India and Space Weaponization: Why Space Debris Trumps Kinetic Energy Antisatellite Weapons as the Principal Threat to Satellites

Abstract

Since China tested a Kinetic-Energy Anti-Satellite (KE-ASAT) weapon in 2007, evidence has surfaced that India may have initiated a similar program. This article makes an anticipatory policy intervention against the development of KE-ASAT weapons. It presents data to show that space debris, and not KE-ASAT weapons, pose the highest risk for the safe operation of Indian satellites. It models a KE-ASAT weapons exchange between India and China in three different scenarios to demonstrate that use of such weapons even on a limited scale would produce an exponential increase in space debris. The latter would threaten the safe operation of satellites for all countries concerned. These data suggest that the concept of deterrence as understood in conventional and nuclear spheres is not easily transportable to the domain of space weapons, which threaten the physical destruction of satellites. If weaponization of space becomes inevitable, policy makers would be better off investing in weapons that disable but do not physically destroy satellites.