MISSILE proliferation in South Asia involves India and Pakistan, each with their own unique objectives and military doctrines.
Despite New Delhi and Islamabad’s transparency about their missile inventory potential, a few analysts have misread their intentions and military doctrines, especially regarding missile capabilities. This misinterpretation adds a layer of complexity to the situation, making it crucial for our audience to be well-informed about the realities of missile proliferation in South Asia. Ironically, a few reputed American security analysts, who were part of the Biden Administration, have speciously published on Pakistan’s missile potential and masked the repercussions of India’s development of sophisticated missiles, including intercontinental ballistic missiles. They opined that Pakistan is developing long-range ballistic missile capabilities that could eventually allow it to strike targets outside of South Asia, including in the United States.
Recently, Vipin Narang (US Principal Deputy and then Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy in Biden Administration) and Pranay Vaddi (Senior Director for Arms Control, Disarmament and Nonproliferation at the National Security Council in Biden Administration) published an article titled: “How to Survive the New Nuclear Age,” in Foreign Affairs (July/August 2025) in which they wrote “Yet another threat comes from Pakistan. Although Pakistan claims its nuclear program is strictly focused on deterring India, which enjoys conventional military superiority, US intelligence agencies have concluded that the Pakistani military is developing an ICBM that could reach the continental United States.”On December 19, 2024, Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer said at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “Candidly, it’s hard for us to see Pakistan’s actions as anything other than an emerging threat to the United States.”
The alarming aspect is the American official’s intuition that Pakistan’s long-range missile could strike targets in the United States. Though Islamabad immediately rebuffed fictitious concerns about its long-range missiles’ potential to reach the US heartland, it added a very puzzling variable in Pakistan and the United States’ complex relationships. One fails to understand why they are publishing concocted information about Pakistan’s missile program. Are they lobbying to impose more sanctions and spoil Pakistan and the US relations? The following discussion assists us in understanding the real intentions and capabilities of missile proliferators in South Asia.
India’s pursuit of power is a key driver of its nuclear doctrine. The country’s philosophy of Great Power shapes its ambition to be a net security provider in the Indian Ocean Region. This ambition, in turn, influences India’s nuclear doctrine, which is designed to maximize power, establish regional superiority, deter China and influence the global strategic order. This pursuit of a significant power role in the international strategic environment is a key factor in India’s cruise and ballistic missile modernization policy. The American strategic analysts deliberately ignore India’s space and missile programs. For instance, India’s recently approved $3 billion space-based surveillance mission will launch 52 satellites over the next decade, with a focus on persistent land and maritime domain awareness.
Pakistan’s military objective is obvious: to deter Indian aggression. Thus, its nuclear objective is regionally oriented rather than having a global angle. Therefore, its missile program does not affect the global securitization process and structures. The missiles’ ranges testify that these delivery vehicles are only capable of maximizing Pakistan’s national security against a perceived threat from India. For deterring India, Pakistan does not need to develop the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capability. Hence, it neither intends nor is interested in threatening the United States because it does not harbour hostile feelings against Washington. Currently, the country’s defense posture and modernization of its force structure are aimed at countering Modi’s doctrine. Hence, Pakistan’s defense policy, weapons development and procurement planning, missile tests, military exercises, nuclear doctrine and posture are aimed at creating and sustaining a credible minimum deterrence potential to prevent India’s military adventurism. Ironically, Finer Vipin and Pranaywere alarmed by a state that does not possess the ICBM capability and mums the word about a nuclear-armed state that is developing and testing a diverse range of missile systems, including ICBM, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, hypersonic cruise missiles to deliver nuclear weapons.
India’s development and successful testing of the Agni-V, a solid propellant three-stage missile with a range of 5000-8000 kilometers and the Agni-VI, with a range of 8000-10,000 kilometers, pose a potential threat. These missiles, particularly the Agni-VI, could be used to strike targets in the United States, a fact that should raise concerns about the evolving geopolitical landscape. Vipin and Pranay opined that “no other country with ICBMs that can target the United States is considered a friend.” However, they refrained from commenting on India’s intermediate and ICBM capability that could undermine Western nations and the US heartland security.
There is an urgent need for a realistic analysis of Pakistan’s defense policy, which maintains that its long-range ballistic missile program is defense-oriented and India-specific. Instead of merely appeasing India or masking its maturing ICBM capability, a realistic anticipation of an emerging missile threat is crucial. Theoretically speaking, in international politics, there are no permanent friends and no permanent foes, only permanent interests. Therefore, the American strategic pundits should focus on the continuing proliferation threat of India’s ICBM development rather than Pakistan’s missile program. To conclude, American scholars must recognize that longer-range missiles are neither intermediate nor ICBMs; therefore, these missiles do not undermine the US defensive fence. Simultaneously, they should sensitize their policymakers about India’s ICBMs’ potential, which enables New Delhi to strike the US heartland.
—The writer is Prof at the School of Politics and IR, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.
(jaspal_99@hotmail.com)
