[kaal2009]

On January 25, 2008, I said, in part:-

"Another important point is that weapons such as tanks and fighter planes which carry human beings are a lot more difficult to design and produce than, say, intercontinental ballistic missiles which give a million times or more returns for the same investment of time and effort ('bang for the buck') so far as increasing a country's military power is concerned. Since India's principal aim should be nuclear supremacy, it should focus on designing and producing intercontinental ballistic missiles more than tanks and fighter planes; if you have nuclear supremacy over the United States, most other defence-related issues will take care of themselves. And, as I said, designing and building ICBMs that will do the job can be done a lot faster and require fewer resources, though India has the resources to build both ICBMs and tanks and fighter planes. The main advantage of focusing on ICBMs is time; it will bring India military supremacy a lot sooner than giving a lot of attention to tanks and fighter planes (which will never bring India military supremacy over the United States). Another point is that although India should build nuclear-propelled, nuclear-armed submarines carrying intercontinental ballistic missiles (SSBNs), like the ATV it is building, building these weapons platforms (SSBNs) is a lot more time and resource-consuming than building ICBMs that can be launched from road and rail-mobile vehicles. It is a mistake to make India's nuclear arsenal primarily a second strike resource (which is what SSBNs are good at); India's nuclear arsenal should primarily be for a first strike -- that is how you gain nuclear supremacy, by being able to carry out a successful first strike -- and a sufficiently large arsenal of road and rail-mobile ICBMs can be produced a lot faster than an arsenal based on SSBNs. Again, time is important. This does not mean India should not produce SSBNs, just that the emphasis should be on producing a large number of road and rail-mobile ICBMs. I also believe that India's anti-ballistic missile systems will be considerably better than those of the United States -- as DRDO has correctly said, its systems to defend against short and medium range missiles are already better than those of the United States -- if India can avoid sabotage by politicians and RAW on the C.I.A.'s payroll who try to shove american 'help' down India's throat. This is another reason India can afford to focus on road and rail-mobile ICBMs rather than on SSBNs (SSBNs are inherently difficult to destroy; with a really effective ABM system, India's road and rail-mobile ICBMs will also be difficult to destroy). Avoiding foreign 'help' is not a matter of 'false pride'; avoiding foreign help is essential for India's nuclear supremacy. ... Instead of ICBMs, India's nuclear weapons may primarily be delivered by the hyperplane (Avatar) under development. And its defence against enemy ICBMs may be provided by the space-based weapons, Durga (Directionally Unrestricted Ray-Gun Array) and Kali (Kinetic Attack Loitering Interceptor) systems."

But India can destroy Washington and New York with two twenty kiloton warheads with the capabilities it already has and it can do so NOW, without waiting.