ISLAMABAD \u2014 Monday’s test of the Ra’ad air-launched cruise missile may have been designed to check the effectiveness of an upgrade, according to analysts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The test was announced in a press release by the military’s media arm, Inter Services Public Relations. It provided few details, only saying, (ISPR). <\/span>However, it was limited to saying, <\/span>“Pakistan conducted a successful Flight Test of the indigenously developed Air Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM) Ra’ad.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n This test means the Hatf\/Vengeance VIII Ra’ad (Thunder) has now been officially tested five times since 2007. It is generally comparable to the Anglo\/French Storm Shadow or US AGM-158 joint air-to-surface standoff missile, JSSM,<\/span> but exact specifications details <\/span>are not readily <\/span>available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Analyst, author and former Air Commodore Kaiser Tufail said, believes <\/span>“The test firing was a typical combo of a technical upgrade timed with political signaling, something that both India and Pakistan have turned into an art form.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mansoor Ahmed, lecturer in the Department of Defence and Strategic Studies at Islamabad’s Quaid-e-Azam University, who specializes in Pakistan’s nuclear program and its delivery systems, said does not think <\/span>the test was not in answer to India’s test-firing of its Agni V intermediate range ballistic missile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Agni V was test fired on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I am not sure if this is a tit-for-tat response,” he said. “The fact that it is a 350 kilometer vs. a 5,000-8,000 kilometer test reflects Pakistan’s emphasis on credible minimum deterrence with only an India-centric posture, while India is clearly moving far beyond the requirements of a minimum deterrent driven by global power projection ambitions.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, he believes the test was part of ongoing efforts on “improving the effectiveness and validating the enhanced operational parameters of existing delivery systems that comprise the country’s nascent triad.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n He added, “Ra’ad and the land and sea versions of the Babua<\/span>r cruise missiles offer diversification in targeting options, greater operational and deployable flexibility and increase the overall survivability of its deterrent force.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n He says the two Babur and Ra’ad <\/span>cruise missiles are especially important are significant <\/span>for Pakistan’s nascent “posture of full spectrum deterrence with added emphasis on counter-value targeting to offset India’s strategic and conventional force modernization,” which are integral aspects of India’s “emerging proactive operations strategy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ra’ad is claimed to be operational, but given it <\/span>is such a critical weapon it is still somewhat cloaked in secrecy. this cannot be fully confirmed due to a remaining element secrecy that surrounds it.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n