India's Missile Race With China

Sometime over the next three months,perhaps as early as December, Indian defense officials are scheduled to test the country‘s first truly intercontinental ballistic missile, the Agni-V, which theoretically brings India’s weapons program within range of most of China. 

Officials insist that India has a no-strike-first policy and that the weapons are no threat to any other country in the region. Said VK Saraswat, the chief of the Defense Research & Development Organization, the federal body that oversees the country’s indigenous arms development: “We are not looking at how many missiles China or Pakistan has. With a 'no first-use' nuclear weapons policy, we only want a sufficient number of missiles to defend the country in the event of a crisis. Ours is a defensive-mode strategy, even if others have offensive postures.”