India’s ASAT test and Pakistan
India’s ASAT test and Pakistan
WRITTEN BY GULRAIZ IQBAL
19 June 2020
In late March 2019, India announced to the world that it had shot down its own satellite in a move to test its anti-satellite weapon (ASAT) capabilities, in an operation India dubbed ‘’Mission Shakti’’. Marking the test, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that New Delhi had joined the elite club of space faring nations, with India being only the only fourth country behind the US, China, and Russia to have successfully tested an ASAT weapon.
Such a move made in a region as sensitive as South Asia with three nuclear armed states in close proximity to one another didn’t go unnoticed. The possible spike in balance of power dynamics in the region therefore appears to be of primary debate. Where India claims that such moves are taken to balance China, its troubled war-stricken relationship with Pakistan suggests otherwise. It therefore becomes necessary to analyze the possible deterrent India’s ASAT establishes against Pakistan and how Pakistan can cater for it.
The challenge of rhetoric and reality
A month before India conducted its ASAT test, it was engaged in its most intense standoff with Pakistan since 1971. The Pulwama/Balakot crisis was an event which likely played a catalytic role for India to expedite an immediate test to confirm its ASAT capabilities. To make sense of this, it is necessary to understand that Indian efforts to pursue the ASAT technology haphazardly laid on a dual premise. Firstly, days before the Pulwama incident, India conducted its first failed ASAT test. Secondly, in the month succeeding Mission Shakti, India was due to commence its general election with Narendra Modi seeking a second term in office. The point of convergence here forms a political arc rather than a scientific one.
As argued by Arka Biwas in his piece published in South Asian Voices, Modi’s emphasis on the word ‘’pride’’ in his speech celebrating India’s ASAT achievement refers to the fact that for India the urgency to conduct this test to cater for strategic challenges appears to be only political rhetoric. It therefore appears that ‘’prestige’’ is a more suitable measure to gauge the reasoning behind India’s recent ASAT test.
Another factor was the upcoming Indian general election. With Modi and his BJP party eager to retain power, (which it subsequently did), the news that Indian warplanes were shot down by Pakistan following the Pulwama/Balakot episode served to put a dent in their ambition for re-election. Given the squeezed time frame, Mission Shakti was a display of national prowess by India, allowing the BJP government to regain the initiative. This by no means deduces that ASAT was a decisive factor in the re-election of Modi as Prime Minister but only posits itself as a possibility.
The judgment that India’s aim was only directed to be a political display given it’s recent clash with Pakistan is not put forward in isolation with only reference to Modi’s speech but becomes important when exploring how this act fares on in its own merits when posing and establishing an effective deterrent with respect to Pakistan. For that matter, Ammar Akbar has argued that the ability to hit military grade satellites placed at an altitude of more than 20,000 km is a feat which can not be pulled off even by established space powers such as China and Russia.
As I have stated in another piece, Pakistan became the first country to switch from the Global Positioning System (GPS) of the United States to China’s Beidou in 2014, making it the exclusive beneficiary of this Chinese technology. The Beidou satellite navigation system orbits at 22,000 km which outranges the most advanced missiles (in terms of range) the Russian R-36 ICBM, having a maximum range of 16,000 km. The ASAT test which India conducted was only able to attain a range of 283km. Even if the claim that India deliberately conducted a test in the lower-earth orbit is factual, it is still far from achieving the ability to reach a medium-earth orbit needed to hit the Beidou satellites.
In any case, it needs to be noted that any attempt to interrupt the satellite navigation system of Pakistan’s military in times of unrest would require India to hit more than 30 Beidou satellites, which by all means would be a very challenging task. Even if India becomes successful in doing so, it would not only be an act of aggression against Pakistan but also be taken as a blatant act of war against China as well. This in a way creates a strategic trap for India where an attempt to hinder Pakistan’s space navigation would provoke an unwanted conflict with China.
Options available to Pakistan
There is no denying the fact that Pakistan’s space capabilities lack the technological fervor necessary to match India’s equivalent forces. This argument has always found its alternative whenever the balance of power is disturbed between the arch-rivals. Pakistan’s security posture remains largely defensive and reactionary to India’s. That is to say that whenever there is a rising threat to Pakistan’s sovereignty, Pakistan has been able to answer India’s moves by establishing a deterrent which is capable enough to hold off Indian ambitions.
Having said that, it has been a frontline policy of the Imran Khan government to utilize the diplomatic channels as prudently as possible in order to put pressure on India and more than that to keep the international community engaged so that so Pakistan’s stance as a responsible country is established. In that capacity, Pakistan signed a document of no-first placement of weapons in outer space with Russia on May 22, 2019. However, the trajectory of relations between the two states makes a plausible case for Pakistan to balance this act with India in essence if not in kind.
With that in mind, the available options for Pakistan are not scarce. Pakistan’s arsenal of missiles provides Islamabad with a fierce defense against a potential adversary. The Babur-1 cruise missile with a range of 700 km and advanced maneuverability with Digital Scene Matching and Area Co-relation (DSMAC) is navigated by Beidou system and apart from this it is capable of conducting a nuclear strike of 500 km while not being satellite dependent. The inventory also consists of the Ra’ad II missile capable of delivering both conventional and nuclear warheads and has a range of more than 500 km. It can fly past behind enemy lines without being detected by radar. Lastly, the most lethal weapon in Pakistan’s missile armory is Shaheen-III with a range of 2,750 km, which has its exclusive navigation system which does not depend upon the Global Positioning System (GPS).
On the policy front, the best course for Pakistan would be to focus on the development of its Space Vision 2047. In addition Pakistan could opt for developing laser based non-destructive space based capabilities which would declare Pakistan’s outer space deterrence credibility. Alternatively, Pakistan might consider building redundancy satellites if its assets in outer space are threatened.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Gulraiz Iqbal is a Research and Teaching Assistant at the School of Politics and International Relations, Quaid I Azam University, Islamabad. He was previously an Intern at the High Commission of Sri Lanka. Image credit: Wikipedia Commons.