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| Pak nuclear arms can be stolen | | US position will erode, say CIA planers | | B L KAK
NEW DELHI, AUG. 31: Come 2020, India and China will occupy vital places on the world map. The two countries, according to an in-house CIA think tank, will increasingly flex powerful political and economic muscles as major new global players. The reported study of the think tank is interesting, likening the rise of India and China to the emergence of the United States as a world power, a century ago.
India and China are two nuclear-armed giants in Asia. However, there is one striking difference between the two countries. India is a vibrant democracy, while China continues to be a one-party state. America’s National Intelligence Council has already predicted that India and China will transform the geopolitical landscape because of their robust economic growth, expanding military capabilities and large populations.
If that is the god news for Indians and Chinese, the bad news relates to the USA. The National Intelligence Council is reported to have forecast: United States will se its relative power position eroded and the world will face a more pervasive sense of insecurity from terrorism, the spread of un conventional weapons and political upheaval that could reverse democratic gains in parts of Central and South-East Asia.
Authors of the 120-page report say: “Our greatest concern is that terrorists might acquire biological agents, or les likely, a nuclear device, either of which could cause mass casualties”. The report is, precisely, intended to help Washington and other policymakers in America prepare for probable challenges by tracing how key trends may develop and influence world events in the next 15 years.
If the US, according to the report, will retain enormous advantages and will continue to play a pivotal role in economic, political and military affairs, Washington, it has been forecast, may be increasingly confronted with managing fast-shifting international relations and alignments. Report’s authors have maintained: “While no single power looks within striking distance of rivaling US military power by 2020, more countries will be in a position to make the United States pay a heavy price for any military action they oppose”.
According to the report, use of stolen or purchased nuclear weapons from Pakistan or Russia by terrorists cannot be ruled out within the next 15 years. In fact, the report has warned that terrorists probably will be most original not in the technologies or weapons they employ but rather in their operational concepts.
One such concept that is likely to continue is a large number of simultaneous attacks, possibly in widely separated locations. While vehicle-borne improvised explosive devises (IEDs) will remain popular as asymmetric weapons, terrorists are likely to move up the technology ladder to employ advanced explosives and unmanned aerial vehicles.
The National Intelligence Council has also warned: “Historically, religiously6 inspired terrorism has been most destructive because which groups are bound by few constraints. The most worrisome trend has been an intensified search by some terrorist groups to obtain weapons of mass destructions (WMDs)”. With advances in the design of simplified nuclear weapons, terrorists will continue to seek to acquire fissile material in order to construct a nuclear weapon.
This, says the National Intelligence Council, could encourage countries without nuclear weapons, especially in West Asia and northeast Asia, to seek them as it becomes clear that their neighbours and regional rivals already are doing so.
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