India's ICBM Will Carry Multiple Nuclear Warheads 351
An anonymous reader writes "India is equipping its longest range nuclear-capable missile, the Agni-V, with Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicles (MIRVs), The Diplomat reports. A MIRVed Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) carries multiple nuclear warheads on a single missile, which it dispenses towards numerous or a single target after the final stage of the ICBM boosts off. MIRVed missiles destabilized the Cold War nuclear balance and are likely to do so again: 'Because they give nations greater confidence in being able to destroy an adversary's hardened missile silo sites in a first strike by launching multiple, lower yield warheads at the sites.'"
Re:So why can't Iran have Nukes? (Score:1, Insightful)
Thats becuase we like idia, while Iran is filled with a bunch of hate filled nutters!
Re:Just another way to destroy ourselves (Score:5, Insightful)
80% of the Indians don't have a toilet to shit in, but the government is more worried about expensive war toys with no purpose at all.
Way to go, India. There's nothing like getting your priorities straight.
Still receiving aid (Score:4, Insightful)
Doesn't India have other priorities? http://www.wateraid.org/uk/where-we-work/page/india [wateraid.org]
Re:Just another way to destroy ourselves (Score:5, Insightful)
So its ok if Indians are ruled by a Chinese-Pak-American invader force as long as they have a toilet to shit in?
The foremost priority of any government is to protect the nations borders, otherwise whats the point of nationalism anyway?
Why the IC in ICBM? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Still receiving aid (Score:5, Insightful)
Like any country, or rather any unit that has multiple areas they need to work on, everything gets its fair share of resources. One doesn't "prioritise" one thing in neglect of other things. Defence gets its share. Social upliftment gets its share. Remember, Indian defence spending in GDP terms is pretty low given the kind of neighbours it has and the amount of terrorism and insurgent violence it bears generally.
Re:Why the IC in ICBM? (Score:3, Insightful)
umm... because China is fairly big and the larger cities are pretty far away from where these ICBMs will be launched?
Re:Why the IC in ICBM? (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually the reason for developing long range missiles is, as usual, the US. Remember that people were talking about a limited nuclear retaliation for 9/11 against parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan?
The message is clear. If you can see any potential future where you might be at odds with the US you can't just rely on there being a Democrat in the White House at the time, you need Mutually Assured Destruction. Geography dictates that for most countries that means they need ICBMs to strike back.
Re:So why can't Iran have Nukes? (Score:4, Insightful)
Or maybe that's because India is the largest democracy in the world and has been mostly at peace since its independence in 1947 (minus border conflicts with China and Pakistan and some peacekeeping operations abroad). It's last conflict was in 1999 against Pakistan and the total death toll after 3 months of operations was less than 5000 victims. It's not a bad track record for such a large and populated country given the size of the societal issues it's dealing with.
The iranian democracy on the other side is today nothing more than an empty shell and while its population is highly educated, young and probably wouldn't mind a change in government, its government and associates have proven time and time again since the 70s to have a rather proactive agressive stance.
Re:Just another way to destroy ourselves (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody is taking away money allocated to providing clean drinking water to make missiles
As if the money didn't all come from the same bag? The Indian government is taking in money, allocating it to "defense" and building first strike weapons to bomb an imaginary enemy; all while ignoring that a large part of their population is living in poverty. The fact that there are reasonably well educated people here that are OK with this shit speaks volumes.
He's just another anti-American Slashtard (Score:3, Insightful)
There's plenty on Slashdot, most who live in America. any time there's a discussion of a foreign country, they feel the need to steer it back to America and do so by hating on America. Near as I can tell it is a combination of two things:
1) Trendiness in hating the US. For some reason, they feel that "cool" thing to do (so to speak) is to hate on the US. If anything is bad anywhere, they need to find a way it is worse in the US.
2) Arrogance/self centeredness. They can't deal with a discussion that isn't about them or their experiences, so they have to steer any discussion back to the US so it is. They mentally justify it to themselves as pointing out the US's flaws, but it is really about making the discussion about them and their world.
There's sadly a lot of it on Slashdot, it often gets moderated up, and it can make it difficult to have a real discussion about problems in the rest of the world.
Re:Way to go USA! USA!, USA!, USA! (Score:4, Insightful)
You really need to examine the definition of "poverty".
Re:Way to go USA! USA!, USA!, USA! (Score:2, Insightful)
Exactly. I'd rather live in American "poverty" than Indian poverty.
Mississippi (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously, you've never read an anti-abortion bill.
Re:Just another way to destroy ourselves (Score:4, Insightful)
India's nukes is and have always been built to deter Pakistan foremost and China secondmost.
The ICBM cannot even reach the US, by a long shot.
Same reason very few Chinese nuclear weapons can reach the US. All of them can reach Russia just fine.
Re:Way to go USA! USA!, USA!, USA! (Score:4, Insightful)
This.
Poverty in US: You're on food-stamps, living in low-income housing, and making less than $12k/year (not including previously mentioned programs).
Poverty in India: You're on less than $12/month. [wikipedia.org] (and probably without programs like welfare/foodstamps, etc).
Re:He's just another anti-American Slashtard (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm from the USA. I'm not anti-USA. Our priorities are horrid.
We spend too much on war.
Not enough on education, medicine, productive outreach to other countries (not "aid" money and food), infrastructure and research.
The former item has been the single most common throughout recorded history as to why countries fail. The latter reasons are why most countries rise in prominence.
That's why so many people agree that the American Empire is on the decline, whether they're native or foreign to that land.
And the patriots amongst us wish our brethren were still standing by the ideals that founded our country and the strength of character of political figures from our past.
Yeah, we screwed up a lot in the first two hundred years (genocide and slavery being prime examples), but we brought a lot of good into the world as well through concerted effort...
And now we're just racing our supposed enemies to the bottom.
"USA? USA? USA!"
Sad.
That said, further development and proliferation of nuclear weapons isn't helping anybody. I appreciate India's desire to protect themselves from their less well-behaved neighbors; that doesn't mean bigger weapons is the way to go.
Re:Just another way to destroy ourselves (Score:4, Insightful)
>Any country that is cowed by Pakistan is nothing to worry about.
That is United States of America.
$hit Cowed. E.g. Pakistanis had Osama as their honoured Guest and US can't even call that bluff.
Well, except for when they found him and killed him without even asking Pakistan if it was ok to conduct a military operation on their soil.
Try that on a real country like Russia or China anyone in Europe... well my guess is they wouldn't be so brazen.
Re:So, by that logic... (Score:5, Insightful)
"America is the ONLY country in all of history to have ever used a nuclear device against another"
Let's keep it that way. Or would you prefer that everybody get their turn?
Re:So, by that logic... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not what anybody "really" said.
Restraint doesn't mean you never do something, it means "under control or within limits."
The wisdom of using the first ever nukes in the biggest war in history before all the consequences were well understood is debatable (personally I think it was fine), but America's history since then does not show a lack of restraint. Quite the opposite -- we are so restrained with our nukes that nobody is scared of them.