is india entering into an arms race in outer space
Answers
Answer:
March 28, 2019
When the US Missile Defence Agency (MDA) undertook an interception of a dysfunctional satellite in low-earth orbit in February 2008, the agency used the ballistic missile defence (BMD) interceptor, the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3), fired from a Aegis-class destroyer deployed in the Pacific Ocean to successfully complete that mission.1 A year before China had undertaken its first ever Anti-Satellite (ASAT) test in January 2007 using the KS/SC-19, which Western observers claimed was a reconfigured DF 21-C or DF-25, the same platform that supposedly doubled up as the Chinese mid-course interceptor for its first BMD test in January 2010.2 The first Indian demonstration of ASAT capability on 27 March 2019 also used a long-range BMD interceptor that is currently being developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
Besides the use of BMD platforms for ASAT applications, what is the common thread in the ASAT tests by these powers competing in the space frontier? All of them, by word or deed or a combination of both, have been ardent advocates of mitigating arms race in space, and yet have contributed in considerable measure towards the militarization of outer space.3
Though the US has largely been averse to negotiations on treaties to prohibit the weaponisation of space, there has been general consensus (since the post-Strategic Defense Initiative days) among successive US administrations until recently against steps that could trigger an arms race in outer space.4 While the current Trump Administration has been hyper about the need to harness the space frontier for military applications as also ‘space basing’ of missile interceptors, the Pentagon has no platforms that could shoot down missiles from space.5 All the while, it has to be noted that Washington did not claim the SM-3 interception in 2008 as an ASAT test, but only described it as a real-time satellite interception by a BMD system. The caution can be attributed to the US criticism of the Chinese ASAT test in the previous year as a provocative step towards space weaponisation. Equally amusing could be the fact that both Russia and China had censured the US for risking their space assets through the SM-3 test–all of which demonstrate the oddities of great power behaviour when it comes to the space domain.
China and India too have been vociferous votaries of legal instruments against the weaponisation of, or arms race in, outer space. Besides partnering with Russia on the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) and demanding a treaty banning weapons in outer space, Beijing had been profoundly critical of the US BMD programme by terming it as an effort to militarise the space frontier.6 China’s eventual decision to conduct both ASAT and BMD tests is evidence of the fact that great powers cannot abstain from technological races where their rivals have a clear edge or can swing the strategic balance. The Indian ASAT test has to be seen in this context, and follows a techno-strategic trajectory that might not be linear to the Chinese course of action but certainly illustrates the prevalence of a security dilemma and the urge to come up with technological ripostes to its arch rival.