New Delhi's Dilemma

The U.S. debate on NMD is taking place at a time of deteriorating relations among the three major world powers whose policies and actions have the greatest impact on Indian security. The Sino-U.S. and U.S.-Russian relationships have soured due to several disputes and conflicting interests. The issue of missile defense will further aggravate tensions between these powers which, in turn, will affect India's strategic options and interests.

With international politics and security in flux, U.S. NMD has introduced a disruptive new element. Although unipolarity has become stronger in the past decade, emerging rivalries in the world point to a new cold war in the offing, a reality likely to become clearer following a U.S. decision in favor of NMD.

Today, the global strategic environment is more competitive than ever. The revolution in military affairs (RMA) is producing new destructive capacities. In the past century, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and missiles came to occupy a central military role. That is likely to remain the case in the foreseeable future. The growing attraction of missiles--which are much cheaper and easier to operate and maintain than manned bomber aircraft--flows from the fact that the attacking nation does not have to bring its forces in harm's way. As the disarmament process has stalled, missile defenses have been justified and encouraged. In the distant future, NMD could make the strategic environment even more competitive as missile-defense research yields technologies for offensive space-based weapons.

Policy Implications for India

Antiballistic missile (ABM) systems are theoretically of great interest to New Delhi. Few countries in the world confront the multitude of missile threats that India does. These threats stretch all around--from China in the north to the missile-armed foreign naval fleets in the Indian Ocean to Pakistan and Iran in the west. Further afield is Saudi Arabia, with its traditionally close military ties to Pakistan and its China-supplied, intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) that can reach India. Two of India's neighbors, Pakistan and Iran, startled the world by testing IRBMs in a space of three months in 1998.

Through China's new generation of solid-fueled, multiple-warhead missiles, however, India's largest neighbor is conducting the biggest expansion of missile capabilities anywhere in the world. The first of these new missiles, the Dongfeng (DF) 31, last tested in July 1999, can reach every corner of India but little of U.S. territory. This multiple-warhead, truck-mobile missile, ¹ and China's other planned solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the DF-41, are "most destabilizing" weapon systems as they are precisely the kind of multiple-warhead, land-based missiles that START II seeks to eliminate. ²

The growing proliferation and use of missiles carries serious implications for Indian security. First, missiles have come to symbolize power and coercion in international relations. They are useful not only to achieve military objectives but also to realize aims through political intimidation and coercion. Second, there is, unlike in the case of nuclear weapons, no international legal structure to control them and no taboo related to their use. Although nuclear weapons have not been employed for nearly 55 years, missiles are being used with increasing frequency. China used ballistic missile "tests" in 1996 as a means to intimidate and blackmail Taiwan. Its M-9 maneuvers against Taiwan were the first instance in history when ballistic missiles were employed for political warfare and blackmail in peacetime. In a span of less than eight months during 1998 and 1999, the United States fired with impunity cruise missiles at targets in Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yugoslavia. The low-flying, slower cruise missiles, unlike the much-faster ballistic missiles, strike with a high degree of accuracy.

Third, the 1999 U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) air war against Yugoslavia, more than the 1991 Persian Gulf War, provided a vivid reminder of the high costs of being...