Regular Missile Tests Maintain India-Pakistan Status Quo

Update: 2015-05-15 03:30 GMT

The Agni-V Missile in a dress rehearsal for the Republic Day Parade in January 2013.

Last month, India tested its indigenously-developed 3000-km Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) Agni III, while Pakistan tested its 1300-km Medium Range Ballistic Missile Ghauri. Both missiles are part of an ever-growing arsenal capable of reaching every corner of rival territory (including India's Andaman Islands) and carrying both conventional and nuclear warheads. Ironically, these tests are also a good way of ensuring the two countries do not go to war. “Such tests are considered routine exercises for the two arch-rivals since they developed nuclear weapons capabilities in 1998,”
according
to Foreign Policy. Nuclear weapons carried by ballistic missiles are strategic weapons of mass destruction meant primarily to scare and deter, usually ending in strategic stalemates between countries that possess such arsenals. The possibility of “mutually assured destruction”, or MAD, as it is commonly known, also prevents their use on the subcontinent (See this IndiaSpend report to know more about India’s nuclear weapons program). India’s ballistic-missile program is driven by the threat it perceives from its nuclear armed neighbours Pakistan and China. On May 11, 1998, India’s then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee
declared
to the world that India had become a nuclear weapons state after successfully detonating three devices. Less than three weeks later, Pakistan also conducted nuclear weapons tests. On the 17th year anniversary of India’s nuclear weapons test, PM Narendra Modi lauded the efforts of Indian scientists with the following tweet:
Almost 17 years later, the arch rivals each test fired ballistic missiles. These are strategic delivery systems capable of delivering either nuclear or conventional warheads deep inside each other’s territory, with the focus being predominantly on the former. Land, fire and falcons When it comes to Pakistan, India has developed/is developing the Prithvi and Agni series of surface to surface ballistic missiles. The Prithvi ("land") series comprises three short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM) with a range of 150-350 km, capable of targeting major Pakistani cities, such as Lahore, Sialkot, the capital Islamabad and Rawalpindi according to an
IndiaSpend
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Missile Class Range (In km) Payload (In Kg)
Prithvi SS-150/-250/-350 SRBM 150 1000
Prithvi-3 SRBM 300-350 500-1000
Prahaar SRBM 150 200
Shaurya SRBM 700 700
Agni-I SRBM 700 2000
Agni-II IRBM 2000 1000
Agni III IRBM 3000 2000
Agni-IV IRBM 3500 800
Agni-V ICBM 5000 N.A.

Source: Missile Threat Database; N.A.-Not available

The Prithvi series are road mobile and deployed. Development on the Prithvi series began in 1983. Agni ("fire") I and II, with ranges of 700km and 2000 km respectively, are capable of targeting almost all major Pakistani cities, including Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Multan, Peshawar, Karachi, Quetta and Gwadar. The development of the Agni
I began in 1999, and it was first tested in January 2002. The Agni I fills the gap between the SRBM Prithvi series and medium-range Agni II missile. It has been in service since 2004. The Agni II is a medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM), first tested in April 1999. It allows India to attack all of Pakistan, although it falls short of major targets within China. Like Agni I, it too is highly accurate and is road and rail mobile. Agni III, IV and V, with their longer ranges, might be able to reach all of Pakistan, but it can be safely said that they are directed more towards China. Pakistan’s
Hatf
(named after the sword of Prophet Muhammad, pbuh) series of ballistic missiles have been developed--and is still under development--keeping India in mind. These missiles have varying ranges starting from 70 km, and go up to 2750 km. Some of these missiles are variants of existing Chinese and North Korean ballistic missiles, according to a report on Pakistan’s ballistic missile programme by National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bangalore.
Missile Class Range (In km) Payload (In Kg)
Hatf-II/Vengeance-II/Abdali SRBM 180-200 250-450
Ghaznavi (Hatf-III) SRBM 270-350 700
Shaheen I (Hatf-IV) SRBM 750 700
Shaheen 1A (Hatf-IV) SRBM 900 N.A.
Ghauri I (Hatf-V) MRBM 1300 700
Shaheen II (Hatf-VI) IRBM 2500 700
Shaheen III IRBM 2750 N.A.

Source: Missile Threat Database, National Institute Of Administrative Studies; N.A.-Not available

Of these, the operational SRBM Ghaznavi (named after the 11th-century Afghan invader Mahmud Ghazni) is a shortened version of the Chinese M-11 missile and has a range between 270 to 350 km; this means it can target Ludhiana, Ahmedabad and the outer perimeter of Delhi. The recently-tested Ghauri (named after 12
th
-century Afghan king Shahbuddin Ghauri, also known as Muhammad of Ghauri) is an MRBM, with a claimed range of 1300 km and is “clearly and unambiguously North Korean in origin”, according to the NIAS report. The report adds that the missile is deployed and can target Delhi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Bhopal and Lucknow. The Shaheen (falcon) III, a road-mobile IRBM was tested this March and has a claimed range of 2,750 km.
Addressing
the Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference 2015 in Washington DC, General (retd) Khalid Kidwai, former head of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons division, said Pakistan has developed the Shaheen III to prevent India from attaining a nuclear second-strike capability from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. (Sethi is a policy analyst with IndiaSpend. Additional inputs from Ramya Panuganty, Junior Research Fellow, National Institute of Advanced Studies.)
Image Credit: Press Information Bureau
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