The State of Space Securitization in India

Written by Kyle Hosey | October 1, 2023

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Analyses on the emergence of space as a military domain have been increasingly in vogue in the last decade, and India has been no exception. V.R. Chaudhari, the leader of India’s air forces, recently announced that the Indian Air Force is now effectively the “Indian Air and Space Forces”, a non-official designation that mirrors the American Air Force’s responsibility for space prior to the creation of the Space Force as a separate organization in 2019. Numerous Indian military officials and Prime Minister Modi himself have echoed Chaudhari’s emphasis on space as a security sector in the past year.

While India’s military space program has drawn international attention since at least 2019 with the test of the first Indian direct-ascent anti-satellite weapon (ASAT), this year’s comments from the security services and the Modi government indicate an elevated acceptance of space as a securitized sector. Chaudhari referred to that securitization as an accomplished fact this week, pointing to India’s 2023 space policy calling for increased integration between the private aerospace sector and military space capabilities to focus on dual-use technologies. Commentators have also pointed to the founding of several new government organizations in the past four years, such as the Defense Space Research Organization, which are explicitly tasked with developing Indian military capability in space. Rather than being grafted onto existing bureaucracies, space militarization is clearly taking a higher priority in the Indian security apparatus.