What is true of PSI is equally true of missile defence. In 2001, the NDA government decided to support the Bush administration’s plans to develop missile defence against irresponsible regimes, many of whom in fact inhabit India’s neighbourhood. Over the last two years, the UPA government has slowly backed off.

Irrespective of the Bush administration’s proposals, India had a good case of its own in opting for missile defence. Amidst the Chinese and North Korean transfer of missiles to Pakistan, defensive technologies would have helped complicate Islamabad’s nuclear blackmail. Yet, the UPA government has persuaded itself that missile defences are bad because they promote an arms race! In the run up to US President George W. Bush’s visit to India last March, Washington was willing to take a few big steps forward on bilateral missile defence cooperation. The UPA government, in its wisdom, said no.

One inevitable consequence of North Korea’s nuclear weapons will be the acceleration of missile defence programmes of the United States, Japan, South Korea, Australia and Taiwan. Despite their formal opposition to missile defence, both Russia and China are investing massively in the full range of defensive technologies. (May be the Left will not oppose missile defence if we buy it from the Russians.) Must India be the last Asian power to focus on missile defence, because the sophomores think it is a bad idea?

The North Korean example suggests that even poor and impoverished nations can develop nuclear weapons and missiles. The inevitable diffusion of the 1950s’ vintage technologies means there will be more, not less, nuclear and missile proliferation in the future. Equally obvious is that a paralysed United Nations Security Council does not have the gumption to confront either North Korea or Iran. What India now needs is a healthy dose of realism in responding to the new challenges of proliferation.

... contd.