India tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) from a submersible pontoon launcher off Visakhapatnam on Tuesday, which speaks volumes about the country's indigenous technological expertise in missile development. Whether or not the missile met all the pre-flight parameters is not clear. This is only the first tentative step towards validation of the various parameters which need to be tested from time to time. The country’s underwater missile development programme started over a decade ago.

It posed an immense technological challenge to the defence scientists and technologists. The objective of the exercise is integration of the missile system with a submarine. The only countries in the world to have SLBM capabilities are the US, Russia, France and China. These countries have achieved this technological feat after shedding much blood, sweat and tears.

Ballistic missile submarines are useful in contemporary warfare strategies in which the tenuous line between the use of conventional and nuclear weapons is blurred. Therefore these submarines, when submerged under the sea, are able to avoid detection by  reconnaissance satellites. This enables the submerged weapon platforms to fire their nuclear weapons with ease. To that extent these submarines, which are immune to a nuclear first strike, are able to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike after an enemy attack. These submarines have the ability to silently approach an enemy coastline. This helps them to launch a missile on a depressed trajectory and to strike a target at close range and thereby make a decapitation strike. 

SLBMs are launched only from nuclear-powered submarines and India is in the process of getting its advanced technology vessel or nuclear-powered submarine ready for sea trials in the next two years. The strategic significance of SLBM development is that it provides a more effective shield against a potential nuclear strike. This is because it provides a “triad” of nuclear offensive capability –  the ability to launch missiles from the ground, air and most challengingly, from sub-surface where the missile needs to exit from two dimensions, namely sea and atmosphere.

While the missile presently has a 700 km range to strike enemy targets, it is possible that Indian missile technologists have plans to gradually increase the range and progress from a short range nuclear missile to a long range nuclear missile. Unfortunately the programme also has the potential to start a fresh arms race in the sub-continent, as the Pakistani reaction to the launch suggests.