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In this special edition of Battle Cry, Gaurav Sawant discusses the strategic implications of India’s second successful K-4 submarine-launched ballistic missile test and why Pakistan is in panic.
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00:00Hello and welcome to a special edition of the Battlecry. I'm Gaurav Savan. On Battlecry,
00:17we talk about crybaby Pakistan. Ravalpindi is in tears over a missile test by India.
00:22And truly, this missile test is an absolute game-changer in this region. Not the first
00:30missile test by India, but Pakistan is in panic. The second successful test of India's K-4
00:38submarine-launched ballistic missile has resulted in tremors across the border in Pakistan. And
00:45Brigadier Zaheer Kazmi, who's the arms control advisor at the Strategic Plans Division of Pakistan's
00:50National Command Authority, he's conceded that India's successful missile test is a massive
00:57boost to India's sea-based triad. The Strategic Plans Division of the Pakistan's National Command
01:04Authority, incidentally, is in charge of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. So, Pakistan Army's
01:11Brigadier Kazmi took to social media platform X to express Pakistan's worst fears, worst nightmare
01:18coming true, saying, India's nuclear enterprise far exceeds regional needs. According to him,
01:24150 warheads, fizzle stocks for 138 to 213 more, Agni-5 intercontinental ballistic missile,
01:347,000-plus kilometers range, the upcoming Agni-6. This build-up, according to him, risks an arms race
01:41in the Indian Ocean region. Then he says, India plans six SSBNs and six SSNs by 2030s with the S-4
01:49class, 7,000-ton vessels like the Aridaman, nearing operations, the technical mosaic, the tech mosaic,
01:57Russian reactors, Akhula-derived quieting, the Thalassonars influencers, the Western court's guidance.
02:04Pakistan is in fear. Why? Because according to him, it creates a quasi-continuous at-sea deterrent,
02:13constant at-sea deterrent. It compresses centuries, not just for Pakistan, but according to him,
02:19also for China and beyond. Pakistan has clearly noticed what it claims is a doctrinal shift in
02:28India's stance during Operation Sindhur. So, this is what the Pakistani system says, from land and
02:34air operations during 2016 surgical strikes and 2019 Balakot airstrikes, to sea-led coercion in the
02:41Arabian Sea with the aircraft carrier battle group deployed with the Brahmo supersonic cruise missiles,
02:47armed destroyers, P-8Is, long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft, all indicators of a
02:52strike that still would be kept below the nuclear threshold. And Pakistan doesn't know how
02:58to react to this. Pakistan fears India's MIRVs, the hypersonic missiles, the ASATs,
03:05all of this indicate Pakistan has nothing, absolutely nothing, that can counter this.
03:11Even Pakistan's godfather China is closely monitoring these developments. India's massive
03:18boost to missile capabilities and Pakistan fears are increasing by the minute. We're not saying that,
03:23you're watching what Pakistanis are saying. So, before we listen in and before we move on,
03:28I want you to listen in to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Post-Operation Sindhur,
03:32where he clearly said that India has successfully called out Pakistan's nuclear bogey.
03:38also listening to fears in Pakistan after India's K-4 test.
03:47I believe that when I've heard this news, I've heard my tanks.
03:50What do you think about India is playing a game?
03:52Mr. Abbasid says that my new missile system is out of China and Pakistan.
04:00I believe that the missile system is over.
04:04It's a very slow.
04:06This is which that it is going to be a massive amount of 7,500 km per hour.
04:13This missile that they have to have to strike, you can see this too, too.
04:18The missile that they have to strike, they have to strike a certain amount of missile that has long range.
04:24So, no question has Pakistan.
04:25foreign
04:37foreign
04:45foreign
04:47foreign
04:53ॐ नुकलियर ब्लेक मैल की आड में पनप्रहे आतं की ठिकानों पर भारत सटीक और निर्ना एक प्रहार करेगा
05:06The third, we will not see the people's eyes and eyes of the people's eyes and eyes of the people's eyes.
05:26This fear is good in Pakistan.
05:29This fear and this panic tells you two things.
05:33Pakistan knows it's borne the brunt of Indian Army and Air Force during Operation Sindhur.
05:38But Pakistan is apprehensive about the capabilities of the Indian Navy.
05:42Let's talk more about the capabilities of the Indian Navy that Pakistan fears.
05:46And joining me on this Battle Cry special broadcast are three specialists who know the pitch and the role of naval modernization and Pakistan's fears.
05:54I want to welcome on this broadcast, Vice-Admiral Sanjay Mahindru, former Deputy Chief of Naval Staff and the first CEO of INS Arehant.
06:03And for close to a decade, Commodore Praveen Rajpal again is a former Submariner in Sandeep Unnitan, senior journalist, my colleague, who's been tracking developments so closely, especially on India's nuclear triad.
06:15Admiral Mahindru, welcome.
06:16Admiral Mahindru, your reading of Pakistan's panic over the KFO missile test from INS Areghat.
06:22Is Pakistan in panic, sir, because its entire sea denial doctrine actually falls flat with India's enhanced capabilities?
06:30Certainly, Gaurav, we set out with a very clear nuclear doctrine, which sets out a minimum credible deterrence and assured retaliation.
06:46Now, an assured deterrence, sea-based deterrence means a means of retaliation.
06:53Whatever the enemy may throw at you, we can absorb that and we will get back to the adversary with equal and punitive action.
07:02So, this development of the test of K4 has enhanced the range.
07:09We already had the capability in the B05 in the Arehant.
07:13The range was limited.
07:14Now, with the same capability, we have enhanced the reach.
07:17We have enhanced the range which the missile can reach.
07:21And therefore, all the targets that one would like to engage in Pakistan or in China are now within the missile firing range.
07:32That puts to rest all apprehensions that we had or the adversaries had saying that our sea-based deterrence, while proven as a concept, was not actually effective.
07:46Now, we are effective.
07:48And as we increase the number of submarines, and as you mentioned the gentleman from the other side of the border, we will be able to then achieve a continuous sea-based deterrence.
08:00So, once we have continuous ad-see deterrence, any sabre-rattling by anybody else to say that he will, you know, engage in weapons or threat, that we will be able to get back to him.
08:19And, I mean, that is the aim of deterrence.
08:21Oh, absolutely.
08:22We have created such a response.
08:23Absolutely.
08:24Sir, stay with me.
08:25Sandeep, the K4 tested of, you know, the test launch from INS Sarigat, this virtually is Brahmastra plus.
08:34Brahmastra, you could fire once.
08:36But this is Brahmastra plus.
08:38The K4 features a cold launch capability, advanced inertial navigation with Navix.
08:42So, nobody else from outside can stop this.
08:45It can maneuver.
08:46It can evade defenses.
08:48Is this Brahmastra plus the deterrence that would deter the state sponsor of radical Islamist terror, even expansionist forces from crossing India's Lakshman Rekha?
08:58Absolutely, Gaurav.
08:59And, you know, the K4 is a one-of-a-kind missile.
09:02In fact, there are very few photographs of it.
09:05Very few people have actually seen the missile.
09:07And the fact is that it gives India the ability to target both its adversaries from the Bay of Bengal.
09:13And that is the importance of the K4 missile.
09:16The earlier missile, which is the K15, also known as the B05, is a short-ranged missile.
09:22It's, again, a phenomenal missile.
09:24It maneuvers within the atmosphere.
09:26It is a ballistic missile with the characteristics of a cruise missile.
09:30It's almost, you know, there is very few missiles in that class.
09:33But that meant the short range of the missile meant that the firing platform, one of the Arihant class boats had to go closer to the adversaries coastline.
09:43But with a missile of this capability, this range, 3,500 kilometers, it means that you can fire the missiles from the Bay of Bengal.
09:53That's the goal of our strategic doctrine, which calls for targeting our adversaries from the safety of the Bay of Bengal,
10:00which means that you don't have to mount long deterrent patrols of the kind that you would have to with a shorter range missile.
10:07So the K4 is literally, you know, it's one of the most sophisticated nuclear-tipped missiles in India's arsenal.
10:14And this is a huge, huge capability that India has got.
10:18And Gaurav, very quickly, I must add that 2025 is a landmark year because we are being told that the fourth Arihant class boat,
10:26the S-4 star, has sailed out for sea trials.
10:29And that is a very big milestone that we've crossed because for the first time now,
10:34India has four ballistic missile submarines out at sea, two in service, two undergoing sea trials.
10:40That means that that project that began in 1998 with the Arihant being laid down, the steel was cut in 1998 in the year of the Pokhran tests.
10:5027 years later, all four submarines are in the water.
10:54And as Admiral Mahindru mentioned, we are very close to CASD, that is continuous at sea deterrent patrols.
11:02Oh, absolutely. Continuously at sea.
11:05You don't have to come back to shore for a very, very long time.
11:09Or one boat comes back, the other boat is already there.
11:11The submarine is already there.
11:13Commodore Rajpal, do Pakistan's fears indicate it has nothing, absolutely nothing to counter the threat that's lurking underwater?
11:23And a nuclear-powered submarine with the capability of striking over 3,500 kilometres away accurately would indicate,
11:31from anywhere the Indian Navy deems fit, the CAFO could deliver justice to Pakistan, should it even think of going nuclear?
11:40Yeah, Gaurav, absolutely what Admiral Mahindru said earlier or Mr. Sandeep Unitan said, I just agree to those things.
11:50In a sense that Brigadier Kazmi, being the advisor to the National Command Authority, probably I assume,
11:56as the highest authority there for the nuclear weapons, if he's rattled, I think we have managed to, you know, put the fear of death into their minds.
12:03He has a lot of reasons to worry about it now, in the sense that unless they commit a blunder, unless they improve their ways and methods and means,
12:13they are going to get it back at our time and our choosing, and from our own backyard.
12:20Now, with the CAFO operationalized, I mean, we had a test last year also and now, a few days ago when we tested it,
12:26I presume the missile is fully proven now and is operationalized to be put on the vessels, where it is meant to go.
12:33And once the vessel sails out of the eastern seaboard, nobody knows where it has gone and where it will strike from.
12:40So, both our adversaries, the one on the western coast and on the northern borders, have a lot to worry about it.
12:46Very interesting, you should mention that, sir, not just the adversary on the western side, but also on our northern borders.
12:53Admiral Mahindrao, would you see this as a game changer for India in the Indian Ocean region?
12:59Does Pakistan's fear stem from the fact that the range and accuracy means that India is second to none in Asia,
13:06not even to Pakistan's godfather, China?
13:09Absolutely, Gaurav. Two important things, like I mentioned, reach, and you mentioned the capability for enhanced inertial navigation.
13:20And like Sandeep mentioned, if we are able to launch and engage all possible targets from within the northern part of the Bay of Bengal,
13:31then our problem of reaching out, going into the South China Sea or going into the Arabian Sea is solved.
13:38We don't need to do that.
13:39So, now we've got a weapon which, if I move across to the Arabian Sea, I can engage many more targets, actually, many more.
13:48I mean, actually, the entire Pakistan gets covered from the Bay of Bengal itself.
13:53I really don't need to go anywhere more.
13:55And for that reason, this is a game changer.
13:59For that reason, it is a game changer, because the length of the patrol reduces drastically.
14:05You don't have to go all the way across to the Arabian Sea to commence your patrol.
14:12You get out of your harbour, find a convenient place, a deep water which is convenient to you,
14:18and you are there on patrol.
14:20Whatever the orders which come to the submarine from the Nuclear Command Authority can be, therefore, executed without any great fear.
14:29Now, for an adversary to come into the Bay of Bengal is going to be a challenge,
14:33because we are very strong there.
14:35We've got the Eastern Naval Command there.
14:37We've got our own submarines.
14:39We've got anti-submarine weapons, ships, platforms, everything.
14:44So, in a way, we are able to protect our assets and engage all the targets that we want to.
14:51So, in that way, certainly, I would endorse and agree that it is a game changer.
14:56And we are going to get better, because we will have greater range missiles now.
15:00Once you go into the next class of submarines, the range is only going to increase.
15:04This is what you call an intermediate range ballistic missile, which covers up to about 5,000 to 5,500 kilometres.
15:11But soon, we will be coming to the edge of that or even going beyond that.
15:15And so, the volume of game changing in this era or in this field has started, I think.
15:22In that way, also, it writes a new chapter in our sea-based data.
15:26Oh, absolutely. The moment you graduate from an IRBM to an ICBM, you just take it, you know, an intercontinental ballistic missile that you take altogether to a next level.
15:377,000 kilometres, maybe even more.
15:39There are some who talk about the 10,000-kilometre range.
15:42But Komodo Rajpal, there are some analysts in Pakistan, there are experts in Pakistan who are labelling the KFO test from INS Arigat as a red flag.
15:52Now, they claim it completely destabilises or at least risks destabilising the region by exceeding India's defensive needs.
16:00Sir, why do you think Pakistan is so rattled right now?
16:04Well, they have a reason to be rattled.
16:08They don't have a similar weapon system or a weapon delivery system.
16:13And they are ages away from getting such a thing.
16:15They are presently getting only a conventional submarine, some, I think, seven or eight of them from China.
16:20I'm sorry, four from China now.
16:22These are conventional boats.
16:23To deliver a weapon like what we have developed or our scientists, DRDO has developed, they need a proper vessel for it, which they do not have, nor are they anywhere close to getting it.
16:32So, obviously, they are rattled by it.
16:34And as I said earlier, unless they improve their, you know, ways and means of dealing with our country, they are going to get it.
16:41They are going to get it.
16:42But they worry they should have.
16:45But then we are, we have a very, you know, matured political and military leadership wherein with no first use doctrine that we follow.
16:52As Admiral also said, we will never be using it at the first instance.
16:58And we have called their bluff during the Op Sindhur also after the Pahl Gav, when they kept on sub-rattling.
17:03But then we call their bluff.
17:05But we never use the weapon.
17:06And we are not going to use it.
17:07We have a policy and we will follow that policy.
17:11Okay.
17:12Sandeep, India says, and by and large India has followed that very effectively.
17:18We have a stated no first use policy.
17:20But now Pakistan says there is strategic ambiguity that's coming in that.
17:25And these analysts in Pakistan also fear that our missile development is not just Pakistan-centric.
17:31According to them, maybe not even China-centric.
17:34India has bigger plans.
17:35Now, is that Pakistan's fear that it's trying to create this fear-mongering amongst the West?
17:41Is there a realization in Pakistan, especially post-Galwan in 2020 and Operation Sindhur, that India's modernization marks a paradigm shift in how we respond to expansionist forces in the region and to a state sponsor of radical Islamist terror.
17:57But others needn't fear India.
17:59Absolutely, Gaurav.
18:00You know, we are in a very dire predicament as in we share borders with two nuclear-armed countries which are in a collusive relationship to the West and to the North.
18:11And our entire focus of our entire deterrence nuclear deterrence is directed at these two countries.
18:17And there's nothing to believe that we have any other country that we want to, you know, deter with our nuclear weapons.
18:23The foundation of our nuclear weapons program right from the 1960s has been that very, very big shift in the entire Asia, which was China's nuclear test in 1964, just two years after the India-China border war.
18:38And that has basically been the entire focus of our attention.
18:42The nuclear weapons, the triad, was meant to deter China and Pakistan.
18:45And very quickly, Gaurav, you know, what we saw in Operation Sindhur is that while we are facing two fronts physically on the land borders, one to the West and one to the North,
18:54as experts have told us, during Operation Sindhur, those two fronts merged into one.
19:00Electronically, you're looking at a single front where Pakistan is getting live data feeds from Chinese satellites, Chinese radars, Chinese C4ISR assets.
19:11And that is dire, spells dire doom for India.
19:16If we were to look at even conventional nuclear deterrence vis-a-vis Pakistan, Pakistan could get a lot of, you know, feeds from satellites, Chinese satellites and all of that,
19:28which they could actually use against us.
19:31And this is why platforms like the Arihant class, the four submarines, are very important.
19:37You can track nuclear assets on the ground.
19:39You can track ground-based launchers or nuclear trains, but you cannot track an Arihant class submarine once it sails out from the eastern seaboard.
19:48It's invisible to everything.
19:50And that is what's planted the seed of, you know, fear in Pakistan, Gaurav.
19:56Admiral Mahindra, does the Chinese monitoring of the CAFO activities and concerns over escalation in the Indian Ocean region point to unease even in Beijing?
20:06What does the second launch of the CAFO from INS Arigat mean on the India-China maritime front in your appreciation, sir?
20:15So, China will also be watching and you are aware that they are deployed ships which are capable of monitoring such firings earlier during the month.
20:28And so, we had a little bit and then carried out the firing as we wanted.
20:34So, certainly, now they also know that a large part of China, almost up to Beijing, is now within the range of our sea-based deterrence as well.
20:44With Agni 5, we already had these targets in our range, but it's a totally different game when you have these targets within your sea-based deterrence.
20:55That means there is no way of tracking them.
20:57There is no way of carrying out a first strike on them because you don't know where they are.
21:02So, whatever happens, even if you take us totally by surprise, the sea-based deterrence will still strike you.
21:09So, certainly, China will also be watching it very carefully.
21:14This increase in range, like I mentioned, is a quantitative increase.
21:17It is almost a three to four times increase in range, and it will reset and make our nuclear deterrence, which we had set out to do when we did our nuclear tests in 1998 and we endorsed our doctorate in 2003.
21:34That is what we had set out to do.
21:36And in 2003 and 2026, we have finally established the triad in its completeness.
21:43That is what we have done.
21:44So, they will be concerned.
21:45The triad has been established in its completeness in 2025.
21:50That's a very strong message.
21:52And this perhaps explains why Pakistan is so rattled and why China is now apprehensive.
21:59Komodo Rajpal, when Pakistan says this could trigger an arms race in the region.
22:06My question is, Pakistan doesn't have money for two square meals a day for its people.
22:12Does this mean that Pakistan would be thinking or perhaps contemplating bartering more territory and sovereignty to China just to remain in the game?
22:20And while they may have got the most modern aircraft that China has and may still be getting the fifth generation aircraft.
22:27When it comes to sea power, that's where does India have an edge over Pakistan?
22:33I do not actually envisage Pakistan at least in the near future going in for such a weapon or the delivery systems.
22:43They do not have a wherewithal for it at the moment.
22:46I mean, with the government also being shaky, we really do not know who the prime minister or the president or what authority or what power do they have at the moment.
22:55I have a feeling that their budgets at the moment or the economy does not permit them to go in for such a thing.
23:02I mean, say for a country like us, we are, you know, a much far developed.
23:06I mean, I am not going to compare ourselves with Pakistan in any case.
23:09Not at all.
23:11It took us, you know, some 20 odd years to get to the stage with pumping in, you know, crores and crores of money.
23:17So Pakistan does not have this.
23:18So obviously they are rattled.
23:20Another thing I'd like to mention here is, you know, this is a famous quote from Admiral Raja Menon.
23:26He had very clearly envisaged this, you know, 20, 30 years ago in an interview when he had said that
23:32the location of a nuclear weapon, once known to the adversary, gives away the surprise.
23:38But with the weapon now, you know, on a submarine, the location is not known to the adversary.
23:45From where the submarine will be, where it will fire, what will be the target, it will never be known.
23:50So this is a major impact which Pakistan is worried about.
23:54And I don't think they are anyway in the next 20, 30, 40 years going to get close to where we stand today.
24:00Oh, that's very interesting.
24:02You're saying 20, 30, 40 years, you know, it'll take for Pakistan to come anywhere close, should it have the money.
24:08You know, because China will also help it thus far and no further.
24:12But Sandeep, when you read Pakistani analysts and experts say that there's a doctrinal shift, you know, post May 2025 conflict
24:21from the surgical strikes in 2016, which incidentally Pakistan denied then, but now is conceding happened to 2019 Balakot airstrikes to the sea led coercion as Pakistan sees this now.
24:35Navy is the fear of the unknown for Pakistan, especially given the history of 1971 and given how vulnerable and narrow Pakistan's coastline is.
24:45Absolutely, Gaurav. And you know, Pakistan suffers from the revenge of geography.
24:48The fact is that it is geographically challenged. It's in a cul-de-sac. The coastline is.
24:54And the fact is that the Indian Navy during Operation Sindhur, without firing a shot, it frightened the daylights out of the Pakistan Navy.
25:02And we've India today's OSINT desk has produced evidence of Pakistani warships literally fleeing and hiding in civilian births, dispersing and going to Gwadar.
25:11They literally fled the scene. They were nowhere to be seen.
25:14They mounted a single long range maritime patrol to pick up our Indian Navy assets.
25:21And the Indian Navy has actually today, Gaurav, with the BrahMos missiles, the kind of firepower advantage that we have, the Indian Navy has the ability at the flick of a button to convert Pakistan into a landlocked state.
25:36With the BrahMos salvos that it fires, Pakistan, which has a coastline of a thousand kilometers, becomes the Pakistan Navy becomes a force in being.
25:46Right. It's nowhere on the horizon. Pakistan becomes like any other Central Asian country without a coastline.
25:52It has a coastline theoretically, but it cannot use the coastline because the Indian Navy is so preponderantly there.
25:59It's there right at their doorstep. They can do nothing to alter that.
26:03Just as the kind of BrahMos missiles that we have, ground-based and air-launched BrahMos missiles, we have the ability to shut down all air traffic across Pakistan.
26:14I mean, that's a fact. We've displayed that during Operation Sindhu.
26:18There are Pakistani defense analysts who have said that they've called this India's new dynamic response strategy.
26:24Yes.
26:25Now, we just call it going up the escalation ladder and our planners are very nonchalant about it.
26:31But Pakistan understands, like, you know, for all the spinning that they do, Gaurav, all the, you know, narratives and, you know, headline management that they do, they know the fact.
26:43The substance on the ground, Gaurav, is BrahMos missiles which cannot be intercepted.
26:48There is nothing out there which can stop a missile screaming at three times the speed of sound, destroying air bases, airfields, radar sites, command posts.
26:57You know, Pakistan is literally, with the kind of military technology that we have and the political will to use it, it's like shooting fish in a barrel, Gaurav.
27:06Oh, absolutely. And now, you have BrahMos ka baap in the form of the K4.
27:11You know, if BrahMos went three times the speed of sound, you have the K4 that will go six times the speed of sound.
27:18And I mean, this is, of course, a missile of deterrence. It's not to be used.
27:23But Pakistan just knows that if India, if push comes to shove, then there will be no Pakistan should it misbehave with India beyond the point and even think of going nuclear.
27:35I want to thank all my guests, Admiral Mahindru and Komodo Rajpal and Sandeep for joining me.
27:41And this is completely in keeping line with the Indian civilizational philosophy, the Bhartiya philosophy and Sanskriti, where even Sri Ram said,
28:00You know, when the ocean didn't give way for Lord Ram to cross over into Sri Lanka to bring back Matar Sita, he then pulled out his bow and arrow.
28:08And the sea just came and stood in silence with arms folded, hands folded.
28:13And that is where Goswami Tulsidas in Ramcharat Manas says, there is no respect without fear.
28:21And it's very clear, India's enemies, India's adversaries must fear India.
28:27That is where respect comes from.
28:30That is all I have for you on this Battle Cry special broadcast.
28:33Have a wonderful 2026 and many thanks for watching.
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