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Pretty blatant violation of the spirit of the model code of conduct, if not the letter. Even if we give him the benefit of the doubt on the timing of the ASAT test, the fact that Modi chose to make this announcement himself gives the game away. thewire.in/politics/prime…
When China did its ASAT test in 2007, the first announcement of it by the PRC was from its Foreign Min spokesperson. So bhakts will say, 'China is not a democracy'. And they're right. It's precisely because India is a democracy and has elections that Modi made the announcement!
All I can say is that for all his talk of having been a great prime minister, Chowkidar Narendra Modi is looking pretty shaky if he has to lean on the IAF, the Army and now DRDO to look for some accomplishments barely weeks before the elections.
As early as 2011, the DRDO chief had said, "Capability to neutralise enemy satellites proved". thehindu.com/news/national/…. DRDO does not lie. A proven capability could have been tested at any time in the past 5 years. @NarendraModi chooses to do it five weeks before the elections!
Now let's turn to why testing ASAT weapons isn't necessarily such a great thing from national security POV. The MEA presents the test as one "to verify India has the capability to safeguard our space assets. It is GOI's responsibility to defend country’s interests in outer space.
". But India demonstrated an offensive capability. It can destroy an enemy satellite now. How do you defend your satellite from an enemy missile? One way is to use your new capability to deter an enemy attack. After all, that's the logic of nuclear weapons, right, to deter...
But we know nuclear deterrence works well even at the minimum level. India's credible minimum deterrence against China does not require it to match the size of China's arsenal. As long as the damage India can impose is unacceptably high, China won't strike India first.
Sadly, deterring attacks on satellites does not follow the same logic. If China has 1000 satellites and India 100, and if China has 1000s of rockets and India just a dozen or so, then India cannot rely on deterrence to defend its space based assets...
India says it is opposed to an arms race in outer space but the offensive capability it has demonstrated will inevitably prompt it, and others, to work on more advanced rocketry, as well as space based weapons, missile defence, lasers etc in order to deal with adversaries...
Moreover, deterrence works when you identify with certainty who has targeted you or is trying to target you. With ground-based capabilities to render satellites inoperable being developed by many nations, a targeted nation may not even know who knocked out its satellite...
So if defending space based assets is the goal here and not winning an election, you need to work on strengthening defensive systems in space and on ground, you need to work on diplomacy and treaties. Testing an ASAT is not necessarily the most pressing task. Over and out.
