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30-08-2025
Bureau Report + Agencies
ISLAMABAD/ NEW DELHI: India on August 20 announced that it had successfully test-fired Agni-V, its intermediate-range ballistic missile, from a test range in Odisha on its eastern Bay of Bengal coast.
The Agni-V, meaning “fire” in Sanskrit, is 17.5 metres long, weighs 50,000kg, and can carry more than 1,000kg of nuclear or conventional payload. Capable of travelling more than 5,000km at hypersonic speeds of nearly 30,000km per hour, it is among the fastest ballistic missiles in the world.
The Agni test came exactly a week after Pakistan announced the formation of a new Army Rocket Force Command (ARFC), aimed, say experts, at plugging holes in its defensive posture exposed by India during the four-day conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbors in May but experts say the latest Indian test might be a message less for Pakistan and more for another neighbor that New Delhi is cautiously warming up to again: China.
The Agni’s range puts most of Asia, including China’s northern regions, and parts of Europe within reach. This was the missile’s 10th test since 2012 and its first since March last year, but its timing, say analysts, was significant.
It came just ahead of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trip to China for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, amid a thaw in ties after years of tension over their disputed border that has been accelerated by United States President Donald Trump’s tariff war against India. On Wednesday, the US tariffs on Indian goods doubled to 50 percent amid tensions over New Delhi’s oil purchases from Russia.
Yet despite that shift in ties with Beijing, India continues to view China as its primary threat in the neighbourhood, say experts, underscoring the complex relationship between the world’s two most populous nations. And it’s at China that India’s development of medium and long-range missiles is primarily aimed, they say.
While India acknowledged losing an unspecified number of fighter jets during the May skirmish with Pakistan, it also inflicted significant damage on Pakistani military bases, particularly with its supersonic BrahMos cruise missiles.
The BrahMos, capable of carrying nuclear or conventional payloads of up to 300kg, has a range of about 500km. Its low altitude, terrain-hugging trajectory and blistering speed make it difficult to intercept, allowing it to penetrate Pakistani territory with relative ease.
Many experts argue that this context shows the Agni-V test is not directly linked to Pakistan’s announcement of the ARFC. Instead, they say, the test was likely a signal to China. Indian and Chinese troops were in an eyeball-to-eyeball standoff along their disputed Himalayan border for four years after a deadly clash in 2020, before Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Russia in October 2024 to begin a process of detente.
Modi’s visit to China for the SCO summit on Sunday will be his first to that country since 2018. In the past, India has often felt betrayed by overtures to China, which, it claims, have frequently been followed by aggression from Beijing along their border.
“India’s requirement for a long-range, but not intercontinental, missile is dictated by its threat perception of China,” Manpreet Sethi, a distinguished fellow at the New Delhi-based Centre for Air Power Studies, told media.
“Agni-V is a nuclear-capable ballistic missile of 5,000km range, which India has been developing as part of its nuclear deterrence capability against China. It has no relevance to Pakistan,” Sethi added.
Christopher Clary, assistant professor of political science at the University at Albany, agreed.
