N-missile tested from sub, nuke triad's weakest leg gets teeth

N-Deterrence In Line With 'No First Use' Policy

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New Delhi: India on Friday successfully tested a nuclear-capable ballistic missile from its solitary nuclear-powered submarine INS Arihant, and promptly declared that having an 'assured retaliatory capability' was in tune with the country's 'credible minimum deterrence' against the first-use of nuclear weapons by an adversary.

A brief statement by the defence ministry did not identify the submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) tested from the 6,000-tonne INS Arihant, which became fully operational in 2018, in the Bay of Bengal on Friday afternoon.

Sources, however, told TOI that the SLBM tested was the B05 or K-15 missile with a strike range of 750-km. "INS Arihant is armed with the short-range K-15 missiles. Developmental trials of the K-4 SLBM (with a 3,500-km range) have been completed but it is yet to be fully inducted," a source said.

This is the first time the launch of an SLBM from INS Arihant has been announced by the government. It comes at a time when India and China continue to have over 50,000 soldiers each, backed by heavy-duty weapon systems, ranged against each other along the frontier in eastern Ladakh, with the military confrontation there now into its 30th month.

The world is also currently watching with bated breath the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, where the threat of use of nuclear weapons is being considered the most serious since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.