Sea-Denial to offensive deterrence, Indian Navy’s Project 77 signals strategic pivot toward hypersonic deep-strike submarines

The Indian Ocean is dominated by the Indian Navy but China has been increasing its footprint and a hostile Pakistan is always a reason for the Navy to be prepared and be attack-ready. Indian Navy is now making a doctrine shift in undersea warfare by giving more lethality to its next-generation nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN) programme—Project-77. Indian Navy is now looking beyond traditional sea-denial roles and the indigenous SSNs are being designed with a credible long-range land-attack capability, including plans to integrate hypersonic submarine-launched cruise missiles (SLCMs) with ranges estimated between 1,500 and 2,500 km. For those uninitiated, the SSN…