Indian missile project now unstoppable: US

Technology and expertise acquired from other states, particularly from Russia, are helping India to accelerate and increase the sophistication of its missile systems. Russia is one country from which India is “aggressively seeking technology,” the report said.

“While India continues to benefit from foreign technology and expertise, its programmes and industrial base are now sufficiently advanced that supplier control regimes canaffect only the rate of acceleration in India’s programmes,” the report added.

Mandated under US Congressional law, the unclassified abstract of the classified report said India is developing a number of ballistic missiles from short range to those with ICBM-class capabilities, along with a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) and a short range, surface ship-launched system.

India has the infrastructure to develop and produce these missiles. While it develops its long range ballistic missiles, India’s space-launch vehicles provide an option for an interim ICBM capability, it added. The report said following the nuclear tests in May it is clear that India is developing warheads for its missile systems. India also has biological and chemical weapons programmes.

One reason for India’s advanced technical skills, according to the report, is that besides its strong domestic base, many Indian nationals are educated and work in the US, Europe, and other advanced nations. Some of the knowledge therebyacquired returns to the Indian missile programme.

In contrast, the report said, Pakistan began without an extensive domestic science and technology base. But it rapidly acquired missile capabilities through “foreign acquisition”, and may now outpace some of its suppliers.

“Pakistan’s ballistic missile infrastructure is now more advanced than that of North Korea. It will support development of a missile of 2,500-km range, which we believe Pakistan will seek in order to put all of India within range of Pakistani missiles. The development of a 2,500-km missile will give Pakistan the technical base for developing a much longer range missile system,” the report said.

The report concluded that though India and Pakistan are not hostile to the United States and the prospect of US military confrontation with either “seems at present to be slight”.

Their aggressive and competitive development of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction posed other concerns. For one, it enables them to supplyrelevant technologies to other nations. Their growing missile and WMD capabilities also have direct effects on US policies, both regional and global, and could significantly affect US capability to play a stabilizing role in Asia.

The report was also self-critical to the extent of naming the United States as “a major, albeit unintentional, contributor to the proliferation of ballistic missiles and associated weapons of mass destruction.”

The acquisition and use of transferred technologies in ballistic missile and WMD programs has been facilitated by foreign student training in the US, by wide dissemination of technical information, by the illegal acquisition of US designs and equipment, and by the relaxation of US export control policies, the report said.