India
oi-Deepika S
New Delhi, Oct 14: INS Arihant, India’s strategic strike submarine carried out successful launch of a ballistic missile on Friday, the defence ministry said.
The missile was tested to a predetermined range and it impacted the target area in the Bay of Bengal with high accuracy, validating all operational and technological parameters, it said.
“The successful user training launch of the SLBM (submarine launched ballistic missile) by INS Arihant is significant to prove crew competency and validate the SSBN programme, a key element of India’s nuclear deterrence capability,” the ministry said.
“A robust, survivable and assured retaliatory capability is in keeping with India’s policy to have ‘credible minimum deterrence’ that underpins its ‘No First Use’ commitment,” it said in a statement.
Launched in 2010, the Arihant is the first of a series of five indigenously constructed ballistic missile submarines (SSBN). The Indian SSBN is meant to form the third and most survivable leg of a troika of land, air and sea-based platforms enunciated by the Indian nuclear doctrine.
Deterrent patrol means a long and lonely vigil where the submarine sails submerged and undetectable for weeks on end with its load of nuclear weapons. It is meant to ‘deter’ an adversary from launching a first strike on the nation. Only four nations-the US, Russia, France and UK have SSBNs sailing on deterrent patrols. China has two SSBNs and is building three more but its submarines have never sailed on deterrent patrols.