In yesterday's Arms Race Update report, India's drive to acquire US anti-missile battery systems was explored. The ostensible purpose is for India to have a safeguard against a nuclear missile strike from Pakistan - just in case the Pakistanis should suddenly go full-bore Islamist, I suppose.
Of course India's rival for emerging economic superpowerdom, China, would also be impacted especially as India moves to develop its own nuclear arsenals.
There's a report in today's Asia Times that Indian anti-missile batteries might merely be a western anchor of an American system stretching eastward through South Korea and into Japan. blanketing China.
Washington could argue that it is merely trying to help India, South Korea and Japan defend themselves against rogue missiles fired out of Pakistan or North Korea. That argument would be about as convincing to Beijing as claiming the Czech and Polish anti-missile system deployments to defend against rogue missiles out of Iran was to Moscow.
It would be naive not to expect China to take this as a clear provocation and a challenge to its own security. After all, if Chinese missiles are neutralized, it's nuclear deterrence capability is crippled and it then becomes enormously vulnerable to nuclear aggression from its rivals.
Unlike the United States or Russia, Chinese military affairs are typically kept very low key but it would be a dangerous mistake to confuse a lack of Chinese outrage with a willingness to tolerate this sort of thing.
China, like Russia, knows there are ways to counter these threats - new missile technologies, more and better warheads, alternate delivery systems including more missile subs - generally upping the ante and, in the process, lowering the nuclear threshold.
This is a high-risk game of brinksmanship that's underway well below the media's radar. Let's hope Obama slams the cork back into this little bottle before the genie is truly out.
Of course India's rival for emerging economic superpowerdom, China, would also be impacted especially as India moves to develop its own nuclear arsenals.
There's a report in today's Asia Times that Indian anti-missile batteries might merely be a western anchor of an American system stretching eastward through South Korea and into Japan. blanketing China.
Washington could argue that it is merely trying to help India, South Korea and Japan defend themselves against rogue missiles fired out of Pakistan or North Korea. That argument would be about as convincing to Beijing as claiming the Czech and Polish anti-missile system deployments to defend against rogue missiles out of Iran was to Moscow.
It would be naive not to expect China to take this as a clear provocation and a challenge to its own security. After all, if Chinese missiles are neutralized, it's nuclear deterrence capability is crippled and it then becomes enormously vulnerable to nuclear aggression from its rivals.
Unlike the United States or Russia, Chinese military affairs are typically kept very low key but it would be a dangerous mistake to confuse a lack of Chinese outrage with a willingness to tolerate this sort of thing.
China, like Russia, knows there are ways to counter these threats - new missile technologies, more and better warheads, alternate delivery systems including more missile subs - generally upping the ante and, in the process, lowering the nuclear threshold.
This is a high-risk game of brinksmanship that's underway well below the media's radar. Let's hope Obama slams the cork back into this little bottle before the genie is truly out.
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