Pakistan Test-Fires New Ballistic Missile

Pakistan test-fired a ballistic missile today capable of carrying a nuclear warhead into India, confirming a new and dangerous confrontation between the historic enemies.

Pakistan’s test came just a few days after a similar missile test by India, whose Agni II missile is said to be able to carry nuclear warheads to targets across Pakistan and China. The Pakistani missile has a range of about 1,250 miles; the Indian missile can travel 1,500 miles.

The Pakistani government said the Ghauri II missile is an upgraded version of a missile it test-fired last year. That test prompted the Indian government to conduct five underground nuclear explosions. Pakistan followed with six tests of its own.

The crisis suddenly confronted the world with the prospect of two impoverished, embittered enemies with a bloody territorial dispute aiming nuclear weapons at one another in South Asia.

Pakistani officials had been hinting all week that they would respond in kind to India’s missile test Sunday. As with last year’s nuclear tests, domestic pressure had been mounting on the Pakistani government to respond to India’s provocation.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday vowed a “necessary” response to India’s test.

The missile tests come at a time of political instability in India. Today, a key partner announced its withdrawal from the nation’s ruling coalition, stripping it of its majority in parliament and pushing it to the verge of collapse after just 13 months in office.

Pakistan’s test, like India’s, spelled a failure for U.S. efforts to persuade both sides to refrain from escalating their nuclear race. In recent months, the U.S. has significantly eased economic sanctions that were slapped on both countries following their nuclear tests.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since they broke with the British Empire in 1947. Two of those wars have been over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which both sides claim. India and Pakistan regularly shell one another along Kashmir’s disputed 450-mile frontier, and Pakistan backs an insurgency in India that has claimed as many as 20,000 lives.

Western experts fear that the conflict could burn out of control and escalate into a nuclear exchange. Neither India nor Pakistan is believed to have yet developed sophisticated measures to control the accidental use of their nuclear weapons or the means to monitor the other side’s military activities.

The missiles tested by both India and Pakistan this week are believed capable of reaching their targets in a matter of minutes.

This tests soured the cordial relations that had blossomed following the bus ride of India Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee into Pakistan. At that summit, the two prime ministers signed an agreement to provide advance notification of any future missiles tests.

In each case this week, they did.