New Delhi: The Indian Army has got a brand new weapon - the BrahMos cruise missile. And the original missile man, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam was present to give his nod of approval. Uptil now it was a naval weapon with a range of just under 300 km. But now this supersonic weapon will lift the Army firepower to new levels, and give it unprecedented accuracy.
The BrahMos will give the Indian Army more options to punish an enemy. It will give the Army the capability to hit a terrorist camp across the boundary with deadly accuracy. But it also be just the weapon which could spark off a new arms race between India and Pakistan.
Pakistan has responded by invoking Babur literally pulling out a tit-for-tat cruise missile from nowhere and naming it after the Mughal invader.
Observers view this as a continuation of the Sino-Pak missile cooperation. But it is the Pakistani declaration of this missile being nuclear capable that threatens to destabilise nuclear peace.
Even at the height of the Cold War, the superpowers avoided nuclear-arming cruise missiles. That's because the terrain-hugging cruise missiles are difficult to detect and intercept. The thumb rule was that nuclear deterrence was better obtained through ballistic missiles, which have a predictable trajectory.
“This would be an admirable idea if India, Pakistan and China could make an informal agreement that their respective nuclear deterrant would be on ballistic missiles and the cruise missile would be incorporated at what is called a sub-strategic level,” says Strategic Affairs Analyst, Uday Bhaskar.
But it doesn't seem that Pakistan is heeding Cold War wisdom. And what the race to acquiring cruise missiles does to nuclear stability in the sub-continent is anybody's guess.
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