Article Reviews

China as a Space Power - A V Lele (pp.252-264), Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis (April-June 2002).

http://www.idsa-india.org/AN-APR0402-5.htm

This is a good paper by A.V.Lele of IDSA that attempts to sum up the Chinese (PRC) space capability with respect to its strategic & security interests particularly in light of recent world conflicts (Gulf war, Kosovo and war against terrorism in Afghanistan) that significantly leveraged space based assets as force multipliers. China seems to comprehend that space is key to future economic development & warfare. The paper manages well to keep its purview/objective within limited scope, away from technological aspects so as to be not bewildered with an otherwise enormous domain.

The secretive Communist government of China has only provided very limited but controlled release of information pertaining to its current activities, policies and outlook, but this paper has made attempt to analyze it from information available in English languages material from western sources. Unfortunately much of the subject material on the topic is in Chinese and Japanese, primarily from analysts in the geographic neighborhood (from Chinese, Taiwan and Japanese press as well as Internet sites with Mandarin and Japanese vernacular), and only a small fraction of that is available to the non-Mandarin literate analysts. The author of this paper has not recognized this in this paper at the risk of viewing the subject from largely Western sources & perspectives.

Learning from the breakdown of USSR, the Chinese are taking pragmatic cost effective steps to achieve the minimum military space capability at minimum cost by joining civilian space program with military programs. The centralized control of Communist government allows them to do it with relative ease. The progressive development of asymmetric warfare with increased use of space assets for Gulf war, Kosovo and Afghanistan is not lost to the Chinese and they are fearful of confronting it while invading Taiwan in future. They also desire to use the same technology to advantage in that conflict with Taiwan and its US backers.

The Chinese space effort began in the 1960s, launching its first satellite in 1970 and first Geostationary satellite in 1984. Like the initial years of the US & Russian spy satellites, the Chinese also developed (now obsolete) film recoverable spy satellites 1975. The Chinese entered the commercial launch market in 1985, later with heavy payload launchers (Long March-2/3). The author fails to mention that this forced the US to come to mutual agreement to the informal Space-Launch Cartel and in the process benefit from access to US market & technological know-how. China launched its first Sun Synchronous orbit satellite in 1988 and in 1999 an experimental precursor to manned spaceship.

As an emerging economic power China has developed dual-use space, electronics and semiconductor technology and when required applied it to military requirements. It developed and deployed a range of (mostly liquid-fuelled) short range, intermediate range and ICBM missiles for deterrence as well as influence and power projection. As an emerging economic and military power China has overtaken erstwhile Soviet Union as the dominant potential adversary and competitor to US. The author fails to mention the important fallout of Chinese military-space establishment with intentional and apparently liberal proliferation of missiles and rocket technology to political troublemakers, rough and unstable regimes in the world ranging from North-Korea, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi-Arabia and Iraq (?), and it continues to stay away from the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).

To inexpensively upgrade dated military communication systems, China has decided to share military traffic on its national & commercial satellites. Future large communication satellites will for the purpose have greater bandwidth (via multi-band transponders), new VSAT service for voice, data and video.  China’s first dedicated military communication satellite (launched 2000) serves secured and critical C3I functions for inter-service integrated battlefield management. The author rightly identifies the next force multiplier: Chinese efforts towards personal hand-held satellite based communication for battlefield soldiers.

The author notes China initiative towards independent (instead of using US GPS) satellite based military navigation (an experimental system with 2 Geostationary satellites launched in 2000). The author however fails to analyze the qualitative performance of the systems to validate applicability to different military operational requirements.

The author also profusely notes Chinese space based intelligence gathering efforts ranging from ELINT (electronic intelligence), COMINT (communication intelligence) and IMINT (image intelligence), along with the government organization for decoding and analysis of the enormous stream of data. These satellites are however of limited capability and lifespan but being improved with foreign remote sensing transfers. One glaring deficiency in the report is that the omission/absence of assessing Chinese early-warning satellite capability given that the Chinese field nuclear tipped IRBMs & ICBMs that project as well as face threat from all around and far away.

The author seems to spend special effort to indicate Chinese advancement in photoreconnaissance satellites (Chinese FSW satellites) that eject film from low earth orbit, and projects them as distinct capability that in my view is dated and less useful having long superseded by electronic scanning and transmission of much greater resolution and coverage. On the contrary Chinese seem to be distinctly lagging behind US, India and Israel (the Chinese-Brazil Earth Satellite first launched in 1999, Linear-CCD sensor and 20meter resolution), only their next generation satellites are scheduled for images with 1meter resolution. Their first remote sensing satellite was launched in 2000 with 5meter resolution and only 2 years life.

China’s Shenzhou spaceship has undergone 2 unmanned test launch and is due for manned launch in 2002. The author correctly points out that this project is to capture international attention and to instill national pride in Chinese citizens, clearly a most expensive PSYOP mission. The author mistakenly associates manned space borne reconnaissance as a possible mission for the Shenzhou, given that both USSR and US discovered its futility in the mid-1970s.

The paper also brings to the fore the Chinese ASAT effort and plan to negate the superpower monopoly of space utilization particularly in view of imminent confrontation with US over Taiwan issue and significantly influence the Chinese-American military balance.

Overall it is a well though out and well presented paper within the defined limited purview.

"Geo-Politics of South Asian Covert Action India’s Experience and Need for Action Against Pakistan", Dr Bhashyam Kasturi and Pankaj Mehra, http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/publication/idr/vol_16(2)/kasturi.htm

The authors present a fairly comprehensive review of covert operations in the Indian subcontinent. The discussion on the various operations carried out by Indian agencies is of great historical value. Though it is not uncommon for retired officers to `unofficially' give their views on `archival' operations in India, seldom is the discussion so complete.

The article discusses successes and failures of the covert action approach with equanimity. It clearly states that covert action should be aimed solely to create greater political and diplomatic space in dealing with the problems of Pakistan sponsored terror.

The piece cautiously treads the thin line between policy and politics. There are extensive comments about the politics of the Sri Lankan intervention in the 1980s but this is not really unfamiliar to readers from the region. Most of the material pertaining to this was released in the Jain Commission report in 1993. This is not the case with other covert operations from the period.

Though some details of these operations are presented, analysis of the political aspects of the decision making that went into authorizing them is left out. A great deal of time is spent telling the reader how an adamantine chain of control links the democratically elected leadership of the Republic of India and the intelligence community, but little by way of its dynamics is explained. How precisely the political authority wields and flexes this chain of command is left to the readers imagination. Indian readers will consider this act of willfully leaving open the back-door (to criticisms about a lack strategic culture among the political classes of India) as yet another example of the `Great Indian Duality'. 
  
The piece also contains a rather long section that suggests possible schemes for covert operations against Pakistan. Readers in India may find this very new and exciting. Most Indian commentaries about the Pakistan policy tend to be rather dull and boring, writing racy stuff is regarded in most Indian circles as somewhat unbecoming.

Readers outside India may be tempted to dismiss this part of the piece as it reads like something out of a western spy novel. These readers should bear in mind that most of the stuff written about the India-Pakistan conflict doesn't really read very differently either so the authors do not have to worry about "undershooting the standards in this field"[4]. What does come across pretty firmly from this section is that should India endeavor to conduct covert action in Pakistan on the same scale (as Pakistan currently does in India) the results would be fatal for Pakistan. This fact will probably dawn on Pakistani readers pretty quickly, whether such a realization has the desired effect remains to be seen.   

After the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13th Indian security planners have been considering various alternatives to an all out military invasion of Pakistan, and covert action is clearly one of the items on the list. This article clearly outlines what the likely consequences of covert action may be and actually resonates with ideas raised in other pieces [1][2][3] by B. Raman. The authors also make a special note of thanks to him. This underscores the point that this piece in someway reflects a consensus slowly building in the minds of India's security planners.

[1] http://www.saag.org/papers5/paper495.html,
[2] http://www.saag.org/papers4/paper383.html,
[3] http://www.saag.org/papers4/paper375.html,
[4] A phrase borrowed from Narayanan Komerath's piece titled `Has Pakistan Lost its Nukes' in the July-2002 BR Monitor.