India’s Tri-services Integrated Rocket Force

Policy Brief No. 126 | Brief by Debalina Ghoshal | Download Brief Here

India has sought to develop a tri-service command, Integrated Rocket Force (IRF), as a deterrent against the growing concerns posed by both China and Pakistan. This initiative reflects a strategic approach aimed at enhancing national security and regional stability. However, what makes this rocket force particularly unique is the emphasis on a dedicated establishment that will handle various conventional rocket and missile systems, with ranges tailored to specific operational needs. This structure marks a significant departure from the existing Strategic Forces Command (SFC), which is primarily responsible for overseeing nuclear strategic missile systems.

The IRF is set to comprise both ballistic and cruise missiles, thereby fortifying India’s deterrence capabilities. This dual approach not only strengthens the overall deterrence posture but also contributes to strategic stability in a region characterised by complex security dynamics. By distinguishing conventional missile forces from nuclear capabilities, the IRF allows for a more nuanced and flexible response to potential threats.

This brief will examine the advantages of maintaining a separate conventional missile force structure. It will explore how such a division enhances operational readiness, ensuring that conventional forces are prepared for immediate deployment if necessary. Additionally, from a deterrence perspective, a robust conventional missile arsenal can help dissuade potential aggressors while maintaining strategic balance in the region. This distinct separation of conventional and nuclear forces is crucial for the evolving security landscape, enabling India to navigate its defence challenges more effectively.

INTEGRATED ROCKET FORCE (IRF)

Strategic stability is a situation in a region in which there is the presence of myriad forms of weapon systems that could cause strategic destabilisation, and despite these weapons, the region continued to exist with minimal ‘security dilemma’. However, the correct strategic approaches that call for effective posturing and policy implementations would ensure that the region’s strategic stability is not jeopardised. A sophisticated group of weapon systems chained by credible and clear command and control provides strategic stability and enables making deterrence foolproof. All this while, India’s missile command and control was only credible, but now, with a separate conventional structure, the command and control would become clearer and more precise to adversaries. States possessing nuclear-capable missiles with nuclear weapons and also conventional missiles could destabilise strategic security if adversaries are unable to resolve the conventional-nuclear calculus.

Nevertheless, when separate forces are created to distinguish between conventional and nuclear assets, especially amid India’s focus on technologically advanced, capable missiles, adversaries are more secure in their minds regarding the deterrence signalling that a state wants to put across. In a normal situation of signalling, such distinctions may not matter, but in deterrence signalling, such distinctions are very important as the mechanisms to demarcate conventional and nuclear thresholds are clarified to adversaries. Separate command structures and weapon systems would strengthen strategic stability by lessening any scope for obfuscation regarding India’s assets to ensure conventional and nuclear thresholds. Maybe from China’s own missile drills of dual-capable missiles, in which China has sought to jeopardise strategic stability with its missile drills having to prepare for nuclear retaliation against dual-capable missiles, India is learning its lessons and probably wishes to avoid these menaces in real-time conflict scenarios.

India’s strategic and security compulsions coerce it to progress towards capabilities that could provide precision strikes, strengthening deterrence. New Delhi has already worked on its nuclear forces and is developing a nuclear force that is credible, laying less stress on quantitative developments and more focus on qualitative developments that focus on the survivability of the nuclear arsenals. However, one of the best means of survivability of nuclear forces is to focus on a credible conventional force that is capable of restricting the conflict to a conventional level with the amalgamation of credible missile systems that include ballistic and cruise missiles. These missiles, which vary in range from short-range to long-range capabilities, would provide New Delhi several choices to achieve decisive results.

With this logic, India’s conventional missile forces make sense as strike capabilities must be such that they are capable of evading enemy defence systems, and also capable of striking from stand-off ranges. In an era where dual-capable missiles could dominate the deterrent quotient, developing conventional missiles or even testing the same could lead to adversaries’ confusion. Hence, segregating conventional missiles from nuclear ones through a separate and proper chain of command reduces doubts in the minds of adversaries and helps in nuclear risk reductions.

In addition to having a segregated command structure for conventional missiles, the IRF has many other advantages. The logic behind the forces becoming integrated is that many missiles like BrahMos have land and sea-based, as well as aerial versions. India is also developing hypersonic versions of the BrahMos missiles. India is also working on Hypersonic Glide Vehicles (HGVs) that could be mounted atop ballistic missiles. Unlike China and Russia, which are developing nuclear-capable HGVs, these HGVs that could manoeuvre and evade ballistic missile defence systems are conventionally capable.  At present, such capabilities have been tested on Long Range Anti-Ship Missile to provide better maritime deterrence to India, especially as it progresses towards an inclusive approach in the Indo-Pacific region. [1]

When such missiles function in an integrated approach, it could strengthen the precision strike capabilities of the missile by reducing the decisive time of action. Possession of hypersonic capabilities with incapability in decisiveness promptly nullifies not only the combat capability of the missile systems, especially against adversaries’ targets, but also nullifies their deterrent capability. This is because if the adversaries’ targets are static, it could activate its air and missile defence systems to intercept missiles, and if targets are mobile, then it could relocate them. Adversaries could also have intelligence and surveillance capabilities that could enable them to gather information regarding the launch platform and destroy the platform before the missile is even launched. Considering that warfare takes place in a highly network-centric environment, time plays a crucial role in strengthening the targeting abilities of highly technologically advanced weapon systems.

Integrated command could also help to reduce repetitive functioning during a crisis. Op Sindoor has become an eye-opener for India to strengthen its precision strike capabilities as well as defensive mechanisms under an environment of integrated networking systems. In fact, India has set a perfect example of how network-centric warfare must proceed during times of crisis. For India’s case, these precision strike systems now not only function against state actors, but also against non-state actors.

India plans to induct missiles like Pralay, Nibhay, BrahMos, and also the Pinaka multi-barrel rocket launcher (MBRL) in the IRF arsenal. This segregation of nuclear missiles from conventional missiles would also put a clearer picture of India’s conventional deterrence posturing and lessen concerns, even if India were to deploy these capabilities in times of crisis rather than induct the same in times of peace. States with a ‘no-first use doctrine’ do not possess a ‘no-first strike doctrine’ as it is impossible to have such a doctrine. Hence, conventionally capable missile systems draw a sense of security in the minds of adversaries even when the state’s military posturing alters from induction to deployment.

A separate conventional force structure to control a weapon system that attaches with it, the possibilities and nuances of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) capability, make this deployment easier and less vulnerable to confusion. States like China strengthen deterrence through obscurity. However, India’s deterrence is strengthened through a clear picture drawn regarding its conventional and nuclear might. To strengthen its conventional capability, India is not only working on improving the missile systems, but also making advancements in the delivery platforms of these missile capabilities.  For instance, India is collaborating with France’s aerospace player, Safran, to develop an advanced, powerful jet engine for India’s fifth-generation fighter aircraft, Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA).[2] The IRF will also bridge the gap between artillery and the Air Force; the former is restricted by range, while the latter is restricted without stand-off capabilities that put aircraft at risk from adversaries’ attacks.

In 2025, India tested the Agni-V missile system, which is nuclear-capable and could carry multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs). However, India is also working on a conventional version of the Agni-V missile system that could carry conventional warheads. [3]Clearly, the conventional version of the missile could be a bunker buster,[4] while the nuclear-capable missile would strengthen Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). However, while the nuclear version will be in command of the Strategic Forces Command (SFC), India’s nuclear command, the conventional version will be under the Integrated Rocket Forces command.

As already brought out by the author in a policy recommendation brief,[5] India distinguishes between command and control when it comes to nuclear and conventional forces. India’s conventional forces are governed by the President, while the nuclear forces are governed by the Prime Minister.  This would make the command-and-control structure of conventional missile forces clearer to adversaries. This command structure is also distinct from the Chinese command structure of its nuclear and conventional forces, which align under the auspices of the Chinese Communist Party, headed by the President of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Xi Jinping.

CONCERNS

There are also some concerns regarding the establishment of the IRF. Long-range precision strike missile capabilities that bridge the gap between short-range and stand-off capabilities would provide strike capabilities that strengthen conventional deterrence and delay the need to use nuclear weapons. They, however, only strengthen nuclear deterrence for India. In the case of Pakistan, which is less benevolent to conventional deterrence and draws thinner lines of nuclear threshold, such conventional weapons trigger the need to use nuclear weapons. The deterrent value of such weapons to strengthen the nuclear threshold vis-à-vis China is yet to be known, as India and China have only faced stand-offs. However, considering China’s own resilience with its nuclear weapons and its adoption of a ‘no-first use’ doctrine, the nuclear threshold could be high. While it is true that China’s nuclear doctrine does not apply to territories it considers its own, in which Arunachal Pradesh also exists, China likely would refrain from taking such harsh steps of use of nuclear weapons because such actions could be vehemently opposed by South Asian countries that may be impacted due to the nuclear fallout.

THE WAY FORWARD

In Operation Sindoor, network-centric warfare played a pivotal role in shaping the Indian battlefield landscape. This approach in warfare extended not only to offensive capabilities but also encompassed defensive systems, linking both types of weapons within a cohesive network framework. Such integration facilitates a more calibrated and strategic response to various combat scenarios. Moreover, the implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) within these network-centric mechanisms will enhance operational efficiency by enabling a balanced and adaptive response to adversarial actions. By leveraging AI’s analytical capabilities, commanders can make more informed decisions, anticipate enemy movements, and optimise resource allocation, ultimately improving both the effectiveness of military strategies and the safety of personnel. Through this advanced technological integration, the Indian military is poised to respond more dynamically and intelligently to emerging threats on the battlefield.

Modern network-centric operations demand increasingly sophisticated weapon systems for network-centric warfare to operate successfully and achieve strategic objectives. In this context, the segregation of the Integrated Rocket Force (IRF) from the Strategic Forces Command (SFC) missiles presents a considerable challenge for India, particularly in times of severe crisis. The term ‘severe’ is employed by the author to emphasise that India traditionally exercises great restraint in its use of nuclear weapons, only consider their deployment when necessary—essentially when the very limits of its established doctrine will be reached. In this complex environment, artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to bridge the gap by facilitating the integration of nuclear and conventional missile capabilities within network-centric operations, thereby enhancing response strategies and improving overall operational effectiveness amidst heightened tensions and uncertainties. Through intelligent assessments and real-time data analysis, AI could enable more adaptive decision-making processes that align with India’s security imperatives while maintaining strategic stability.

CONCLUSION

Notwithstanding these developments, India’s nuclear and conventional forces are deployed solely for defensive purposes, not for offensive ones. In case India’s own sovereignty is threatened, India would use its capabilities to inflict debilitating strikes on its adversaries. India has been careful in its selection of weapon systems for its conventional strikes, ensuring that they are not only effective but also reliable in various combat situations. Placing these systems under a credible command, complemented by other forms of weapon systems, will make future operations more credible and strategically sound. This thoughtfulness in procurement reflects a long-term vision that aims to maintain peace while being prepared for potential threats.

Furthermore, the integration of advanced technology into India’s military framework signifies a commitment to modernisation. By embracing innovations such as artificial intelligence, unmanned aerial vehicles, and cybersecurity measures, India is not only enhancing its defensive posture but also paving the way for more efficient and coordinated military responses. This holistic approach to defence underscores the importance of readiness in an ever-evolving geopolitical landscape, emphasising that a strong defence mechanism is vital for national security. Such strategic enhancements will ensure that India can respond to challenges effectively while still adhering to its foundational principles of restraint and responsibility.

[1] “DRDO Chief Announces LRAShM Hypersonic Missile Trials to Conclude 2-3 Years,” Indian Defence Research Wing, June 21, 2025, <DRDO Chief Announces LRAShM Hypersonic Missile Trials to Conclude in 2-3 Years – Indian Defence Research Wing>

[2] “India, France set to join hands to build engines for indigenous stealth jet,” The Economic Times, August 25, 2025, <India, France set to join hands to build engines for indigenous stealth jet – The Economic Times>

[3] “India Initiates Development of Conventional Agni-V Variant with 7.5 Tonne Warhead: Report,” Indian Defence Research Wing, June 23, 2025, <India Initiates Development of Conventional Agni-V Variant with 7.5-Tonne Warhead: Report – Indian Defence Research Wing>

[4] “DRDO giving Agni-V a devastating upgrade: What is bunker buster missile?”, India Today, June 30, 2025, <DRDO giving Agni-5 a devastating upgrade: What is bunker buster missile? – India Today>

[5] Debalina Ghoshal, “The Theatre Command Complexities,” Policy Brief, IADN, August 2025,< The Theatre Command Complexities – IADN>