Introduction: Space Power and Security Trilemma in South Asia

Space is a congested, crowded, and contested domain. This is creating multidimensional strategic competition between the United States and China at the global level, and between China, India, and Pakistan at the regional level in South Asia. In this scenario, understanding space security is instrumental to managing and preventinf potential conflicts in space. Currently, the United States is a global space power with the most advanced space capabilities employed in the pursuit of national security, and civil and economic interests. Recently, China has emerged as a rival global space power.

Both states understand the importance of space for achieving their national security goals and objectives. U.S. national space security strategy considers new actors in space as a threat to its space supremacy, leading to U.S. vulnerability in maintaining the present status quo in space. Chinese space ambitions are largely focused on achieving socioeconomic and political objectives, but there is a growing sense of space power projection as a core element of national power.

Space relations between China and the United States are characterized by a misperception-misunderstanding dynamic, in addition to space competition that posits implications for international and regional security. At the global level, space is a medium of political, economic, strategic, and military competition. This has impacts on establishing an international code of conduct for peaceful uses of space. Likewise, competition dynamics constrain multilateral efforts to establish a universally accepted treaty to prohibit the weaponization of space.

At the regional level of South Asia, China and India have gained political, economic, and military influence in terms of changing the polarity of the region. This makes South Asia a complex security region where relations between China, India, and Pakistan, as the nuclear powers of South Asia, frame a security trilemma.

The security trilemma profoundly impinges upon the space programs of these three states. India has undeniably emerged as a regional space superpower with global ambitions. Likewise, Pakistan is an aspiring space power and, with the help of China, can become a regional space power in the coming years. The changing dynamics of the power structure in South Asia has given importance to space for both peaceful and military purposes. China possesses ample military space capabilities, whereas India is advancing its military space capabilities. Pakistan is also likely to be a factor by configuring its space technologies to military space capabilities.

The changing space policies and doctrines in South Asia exacerbate the existing security trilemma. To understand the dynamics of this security trilemma, there is a need to investigate the space policies, doctrines, approaches, and capabilities (civil and military) of China, India, and Pakistan. Likewise, assessing the challenges and prospects of conflict and cooperation among these states in space is of value. This special issue of Astropolitics evaluates and assesses the contours of space power and a “security trilemma” in South Asia.

In the first article, Zulfqar Khan and Ahmad Khan of the National Defence University, Pakistan, highlight that Sino-U.S. relations in space are a triggering point of a security trilemma involving India, China, and Pakistan. These states give importance to their space program for prestige, power, and achieving economic goals to augment their national power. Given power asymmetries among these states and their space power projections, most notably in China and India, a “super regional security complex” and a security trilemma in South Asia are amplified.

Following this, Ajey Lele of the Institute for Defense Studies and Strategic Analyses in India suggests that there is a space security dilemma between India and China. Both India and China, as the two major spacefaring nations in Asia, are advancing their space programs to increase their military space capabilities. Lele explores how the two powers are simultaneously making use of space for peaceful and commercial pursuits, as well as for amassing space power and strategic influence in South Asia.

Next, Ali Ahsan at West Virginia University and Ahmad Khan review Pakistan’s journey into space. The authors argue that Pakistan aspires to some degree of space power, even though it has faced technology denial from the West coupled with economic constraints. Currently, Pakistan is leveraging cooperative relations with China to improve its nascent space infrastructure through collaborative efforts to gain self-sufficiency in its space program for socioeconomic and strategic goals.

In the fourth article, Misbah Arif of the Fatima Jinnah Women University, Pakistan, points out that the strategic landscape of South Asia is changing because of past nonconventional and conventional military build-ups. Consequently, the core power states in the South Asian region are following a path from space militarization to weaponization. Such developments posit adverse effects on the strategic equation in South Asia, leading to strategic instability, which undermines nuclear deterrence and brings about a potential South Asian arms race in space.

Proceeding this, Malcolm Davis of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Australia writes that military conflict in space is emerging as a key feature in the twenty-first-century geopolitical environment. Davis assesses how the more recent focus on space commercialization among developed space powers (Space 2.0) can be exploited for new technologies and approaches to accessing and utilizing space, particularly in the case of India balancing China in South Asia.

Lastly, Sameer Ali Khan of the Center for International Strategic Studies, Pakistan, and Irteza Imam of the South Asian Strategic Stability Institute, Pakistan, argue that the changing nature of geopolitics and geostrategic realities in South Asia make it more likely that space power will be integrated with nuclear forces. This creates incentives for India to adopt limited conventional war strategies against Pakistan and attempt pre-emptive nuclear first strikes facilitated by its prospective deployment of ballistic missile defense systems, resulting in a shift from its declared No-First-Use policy for nuclear weapons. These destabilizing developments elevate conventional and nonconventional asymmetries challenging strategic stability in South Asia.

The contributors to this special issue of Astropolitics investigate the space security trilemma in South Asia. The security environment of South Asia is dynamic and volatile, with prospects for both cooperation and conflict among China, India, and Pakistan. The global commons of space provides resources for states for their national well-being. Space can either be a platform for states to cooperate for peaceful uses, development, and exploration, or it can become an arena of conflict, weapons, and space power projects. Both outcomes are unfolding simultaneously, with repercussions for the existing security dynamics in South Asia.