“Accidental” Firing Of Missile without Warhead May be a subtle message
A missile is fired accidently and the news going viral a few days later, just like “accidental” diving of INS CHAKRA with its port vents open. A few jokers in the pack of Defence Analysts had gone ga ga describing in detail the “ immaturity “ of the Indian expertise in The field of nuclear submarines. They all got exposed when it was pointed out that the nuclear SSGN had no vents at those points as claimed by the analysts.
Similarly on March 9, during a purotedly Directorate of Air Staff Inspection (DASI) inspection at an Indian Air Force (IAF) base in north India, a Brahmos missile got “accidentally” fired and landed in Pakistan. The missile was supposed to be without a warhead, it crashed harmlessly 124 km inside Pakistan. There was no immediate military tension between India and Pakistan.
India and Pakistan are nuclear weapon states that came close to war escalation in the aftermath of the Balakot airstrikes just three years ago. The accidental firing of an Indian missile has brought the spotlight on those risks again. It would be irresponsible to ignore them now.
Let us look at what happened. On 9th March itself a news channel gave a news of an accidental crash of a small civil trainer aircraft at the exact place on a private property near Mian Charu. A few hours later the news was taken off. Next Pakistan military went public only on March 10 that the previous evening, an unarmed Indian supersonic missile had intruded into Pakistani territory, endangering several airliners in its trajectory, and finally hit a private property near Mian Channu.
PAF which had been clueless till then was now trying to highlight its alertness. PAF claimed to have continuously monitored the flight path of the UFO, starting from first picking it up when it was 104 km inside Indian territory, at Sirsa in Haryana, at an altitude of 40,000 feet and travelling at a speed more than Mach 2.5.The missile, as per the Pakistani claim, first headed south-west and after travelling 70-80 km took a right turn to head north-west towards Pakistan. It went into Pakistan south of Bahawalpur and reached a maximum speed of Mach 3.
The brief Indian statement on March 11 has not confirmed anything. The MoD statement merely stated that “a technical malfunction led to the accidental firing of a missile.”
Pakistan has claimed that the DGMO-level hotline wasn’t activated to inform it of the accidental firing of the missile and its trajectory. This has been neither disputed nor explained by the Indian side. Having been outwitted when the IAF targeted a Balakot Terrorist training base in February 2019, the PAF was at pains to assert that it, in response, initiated required tactical actions in accordance with its own standard operating procedures (SOP).
The UFO was in Pakistani airspace for 3 minutes, 44 seconds and no interception was tried. It makes one wonder about the PAF drills. India, has the cushion of geography, while Pakistan, driven by the insecurity of NO DEPTH has a nuclear security doctrine of ‘first use’. To avoid the destruction of its arsenal and delivery systems by a pre-emptive Indian strike.
So now the GREAT ANALYSTS have started clamouring that the Pakistani military kept its cool in the face of an Indian missile. Would it have reacted so maturely in the midst of military or political tensions? Or can Pakistan be blamed if they assume that certain rogue elements had taken control of the missile system in India and fired on it? Crucially, if the missile had a self-destruct feature, why wasn’t it activated? The same is being compared with the sagacity and courage of the Soviet naval officer Vasili Arkhipov, the Brigade Chief of Staff on submarine B-59, who refused to fire a nuclear missile and prevented a nuclear disaster in 1962? Or of the Soviet military duty officer Stanislav Petrov who, on seeing an early-warning system showing an incoming US strike, with about half-a-dozen missiles, in the early hours of September 26, 1983, made the call – in the face of incomplete information and doubt — that it was a system malfunction, instead of reporting it to his superiors as enemy missile launches? In doing so, Petrov put himself and his country at risk but saved the world from US-Soviet mutually assured destruction, since if he had reported it as a missile attack in progress, the Soviet protocol was to automatically launch its own missiles in response.
Questions will be raised in western capitals about the safety and security of Indian nuclear weapon systems and processes. These have to be firmly dismissed by New Delhi, citing our impeccable track-record and fool-proof systems. The American, Russian m Chinese and NATO records on this matter have also not been impeccable and fail safe.
Reports emanating from Pak indicates that several heads have already rolled in the PAF for remaking clueless during the entire episode of this UFO. All flying was banned for several hours and forwarded bases at full alert.
One Western Joker of an Analyst already has started talking of “ mysterious shipment of an ISRO GSLV MK 3 to an IAF airbase, where it got mated with a tactical nuclear warhead and the so formed missile then got accidentally launched. Next the warhead did not get activated and got detached also from the rocket “.
Simply Great. He was probably talking of the Missile Force of Republic of Panama.
However seeing the picture of the destroyed building in Mia Channu, it looks like as if a Non State Actor has been deliberately taken out with / without the Consent of Pakistan. Either way Pakistan’s bluff has been called … terrorists and their bases are no longer safe anywhere in Pakistan.
