The Hindu : Lack of progress on aerospace command worries MPs

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 04, 2003

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National

Lack of progress on aerospace command worries MPs

By Sandeep Dikshit

NEW DELHI MAY 3. Despite the lessons in hi-tech warfare learnt from the U.S.-led aggression on Iraq, scant conceptual work appears to have been done on setting up an IAF-led aerospace command that would leverage the developments in space technologies for the country's defence.

Appearing before a parliamentary committee last month, the Defence Ministry adopted a dilatory approach on the subject. Asked to furnish a brief note on the development of the aerospace command, it said there was no such command in the IAF at present. But it did throw light on how developments in space technologies could be utilised for the development of air defence technologies.

While Western sensitivities on the subject could be one reason for the reluctance — the West, led by the U.S., has frowned on ballistic missile tests by India and Pakistan — another reason could be that talks with Israel for acquiring an hi-tech airborne radar have progressed satisfactorily.

Also, premature airing of the concept could jeopardise the drive to acquire a sophisticated "eye-in-the-sky", a critical component in the aerospace command.

Regardless of these compulsions, analysts and parliamentarians hope that considering the futuristic security scenario, the development of the concept would be taken up seriously and that the planning and groundwork would be initiated at the earliest.

Successive IAF chiefs, including the current incumbent, S. Krishnaswamy, have reiterated the need for aerospace command. At a closed door meeting with his commanders last year, Air Chief Marshal Krishnaswamy had said that the IAF could aspire to transform itself into an air and space force to militarily exploit the medium of space to the maximum.

In what was probably the first-ever presentation on the concept last year — which was rated radical — he said there was no intention of encroaching into the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) territory, but he wanted the country to utilise available space technologies for protecting fighter aircraft in the event of space warfare.

By embracing the concept, the IAF in future would be known Indian Air and Space Force, he felt.

Despite expressing intentions in this direction, the Government's response is seen as discouraging. In 2000, the Parliamentary Committee on Defence had noted the strategic importance of beginning work in this direction and asked the Government to frame a plan that imparted defence orientation to the peaceful space programme. "We are living in a world where the contours of frontiers of conflict are changing fast and there is interfacing between science and war technology," it said.

Though the concept had evolved in other parts of the world about a decade ago, the panel had "appreciated'' the Defence Ministry's plan to undertake an exercise to evolve options and concepts of aerospace command. The preparation of a conceptual model was not supposed to be confined within the perimeters of Government organisations.

The IAF was asked to undertake preparatory work of defining viable concepts and drafting various doctrinal and command\control models by interacting with the academia as well.

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