Pakistan's navy backtracked from its criticism this week of India's first indigenously built nuclear submarine, saying it is not worried about its rival's new vessel, Asian News International reported yesterday (see GSN, July 28).
(Jul. 30) -
A Pakistani warship arrives at a Chinese port in 2007. Pakistan's navy softened its criticism this week of Indian efforts to develop a ballistic-missile submarine (Getty Images).
"We are not focused on India," said Adm. Bashir Noman, chief of staff for the Pakistani navy. "India is a neighbor, so we must have [a] good relationship." Pakistan is instead focused on curbing terrorism, piracy and drug trafficking in the Indian Ocean, he said.
The Pakistani Foreign Ministry responded to the launch of the INS Arihant -- the first of India's five planned submarines, designed to supplement its 16-vessel Russian- and German-made diesel fleet -- by saying it was "detrimental to regional peace and stability" (Asian News International/DailyIndia.com, July 29).
With the launch, India became the sixth nation to build its own nuclear submarine. However, it could be a long time before the vessel is actually operational, Agence France-Presse reported.
It will probably be years before all the stages of necessary testing and development are complete, said Uday Bhaskar, director of India's National Maritime Foundation. At this point, the launch is merely a "very symbolic first step" toward a sea-based nuclear deterrent, Bhaskar said.
"Chest-thumping is not valid at this stage, as the launch of such a submarine is a very arduous task," he said, pointing out that it took China 12 years to perfect a mission-ready fleet. "Arihant's builders will first need to achieve criticality of its reactor and then propulsion, and the real challenge will be when it goes for full sea trials."
There is also the matter of fitting nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles to the vessel. That looks to be a tedious undertaking; even when it is complete, the missiles the submarine is slated to carry are relatively modest.
"The Arihant will have a small range of missiles, and compared to China's nuclear armament, these are firecrackers," said Bharat Karnad, an analyst at a New Delhi-based think tank.
"India needs to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles fitted in submarines" and build more potent atomic warheads, Karnad added (Pratap Chakravarty, Agence France-Presse/Google News, July 29).
Meanwhile, India's prime minister yesterday said his nation would not be bound by statement issued recently by the Group of Eight nations, aimed at preventing states outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty from importing sensitive nuclear technologies, the Indo-Asian News Service reported.
"Prohibition by the [Nuclear Suppliers Group] of such transfers would require a consensus amongst all the 45 [supplying] countries," Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told members of parliament. "This does not exist at present."
India is one of several nuclear-armed nations that have not signed the treaty (Indo-Asian News Service/Yahoo!News, July 29).