How does India think about the international security of outer space? India has been a nation for more than 40 years. Its ambitions and interests have reached beyond Earth orbit. More importantly, the country has developed count capabilities to defend these growing interests. Understanding India’s space security policy, therefore, is critical to reaching a consensus on any outer space arms control and risk reduction measures negotiated in international.
| India, in fact, is remarkably consistent in its preferences for outer space arms control and risk reduction measures, even though it has not put forward concrete proposals and approaches to tackle space threats. |
This two-part essay unpacks India’s space security policy. This essay (part 1) analyzes why India abstained from voting on the United Nations (UN) resolution to ban debris-creating direct-ascent anti-satellite testing, and India’s justification of vote reflects on its space security policy. Some analysts have argued that the choice to abstain from voting is an indication of strategic ambiguity. Indeed, policymakers and government officials have provided very little clarity about India’s space security policy since it conducted its DA-ASAT test in March 2019. However, this is only half the story.
A closer reading of India’s statements in the Conference on Disarmament (CD) and the UN First Committee reveals that the country’s diplomats and policymakers are far less ambiguous about New Delhi’s space security interests. India, in fact, is remarkably consistent in its preferences for outer space arms control and risk reduction measures, even though it has not put forward concrete proposals and approaches to tackle space threats.
A champion of ASAT disarmament?
Looking back at India’s often-forgotten history of space security diplomacy offers a fascinating insight into the evolving ambitions of a rising space power. India was a proactive participant in the UN’s Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) agenda of the 1980s. This period was marked by New Delhi’s criticism of US President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) and its vocal opposition to the militarization and weaponization of space more broadly.
In 1986, as part of the Six-Nation Initiative, India, along with Argentina, Greece, Mexico, Sweden, and Tanzania, called on the United States and the Soviet Union to halt all testing of anti-satellite (ASAT) capabilities and eventually ban ASATs. That same year, Indian diplomats berated the American efforts to develop space-based missile defenses and called for multilateral negotiations on an ASAT ban agreement. In the same statement, Indian representatives also argued that calls for a perfect verification regime must not “be construed as a pretext for not banning ASAT weapons.” Throughout the 1980s and the 1990s, India championed its opposition to the space both independently and through the Six-Nation Initiative.
For much of the 1990s, India deplored the development of ballistic missile defenses (BMDs), which were seen as technologies closely related to anti-satellite weapons. But this was soon to change. After the overt nuclear tests of May 1998, India’s politicians saw the need to develop limited BMDs around the national capital, marking the slow and subtle shift in India’s space security policy.
Shaping the new space security policy
India’s experience in negotiating in international fora has thus been molded into a space security policy that consists of three distinct elements: (1) the need for legally binding instruments in space; (2) openness to negotiating non-discriminatory, universally-applicable transparency and confidence-building measures (TCBMs) that could complement legally binding instruments and; (3) aversion to purely non-legally binding measures, which are deemed ad-hoc and non-universal.
These preferences have also driven India to abstain from voting on the US-led test moratorium, albeit with some changes. In its explanation of the vote, India stated that the resolution does not address the legally binding aspects of the proposed test moratorium. Further, at the second meeting of the Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) on Reducing Space Threats, India also argued that the issue of space sustainability must not confound space security—a sentiment echoed by some Western countries. More importantly, Indian diplomats made their preference for legally-binding instruments unequivocally clear by stating the following:
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