MARKET PERSPECTIVE

By J Mulraj

May 10-16, 2025

India has demonstrated preparedness for a futuristic war

Image created using Bing

Tensions de-escalated on several fronts last week. US and China tapered off a Wild West type of tariff war. For 90 days, US exports to China will bear a 10% import tariff, whilst Chinese exports to USA will bear a 30% rate. A 90 day pause in ridiculously high tariffs would perhaps help US Soybean farmers plan for sale of the harvest in Q4. They are Trump supporters and couldn’t be let down by him, could they? Not with mid term elections due to be held between April – November 2026. A loss of Republican majority in either, or both, houses would not allow Trump to bulldoze his way into everything.

As he may have done by tweeting, likely without Indian consultation or consent, a unilateral ceasefire between Pakistan (when it appealed to USA after its  airbases were hit, at Kirana Hills, its nuclear storage facilities), and India. Unsure of the possibility of a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which he had, during his campaign, bragged he would achieve within a day, Trump wanted to score a diplomatic triumph, hence the unilateral announcement. The attack on Kirana Hills was followed by  extremely loud blasts, then by earthquakes exceeding 4 on the Richter scale, leading to nuclear radiation. This created  panic in Pakistan. The possibility of the explosion having nuclear elements was corroborated by the arrival of an American aircraft meant for measuring radiation, and of another cargo plane carrying boron from Egypt. Boron is a chemical element used for nuclear storage.

India consented to withhold fire, not to a ceasefire.  India changed its doctrine, and said that its withholding of attack would end in case of any further attack by Pakistan, whether  military or terrorist. A terrorist attack would be seen as an act of war. Pakistan has always maintained that terrorists were ‘non state actors’ over which the State (ie the Government) had no control. If that were true, and Pakistan was, as professed, a victim of terror, it would have been pleased to see 9 terrorist camps destroyed, would it not? Someone else was cleaning up its mess, right? But, instead, it attacked, unsuccessfully, Indian military assets, with missiles and drones. The attacks were thwarted, with a 100% success rate, by India’s defense shield, Akashteer, which is an indigenous, AI air  defense  system developed jointly by ISRO, DRDO and Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL). The devastation caused on Pakistani military sites was done by indigenously developed Akash and  BrahMos missiles. BrahMos is a supersonic cruise missile that flies at over 3 Mach, and hits targets with an accuracy of 1 meter. The Chinese defense shield was unable to detect, much less intercept, these missiles.

Had the Pakistan military not attempted to counter with strikes on India’s military infrastructure, there would have been no further attacks by India. But it did, unsuccessfully. All it’s drones and missiles were intercepted, with a 100% kill rate!

India has demonstrated it’s preparedness for a futuristic war. It’s defense shield, Akashteer, uses advanced AI. The stealth of it’s missile attacks was given by it’s own it’s own satellite navigation system, called NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation). Some of the major other satellite navigation systems are GPS (USA), Glonass (Russia), Galileo (EU), QZSS (Japan) and BeiDou (China). India’s two missiles, under development, will be the world’s fastest, comprising BrahMos II, a hypersonic cruise missile with a speed of Mach 7, and the Shaurya surface to surface hypersonic tactical missile with a speed of Mach 7.5.

Future wars will see increasing use of unmanned aerial vehicles, aka drones. Use of drones represents asymmetrical warfare, in which less powerful militaries (eg Ukraine) can fight more powerful one (Russia). The use of a missile, costing a million dollars, to shoot down a drone, costing a few thousand, or less, is too high. So alternate defences are being built. India has developed the Bhargavastra, a low cost drone killer system which China does not have. India has also developed a high powered laser weapon system which can destroy drones within minutes. Only US, Russia and China have developed this. India’s DRDO has developed a 30KW directed energy weapon and is developing high energy weapons (HEWs) used to jam enemy communications, as well as  electro magnetic pulse (EMP) weapons that send bursts of electro magnetic radiation to disable enemy’s electronic infrastructure.

DRDO has achieved a significant milestone in Scramjet, used for hypersonic weapons technology (). It is also developing humanoid robots for Frontline missions. Kudos to DRDO for it’s contributions to help India fight a futuristic war!

The third de-escalation was expected in face-to-face peace talks between the leaders of Ukraine (Zelenskyy) and Russia (Putin) which were to be held on Fri May 16. Zelenskyy turned up, Putin didn’t, sending a negotiating team instead. Trump said a negotiated end would only happen after he and Putin talk.

Last week the BSE Sensex closed at 82330, for a weekly gain of 2876 points. The gain was due to the de-escalations mentioned above.

India has warned that any terrorist attack will be treated as an act of war giving it the right to resume it’s military operations. Wars are expensive, and Pakistan is least able to afford one, having just been granted a $1 b. facility by the IMF, the 25th time it has approached the institution. It ought to mend fences with neighbors and rebuild it’s economy. India will, in a few years, become the #3 economy in the world. Indubitably.

Comments may be sent to jmulraj@asiaconverge.com