I wonder if the Indian missile accident involved sabotage.
Who would want to provoke dissension and possibly war between India and Pakistan?
And why now?
The act could tie into the current unhappiness in the US with the Indian response to the Ukraine war; India, along with China, abstained from condemning the Russian action in the UN and has joined China, Brazil and others in calling for an inquiry into American bioweapons labs in the Ukraine.
Or it could tie into American unhappiness with India for continuing to buy Russian military technology.
Or it could be both.
New US sanctions on Russian banks will make it harder for countries to buy major defence equipment from Moscow, a US diplomat said, though no decision had been reached on Washington granting a waiver to New Delhi to take delivery of Russian surface-to-air missiles under an earlier contract.
Testifying before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, the assistant secretary (of the US State Department) for South and Central Asia, Donald Lu hinted that the US may reconsider its position on waiving sanctions against India.
“The Biden administration will consider CAATSA [Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act],” Lu said on Tuesday, March 2.
From the description of the missile by Pakistan [if that was accurate and not deliberately misleading, as I suspect], it was a BrahMos, one of the fastest anti ship supersonic cruise missiles in the world, a joint Russian and Indian venture. BrahMos is a portmanteau of the names of two rivers, the Brahmaputra in India and the Moskva in Russia.
……. Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Maj Gen Babar Iftikhar briefed the media about the incident, calling for an explanation from Delhi.
“On March 9, at 6:43pm, a high-speed flying object was picked up inside the Indian territory by Air Defence Operations Centre of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF),” he told media persons in Islamabad, adding the object suddenly manoeuvred towards Pakistani territory from its initial course and violated Pakistan’s air space, ultimately falling near Mian Channu at 6:50pm.
“It was a supersonic flying object, most probably a missile, but it was certainly unarmed,” he said at the time.
“It is important to highlight that the flight path of this object endangered many international and domestic passenger flights — both in Indian and Pakistani air space — as well as human life and property on ground,” he added.
“Whatever caused this incident to happen, it is for the Indians to explain. It, nevertheless, shows their disregard for aviation safety and reflects very poorly on their technological prowess and procedural efficiency,” he further stated. [Dawn, March 11, 2022]
A report in Reuters gives more details, including the height of 40,000 ft, the speed [3 x speed of sound] and the distance into Pakistani territory, 77 miles. But the source is anonymous, a common technique by which the Mockingbird media seeds their reports with narratives crafted in the intelligence community. Thus, “One senior Pakistani security official told Reuters, on the condition of anonymity….”]
The allegation that this is a BrahMos missile is actually speculative. Consider perhaps that a certain narrative needs this to be a BrahMos because the BrahMos has a range between 300 and 500 kms, which allows the Pakistani official to claim that Indian missiles are actually trained directly on Islamabad. It also damages the reputation of the Russian and Indian technology and sows suspicion of Russian bona fides.
The Pakistanis relied on a Chinese air defense system that was very accurate in spotting the missile.
Oddly, last year, there were reports of problems plaguing Pakistan’s Chinese made air defenses in the east.
But the system that tracked the wayward Indian missile was most likely the cutting-edge HQ 9/P HIMADS (High to Medium Air Defence System) procured from China in mid-October, 2021.
Pakistani media has speculated that this was no accident but a probe to test the new system, which performed as desired.
Another speculative report is that it was sabotage from within India and the saboteur wanted to discredit the BrahMos missile on behalf of those wanting to continue importing from other foreign manufacturers.
Last year, India was stunned by the crash of one of its safest helicopters and the deaths of General Rawat and more than half a dozen senior military personnel. Rawat was known to have been staunchly against the defense import lobby which profits from gargantuan kickbacks as middlemen.
He was a major proponent of self sufficiency in defense.
Rawat died in a suspicious accident over the Nilgiris in the south of India last year.
Now comes this mysterious BrahMos accident [if it was BrahMos], a PR disaster for Indian missile prowess, as the Pakistanis have been quick to point out.
On the other hand, it is a PR coup for Pakistan’s Chinese air defense system. Again, what message is sent? By whom?