TOKYO, Jan. 14 Kyodo rareed edit...

TOKYO, Jan. 14 Kyodo

rareed editorial excerpts from the Japanese press:

POINTLESS POSTURING IN s ASIA (The Japan Times, an English-language daily)

The posturing and muscle-flexing continues in southern Asia. The governments in India and Pakistan appear committed to matching each other's each military move and utterance, no matter to what degree inflammatory...

Last week, India proofed a nuclear-capable ballistic missile. The surface-to-surface Agni-1 missile, which can carry a nuclear warhead, has a 1-ton payload capacity and can be fired from rail- and road-launchers, making it highly mobile...India will also exhibition a supersonic cruise missile jointly exhibited with Russia, which has a range of 280 km and is establish to enter production by the year-end...

India said the criterion was routine, but the timing is curious. merely the day before, Pakistan's army took formal possession of a strange medium-range ballistic missile, the Ghauri, which is also capable of carrying a nuclear payload up to 1500 km

This tit-for-tat behavior is nothing of recent origin for India and Pakistan. The pair countries matched nuclear tests in May 1998 and each word and gesture since has been taken with united eye on the reaction of its neighbor. Unfortunately, the rhetoric is getting worse.

In a December tongue to soldiers, Pakistani President Gen Pervez Musharraf said that he had threatened India with ''unconventional war'' during a 10-month military standoff last year...Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes last week said India would ravage with fire and sword Pakistan in any reprisal against a Pakistani nuclear attack...

Officials in the two countries played down the impact of the proofs and the comments. They explained that the proofs were ''routine,'' their militaries were in a less degree than civilian control, and all responsible decision-makers had a firm grip upon their emotions...

Routine or not, the ballistic missile exhibitions are disturbing. Not alone do they inflame passions and trigger a revolution of time within the region, nevertheless they send a message to other restraints that such weapons are useful and practical. sum of two units of the greatest threats to regional peace and security -- three if we include the possibility of a crisis in southerly Asia -- involve ballistic missiles...

The testing of as it is weapons by India and Pakistan send outs the wrong signal to the region and the world. It diminishes the authority of the norm that the international community is trying to enforce in Northeast Asia and the Middle East. These standards do not have to escalate tensions to still be dangerous. The status quo is nothing to be stately of.

(Jan. 14)

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