By Shahid Shah

Imagine a Russian ballistic missile falling in US territory and US asking Russia to explain what went wrong in its launch procedures. Accidental missile launch by one nuclear state on its nuclear rival can trigger series of miscalculations that may prove fatal for the regional peace and stability.

Misinterpretation of strategic weapon testing has remained the most feared enigma in highly nuclearized environments. Something of the sort just happened a few days before when India supposedly misfired a ballistic missile that not only went adrift but inadvertently acquired an unauthorised course before violating Pakistan's airspace for roughly around four minutes and hitting at its point of impact somewhere near a small town of Mian Channu, incidentally causing minor damages to the civilian infrastructure with no loss of life.

Two days later, DG ISPR's presser while disclosing the tightly worded details of the episode claimed that surveillance assets of PAF had picked up the flight profile of the then unidentified flying object from its launch point in Sirsa, India and kept tracking it right uptill its impact point inside Pakistan's territory.

It was also claimed that a series of prompt tactical actions were initiated in preemption by PAF as per its own SOPs. Presser also revealed previously considered unidentified object to be India's Brahmos ballistic missile, supposedly bearing a range of 400-500 kms. Rest of the details of this faux pas and the underlying reasons for such strategic error were left for the India to explain.

Two days after Pakistan exposed India's indifference towards strategic blunder, Indian Foreign Office in its unpacifying clarification, admitted it to be a result of erroneous launch of Brahmos ballistic missile due to technical malfunction in its testing procedures.

Apparently for now, that marked the end of it. But the incident has left Pakistan and the world community wondering with bothering questions that India must answer if it needs to absolve itself of speculations questioning the safety standards of its misisile program and credibility of its leadership entrusted with the authorization protocols.

Pakistan and India are obligated under a bilateral convention to inform the other of the impending missile tests and the profile of missiles' trajectories expected to be flown during their course of flight.

No prior information was channeled to Pakistan from India's side in this case. Even if it was a case of accidental launch, no preventive alarm or warning was issued to Pakistani authorities.

While considering it to be a case of malfunction in a deployment excercise, India needs to explain either its weapon systems remain primed for launch during routine deployments and training excercises in contravention to established safety protocols of ballistic technologies.

Regardless of their mach values which categorize missles in supersonic, hypersonic or subsonic categories, their trajectories are pre-programed before launch in terms of flight time, which means the missile's Fire Control Computer can sense the specified point in its flight programed for various functions like lift off, levelling up at a certain bearing, cruising at a specified altitude in lower orbital space or atmosphere, detaching rocket motors and expended propellants and the point of entry into atmosphere by its Re-entry vehicle (warhead cone) in a near vertical flight towards the objective.

The missile launch sequence and its mechanics do not leave much room at the launching end to adjust or alter missile's flight path midcourse, except for missile's own adjustments by its Fire Control Computer (FCC) as per the predefined trajectory presets.

If a missile's FCC senses changes in its predefined flight path beyond the permissable limits, it automatically initates self-destruct sequence and destroys itself mid-air instead of heading astray.

As claimed, even as the missile deviated to a near 90 degrees from its initial programed flightpath, why did it fail to auto-initiate a self-destruct sequence needs deliberate catharsis by India. If Indian hypothesis of technical malfunction is to be bought as a thought, a rare possibility of missile getting primed inadvertently, faultering in interpretation of preset flight data and failing to self-destruct itself further muddies Indian side of the story.

The tracking of missile's flight profile showed that it did not transition to low orbital flight (space flight) as most of the ballistic missiles do before re-entering into the atmosphere.

Instead, for most part of its flight, the missile stayed at 40,000 ft AGL, also a cruising altitude (Flight Level) for most of the commercial flights.

Low orbital flight allows missiles to attain greater speeds and help evade detection and interception by ground based anti-ballistic platforms. Extrapolated trajectories of missiles being tracked by surveillance assets can give fair idea of its target's location.

Even during the tracked flight of the missile, it would have become imminent to Pakistan that it was not bound for any counter-value or counter-force target. The missle was not armed and was not configured with a conventional or nuclear warhead. Such factors appeared to have played in favour of India's claim of accidental launch. Though, presently no technology can establish the presence or lack thereof of a warhead in a missile during its time of flight.

Despite asking India to explain irresponsible errors at its end and to hold it accountable for the snags in its nuclear safety protocols, Pakistan needs to draw its own lessons from such a first instance of its own kind.

Indian's No First Use policy is a bluff that the world cannot be swayed by. Given the extremist elements in BJP's government and their stooges at the highest levels of Indian military, Indian nuclear misadventures can create surprise and shock in Pakistan's decision making circles by adopting postures inconsistent with its declared policies.

Pakistan will thus have to continue to adopt nuclear postures that will enable it to preserve its second strike capability since any preemptive strike by India will come without warning while blatantly violating its declared policy percepts.

The fact that Pakistan cannot effectively intercept incoming ballistic missiles does not necessarily mean that neither can India do so. India's acquisition of S-400 missile system can effectively intercept inbound ballistic threats, thereby far increasing its capabilities of ABM defence.

Against Indian nuclear cum missile capabilities, catch for Pakistan lies not in acquiring the equivalent capabilities but in acquiring the cracks against them. One such crack against India's existing ABM defence is the reliance of Pakistan on its Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicles (MIRVs) during terminal stages of missile's flight.

At present, Pakistan's nuclear doctrine may not specifiy a preventive response against an incoming threat but relies on retaliatory strike options and in defining for what will ensue after the initial strike.

*Opinions expressed in this article are the writer 's own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of The South Asia Times 

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