On March 11, 2024, an official announcement confirmed that India has successfully developed the Precision Guided Munition (PGM), a type of MIRV technology. India could apply this technology to multiple missiles in the Agni series, including the Agni-P. The Agni-P features advanced technology from the Agni-V, including cannisterised nuclear warheads that can be rapidly mated with the missile, enhancing its quick-launch capabilities. These technologies are critical to India’s first-strike potential because they would enable India to conduct precision strikes within an accuracy of 33 feet (10 meters) against military targets. These developments indicate a shift in India’s nuclear posture toward enhancing first-strike capabilities, reflecting a strategic pivot in its nuclear strategy for potential conflict scenarios, as per an analysis by Zohaib Altaf, Nimrah Javed of South Asian Voices, a Pakistani based publication.

The recent MIRV test confirmed that India’s Agni-V, a solid-fuelled intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), has borrowed technological capabilities developed for the civilian satellite SLV-3 that allows the missile to carry a higher payload. Through a cooperative partnership with the U.S.-funded National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), India improved its ICBM propulsion systems by using solid-fuel and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) technology. This technology showcases the strategic application of dual-use technologies developed from civilian space collaborations for defence purposes. This capability bolsters India’s nuclear deterrence posture by enabling more versatile and reliable missile systems, potentially contributing to strategic instability in the region by escalating arms competition.

The recently tested Agni-5 missile with Multiple Independently Targetable Re-Entry Vehicles technology, space and land surveillance systems enhanced by Artificial Intelligence, and increasingly sophisticated missile defence capabilities all have significant implications for the subcontinent.

AI-Enhanced Surveillance And Missile Defence Systems Sharpen Capabilities

India’s investments in space technology and AI integration marks a pivotal shift toward enhancing its military and defence capabilities. This move, characterized by ambitious satellite launches and sophisticated AI applications, is designed to sharpen intelligence, precision-strike capabilities, and missile defence systems.

Processing satellite data through AI will give India a clearer operational picture of strategic assets and military activities, facilitating more effective counterforce strategies and bolstering its missile defence architecture by employing advanced algorithms to analyse and interpret real-time data from multiple sensors and satellites. AI’s rapid data processing capabilities will improve India’s ability to identify and track targets, enabling quicker and more precise decision-making during offensive operations. Plans to augment satellites with AI will also improve the speed at which India can process the data, enabling real-time monitoring and information-sharing.

India has already taken clear steps toward realizing this capability. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) announced in December 2023 that it will launch 50 satellites within five years to enhance geo-intelligence capabilities, marking a significant step toward expanding India’s satellite fleet. The initiative aims to strengthen border surveillance and strategic security, specifically focusing on deploying AI-integrated Earth Observation (EO) satellites for superior reconnaissance capabilities. By 2026, the Indian Army plans to improve its communications infrastructure through the Geostationary Satellite (GSAT)-7B, enabling more effective network-centric warfare.

AI-augmented missile systems can simulate various offensive scenarios to optimize missile trajectories and strike plans, ensuring that India’s arsenal is used precisely, reducing the risk of striking the wrong target. At the same time, AI enhances missile defence using machine learning-augmented automatic target recognition (ATR) technology, which will improve target discrimination, tracking, and guidance systems; increase the speed and scope of loop-decision making by the defence system; and strengthen hypersonic missile defence resilience. This dual approach could significantly improve India’s first-strike precision.

In December 2023, the Indian Air Force (IAF) unveiled a new doctrine, called the “Space Vision 2047,” to boost its development of aerospace technology, which promises to improve strategic surveillance capabilities from space. The doctrine outlines plans to develop advanced space weather forecasting, space traffic management, precision navigation, timing systems, and robust intelligence, surveillance, and communication networks. The Defence Space Agency’s evolution into a Space Command, with ambitious plans to deploy over a hundred military satellites in the coming years, underscores India’s ambition to use advanced technology in its arsenal.

However, these ambitious plans face project delays and budget expansions, so how quickly and to what extent India can adapt these novel technologies remains an open question. In February 2023, the Defence Ministry informed the Rajya Sabha that India’s Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO) struggled to complete 23 of its 55 projects. A critical review from December 2023 highlighted systemic issues causing cost overruns and technological obsolescence. That India must also integrate systems purchased from various countries further escalates costs due to interoperability demands, and as a result, requires additional expenditure on integration, training, and maintenance. This complexity not only increases the financial burden, but also impacts the operational efficiency of the military’s modernization plans.

Advanced Technology’s Role In Increasing Risk

India’s MIRV-capable missiles, in combination with advanced space technology and AI-augmented missile systems, represent a transformative leap in its military capabilities. Therefore, it is important to consider how the use of advanced technology to improve India’s precision targeting and space and surveillance capabilities. By bolstering its offensive capabilities with advanced technology, India is developing the ability to precisely target and neutralize enemy military installations and assets pre-emptively, thereby strengthening its counterforce strategy, maintaining strategic stability, and managing an escalating conflict scenario.

These developments will likely create insecurity in especially Pakistan about the regional strategic balance. Assessing the impact of India’s technological advancements on the offense-defence balance, Pakistan may seek to augment its own defence capabilities (China is already equipped with such counter measures) to ensure effective deterrence remains intact. This might include accelerating development in missile technology, expanding nuclear capabilities, or enhancing other strategic defence systems to match India’s progress.

By deploying military and Earth Observation satellites, India improves its real-time data collection on the locations and movements of its adversaries nuclear and military assets, boosting its intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities. Enhanced surveillance capabilities could potentially reduce escalation risks by clarifying each one another's intentions. However, persistent mistrust and strategic uncertainties, particularly concerning India’s no-first-use policy, may negate these benefits as Pakistan might perceive India’s satellite deployments as threatening.

AI will likely improve the survivability of drone swarms against current missile defence systems, clearing the path to a disarming attack by disabling an adversary’s defences. This technological edge contributes to a qualitative shift in India’s military potential, which may prompt India's enemies to seek comparable advancements. Mutual technological parity could theoretically stabilize the region by diminishing uncertainties, while disparity might instead spark an arms race, intensifying regional tensions.

India’s improved targeting precision and situational awareness might lead it to seriously consider counterforce strategies, such as pre-emptive strikes on enemy nuclear weapons. Whether actual or perceived, improved missile defence and precision strike capabilities could exacerbate adversaries concern that India is preparing for counterforce strikes.

The use of AI and autonomous military systems by India introduces additional risks of miscalculation and accidental escalation, with rapid data processing possibly leading to premature actions in crisis situations.

Much of the discussion around India’s MIRV capabilities focuses on the technology’s ability to deliver more nuclear warheads simultaneously, increasing India’s offensive strike capacity. A less-often studied aspect is the shift toward precision and adaptability in India’s objectives for its militarized technology as recent advancements will augment India’s ability to deliver warheads with higher accuracy and adapt them to diverse strategic needs. For example, AI augmentation will allow a missile to correct its flight in real-time to adapt to unexpected information. In combination with acquiring the S-400 air defence system and potentially producing an indigenous missile defence system, these developments could potentially neutralize the enemies retaliatory options and prompt it to lower its nuclear threshold in conventional confrontations to counter its perceived strategic imbalance.

The use of AI and autonomous military systems by India introduces additional risks of miscalculation and accidental escalation, with rapid data processing possibly leading to premature actions in crisis situations. Broadly, these developments also have the potential to trigger an advanced technology arms race in South Asia.

(With Inputs From SAV)