India this week unveiled the maidan flight test of a new ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads, with an eye on its nuclear-armed neighbors China and India.
Only a handful of countries in the world possess this technology, which features MIRV technology, or "multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles" for the deployment of nuclear warheads. This makes the missile capable of of multiple attacks across different locations based on a single missile launch.
Named the Agni-5, which is Sanskrit for "fire", the intercontinental ballistic missile being touted as being able to reach targets more than 3,100 miles (or 5,000km) away.
The Wall Street Journal has observed of the significance that "this puts Beijing and its neighborhood within the direct target range of India’s Strategic Forces Command, the dedicated tri-services nuclear force under the direct control of the prime minister, said New Delhi-based defense analyst N.C. Bipindra."
But this also enables India to strike anywhere in its archrival Pakistan's territory, which New Delhi has fought no less than three wars with in the last century.
The nuclear watchdog Federation of American Scientists (FAS) has issued the following further details...
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