Space Militarization: Threats to Security of Pakistan and Strategic Stability of South Asia

Abstract

Outer space is the defining future of international politics, with space faring becoming a global common. This thesis provides an assessment of the national and regional security threats due to the imbalance of space capabilities between two nuclear states on South Asia, India and Pakistan. It begins with an overview of Pakistan’s space program and its decline resulting in the emergence of security threat from the potential enemy. It also iterates the importance of Pakistan’s space program to enhance the capabilities of armed forces. This thesis is supported by concepts security and technology under game theory. Both of them will support the main concepts of technical and security threat. The strategic stability of South Asia due to space race will be supported by the idea of security trilemma. This research will induce the methods of qualitative and quantitative research, with interviews and literature review as tool for data collection. The objective of this research is to address the questions of imbalance of civil-military capabilities between India and Pakistan in outer space. To analyze the impact of space militarization by India on national and regional security and to explore the prospects of a long-term strategy for growth of Pakistan’s Space Program (PSP). This thesis will explore the aspects of military use of space assets and the way it can contribute towards improvement in military capabilities of Pakistan in outer space. This research presents a policy incorporating capacity building measures to ensure security and a suggestive space strategy for civil-military utilization of space assets.