New Delhi did not notify Islamabad of the launch in accordance with the bilateral agreement

The ballistic missile incident nearly ignited a nuclear war between India and Pakistan

  • Relations between the two nuclear neighbors remain highly charged.

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  • New Delhi and Islamabad agreed to coordinate with regard to missile tests.

    archival

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On March 10, 2020, a Pakistani official held a press conference, and announced that the day before, on March 9, a hypersonic missile, coming from India, traveled 124 kilometers, at an altitude of 40,000 feet, and crashed near the city of Mian Chanu, Khanywal province of Pakistan. .

Two days later, the Indian Ministry of Defense officially confirmed the accident, noting that a missile had been launched "by mistake", during routine maintenance.

shocking news

While the details of the accident will surface after thorough investigations, news of India's launch of a hypersonic cruise missile on Pakistan - its nuclear foe - has shocked many policymakers, who are aware of the potential consequences of such accidents.

Pakistan's immediate response was praised as "mature" and "responsible".

However, Islamabad demanded a joint investigation, as it could have led to much more serious consequences.

First and foremost, the timing is suspicious: just one week after the Pakistan Navy discovered an Indian Navy submarine in its Economic Zone, an Indian missile crashed inside Pakistan.

This raises serious concerns about the intentions of the Indian military leadership.

It is fair to say that no system is 100% reliable, and accidents may happen for unexpected reasons, but the Indian government's overall handling of this problem has been largely irresponsible.

The fact that Indian authorities did not use the self-destruct option after the "accidental" launch, nor bothered to inform the Pakistani side immediately, raised questions about India's command and control system, its strategic culture, and its ability to deal with this sensitive technology.

The Indian official statement did not include any information about the type of missile, but the available information matches the flight profile of the "Brahmos" cruise missile.

While India classifies this projectile as a conventional missile (primarily to avoid being labeled as violating the Missile Technology Control Regime's guidelines), it is capable of carrying a nuclear payload, too.

Regardless of said classification, an incoming missile is likely to be interpreted as nuclear, in a charged security environment, because it is impossible to distinguish the payload carried by any incoming missile.

Is it a security hole?

It is necessary to determine whether this incident was the result of a safety failure or a security gap.

According to initial reports, the flight of the missile was tracked by the Air Defense Operations Center of the Pakistan Air Force in its initial stage.

Reportedly, it was launched from an Indian air base under the Western Air Command in Sirsa District, Haryana.

The missile was detected at an altitude of 40,000 feet, which suggests that it could be launched from the air.

However, it is unlikely that a test of an air version of the BrahMos went wrong, as no notice was issued for the air missions, Notam, and the site is not known for missile tests.

Indian missile tests are mostly conducted at the Pokhran Test Range, in Rajasthan, or the Integrated Test Range (ATR), at Chandipur on the Bay of Bengal.

The nature of the accident raises concern about this claim of accidental release, during maintenance, and hints at possible complacency or serious violations of safety protocols by the relevant authorities.

Civil aviation threat

The missile launch also posed a serious threat to civil aviation, as a group of commercial flights were flying on this path at the time of the missile launch.

The Indian government could have issued an emergency notice to incoming aircraft to avert a potential air disaster.

The incident, too, puts a question mark on the strength and scope of the ongoing confidence-building measures between India and Pakistan.

The Hotline Agreement was established in 2004, for this very purpose, to report any emergency that might lead to any unintended crisis;

But India did not take this necessary measure.

New Delhi and Islamabad have agreed to advance notification of a ballistic missile flight test, too.

In 2005, Pakistan suggested including advance notification of cruise missile tests, as well, but India did not accept.

While the ballistic missile test notification is intended to avoid unintended escalation, as the missile's trajectory can be misinterpreted as a preemptive strike by an adversary, the cruise missile notification does not serve that purpose, because the missile remains on low-flying and difficult-to-track trajectories.

It is important to highlight that India acted in contravention of the mutually agreed confidence-building measures because it did not notify Pakistan about its undersea ballistic missile tests, as it considers the 2005 agreement to be only for surface-launched missiles.

Given these loopholes, it is important to consider expanding the scope of the Pakistani and Indian missile testing agreement.

rationality

The nuclear responsibility rests on the element of rationality. After an Indian plane was shot down in an air skirmish with Pakistan in February 2019, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi threatened a "major attack" if Pakistan did not return the captured pilot.

Therefore, it is very likely that this may not have been an accident, and it could be a deliberate act.

The Indian Army has a history of engaging in activities aimed at implicating Pakistan.

A case in point is Lieutenant-Colonel Prasad Purohit, who helped carry out attacks such as the express train explosion in 2007 and the Malagion bomb blast, in 2008. Regardless of whether the missile launch was accidental or deliberate, this incident is a stark reminder that the South Asian region Still a nuclear flashpoint.

It also exposes the disproportionate focus on Pakistan alone, and the blatant neglect of India's poor nuclear security record, by Western experts and governments alike;

Hopefully, this incident will lead to a reconsideration by officials in Washington, and that the Indian security establishment and the government will be ready to answer some difficult questions.

• Indian missile tests are mostly conducted at the Pokhran test range in Rajasthan, or the Integrated Test Range (ATR), at Chandipur on the Bay of Bengal.


• The incident raises a question mark over the strength and scope of the ongoing confidence building measures between India and Pakistan.

A hotline agreement was established in 2004, for this very purpose, to report any emergency that might lead to any unintended crisis, but India did not take this necessary action.

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