The US and India are set to hold discussions in New Delhi next week about deepened cooperation on outer space defense issues, despite differences in opinion between the two countries on weaponization.
Frank Rose, assistant secretary of arms control, verification and compliance was in the Indian capital on Thursday, where he recognized daylight between the two countries in the policy arena, but called on the US and India “to identify areas of concrete collaboration” during talks.
In citing the need to work together, Rose singled out China, saying the country’s military has written about “the need to interfere with, damage, and destroy reconnaissance, navigation, and communication satellites.”
“China has satellite jamming capabilities and is pursuing antisatellite systems,” he said.
Rose called on the furthering of information sharing between India and the US in the context of outer space collision avoidance and maritime intelligence collected by satellite. He also said the two countries should work together to define “acceptable behavior” in multilateral settings.
But the pair of countries already have some substantial disagreements about “acceptable behavior” in space. In October, a United Nations disarmament committee overwhelmingly approved two draft resolutions urging countries “not to be the first to place weapons in outer space” and to prevent “an outer space arms race.” The US was one of four countries who opposed the former, and one of two countries who abstained from voting on the latter resolution, which otherwise would have been unanimously approved (Israel voted as the US did on both resolutions). India, meanwhile, “supported strengthening the regime to protect space and prevent its weaponization…[and] the draft treaty on preventing an outer space arms race,” the UN noted in a press release.
At a conference in Geneva in June, Rose spoke about US opposition to the proposal, claiming it contained “significant flaws” and was without a “regime to monitor compliance.”
But, as The Sentinel noted, American officials have been somewhat cavalier about weaponizing space. In February, Adm. Cecil D. Haney, leader of US Strategic Command, said that “we must apply all instruments of power and elements of deterrence” in order to protect “US national security space systems.” He specifically said that Russia and China should give American officials cause for concern.
There are hints that India could move toward the US position on weaponizing space. In 2012, a top Indian military official, V.K. Saraswat in 2012 called for India to adhere to defensive strategies and the idea of “no weaponizing,” according to an article published last year in The Diplomat. But he also claimed India needed “technology to track the movement of enemy satellites, for instance, before making a kinetic kill.” Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan , a think tank scholar at the Observer Research Foundation—where Rose made his remarks Thursday—wrote in December that “the security imperatives in [India’s] neighbourhood may push it to adopt a more assertive military space policy.”
