Aerospace and Outer Space Diplomacy

Military Power and Foreign Policy

As diplomacy has evolved, the twin ideas of national interest and state sovereignty have become central to the conduct of foreign policy. For most states the two principal national interests are security and economic interest, and in an age of geo-economics, both are increasingly pursued through diplomacy backed by capability.

Where the colonial era projected influence through military force, the globalised era projects it through economic and technological reach.

A distinctive feature of India’s approach has been the separation of military and economic diplomacy. Unlike several major powers that openly wield military force as an instrument of foreign policy, India has been reluctant to treat military diplomacy as such — even though air power, naval power and peacekeeping have repeatedly advanced its foreign-policy goals.

India’s contribution to UN peacekeeping, rooted in the constitutional commitment under Article 51 to promote international peace and security, is the clearest expression of this tradition.

Air Power as an Instrument of Foreign Policy

Air power serves foreign policy in three broad ways — protecting citizens and national interest, coercing an adversary, and delivering decisive advantage at the strategic level.

Role of air power	Illustration
Protecting the diaspora / HADR	Non-combat use to evacuate citizens and deliver humanitarian relief.
Coercion	A visible instrument to deter escalation or compel an adversary.
Strategic advantage	Denying the enemy freedom of action to secure a decisive edge in war.

CASE STUDY — The 1991 Kuwait Airlift

Nearly three lakh Indians were living and working in Iraq and Kuwait when the Gulf crisis of 1990–91 erupted. India’s priority — squarely a national interest — was to bring its people out of the war zone.

Citizens were routed through Jordan and airlifted home in an operation that moved over a lakh people, one of the largest civilian evacuations by air ever undertaken. It demonstrated air power in the service of the foreign-policy goal of protecting the diaspora.

CASE STUDY — Air Power in the 1971 War

As Indian forces advanced into East Pakistan in 1971, the American carrier USS Enterprise moved towards the Bay of Bengal. India judged that if the carrier reached the theatre, East Pakistani airfields could be used to complicate its options.

The Indian Air Force struck those airfields, rendering them unusable and denying the adversary an operational base — a textbook use of air power to secure strategic advantage.

The lesson endures: air power is an important instrument of foreign policy. Its continuing salience is reflected in India’s investment in advanced platforms such as the Rafale multirole fighter, which strengthens both deterrence and diplomatic weight.

Why Space Matters to Foreign Policy

Space is simultaneously a domain of scientific achievement, economic value, strategic power and international cooperation. From its earliest days India understood that space technology could transform agriculture, education, communications and industry, and that it offered a natural arena for cooperation with other nations.

This dual character — development at home, partnership abroad — has made space one of the most productive strands of Indian diplomacy.

Evolution of India’s Space Programme

The global space race began in 1957, and for many developing nations a space programme was financially out of reach. India’s own drive dates to 1958–59. In 1961 the government entrusted space research, for peaceful purposes, to the Department of Atomic Energy, and in 1962 it created the Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR).

The founding goal was twofold: build indigenous, self-reliant technology and contribute to international cooperation in research.

India’s equatorial location, close to the geomagnetic equator, made it ideal for atmospheric research. With support from the UN and partners, the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) was set up near Thiruvananthapuram, its first sounding rocket flying in 1963; it was later dedicated to the United Nations as an international facility.

After the passing of the pioneering physicist who had led the atomic-energy establishment, leadership passed to Vikram Sarabhai, who articulated a space programme tied firmly to socio-economic goals.

The institutional architecture matured quickly: the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was established in 1969, and in 1972 the Department of Space (DOS), placed directly under the Prime Minister, was created — with ISRO functioning under it.

This duo delivered India’s first satellites: Aryabhata (1975), and the Bhaskara series (from 1979), the country’s first experimental remote-sensing satellites, gathering data on telemetry, oceanography and hydrology. Soviet support was pivotal in these early launches.

▸ Milestones of the Formative Era

1962	INCOSPAR constituted under the Department of Atomic Energy.
1963	First sounding rocket launched from TERLS, Thumba.
1969	ISRO established, superseding INCOSPAR.
1972	Department of Space created under the Prime Minister; ISRO placed under it.
1975	Aryabhata, India’s first satellite, launched with Soviet help.
1979	Bhaskara-I, first experimental remote-sensing satellite.

▸ Self-Reliance Amid Technology Denial

The programme grew under the shadow of technology-denial regimes. Fearing that rocket technology could bolster India’s ballistic-missile capability, powers such as the United States withheld critical know-how — a pattern later formalised through export-control arrangements.

India responded by deepening indigenous research and development, achieving early success in small rockets, two-stage sounding rockets and satellite communications, and steadily earning global respect from the 1980s onward.

Space as an Instrument of Diplomacy Today

From a recipient of assistance, India has become a provider of space services and a sought-after partner. Its space diplomacy now operates across several dimensions.

▸ Scientific and Commercial Leadership

India offers reliable, cost-effective launch services and has executed landmark missions — including a soft landing near the lunar south pole and dedicated solar and interplanetary missions — that showcase capability and build prestige. Commercial launches of foreign satellites convert this capability into influence and revenue.

▸ Bilateral Space Partnerships

• United States: the jointly built NISAR Earth-observation satellite, India’s participation in the Artemis Accords, and a NASA–ISRO human-spaceflight framework including the training of Indian astronauts — anchored in the iCET technology partnership.
• Russia: long-standing cooperation extending to support for India’s human-spaceflight programme.
• France and Japan: joint missions and satellite collaboration in Earth observation and planetary science.

▸ Space for Development and Neighbourhood Goodwill

Space applications underpin governance and development — weather forecasting, agriculture, tele-education, tele-medicine and disaster management. As an act of regional soft power, India has shared these benefits with its neighbours through a dedicated communications satellite for the South Asian region, offering connectivity and disaster-support services as a diplomatic gift.

▸ The Strategic and Defence Dimension

Space is now a recognised military domain. India demonstrated an anti-satellite (ASAT) capability through Mission Shakti in 2019, joining a small group of nations able to strike targets in orbit, and has since strengthened dedicated defence-space institutions to protect its assets and secure the domain.

Issues and Challenges

Challenge	Explanation
Weaponisation of space	Growing military competition risks turning space into an arena of conflict, straining the ‘peaceful uses’ ideal.
Space debris	Congestion and collision risk threaten the sustainability of orbits used for critical assets.
Technology-denial regimes	Export controls on dual-use and rocket technology continue to constrain access to advanced systems.
Funding constraints	A modest budget relative to the leading space powers limits the pace of ambitious programmes.
Commercial competition	Aggressive private players abroad intensify the race for the global launch market.

The Way Forward

• Institutionalise space diplomacy: treat space cooperation as a deliberate pillar of foreign policy, from the neighbourhood to major-power partnerships.
• Open up the sector: sustain reforms that bring in private enterprise and start-ups to scale launch capacity and lower costs.
• Deepen indigenisation: reduce dependence on denied technologies by mastering critical systems domestically.
• Shape global norms: lead efforts on space-debris mitigation, traffic management and the peaceful, rules-based use of outer space.
• Integrate defence-space: build resilient, survivable assets and clear doctrine to secure the strategic high ground.
• Leverage soft power: extend satellite-based development services to partner nations as instruments of goodwill and influence.

Synthesis

From the airlift of citizens in a war zone to the joint building of Earth-observation satellites with the world’s leading space agencies, aerospace and outer space have become versatile instruments of Indian foreign policy — advancing security, development, prestige and partnership at once.

The task ahead is to convert technical excellence into sustained strategic and diplomatic leverage, making space a defining pillar of India’s rise.