sudhir007
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FORCE - A Complete News Magazine on National Security - Defence Magazine
Tall claims and empty boasts seem to have become the hallmark of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). The proclivity of the Director General, DRDO, Dr V.K. Saraswat and his team to exaggerate its achievements would be amusing to discerning people. Unfortunately, this amusement has grave national security implications and Dr Saraswat, a ballistic missile expert with the indigenous Prithvi ballistic missile being his crowning glory, should know this better than most.
As the director general, DRDO, he is leading the nations home-grown Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) programme. The claims made by him about the recently tested-fired Dhanush and Prithvi II ballistic missiles on March 11 and the BMD Endo-atmospheric interceptor test on March 6 are exaggerated beyond imagination. These should have been put into perspective by the Indian defence correspondents and experts, not only for domestic but international consumption as well, because the Pakistani establishment, while ignoring DRDOs claims on Prithvi, utilises the boasts about the BMD to its strategic advantage.
Making use of Saraswats chest-thumping, Pakistan is going ahead full throttle to more than match Indias humble BMD technological achievements; if at all, the programme is decades away from fruition. According to US intelligence, while ahead of India in ballistic missiles capabilities since 2001, General Headquarters, Rawalpindi continues to increase its inventory of nuclear weapons land vector by citing Indias BMD claims as a destabilising factor. This writer had first-hand experience of this a few months ago. During the alumni meet at the Cooperative Monitoring Centre (Sandia National Laboratory) at Albuquerque, US in October 2010, a former director of Pakistans Strategic Plans Division, Brigadier Feroz Khan argued that Indias growing BMD capability had forced Pakistan to build more ballistic missiles.
Given its unbridled inventory, it is a matter of time before the Pakistan Army will alter its war-fighting doctrine to align it with the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army thinking. While supplementing air power, the difference between combat aircraft and ballistic missiles will narrow down to tighter control of the latter. This will upset the Indian Air Force combat numbers superiority over the Pakistan Air Force and force the Indian Army to review its operational level pro-active strategy, referred to as the Cold Start doctrine in the media, against the Pakistan Army. Given such implications, the defence minister needs to restrain Saraswat and the DRDO from making irresponsible statements. Apparently after the recent claims on the BMD project, defence minister A.K. Antony has expressed his displeasure to Saraswat.
Prithvi and Dhanush
A brief history and technological limitations of the indigenous Prithvi ballistic missile are in order. The development of surface-to-surface Prithvi ballistic missile was sanctioned by the government in 1983 under the Integrated Guided Missiles Development Programme. As Prithvi was an offshoot of ISROs civilian Space Launch Vehicle (SLV), its development commenced without the General Staff Qualitative Requirements (GSQR) technical requirements given by the user, that is, defence services, to the research organisation implying that the defence services were neither consulted nor were they interested (ballistic missiles were still unknown to them) in the programme. As happens with most indigenous programmes, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi personally goaded the army in 1988 to accept Prithvi in order to encourage the indigenous product. Considering the Prime Minister had intervened regarding a weapon system, it was easy for the DRDO to arm-twist the other two services, the navy and the air force to seek the missile with a few minor and not design changes to suit its medium of operations.
Tall claims and empty boasts seem to have become the hallmark of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). The proclivity of the Director General, DRDO, Dr V.K. Saraswat and his team to exaggerate its achievements would be amusing to discerning people. Unfortunately, this amusement has grave national security implications and Dr Saraswat, a ballistic missile expert with the indigenous Prithvi ballistic missile being his crowning glory, should know this better than most.
As the director general, DRDO, he is leading the nations home-grown Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) programme. The claims made by him about the recently tested-fired Dhanush and Prithvi II ballistic missiles on March 11 and the BMD Endo-atmospheric interceptor test on March 6 are exaggerated beyond imagination. These should have been put into perspective by the Indian defence correspondents and experts, not only for domestic but international consumption as well, because the Pakistani establishment, while ignoring DRDOs claims on Prithvi, utilises the boasts about the BMD to its strategic advantage.
Making use of Saraswats chest-thumping, Pakistan is going ahead full throttle to more than match Indias humble BMD technological achievements; if at all, the programme is decades away from fruition. According to US intelligence, while ahead of India in ballistic missiles capabilities since 2001, General Headquarters, Rawalpindi continues to increase its inventory of nuclear weapons land vector by citing Indias BMD claims as a destabilising factor. This writer had first-hand experience of this a few months ago. During the alumni meet at the Cooperative Monitoring Centre (Sandia National Laboratory) at Albuquerque, US in October 2010, a former director of Pakistans Strategic Plans Division, Brigadier Feroz Khan argued that Indias growing BMD capability had forced Pakistan to build more ballistic missiles.
Given its unbridled inventory, it is a matter of time before the Pakistan Army will alter its war-fighting doctrine to align it with the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army thinking. While supplementing air power, the difference between combat aircraft and ballistic missiles will narrow down to tighter control of the latter. This will upset the Indian Air Force combat numbers superiority over the Pakistan Air Force and force the Indian Army to review its operational level pro-active strategy, referred to as the Cold Start doctrine in the media, against the Pakistan Army. Given such implications, the defence minister needs to restrain Saraswat and the DRDO from making irresponsible statements. Apparently after the recent claims on the BMD project, defence minister A.K. Antony has expressed his displeasure to Saraswat.
Prithvi and Dhanush
A brief history and technological limitations of the indigenous Prithvi ballistic missile are in order. The development of surface-to-surface Prithvi ballistic missile was sanctioned by the government in 1983 under the Integrated Guided Missiles Development Programme. As Prithvi was an offshoot of ISROs civilian Space Launch Vehicle (SLV), its development commenced without the General Staff Qualitative Requirements (GSQR) technical requirements given by the user, that is, defence services, to the research organisation implying that the defence services were neither consulted nor were they interested (ballistic missiles were still unknown to them) in the programme. As happens with most indigenous programmes, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi personally goaded the army in 1988 to accept Prithvi in order to encourage the indigenous product. Considering the Prime Minister had intervened regarding a weapon system, it was easy for the DRDO to arm-twist the other two services, the navy and the air force to seek the missile with a few minor and not design changes to suit its medium of operations.
