systems,” Psaki said.

Syria jihadist rebels prepare for US attack

The hailstorm of Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAMs) that is expected to rain down on Syria's bases and command-and-control centres - if President Barack Obama wins Congressional approval - would certainly hurt the jihadists' enemy, although perhaps not fatally: In preparation for the missile strikes - if and when they come - instructions have gone out online for rebel commanders and others to change their locations and not to gather in big groups or convoys. There is a specific fear of homing chips being attached to leaders' cars to guide incoming missiles as they are believed to have been in Pakistan's tribal areas and in the Gaza Strip.

India's BMD program: Reasons to be concerned about

India has started a program focused to expand the missile defense to shield large parts of the country that, in the oppinion of many analysts, for some reasons may be counter-productive to maintain the peace in the region. Let us see briefly why.

India

• Development of a pan-national missile interception capability is beyond India’s economic means, and for that reason may ballast dramatically the economy of the country. 

Pakistan

• Pakistan’s inclinations to pursue low intensity conflicts under the shield of its nuclear arsenal have made India extremely uncomfortable with the strategic situation in the region.
• Many in Delhi hope missile defense will provide India a space for limited wars against Pakistan, bearing in mind the fear that there could be an unintended launch of a ballistic missile, especially given Pakistan’s vacillation between being ruled by a trigger happy military and being overrun by jihadi extremists.
• However, Pakistan is acutely sensitive to any perceived military edge, current or future, that India may be developing.
• It means in fact that even a limited fielding of a partly unproven Indian ballistic missile defense capability (as DRDO is actually planning) could be enough to compel Pakistan to grow its nuclear arsenal – with all the potential dangers that this entails.

China

• Although DRDO’s capabilities are far from proven when pitted against Chinese ICBMs, such as the DF-41, a nationwide BMD system could create in China the perception that India it is preparing for a first strike; a perception which may be anything except good.
• At a time when India and China are making a renewed effort to secure a long-term agreement on the status of their borders, BMD developments could therefore worsen the trajectory of their relationship, all while offering India uncertain returns.

India: Exito en las pruebas del Prithvi II

India ha probado con éxito el misil nuclear Prithvi-II, como parte de una serie de maniobras de sus Fuerzas Armadas.

Este misil tierra-tierra monoetapa de corto alcance (350 Km) es el primero desarrollado por el Programa de Desarrollo de Misiles Guiados Integrados de India. Va impulsado por dos motores de propulsión líquida y utiliza un sistema inercial avanzado para ejecutar las maniobras de trayectoria. En cuanto a su capacidad destructiva merece destacarse que puede transportar ojivas de entre 500 y 1.000 Kg.

La nación surasiática también dispone de la serie Agni cuya última versión puede golpear objetivos a más de cinco mil kilómetros, y del Brahmos, este último desarrollado en cooperación con Rusia. Todos pueden transportar ojivas nucleares y forman parte de la carrera armamentista que la nación surasiática mantiene con el vecino Pakistán, que también fabrica sus propios misiles balísticos.

Pakistan protesta por el ataque de los Estados Unidos en Waziristan

Pakistan ha condenado con dureza el ataque llevado a cabo hace unas horas en Waziristan, que ha terminado con la vida de siete personas. Todos los indicios apuntan a que el ataque se ha llevado a cabo mediante un misil AGM-114 "Hellfire" disparado desde un UAV General Atomics MQ-9 "Reaper" .