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.'"
This is the path to madness (Score:3, Interesting)
We need to stop this madness. Even if we assume that fall-out outside of India/Pakistan's borders is not severe if they were to ever have a war that turned nuclear, the entire world will suffer the climatological consequences. See the following link (warning, PDF)
http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/RobockToonSAD.pdf [rutgers.edu]
Re:This is the path to madness (Score:3, Interesting)
There won't ever be a nuclear war with Pakistan. The real focus is China. And slowly but surely India is beginning to equalize the equation though it's still pretty far from doing so; at the moment it's advantage China. So these developments have to be read in context of China, not Pakistan.
So, by that logic... (Score:3, Interesting)
You are really saying that the world community must band together in order to take all of America's nuclear weapons? After all, America is the ONLY country in all of history to have ever used a nuclear device against another, not once, but twice.
You can make all the distinctions you wish about right or wrong, but one cannot argue it is untrue.
Re:So why can't Iran have Nukes? (Score:1, Interesting)
....because they're a militant theocracy ruled by fundamentalists determined to dominate their neighbours & force the region into a nuclear showdown? because they're already funding terrorist and insurgency in neighboring states? Because they're funding Assad , the Hizballah and Hamas? You can pick the reasons you want.
Re:So why can't Iran have Nukes? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
As opposed to so many way more brutal dicatorships US government supports (far too many to list them all here) and sometimes even gives them technology to build nuclear weapons (Pakistan).
Regarding Iran, their current, rather precarious condition their citizenry suffers is direct result of US and Britain intervention [wikipedia.org]. Regarding threat of Irans's nuclear capabilities, all we see and hear in western corporate media is crap and propaganda. Should they acquire some, they wouldn't be able to use them in other form than a deterrent. Their army contains of (mostly) defensive forces. Their defence strategy is to block Hormuz Strait and then look for diplomatic solution ("you stop invading us, we ublock your oil"). There was a publicly available Pentagon document describing it, yet I don't remember where I downloaded it. Use your favorite search engine to find it if you want.
Almost everything you see of hear about Iran in western media (maybe except of them being quite brutal theocracy) is a crap. The only reason western powers fear so much of iranian nukes is that since Iran acquires some nukes, US and friends won't be able to "bring democracy" to Iran as they brought it to Iraq or Libya.
Re:So why can't Iran have Nukes? (Score:0, Interesting)
Given what the USA did to them first and is STILL doing, can you fucking blame them?