India joins nuclear ’’"submarine world'"

India launched its first nuclear-powered submarine July 26, officials said, underlining the military advances made by the rapidly developing nation.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called it a "historic milestone in the country's defence preparedness" as the 6.000-ton INS Arihant (Destroyer of Enemies) was named in the southern city ofVisakhapatnam.

The submarine, the first of five planned, is powered by an 85-megawatt nuclear reactor and can reach a speed of 24 knots (44 kilometers) per hour underwater, according to defence officials. It will be armed with torpedoes and ballistic missiles, and carry a crew of 95 men.

'We don't have any aggressive designs nor do we seek to threaten anyone." the Press Trust of India quoted Singh as saying at the launch.

"We seek an external environment in our region and beyond that is conducive to our peaceful development and protection of our value systems. ’

India is now part of an exclusive group of nations - including China, France, the United States, Britain and Russia - which own nuclear-powered submarines.

The vessel will undergo two years of sea trials in the Bay of Bengal before being commissioned for full service, according 1 toPn.

India previously leased a Russian-built nuclear submarine, and in 2005 it signed contracts worth $3 billion (2.4 billion euros) to receive six diesel-electric Franco-Spanish Scorpene submarines.

The launch came as India marked the 10th anniversary of the brief but bloody Kargil conflict with arch-rival Pakistan in the disputed Kashmir region. More than 1,100 people, mostly Indian and Pakistani soldiers, died in the high-altitude offensive in the spring and summer of 1999 when Pakistan-based infiltrators crossed the icy frontier that separates the countries.

At a service earlier in New Delhi, Singh paid tribute to the Indian troops who died during the conflict. "They sacrificed their lives in defence of Indian unity and integrity.' he said.

A year before Kargil. India conducted nuclear weapons tests and Pakistan responded with its own tests a few days later.

S. Korea to upgrade military communication network

South Korea will begin developing a digital command-and-control and sensor-to-shooter battlefield system next year, the Defence Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) announced July 28.

The plan was approved by the supreme arms procurement committee presided over by Defence Minister Lee Sang-hee. the agency said in a news release.

The development of the Tactical Information Communication Network (TICN) will be completed by 2012. Work will begin with two years of exploratory development and funding of about 181 billion won ($146 million), said Yoon Chang-oak, chief of the agency's tactical communication and control business department. Over the subsequent eight years, about 4.8 trillion won ($3.8 billion) will be spent to produce and deploy the TICN replacing the South Korean Army's SPIDER communications system, Yoon said.

"For the TICN development, we'll make the most of the made-in-Korea WiBro technology and other indigenous state-of-the-art information technologies with the help of local communications systems developers," Yoon said.

The SPIDER system can transmit only still images and voice data; TICN will allow for the integrated transmission of video, image and voice data more than 10 times faster, he said.

The agency will open a bid for the TICN development project in August and sign contracts with final bidders by the end of December, Yoon noted.

DAPA sources said companies that participated in the exploratory development phase, such as Samsung Thales, LIG Nexl and Huneed Technologies, will likely be selected as preferred bidders for the full-scale development phase again. ' The TICN exploratory development was overseen by the state-funded Agency for Defence Development. The network system consists of five sub systems, Including High Capacity Trunk Radio (HCTR), Tactical Multi band and Multi-role Radio ( TM MR) and Network Management System (NMS).

Samsung Thales was a main developer of TICN, taking charge of the development of NMS and two other sub-

systems. UG Nexl was In charge of TMMR, while Huneed was a main contractor for HCTR.

Source: «wwdefan$enews.axn

Japan indicates end to era of declining defence spending

The latest annual economic policy guidelines of the Japanese government, led by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), are likely to reverse the downward trend in everdecreasing defence budgets since 2003 should the party remain in power beyond general elections that must be held by 19 October.

The so-called 'Honebuto' guidelines, issued on 23 June by the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, a key government economic panel under Prime Minister Taro Aso, marked a clear departure from the belt-tightening fiscal policy on defence budgets laid down by former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

The Honebuto guidelines, for the first time, named North Korea as a possible threat and stressed the necessity to "appropriately deal with" Pyongyang's missile launches and nuclear tests, suggesting the country should develop a ballistic missile defence system.

In Japan the Honebuto system allows the prime minister's office to exert leadership in the development of budgets and to clean up state finances by rearranging top priority items.

The LDP's defence policy-making panel has requested the Aso administration to secure the Ministry of Defence's multiyear budgets for sea-launched cruise missiles, which are carried on Aegis-equipped destroyers and could be used to counter a hostile country's missile sites. The move comes as part of the country's new National Defence Program Guidelines for Fiscal Years 2010 to 2014, to be compiled by the end of this year.

The panel has also requested that an early warning satellite system be introduced to detect the launch of ballistic missiles, for which Japan currently relies on the United States.

The new national defence programme guidelines will include an increase in the size of the Ground Self-Defence Force to 160,000 the same level as 1995 from 155,000, which the previous 2004 guidelines laid down as a target.

Japan's national defence budget has declined for seven consecutive years. It totalled 4.77 trillion yen (USD 49.3 billion) for the fiscal year that started in April.

Indonesia and Malaysia seek to defuse maritime border dispute The defence ministers of Indonesia and Malaysia met on 30 june to discuss ways of avoiding an escalation of tensions over the two countries' disputed maritime border off the east of Borneo.

Indonesian Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono and his Malaysian counterpart, Ahmad Zahid Ha mi di, told reporters after their meeting in Jakarta that they would work together to avoid a naval clash in the oil-rich Anibalat area of the Celebes

Warlier in june Malaysian naval chief Admiral Abdul Aziz was forced to apologise publicly after Jakarta revealed that its navy had almost fired on a Malaysian patrol vessel that had crossed into Indonesian territorial waters.

The incident followed a series of complaints by the Indonesian Foreign Ministry about alleged Malaysian incursions. At the time, Sudarsono announced he would seek joint patrols of the disputed area with Malaysia to avoid any repeat of the episode.

Following the bilateral meeting, Sudarsono said that patrols in theAmbalat area would have to be "extra cautious" in future, with Zahid adding that the two sides should hold more informal, as well as formal, d iscu&sions as a way of building trust.

1 lowever, neither minister said if or when joint patrols would be implemented.

The military- to- military relationship between Indonesia and Malaysia has improved since the two sides began cooperating, alongside Singapore, in the policing of the Malaccan Strait.

However, Ambalat remains a potential flashpoint, with both Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta having recently awarded exploration and production contracts to oil and gas companies without having first settled the disputed maritime border.

Source Janes Defence Weekly