The Indian test of a rail-based Agni-Prime missile, on 24 September 2025, was likely another attempt to undermine the deterrence stability of South Asia. The test was reportedly conducted in a fully operational environment, enhancing India’s commitment to its rapidly growing missile technology program. The project has been recently launched by India, but it is less likely to be considered a technological advancement; rather, it’s more of an illusion of strategic hegemony in the South Asian region. Rail-based platforms are not new. During the Cold War era before 1991, the Russian RT-23 Molodets were produced by the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau. It was also a railway car-based variant and was designed to increase the survivability of the weapon. However, the RT-23 Molodets (SS-24 Scalpel), the rail-based Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), was soon abandoned as an unsustainable and inefficient platform despite its initial promise of survivability through mobility. In contrast to the Russian experience with the rail-based missile platforms, India is bent on destabilizing the region through its aggressive and pre-emptive actions, as witnessed in the May 2025 conflict. The development of the rail-based mobile launcher system is an another attempt to threaten Pakistan and the neighbouring countries and set the grounds to ignite an arms race in the region. This trajectory of Indian aggression has been named as “new normal”; however, when faced with the test, it miserably nosedived. By diversifying the delivery platforms, India seeks escalation dominance and aims to enhance the survivability of its nuclear forces through advanced missile development and deployment. However, such an offensive approach undermines deterrence stability in South Asia by lowering nuclear thresholds and reinforce India’s aggressive doctrines.
As Scott Sagan has warned in his book, “The Limits of Safety”, that abrupt and unnecessary military modernization often leads to accidental escalation. New Delhi continues to institutionalize escalation as a structural feature of the South Asian security dynamics, instead of working for peace and stability in the region.
In terms of operational efficacy, the Agni-Prime rail launcher is entangled with its own vulnerabilities. Far from the rail-based launchers itself, Agni-Prime lacks an adequate command & control setup, communication system, and crew maintenance cars, as revealed by the launch video released by the Indian Ministry of Defence. Furthermore, unlike the road-based missile delivery platforms, rail-based launchers have predictable tracks, which are mapped, limited, and observable via satellite reconnaissance and Unmanned Aeria Vehicle (UAV) surveillance, which raises a serious question about their effectiveness in actual combat. Although, Pakistan lacks adequate surveillance satellite coverage, yet a tactical attack, whether through sabotage, cyber interference, or any precision strike, on Indian railway tracks could easily evade the entire Indian rail-based missile launcher system.
Secondly, dependence on civilian rail infrastructure introduces logistical bottlenecks and visibility issues, undermining India’s claims of “reduced detectability.” Thirdly, to deploy a successful rail-based mobile launcher system, India will need to have fully operational communication systems to ensure positive control for multiple missiles travelling on multiple trains. And lastly, moving these trains in densely populated areas with 17.78% of the world’s population, will definitely pose significant logistical and infrastructural challenges along with stressing the Command and Control system.
In my opinion, India’s test of these missiles is less innovative and more imitative. The two major powers i.e., the United States and the Soviet Union, have experimented with the rail-based ICBMs (e.g., the Soviet RT-23 Molodets), but sooner or later they abandoned their programs realizing that these were impractical, vulnerable, and excessively costly. They both ultimately shifted to other options. The US opted for hardened silos and submarine-based deterrence, while the former Soviet Union repositioned itself away from rail-based mobile launcher system, due to advancements in the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) technologies. Furthermore, if India tries to replicate the Soviet model it should reconsider all the factors that make Indo-Pak rivalry different from the US-Soviet rivalry. The difference mainly arises from geographical proximity, contemporary surveillance technology, and the absence of the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), which existed during the Cold War. By reviving this archaic system, India risks diverting resources into a system whose military value is minimal while the destabilizing effects are substantial.
Statements by Indian leaders from the Bharatiya Janata Party, like Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, have boasted that the successful test of Agni-Prime India is now among “the group of select nations” with rail-based canisterized missile launch systems. This statement is less of a technical assessment and more of a strategic signal for Pakistan and China. Even previously, in 2017 Vipin Narang stated that India has increasingly adopted a “schizophrenic” nuclear posture. This posture includes assured retaliation along with the tendency toward counterforce strikes. Doctrinally, India’s commitment to No-First-Use posture is questionable. The acquisition of canisterized, rail-based missile launcher systems clearly demonstrates India’s readiness to engage in counter-force strikes, something India is increasingly predisposed to, as evident in the May 2025 conflict as well. These offensive doctrines feed into the myth of escalation dominance, potentially emboldening India’s limited war doctrines like Cold Start while pressuring Pakistan to respond in kind.
To sum up, India’s Agni-Prime rail-based missile launcher system is more “trivial than substantive”. It is indeed an expensive, outdated, and strategically redundant program, basically a reflection of Kenneth Waltz’s warning in his book, “The Spread of Nuclear Weapons” where he claims that states often go for complex programs which increase instability and have no link to operational logic. Agni-Prime is a reflection of India’s hegemonic ambitions and psychological inclination toward escalation dominance that may be the actual cause of concern for the international community. Pakistan’s rational response lies in leveraging diplomatic, strategic, and scholarly forums to exhibit how such unwanted escalatory measures could potentially undermine nuclear restraint, confidence building measures, and the possibility of peace and stability in the region and beyond.
