India, Pakistan Missile Tests Shred U.S. Policy

The missiles that streaked across India and Pakistan this week highlighted the determination of the two South Asian countries to push ahead with their nuclear weapons plans--and the futility of U.S. efforts to stop them.

On Sunday, Indian leaders proudly announced the successful test-firing of an advanced ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to targets in Pakistan and China. On Wednesday, the Pakistani government responded in kind with the firing of a new missile of its own--capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to many of India’s largest cities.

And today, Pakistan tested a second nuclear-capable missile, Associated Press reported official sources as saying. The newest missile was believed to be the Shaheen I and to have a range of 450 miles, considerably less than the ballistic missile Pakistan tested Wednesday.

A Pakistani Foreign Ministry statement said today’s test “concludes, for now, the series of . . . flight tests involving solid and liquid fuel rocket motor technologies, which started yesterday.”

The nations’ missile tests represent a dangerous new phase in the arms race here, which grabbed the world’s attention last year when both India and Pakistan exploded underground nuclear devices. The ominous signal from the missile tests is that each side is moving toward the deployment of nuclear weapons.

“India will produce the Agni II,” said K. Subrahmanyum, who advises the Indian government on defense issues, referring to the Indian missile tested Sunday. “It’s clear that the missile is the core of the Indian plans for nuclear deterrence.”

The missile launches are the latest symbol of a rapidly deteriorating security environment in South Asia. Not only are India and Pakistan expanding their military competition, but many experts fear that China, which shares a disputed border with India and already possesses nuclear weapons, will feel compelled to respond.

“We are going backward now,” said Joseph Cirincione, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. “India and Pakistan are steadily moving toward the deployment of nuclear weapons.”

The tests represent a big setback for the Clinton administration, which for the past year has been trying to persuade Indian and Pakistani leaders to step back from the brink. The U.S. imposed limited economic sanctions after India and Pakistan tested nuclear devices last year and has made a ban on missile tests one of the main efforts of its diplomacy.

In Washington on Wednesday, the administration urged India and Pakistan to resume talks aimed at reducing tensions in the subcontinent. At the same time, U.S. officials said that India bears the greatest responsibility because it tested first, both nuclear weapons and the missiles that could be used to deliver them.

In remarks to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Assistant Secretary of State Karl F. Inderfurth noted: “We believe India has a special responsibility in this regard. Clearly Pakistan is responding to Indian actions, including the missile test and, earlier, the nuclear tests. Perhaps Pakistan would also respond to positive steps by India.”

Nevertheless, he said, “we regret that Pakistan has tested. We had hoped Pakistan would not respond in a tit-for-tat fashion to the Indian missile test on Sunday.”

Another State Department official said the U.S. government will stress to India and Pakistan the dangers of an “action-reaction cycle” with potentially disastrous consequences. He said both missiles tested this week have the payload capacity to carry nuclear weapons.

“Both sides have said they want to meet their security requirements at the lowest possible levels,” Inderfurth said. “We would now like to see concrete steps by both countries that they intend to do so.”

The missile launched by Pakistan on Wednesday, dubbed the Ghauri II, was reported to have a range of about 1,250 miles. That would give Pakistan the ability to deliver a nuclear warhead deep inside India. The Ghauri II was launched Wednesday morning from Tilla, in northeastern Pakistan, and reached its target in the Baluchistan desert about 700 miles away, a government spokesman said.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said Wednesday that the nation had no choice but to respond to India’s missile launch. He said Pakistan had an obligation “to take all necessary measures to secure our frontiers and to enhance our security.”

The head of the politically influential Pakistani army spoke aggressively about Pakistan’s stance toward India.

“Pakistan has the capability to end war with India on a favorable note and to match India anywhere,” said Pervaiz Musharaf, the Pakistani army chief of staff.

The Indian missile tested Sunday, the Agni II, also has a reported range of 1,250 miles, which means it could carry a warhead into any part of Pakistan and to several targets in China.

What is especially troubling to Western experts about the Gauri II and the Agni II is that both are mobile missiles--able to be mounted aboard trucks or trains--and that neither has very far to fly to reach its target. That means the missiles are easy to hide and their flight times could be just a matter of minutes.

Those factors--the missiles’ mobility and their short flight times--could force each nation to adopt a hair-trigger posture toward the other. That, the experts say, could increase the likelihood of miscalculation and an accidental nuclear strike.

“If one country has missiles that can take out the other country’s targets very quickly, then each country has to increase the readiness of its missiles,” said Michael Krepon, president of the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington. “That means you have missiles ready to fire.”

Those concerns are compounded by the fact that neither side, according to Western reports, has yet developed comprehensive systems to command and control its nuclear arsenal.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since they gained independence from Britain in 1947, two of them over the disputed region of Kashmir. The two South Asian nations regularly shell each other along the 450-mile border that cuts through Kashmir, and Pakistan backs an insurgency inside the Indian portion of the Himalayan region.

The fear--inside and outside the Indian subcontinent--is that the Kashmiri conflict could escalate into the world’s first nuclear exchange.

To date, neither India nor Pakistan is believed to have deployed missiles armed with nuclear weapons.

Times staff writer Norman Kempster in Washington and special correspondent Syed Talat Hussein in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.