The Agni 5 missile system was test fired by India on 19th April 2012 for the first time. It was a landmark incident for the country as the missile was the country's first ICBM - an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile System with a target range of 5000 km. many few nations of the world has this kind of capability as the missile can carry nuclear warheads too apart from the conventional warheads that it can carry. Delivering a payload of 1000 kgs to 1.5 kgs, the missile is a potential threat to all traditional former and current adversaries of India.
What makes the missile rare is that it was completely developed indigenously under the Integrated Missile Development Programme of the DRDO (short for Defence Research & Development Organisation) which is a government organisation responsible for developing various kinds of defence systems for the Indian Armed Forces. The test firing was the first for this missile and in the near future further more tests are expected top be carried by DRDO. The missile can be transported via rail or road and has a three stage propellant that makes it climb at an altitude of above 600 kms vertically above the ground. It has the potential to hit enemy satellites in space and the final speed that it accomplishes during the last phase is quite awesome.
The missile can be a big headache for India's traditional rival like China whose entire geographical boundary falls under the target range. Many people of India are viewing the missile as a potent level of deterrence against a neighbour that is perceived as a real threat to the country since 1962 when China first attacked India. Although India lost the war, yet the scar in the minds of the Indian people has not been completely removed yet. Quite a number of Indian soldiers died in the short but bloody war and the ties between the two nations have been quite uneasy and tense.
China is rapidly expansioning it's military network over the long disputed border it shares with India and recent developments like creating the rail and road infrastructure have made India very suspicious of the country's motives and intentions. The Indian military and political brass knows that China is one of the top powers of the world after the US & Russia and taking on China would be a really really impossible thing in the present circumstances where everything is in favour of China.
Even though China might be an economic and military superpower and India might take decades to catch with the dragon, what makes India a strong and potential threat for the Chinese is the people of India. Although the Indians might be perceived as slow, backward, technologically inferior, poor and corrupt people, yet the truth is that the country has a strong sense of underlying unity when it comes to defence matters and external aggression. This was evident during the Kargil war of 1999 when the entire nation bonded together in unison rising above petty differences that left even the Indian government and political leadership bewildered in surprise. Indians have never been aggressor and will be never in the future as the mindset and mentality of Indians is genetically of a peace loving species who don't feel it necessary to interfere in others matter. But the Indians can behave like a cornered wounded tiger which when attacked resorts to very furious counter attacks.
So China must think twice before engaging in any kind of short or medium term fight with India as it will have nothing to gain from it as even if the military power might be no match for the dragon the power of the people will be too overwhelming for the Chinese in the long run.
