Late last month, India added its second nuclear-capable ballistic missile submarine to its fleet. The government claims this strengthens India's nuclear deterrent as New Delhi looks wary of both China and Pakistan.
But as the People's Liberation Army expands its fleet and its air and land capabilities amid simmering tensions along their shared border, India is still lagging behind, at least in comparison to China.
During an August 29 commissioning ceremony at Visakhapatnam naval base, the headquarters of India's Eastern Naval Command on the Bay of Bengal coast, Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh stated that the nuclear-powered sub, INS Arighaat, or "Destroyer of the Enemy" in Sanskrit, will "help in establishing strategic balance" in the region.
With the largest navy in the world in terms of numbers, China presently holds the upper hand. Its six operational Jin-class nuclear-powered ballistic submarines outclass the two Indian vessels in the same class, Arighaat and INS Arihant, in terms of firepower.
The Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, a non-profit organization that supports the development and deployment of missile defense for the United States and its allies, claims that the Chinese subs are capable of carrying twelve ballistic missiles with a minimum range of 8,000 kilometers (4,970 miles) and multiple nuclear warheads.
According to an analysis by the open-source intelligence agency Janes, Arighaat and Arihant are both 366 feet long and have a displacement of 6,000 tons. They are equipped with K-15 Sagarika ballistic missiles, which can be fired from four vertical launch tubes. However, it is believed that the nuclear-tipped K-15 can only hit targets within 750 kilometers (466 miles) of its Indian Ocean location.
The coastal waters of the northern Bay of Bengal are dangerously shallow for a submarine, and the INS Arihant-class can hardly reach Chinese targets along the eastern Sino-Indian border, according to analyst Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the US Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center.
The Line of Actual Control, which serves as the de facto border between China and India, has long been a source of tension between the two countries. The most recent battles there between the two sides occurred in 2022 and 2020, when at least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers lost their lives in hand-to-hand combat in Aksai Chin.
India is advancing its capacity for second strikes.
Only "technological advancements undertaken indigenously on this submarine make it significantly more advanced than its predecessor," which was put into service eight years ago, is all the Indian government has revealed about the Arighaat's capabilities.
Since Arighaat was commissioned on August 29, India has not even released images of the project.
According to naval analysts, India is undoubtedly on track to build a submerged nuclear deterrent that, although it might not be as powerful as China's, will be sufficient to prevent Beijing from acting hostilely against it in the event of a second strike.
India is developing larger, more modern submarines with longer-range missiles. Analysts estimate that those missiles' ranges could reach 6,000 kilometers (3,728 miles), allowing them to launch strikes across all of China.
Matt Korda, associate director for the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, stated, "Although India's sea-based nuclear deterrent remains in relative infancy, the country clearly has an ambition to field a sophisticated naval nuclear force with ballistic missile submarines at its core."
"With its eventual third and fourth submarines (which will have more missile tubes and longer-range missiles), India will be able to hold both Pakistani and Chinese targets at risk, as these submarines are a key piece of its broader efforts to establish a secure second-strike nuclear force," Korda wrote in an email.
If past performance is any indication, India may have to wait a few years before deploying its next ballistic missile submarines. Launched nearly seven years ago, Arighaat won't enter service until 2030 if the same period of time from launch to commissioning is followed by the next Indian ballistic missile sub.
The SSBNs' prestige
Nevertheless, according to Tom Shugart, a former US Navy submarine commander and adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, having a second ballistic missile submarine does have some positive effects on India's naval and military mindset.
Shugart stated, "It is a marker of being a great power," citing the fact that all five UN Security Council members—the US, Russia, China, the UK, and France—have ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) that are capable of carrying nuclear weapons.
Shugart believes that having four boats in each of the two smallest SSBN fleets—Britain and France—is the bare minimum for maintaining a vessel at sea at all times.
Submarines with nuclear propulsion are intricate devices. Work can take up to a month when things break and need to be repaired, or when routine maintenance is required.
For example, the US Navy's Pacific Fleet reports that the Ohio-class SSBNs spend an average of 77 days at sea and 35 days in port for maintenance.
According to US Navy records, a nuclear reactor's refit and overhaul can take up to 27 months.
"The likelihood that India will be able to maintain one of them at sea in a viable state increases with the number of them," Shugart stated.
He added, "But it's probably going to take more boats than the two we have now to keep one at sea at all times."
A cautious China
The Arighaat was gaining attention in China prior to its commissioning; the state-run newspaper Global Times quoted anonymous Chinese experts as stating that India shouldn't "use it to flex muscles."
According to the Global Times report, "nuclear weapons should be used in safeguarding peace and stability, not in nuclear blackmail or muscle flexing."
According to other analysts, Beijing, which currently possesses the greatest fleet in the world in terms of total number of ships, is the only reason why New Delhi is acting more firmly.
Other nations in the region, including India, view China's massive naval buildup and the Type 094 submarines' (the Jin class) frequent deployment of fully armed nuclear deterrence patrols as a threat, according to Kandlikar Venkatesh, an analyst with the GlobalData analytics company.
"India will be able to compete with China to some extent with the deployment of Arihant-class submarines," he stated, adding that an additional $31.6 billion will be invested in submarines over the next ten years.
According to Venkatesh, India is working on larger submarines and missiles with a greater range. Eventually, the country may have nuclear-tipped weapons that can travel up to 12,000 kilometers, or nearly 7,500 miles.
One more rival in the region
India is looking at other countries as well as China for its subdevelopment, says Abhijit Singh, a senior fellow at the Mumbai-based Observer Research Foundation.
In an opinion piece for the Hindustan Times, Singh stated, "The real impetus for India's expansion of its second-strike capability is, in fact, the significant growth of the Pakistani and Chinese navies in the Indian Ocean." He also mentioned that Islamabad is currently modernizing its fleet by acquiring eight attack submarines of the Type 039B design built by China.
Singh stated that Pakistan "continues to narrow the sea-power differential with India."
The disputed and heavily militarized region of Kashmir, which both India and Pakistan claim in its entirety, has long been the source of animosity between them. It is separated between New Delhi and Islamabad by a de facto border known as the Line of Control. Between the two countries, the disagreement has sparked three wars.
China continues to be one of Pakistan's most significant foreign backers and an important source of investment.
Fears of proliferation
The Federation of American Scientists expert, Korda, says he is more concerned about the multiple-warhead missiles carried by the subs than he is about the subs themselves.
According to Korda, this technology, called Multiple Independently targetable Reentry Vehicles (MIRV), is applicable to land-based missiles as well and has the potential to be destabilizing.
He claims that "China, India, and Pakistan are all developing missiles that can carry multiple warheads."
With great fanfare, India declared in April that it had successfully tested its own intercontinental ballistic missile, the Agni-V, and had joined the MIRV club, which also includes the US, UK, France, Russia, and China.
Pakistan has also asserted that it possesses MIRV technology, although experts dispute this assertion.
In order to avoid being caught off guard in the event of a real conflict, adversaries should presume that such claims are accurate.
"These systems are the first weapons that would probably be targeted in an opposing first strike, but they are also ideal first-strike weapons," claims Korda.
As a result, as nations work to construct missile defenses and conventional strike options that can counter them, their deployment throughout the region is expected to accelerate the collective arms race.
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