Agonizing over the Agni

Other voice 0:02

How are we going to find these trains?

Jeffrey Lewis 0:07

You are listening to the Arms Control Wonk podcast, the leading podcast on arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation. I'm Jeffrey Lewis, the founding publisher of the Arms Control Wonk blog and a scholar at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

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Aaron is off skiing today, and so we have brought in our friend Ankit Panda to talk to us about India's nuclear weapons program. How you doing?

Ankit Panda 1:05

Good, Jeffrey. Good to be back with you, even though we're not doing North Korea today.

Jeffrey 1:08

Well, you know, we have a long-running rule that if you launch a missile, you get a pod. And somebody launched a very big missile. A very big missile, indeed. We actually have really never covered the Indian nuclear weapons program, which I guess is an oversight on our part. But we're hoping...

Ankit 1:25

The Indians will be really happy, though.

Jeffrey 1:27

Yeah, I... You know, actually, it's funny. I... Often overlook India's nuclear program because I had a very bad experience taking an online class that Scott Sagan taught that had a large number of Indian and Pakistani scholars. And there was just a, there was a real hostility to my Americanness that decreased my enjoyment of that class.

Ankit 1:54

Yeah, we can talk about that. There's that big, I guess, conflict at the center of this program, right? On one hand, India's trying to be the good kid on the block, make it into all the non-proliferation arrangements, but at the same time, it has real deterrence concerns to worry about in a very real program.

Jeffrey 2:10

Yeah, well, and also if you are a non-proliferation specialist as I am, then you are going to habitually be referred to as a non-proliferation Ayatollah, which I got to say, I think is kind of dumb. So, as I say, Aaron is off skiing. And I thought maybe... Where's Aaron skiing? We geolocated him.

Ankit 2:30

Yeah, so where is he? Fail. Oh, nice. I was in Beaver Creek last year. Ah, yeah. Great part of the country.

Jeffrey 2:36

Yeah, Aaron pulled the geolocate this, and there was a nice shot of actually where he was reflected in his visor, which was a little bit annoying. But then he gave another hint where he had a little bit of a sliver of a couple of signs on the side, and people then pretty quickly were able to figure it out.

Ankit 2:57

Well, that's more to go on than we get for a lot of these Indian ballistic missile tests. Let me just put it that way. A lot of this stuff is embargoed. They don't release any imagery or video.

Jeffrey 3:06

Yeah, well, you found, I mean, I guess the place to start is with the, is it Agni or Agni? Agni. Agni, okay.

Ankit 3:13

Yeah. Yeah. Og is fire. Agni is the god of fire. It's a pretty nice name for a missile that delivers a nuclear weapon. It was a very manly and martial god of fire.

Jeffrey 3:23

God of fire five. Yeah.

Ankit 3:25

Mm hmm. Yeah. One through four back there. They haven't inducted four yet, but one through three have been in service for a while.

Jeffrey 3:31

Well, now the four has like a funny nose on it, right?

Ankit 3:38

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Does have a bit of a funny nose. And it's and it's the only one of the Agni series that I think is known to be rail mobile. So that's interesting.

Jeffrey 3:45

Yeah, so I think we should say for listeners, these are solid-fueled missiles. They are medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles, with some question about just exactly how far the Agni 5 would fly. And yeah, you can see them sometimes on trucks, although rarely do we actually see the proper launcher, right? We often see them in parade models.

But you found a picture of one of the canisters.

Ankit 4:10

Yeah, so it's, as far as I know, is the only image that nicely shows the entire launcher with the canister. With the cold launch ejection, you see a nice cloud of smoke and the ignition. There's no video footage of this, at least showing the entirety of it. They did release video footage from the first canisterized test in 2015 where you see the tip of the canister.

And the ejection. But this time you see the whole cab, you see the entire trailer, the fully erect canister. And the kicker is that it's a grainy image in a PDF released by India's Defense Research and Development Organization. So it's not the best picture. I would like better imagery. So if anybody has anything else on this, please do send that my way.

But yeah, it is certainly a funny looking launcher to put it lightly. Now,

Jeffrey 4:54

I mean, I understand the value of putting a missile in a canister. I don't fully understand why they are so secretive about the container. Like, do you have a sense of why they don't want people looking at it?

Ankit 5:07

I have a theory. I mean, I think the Indian program more than others might be a little bit extra sensitive to just open source imagery analysis. They don't want any of this stuff really showing up in the press or being analyzed to death. You know, they've had a bunch of episodes where they've tried to regulate imagery providers, everybody from Google Earth to Digital Globe.

And they have good reasons for this, right? I mean, for example, you know, Pakistan-backed terrorist groups have used sort of satellite imagery to stage major attacks in India. And I think it's sort of an ancillary concern that sort of seeps over into a lot of the military programs where they just don't want people looking at imageries of their tells and their equipment, and they just try to keep it as secretive as possible.

And it's funny because there is, you know, there was this massive push in the Indian press anytime there's a missile test to really talk about how awesome these things are. But they're often accompanied by these rather dull file photos that, you know, we've seen over and over again. So, you know, I mean, they don't release any new imagery.

It's just this combination of kind of secrecy and a degree of well-placed concern about the consequences of releasing this stuff.

Jeffrey 6:10

In this way, they're the anti-North Korea, which is that they have the same universe of problems, which is they want to show off their capabilities, but they don't want to show off too much. But whereas North Korea shares too much, they don't share nearly enough. So, I mean, I think one of the interesting features of moving to canisterized missiles is that means the warheads are going to be attached, right?

I mean, historically, my understanding is we assume that the Indians kept the warheads separate from the missiles. But the announcement I saw from, I guess it's DRDO, right, used the phrase sealed canister. So, I mean, if it's sealed, that means it comes sealed with the warhead on it, right?

Ankit 6:55

Yeah, that is very much the implication. And there's a little bit of fuzziness right now about kind of where these things stand in the Indian program, the demating of warheads specifically. I mean, for the longest time, it used to be that the warheads were controlled by the Department of Atomic Energy, and the delivery systems were controlled by or maintained by DRDO.

And the two were separate, and they would mate them in early in a crisis. And with the sealed canisterization, that's no longer the case. But also, you know, different doctrinal documents have started to imply that this might not be the case anymore. We can talk a bit later if you want about This really messy joint doctrine document they released last year that just makes all sorts of fuzzy statements about where things are.

I mean, this document was actually so sloppy that I think that there's limited analytical value to what it actually tells us. But it definitely muddies the water in a way that I think is sufficiently concerning to be actually really interesting. But yeah, I think one of the safe implications of the canisterization is that these are going to be fully mated systems ready to go.

Jeffrey 7:50

Now, does that mean that those systems are in the hands of the military versus this more like R&D situation where DRDO and the Department of Atomic Energy are holding the assets?

Ankit 8:04

Right. Yeah. So the way it's organized is that you have, you know, this tri-service strategic forces command in India that controls all of its nuclear warheads and all of its delivery systems. And that's per the latest joint doctrine document released last year confirms that. And then you have the civilian national command authority, which would exercise the authority over using these systems.

So when India would, you know, call on its nuclear weapons to be raised to a higher level of alert, you know, you'd have the national command authority go through the strategic forces command to ready these systems for actual use. Right.

Jeffrey 8:32

Do you have any sense of what the relative bureaucratic standing of the defense R&D establishment is versus the mainline military? I mean, one of the issues that we have on the Chinese side, for those of us who study that program, is that historically, the R&D bureaucracy was very, very strong. And the uniformed military was actually very weak.

And so the... Structure of China's nuclear forces reflected the priorities of the weapon ears, not the military. Now that seems to be changing because we have a much stronger strategic rocket force in China now than ever before. But I don't have any sense what those bureaucratic politics look like in an Indian context. I wonder if you could tell me about that.

Ankit 9:16

Yeah, it's not something that I know super well. I mean, on one level, DRDO definitely has quite a bit of influence. Indigenization is a big push in India right now. India is the world's largest arms importer. So even outside the nuclear program, DRDO develops a range of other systems. For example, India just canceled this massive contract with Israel's Rafale systems for its spike anti-tank guided missiles because DRDO thought they could do a better job for cheaper.

With the nuclear program, I think DRDO certainly has had a ton of influence, especially since 1998. I think the really interesting bureaucratic relationship in India that we hinted at a bit at the beginning of this podcast with kind of the reputational and non-proliferation costs is sort of the discrepancy you see between Sort of India's diplomatic core, the diplomatic bureaucracy and the Ministry of External Affairs were going around the world trying to get India admitted to everything from the nuclear suppliers group to the Wassenaar arrangement, the Australia group, which India just got into the latter of those just in the past months, versus the military technological establishment, which is thinking in a very different way about India's nuclear posture and nuclear weapons.

Everything from The questions of, you know, will India eventually look to MIRV, the Agni 5, or potentially the Agni 6? I mean, those questions, I feel like those discussions are very much being hermetically sealed off within sort of DRDO, who are, you know, essentially a bunch of scientists and engineers who are really, you know, thinking in a very different framework of incentives than the diplomatic corps and the military.

Right. But yeah, it's something that I wish I knew more about. It's certainly a fascinating relationship. And there are people that do study this quite closely that I think have serious disagreements, actually, about the way these sort of bureaucratic relationships work in India. So it's certainly something really interesting.

Jeffrey 11:01

Well, I think the place that it pops up for me is it's really curious to me why the Agni 5 exists. I mean, we can have a discussion about The range of the missile, but 5,000 kilometers, I mean, it's a little bit more missile than they need, at least, you know, when I imagine if I were an Indian defense planner, what I would think I would need.

And, you know, because, you know, 5,000 kilometers, Beijing's not that far away, right? And so I guess what I don't fully understand is as India drives for these increasingly longer range missiles, You know, I think rationally we often imagine, oh, well, there must be some, you know, some military requirement out there. But certainly from dealing with other nuclear weapons programs, you know, sometimes the missile shows up and then the military requirement is created for the missile.

And I guess I'm trying to figure out, like, who the hell wanted a 5,000 kilometer range missile and what purpose are they retrofitting to it?

Ankit 12:02

Right. I mean, so the rationale you hear most commonly, you know, justifying the existence of the Agni 5 is, I think, survivability and basing. I think, you know, they're worried about these relatively shorter range missiles, the Agnis, you know, 1 through 3, although 1 is not really a China scenario missile. The 2 and 3 are, to an extent, they would have to be launched from northeastern India in the vulnerable Himalayan areas where they could be potentially subject to Chinese counterforce attacks.

The Agni 5 lets India base the system, you know, all the way down at the southern tip of the country if they wanted and still have enough strike range to hit major countervalue targets. That's the most common explanation I hear. I'm not sure I buy it because the Indians are, you know, there is an Agni 6 under development, and it's not a theoretical capability.

I mean, I think NASIC discussed that it was in development in its 2017 report, and that's thought to have a range in excess of 8,000 kilometers or So it is a little curious, and there is a part of me that really thinks that this is being driven by technology, that they're looking to create longer range missiles because that's what powerful rising countries do and great powers do.

And India has accomplished quite a bit with its nuclear program that it's been the first to do so outside of the P5 countries. And I think there is a degree of pride in that technologically, and they're looking to push forward in that way too.

Jeffrey 13:26

Yeah, not to mock the Indians for this. I mean, after all, they would be unusual if they weren't a case of a country going crazy for the technology and then figuring out what to do with it. I mean, I actually think that's probably the more typical scenario is whether it's the U.S. or the Russians or the Chinese.

I mean, all of these countries have been really enthusiastic about technologies, and then they go ahead and figure out what they're for. How long? I mean, I think it's interesting that the given range of the five is 5000 kilometers. And as you say, then there's this six on the drawing board with a range of 6000 kilometers. I mean, it's a really it's like a two diameter, a two meter diameter missile.

So it's a pretty big solid fueled missile. But do you have a sense of what the relationship between the range and the payload is like?

Ankit 14:17

Again, I have a theory, right? So what you hear is that it's a 1.5 ton payload, which is big. We can talk a bit about the kinds of nuclear weapons, you know, payloads that India is delivering on this thing are potentially going to be. It's not MIRVed as far as we know. Could it be MIRVed? Yes. But India obviously has serious kind of political considerations to think over before it decides to MIRV a missile.

The Pakistanis MIRVed a missile last year. They tested the Ababil, which is an MRBM with a MIRV capability. So, yeah, 5,000 kilometers is a weird range. It leaves this as a near ICBM. It's one of those IRBMs at the top range. You need 5,500 to be considered an ICBM, although that's kind of the old, you know, the U.S.-Soviet-Russian model.

I guess India could technically decide to call this an ICBM if they wanted to. But they don't. And like I said, NASA considers this to be an intermediate range ballistic missile. So 5,000, I think, is assuming that they're going to use a 1.5 ton payload with this. But they could go lighter. And India is also potentially looking into having a future-proof capability for penetration aids.

There will probably be a lot of room in the fairing to add those if and when they do decide to do that, if Chinese missile defenses Evolve to a place where that would be a serious concern for India. But right now, I think, you know, the relationship is that for 1.5 tons, the Agni 5 is a 5,000 kilometer missile.

Jeffrey 15:43

Yeah. So I'm curious about all that payload. I mean, do you think that that's because Indian nuclear weapons are just extremely heavy?

Ankit 15:52

It could be.

Jeffrey 15:54

I mean, you know, that's a lot of throw weight. It's a lot of throw weight.

Ankit 15:58

It is a lot of throwaway. And the first thing it makes me think of is MIRVs, just because that is a thing that countries do when they feel comfortable with big missiles. And I think in the Indian case, it's a really interesting question of will they or won't they. I'm leaning towards, you know, they're probably not going to do it anytime soon, and maybe part of the secrecy is associated with that, if they are planning on doing it, to possible reason.

But, you know, India's physical nuclear devices... The size of those, I think that's a good question, right? I mean, the early generation Agnis and the Prithvis are fairly small. I think half a ton payloads on many of those missiles. And now we're up to 1.5 on the Agni 5. So it does raise the question of what kind of nuclear payloads are we going to see on this?

Are we going to see something... Our frequency is seriously boosted device potentially. And, you know, there are some questions about what India did test in 1998 and the extent to which Indian capabilities have, you know, evolved since then. So I guess, you know, what are what are your thoughts about what the Indians are looking to put on this?

Jeffrey 17:13

Well, I mean, I I am always I'm always a little bit stuck. Because, as you say, we don't really know where the Indians were in terms of their development. After that 1998 test. I have seen the claims of different Indian experts about whether or not the tests were successful. I tend to take the simplistic American view that the size of the seismic signal doesn't really add up to what they claimed.

And I have seen some of the scientists who admittedly have an agenda, they're pressing for more tests, have strongly implied that the thermonuclear weapon did not work. Which wouldn't, by the way, be all that surprising. Like lots of countries have problems early on with testing. And so it may be that they aren't super confident in their thermonuclear weapon design.

And so maybe that makes it larger. You know, do you know the National Academy's report on the CTBT?

Ankit 18:29

Not off the top of my head.

Jeffrey 18:30

In 2002, there's another one from later, but it's not nearly as detailed as the one in 2002, which has a little bit of a hint on where the Indians and the Pakistanis are. It strongly implies that Well, the way the report is organized is it says what countries could do without a CTBT, what they could do respecting a CTBT, and what they could do trying to cheat.

And so with no CTBT, the phrase that was used in 2002 was perfect and modify their fission bombs and develop thermonuclear weapons, which strongly implies to me that the U.S. felt that the nuclear test was not successful. Because it says, with a resumption of testing, India could refine its plutonium-efficient weapon. It could also master a thermonuclear weapon design with a size and mass compatible with delivery by its missiles.

So I have always assumed that to mean that they didn't think they had that. And then it says, if they were to strictly respect the CTBT, India could reproduce and stockpile the fission weapon it has already tested. It could also pursue a program of hydrodynamic and other subcritical testing to improve its understanding of plutonium properties and other aspects of weapon physics that are accessible short of criticality.

Substantial doubt has been expressed about the validity of Indian claims to have tested a true thermonuclear weapon, and essentially no progress could be made towards stockpiling such weapons without violating a CTBT. So they seem to very strongly think that the weapon didn't work, and then unless India tested, they would have no confidence in the thing.

Ankit 20:20

Yeah, that sounds right to me.

Jeffrey 20:21

But if that's true, then that's an enormous amount of throw weight for what essentially would be a pretty small, I think, fission weapon. And maybe the Indians are overconfident, you know, or maybe this report is maybe it underestimates the Indians. And so maybe they did a whole bunch of computer tests and they thought, nah, screw it, we feel good.

Ankit 20:42

Maybe. I mean, those are all possibilities. There's, again, I mean, you know, I think we can have an interesting talk about some of the doctrinal stuff that's going on with India. You know, Vipin Narang threw up a whole storm last year when he did a very close reading of the former Indian National Security Advisor's memoirs, which very strongly implied that even with no first use in place, the Indians were considering seriously pursuing counterforce capabilities.

And you look at the entire Indian force structure and you see some evidence of that, right? I mean, you have, you know, hyper-precise systems like the Brahmos, which are nuclear capable, that would, you know, be ideal for sort of counterforce targeting against Pakistan. And I guess, how does the Agni 5 potentially fit into that? I mean, I think it would help maybe make that case for Mervs.

We also have this sort of, again, I don't know what to make of this because the joint doctrine last year was such a mess. But the Agni 5 statement I thought was interesting, the press statement that they put out. It was the second, I believe, significant Indian statement within 18 months to use the phrase credible deterrence instead of credible minimum deterrence, which has been India's longstanding posture.

They are pursuing a credible minimum deterrent. So the Agni 5 statement didn't include that. The joint doctrine didn't include that either. But there's this really interesting thing that happened with the joint doctrine where they actually published it on the internet. The Pakistanis then, in summer of 2017, test the Nasser, which is their low-yield nuclear rocket artillery system to stop Indian forces in their tracks in a future conflict.

So they test the Nasser. They extend the Nasser's range by 10 kilometers, so 60 to 70 kilometer range. And then the Pakistanis put out a statement saying that now they are bolstering their credible deterrent with the Nasser instead of saying credible minimum deterrent. And then the Indians take down the PDF of the joint doctrine and they republish it without any note.

And it's just only like a few nerds on Twitter who read this stuff closely notice that they've now published a version that includes credible minimum deterrents. And then you have the Agni V statement, which comes out after all of that, and we're back to credible deterrence. So I don't know if any of this really implies that, you know, the Indians are sort of leaving a little bit of wiggle room to potentially merv up in the future.

But there is evidence that I think, you know, there is serious thinking happening. And certainly within the defense bureaucracy at DRDO, within the Strategic Forces Command, you know, people would be derelict in their duty if they didn't seriously think through some of these things. Targeting possibilities and options, despite sort of India's tricky political and diplomatic posture when it comes to its nuclear forces?

Jeffrey 23:11

When Vipin got in so much trouble... One of the things he pointed to, maybe not in the event where he got into trouble, but certainly in conversations I've had with him, is to the cabinet decision in which India articulated its nuclear doctrine. And it's a little bit in this way like the old American approach to calculated ambiguity, which actually wasn't ambiguous.

It was just mutually exclusive statements. And that document sort of does the same thing, right? It says India has a, has a no first use policy. And so it would only retaliate with nuclear weapons against a nuclear attack. And then it goes ahead and says, but if somebody attacked us with chemical or biological weapons, we'd reserve the right to retaliate, which is like, you could believe one of these things, right?

But not both of them. And so my question, which I don't understand really as an outsider is And for those of you who study this, is it maybe more clear to you, is it that there are contending visions of where people want India's nuclear forces to go and they're therefore expressing themselves in this way? Or is it that there are Just competing pressures, and so maybe there's a general sense of where people want to go, but they're trying to find different ways to express that.

Other voice 24:36

I can't really tell.

Jeffrey 24:37

Is it that they're riven by politics, or is it that they don't know how to get where they want to go?

Ankit 24:43

I think there is a lot of intra-bureaucratic politics that goes on with a lot of this stuff. I mean, the stuff you'll hear in sort of track two interactions with various people on the You know, either side of the divide. If you talk to people in the Ministry of External Affairs, they'll tell you one thing. And if you talk to people who are wearing the uniform in India, you'll certainly hear another thing.

And, you know, so Shiv Shankar Menon, the former National Security Advisor, whose memoirs that Vipin made, you know, this whole big deal of, I mean, effectively, I think, you know, that interpretation stands pretty clearly. And the way he phrases it in the book, I don't have the excerpt in front of me right now, but it strongly implies that this is sort of Ongoing debate.

And it's unclear where, you know, the buck has effectively gone to. I mean, has this been something that has some level of political sanction at the level of the prime minister's office? Or is this something that is a proposal that is to be mooted in the future and maybe the next five years? Is this something that's on sort of the decision making plate right now as Pakistan sort of inducts all of these new systems?

I mean, I think, you know, we have been talking about China a lot, but a lot of these developments, especially counterforce targeting, I think, So that discussion, I think, is mainly happening in terms of Pakistan, right? So Pakistan not only tested this new MIRV-capable MRBM last year, but they also tested a new Slicum, the Bobber III, launched off their Augusta 90B submarines, potentially.

Their new Yuan-class Chinese submarines that they'll be importing at some point in the future, eight of those. So that gives the Pakistanis a relatively secure second-strike capability, increases their survivability, sort of lessens the stability problems on land with the Nasser, where a lot of people have worried about these kind of use-it-or-lose-it incentives with these low-yield systems that would potentially be in a crisis pre-delegated to Pakistan.

So a lot of this stuff is going on, and a lot of the Indian discussion, I feel like, is kind of in this soul-searching mode of how do we responsibly react to these developments in the Pakistani program while not squandering kind of all the post-1998 reputation building that's been going on and sort of India's ongoing project. So I have one of these questions that gets me in trouble.

Jeffrey 27:14

And I'm curious as to how people in India see it or Indian strategic thinkers see it. And so, I mean, to the extent that you talk to these folks or interact with these folks, you can be my ambassador. I don't... Maybe... Well, I guess I'm presuming... Do Indian strategic thinkers think that India's decision to pursue nuclear weapons spurred Pakistan to do the same, or do they think that Pakistan would have done it One way or the other, because it actually seems to me like wherever India ends up in this nuclear deterrent relationship, it's worse off than if they were just facing off conventionally, because India's power would be magnified.

And I'm always kind of curious about when the bigger, more powerful state initiates an arms race that actually ends up narrowing the gap. So... How do they look at that dynamic? I mean, I would think like, ah, you guys really made yourself worse off. But would they would they feel?

Ankit 28:19

No, I mean, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, this would this would get you in trouble, actually, Jeffrey. You know, I mean, when it when it comes to sort of the the mythos of the Indian. I'm talking to you. Yeah, no, exactly. I'm not going to rake you over the coals. No, I mean, if you talk about this sort of idea of why India's nuclear program exists, I mean, it is very much around this idea that the Pakistanis likely went first and likely would have done this anyways.

India simply had to be there and had to be pursuing this capability in its own way. So there is this idea of, you know, obviously India has massive conventional superiority and it demonstrated that it never lost a conventional war to Pakistan. It came to a stalemate in 1965, but it never actually lost outright and did pursuing nuclear weapons, did deciding to test in 1998 sort of perpetually happen.

Disadvantage India. And now sort of the 21st century has really hit that home with Pakistan's stockpile growing the way it is, their force structure evolving the way it is. And I think very much there is this idea in India that India simply had to do this. And the only way that it can really manage this deterrent relationship with Pakistan is by retaining a degree of nimbleness.

And you see that with India's investments into things like ballistic missile defense. They're Pursuing that without regard for necessarily how the Pakistanis are pursuing it, are perceiving it. And, you know, a lot of this, I think, is sort of attributable to this idea of the rationale behind India's nuclear program and breakout.

Jeffrey 29:52

Do I remember correctly that in the 1980s, some Indian military officers were not crazy about the development of nuclear weapons, precisely because they feared this particular outcome? Or is that just me? Yeah, there were probably. Hazily remembering. For some reason, I think it must be in George Perkovich's book.

Ankit 30:11

Oh, probably. Yeah, I can't speak authoritatively to that, but it really wouldn't surprise me if there were some who, you know, I mean, the Indian Army does have a very proud sort of conventional warrior culture, at least in the pre-nuclear age. So it wouldn't surprise me if there were strategists at the time who recognized the conventional advantage and worried about How it might erode with nuclear weapons in the equation.

Jeffrey 30:33

I'm going to close by asking you about two open source puzzles. Cool. So, as you mentioned, the Agni 4 is apparently rail mobile. And I saw in the statement that the Agni 5 might end up being rail mobile. How are we going to find these trains?

Ankit 30:54

That's a good question. Because I'm going to look.

Jeffrey 30:58

I presume you're going to look with me.

Ankit 31:00

Yeah, I'm totally down to look. I haven't seen any. I mean, I've seen the photographs showing one of these launchers on sort of, I believe, what is some sort of rail configuration to, you know, in a testing configuration. India does have an extensive railway network, the world's densest, in fact, I think. The Indian railways are formidable in that sense.

So India is actually one of those countries where rail mobility is something that I think makes quite a bit of sense. And they haven't done it earlier for who knows what reason. I think road mobility was simply the lower hanging fruit in many ways. And they have gone all in with sort of road mobility on land. There are no silo-based systems.

They clearly feel that this is the best way to retain flexibility and survivability with canisterized solid systems. But no, I mean, I don't have any tips with me right now on how to start looking for these systems, but I bet it is something that we will hopefully learn a bit more about in the open source.

Jeffrey 32:02

You know, rail mobility is one of these things that I just... I love because I think trains are cool, but also it seems like it makes so much sense for so many countries and like almost no one ever does it. You know, the Soviets did it and then they quit and they may or may not do it again as the Russians.

The Chinese looked at it and then decided they weren't going to do it. The U.S. thought about doing it. We decided we're not going to do it. You know, like why? I don't know why countries don't do it more. And, you know, my like crazy wonder is why the heck the North Koreans don't do it. But here we are.

All right, so we have to come up with a plan for trying to figure out where the Indian rail mobile launchers will be when they deploy, huh?

Ankit 32:45

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Jeffrey 32:47

Okay. And then the other one is the submarine that had such a terrible problem. So what happened there?

Ankit 32:58

So we have a few reports. Notably, The Hindu, I believe, was the first newspaper to pick up on this. And effectively, India's first SSBN, the Arihant, the lead ship of the Arihant class, is kaput. And it was kaput for 10 months before the National Command Authority found out. And the way they found out wasn't particularly reassuring. So India and China were locked in the standoff last year over...

This piece of territory in the Himalayas called Doklam, it was a pretty bitter standoff. It's still sort of ongoing at a low simmer, but nowhere nearly as bad as it was last summer. So reportedly at some point, presumably the prime minister's office issues an order to ready the sea-based leg. And the Arihant is sort of a test, not a test bed, but it is sort of a training unit.

India doesn't have experience with operating nuclear submarines for particularly a long time. They've leased this Soviet Akula II class aircraft. Submarine INS Chakra, but this is something very new for India. It's not easy to run an SSBN. The Indians have had some misfortune with submarines in general. So the National Command Authority asks the SSBN to be sent out potentially for some kind of deterrent patrol, and they find out that it's in port, and it has reportedly been forced Flooded due to human error so that's not very reassuring and they haven't said anything i mean if you thought the secrecy around the agni program was bad i mean the ari hunt is something they didn't announce when it was actually commissioned this is something that we hardly hear anything about from official sources so who knows what's wrong with the ari hunt but something's wrong it's it's stuck in port presumably due to human error

Jeffrey 34:39

That's crazy.

Ankit 34:40

It is nuts. I mean, I don't know what that tells us about India's, you know, the wisdom of pursuing an SSB on force. I mean, it wasn't out of the blue. I mean, this has been something that India's thought about for a long time. But it is this—it's a $3 billion program, and it's sort of the crown jewel of India's sort of indigenous nuclear— I mean, India is pursuing a triad for reasons that countries pursue triads, prestige being a big one in the case of the Arihant program, I think.

But it's just it's mind boggling. I mean, especially the way the prime minister's office finds out that their sort of cherished second strike asset is not functional. I mean, that's the worst way you can find out that.

Jeffrey 35:23

When you ask it to go on a deterrent patrol and do its job. Right.

Ankit 35:27

Yeah. So, I mean, I assume that heads are going to roll if this is really human error. And I've heard some, you know, people who know more about submarines than I do have some theories about how something like this could happen.

Jeffrey 35:39

None of them are pretty. I mean, my next question was going to be, do we believe that particular story? I mean, you know, if you have a situation where... There's been a lie of omission, right, where there was an effort to cover up that there had been any accident at all, then I don't know that I would have any confidence that the claim about what the nature of the accident was would be any more truthful.

So do we... I mean, I don't know. Leaving a hatch open seems like a little... I mean, you know, human beings are dumb and do dumb things, and so maybe the dumb answer is the easiest answer, but...

Ankit 36:18

Do we believe that? Well, so here's the thing. I mean, you know, people say that, you know, most modern submarines designed by anybody with, you know, more than a few brain cells will have some sort of indicator to tell you that a hatch is open before you conduct a dive. So you don't do that. And I'm certain that the Arihant class at least would have some sort of safeguard built in there.

But then the question that really worries me, and this is where things start getting dark, is if this explanation that's been given to the press is already so bad, and if it's not the truth, I mean, what is the real explanation that is worse than this that people aren't willing to share? And that's where my mind kind of wanders to darker places.

I mean, is something wrong with... The reactor itself, the propulsion systems. I mean, there are a whole host of things that could go wrong with the Arihant that would keep it out of service for that long. So I think there is more to this story. We may never know. The state of sort of defense reporting in India is getting to the point where most good journalists that can get something out of this system are Either going to have something highly vetted and scrubbed by the government or nothing at all.

So, you know, I really do wonder what happened here. And I don't think the answer we'll get is going to be either satisfying or really, I mean, that plausible. I mean, yes, there are a few holes with the story. So here's hoping we'll find out.

Jeffrey 37:39

I think to me it ends up being one of the more really interesting cases, and maybe we should give it more open source attention, because whether it's the piece that I was initially interested in, which is there are claims of a thermonuclear weapon, but then... You know, maybe it doesn't actually work too well. They have the submarine and oh, well, actually, did we mention it?

You know, it doesn't have the ability to go out of port. There is a real lack of transparency around these capabilities and at least some hint that when you peek under the hood, sometimes you find some interesting things. So maybe we will turn our tender attentions to the Indian nuclear program.

Ankit 38:19

Yeah, yeah.

Jeffrey 38:21

Oh, well, this has been really fun.

Ankit 38:24

Yeah, thanks for having me back. Always a pleasure to do the Arms Control Wonk podcast.

Jeffrey 38:28

Yeah, great. Hey, hey, Ankit. Hey.

[Sponsor message]

Hey, Scott.

Other voice 39:04

How are things going over there on the Slack channel? Things are great as always. The community had a lot of fun tracking down Aaron and revealing where he is on vacation down to the individual ski run and meter.

Jeffrey 39:15

It was his fault. He's the one who dared us to geolocate him on Twitter. Oh, yeah. He taunted us to find him. Come on, man. He did. He did. And, you know, this is like waving a big red flag at the... 400 pound charging is probably bulls are probably more than 400 pounds. That's a very small bull.

The big charging OSINT bull. That is the arms control wonk podcast slack channel.

Other voice 39:42

And if you would like to be part of this tortured metaphor, then for $5 a month and $3, if you are a student, you can come join us at the slack channel, support the podcast over at patrion.com slash ACW podcast. Again, that's patrion.com slash ACW. DCW podcast. Ankit, thanks again for joining us.

Ankit 40:03

Thanks a lot, Jeffrey. This was a lot of fun.

Other voice 40:05

And thank you for listening.