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India's Growing Military Might Worries Its Neighbors
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15271 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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8 / 1989 |
2,853 Words |
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Richard P. Cronin
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India's growing military power and regional activism, the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the recent improvement of Sino-Soviet relations, and some improvement in Indian-Pakistani relations since the election of the government headed by Benazir Bhutto all suggest the potential for a major realignment of power relationships in Asia. Some look to an eventual loosening of the Indo-Soviet connection and consequent opportunities for better U.S.-India ties on the basis of India as the dominant regional power. Others question whether India is capable of exercising responsible regional leadership and see ominous implications in its recent tests of intermediate- and short-range ballistic missiles.
India's potential to become a major power has long been apparent. In sheer numbers alone, India cannot be ignored. Even with a population growth of 2.1 percent per year (relatively low for Third World country), India's population is expected to exceed that of China in the first half of the next century.
Following the debacle of its border war with China in 1962 and a stalemate in its 1965 conflict with Pakistan, India managed to mobilize its latent power potential more effectively in the 1970s. Under Indira Gandhi, the country's armed forces dealt a humiliating defeat to Pakistan's army in East Pakistan and played midwife at the birth of Bangladesh. India's underground detonation of a plutonium nuclear device in 1974 underscored the industrial and scientific basis of its power and its ability, if it so chose, to become a full-fledged nuclear weapons power.
The recent test launch of an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) named Agni (Fire) raised serious new questions about India's often-professed intent not to acquire nuclear weapons. The idea of delivering a 500-kilogram nonnuclear warhead by ballistic missile is widely dismissed as uneconomical in the extreme and of very doubtful military value. Although Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi has described the test as a "technology demonstration" and not a step toward deploying nuclear weapons, it would appear to move India closer to the capability to confront China with a nuclear deterrent. During 1989, both India and Pakistan have tested short-range missiles that theoretically could carry nuclear warheads.
In conventional terms, except for the Soviet Union and China, there is no country between Israel and Japan that possesses as much military power. India's air force deploys some 700 combat aircraft, including the latest Soviet MiG-29 Fulcrum multirole combat aircraft; the Anglo-French jaguar deep-strike bomber; the French Mirage-2000 air superiority fighter; the MiG-23BN Flogger H multirole aircraft; the MiG-27 Flogger D/J ground-attack version of the MiG-23; and other less capable but numerically significant combat aircraft, including a large fleet of upgraded MiG-21s. India's volunteer-based 1.2 million-man army includes 2 armored divisions deploying the Soviet T-72 tank, a mechanized infantry division, 20 infantry divisions, 9 mountain divisions, and specialized paramilitary and commando forces. Despite receiving the smallest allocation of defense funds, the Indian navy is nonetheless the most powerful naval force in the Indian Ocean and includes two ex-British Hermes-class aircraft carriers, a squadron of Sea Harrier short-takeoff fighters, and a leased Soviet Charlie-class nuclear-powered submarine.
As important as the size and effectiveness of its
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