Current Affairs
One month after an ageing Indian Air Force jet was shot down in a dogfight with neighboring Pakistan, New Delhi has demneighbouring new weapons capability aimed at another, more powerful geopolitical rival: China.On Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi used a national address to announce India had “established itself as a space power” by sending an indigenously designed ballistic-missile interceptor up 300 kilometers (190 miles) to destroy a satellite orbiting the Earth.
The move -- with political overtones just weeks ahead of a national election -- sends a stark message to India’s nuclear-armed rivals, China and Pakistan, and changes Asia’s strategic calculus by proving India has the ability to knock out enemy satellites.
The development suggests India, which has long struggled with a lethargic military-procurement process and outdated defense technology, is getting closer to sitting alongside China, Russia and the U.S. as countries with the ability to disrupt enemy communications networks.
The move comes weeks after India sparred with arch-foe Pakistan in the skies over Kashmir, a disputed border region where China also has territorial claims.
“Essentially, India is saying that we are a strong and capable military power -- it’s not specific to any one country, but it is a message to all of India’s adversaries,” said Ajey Lele, a retired Indian Air Force group captain who’s now a senior fellow at the Ministry of Defence-funded Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses.
“If somebody wants to do something to our satellites, we have the capability to do this to your satellites.”
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