MISSILE proliferation in South Asia involves India and Pakistan, each with their own unique objectives and military doctrines.

Despite New Delhi and Islamabad’s transparency about their missile inventory potential, a few analysts have misread their intentions and military doctrines, especially regarding missile capabilities. This misinterpretation adds a layer of complexity to the situation, making it crucial for our audience to be well-informed about the realities of missile proliferation in South Asia. Ironically, a few reputed American security analysts, who were part of the Biden Administration, have speciously published on Pakistan’s missile potential and masked the repercussions of India’s development of sophisticated missiles, including intercontinental ballistic missiles. They opined that Pakistan is developing long-range ballistic missile capabilities that could eventually allow it to strike targets outside of South Asia, including in the United States.

Recently, Vipin Narang (US Principal Deputy and then Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy in Biden Administration) and Pranay Vaddi (Senior Director for Arms Control, Disarmament and Nonproliferation at the National Security Council in Biden Administration) published an article titled: “How to Survive the New Nuclear Age,” in Foreign Affairs (July/August 2025) in which they wrote “Yet another threat comes from Pakistan. Although Pakistan claims its nuclear program is strictly focused on deterring India, which enjoys conventional military superiority, US intelligence agencies have concluded that the Pakistani military is developing an ICBM that could reach the........

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