Jawayria Malik
India’s first domestically built nuclear-powered submarine “Arihant” in the backdrop of Indo-Russia S-400 missile system deal, has escalated Nuclear arms race in the region. India has the fastest growing nuclear triad and least safeguarded fissile material production programme and claimed a range 5,000 km to assuage concerns in Western capitals. Resultantly, deterrence between India and Pakistan is becoming less stable and the ongoing advancement in Indian Missile Programe and nuclear weapon capabilities is further affecting the existing deterrence stability. India has also failed to address basic issues in bilateral disputes.
The Arihant, which means “Slayer of Enemies” in Sanskrit, uses a uranium-fueled pressurized light-water reactor to generate 83-megawatts of electricity, allowing the submarine to stay underwater for months with high speeds upto twenty-four knots. Even more important than the Arihant’s propulsion system, however, are the weapons presumably stowed in her four vertical launch tubes: up to a dozen K-15 Sagarika (“Oceanic”) nuclear-tipped missiles designed to launch from underwater to annihilate an adversary’s cities and military bases.
The Arihant is the India’s most expensive defense program ever, valued at $13 billion, with its origins in the secretive Advanced Tactical Vessel program in the 1990s. It is a dream come true as India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) wanted a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN or “boomer”) to complement India’s land and air-based nuclear forces instead of developing just an attack submarine for hunting enemy warships. Because nuclear-powered submarines can remain submerged for months and deliver their weapons from underwater, they are considered the asset most likely to survive a nuclear “first strike” by an adversary, guaranteeing an apocalyptic second strike in retaliation. India’s DODR still working to make Arihant fully credible that is to acquire a capability to strike inland Pakistani targets (including Islamabad) and Chinese cities. As it is currently not possible with the Arihant’s ten-meter long K-15 missiles which have a range of only around 430 miles. For that matter, the DRDO has developed a twelve-meter long K-4 Shaurya SLBM with a range of 2,100 miles that is due to enter service in the early 2020s. Once the K-4 enters service, the Arihant will be able to hit both Pakistani and Chinese inlands ultimately pushing the world towards a global nuclear war.
Similarly, India’s Agni-5, a 5000-km range intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), is widely regarded as a strategic missile targeted at China as it can reach almost all parts of the Chinese mainland. In response, China’s state-run daily Global Times in an editorial titled ‘India needs to cool its missile fever’ admonished New Delhi for ‘breaking’ United Nations “limits” and warned that Beijing “will not sit still if India goes too far”. Nevertheless, India’s yearning for more and more nuclearization remains insatiate. The launch of a second Arihant-class submarine, “the Arighat” expected to be commissioned between 2019-2021 is a proof of India’s nuclear madness. It is worth noting that the Arighat has a more powerful reactor and can carry twice the payload: twenty-four K-15 missiles or eight K-4s.
Consequently, Pakistan is also developing a submarine-based nuclear deterrent using simpler diesel electric submarine that can launch nuclear-tipped cruise missiles whereas China is developing a nuclear-capable stealth bomber too. Amid this scenario, two important aspects needs to be recognized widely; one that New Delhi’s nuclear capable missile programme is a clear violation of Hague Code of Conduct (HCOC), which is a supplementary arrangement for the MTCR and seeks a political commitment to curb the missile proliferation and exercise maximum possible restraint in development, testing and deployment of missiles. Two, that Indian missile programme will further complicate the security dilemma as its not only aimed at Pakistan but uses China as a bogey.
If China chooses to respond to Indian missile developments and BMD system, this could lead to Russia and the US reacting against Chinese developments ultimately affecting the global arms control. Hopefully, the destructiveness of those enhanced capabilities will serve to make resorting to nuclear arms an even more unattractive option for resolving disputes, because the outcome of a regional nuclear exchange is horrifying to contemplate.
