No I will disagree , what we have for deterrence is low and inadequate.
Deterrence works on not what you consider to be adequate but on what your enemy starts to bulk at.
Chinese have enough hardened infrastructure ( built to defeat USSR and USA strikes ) that our counter force assets will run out before we can make any significant dent.
We do not have nukes for warfighting purposes. I mean we do not plan on destroying all major military targets with nukes, we only plan on destroying major cities and ports, along with some crucial military targets. Our plan (not to my liking) is not total destruction unfortunately. Which is why we call it "minimum credible deterrence".
If you put a number on it, let's assume we can put one Arihant class on patrol 24/7 along with one S5 class. That will give us 8 K-4s with unitary warheads and let's assume 16 K-5s with 4 MIRVed nukes. That gives us 72 nukes. Let's assume we have the same number of nukes on land as well. So about 150 nukes in total by the time all the SSBNs are operational. 8 nukes on each city will more or less destroy at least 15 of their main cities while consuming 120 warheads. The remaining 30 dropped on military targets, bases, C&C nodes etc. That's enough of a threat to ensure deterrence.
Conventionally we are fuked , our conventional weapon systems at tactical and intermediate level is inadequate , forget about strategic. Almost all are defensive systems , beyond 100 km range we don't have systems which can be mass deployed and cost effective. Battlefields are fluid and dynamic , one will not be able to retain advantage at tactical levels if one cannot concurrently push tactical advantage to intermediate and then to strategic levels via different conventional weapon systems with ranges to force a result at the respective 3 levels.
Long story short we simply lack mass produced and cheap offensive conventional weapon systems which can act as force multipliers beyond 100 km.
Gotta agree with it, but only partially. Most of the enemy systems that's a threat to us are within that 100Km range, which is why we did not go for more range when it comes to ground based systems. Beyond that range we have fighter jets and attack helicopters. So the question should be if we have enough fighter jets for what we need done.
Also, due to the terrain facing China, more range is not useful. Penetrating the fog of war will be extremely difficult for the both of us. A lot of the weapons that the Chinese have that seem to give them an advantage are important for manoeuvre warfare, not mountain warfare, especially their tube artillery.
Once Chinese start matching US levels , then we will have the funds to start competing , seriously ? have you given a thought that Chinese might be thinking the same and preemptive that and restrict India by whatever means they deem fit.
How will they stop us? They can't. It's merely economic growth that all countries experience. Not to mention, both our economies are not intertwined to any such degree that they can impose costs on us. So, by the time the Chinese match the US in weapons and other capabilities, it's going to be well past 2030, by which time our economic might will easily be well over $10T and we will be able to build up the same way the Chinese are doing now.
