With the recent test of Agni Prime MRBM, India has officially announced integration of canisterized delivery systems and transitioned towards peacetime mated warhead capability. Previously, according to India’s official policy, the warheads and the delivery means were not only demated, but also geographically separated. This reveals that India’s nuclear posture is undergoing critical transformations that feature undeclared ambiguity and departure from its traditional policy of recessed deterrence to the state of elevated operational readiness. This evolution of India’s nuclear doctrine derived from technological advancements has significant implications for the so far preserved deterrence equilibrium in South Asia.
Covertly, India is gradually expanding its options for second strike capabilities. The test and deployment patterns of the critical ballistic missile systems, including Agni III revealed that India had already been working on greater survivability through road and rail mobile systems. Following it, Agni-V was introduced as a sealed rapid-launch missile, providing India with greater concealment and state of readiness, and quick response time. Hence, mobility-based concealment remains integral to India’s nuclear posture review.
Officially, the rail-mobile variant of Agni Prime has further expanded second-strike capabilities of India, again featuring advanced navigation, operational capability in reduced visibility, independent launch capabilities, advanced communication systems, enhanced survivability, and rapid response readiness. Since Agni Prime is exclusively Pakistan specific, owing to its 2000 kilometers range, with expanded targeting options and greater payload; it adds significantly to regional deterrence imbalance. Hence, India’s declared policy of No First Use (NFU) is increasingly inconsistent with its technological advancements in which platforms have been configured in a manner to achieve precision targeting, immediate readiness, and reduced command latency.
Perhaps more destabilizing than canisterization itself, because it is done in conventional weapons also, is the increasing evidence of peacetime warhead mating as in Agni Prime. So far India’s doctrine has adhered to separation of nuclear warheads and their delivery means, which reinforced the recessed posture. However, in India, gradual shift toward integration of warheads onto the delivery systems during peacetime has been underway. Under such reconfiguration with reduced launch-time, near-instantaneous response, and integration with digital command-and-control, the risk for miscalculation increases, especially during a crisis period when time-constrained decision-making may lead to inadvertent escalation.
The underlying logic behind canisterized nuclear warhead mated systems aligns with a preemptive posture that clearly contradicts India’s NFU nuclear posture. Particularly, tracing the evolution of India’s cruise and ballistic missiles suggest India’s increasing transformation to canisterized systems, given their use in nuclear first-strike. This trend indicates India’s doctrinal shift towards elevated readiness as well as incorporation of flexible targeting capability.
Evidently, there is definite disconnect between India’s declared doctrine and capabilities – both deployed and underdevelopment. While India’s official policy retains credible minimum deterrence and the NFU, the kind of its weapon systems integration demonstrates the opposite. The canisterization induced rapid launch capability which creates a layer of operational ambiguity is destabilizing, specifically in case of South Asia with years of trust deficit. The trend of these developments points towards a counterforce doctrinal shift, as in case of Agni Prime and potential dual-use modified employment of BrahMos. This strategic posture of India is progressively evolving towards rapid retaliatory capability and notably departure from NFU.
This trend of technological evolution indicating nuclear posture review by India presents significant challenges for deterrence stability in South Asia. The strategic ambiguity in Indian nuclear posture compels Pakistan to strategise for any future escalation on the basis of worst-case scenario. Significantly, the entanglement caused by dual- capable Indian systems, like the BrahMos, adds to the complexity of the threat perception. In a state of doctrinal ambiguity and lack of clarity, a canisterized conventional strike may be misinterpreted, causing inadvertent escalation. Notably, Pakistan’s Full Spectrum Deterrence policy is given to deter coercion in nuclear as well as conventional domains. At the same time, India’s doctrinal shift towards strategic ambiguity that indicates India’s increasing focus on preemption and precision-enabled counterforce capabilities make it necessary for Pakistan to adapt its deterrence posture accordingly, reinforcing its second-strike survivability, diversifying delivery vectors and maintaining responsiveness of the nuclear command and control structures across all conditions.
