With BrahMos, will the Philippines be able to stand up to China’s bullying?

 

The Philippines has emerged as the maiden buyer of BrahMos supersonic missile systems, jointly produced by India and Russia, amid China's aggressive territorial claims in the South China Sea (SCS) region. Both sides were in an advanced stage of negotiations for a number of years and would have struck the deal earlier had not the Covid-19 pandemic intervened and hit the Philippines exchequer. Manila has now agreed to buy BrahMos supersonic anti-ship missiles from India for US $375-million to shore up its defences in the disputed SCS.

The acquisition is the newest of a number of similar capacity enhancements for the Philippine Army unveiled in contemporary weeks. In December, Philippine Protection Secretary Delfin Lorenzana made public the acquisition of six patrol ships from Austal for $600 million and two corvettes from Hyundai Heavy Industries for $550 million. 

The acquisition of the BrahMos, said to be the world’s fastest cruise missile, “marks a breakthrough in efforts to upgrade the Philippines defense arsenal,” to quote a Filipino analyst.

The BrahMos has a top speed in the range of Mach 3, a surface-launch range of about 160 nm, and a payload of about 440 pounds of explosives. It is designed with naval warfare in mind, can fly just 30 feet off the surface, and carry out evasive manoeuvres to evade air defences. This universal missile can be launched from ships, mobile launchers, submarines, and aircraft. It has network-centric architecture, multiple trajectories, way-point capability, and is capable of engaging any kind of land or naval targets beyond the horizon in a minimum deployment time. It is the only supersonic cruise missile in the world that flies at three times the speed of sound.

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