Electromagnetic policeman

MEDIA REPORTS from Israel about Israel's supplies of parts of Green Pine, the sophisticated radar system to India, in spite of U.S. restrictions imposed in the wake of nuclear tests carried out by New Delhi should focus interest on the gains to this country from such a deal. The Green Pine could detect impending ballistic missile attacks from hundreds of kilometres away. India's decision to acquire the radars from Israel was taken as a defensive measure against the missile threat posed by Pakistan. Islamabad, one could be sure, should be similarly matching the Indian preparedness.

The radar which is the abbreviation for radio detection and ranging was a British invention designed and developed in a hurry during the Second World War to pick out the direction, range or presence of enemy aircraft, ships and other moving objects by sending out pulses of high frequency electromagnetic waves for carrying out timely intervention with the destruction of the planes or ships heading towards the country. The radar technology has advanced by leaps and bounds since the end of the Second World War though it has been a battle of wits for the countries which have been developing them during the Cold War for stepping up their defence capabilities. The radar has not merely brought about the intensification of ``one upmanship'' among the countries which are fortifying their defences with radar systems. It has also led to resolute efforts by the U.S. to preclude other countries from stepping up their radar capabilities because of its desire for always remaining ahead in a crucial technology. Israel had to halt its earlier efforts to sell the Phalcon Airborne System to China under U.S. pressure which, however. does not seem to have come in the way of its supplying the Green Pine to India.

Even during the late eighties when the Cold War was gradually receding, the U.S. was bent upon curbing the radar capabilities of the erstwhile Soviet Union.The Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty signed way back in 1972 provided for the banning of intrusive radar detection. Washington was, however, always suspicious that Moscow was resorting to the cheating of its obligations under the treaty. ``Phased array'', presumably providing for the disperion of the electromagnetic waves aimed at a complete visual capture of an object is a major feature of advancing radar technology and the U.S. charged the Soviet Kransnoyarsk installations in Siberia with the violation of the ABM Treaty. The U.S. claimed to have detected the violation from the first space photographs of Krasnoyarsk taken by a French satellite. Mounting U.S. aggressiveness persuaded the Soviet Union to dismantle the radar station which was as big as an Egyptian pyramid.

Doubts about whether the Soviet radar really posed any threat to the U.S. arose after the visit of Mr. Anthony R. Battista, a staff member of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee to the radar station. Mr. Battista said that the frequency of the radar was below 200 megahertz and would be unsuitable for space tracking though it could serve as an early warning system. The Soviets themselves seemed to have agreed that the radar had a wrong frequency and also felt that even as an early warning system it was not very good. The radar which was

facing north east could only give it a defence coverage since spacecraft tracking radars should be facing south if they were intended to trail satellites circling the Equator or placed in orbit over the poles.

That the U.S. had no justification to express its concern over the Soviet Krasnoyarsk radar by the U.S. became clear from what its own radar network was upto in Europe. A teflon coated radar dish which was part of a radar system under a U.S. - Norwegian programme set up in an island 400 miles away from the Arctic Circle was stripped off by a violent gale in June 2000. Nobody believed the U.S. claim that the radar was intended to scan the skies for defunct satellites and space debris. Residents of the island had noticed tht the dish was facing Russia. The Norwegian participants in the radar programme were red-faced when the Russians grilled them with questions about what they were upto in league with the U.S. and charged the Norwegians with being at the ``centre of an intelligence cobweb''. Parts of the radar dish which were sheared off by a gale and had exposed themselves to the Norwegians were much too revealing as an intelligence gathering equipment and it came to light that their X- band radar had earlier been used to detect warheads released from rockets. The setting up of the U.S. - Norwegian radar installationn was as much in vioaltion of the ABM treaty as the Soviet radar system was seen to be guilty of. Even if the proclaimed objective of the joint radar system was the monitoring of space junk, it could also effectiely serve intelligence objectives. Globus II as the joint radar installation was called, according to Tom Rykin, a senior official of the Norwegian defence intelligence service, said that it was wrong to conclude from the facing of the radar towards Russia that it was an intelligence gathering device. The Norwegians could not believe him when he said that under the force of the gale, it was forced into such a position. The estimated cost of rigging up Globius II was around $ 23.5 millions and it was far too high to lend credence to its being just a gadget for tracing space debris. The Norwegian press managed to uncover so much information in spite of the 50 page document, Concept of Operations, being a highly classified document. The Americans themselves came to know from Raytheon Electronic Systems, a U.S. outfit that was designed to collect ingelligence and it exceeded the cababilities of all existing U.S. Air Force radars. While this was revealing enough, the release of more information about Globus II was kept on hold pending clearance from the Pentagon. The position of the facing of the radar could have been designed only to give it access to sensitive military installations including a fleet of Russian submarines carrying ballistic missiles, according to the Centre for Arms Control at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. The residents of Vardo, the Norwegian town in the vicinity of the Globus II, while taking a close look at the radar which was stripped by the gale were worried about the radiation hazard which it was posing. The Chairman of Norway's parliamentary defence committee, obviously embarrassed at having to defend the U,S. - Norwaegian programme had to plead that Norway which had to put up with Russia's ``dogs barking'' at them all the time Second World War needed the snooping to keep them away.

The exposure of the psyches of those in command in Washington and Moscow prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War gives a shocking revelation of the state of mental sickness which had gripped the two superpowers at the time. If they had realised - as surely they should have - that the unleashing of the war which they could wage with the kind of annihilating weaponry they had at their disposal could only reduce survivors of this planet to dreadful, incurable diseases, poverty and primitiveness, there was nothing they could do to stop it.

If the world was saved from such a calamity, it was a blessing for which they could not really have believed in. There is yet no clear answer to how the war psychosis had crumbled except that there should have been a sudden realisation of the madness which had gripped the rival nuclear powers for nearly half a century. Could this be due to the kind of remorse felt by Ashoka after the Kalinga war claiming the lives of several thousands though none of the rulers of the superpowers could match the greatness of the Indian emperor?

C.V.Gopalakrishnan

in Thiruvananthapuram

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