Indian Armed Forces - Nuclear Weapons

Nuclear Weapons

India has been in possession nuclear weapons since 1974 and maintains a no-first use and a nuclear deterrence policy against nuclear adversaries. India's nuclear missiles include the Prithvi, the Agni, the Shaurya, Sagarika, Dhanush, and others. India has long range strategic bombers like the Tupolev Tu-22 M3 and Tupolev Tu-142 as well as fighter jets like Sukhoi Su-30MKI, Dassault Mirage 2000, MiG-29 and HAL Tejas capable of being armed with nuclear tipped bombs and missiles. Since India doesn't have a nuclear first use against an adversary, it becomes important to protect from a first strike. Presently, this protection is provided by the two layered Anti-ballistic missile defense system. India conducted its first test with the Agni-V, a MIRVed ICBM, in April 2012.

India's Strategic Nuclear Command controls its land-based nuclear warheads, while the Navy controls the ship and submarine based missiles and the Air Force the air based warheads. India's nuclear warheads are deployed in four areas:

  1. Ship based mobile, like Dhanush. (operational)
  2. Land-based mobile, like Agni. (operational)
  3. Submarine based, like Sagarika. (operational)
  4. Air-based warheads of the Indian Air Forces' strategic bomber force (operational)

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