The A-SAT Metaphor
   Date :30-Mar-2019
To some, this may be a feeble catching up with others in the domain. But to the larger Indian society, this so-called small development has a great meaning that is not just symbolic in nature. In actuality, its meaning has swelled India’s pride in self to a level that very few other developments can achieve.
The anti-satellite weapon test conducted by the Defence Research and Development Organisation ... is more about Delhi’s changing approach to space weapons than a great technological breakthrough. ...
... India may only be the fourth country testing an ASAT weapon. But it is a distant fourth to the US, Russia and China. The first ASAT tests by Washington and Moscow go back to the 1960s. President Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ programme announced in 1983 triggered a second wind to ASAT development. China tested its first ASAT weapon in 2007. All three have stepped up their work on space weapons since. Beijing and Moscow are said close to deploying space weapons. In the US, President Donald Trump has announced the intent to create a space force that can fight wars in the dark yonder. India has a long way to catch up ...
 
 
 
One ASAT test based on modest technologies, however, is no substitute to the long overdue policy debate on India’s security challenges in the outer space environment. ... Delhi’s explicit demonstration of space weapon capabilities is welcome, but it must be part of a clearly articulated military space doctrine that identifies India’s political objectives and technological goals ...
- Editorial comment in
‘The Indian Express’
on India’s A-SAT testing.
THE comment has its significance, of course. There is a sense of welcome, too, in it. Despite that, the manner of reminding that India is a distant fourth to US, Russia, and China and way behind the ‘Star Wars’ and space force concepts when others are close actually to deploying space weapons, appears unnecessary at this stage. The Government’s claim that the nation has entered an elite league is technically right and indicates certain political will to pursue a well-defined programme.
 
It is certainly critical at this stage to understand the constraints within which the current Government has put together the whole effort. If China had conducted the A-SAT test as early as 2007, India also had such a capability around the same point in time. The trouble was, as indicated by statements of stalwarts of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), in the absence of appropriate political will, the tests could not be conducted. Even though we admit that India has a long way to go in the domain of space defence, we cannot overlook the basic truth that India has travelled a great distance almost on its own in the presence of very rigid and undeclared political sanctions and technological embargoes imposed by advanced nations. The worst constraint, of course, was internal -- in the form of an appropriate political will to go into weapons programmes in space and atomic sciences. Despite that, the visionaries among India’s scientific community continued their dogged effort with the available moderate resources to bring the space and atomic weapons programmes, too, to a stage of reasonable fruition.
 
Now is the time to carry forward the baton once the Government allowed the A-SAT test that went on successfully. True, we still have to traverse a great distance to come abreast with others. Yet, even this much beginning, though rather belatedly, is welcome because it marks the opening of a new chapter.
 
The most important metaphor of the development is psycho-spiritual in nature. The moment signifies that India is not apologetic about its step that had to be taken at the earliest. Much to the contrary, now is the time for India to feel proud of its achievement as well as the determination of the political leadership to cross the rubicon. This is how we must decipher the A-SAT metaphor. This is how the nation must understand the criticality of the technological achievement made possible by our scientists.
 
To some, this may be a feeble catching up with others in the domain. But to the larger Indian society, this so-called small development has a great meaning that is not just symbolic in nature. In actuality, its meaning has swelled India’s pride in self to a level that very few other developments can achieve.
 
Of course, intellectually, it is perfectly all right to state that India needs a well-articulated military space doctrine to carry on with weapons programme and it must be in tune with the nation’s political objectives. But unfortunately, any such suggestion aims at hinting that India does not have a doctrine. This suggestion is not acceptable.
For, how can any civilian person standing well outside the outermost ring of security community conclude that the country’s political and technological leaderships need to be reminded of such a doctrine? In fact, we can assert quite safely that India did not just have the technological capability but also had the doctrinal goal as part of its security perception. Hence the current successful but experimental deployment of the A-SAT. Hence this assertion of the political will in tune with the nation’s well-defined strategic objectives.
 
We must talk about cheap political attacks on the Government following the successful test. Such attacks only indicate how helpless some elements in the pre-election political arena must be feeling with the Government surging ahead in the security domain. It is wrong on their part to think politically at this stage when India’s diplomatic imperatives, too, added to a sense of urgency in conducting the A-SAT test at this juncture -- to duck a possible international space weapons-regulation regime.
 
This is the reality of the moment that goes far beyond electoral politics. This is also a moment that signifies the already concrete steps India has been taking in the arena of national security in space.