Every year, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) publishes a yearbook that accounts for global military spending, evaluates international arms transfers, analyzes world nuclear forces and surveys active regional conflicts. The SIPRI Yearbook published in June 2026 identifies unprecedented developments in South Asia. According to SIPRI, India has placed some of its missile systems in canisters; therefore, it has moved towards mating some of its nuclear warheads with delivery systems in peacetime. For Pakistan, this revelation from SIPRI is not new. Pakistan’s scholars and defence planners have long been predicting that India has kept some of its warheads attached to their respective delivery systems and has officially departed from the recessed deterrence posture. This development not only represents India’s temptation towards counterforce pre-emption but also marks a shift from its officially declared “No First Use” (NFU) nuclear doctrine. The South Asian region is already prone to crises, has almost no crisis management mechanisms and has shorter missile travel times. In such a region, keeping mated nuclear warheads with a delivery system could bring catastrophic consequences. The following article explores how India’s shift towards greater operational readiness of its nuclear forces would impact escalation dynamics in South Asia.
During the course of 79 years, since partition, India and Pakistan have fought three major wars and faced each other in several limited crises. Even the advent of nuclear weapons could not stop the arch-rivals from spiraling into crises. However, the post-nuclearization crises were limited in scope but existed under the nuclear overhang. Right after conducting nuclear weapons tests, India declared a Draft Nuclear Doctrine, which states that India will follow a No First Use (NFU) nuclear doctrine. Scholars like Jasjit Singh and Ashley Tellis wrote about India’s NFU and described it as a recessed deterrence posture, where India will keep its nuclear warheads separated from their delivery systems in peacetime. However, over the course of time, India started testing those nuclear delivery capabilities, which have to be kept in a ready-to-fire position in peacetime due to their innate nature. Along with that, India incorporated strategic technologies that clearly depicted that India is keeping some of its nuclear forces in mated form and is shifting from NFU towards First Use.
Operationally, India’s First Use nuclear doctrine is verified by successful tests of its two nuclear-tipped missiles, Agni-V and Agni-Prime. Agni-V is three staged solid fuel Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) that can carry a nuclear warhead weighing 1650 Kilograms up to 8000 Kilometers. Agni-V is also a highly precise missile that possesses Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicles (MIRV) capability, making it a more credible system against Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) systems. This missile is carried on road-mobile transporter-erector launchers (TELs), which makes its transport and deployment easier during periods of heightened escalation. The mobility factor also makes it difficult to be detected by the adversary.
Agni-Prime is a two-stage solid-propellant Medium-Range Ballistic Missile (MRBM) that can carry a nuclear payload to 2000 Kilometers. It is reported that Agni-P is stored and transported in sealed canisters and will be launched in times of crisis from there as well. Its storage in sealed canisters makes it ready to launch capability on short notice when needed. The reported Circular Error Probability (CEP) of Agni-P is less than 10 meters. Moreover, recently, India has successfully conducted a flight test of the rail-based Agni-Prime. Rail mobility offers more operational launch options compared to fixed launch sites. It also makes the missile system difficult to detect, as it can easily conceal itself within civilian infrastructure. Rail-based launch capability further enhances the mobility factor, as India could launch the Agni-P missile from diverse platforms in times of crisis.
Keeping nuclear warheads attached to delivery vehicles during peacetime in a region where missile travel time is from five to twelve minutes for a medium-sized ballistic missile could easily bring disastrous outcomes, particularly in times of heightened tensions. During the February 2019 India-Pakistan crisis, India and Pakistan both threatened each other with nuclear weapon attacks on major cities. However, later in the May 2025 India-Pakistan crisis, both attacked each other’s main cities with rockets and conventional missiles. During this crisis, India also used its dual-capable BrahMos missile against Pakistan. Pakistan’s federal minister openly stated that Pakistan was unable to detect whether the incoming BrahMos was tipped with a conventional warhead or a nuclear one. With these existing realities, it would be difficult for Pakistan to identify the nature of India’s incoming missile in the time of crisis. Particularly when India is intentionally keeping nuclear missiles in a ready-to-launch position during peacetime. Now, after SIPRI’s official revelations regarding India’s official departure from recessed deterrence, if any crisis erupts between South Asian nuclear-armed rivals in the future and India launches any missile, either conventional or nuclear, towards Pakistan, Islamabad will be faced with a use-it-or-lose-it dilemma. Particularly when India has clearly adopted a First Use doctrine.
Moreover, this mating of warheads also reduces the decision-making time available to India’s highest political leadership designated for nuclear weapon launch. Before peacetime mating, India’s leaders would have ample time even if they decided to initiate a nuclear strike against its adversaries, as attaching a warhead to a delivery system would naturally require time. Now, with nuclear missiles already in ready-to-launch position, the probability of de-escalation also shrinks in South Asia. Simultaneously, keeping a mated nuclear warhead in a ready-to-launch position that has a lower CEP reveals New Delhi’s malign intentions for counterforce preemption against Pakistan. These developments have compelled Pakistan to counter India’s action, thereby strengthening its deterrence vis-à-vis India. Furthermore, South Aisa also lacks robust and comprehensive arms control arrangements, particularly due to India’s reluctance to devise them. Under such circumstances, India’s shift towards a more operational nuclear posture will further compel the region into an uncontrolled arms race. South Asian region is already prone to crises; the nuclear weapons tests by the arch-rivals have, though, halted large-scale wars; however, limited crises under nuclear overhang continue to occur repeatedly. Each crisis’s intensity is higher than the previous one. The most intense has been the May 2025 crisis, which witnessed, for the first time in history, direct conventional missile and rocket attacks by two nuclear-weapon states. In such circumstances, mating nuclear warheads with delivery systems in peacetime will aggravate the security dilemma and produce challenges for strategic stability. Additionally, this change of nuclear posture, from recessed deterrence to operationally ready-to-fire nuclear weapons, by India is insanity, which can produce disastrous outcomes not just for the region but for whole humanity.
This article was published by the Centre for Strategic and Contemporary Research (CSCR) in another form at https://cscr.pk/explore/themes/defense-security/implications-of-indias-shift-from-recessed-deterrence-to-operational-readiness/
Fakhar Alam is Research Officer at the Center for International Strategic Studies (CISS), Islamabad.
