(Reuters) - India test-fired a long range missile capable of reaching deep into China and Europe on Thursday, thrusting the emerging Asian power into an elite club of nations with intercontinental nuclear weapons capabilities.

A scientist at the launch site said the launch was successful, minutes after television images showed the rocket with a range of more than 5,000 km (3,100 miles) blasting through clouds from an island off India's east coast.

"It has met all the mission objectives," S.P.Dash, director of the test range, told Reuters. "It hit the target with very good accuracy."

The Indian-made Agni V is the crowning achievement of a now-mothballed missile programme developed primarily with a possible threat from neighbouring China in mind.

Only the U.N. Security Council permanent members - China, France, Russia the United States and Britain - along with Israel, are believed to have such long-range weapons.

Fast emerging as a world economic power, India is keen to play a larger role on the global stage and has long angled for a permanent seat on the Security Council. In recent years it has emerged as the world's top arms importer as it rushes to upgrade equipment for a large but outdated military.

"It is one of the ways of signalling India's arrival on the global stage, that India deserves to be sitting at the high table," said Harsh Pant, a defence expert at King's College, London, describing the launch as a "confidence boost".

The launch, which was flagged well in advance, has attracted none of the criticism from the West faced by hermit state North Korea for a failed bid to send up a similar rocket last week.

But China noted the launch with disapproval.

"The West chooses to overlook India's disregard of nuclear and missile control treaties," China's Global Times newspaper said in an editorial published before the launch, which was delayed by a day because of bad weather.

"India should not overestimate its strength," said the paper, which is owned by the Chinese Communist Party's main mouthpiece the People's Daily.

India has not signed the non-proliferation treaty for nuclear nations, but enjoys a de facto legitimacy for its arsenal, boosted by a landmark 2008 deal with the United States.

On Wednesday, NATO said it did not consider India a threat. The U.S. State Department said India's non-proliferation record was "solid," while urging restraint.

INSIDE CHINA

India says its nuclear weapons programme is for deterrence only. It is close to completing a nuclear submarine that will increase its ability to launch a counter strike if it were attacked.

India lost a brief Himalayan border war with its larger neighbour, China, in 1962 and has ever since strived to improve its defences. In recent years the government has fretted over China's enhanced military presence near the border.

Thursday's launch may prompt a renewed push from within India's defence establishment to build a fully fledged intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) programme capable of reaching the Americas, though some of India's allies may bridle at such an ambition.

"Policy-wise it becomes more complicated from now on, until Agni V, India really has been able to make a case about its strategic objectives, but as it moves into the ICBM frontier there'll be more questions asked," said Pant.

The Agni V is the most advanced version of the indigenously built Agni, or Fire, series, part of a programme that started in the 1960s. Earlier versions could reach old rival Pakistan and Western China.

"India can now deter China, it can impose maximum possible punishment if China crosses the red line," Srikanth Kondapalli, professor in Chinese studies at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University told Reuters.

The rocket is powered by easier-to-use solid rocket propellants and can be transported by road.

(Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Additional reporting by Satarupa Bhattacharjya in NEW DELHI and Sui-Lee Wee in BEIJING; Editing by Robert Birsel)

-Reuters

India test fires long-range missile Agni-V, joins elite club

India on Thursday test fired Agni-V, the country's first long range inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) from Wheeler Island, off the Odisha coast. The maiden flight test of Agni-V, was postponed on Wednesday. Bad weather conditions were cited as the reason.

"Due to heavy lightning in the region, the Agni-V launch is postponed for safety reasons," Ravi Kumar Gupta, director, directorate of public interface, Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) had said.

The Indian strategic establishment had been eagerly awaiting the flight test of the indigenously built 5000km-range missile as its success would catapult India to an exclusive club of countries like USA, Russia, China and France who possess technology to develop ICBM.

Agni-V is a three-stage, all solid fuel powered missile with multiple independent targetable re-entry vehicle (MIRV) which means the missile can target several areas simultaneously with one-tonne nuclear warhead.

The missile, with a length of 17.5metre, weighs 50 tonnes and can carry 11 quintals of warheads.

-HT

US supports India closing missile gap with China: Think tank

The US is supportive of India's efforts to close missile gap with China and is comfortable with the progress being made by New Delhi in this regard, a Washington-based think tank has said.
India's successful test of the Agni-V, a nuclear-capable long-range missile, is a major step forward for New Delhi in attaining nuclear deterrence against regional rival China, Lisa Curtis and Baker Spring of The Heritage Foundation said.
"The lack of US condemnation of India's latest missile test demonstrates that the US is comfortable with Indian progress in the nuclear and missile fields and appreciates India's need to meet the emerging strategic challenge posed by rising China," Curtis and Spring wrote in a blog.
The Agni-V has extended India's missile reach to about 5,000 kilometres, marking a major achievement in its missile development programme.
Until this week, Indian missiles had a range of about 3,500 kilometres.
The Agni-V is scheduled to become fully operational in two to three years.
"It is telling that no country has criticised India's missile test," the US experts wrote.
The US State Department simply called on all nuclear-capable states to exercise restraint but also noted India's solid record on non-proliferation and its cooperation with the international community on nuclear issues.
"This is a far cry from Washington's position on Indian ballistic missile development throughout the 1990s, when Washington pressured New Delhi to modify its nuclear and missile posture," they said.
The new US stance also demonstrates a welcome evolution in US non-proliferation policy, they said.
"While some may view this evolution as a step away from US non-proliferation commitments, this is not necessarily the case. What it recognises is that US non-proliferation policy should not be a one-way street, where potentially aggressive, non-status quo powers like China build up their nuclear and ballistic missile forces, and the US responds by criticising its friends and allies for responding to the emerging threat," they wrote.
"It is a paradox, but nonetheless true, that sometimes the best option for confronting proliferation is to prepare to respond in kind.
"From this perspective, the Chinese, in large measure, have themselves to blame for this missile test by India," Curtis and Spring wrote.
The US change in position with regard to Indian missile capabilities demonstrates how far the US–India relationship has evolved over the last decade.
Now the US views India as a strategic partner with growing economic and political clout that will contribute to promoting security and stability in Asia, they wrote.

-HT

Agni V test: Important decisions about the country's deterrence doctrine must be made

Last week's Agni V missile test should be a source of pride and strategic comfort for India. However, it also throws up challenging questions about the direction in which the country wants to take its nuclear weapons programme; questions that are far too important to leave to the scientists or even a narrow coterie of policymakers.

There is no doubt that this test and the technological advance it represents will strengthen nuclear deterrence and strategic stability in Asia. Nearly 40 years after India's first nuclear test at Pokhran, and a quarter-century after the first Indian nuclear warhead was put together in the late 1980s, India has finally put Beijing and Shanghai within the reach of its nuclear forces. The mobility and range of the Agni V makes it India's most survivable missile yet.

Once it is inducted, Indian policymakers can be absolutely certain that, even in the worstcase scenario of a devastating nuclear attack on the Indian homeland, the country will retain the means of retaliation.

Diplomatically, too, the Agni V is a symbol of India's changed place in the world. In 1994, the United States pressured India to suspend testing of the Agni series after just three test flights. India formally suspended the programme at the end of 1996, although it resumed testing in 1997.

The muted American response to the test of the Agni V, despite Washington's concern over the missile programmes of Iran and North Korea, is indicative of the rapid improvement in the USIndia bilateral relationship over the past 15 years. Some Indians sneer at the efforts made by successive Indian governments to improve ties with Washington. These sceptics should consider the diplomatic nightmare that India would have faced had it conducted this test 15 years ago.

However, the most important question is whether this missile heralds a new plateau in India's nuclear ambitions, or merely serves a bridge to a yet more advanced arsenal.

Following its 1998 nuclear tests, India released a semiofficial draft nuclear doctrine committing to a policy of 'no-first use' and 'credible minimum deterrence' . In 2003, an official doctrine was issued along similar lines. Since that doctrinal statement, however, the Indian government has said little about what it sees as necessary to attain credibility, whether in terms of numbers or weapons systems. In the absence of a new doctrinal direction, the future of the Agni V will shed some light on India's nuclear intentions.

In the years since 2003, it became apparent that credible minimum deterrence would be a highly elastic concept. It was never quite clear how much the arsenal size and posture of India's two nuclear neighbours, Pakistan and China, would determine India's own nuclear needs. Pakistan's arsenal is estimated at 90-110 warheads and China's at 170, the latter bolstered by an ICBM of over 11,000 km range.

Indian analysts have expressed particular concern over the adverse missile balance with China. The test of the Agni V is the culmination of many years of cumulative research and development , and is not directly related to the immediate state of the Sino-Indian relationship. However, that relationship has been especially turbulent in recent years.

Consequently, the Agni V has been imparted with political status and symbolism much greater than prior missiles. Even as questions over Indian military readiness remain worryingly open, the ripening of India's second-strike capability will provide reassurance to India about the strategic balance. Yet India would do well not to get caught in the intellectual trap of thinking that nuclear deterrence is a numbers game. China's numerical or qualitative advantage - or Pakistan's , for that matter - counts for basically nothing.

This is where India has choices to make. An Agni V deployed in modest numbers, and accompanied by political signals that the system's development represents the maturity of India's nuclear forces, would most closely accord with the initial spirit of credible minimum deterrence.

By contrast, if the Agni V is seen as a 'bridge' to a much more diverse and sizeable Indian arsenal, and its production and deployment eventually takes place in large numbers, this could herald a strengthening of the more assertive strand in Indian nuclear thinking.

There are two risks. The first is that bureaucrats and scientists , rather than elected politicians and a well-informed public, make these choices. Last year, MIT professor Vipin Narang, writing for the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, warned that "DRDO's press releases and post-test comments unnecessarily - and dangerously - confuse India's nuclear posture".

Perhaps India should build on the Agni V test to make longerrange missiles, as DRDO director V K Saraswat promised to do last week, but this has big financial, diplomatic and strategic implications - and is therefore a matter for political leaders. A national security strategy and nuclear posture review - like those we see in other nuclear weapons states - would be a good start.

The second danger is that we begin to see all technological advances as desirable. To be sure, anything that makes India's missiles more survivable - for example , increasing their mobility on the ground - is unambiguously a good thing. But other improvements mentioned by Saraswat, like MIRV technology that puts multiple warheads on a single missile, presents trade-offs : the missiles will pack a greater punch, but could generate fears that India is abandoning credible minimum deterrence.

As India's former army chief, General K Sundarji, once observed , "In war-fighting , whether conventional or nuclear, whilst calculating relative strengths, more is always better. But for deterrence, more is not better if less is adequate" . As India rightly celebrates the improvement of its national deterrent, this is sound advice.

Joshi is a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and a doctoral candidate at Harvard University . O'Donnell is a doctoral candidate at King's College, London.

-ET

Agni-V’s successful launch a moment of pride for 60 DRDO scientists

When Long Range Ballistic Missile (LRBM) Agni-V took to the skies off Odisha coast on April 19, over 60 scientists of city’s Research and Development Establishment (Engineers) or R&DE, held their breath and watched in rapt attention. If well begun is considered half done even in the case of rocket science, the team of scientists at R&DE ensured that’s how it was for India’s strategic nuclear deterrent. The missile launcher to hold, position and gracefully fire the 50-ton missile has been developed by the Agni Group of R&DE, a DRDO lab in the city. In an exclusive interaction with Newsline, Dr S Guruprasad, director R&DE spoke about what the success of the test means for the laboratory.
“This is a morale booster for the team of engineers associated with the Agni-V launcher. Over 60-70 scientists have been working on various aspects of the launcher such as dynamics, simulation, testing, trial of individual components and systems, besides other nuances. The entire process has been a great learning,” said Guruprasad.
Development of missile launchers has not been new for the scientists at R&DE. The laboratory has been associated with India’s Integrated Guided Missile Development Plan (IMGDP) since the early 80s.Under IMGDP, the laboratory has successfully developed the launcher systems for Prithvi class of missiles, Akash surface-to-air missile, Nirbhay and BrahMos to name a few. The Agni Group at R&DE specialises in the development of launchers for Agni class of missiles. “The critical aspect of any missile launcher system is that it should maintain the safety of the costly unit and those operating it. It is expected to accurately position the missile, hold it in that position and facilitate a graceful take-off,” said Guruprasad. “The core group of 15 scientists at R&DE has been conducting tests using dummy missile.”
Guruprasad, who returned from the test location on Monday, can’t help mentioning a few ‘mathematical aspects’ of the launcher. “It is an improvised version of the Agni-III missile launcher we had developed. Given that Agni-V weighs 50 tons, the thrust developed to lift it has to be more than its mass multiplied by the gravitational force. The launcher was thus made using high-strength steel which is capable of sustaining that force. A special jet deflector was used to deflect the high-temperature fumes. The automatic controls release the missile once it is lifted. This is where the job of the launcher ends. Being a fire-and-forget missile, the on-board computer system then guides the missile and directs the force so that the missile moves in a particular trajectory,” he said.

-Indian Express