India successfully tested another of its Agni-5, an intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead into China.
India’s Strategic Forces Command (SFC) launched the homegrown missile in August 2025 from a test range in the state of Odisha. India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) developed the Agni-5, which has a range of more than 5,000 kilometers, putting it well within reach of New Delhi’s Chinese and Pakistani neighbors, according to the Times of India newspaper.
The launch followed a 2024 test of an Agni-5 equipped for the first time with a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV), according to the Times of India. A MIRV allows a single missile to carry multiple nuclear warheads. Currently, the SFC has only single-warhead ballistic missiles, according to the newspaper, which said that India remains a few years away from having operational MIRVs.
“While the [August] 2025 test focused on standard configurations, it builds on these [MIRV] innovations, ensuring the system’s readiness for real-world scenarios,” wrote The National Interest, an online defense and foreign policy magazine.
One analyst suggested one such scenario could include a submarine-launched version of the three-stage Agni-5.
“With India working on different variants of Agni with multiple capabilities, this test was a technological demonstrator for India’s emerging submarine-launched ballistic missile capability,” Mansoor Ahmed, of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at Australian National University, told the Al Jazeera television news network in August 2025.
“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 New Delhi’s Centre for Air Power Studies, told Al Jazeera.
The DRDO is working on an upgraded variant of the Agni-5 that would have a range of up to 7,500 kilometers, according to the Times of India newspaper. Ballistic missiles are classified by their maximum range, according to a 2023 fact sheet from the Arms Control Association, which said only those that travel more than 5,500 kilometers are considered intercontinental ballistic missiles.
“India is playing catch-up as the People’s Liberation Army expands its arsenal and tensions continue to simmer along their disputed [Himalayan] border,” CNN said in an August 2025 report. China has some 600 nuclear warheads, while India has 180, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
The latest Agni-5 test was also conspicuous by its timing — coming just before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s September 2025 trip to China for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, according to Al Jazeera. “India has been developing [the missile] as part of its nuclear deterrence capability against China,” Sethi told Al Jazeera.