#Pakistan Has Just Tested the Ultimate #Nuclear #Ababeel #Missile: #SouthAsia's First MIRV with multiple warheads. #India
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/th...ust-tested-the-ultimate-nuclear-missile-24834
Pakistan has tested a ballistic missile with a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV), the United States confirmed this week.
During testimony to Congress outlining worldwide threats on March 6, Robert Ashley, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), stated: “In January 2017, Pakistan conducted the first test launch of its nuclear-capable Ababeel ballistic missile, demonstrating South Asia’s first MIRV payload.” It appeared to be the first time a U.S. official publicly confirmed that Islamabad tested a MIRVed missile; however, in a report last year on missile threats around the world, the Defense Intelligence Ballistic Missile Analysis Committee noted, “In January 2017, [Pakistan] began testing the MIRVed Ababeel MRBM.”
MIRVs allow a single missile to deliver multiple warheads against different targets.
The Pakistani military first announced its test of the MIRVed missile on January 24, 2017. “Pakistan has conducted its first successful flight test of Surface to Surface Ballistic Missile Ababeel, which has a maximum range of 2,200 kilometers,” the military announced in a press release at the time. “The missile is capable of delivering multiple warheads, using Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicle (MIRV) technology.” The statement added that the test was aimed at “validating various design and technical parameters.” No other tests of the Ababeel missiles are known to have taken place since the first one.
Despite these claims, many outside experts questioned whether Pakistan really had developed or tested a MIRV. As the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Missile Defense Project noted, “Some experts have expressed skepticism as to whether Pakistan has indeed surmounted the various technological hurdles required for MIRVed missiles. MIRV warheads are typically much smaller than unitary warheads, and thus require greater miniaturization. It is unclear if the country has manufactured a miniaturized nuclear warhead small enough to use in a MIRV.” Ashley’s confirmation should put this skepticism to rest.
---
Islamabad’s stated rationale for pursuing MIRV technology is to defeat India’s ballistic-missile defense systems. “Development of Ababeel Weapon System is aimed at ensuring survivability of Pakistan’s ballistic missiles in the growing regional Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) environment,” the Pakistani military said in the statement announcing the test last January. “This will further reinforce deterrence.”
MIRVs are undoubtedly useful for defeating missile defenses, as they present numerous targets in close range that interceptors must locate and destroy. At the same time, MIRVs are extremely valuable for counterforce attacks—that is, trying to destroy an adversary’s nuclear arsenal in a surprise first strike. In that sense, they are extremely destabilizing for strategic stability; during the Cold War MIRVs greatly exacerbated the nuclear arms race between the two superpowers.
--------
Pakistan is not the first country in Asia to test a MIRVed missile. That distinction belongs to China. It is unclear when China initially tested a MIRVed missile, but the Pentagon first acknowledged that Beijing had that capability in its 2015 report on Chinese military power. France, Britain, Russia and the United States also have MIRVed missiles. During his time in office, President Barack Obama removed all MIRVs on America’s land-based ballistic missiles, but Washington continues to have MIRVed submarine-launched ballistic missiles.
Now that Pakistan and China have them, it seems inevitable that India will join the MIRV club sooner rather than later.
Fair knows nothing about military strategy. Being a professor or dean at a university doesn't change this fact.
I myself do not claim to be an authority on every subject I write about.
However, I do read experts' analyses and opinions on each subject and refer to them in my blog.
In this post, for instance, I have quoted Kings College war studies professor Walter Ladwig and Indian think tank researcher Menaakshi Sood from the Center for Land Warfare Studies in New Delhi.
I have also included quotes from Indian generals with first hand knowledge of the subject.
comparing army's war wastage to a militaries arsenal
