back to article Nervy nuke-armed nation fires missile with 5,000km range

India has successfully tested a surface-to-surface ballistic missile. The nation was kind enough to announce the test on Thursday, revealing that its Agni-5 “was successfully flight tested for its full range … from Dr Abdul Kalam Island, Odisha. This was the fifth test of the Missile and the third consecutive one from a …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Don't tell the Orange-utan

    He'll only brag about how his are biglier!!!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Don't tell the Orange-utan

      Why should he? The Indians aren't posturing like butt-hurt progs.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Don't tell the Orange-utan

        Because he is a child.

        He can't help himself.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Don't tell the Orange-utan

          Try looking in the mirror. ;-/

          1. James 51
            Alien

            Re: Don't tell the Orange-utan

            @ B(M)J 'I'm asking him to make a change'

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: How could you possibly mistake

      A shit flinging gibbon for an Orange-utan?

  2. 7teven 4ect

    Jai Hind

    Mahabarat is maha :D

  3. redpawn

    As long as...

    no one tells the Lying Sack of Trump (LSoT) that India isn't Christian there should be no problems.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: As long as...

      You do realize Trump's son in law is Jewish? Did a Christian traumatize you as a child?

      1. E 2

        Re: As long as...

        What, are you the local Trump sock puppet?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: As long as...

          No, just a guy who likes to rub prog's faces in their own failure. It's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it!

        2. John Smith 19 Gold badge
          Unhappy

          What, are you the local Trump sock puppet?

          Haven't you seen enough of his posts to know?

      2. jmch Silver badge

        Re: As long as...

        Judaism is an accepted religion in the US. In fact, Israel can do pretty much as it pleases and the US will nod and smile.

        Hinduism is probably looked on with suspicion (they don't eat beef?!?!?!?!?), although I'm not sure many USAians know what a Sikh is. On the other hand Trump might get trumpy if he knew a significant part of Indians are Muslim

        1. James 51
          Angel

          Re: As long as...

          In a country with as many people and India, religons that are a tiny minority can still have tens of millions of members.

          1. eldakka
            Holmes

            Re: As long as...

            In India's 2011 census, 2.3% of the population declared as christian.

            With over 1.2 billion people, that's more 27 million Christians. Only 50 of the 230ish countries in the world have more people than that.

        2. Chris G

          Re: As long as...

          @jmch, you do know that Sikhs are not Hindu, their religion is Sikkim, they are all warriors and some of the most honourable people I have met.

          There are large communities of Sikhs in the US so shouldn't be a total mystery to them.

          1. jmch Silver badge

            Re: As long as...

            "@jmch, you do know that Sikhs are not Hindu"

            Yes, I meant to show they are a seperate group unknown to the USAians, but it didn't quite come out that way :)

          2. aqk
            Pint

            Re: As long as Canada, you say?

            As well, Canada's Minister of Defense is a Sikh, and a Sikh is now the leader of Canad'a New Democratic Party.

            But sadly also, Sikhs were responsible for the worst piece of Aircraft terrorism in history. No one ever seems to remember that, as unlike the Lockerbie "incident", most of the passengers were Canadian and somewhat darker-skinned.

            1. E 2

              Re: As long as Canada, you say?

              Normally I don't like rating disasters, but I don't think the Air India bombing can touch the 9/11 attacks - for either immediate death toll or knock on death toll.

          3. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: As long as...

            As Sikhs wear turbans clueless pindosy mistake them for Arabs and beat some of them up once in a while as Arab terrorists.

          4. jgarbo

            Re: As long as...

            Oh? A Sikh was murdered shortly after 9/11 - mistaken for a Muslim! Americans are greatly ignorant.

      3. YetAnotherLocksmith Silver badge

        Re: As long as...

        "bigly" john, your brain needs a reboot.

        trump is as rascist as... a very racist person. Seriously, he banned immigrant from 6 countries illegally, because they have Muslims in them - whilst ignoring Saudi Arabia, where most of the terrorists actually came from, which is also a Muslim country!

        He slams black people protesting police brutality, and calls white Nazis "very fine people".

        So the OP has a point - more so than you.

        1. Jonathan Schwatrz
          FAIL

          Re: YetAnotherLocksmith Re: As long as...

          ".....trump is as rascist as... a very racist person.......because they have Muslims in them...." Take a deep breath, try to concentrate, then repeat after me - Islam is not a race.

          ".....whilst ignoring Saudi Arabia...." Which actually blows a massive hole in your whole point of him being "racist"/islamophobic - if he really only wanted to ban on the grounds of Islam rather than terrorist threat then surely Saudi would be top of his list? But Saudi has gone a long way towards curbing their own extremists since 9/11, far further than the six Islamic states on his list.

          "....He slams black people protesting police brutality...." No, he pointed out the use of violence by both BLM supporters, and that the "alt-Left" (AKA Antifa), have a long record of violently "disrupting" any other group they don't happen to agree with (which is every group espousing anything even slightly to the Right of Stalin).

          ".....and calls white Nazis "very fine people"...." No, he said many of the people at Right-wing marches were "very fine people", he never endorsed Nazism or any individual group at those marches. You may try and claim everyone at those marches was a "Nazi" but then that is probably because you perceive anyone slightly to the Right of Stalin as a "Nazi", right?

  4. Voland's right hand Silver badge

    And let's not forget India's very own seven-satellite GPS alternative, launched in part to reduce dependence on other nations' satnav facilities.

    You forgot:

    1. Has 2 aircraft carriers. With aircraft.

    2. Is the co-developer of sea skimming hypersonic missiles and builds them.

    3. Has a fleet armed with these

    4. Is co-developing Mach 7 hypersonic missiles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrahMos-II

    5. If memory served me right their visiting team also handed the RAF their heads on a plate (with the RAF fielding the most weird excuse that they deliberately used the most mediocre pilots they could find for the engagement).

    6...

    It is a reality - India is practically there to become a Tier 1 world power (while UK is clearly dropping out of the major league).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I'm sure we can all agree that all those vital high tech death tools are far better uses for the money than proper infrastructure, sanitation, rural development, reducing corruption, improving democracy, addressing a range of brutal long running local insurgencies, addressing the rape culture prevalent in some parts of Indian society, or even data security on the national biometrics database..

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        India does have much of the best land on earth. You would prefer that they remain low-hanging fruit? That would lead to more war, not less.

        1. Adam 52 Silver badge

          India's not really low-hanging fruit. Apart from anything else it's got 2.5 million trained soldiers. But it is next door to the world's largest, and increasingly expansionist, military.

      2. Voland's right hand Silver badge

        @ledswinger - completely with you on the subject.

        However, do we like it or not, building death tools LOCALLY creates jobs. One of the Indian most impressive achievements is that they have managed to successfully insist that they build nearly everything locally with the corresponding job creation.

        Not BAE building it for them in USA.

        As far as sanitation, etc - it will take decades if not centuries to get the country to a modern footing. It is a BIG country with large chunks of it in a really backwater state. Ditto for insurgencies. Corruption - no comment.

        1. Mazo

          Building "death tools" is not a choice

          For India they had to do it because the British left them with this mess called Pakistan next door. And then they had Mao on the other side. The need for building these weapons was not a lark or an ego project but a considered decision - just like their space program. The development of independent industrial, technological and scientific capabilities was one of the foundation stones of Indian Govt policy. Self sufficiency in food was another. Today they have achieved both of those largely.

          Sanitation in general is a product of their poverty - not due to lack of interest. The over-population and under funded civic authorities naturally means that that sanitation struggles to improve.

          1. Jonathan Schwatrz
            Stop

            Re: Mazo Re: Building "death tools" is not a choice

            "For India they had to do it because the British left them with this mess called Pakistan next door...." Bzzzt! Nil point! The Partition of Imperial India into India and Pakistan was nothing to do with the British, it's completely homegrown due to the inability of Muslims to get along with anyone. If anyone should take the majority of blame it's the Pakistanis seeing as the Aligarh Movement came up with the idea that Indian Muslims should be treated as a separate people as they defined themselves as Muslims first before Indians, and therefore insisted they should have their own country, Pakistan. Nothing to do with Imperial Britian, colonialism or anything other than Islamic intransigence.

          2. The First Dave

            Re: Building "death tools" is not a choice

            The British are to blame for many things, but 'partition' as it is known, occurred _after_ India re-gained independence.

      3. Red Bren
        Mushroom

        Same goes for Trident

        If we're going to lecture "developing" nations about solving poverty and building infrastructure before investing in WMDs, we really ought to ensure we've solved our poverty and infrastructure issues before spending a fortune on Trident.

        1. aqk
          Coat

          Re: Same goes for Trident and used subs

          Meh- Need more money?

          Just sell more of your rusty old diesel subs to Canada. They're suckers for that.

      4. Mazo

        Britain has invested plenty in building Aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines and maintaining nuclear missiles despite not having any significant threat to its interests since the end of the Cold War. Has all that extra money build better infrastructure, improved democracy, addressed a range of racial, ethnic and social issues, addressed the race gangs, the Sharia courts, the grooming gangs, the number of child homeless, the state of the rural economy, the NHS, the number of children trafficked, the spread of ISIS ideology or even building the IT infrastructure that countries like India, China are building to take their societies into the 21st century ?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      They are certainly far ahead of us on the poverty scale with (as of 2014) 58% of the population living on less that $3.10 a day.

    3. Ken 16 Silver badge

      "UK is clearly dropping out of the major league"

      Didn't that happen 50 years ago?

      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Unhappy

        Re: "UK is clearly dropping out of the major league" Didn't that happen 50 years ago?

        I'd suggest more like about 62 years ago.

    4. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Unhappy

      6...

      Will be testing an Oxidizer Rich Staged Combustion rocket engine with the thrust level of the Spacex Merlin 1d mfg in India at a Russian test stand.

      The US ULA has been buying RD180's (also ORSC) from Russia for the last 16 years and the US/Russian JV that slaps made in USA on the packing crates "upgrades" and "certifies" them for US use has been claiming they could mfg them in the USG if paid enough money, but it's so hard because "y'know this techs complicated and we don't really know how to do this stuff and all the blueprints are written in Russian and none of us speaks Russian and the metallurgy is tricky and and"

    5. wyatt

      Interestingly the Pakistani entrants to the British Army Cambrian Patrol competition have won for the last two years, doing very well in others. Not sure about India. Soldiers from that region are well trained and motivated.

      1. Mazo

        You can't "win" a Patrol..

        The Cambrian Patrol is an exercise - not a competition. Teams from around the world participate in the "training event" and consequently Common wealth nations are usually the most represented.

        Gold (75 percent), silver (65-74 percent) and bronze (55-64 percent) medals are awarded based on the number of points earned on completion of the gruelling course. Certificates are awarded to teams that finish with lower than 55 percent of the points.

        Indian, Pakistani, Nepali etc teams regularly get the Gold.

    6. Floydian Slip
      WTF?

      And we still send them aid????

    7. Sandtitz Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      7. The Indian Army have perfected the funniest joke in the world into a comedy show, killing the enemy with laughter.

      My conscription service had its WTF moments but this takes goes straight to the twilight zone.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        "7. The Indian Army have perfected the funniest joke in the world into a comedy show, killing the enemy with laughter."

        You could say similar about the guards at Buck House, the Swiss Guard at the Vatican or the Greek Presidential Guard, all of whom can seem quaint or even funny to an outsider but will kick the shit out of anyone impugning their honour or the job they do. Never assume that the way a military marches is a reflection of their capabilities just because you don;t why they march the way they do.

    8. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Hum....

      "India is practically there to become a Tier 1 world power"

      Whose Citizens still shit in the streets and have so many other issues they will always be

      a third tier living experience. (I believe is the term is shithole ).

    9. E 2

      re: (while UK is clearly dropping out of the major league)

      Shorely the UK can invest an extra 350M pounds per week in weaponry now?

  5. Valeyard

    priorities..

    We still give around £200 million to India in aid. Looks like either they don't need it or they're fine to spend less on their citizens because they know we'll step in

    1. Mazo

      Re: priorities..

      Everybody knows that UK "Aid" to India, China etc is a scam that only profits British bureaucrats and business interests. Neither the Govt of India nor the people of India see any of that money and haven't for decades. The "aid" that UK doles out to other countries is more about funding the large body of "professional NGO" groups who are staffed by retired bureaucrats, wives of ambassadors and politicians.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Agni-5’s range is also less than half....

    They do have a concurrent space program that can heft 5 tonnes into geostationary orbit, so they can't be very far off covering the whole planet if push came to shove.

    1. Mazo

      Re: Agni-5’s range is also less than half....

      They could put a 300 Kg Probe into Martian Orbit with under $150 million in investment. If they WANTED to they could have covered the Globe decades ago.

      Their missile ranges are not an indicator of their capabilities - but rather their threat perceptions.

  7. Tigra 07
    Mushroom

    "nobody expects it to lob missiles at any of those locations, because it’s a stable and peaceful democracy that generally observes international laws"

    Except, maybe towards Pakistan. After all they have been shooting each other's soldiers the last few weeks across the border. Don't expect either side to accept that.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Holmes

      You only need to look at the activities of the Pakistani ISI to understand why that's the case. Here in the US, we've apparently finally (!) had enough of them funding and providing a safe haven for the terrorists killing our people as well.

    2. Mazo

      They have other missiles for Pakistan

      This one they tested is focused on covering China - as China is much bigger than Pakistan.

  8. Red Bren
    Trollface

    If your not on the list, you're not getting in

    "it’s a stable and peaceful democracy that generally observes international laws."

    Apart from the nuclear non-proliferation ones? Funny how we turn a blind eye when some countries are looking to join the nukes club. But other countries get invaded when we have to manufacture evidence of their nuclear ambitions...

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: If your not on the list, you're not getting in

      Red Bren,

      I believe India never signed the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. So they were never bound not to develop nuclear weapons. It only applies to you if you sign it. Although as I understand it signatories aren't supposed to cooperate on civillian nuclear shinies with non-signees.

      North Korea did sign the NNPT. And then developed nukes anyway. They also specifically agreed to halt their illegal development of nukes during the 90s famine, in exchange for aid. A deal they also broke. They haven't been invaded, and no evidence has been manufactured. They've tested nukes, so we know.

      Pakistan and Israel also didn't sign up.

      The point about signing a deal then breaking it is that your're automatically going to be less trusted. So the reason everyone joined sanctions on Iran is that they breached the treaty by secretly developing nukes - and then got caught. After years of sanctions, a deal has been agreed.

      Iraq did have a nuclear program by the way. The UN demolished it in the mid 90s. I think the reason it was deemed legal to invade in 2003 was that they were still in breach of the ceasefire agreement from 1991 - which they'd never complied with despite ten years of inspections and sanctions.

      1. jmch Silver badge

        Re: If your not on the list, you're not getting in

        @spartacus: + 1 for most of the post.

        However for this:

        " I think the reason it was deemed legal to invade (Iraq) in 2003 was that they were still in breach of the ceasefire agreement from 1991 - which they'd never complied with despite ten years of inspections and sanctions."

        The UN reasoning was a bust caused by US pressure. It basically went something like this:

        UN - show us that you have completely disarmed from WMDs

        Iraq - Here is a mountain of documents to show our compliance

        US - They Lie!

        UN - You got to prove that you don't have any prohibited weapons

        Iraq - Can't prove a negative, can YOU prove we have any?

        US - We can't, but 9/11 happened and we don't want to attack the Saudis who actually did it, so we'll attack Iraq instead

        (later)

        All - So, US, what happened to all those WMDs?

        US - mumble mumble.... look behind you, a terrorist!

        All - they weren't there BEFORE you attacked Iraq, you numpties!

        All

        1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

          Re: If your not on the list, you're not getting in

          jmch,

          The UN Security Council didn't authorise the attack in 2003. They only legitimised the occupation afterwards. The legal basis was I think taken from the 1990 authorisation of force, and the fact that Iraq hadn't complied with the 91 ceasefire disarmament agreements.

          Which he hadn't. He still had SCUDs.

          They were also unarguably in breach of the 91 agreements on chemical weapons as they threw the weapons inspectors out in about 1997. With only about 70-80% of the known stocks destroyed. The inspectors had been crawling over Iraq for so long, that they knew in a lot of cases what equipment and chemicals they'd ordered or made, and so had a pretty good idea how many weapons that led to. They'd not accounted for it all, QED.

          I've not read a report that's managed to work out what went wrong, so I don't know exactly what happened. Did Saddam give it away, like he sent most of his air force to Iran to save it in 1990? Or bury it? Iraq's big, but people would know, and senior generals have since joined ISIS and probably have gone and dug it up, so that seems less likely. Or did he destroy it himself? If so why? Why not get the UN to do it, and get out from under sanctions?

          As you say, you can't prove a negative, so once they were gone there was no way back. Saddam had pretended to give up the whole program about 5 times in the 90s, then the inspectors had found more than he'd admitted to - and the whole process of search, find, admit happened again.

          Hans Blix admiited Iraq weren't cooperating with his inspectors in 2003 - but said he didn't think there were any weapons even though he couldn't know. His credibility was blown because it was him in charge of the IAEA in about 96 who was about to sign off that Iraq had no illicit nuclear program, when the CIA found it, and he subsequently had to demolish it.

          Iraq also had the scientists and the knowledge to rebuild their chemical program as soon as sanctions were off.

          So it was a mistake to justify the invasion on WMD, because even if Iraq had it, they didn't have the capability to use it effectively (as they'd had in 1990). But sanctions were collapsing, partly because of the collusion of France and Russia, so Iraq would not have stayed contained for much longer - and that was why they went for invasion, because the existing messy containment policy was about to fail.

          I think Blair's need to get UN approval was the mistake. He should have let the US do it alone, or had the courage to sell the case for doing it on its merits, not try to sex it up. Iraq wasn't an immediate threat, but could quickly have become so with no sanctions and all its oil revenue.

          1. jmch Silver badge

            Re: If your not on the list, you're not getting in

            @spartacus

            "The UN Security Council didn't authorise the attack in 2003. They only legitimised the occupation afterwards."

            That's what I pointed out in my little play, US attacked unilaterally.

            You are completely right about all the details, Iraq was certainly trying to hide something and the UN found the non-compliance with 1991 sanctions as a legal fig-leaf post-facto. Bottom line though is that US justification of attacking Iraq (that US had proof hat Iraq had WMDs) was patently false. Not to mention there was no sense in doing so either militarily (Iraq was not a real threat to US or it's allies) or strategically (addam was a monster but removing him just unleashed an even larger clusterfuck). The only justification was local (ie US) politics - to be seen to be doing something about 9/11 while not wanting to go knocking on the Saudi's doors asking about their support for Wahhabi terrorism

            1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

              Re: If your not on the list, you're not getting in

              Bottom line though is that US justification of attacking Iraq (that US had proof hat Iraq had WMDs) was patently false.

              No it wasn't. We knew that Iraq still had WMDs in 1998 when the weapons inspectors finally got kicked out. Or at least, "knew beyond reasonable doubt". Iraq were still obstructing the team's attempts to destroy what was known about (let alone if Saddam had more that had avoided detection so far), to the extent of throwing the inspectors out.

              So it was perfectly reasonable to act on that knowledge.

              As you say, Iraq wasn't a threat to anyone but its own population in 2003. But it still had a vast army, a nice oil industry and a whole bunch of people who knew how to make chemical weapons. Plus it had a reasonably advanced missile program, as they'd been modifying and upgrading their own SCUDS for years - though I don't know if they were up to actually building their own engines.

              So it could have made itself a threat again reasonably quickly. As I recall sanctions were up for renewal at the UN in 2003 and were expected not to pass. Even the French were talking about opposing them - though I suspect they'd have let the Russians take the heat for actually vetoing. Not coincidentally Iraq owed France and Russia billions for all the military kit they'd sold them, and also needed lots of spares and replacements.

              Remember that the RAF and US Airforce were regularly shot at by the Iraqis, patrolling the no-fly zones to stop Iraq attacking the Kurds and continuing with the genocide against the Marsh Arabs. It's not like this was a stable situation that the evil US and UK were stirring up.

              Who was to know that Saddam wouldn't immediately arm-up again and invade Kuwait and Saudi? There was nothing to stop him at the Saudi border in 1990 - and he could have made retaking Kuwait a lot harder if he'd continued over that border and destroyed places like King Khaled Military City. The logistics of desert warfare are a complete bastard. Not to mention the Saudi and Kuwaiti oil wells. And those are a global strategic interest. It's why we went to war in 1991 after all.

              1. sean.fr

                Re: If your not on the list, you're not getting in

                If Iraq or any other country REALLY had weapons of mass distruction, the USA could not attack.

                To much risk they would zap us or our friends.

                Which is why Cuba took nukes from the USSR, and why North Korea wants them.

                1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

                  Re: If your not on the list, you're not getting in

                  If Iraq or any other country REALLY had weapons of mass distruction, the USA could not attack.

                  sean.fr,

                  Wrong. Iraq did have them deployed at corps HQ level in Kuwait in 1990. They were still there when the.troops were captured. They also used them repeatedly in the 80s, against Iran and the Kurds.

                  As happens, the US didn't know that tactical nukes had been deployed in Cuba, so might well have invaded anyway.

        2. Jonathan Schwatrz
          Stop

          Re: jmch Re: If your not on the list, you're not getting in

          ".....All - So, US, what happened to all those WMDs?....: The US administration found it politically expedient not to provide details, but plenty of WMDs - especially chemical ones - were found.

    2. Mazo

      Re: If your not on the list, you're not getting in

      "Apart from the nuclear non-proliferation ones?"

      There are no LAWS that prevent a country from building nuclear weapons if it wants to. They are not prohibited by the Geneva Convention, the Hague Convention or any other statutory conventions that we consider "international law".

      Nuclear weapons development is restricted only by a TREATY - called the Non-Proliferation Treaty that is basically a "deal" where countries who sign up get to benefit from civilian nuclear technology from the P5 while they make a commitment not to develop nuclear weapons.

      India didn't accept that "deal" and consequently was denied access to uranium, nuclear technology and other nuclear material so that it could build its nuclear weapons. North Korea, Iran and Iraq however did sign the deal (NK backed out later when "Lil Rocket Man" took over)

  9. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Coat

    Dr Abdul Kalam Island,

    Who's not thinking that Ian Fleming would have definitely liked that one.

    You can't go wrong with a Sinister Foreign Type somewhere.

    1. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge

      Re: Dr Abdul Kalam Island,

      My actual thought was that no man is an island

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Dr Abdul Kalam Island,

        Norman is an island:-

        https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@24.6187989,-76.8463189,13z

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Diego Garcia

    Our base but British island, I believe. Considering its neighbors, India probably likes having the US forces there - or maybe not. I've always considered India a more natural ally than Pakistan, and it recently seems poised to rise above third world status.

    1. Mazo

      Re: Diego Garcia

      Never could understand what this "third world status" nonsense has to do with the capability of a race or people. The "third world" Soviet Union that fought WW2 with borrowed arms from the Americans reached Berlin first. And the "third world" Indians will soon displace Japan to become the No 3 economy according to the British Govt.

      This vulgar idea that a person or a people are worth what they have is a very un American concept and always has been but today there are some enamored with this vulgarity of "first world" / "third world" classification based on wealth.

      Originally the terms were used during the Cold War years to classify "allies", "commies" and "others". So Turkey was "first world" even though it wasn't democratic while Finland was "third world" originally.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Diego Garcia

        I used First World in the sense of a country joining the ranks of those with a prosperous and educated population and a modern infrastructure. But that opens a whole new can of worms, doesn' t it?

      2. Jonathan Schwatrz
        Stop

        Re: Mazo Re: Diego Garcia

        "Never could understand what this "third world status" nonsense has to do with the capability of a race or people...." The term "Third World" is from economics and measures whether a country has a primarily agricultural-based (Third World), primarily industrial-based (Second World) or primarily services-based (First World) economy. The pre-WW2 era USSR was arguably between the Third and Second World economic definitions at the time, being highly reliant on copying Western technology. India, whilst having many advanced technological programs, is still massively reliant on primary economy agriculture for a large segment of the rural population, and appalling levels of preventable poverty and disease. India's economy is massive through scale, but is classified as "newly industrialized", which equates to the old Second World at best.

        ".....reached Berlin first...." The Russians reached Berlin first because the Yanks insisted the Allies sit on their hands at the Elbe River and let the Russians get there first. Eisenhower was determined to let the Russians take Berlin and instead planned to clear the Nazis out of southern Germany and Austria. Indeed, Eisenhower was so terrified that General Patton would disobey orders and go for Berlin (and would also be more popular than Eisenhower back home) that he deliberately stopped fuel and ammo supplies to Patton's Third Army on several occasions. He further stopped Patton from liberating Prague. This political blundering of Eisenhower's was compounded by the Yalta Conference, where POTUS Franklin Roosevelt gifted Stalin half of post-War Europe in the naïve belief that Stalin would just roll his armies back and let the eastern Europeans return to democracy. Roosevelt did so because he wanted Russian assistance in the Pacific, which was doubly stupid as he also then let Stalin interfere in China and Korea at a time when the Japanese were already crumbling.

  11. Raj

    Lots of whiny bitching on here

    Looks like the comments have all the usual talking points covered:

    * Trump

    * bloody Hindoooos

    * We give them aid ???

    * Savages shit in the streets

    * Assorted noise about the Empire.

    Don't you guys tire of it ? You keep sending us money and get enormously upset about it, then send more. I'd hate to see it end, not because of the money which is peanuts to a country with a $3 trillion GDP growing at 7% a year, but the expression of wanton impotence is just so absurdly funny.

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