Slashdot Mirror
India Test Fires Long-Range, Nuke-Capable Missile
An anonymous reader writes "India has successfully test fired a long-range, nuke-capable missile. Named after Hindu God of fire 'Agni', the ICBM is capable of hitting targets in China, East Africa and parts of Europe. With a successful launch of the missile, India joins an elite group of nations with long-range weapons. 'The BBC's Andrew North in Delhi says Indian officials deny it, but everyone believes the missile is mainly aimed at deterring China. A spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry, Liu Weimin, said his country was not threatened by the test. ... It was only launched once officials were sure they had the best weather conditions — so this was as much a demonstration as a real test, to show India's rivals that it has this kind of capability.'"
North Korea has been run by a familial succession of dictators who have been, at best, more than a little deranged. India is the closest thing that region has to a western democracy.
Exactly. I think it's ok for other people to carry guns. I don't think it's ok for batshit crazy people to carry guns.
Respect is earned.
So far, Pakistan and its proxies have spent decades being violent terrorist barbarians and being a nuisance, and are then shocked (SHOCKED! I say...) that the entire world hates their guts.
The fact that he can blithely compare the US to North Korea like that without any repercussions is a demonstration in itself that the US enjoys significantly greater personal freedom than NK does, but I'm sure that didn't occur to him.
Excuse me, I didn't get it. Are you talking about India or the USA?
India is a country surrounded by Pakistan, China, and nearby N. Korea, and other countries who are horribly oppressive, violent and aggressive regimes. They are also currently harboring the Tibetan government in exile; which royally pisses China off.
Time will tell if this was a good idea but from a strategic point of view, I have to agree with their decision.
And don't forget - public protests can be the polar opposite of what's said behind closed doors. Especially, when you need to keep amicable relations with all sides.
I am not sure I get your argument here. Sounds a lot like "I bullied that guy in high school because all my friends were doing that, too".
The argument is that the US is unlikely to unilaterally invade/nuke another country without warning. It has no active border disputes, no external threats to its existence, no significant internal insurgency, has changed leaders in a relatively orderly fashion regularly for over a century, has a military firmly under civilian control, and tends to seek approval of at least its western allies before military action. Of course, it's also the only nation on the planet to have used nukes in anger, so I would understand your skepticism, but don't pretend there's no difference between the US and North Korea in terms of the likelihood nukes would get used.
E pluribus unum
North Korea had just signed a agreement not to test weapons – which specifically included not testing long range missiles for “scientific purposes” in exchange for food aid. The ink was not even dry when they 1. launched the missiles and 2. said there would be dire repercussions if the U.S. did not deliver on the food aid.
The rationality and stability of the North Korea regime is very different then that of India.
I have read this bullshit before. India had a GDP of 1.73 trillion dollars last year, of this it spend 36 billion on R&D including this one. So you are saying its wrong to spend less than 2 cents of every dollar you make on protecting yourself. Not only that, this tech also is related to satellite launch market, which is quite lucrative. India also launches and makes money on that.
So don't buy your LED TV, smartphone, Laptop until you pay off your mortgage, that is wrong priorities by your logic. Furthermore, dare you get a gun or a security system in your house until your mortgage and debt are paid off.
What rubbish!
They can thank about a hundred years of British rule for driving them in to poverty. India was among the wealthiest countries on earth until the British showed up and proceeded to siphon trillions of dollars (in today's terms) of raw wealth like gold, precious metals, and gems, from them. Want to see a small example of India's former wealth? Look no further than the crown that sat upon the late Queen Elizabeth's head. The world would look totally different today if Britain wasn't able to steal from India to help get them through two world wars.
India's continued investment to prove that they can keep up with powerful western nations will only help prop up their nation as a whole, and help lift all out of poverty over time. Count the poor on the streets of Bangalore (a major IT hub), and compare it with other Indian cities that haven't see the same level of investment, like Calcutta, and you'll see what first hand what it can do.
"False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
Replying instead of moderating
You make great points except for "used nukes in anger". There were a lot of considerations that went into the decision to use nukes, but anger definitely wasn't one of them. The debate over the US' decision to use them has been going on for quite some time, but a few things are pretty clear:
1. The casualty estimates for an invasion without the use of nukes ranged between half a million to 1.5 million.
2. The Japanese had a standing order to execute allied POW's in the event of such an invasion, of which there were about 100 thousand.
3. The conventional wisdom at the time (which was probably true) indicated that Japanese leaders would be unlikely to surrender until well into the invasion of the Japanese homeland.
The Japanese leadership wasn't prepared to surrender even after Hiroshima, and was still hesitant to do so after Nagasaki, and it was the direct intervention of the Emperor that finally forced the Japanese government's hand.
Bullshit stories about Japan seeking a peaceful resolution in the weeks leading up to the attacks are pretty easily falsified by the behavior of the Japanese government at the time, which even after spectacular attacks on two of its cities still needed the Emperor to basically force the issue for them to raise the white flag.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The whole "used nukes in anger" remark is nonsense.
We were in the middle of a war. We had been leveling cities for strategic purposes for a long while before we decided to do it with a single device.
People that like to fixate on the nukes tend to ignore all of the other cities that got bombed and all of the other people that got killed. They also tend to trivialize the Japanese.
I often wonder if there isn't a bit of racism mixed in there, trivializing the Japanese.
There's some racism; but mostly it's just ignoring one's own crimes. The US is entirely guilty of both, especiallly the latter and *very* consistently. Take Pol Pot. While our enemies were causing genocide in Cambodia, of course it was getting *heavy* press here in the US. What did not get press was East Timor and was happening at *exactly* the same time, was just as severe, but the US was funding the aggressors (indonesia), so no reporting. History rarely makes a controlled experiment, but in that case it did and you can see how lock-step the press and government was in the US at prosecuting one and ignoring the other. Or take the Nazi Holocaust. It was awful, you hear about it all the time...6 million Jewish people killed. Do you hear about the Native American Holocaust? Not much. Even though probably 2-10 times (estimates vary) as many dark skinned natives were slaughtered. The difference was that we weren't responsible for the former, but entirely responsible for the latter. That generalizes....and it's real consistent. It's not just the US; all power systems ignore their own crimes. And their intellecutal class helps by writing history in their favor. If you want to read bad things about the US regarding Hiroshima, you'll probably have to read some subversive book, or simply visit a library in a country that isn't real fond of the US.
AGNI means fire in many Indian languages. The word also refers to the god of fire "Agni". Slashdot description "Named after Hindu God of fire Agni" - is misleading and insinuates some type of religious weaponry. It is like saying Saree is a Hindu dress...Saree is an Indian dress.
Hinduism is more of a way of life than a religion. And India has the largest number of Muslims after Indonesia. The 2% of Christians will be more than 20 million - much more than many European nations. This plurality one should not forget.
In fact the chief scientist of AGNI mission - Tessy Thomas - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessy_Thomas - is from my state Kerala. She is a Christian and she named her son Tejas - a Hindu name. I am a Christian, but my name is Hindu.
Try to understand the complexity...generalizing a complex country is the basic mistake Western journalists make about India.
Tat Tvam Asi