The first space war took place in 1991. Iraq had invaded and occupied Kuwait and the US and coalition forces entered the fray to defend the small Gulf state as well as Saudi Arabia. To repel Saddam Hussein’s forces though, they needed to travel through and fight in the Arabian desert. Their plans to navigate these dunes were rudimentary – they planned to look up at the sun, stars and planets and look down at a compass to figure out where they were and where they needed to go. In that featureless, inhospitable terrain, they kept getting lost. So much so that the US decided to take a gamble and use a technology they had not yet used in war; GPS. The gamble paid off and they won. They managed to venture into parts of the desert Iraqis wouldn’t themselves go, pulling off surprise attacks, navigating through sandstorms, and being warned by satellites when there would be a missile strike. They were still looking up but this time, instead of counting stars, they were counting on our man-made celestial bodies to show them the way.
Fast forward to today, and states are blowing up their own satellites just to show they can. The final frontier hasn’t been the theatre for physical combat yet but war among the stars is inevitable. Since Russia launched the first satellite into orbit, states have been looking to gain space superiority. While the US and USSR were publicly ratifying treaties requiring each other to use the moon and other celestial bodies for peaceful purposes, they were secretly working on satellite systems with military capabilities. That’s not to say they let the law bind them in knots in the future, of course, the US from the start made sure to register that it understood ‘peaceful’ to mean not non-military but non-aggressive, allowing for the use of force in space in self-defence (while adopting a very broad reading of self-defence). Similarly, the law did not cover the ‘empty space’ between the moon and celestial bodies, which could be used ‘non-peacefully’. All state weapons therefore could be parked in that void of space, leading to satellites being an important asset in a state’s arsenal.
The issue is that satellites are huge things which shine brightly in the sky, can’t be hidden and travel on a predictable orbit – essentially sitting ducks for anyone wanting to attack them. And states do. Currently four of them have the ability to destroy satellites (US, Russia, China, India) and this could cripple a state’s forces. It could also affect daily life, even our ATMs run on satellites to make sure you don’t take money out of two machines at the same time. Our rescue services, healthcare, transportation, aviation, and essential services are hugely reliant on them. There’s a reason Elon Musk was tweeted at to allow internet services in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion. It’s a testament to how important satellite services are in times of war.
And sadly, Pakistan is largely left out of this space race. I was surprised to learn that Pakistan’s space programme started in 1960 and had success very early on, launching our first rocket into the atmosphere in 1962, the third state in Asia and tenth in the world to have done so. We even beat India to it then, which launched its rocket a year later. Since then, India’s rise as a space power has largely dovetailed with our freefall. Our neighbour just became the first country in the world to perform a soft landing on the moon’s south pole. A pinnacle achievement placing them forefront as a nation which will play a role in discovering the universe. They also blew up their own satellite in 2019, both a warning to the Chinese and to assert superiority over us. When war in the cosmos does occur we will have already ceded to India the ultimate high ground of space.
But all is not lost. While the figures are alarming, (Pakistan has 6 satellites compared to India’s 112) having more space assets means there is more to protect. Weaker states like Iran and North Korea are working on disabling satellites by dazzling them (blinding them with lasers) or jamming them (interfering with their radio frequency). Even in the second Gulf War, Iraqi forces used jammers to block signals for precision-guided munitions which relied on GPS for targeting. Pakistan can also look to the Gulf states for inspiration. The UAE recently sent a probe to Mars and declared that it was a “message of pride, hope and peace to the Arab region, in which we renew the golden age of Arab and Islamic discoveries”. When building our nuclear programme, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto notoriously declared that the people would eat grass but we would get the bomb. Once we’re out of this fiscal chokehold, we should focus that verve on scientific exploration, a renewed golden age, in which Pakistan also becomes a spacefaring nation.
