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India's ICBM Will Carry Multiple Nuclear Warheads

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.'"

28 of 351 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Just another way to destroy ourselves by daem0n1x · · 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.

  2. Still receiving aid by MrMickS · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Doesn't India have other priorities? http://www.wateraid.org/uk/where-we-work/page/india

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    1. Re:Still receiving aid by WoodenKnight · · 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.

  3. Re:Just another way to destroy ourselves by Anonymous Coward · · 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?

  4. Re:This is the path to madness by WoodenKnight · · 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.

  5. Why the IC in ICBM? by spectrokid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    India is keeping its ennemies close. The nukes are foremost to keep Pakistan and China under control. Why the heck are they devellooping ICBM capability? Thy really just need to be able to lob them far enough over the border...

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    1. Re:Why the IC in ICBM? by WoodenKnight · · Score: 3, Insightful

      umm... because China is fairly big and the larger cities are pretty far away from where these ICBMs will be launched?

  6. They need to leapfrog the tech by paiute · · Score: 4, Funny

    India should be working on improved stick technology so they can win WWIV.

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  7. Re:This is the path to madness by pinkushun · · Score: 3, Informative

    Undeniably so, but isn't it too late for that already, looking at this animated timeline of nuclear tests between 1945 and 1998. One wonders how the planet is still alive.

  8. So, by that logic... by pablo_max · · 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.

    1. Re:So, by that logic... by morgauxo · · Score: 4, 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?

    2. Re:So, by that logic... by stdarg · · Score: 3, 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.

    3. Re:So, by that logic... by GLMDesigns · · Score: 3, Informative

      WWII was a particularly devastating war. You do realize that more people were killed in the firebombing of Tokyo and Dresdan than Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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    4. Re:So, by that logic... by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 4, Informative

      No, they don't realize that. That is a big part of the problem.

      The 'mystique' of nuclear warfare has overshadowed the truth of the Japan bombings. We wiped most of Japan's cities off the map before August 1945, with conventional bombings, using the high explosive and incendiary varieties of bombs. While their factories were modern steel and cement, the 'bamboo-n-rice-paper' style of their houses meant they burnt very well.

      So, while the two bombs produced the largest numbers of victims from single weapons, they didn't kill as many people as many other bombing runs before them.

      Links:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II#Conventional_bombing
      http://www.ditext.com/japan/napalm.html

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  9. Way to go USA! USA!, USA!, USA! by pablo_max · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yeah, so maybe the subject is flame bait, but self righteous ass clowns like you really grind my gears.
    You have the balls to talk about India spending money on weapons when the 21% of US children live in poverty?
    http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/about/overview/
    When there an estimated 500k homeless people living in US cities?
    America spends 4.5% on GDP on the military, NOT including the illegal wars being waged.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures
    You sir, are a jackass.

    1. Re:Way to go USA! USA!, USA!, USA! by Gothmolly · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You really need to examine the definition of "poverty".

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    2. Re:Way to go USA! USA!, USA!, USA! by Anonymous Coward · · 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. (and probably without programs like welfare/foodstamps, etc).

  10. Re:So why can't Iran have Nukes? by golden+age+villain · · Score: 3, 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.

  11. Re:Just another way to destroy ourselves by Cenan · · Score: 3, 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.

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  12. He's just another anti-American Slashtard by Sycraft-fu · · 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.

  13. Re:Just another way to destroy ourselves by Nutria · · Score: 5, Informative

    The purpose is to deter the US.

    How, pray tell, does an ICBM with a range of 5,500km deter a country that's 12,500km away?

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  14. Mississippi by tekrat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Obviously, you've never read an anti-abortion bill.

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  15. Re:So why can't Iran have Nukes? by tigersha · · Score: 3, Informative

    The US certainly did not give Pakistan nukes. The Chinese did help there.

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  16. Re:Just another way to destroy ourselves by tigersha · · Score: 3, 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.

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  17. This is certainly bad by cHiphead · · Score: 3, Funny

    Having played a lot of Scorched Earth and ATanks in my time, I can assure you that MIRV nukes are REALLY bad and can easily end up killing your own tank if launched in haste.

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  18. Re:Just another way to destroy ourselves by Anonymous Coward · · 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.

  19. Re:Just another way to destroy ourselves by usuallylost · · Score: 4, Informative

    No purpose at all? China attacked India in 1962. There have been border incursions, by Chinese forces, as recently as May of this year. They have fought several wars over disputed borders with Pakistan. Both China and Pakistan are nuclear powers. Before any government can do anything else, such as providing the plumbing mentioned in your post, they have to maintain the territorial integrity of the nation and assure the survival of the state. Frankly of all the recent nations that have gone for nuclear weapons India has the best argument for why they need them.

  20. Re:So why can't Iran have Nukes? by vikingpower · · Score: 3, Informative

    You may find the following information useful: Chavez is dead. Has been so, as I write this, for several weeks.

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