A few years ago, the US unilaterally got out of the anti-ballistic missile treaty and started developing systems to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles. An article in a foreign affairs magazine about a year ago said that America is now close to nuclear supremacy over Russia, or already has nuclear supremacy, because it can now launch a first strike against Russia and destroy all its nuclear weapons or its ability to launch them because of a severe degradation in the number and readiness of Russia’s nuclear weapons after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and thus destroy Russia with a first strike without being destroyed in return.

India’s Defence Reseach and Development Organisation (DRDO) scientists have said that the systems to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles (of short and medium range), which they recently tested, are superior to the US and within three years they will have systems to shoot down ballistic missiles of intercontinental range (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, or ICBMs) such as the ICBMs posessed by the US (the United States does not and will not have the ability to destroy large numbers of incoming ICBMs).

By saying that India will have nuclear supremacy over the United States, I mean to say that India will be able to launch a first strike against the United States and destroy it without being destroyed in return.

For the financial side regarding India’s ability to attain nuclear supremacy over the United States, see my proposal about money referred to in my article ’Technological and Economic Emancipation of India’ that is posted on Merinews.

For the US, striving for nuclear supremacy over all nations of the world is an axiom of its foreign policy. An example of its determination to prevent India from emerging out of slavery is in the following report from ’The Guardian’, dated January 22, 2008 where a former chairman of the United States’ joint chiefs of staff and others talk of a nuclear strike on India (without actually naming it) to keep it in a state of slavery:-

"The West must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the imminent spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO0 by five of the West’s most senior military officers and strategists.

"Calling for root-and-branch reform of NATO and a new pact drawing the US, NATO and the European Union together in a grand strategy to tackle the challenges of an increasingly brutal world, the former armed forces chiefs from the US, Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands insist that a first strike nuclear option remains an indispensable instrument since there is simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world.

"The manifesto has been written following discussions with active commanders and policymakers, many of whom are unable or unwilling to publicly air their views. It has been presented to the Pentagon in Washington and to NATO’s secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

"The risk of further (nuclear) proliferation is imminent and, with it, the danger of a nuclear war, albeit limited in scope, might become possible," the authors argued in the 150-page blueprint for urgent reform of Western military strategy and structures. "The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction.

"The authors -General John Shalikashvili, the former chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff and NATO’s ex-supreme commander in Europe, General Klaus Naumann, Germany’s former top soldier and ex-chairman of NATO’s military committee,General Henk van den Breemen, a former Dutch chief of staff, Admiral Jacques Lanxade, a former French chief of staff, and Lord Inge, field marshal and ex-chief of the general staff and the defence staff in the United Kingdom (UK) - paint an alarming picture of the threats and challenges confronting the West in the post-9/11 world and deliver a withering verdict on the ability to cope."

What if the US makes the first nuclear strike on India well before India has developed a first strike capability against it - such as making a nuclear strike on India this year? Such ’counter-proliferation’ nuclear strikes have been part of the US policy for many years and there is nothing really new in the above recommendation.

For many years now, India has had nuclear-armed submarines capable of obliterating the United States’ largest cities on its coasts within striking range of its coastal cities at all times, so the US can make a ’counter-proliferation’ strike on India only at the cost of losing its largest cities.

I have said that India can win an arms race with the United States - India produces about half a million engineering graduates per year against the US’ seventy thousand and has an unlimited amount of investment capital for the necessary research, development and production, which will also greatly benefit its economy as a whole. India has no alternative but to attain nuclear supremacy over the United States and eliminate this threat. All that is needed is a clear cut national commitment to this objective.