SEVEN-POINT ROADMAP

A military doctrine is a declared military policy that signals a country’s posture in regard to both compellence and deterrence. The military doctrine is an authoritative guidance in terms of warfare, or what the military believes is operationally effective. India’s military space doctrine should be conceptualized within the parameters mentioned below.

1

India requires a capability for strategic warning when it has to know when an adversary is positioning assets at its border or when it is mobilizing forces around its territorial waters. This kind of advanced knowledge is critical to ensure India’s ability to defend its territory.

This is true for nuclear weapons, where signaling, tracking and intelligence on nuclear deployment is important. 2

India needs to develop sufficient space situational awareness to understand if its civilian and military satellites are being targeted or have been rendered incapable to support its civilian infrastructure. 3

India has to be able to communicate and coordinate distant military forces which will require satellite communications. This includes forces on land or at sea. This is important as India’s air power and unmanned aerial vehicles could be enhanced through satellite data links. 4

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India requires the ability to target invading forces. That requires overhead observation and precision, navigation, and timing and might eventually require real-time tracking.

6

Indian military forces are threatened by adversary Command, Control and Communication (satellite data links) and by adversary Precision, Navigation and Timing (PNT) and by counter space capabilities. And so, India’s Earth Observation, Communication and Navigation Satellites require protective SSA, against counter space threats and resistant to ground based attacks such as jamming and dazzling.

7

India requires its own counter-space capacities besides ASAT to jam or interfere and degrade adversary space capabilities that threaten the support function for India’s surface forces and threaten India’s satellites. To maximize total national power, India should develop non-kinetic ASAT capabilities that protects its national security without compromising its international standing and partner capability especially opportunities for international support through the QUAD. France is an example with its announcement of laser satellite defences.

In terms of low latency and large constellations, the U.S. commercial sector plays a vital role. In 2007, Japan enacted a national geospatial policy that prioritized the development of Earth imaging, sensing, tracking, and electro-optical infrared imaging. All this falls under the purview of the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan.

In 2020, Japan established the Space Domain Mission Unit as its version of a space force, as well as an operational command.

Tokyo's 2022 National

Security Strategy, for the first time, includes space as part of its multi-domain operations, highlighting the importance of acquiring counter-strike capabilities in space for defense.

Australia aims to develop its own geospatial capabilities like

Earth imaging, Precision, Navigation, Timing, and the development of launch infrastructure to include spaceports by 2030.

Australia established a Defence Space Command in 2022 in order to not only focus on the national security aspects of space but also built into inter-operability for multi-national space operations.

India has its own geo-spatial capabilities to include remote sensing, global navigation satellite system and additional geo-intelligence capabilities that adds to big data, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cyber capabilities.

All these capabilities however require a grand strategic vision and clear military space doctrine, augmented by a separate space defense organization and a defense space command.

The U.S., Japan and Australia have established space commands as mentioned above, while India’s Defense Space Agency, established in 2019, is organized to play a pro-active role in space, but not quite independent enough to develop its space expertise and knowledge base.

The lack of an Indian official national security strategy and military space doctrine further decreases its potential for joint operational capabilities.

Boosting Preparedness

In the Defense Space Symposium organized by the Indian Space Association on April 11, 2023, India’s Chief of Defense Staff (CDS) General Anil Chauhan stated that “the very nature of warfare is on the cusp of major transformation and what is being witnessed is militarization of space and steady progress towards weaponization, the aim for all of us should be towards developing dual-use platforms with special focus towards incorporating cutting-edge technology and we must expand our NAVIC constellation, provide agile space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and ensure secure satellite-assisted communications”.

When we analyze the CDS’s speech, there is a general assessment that the anti-satellite (ASAT) capability that India tested in 2019 is not enough of a deterrence against an adversary that has enhanced capabilities to destroy India’s space-based assets through non-kinetic capabilities like high powered laser, high powered microwaves, electromagnetic pulse, jamming, and spoofing.

The role of commercial space in augmenting space warfare capabilities was specified by General Chauhan when he stated that “as seen during the Russia-Ukraine conflict by SpaceX and Maxar, had unfolded a new area in the war on convergence. This combined with the intense race towards militarization of space has resulted in the battlespace becoming expanded and the very nature of warfare is at a major cusp of transformation.”

India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) chief, Samir V. Kamat, specified that India needs to develop greater space situational awareness, resilient space systems, and better ISR capabilities. For this, he called upon collaborations with India’s private space sector and academia.

In October 2022, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched Mission DefSpace that called for private sector space companies to apply for 75 defense space challenges for indigenous development. This included the development of “Launch System, Satellite System, Communication & Payload System, Ground System, and Software System.”

The highlight of the launch was a push to “liberalizing the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy to allow 74% FDI under the automatic route”. India issued a Joint Doctrine in 2017, by Integrated Headquarters of the Integrated Defense Staff (HQ IDS), that views space as a multi-domain operation. In chapter VI of the joint doctrine titled “Concepts of Military Power

Application”, there is a section on space power that states:

Emergence of space power is analogous to conventional land, sea or air power that will mark it out as a ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’. Space bestows immense force multiplication capability on the Armed Forces, and the dependence on space assets for military operations is rapidly increasing.

Currently, India’s space capabilities are mostly driven by civil and commercial requirements, steps for exploitation of space for military applications are undertaken. Leveraging space power would include protection of our national space assets and exploitation of space to enable defense capabilities across the conflict spectrum.

The second role that arises in this context is one of strategic clarity, of whether India needs to issue and adopt a military space doctrine. This is perhaps necessary given the first requirement to stake India’s strategic position and capabilities when it comes to partnering at the level of the QUAD.

In the next five years, by 2028, the QUAD will transcend from being a partnership high on rhetoric to being called upon to provide real-time support, across all domains of land, sea, air, cyber and space, to ensure that the Indo-Pacific remains free and accessible to all nations. In this context, issuing a military space doctrine is in India’s and the QUAD’s strategic interest.

Articulating a New Vision

Issuing a military space doctrine matters because it offers a clear signal of India’s strategic posture in regard to its military forces to partner nations and adversaries. The military space doctrine signals intent and strategic posture that can augment interoperability, create common strategic threat assessments, and build space capacities that can take advantage of globally available technologies, especially with the three other members of the QUAD (U.S., Japan and Australia).

This kind of clear posture showcases India’s leadership, while at the same time offers clarity in regard to India’s position on responsible behavior in space, which includes regulations o space debris and space traffic management.

It also counts proximity operations, ASAT moratoriums, and on the development of non-kinetic ASATs important for national security but which could also lead to destabilization of the international space governance structure. India’s position in these matters is vital given it is a major space-faring nation.

Moreover, India’s trajectory by 2060 may well be different, with New Delhi inheriting the leadership of the QUAD with the largest GDP and population. India needs to develop interoperability now, to take advantage and build the required strategic habits of assuming leadership with capabilities, institutions, and grand strategic posturing.

A more active leadership position in the QUAD is likely to enhance India’s influence within other regional bodies like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and a more capable space program is likely to increase India’s influence across Africa and West Asia.

India should begin the process of establishing a space command structure that can operate within the other QUAD partner space command formats.

India could assign exchange officers at key locations within the USSF, JSDU, or the Australian Space Defence Command, including any strategic studies group and professional military education. QUAD countries can collaborate on point-to-point sub-orbital transportation which will greatly lessen the time and assist in connectivity.

Such capabilities could result in a joint QUAD strategic space vision. In this, India can play a critical role given it offers clarity to the world regarding its civilian and military space posture.