India's K-15 launch: Defence scientists do nation proud
New Delhi: The reason why nations place a significant part of their nuclear arsenals on board nuclear-propelled ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) is because of their invulnerability, in comparison with static airforce bases and missile sites
However, it must be recognized that the US, Soviet and the Chinese navies had all followed a similar route before achieving SLBM capability of intercontinental range. Installed on board the, soon to be commissioned, SSBN Arihant, there is no doubt that the K-15 will serve as a most valuable stepping-stone and learning tool for more capable SLBMs that will follow.
Nuclear deterrence is all about sending the right signals to the adversary, and there is a school of thought that Pakistan has already misinterpreted, inadvertently or deliberately, a number of Indian signals. The K-15 must not add to this list.
Even as India sought deterrence stability with respect to China, it clearly understood that the latter's strategic calculus and nuclear arsenal looked well beyond India to include the US and Russia. It is a most regrettable aspect of sub-continental geo-politics that Pakistan has been unwilling to acknowledge that India's arsenal, too, was predicated on factors other than Pakistan, and has consistently sought to acquire parity with India.
Regardless of India's true intentions in undertaking the Pokhran I nuclear test in May 1998, Islamabad jumped to the conclusion that India had embarked on a Pak-centric nuclear weapon programme and accelerated its own ongoing Islamic-bomb project.
The test of the liquid-fuelled, nuclear-capable 150 km range Prithvi missile in 1988 and that of the 1500 km range Agni, in the following year, confirmed Pakistani apprehensions that India's nuclear capability was intended, not against China, but itself; the ranges of these missiles seemed to confirm this.
India's, much publicized, ballistic-missile defence programme, the launch of the Arihant and the maiden display of Agni V during the R-Day parade may have all added to this paranoia. None of these developments are meant to be Pakistan-centric, but the induction of the 750 km K-15 SLBM will certainly fuel the fears of Pakistani Cassandras.
In a related context, since nuclear weapons have a large kill radius, accuracy is a relatively minor consideration for the delivery system - as long as the targeting strategy calls for counter-value attacks against cities, envisaged in the current Indian nuclear doctrine. However, the mention of single-digit accuracy' by the DRDO chief in the K-15 context raises the spectre of 'counter-force' targeting; and an entirely different ball-game.
Pakistan's nuclear ambitions, fuelled by its praetorian army, have acquired such a desperate edge that its fissile plutonium production rate, from Chinese supplied reactors, will soon enable it to acquire one of the world's largest warhead inventories.
Apart from inducting cruise missiles, Pakistan has also stepped into the dangerous realm of tactical nuclear weaponry, and, there has been intriguing mention of Pakistan Navy's Strategic Forces Command being the 'custodian of the nation's 2nd strike capability'.
India's scientists having done their job well; it is high time that India's national security experts and analysts stepped on to the strategic stage and, apart from considering the strategic context of the K-15, reflect on the state of mutual suspicion, rather than the actual needs of deterrence and stability that seem to be driving the growth of nuclear arsenals on the sub-continent.