In March 2017, General David Perkins of the U.S army
bragged in a military symposiumabout the success which one of the “close U.S ally” had in shooting down a $200 dollar, purportedly hostile, quadcopter with the U.S made PATRIOT missile defense system. He did not name the particular country nor went into further specifics of the incident. But the mention itself, that a $200 worth toy grade drone was shot with a $3 million missile, was enough to raise a key question about the economic exchange disparity, which apparently provided a solution to penetrate through the highly-sophisticated Anti-Ballistic Missile Defense Systems such as the PATRIOT PAC-3 itself.
Terminal High Altitude Air Defense System (THAAD), PATRIOT PAC-3 and Aegis Naval System are the high-tech sophisticated systems which have a great success rate of intercepting a short-to-intermediate range projectile while on the other hand, Russia has S-400 and S-500 systems, as competitive as the U.S ones. The balance in South Asia was disturbed when India announced last month that it was going ahead to buy S-400 defense system in a deal worth $5 billion USD, despite the threat of U.S sanctions.
The development was particularly worrisome for Pakistan, a country which always has to follow the lead toward aggressive military ambitions of its foe India. Consequently, the opportunity cost is the economic and social growth of its people. Pakistan has never had the hostile or aggressive military policy to instigate the arms race with India for one simple reason; it cannot afford to do so by any means..
Why is Indian S-400 such a big deal?
Russian made S-400 system like any other ballistic missile defense system consists of a tracking, guidance and interception mechanism. A radar, which is the part of the assembly, tracks the incoming object which could either be a missile or an enemy aircraft within a range of 400 km and an altitude of 36 km, making it an endothermic defense module. After the flight path is analyzed, it fires its own missile which works on
kinetic kill mechanism and neutralizes the incoming threat by colliding with it.
When Indian procurement of S-400 is juxtaposed with the 4++ generation Rafale jets it has ordered from France, it gives the country absolute air superiority over Pakistan. But Pakistan seems to have developed an economical response to India’s air cover which is most likely to make its impermeable airspace more penetrable even with such a high-end protective system.
MIRV – Pakistan’s Counter
The key technology which both USA and Russia were able to attain during the Cold War that ultimately forced them to sign an Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty was Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicle or MIRV system. MIRV is basically a missile which has multiple missiles encapsulated in its pointed tip and upon re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere during its flight course, each missile leaves the body of the main frame and approaches its own target independently.
The ABM defense systems detect the incoming missile, which carries more missiles in its body, as a single target and launches a single interceptor to destroy it in the terminal phase of flight. With the ability to launch multiple warhead projectiles, MIRV drastically reduces the effectiveness of an Anti-Ballistic Missile Defense system. In January 2017, Pakistan became the first country to successfully test a Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicle system, ABABEEL, in South Asia. A feat which was
confirmed by the Defense Intelligence Agency of the U.S military makes Pakistan the only state in South Asia so far to have this technology.
An ABM radar assembly can detect the income hostile object violating the airspace of the country, but it cannot simply tell the type and nature of the incoming threat. To reduce the risk of interception for the actual warhead, ABABEEL can successfully be used as a decoy to engage as many missiles S-400 shoots as possible. The exact statistics to depict the cost of each missile are not available, but a unit is expected to be around $0.8-1 million dollars. In this way, Pakistan can use its low yielding, low-cost conventional missiles to devour expensive S-400 interceptor missiles.
Pakistan is relying heavily on the tactical nuclear weapons which have a limited yield to respond to the “Cold Start Doctrine”, The Indian Army’s New Limited War Doctrine. But the use of tactical nuclear weapons is hindered in practicality by one of the crucial clauses of India’s Nuclear Doctrine which advocates “massive, broad scale and terrible” nuclear response in case of a nuclear attack. So far the possession of nuclear weapons has been a major deterrent to a large spectrum conflict between two countries but the induction of S-400 system has initiated yet another race to achieve ultimate superiority which could be used for coercion.
The Doctrine of Mutual Annihilation”, which prevented a nuclear escalation for decades during the cold war, could serve as the illustration for both India and Pakistan leading to 1972 like American-Soviet ABM treaty. However, it is only possible if Pakistan inducts an Anti-Ballistic Missile Defense System of its own which could match the sophistication of S-400, or else India will always have, at least, the psychological superiority of imperviousness.
