India’s March 11 flight test of a MIRV-configured Agni-V, publicised as Mission Divyastra, is a clear technical milestone for New Delhi and a signal to regional competitors that India is accelerating strategic modernization. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and defence officials framed the test as the country joining a small group of states with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle capability.
What the test actually shows is targeted progress on the land leg of India’s deterrent. The Agni-V platform has been in development and under repeated trials for more than a decade. Demonstrating MIRV technology on a road-mobile, canistered missile matters for two reasons. First, it multiplies the number of targets a single launcher can threaten without a commensurate increase in missile production. Second, it complicates an adversary’s missile defence calculus because multiple reentry vehicles and accompanying decoys strain interception systems and targeting assessments. Observers including specialist analysts flagged the March launch as an important step toward operational MIRV capability even as they cautioned that further tests and integration work will be necessary before fielding is routine.
Does Mission Divyastra mean India has completed its nuclear triad? Not in any immediate operational sense. The triad consists of credible land, air and sea legs. India has long had the air leg in the form of dual capable aircraft and a matured land leg built around the Agni family. India’s entry into sea-based deterrence began with the commissioning of INS Arihant and subsequent patrols, milestones that provide a maritime leg in principle. But the operational maturity of that leg depends on a number of moving parts: reliable, long-range SLBMs, a sufficient number of SSBNs to sustain patrols, secure command and control, and production and mating of warheads for sea-launched systems. In short, having elements of a triad is different from having a fully reliable, survivable triad at scale.
Put simply, Agni-V MIRV improves the land-based punch and complicates an adversary’s defensive planning, but it does not substitute for the operational and force-structure work required at sea. India’s strategic community has been working for years to expand the submarine leg and to field longer-range SLBMs. Those programs remain the decisive enablers of a truly resilient second-strike posture from the maritime domain.
What does this mean for deterrence with respect to China? There are three linked effects. The first is geographical reach. An upgraded Agni family is explicitly intended to hold strategic targets at risk across Asia and beyond, which aligns force posture to the reality of a larger peer competitor. The second is technical asymmetry. MIRVed missiles allow a faster, compact expansion of retaliatory capacity without building many more launchers. The third is signal and escalation psychology. A visible leap in capability is a signal of resolve and technological maturity, but it also raises incentives for reciprocal modernization. Analysts and commentators have noted that Beijing’s own modernization and MIRV deployments are among the drivers of India’s decisions in this space.
Those dynamics matter because the region lacks deep, institutionalised strategic arms dialogue channels. A MIRV-capable Agni-V will therefore be read as both deterrent strengthening and as an input into broader regional calculations about force sizing and posture. From a long-term strategic perspective, the worst outcome for stability is uncoordinated capability growth combined with ambiguity about doctrine and alerting. The technical fact that MIRVing a missile can rapidly increase warhead delivery capacity makes this concern acute.
Policy implications for New Delhi and external partners are straightforward. For India the immediate tasks should be threefold: continue rigorous, transparent testing to establish operational reliability; ensure secure, redundant command, control and safety measures that make the no-first-use pledge credible in practice; and pace SLBM and SSBN investments so that the sea leg becomes demonstrably survivable rather than merely aspirational. For external partners, the test argues for renewed emphasis on strategic channels with India and on regional risk reduction measures, not only because India is expanding capability but because technical advances such as MIRVs alter crisis dynamics.
In short, Mission Divyastra is a significant technical and strategic step. It sharpens India’s deterrent and alters the calculations of missile defence and target saturation. It does not by itself complete a fully credible, continuously survivable triad. That work is organizational, industrial, and doctrinal, and it will take time. The responsible path for Indian strategy is to combine capability development with transparency and doctrine that reduces the risk of misperception, while investing in the sea-based assets and operational practices that will make the triad durable over the next decade.