India Must Resolutely Build Up It’s Space Force
According to US and UK media reports, the US is developing a Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability – or DARC – to locate a giant new radar system in Texas, the UK and Australia. The site in the UK would house 10 to 15 parabolic antennas (large satellite dishes) for tracking and four to six for transmitting, and each radar dish will be 15 meters in diameter. The system is said to be able to identify potential targets up to 36,000 kilometers away.
US military officials claimed that it is to make the outer space “safer and more secure.” The Americans have already established the United States Space Force as a separate Armed Forces of USA and now they have started adding muscles to it. They have asserted that they need the radar system to understand what’s going on in the dark corners of space.
Though themselves indulging in anti satellite weapon systems, the USA has accused China and Russia of posing “irresponsible and reckless” threats with their anti-satellite weapon experiments.
It is a significant escalation that has the potential to further change the direction of global military competition. The head of the Royal Air Force, Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Wigston, has bluntly predicted the next war could be won or lost in space. The primary purpose of the US and its allies in developing DARC is obviously to prepare for winning a war In Space.
The US has been developing its space situational awareness (SSA) for a long time, which is now trying to lead ahead. With the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, its star wars and anti-missile capabilities are already quite strong.
However the US is now trying to achieve an all-weather, all-dimensional information control from outer space to ballistic missiles. This may severely threatens the minimum balance of power needed for global peace, if a few more countries do not build counter systems.
China Russia and Japan too have started work In this area to balance the US efforts to extend the military competition among major powers into space and oppose its attempts to construct DARC with its allies. India too has already demonstrated its ability to destroy a satellite in low orbit and thus shown the World as to where it stands in this regard.
Apart from Russia, even the Chinese are developing space warfare capabilities by hyping the so-called space threat from USA. Now India too must move ahead and establish a minimum deterrent from any attack from space based assets and also be able to protect all its space based assets. India should take countermeasures, in a bid to strategically counter any plan of any major power, if ever someone decides to threaten India.
It has to be noted that it is much more difficult for any major power to achieve hegemony in space than that on land and at sea. If any power dares to attack the space assets of India, then India too can inflict the same loss on that country. No country can develop the ability to unilaterally occupy outer space and close it to other Countries.
However, by deploying DARC, the US is trying to expand its lead in SSA. It will try and consolidate its position in outer space. Earlier the US established a global anti-missile system, whose reliability is still highly debatable.
The US vision to build DARC has particularly sounded the alarm for China. China’s space launch capabilities are getting stronger, and the country is increasing the frequency of its various space activities including efforts on a space station. All such Chinese activities are openly threatening the safety of such activities of India. Therefore it must speed up the pace of constructing infrastructure and building certain capabilities to dominate the future space order. India must accelerate the building of its space counterattack capability and form a stronger deterrent, in an attempt to resolutely suppress any impulse of China to provoke a space conflict.
India has far fewer nuclear warheads than the US, Russia or China. But India’s space capacity building can go faster as demonstrated by Mission MANGAL and Mission CHANDRAYAN. India must effectively strengthen its overall deterrence and to that extent make the other powers return to the mind-set of keeping the balance of power.
India must accelerate the pace to realize the convenience and cost-effectiveness of space launches, continue to systemize our space assets, strive to achieve the leading position in this field. We must not hesitate to invest in this field. It must be made clear that outer space security is becoming the new cornerstone of India’s overall national security.
