MRBM Agni 5 indio puede alcanzar todo el territorio chino

Así fue el lanzamiento del misil indio que pone en jaque a China

El Agni-5 fue testeado por el gobierno indio para demostrar su "disuasión creíble" al régimen chino
Infobae



Súbitamente, la tensión entre India y China escaló en las últimas horas como pocas veces antes, luego de que el primero de los países anunciara que había realizado un ensayo exitoso de un misil que podría impactar en cualquier punto del gigante asiático.



India realizó la prueba de un misil de largo alcance con capacidad nuclear para "fortalecer aún más nuestra disuasión creíble", dijo el Ministerio de Defensa. Se trató del quinto lanzamiento de un misil balístico intercontinental Agni-5. Fue hecho desde un lanzador móvil en una isla en la Bahía de Bengala.

India ha desarrollado sus sistemas nucleares y de misiles en los últimos años en medio de una creciente competencia estratégica con China. La prueba representó "un gran impulso a las capacidades de defensa del país", agregó el ministerio.


Un misil Agni V durante un desfile en el Día de la República en 2013

Se cree que los Agni-5 pueden llegar casi a cualquier punto del suelo chino.

La tensión entre los dos vecinos se agravó el año pasado por una parte de su frontera en lo alto del Himalaya, que se han disputado desde hace mucho tiempo. India sospecha cada vez más de las labores de Beijing para aumentar su influencia en el Océano Índico.

India ya es capaz de atacar nuclearmente cualquier punto de su vecino y archirrival Pakistán.

Aumenta el gasto global en defensa (menos en la puta Argentina)

Global defense spending increases
According to the latest report published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), countries around the world are spending ever more money on weapons. Diplomacy, it seems, is in retreat.


Leopard 2 A6

DW


Demand from the Middle East and Asia has driven the transfer of arms to its highest level in decades, a study shows. The US and Russia produced more than half of the world's arms in the past five years, it says. (20.02.2017)

Global defense spending has gone up for the first time since 2011. According to the World Military Expenditure Report published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), countries around the world spent a total of $1.68 trillion (1.56 trillion euros) on arms in 2016. That is 0.4 percent more than in 2015. Leading military powers – USA, China and Russia – increased spending more than other countries. Some countries with traditionally large military budgets, such as Saudi Arabia, decreased spending, though they did so not out of political conviction, but rather due to economic problems stemming from the falling price of oil.
The spending increase confirms a growing trend, as political scientist Marius Bales of the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC) told DW. "Today, unlike a decade ago, actors are not relying on diplomacy and international institutions. Instead, individual countries are investing in arms to protect themselves."


A Chinese warship in the South China Sea.

Increasing military importance

Russia's annexation of Crimea, tensions in the South China Sea, wars in the Middle East: all of these situations are feeding the fear that armed conflicts will continue to spread, says Bales. At the same time, he says that there is a lack of confidence in the work being done by international organizations and institutions. This has led countries to fend for themselves. The importance of national armies has grown, and thus, so has defense spending.
That rule also applies to countries that already have massive military budgets. The USA, for instance, increased spending by 1.7 percent in 2016, bringing its total annual expenditures up to $611 billion; Russia increased spending by 5.9 percent ($69.2 billion); and China by 5.4 percent ($215 billion).



The Middle East remains one of the world's major crisis regions. The war in Syria has only worsened the situation. The war has also driven up spending for those countries involved in the conflict. "Our information suggests that in 2016, Russia spent some $464 million on its commitment in Syria," says economist Nan Tian, one of the authors of the SIPRI report.


Violence in the Middle East: air strikes in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia, however, decreased its military expenditures in 2016. Political scientist Bales told DW that after increasing its military spending from 9 percent of GDP to more than 13 percent in 2015, the kingdom's spending decreased to around 10 percent of GDP in 2016. But he says that has less to do with political motivation than with falling oil prices – which have made it impossible for the royal family to maintain its accustomed level of military investment. "80 percent of Saudi Arabia's income is derived from oil," Nan Tian told DW. "So they have had to make budget cuts across the board."
Numerous hot spots
All of that has done little to de-escalate the ​conflict between Saudi Arabia and its regional rival, the Islamic Republic of Iran​, says BICC's Marius Bales. Neither side sees much future in negotiations and have instead put their faith in military solutions.
But the constant tension in the region also serves to drive defense spending by other countries as well. "Every country in the Middle East, with the exception of Oman, is involved in some type of violent conflict," says Bales. Falling oil prices have led to a decrease in terms of total dollar military expenditures: "but friction in the region has continued to lead to an overall military buildup."


Russian soldiers in Crimea.

Tensions in Europe

Military expenditures have gone up in Europe as well. SIPRI researchers found that spending increased by 2.6 percent in 2016. Central European countries were most responsible for the uptick. "The increase in expenditures can be traced back to the fact that many Central European countries see Russia as a growing threat," writes Siemon Wezeman, one of the authors of the study. "The fact that Russia spent just 27 percent of that which NATO countries did in 2016 has done little to change attitudes."
Marius Bales says that there is little proof that increased defense spending will actually lead to greater stability. Adding that if Russia should feel threatened by increased European military expenditures, then the Europe might well find itself in a new East-West arms race.

"Bienvenida una carrera de armas" dice Adolf Trump

‘Let It Be an Arms Race,’ Trump Says
Trump spokesman plays down threat of nuclear showdown; Putin: ‘We will never get dragged into an arms race’



President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday that the U.S. needs to expand its nuclear capabilities. PHOTO: JAY LAPRETE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
By BEN KESLING - The Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON—President-elect Donald Trump said Friday that he welcomes an international nuclear arms race, a comment his spokesman later sought to temper and which Russian President Vladimir Putin seemed to dismiss.
Mr. Trump’s remarks came a day after he and Mr. Putin issued competing declarations that their respective countries will ratchet up nuclear weapons capabilities. Addressing the subject Friday, the U.S. president-elect appeared to double down on the warning, saying he welcomes the nuclear competition.

“Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all,” Mr. Trump said in a brief, off-camera interview with MSNBC “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski, who reported it on the show Friday morning.

On Thursday, Mr. Trump said in a Twitter message that the U.S. needs to expand its nuclear capabilities, though he provided no explanation what policy changes that implied. The message came after Mr. Putin made a statement that Russia needs to build up its military across the board, including nuclear weapons.

On Friday in a nationally televised press conference, Mr. Putin said Russia doesn’t want an arms race.

“We will never get dragged into an arms race where we spend resources that we can’t afford,” he said.

Mr. Trump’s newly named White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, played down any danger of nuclear brinkmanship when he was asked about Mr. Trump’s comment on NBC’s “Today” show Friday morning.

“I think the point that he’s making is we’re not going to sit back as a country and allow other countries to expand their nuclear capability, with the U.S. just sitting idly by,” Mr. Spicer said. “Other countries need to be put on notice.”

Mr. Spicer dismissed concerns of a renewed nuclear arms race, implying that other countries would capitulate.

“What’s going to happen is they will all come to their senses and we will all be just fine,” he said.

India quiere dejar de comprar armas y empezar a producirlas

Opportunity strikes

The country’s conglomerates are throwing themselves into arms-making

 
This one looks sub standard
VISITORS to the Talegaon plant of Larsen & Toubro (L&T), an Indian engineering company, might confuse it for the props department of a film studio. Half-a-dozen hangars spread over 50 acres near Pune, a city in western India, are filled with enough weaponry to thrill a Bond villain: camouflaged track-mounted howitzers, anti-submarine rocket launchers and, particularly appealing should Blofeld share Indians’ fondness for trains, a contraption to turn a humble carriage into a ballistic-missile-launcher.

The missile itself is a dummy, but the rest of the kit speaks of India’s ambitions to breed world-class makers of defence equipment. Although India now has the world’s fourth-biggest military budget, it has been the single biggest arms importer for seven of the past ten years, says SIPRI, a research institute (see chart). The government, tired of this unwanted accolade—and convinced indigenous weapons production can provide jobs, budget savings and technological know-how—puts defence at the heart of its drive to boost domestic manufacturing.



Local conglomerates are salivating at an opportunity they expect could be worth $150 billion-200 billion in the coming decade. Tata, Mahindra and Godrej—as well as L&T—are among those that have piled into weapons manufacturing in recent years. But to succeed they will have to take on foreign importers (which snap up about two-thirds of all procurement by value), a crowd of state-owned companies and the country’s bloated defence bureaucracy.

Impatience with familiar suppliers opened the first breach for private contractors over a decade ago. An unconvincing victory in a skirmish with Pakistan, in Kashmir in 1999, exposed the Indian army’s lack of capability. Insiders blamed a plethora of corruption scandals, involving foreign firms as well as flabby state-owned arms-makers, for leaving forces ill-equipped. But private-sector enthusiasm faded when promises of contracts did not materialise.

The latest sally slightly preceded the arrival of Narendra Modi in power in May 2014, and has been reinforced by his team’s energetic drumming of a “Make in India” theme. Mr Modi has spoken of having 70% indigenous weapons procurement by 2020, roughly double today’s figure (the defence ministry is a bit less ambitious), with more of it produced by the private sector. To achieve this, procurement rules overtly favour stuff made locally. Some of the red tape entangling all things industrial has been done away with: for example, foreign groups may now own as much as 49% in Indian ventures, up from 26%.

Bosses at private Indian firms are delighted by the new rhetoric: Tata, India’s largest conglomerate, identifies defence as one of four core growth areas. Groups with a background in cars (Mahindra) or precision engineering (L&T) have recast themselves as arms-makers, often with the help of Western partners such as Airbus, Boeing or Lockheed Martin.

The pipeline for new defence systems looks appealing. The military budget, some $50 billion a year, is expected to track long-term economic-growth rates of around 7% a year. Press reports suggest the armed forces are short of some 300 fighter jets, at least a dozen submarines, over 1,000 combat helicopters, seven frigates and perhaps 3,000 artillery guns. What gear it has is often of cold-war vintage and from Russia, India’s traditional supplier. Even ammunition is in short supply.

Yet in practice the armed forces are lousy customers. Defence bureaucrats are risk-averse. Military spending is growing, but much new money goes towards salaries and pensions. The share of funds for procurement, research, development and testing has slumped from 34% in 2005 to 25% today, says IHS Jane’s, a research outfit.

Worse, a fifth of the capital budget typically goes unspent because, in the run up to year-end, the finance ministry usually begs generals to shelve projects so that overall public-spending targets can be met. That leaves just $11 billion-12 billion for procurement, says IHS. And much of this is committed to existing projects, often in the hands of state-run companies good at lobbying for their share.

So those in charge of India’s putative defence groups are waiting to see if the opportunity is really as big as it appears. Official rhetoric was enough for investment plans to be drawn up, but not quite enough for big amounts to be spent. “We like the policy; we await the execution,” says one firm’s defence-division boss. A bureaucrat who misinterprets a single word in a regulation could stymie a billion-dollar project, he adds.

Foreign firms will also seek a chance to profit. Nearly 500 attended a recent defence jamboree in Goa. Some are still hoping to do deals to deliver equipment outright. Dassault has been in talks to sell its Rafale fighter jets for over 15 years (“We are getting closer...we are in the final phase,” its chairman said last month, redefining optimism). But if it comes off, this deal would probably be one of many contracts to have the first batch of a weapons system made overseas before shifting manufacturing—and some technology—to India for later orders, assuming the local partner could cope with production demands.

The past year has seen the weaving of a tangled web connecting big Western defence groups and Indian manufacturing counterparts. A recent deal for BAE Systems to supply howitzers uses Mahindra as the local assembler. A track-mounted artillery gun at L&T’s facility (part of which is a joint venture with Airbus Defence) was designed by Samsung. Boeing and Tata have a partnership to produce Apache helicopter fuselages, among other things.

Sceptics wonder whether local groups do much more than give existing foreign weapons systems an Indian veneer just thick enough to get contracts. Systems developed abroad (often some time ago) can be assembled in an Indian plant, with both sides claiming the gear has been extensively adapted for the Indian market.

Assembly work is not the lucrative bit of the weapons industry—just as the iPhone brings more profits to Apple (its designer) than to Foxconn (its contract manufacturer). For now, India mostly makes the cheaper bits, especially parts that can benefit from lower labour costs. Pricier systems, which require long development lead-times, are hampered by higher capital costs for Indian firms compared with Western rivals.

All that could change if Indian companies develop expertise to design, not just assemble, equipment. Last month the government said it would give priority to weapons designed and made in India. It should also let firms export their wares—which, in the long term, is the only way investments in arms-making pay, says Deba Mohanty of Indicia, a consultancy. Countries that spend heavily on armed forces typically have successful arms-making companies. India’s ambition, one day, is to stop being an exception to this rule.

The Economist

Pakistán e India se mueven hacia el conflicto bélico

“Are (Modi) India and (Sharif) Pakistan Sliding Toward War?” — Let’s Hope Not
 
Defense News

John Stimson warns in a detailed, factual article—“Are India and Pakistan Sliding Toward War?” — that rising tensions over Kashmir – and poor relations between Modi and Pakistan – could lead soon to war.

John Stimson warns in a detailed, factual article—“Are India and Pakistan Sliding Toward War?” — that rising tensions over Kashmir – and poor relations between Modi and Pakistan – could lead soon to war. I don’t disagree with the points he assembles. Kashmir is always a tinderbox, and right now, is indeed alarming. India and Pakistan have fought four wars since Independence. Terrorist groups, some with ties to Pakistan’s strong ISI, can provoke confrontations. The Subcontinent always seems on edge.

However, here are four points to suggest relations between India and Pakistan may get worse but not reach actual head-on full-scale combat between regular armed forces.


Modi will hopefully be a calming influence. It is true that he leads the BHP, which is not overly friendly toward Pakistan. But as the old saying goes, “war stifles reform.” If India gets distracted by war, it will stifle his program of forcing through tough economic reforms. That program means far more to him and his party’s future than posturing with Pakistan.
Each country has a good military reason not to fight. The Indian military weaponry is, frankly, backward. India has been on a shopping spree of foreign arms purchases. But it still has a long way to escape its situation after the Mumbai terror attack by terrorists from Pakistani-supported groups, when India’s land forces were simply not in shape to strike back.
Pakistan has an internal war against militants, especially the Pakistan Taliban. The war is long past the point of full hostilities. Pakistan’s armed forces would face a two-front war if they took on India. (It must be admitted, though, that it is never far from the minds of the Pakistani military that they might fight with India, and so they are probably ready to cope with India.)
Other powers will pour oil on trouble waters. The United States has been trying to work with Pakistan about several vital issues, especially Afghanistan; at the same time, the United States is trying to form a low-key alliance with Modi against resurgent China. So the United States will try to cool down both sides. (In a prev’ ious article, though, I did suggest that the United States’ sharing of military and nuclear technology with India might rile Pakistan.) China is Pakistan’s ally, but it does not want to be India’s enemy, nor would it want a defeat to destabilize Pakistan. So China will not be an opponent of peace.
So: while war is definitely something to worry about, hope for peace

Los japoneses no desean un Japón militarmente poderoso

Abe Push for Quick Action on Defense Laws Facing Opposition

by Isabel Reynolds


 
Air servicemen of the Japan Self-Defense Force walk past a F-15J/DJ fighter aircraft on a runway prior to a review ceremony at the Japan Air Self-Defense Force's Hyakuri air base in Omitama, Ibaraki prefecture on Oct. 26, 2014. Photographer: Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty Images


(Bloomberg) -- A majority of Japanese oppose Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s plan to pass legislation to expand the military’s role in the current parliamentary session, an opinion poll indicated.

Fifty-one percent of respondents to a Nikkei newspaper survey released Monday said the bills shouldn’t be passed in the session due to end in June, while 31 percent said they should.

The poll appears to signal that many voters are unwilling to see a rapid broadening of the remit of the country’s Self Defense Forces, even amid a territorial dispute with an increasingly assertive China. While Abe’s proposed legal changes and reinterpretation of the 68-year-old pacifist constitution have been welcomed by the U.S., neighboring China and South Korea are wary of any return to militarization.


“The international security situation is constantly changing, with the spread of weapons of mass destruction and the threat of terrorism,” Abe told graduating students at the National Defense Academy on Sunday, according to Kyodo News. “In order to make our pledge against war a reality, we need to learn from our predecessors, make decisions and take action.”

Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party agreed a basic outline of legislative changes with its Buddhist-backed coalition partner Komeito last week. The government plans to draft bills next month and pass them in the current session of parliament, which may necessitate extending it beyond the current cut-off point of June 24.

The outline includes a call for changes to laws on “gray zone” situations that do not amount to an attack on Japan; on providing support to foreign militaries overseas; the use of weapons in peace-keeping operations overseas; and the use of force to defend other countries under certain circumstances.

Gender Divide

“Since the war, our country has in principle not used force overseas,” Katsuya Okada, the leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, said of the legislation on his blog on Saturday. “The content of Prime Minister Abe’s proactive pacifism policy means a great change to that thinking.”

Okada also called for a party leaders’ debate to discuss the proposals.

The Nikkei poll found a marked difference in opinion between male and female respondents. While 45 percent of men supported the passage of the laws in the current session, only 20 percent of women agreed. The paper polled 1,043 people by phone March 20-22.

Support for Abe’s cabinet rose one percentage point to 51 percent from a similar poll in February.

Se viene la carrera armamentista de las armas hipersónicas

Hypersonic weapons and the new global arms race
This week, the US tested a hypersonic prototype missile in its bid to develop a weapon capable of reaching any target in the world in an hour. How will China and Russia respond?
The Guardian


The crash site of the US military's hypersonic weapon, which exploded seconds after its launch at the Kodiak Launch Complex in Alaska. Photograph: Scott Wight/AP

As top-secret, super-fast missile experiments go, it wasn't the most successful. This week the US tested its Advanced Hypersonic Weapons system, the Pentagon's latest attempt to create a weapon that can reach any target in the world, in just an hour. Instead it exploded within four seconds of takeoff and fell back down to earth, causing undisclosed damage to the test site.

Yet while the system failed this test, it's unlikely to cool the enthusiasm for developing such a weapon – which has already sparked a new arms race between China, Russia and the US – and which critics fear could potentially spark a nuclear war.

The need for faster conventional weapons was underlined for the US back in 1998. Osama bin Laden had been spotted in a terrorist training camp in the east of Afghanistan, but when missiles – capable of travelling at 880kph – were dispatched to kill him, from a warship in the Arabian sea, the Al-Qaida leader left before he could be hit.

The latest hypersonic prototype, which was tested in Alaska, can only travel 5,000 miles, so it is someway off from the target of reaching anywhere in the world in an hour. But it travels at several times the speed of sound, and can go faster than 3,500 mph. It also has a longer reach than any non-nuclear weapon the US currently possesses.

But the development of hypersonic weapons has worried China and Russia, who have begun looking into similar programmes to avoid being left behind. China tested a similar weapon in January, while Russia warned it will start doing the same.

All the initiatives are cloaked in secrecy, with little public scrutiny of the programme in the US, and no scrutiny at all in Russia or China. Even more worrying is the fact that experts say the hypersonic weapons could be confused for a nuclear attack, sparking a nuclear war. Currently, the Advanced Hypersonic Weapons system is being tested on ballistic missiles, which can also carry nuclear war heads. The way they are launched also looks similar to the way nuclear warheads are launched – but once they leave the atmosphere, they quickly re-enter to glide along 60 miles above the ground, rather than continuing above the atmosphere.

The initial similarities, however, could be enough to frighten countries into retaliating.

And even if this never happens, the prospect of the new weapons is already heating up the debate around nuclear weapons. Foreign Policy magazine reports that the anxieties around the US's new conventional weapons have led to internal discussions in China over whether it should abandon its policy not to use nuclear weapons first. And Russia is said to be no longer interested in reducing its nuclear capabilities for the same reason.

On this evidence, it may be best for all of us if the prototypes keep exploding when they're not supposed to.

China dependerá de China

"El ejército chino no debe depender de países extranjeros para modernizarse y desarrollarse"

El ejército de China no debe depender de países extranjeros para modernizar y ampliar, dijo el miércoles el ministro chino de Defensa, en una entrevista con varios periódicos. 

 

"Estos próximos cinco años, nuestro ejército va a perseverar en sus preparativos para un conflicto militar en todos los ámbitos estratégicos posible", dijo Liang. 

"Vamos a presionar a nuestros propios recursos para hacer frente a este problema y desarrollar nuestras instalaciones. La modernización del ejército chino no depende de los demás y no puede ser comprado", añadió. 

China tiene el ejército más grande del mundo (de Liberación del Pueblo del Ejército) y un arsenal nuclear, tiene el segundo presupuesto de defensa en el mundo después de que el presupuesto de los EE.UU. que está creciendo más rápidamente que el PIB, lo que inquieta a algunos vecinos. 

"Aunque vivimos en paz, no debemos olvidar nunca la guerra, el retorno de los caballos a los establos y bajar la guardia de las bayonetas y armas de fuego", dijo Liang. 

"Estos próximos cinco años, nuestra economía y nuestra sociedad se desarrolle más rápidamente, lo que aumentará nuestra fuerza nacional en general", predijo. "Vamos a aprovechar esta oportunidad para acelerar la modernización de nuestro ejército." 

El poder militar de China es una fuente de preocupación "para el Este de Asia y la comunidad internacional, dijo hace dos semanas, el gobierno japonés. 

El almirante americano Robert Willard, director de la región militar del Pacífico, tiene también dijo que China ha desarrollado la capacidad operativa inicial de un misil de largo alcance capaces de atacar a portaaviones, en una entrevista publicada el martes por un diario japonés. 

Por otra parte, según un informe del Departamento de Defensa de EE.UU., Pekín está tratando de aumentar su avance militar en Taiwán en previsión de un conflicto con la isla que considera una provincia renegada. 


Fuente