India Nuclear Missile Test: Agni-V Missile Has Capability To Hit Chinese Cities

[MyLittlePony 340]

NEW DELHI — India announced Thursday the successful test launch of a new nuclear-capable missile that would give it, for the first time, the capability of striking the major Chinese cities of Beijing and Shanghai.

The government has hailed the Agni-V missile, with a range of 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles), as a major boost to its efforts to counter China's regional dominance and become an Asian power in its own right.

The head of India's Defense Research and Development Organization, Vijay Saraswat, said the missile was launched at 8:07 a.m. from Wheeler Island off India's east coast.

It rose to an altitude of more than 600 kilometers (370 miles), its three stages worked properly and its payload was deployed as planned, he told Times Now news channel.

"India has emerged from this launch as a major missile power," he said.

[Ban Hammer 13,551]

"India has emerged from this launch as a major missile power," he said.

north korea just found their new tech support.

[Pooky 3,830]

North Korea's new tech support? I seriously doubt it?

India has other ambitions. The ambient temperature in Asia just dipped a couple of degrees, at the early stages of a new regional cold war.

[Saddle Bronc 124]

north korea just found their new tech support.

We don't do techwork on PRC stuff--that's the oringian designer's job

[Confused 2 94]

North Korea's new tech support? I seriously doubt it?

India has other ambitions. The ambient temperature in Asia just dipped a couple of degrees, at the early stages of a new regional cold war.

India has never had any ambitions except self defence. You should know that being English, we even let you steal our riches that you have gloated over for 2 centuries. Maybe soon will be payback time

[Pooky 3,830]

India has never had any ambitions except self defence. You should know that being English, we even let you steal our riches that you have gloated over for 2 centuries. Maybe soon will be payback time

Payback time for India is already here, if you hadn't noticed. Tata has taken Land Rover/Jaguar, a former prestige British car manufacturer, off Ford's hands for $2.5bn and turned it into a manufacturer of seriously cool cars again, worth over $14bn, in under 4 years. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Back to my original post, India has no intention of becoming a facilitator for rogue regimes worldwide. As you pointed out, India is mainly concerned with self defence, notably where it concerns China's push for regional influence and the ongoing tensions with Pakistan. The cold war to which I was referring is the wish to ensure a deterrent is in place against China's growing nuclear capability. When you factor in agreements between the Pakistani and Chinese militaries to cooperate and build/use joint facilities, this missile programmer becomes increasingly relevant.

Edited April 22, 2012 by Pooky

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Payback time for India is already here, if you hadn't noticed. Tata has taken Land Rover/Jaguar, a former prestige British car manufacturer, off Ford's hands for $2.5bn and turned it into a manufacturer of seriously cool cars again, worth over $14bn, in under 4 years. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Back to my original post, India has no intention of becoming a facilitator for rogue regimes worldwide. As you pointed out, India is mainly concerned with self defence, notably where it concerns China's push for regional influence and the ongoing tensions with Pakistan. The cold war to which I was referring is the wish to ensure a deterrent is in place against China's growing nuclear capability. When you factor in agreements between the Pakistani and Chinese militaries to cooperate and build/use joint facilities, this missile programmer becomes increasingly relevant.

India's primary military goal is internal - keeping the insurgencies like the Maoist in the southeast, the tribals in parts of the northeast and of course the Islamic one in Kashmir in check.

Agni's role is to deter ChinaPak from 'misadventures' (a favorite new delhi media term) designed to take advantage of these insurgencies.

It could be argued that India would be better off with a significant devolution of powers away from the federal government in new delhi and to the states. Even today, states like tamil nadu and gujarat are butting heads with new delhi over a new anti-terror law. There are no insurgencies in these states but one gets the sense that all new delhi has to do is take things a bit too far and there could be one in the blink of an eye. Insurgencies in marginal parts of the country like kashmir and nagaland and the forests of jharkhand are one thing... a serious threat to new delhi from ahmadabad or chennai would be much more serious.