India’s decision to publicly unveil a long-range hypersonic anti-ship missile reflects a broader shift in its maritime strategy as it confronts mounting pressure from China’s expanding navy and Pakistan’s military modernization in the Indian Ocean.
This month, multiple media outlets reported that India publicly debuted its Long-Range Anti-Ship Hypersonic Missile (LR-AShM) during the 77th Republic Day parade at Kartavya Path, marking a significant advancement in the nation’s maritime strike power.
Developed by the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO), the indigenous weapon is designed to reach targets at distances of approximately 1,500 kilometers.
Utilizing a two-stage solid propulsion system, the missile achieves a maximum velocity of Mach 10. It maintains an average speed of Mach 5 through a quasi-ballistic trajectory characterized by multiple atmospheric “skips.”
This low-altitude maneuverability is specifically engineered to evade traditional ship-based radar and compress adversary decision-making timelines.
A successful validation test conducted in November 2024 on Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Island confirmed the missile’s ability to execute terminal maneuvers against moving maritime targets. Strategically, the LR-AShM places India with the US, Russia, and China as one of the few states fielding hypersonic anti-ship systems.
Initially intended for coastal batteries, the LR-AShM is expected to enter full service within two to three years. It supports a shore-based launch doctrine using fixed or mobile launchers, including from Andaman island bases, to strike high-value targets like aircraft carriers before they pose a threat. India could use it in early salvos, coordinated with submarines and BrahMos-equipped ships for layered attacks.
In view of that, China’s growing naval strength and presence in the Indian Ocean, along with Pakistan’s naval modernization, pose a dual threat to India, threatening to choke off India’s sea lanes of communication (SLOCs) and raising the possibility that land-based territorial disputes spill over to the maritime domain.
Highlighting China’s rapid naval growth, Prashant Hosur Suhas and Christopher Colley mention in a May 2024 article for War on the Rocks that China’s navy – now the world’s largest in terms of hull numbers – contrasts with India’s much slower naval modernization.
The US Department of Defense’s 2024 China Military Power Report (CMPR) mentions that at the time of its release, China had a force of over 370 ships and submarines, with that number expected to have grown by 395 ships in 2025 and to 435 ships by 2030, as mentioned in an April 2025 US Congressional Research Service (CRS) report.
In contrast, James Fanell mentions in a December 2025 Geopolitical Intelligence Services (GIS) article that the Indian Navy operates around 150 warships, planning to increase its fleet by 230 by 2027.
The People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) growth may enable it to operate in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, mitigating concerns about having to reduce its strength in one theater to reinforce another.
While China’s lack of basing in the Indian Ocean has been seen as a vulnerability capping its force projection capabilities in the region, Darshana Baruah notes in a May 2025 article for the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) that China has conducted multiple naval exercises in the region and has invested in extensive dual-use port infrastructure in neighboring countries of India that, while serving primarily economic purposes, can also be used for military purposes.
China has also played a role in modernizing Pakistan’s navy – much to India’s concern. As Syed Fazl-e-Haider notes in a March 2022 Jamestown article, China has provided Pakistan with advanced frigates, submarines, and fighter jets. Fazl-e-Haider says that a strong Pakistani Navy could exert control over sea lanes of communication (SLOCs) to secure Chinese oil imports passing through the Indian Ocean.
These moves – China’s growing presence in the Indian Ocean and Pakistan’s naval modernization – threaten to choke off India’s SLOCs and, at the same time, raise the possibility of India’s strategic encirclement from the Himalayas, Kashmir, and the Indian Ocean.
Faced with this unfavorable naval balance, India appears to be adjusting its maritime strategy. Rather than relying primarily on fleet size or forward naval presence, India is increasingly emphasizing a technology-driven anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) approach built around long-range, land-based precision strike—in this case, hypersonic weapons—to offset China’s and Pakistan’s numerical and geographic advantages.
In practical terms, this represents a shift from platform-centric maritime control toward effects-based deterrence, where long-range fires substitute for fleet size. Thus, a hypersonic anti-ship missile such as India’s LR-AShM could tilt the military balance in India’s favor.
As Tahir Azad notes in a December 2025 Small Wars Journal article, the Russia-Ukraine War and the July 2025 Israel-Iran War validate that the future of deterrence lies with hypersonic weapons. Azad points out that while conventional missiles are increasingly vulnerable to preemptive strikes or interception, hypersonic weapons remain exceedingly difficult to defend against.
An Indian A2/AD strategy could resemble China’s counter-intervention strategy in the Western Pacific, which relies on long-range anti-ship ballistic missiles such as the DF-21 and DF-26 to deter US carrier strike groups from intervening in a possible US-China conflict over Taiwan. The LR-AShM would provide a land-based long-range maritime strike capability against high-value enemy assets, as friendly assets such as warships and aircraft operate under its strategic cover.
At the strategic level, the LR-AShM could strengthen India’s conventional deterrent against China and Pakistan by raising the cost of naval coercion. However, China and Pakistan may double down on countermeasures against India’s hypersonic arsenal.
China could invest in layered carrier defenses, step up its dual-use infrastructure in the Indian Ocean region to enhance survivability through dispersion, or transfer even more sophisticated weapons to Pakistan.
Furthermore, Nitya Labh warns in a Chatham House article that India’s long-range missile tests in the Indian Ocean create dual-use ambiguity, where observers cannot easily distinguish between conventional and nuclear intent.
She notes that this ambiguity is dangerous in a crowded maritime theater with Chinese tracking vessels and multiple nuclear-armed states. She states that missile tests risk misinterpretation, miscalculation and rapid escalation because early warning systems and adversaries may assume worst-case nuclear scenarios. Labh argues that without stronger crisis-management mechanisms, dual-use missiles amplify escalation risks rather than stabilizing deterrence.
Ultimately, India’s LR-AShM strengthens deterrence and offsets adverse naval balances in the Indian Ocean. Still, its stabilizing effect will depend on how carefully India manages escalation risks, signaling and crisis-control mechanisms in an increasingly crowded, nuclear-shadowed maritime theater.
