World War 3 News: Pakistan Joins Nations Testing Nuclear Ballistic Missiles, Increases Tensions With India

Pakistan joined the growing number of nations testing nuclear ballistic missiles in Asia this week, ostensibly to deter aggressive actions of their neighbors. Its military-controlled media has reported that a submarine cruise nuclear missile was launched and successfully hit its predetermined target.

The Daily Star reported January 10 that Pakistan has successfully shot off a Babur-3 missile (the Babur is the first land attack and submarine-based missile developed by the Asian nation), a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, from an unknown location in the Indian Ocean. According to Pakistani military officials, the missile (per Daily Star) “obliterated its target with deadly accuracy.”

Inter Services Public Relations, the public relations arm of the Pakistani Military’s media, announced that the missile has provided the country a “credible” second-strike capability. This is a step back from its usual first-strike posturing, historically positioning itself as a nation that will not shy away from the use of nuclear weapons in a confrontation — not just in retaliation against a nuclear attack.

It is an action that is lending itself to the promulgation of fears of an impending World War 3, especially given Pakistan’s extremely fragile relationship with neighboring India. Pakistan has previously vowed, as a Daily Star report in September noted, to destroy rival India in a nuclear apocalypse.

That threat came during a border dispute where India retaliated against an attack on an Indian Army military base in the Kashmir region, according to the Inquisitr. Although the border tiff would soon blow over, with India’s incursion into Pakistani territory viewed by Pakistan as an attack in the hotly contested border region as possibly occurring on the Indian side, the two governments engaged in heated rhetoric for weeks that had the world’s governments on edge and wary of a possible war between the two Asian powers.

A war between Pakistan and India is a troublesome prospect in that both nations control an arsenal of nuclear weapons. Even minor altercations between them are monitored for their potential for escalation into, at best, another conventional war between the two powers and, at worst, a confrontation that could lead to a nuclear exchange, possibly even involving other nations in a veritable World War 3.

The Pakistan nuclear missile test was likely an answer to the recent successful testing by India of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in December. According to Bloomberg, the Agni-V is a nuclear capable missile with a range of 5,000 kilometers (3,107 miles). The test was conducted on Dr. Abdul Kalam Island, which is off the east coast in the Indian state of Odisha.

“This was the fourth test of Agni-5 missile and the second one from a canister on a Road Mobile Launcher,” the Ministry of Defence said in a statement at the time. “All the four missions have been successful.”

As Bloomberg reported, India maintains an arsenal of missiles calibrated for targets in Pakistan and China. (The Agni-V can reach northern China.) In fact, India and Pakistan have engaged in three wars with Pakistan and one with China since India became an independent nation in 1947. (Note: Pakistan became an independent nation at the same time, as recounted by History.com, via an act of the British Parliament.)

India joined the U.S., Russia, China, France and the U.K. in 2012 after the first successful Agni-V test. All six nations also have nuclear weapons arsenals.

Pakistan has yet to develop an ICBM, but much of their defensive posturing is focused on India.

Ballistic missile testing has apparently become the latest form of chest-thumping for nations in Asia, because India and Pakistan were not the only two nations trying out nuclear warhead-capable hardware of late. Another nuclear power in Asia, North Korea, recently tested ballistic missiles as well. Like Pakistan, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) still have yet to develop a missile capable of hitting targets a continent away (according to most military analysts, even though North Korea says otherwise, according to Al Jazeera), but experts have warned, as reported by the Inquisitr, that the DPRK will likely develop the technology within the next decade.

But does this mean World War 3 is imminent? Although it is quite possible that World War 3 might break out anywhere at anytime (with the hotspots, of course, being eastern Europe, the Middle East, or developed out of some escalating diplomatic crisis between the U.S. and Russia or China), a war between India and Pakistan is seen as likely remaining conventional, unless Pakistan returns to its first-strike posture.

Pakistan Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif congratulated his military on the recent successful test. He said it was a “manifestation of Pakistan’s technological progress and self-reliance.” He also stated that Pakistan would always maintain a policy of peaceful co-existence, but the newly-tested ballistic missile would act as another deterrent against any potential aggressors.

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