Air Commodore Jasjit Singh concentrated on the military and technological implications of the anti-missile test conducted by China on 11 January, 2007, though he admitted that it had political implications. He began by describing the importance of space in human affairs and the demerits of its weaponisation. However, he stressed on the term “capability”.
According to him the fact remained that China had achieved the capability to knock down a satellite by a ground based rocket. This was a serious advantage in terms of military capability vis-ŕ-vis any adversary, since today’s warfare largely depended on communication enabled by the satellites.
With this, China joined United States and Russia in becoming the third country to have this capability. However the methodology adopted by Russia and United States vary from that of China. United States uses fighter jet (F-16) to fire a mother missile which in turn fires another mini missile to knock down the satellite in space. Russia on the other hand uses the orbit path to intervene on a satellite moving in its orbit.
In the latter part of his lecture, Mr. Jasjit Singh focused on the implication that this test may have for India’s security concern. The lack of coordination between the research organizations and the end users-the armed forces, and lack of forward planning were stressed as the significant demerits with respect to India’s ambition to catch up with this kind of high technology.
However, he agreed that it was quite possible to achieve this feat in terms of technology, given the fact that there was no serious dearth of funds. The speaker said he believed that a similar test by India would not disrupt the growing political ties between China and India, since the China would always encourage the idea of a powerful India. Sighting the 1998 nuclear tests conducted by India, he said China never condemned the test but strongly disagreed on China being an excuse for these tests |
