Cross-Post: Newsletters/sections are primarily categorized by region, and posts can only appear in one section/newsletter at a time. Posts may, however, be relevant to more than one region/section/newsletter.
In a recent post focusing on Iran, which is part of the Defending Iran Project, I borrowed the concept of (submarine) indiscretion rates to examine how Iran can enhance the survivability of its ballistic missile arsenal going forward. Israel and, more recently, the United States, have demonstrated their considerable capacity to locate, track, and target Iran’s mobile ballistic missile launchers once these leave the safety of Iran’s underground missile bases. The Iranian experience in this area is of particular interest to observers focusing on military dynamics in South Asia, including but not limited to observers interested in the survivability of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.
Pakistan’s longstanding limited strategic depth vis-a-vis India is being eroded by technological change. This includes not only the likes of Indian air-launched and ground-launched munitions, not limited to the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile family, but also developments in the area of lower-cost and, in comparative terms, lower-end strike munitions. Examples include the likes of the low-cost fixed-wing and multirotor drones that are being widely deployed in the Russia-Ukraine War over distances of 50 or more kilometers, as well as fairly low-cost propeller-driven strike drones in the vein of the Iranian Shahed-136 as well as low-cost cruise missiles that were originally pioneered by Iran and later emulated by first Ukraine and later Russia, and which are now being emulated by other countries around the world including India.
Some background on low-cost cruise missiles:
Given the above trends, India’s development and deployment of an ever-expanding array of strike munitions, including lower-end designs, some of which were employed in the brief but fairly high-intensity May 2025 India-Pakistan War, there are major questions about the future survivability of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, Pakistan’s critically important air force, and, not least, the survivability of Pakistan’s own conventionally-armed strike munitions, including but not limited to designs operated by the recently established Pakistan Army Rocket Force Command.
While not all parts of the Iranian experience are relevant to Pakistan and observers of military dynamics in South Asia, it bears emphasis that Pakistan’s geography, at least in parts of the country, allows it to pursue a conceptually similar approach to Iran’s underground missile bases. Pakistan’s nuclear forces already employ some underground and, more generally, hardened, facilities, but the interplay of technological change and evolving military dynamics in South Asia may well drive Pakistan to follow Iran’s lead, in which case the Iranian experience, including in terms of indiscretion rates, may be instructive as to how Pakistan may enhance the survivability of its nuclear-armed and conventionally-armed strike munition launchers alike.
