Extraterrestrial wars: Space is the final frontier

 

 

BN Gokhale
Air Marshal (Retd.), PVSM, AVSM, VM

“Space is the final frontier,” was the famous opening sentence of the popular television serial ‘Star Trek’. In recent years, the Indian Armed Forces have been demanding establishment of a Space Command. All the three services have a number of geographically demarcated commands with a specific area of responsibility. In addition, the services also have their own functional commands such as ARTRAC or training command of the Army similar to that of the IAF. Indian Air Force also has a Maintenance Command at Nagpur with its users all across the country.

Since the establishment of HQ Integrated Defence Staff (HQ IDS) at the Ministry of Defence in 2001, two tri-service commands have also been established. First is ANC with geographical responsibility around Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the other is Strategic Forces Command (SFC) responsible for strategic task. With ever increasing use of space as a medium, the services are demanding another tri-service functional command i.e. Space Command on the lines of many other countries, including China in our neighborhood.

With shooting down of her ageing weather satellite from ground on 11 January 2007, China has not only indicated her capability of tracking and destroying space based assets, but has also taken a step towards Ballistic Missile Defence. About 800 debris that such destruction has added to 10,000 plus already cluttering the space, leading to very relevant concerns. The Columbia space shuttle, in which Indian born Kalpana Chawla also perished, was hit by one such chunk of debris. It is also interesting to note that the Chinese managed to destroy the satellite orbiting at 528 miles. On the other hand, the US, which followed by shooting down their crippled spy satellite on February 23, 2008, was in low earth orbit at only 153 miles. The comparative figure indicates advances in space weaponisation programme by China for both sensors for tracking as well as powerful interceptor missiles, which can reach such higher orbits.

In addition to ground based interceptors, China is developing techniques such as parasite satellites, which are micro or nano in sizes, Kinetic Energy Directed Weapons, as well as ground and airborne lasers along with a robust network of sensors for tracking 500 plus satellites presently orbiting the earth. Chinese Space Doctrine refers to space as ‘ultimate high ground’ during conflict situation and use of ‘space territory’ for creating military imbalance.

While India and China along with most of the nations are signatories of the United Nations’ Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which prohibits testing or using space for nuclear weapons, there is no other binding agreement which prohibits Space for military applications. After the Chinese demonstrated their anti- Satellite (ASAT) capability, many countries including Russia and China have tried to advocate ban on such activity, but USA has not supported this initiative. Such non-armament treaties are reminiscent of the Antarctic treaty of 1961, which however restrictive they may be, are flouted by many first world countries. India with her independent foray into Antarctica in 1981 has demonstrated her resolve to be ‘one amongst the equals’.

With her growing economic potential, need for increased energy resources as well as buoyant trade and commerce, India now looks way beyond her traditional neighborhood. With a large area of influence there is now a need for bigger footprint in satellite aided communication, navigation, remote sensing and many other space-based applications. Inherent to the globalisation of economy is a competition amongst nations which leads to security implications. Space as a continuum of air above us will then be a dominant medium, which needs to be safeguarded. One must clearly understand the difference between militarisation and weaponisation of outer space. While the first one relates to using space-based assets for enhancing military capabilities, the later refers to using offensive weapons such as ASAT capability demonstrated by China and USA.

The proposed Tri-Service Space Command will be focusing on the first area i.e. enhancing military capabilities. The first Gulf war of 1991 was also considered the first space-enabled war, which heralded Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) compressing the dimension of Time. The near instant availability of Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance (ISR), communication, navigation etc. enabled war-winning effects. Later in the Kosovo and Afghan wars space-based systems were also used for precision bombing with target pictures streaming instantly into the aircraft cockpits. Indian military therefore needs to channel this fusion of space-based capability into their security doctrine. Electronic and image surveillance, navigation for accurate targeting, real time communication with larger bandwidth, weather observation and many other space enabled applications will allow Indian Armed Forces battlefield transparency.