Arms tangle
The entry was befitting of a Hollywood blockbuster. The long green silhouette of an eight-wheeled monster truck roar out of a high-roofed test facility, bellowing furiously, its headlights lancing the tumbling white fog. The facility is meant to simulate a Siberian winter of 50 degrees below zero. White lab-coat wearing technicians watch it carefully from a distance, like scientists would a rare carnivore. The BAZ truck, dripping frost, raises four giant launchers into the ready-to-fire vertical position-canisters for what are the world's most controversial missile today, the System-400, a fearsome weapon system that NATO somewhat appropriately calls the 'Growler'. In the bright sunshine outside the sprawling test facility of Russian missile- maker Almaz Antey on the outskirts of St Petersburg, sharp-suited executives reel off its capabilities and unveil plans for a fiery successor-the S-500 'Prometheus'-that can reportedly knock down fast-moving targets at the edge of space.
As a missile system, the S-400 has no peers. It is the equivalent of a gigantic fly-swatter that can knock down anything in the air. Its manufacturers say the missile system can track 300 targets over 600 km away and use four different types of missiles to shoot down fighter jets, drones, cruise missiles and tactical ballistic missiles 400 km away (see graphic overleaf). It is Russia's trump card in the highly competitive arms business-NATO member Turkey has it and even US allies like Saudi Arabia and Qatar are looking to buy it. The S-400 is also today the crown jewel in a burgeoning India-Russia arms relationship. India signed a $5.4 billion (Rs 40,000 crore) deal to buy five missile systems on October 5, 2018. Each system comprises eight launchers, 32 missiles, a
