SY - 400 In Myanmar: Another Wave Of Pressure For Bangladesh

SY-400 Ballistic Missile System

The two South Asian countries Bangladesh & Myanmar are not in good term for a very long time. But an irreconcilable situation sparkled between these two after another wave of Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh from Myanmar just to flee from the ethnic cleansing led by Myanmar Armed Forces in 2017. More than 25,000 people were killed by Myanmar Armed Forces in the Rakhine State & burnt more than 3 thousand houses which resulted in South Asia & South East Asia's largest human excursion crisis after the Vietnam War. More than 700000 refugees fled to Bangladesh after passing through inhuman brutality.

Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina meeting with Rohingya refugee at Kutupalong refugee camp along with her sister.[Times Of Israel/AP]

                 

In 2017 Myanmar violated Bangladesh airspace more than 13 times which was a provocation of war to make the crisis a hotchpotch so that Bangladesh can't even talk about repatriation of Rohingya refugees but brilliantly Bangladesh didn't step into the trap. In 2020 this humanitarian crisis hasn't been able to solve by Bangladesh, USA, UK and other international agencies as Myanmar is backed by China, Russia, Israel, North Korea and even India. Russia and China back Myanmar in UN Security Council & because of this security council couldn't show any move here. Again China helps Myanmar both economically & militarily. Russia, Israel, North Korea & India are prime sources of Burmese weapon supply though these suppliers are violating international blockade on Myanmar's weapon importing announced by the UN.

As an example, Myanmar has received the first delivery of SY-400 short-range ballistic missile system from China which was ordered in 2018. These ballistic missiles have an effective range of 400 KM which was first introduced at Dubai Air Show in 2017 and can be guided by both GPS and Infrared technology.

Receiving these missiles is directly violating international law and shows that the UN is the underdog to itself. Myanmar is showing a constant threat to Bangladesh. They've got too far that after commissioning submarines in Bangladeshi Navy Myanmar signed a deal with India for 2 refurbished subs. But now with this move, Myanmar has stepped two-step further. Firstly, Bangladesh got long-range effective air defence systems that can actually stop ballistic missiles. Newly added medium-range air defence LY-80(HQ-16) missile system have 60% effectiveness against cruise missile though it's effectiveness against ballistic missiles isn't proven yet but it's simple to guess that that percentage will be lower than 50%. Secondly, Bangladesh has no ballistic missile system in its arsenal though a joint program of Bangladesh-China is ongoing at BOF(Bangladesh Ordnance Factory) to develop Bangladesh's own ballistic missile system. But it will need more than 5 years and at first, they'll start to produce infant missiles which can easily be detected & terminated by air defense systems which Myanmar has.

This is now clear that this deal signed in 2018 pushed Bangladesh to look for BAF's(Bangladesh Air Force)MRCA in the west. Bangladesh developed its diplomatic relations with the USA and as an emerging economy with a cold war situation existing the USA responded as Bangladesh knocked.
Though Bangladesh has opened tender for two squadrons heavy MRCA (Multi-Role Combat Aircraft) Myanmar has got real ballistic missiles that have erupted another chapter for Bangladesh to lag behind and the necessity of equaling the inequalities.

But now it will be interesting to see how Bangladesh will cope with the COVID-19 murrain and how soon they'll be back in the game.
 

The author is a student at Department of Criminology, University Of Dhaka.

©All rights reserved by GeoPoliticalWar