Final frontier : India and space security

Space, the final frontier. As nations attempt to secure strategic and military influence over adversaries, it is beyond the earth’s skies that they look. Superpowers such as the US, Russia, France, the UK and China have had robust space programmes since the end of the Second World War. India joined the race a little later, with research activities intended strictly for civilian use. However, China’s stealthy Anti-Satellite Weapon Test (ASAT) in 2007 initiated a debate about space security in India, surrounded as it is by rogue nations that send out terror threats to its existence. Understanding India's Approach to Space Security is a deeply revelatory history of how India’s space programme gradually grew to emerge as an important player in space weaponisation. In his groundbreaking new book, Dr Bharath Gopalaswamy examines both the ethicality of using space assets as well as India’s technical and political options to defend and expand them. Arguing that non-terrestrial weaponisation is an immutable reality of the new millennium, the book calls for India to take immediate and bold steps to reconfigure its own programme in the immediate future. A must-read for anyone interested in space, weapon science or the realpolitik behind it all.