India successfully tested a new anti-satellite missile on Wednesday — a move that Prime Minister Narendra Modi said had catapulted the country into space “super-league” but which analysts said risked drawing international opprobrium.
The test, which puts India into the small group of countries that could attack its enemies’ satellites in space, comes just weeks ahead of a general election that has been increasingly focused on national security following the worst military conflict with Pakistan in decades.
Until now, only the US, Russia and China have developed anti-satellite weapons. New Delhi said the test used a ballistic missile defence interceptor, which is also part of India’s ongoing ballistic missile defence programme.
“India stands tall as a space power,” Mr Modi said in an unusual lunchtime television address in which he announced that New Delhi had carried out the test and destroyed an Indian satellite in low-earth orbit. “It will make India stronger, even more secure and will further peace and harmony.”
With voting in India’s general elections starting on April 11, some security analysts said the timing of the announcement suggested that the main target was India’s domestic electorate, rather than any of New Delhi’s international strategic rivals such as Pakistan or China.
“This is more politics than strategic policy,” said Abhijit Singh, a security expert at the Observer Research Foundation. “Mr Modi’s supporters would want to see him project a strong image and this is exactly why he has done it. This is good theatre for the ruling party, and the government, which is why Modi announced it himself.”
Mr Singh said the decision to carry out the test was also “very risky. Modi knows for sure, as do many in India’s strategic establishment, that this is a test that is going to draw criticism from international observers”, who are likely to see it as a worrying escalation of an Asian arms race and the weaponisation of space.
Vipin Narang, a professor in nuclear strategy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the test was an important part of developing a missile shield that could help limit damage from a nuclear strike by a hostile neighbour such as Pakistan, a long-held goal of India’s nuclear strategists.
“This is a test of India’s ballistic missile defence system, which has all kinds of implications for nuclear strategy and damage limitation,” Mr Narang said. “If you are worried about Pakistan launching missiles out of the blue, this gives you a potential defence against it.”
In a statement on Wednesday, India’s foreign ministry said the country had “tested and successfully demonstrated its capability to interdict and intercept a satellite in outer space based on complete indigenous technology”.
The US and Russia both developed such technology during the cold war. China’s 2007 test of its own anti-satellite technology drew strong international criticism, amid concern about how the resulting space debris could inadvertently damage communications satellites.
New Delhi downplayed the impact of the potential space debris from its own test on Wednesday, saying whatever debris had been generated would “decay and fall back to earth within weeks”.
Brahma Chellaney, a professor of strategic affairs at the Centre for Policy Research, said the successful test was important as a signal to rivals such as China, which, along with the US and Russia, continues to pursue the development of anti-satellite weapons. New Delhi had previously taken the stand that outer space should not be militarised and had refused to allow India’s Defence Research & Development Organisation to carry out such a test.
“Space wars are not just Hollywood fiction,” Mr Chellaney wrote on Twitter. “Space is being turned into a battlefront, making counter-force space capabilities critical. In this light, India’s successful ‘kill’ with an ASAT [anti satellite] weapon is significant.”
India’s test is likely to generate anxiety in Pakistan, which is on high alert after New Delhi carried out a missile strike on an alleged terror training camp on Pakistani territory last month.
Imran Khan, Pakistan’s prime minister, this week told the Financial Times that Mr Modi’s government had stoked “war hysteria” to boost its chances in the imminent general election. In a statement, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said “space is the common heritage of mankind and every nation has the responsibility to avoid actions which can lead to the militarisation of this arena”.
