The Erosion of Multipolar Equilibrium in South Asia

India’s Space Ambitions

As January 2026 unfolds, India’s Gaganyaan-1 crewed test (with the Vyommitra robot on board) is scheduled to launch in early March sometime next year; the world is cheering a step forward for a developing country. Through the besieged Pakistani prism, however, this spectacle conceals the diabolical siege: India’s space programme as the herald of a unipolar subcontinental order, masquerading as a multipolar advancement.

Estranged instead of providing common prosperity and regional security, the orbital ambitions of New Delhi are undermining regional balance, compelling Pakistan into a vicious defensive cycle. This Indian advancement of provocation would threaten the delicate multipolarity that is developing worldwide, where impacts are not only astronomical but also insurmountably harmful to the globe. 

It is not about star gazing, but rather strategic strangulation that the Defence Space Agency is undertaking in its ambitious rollout of 52 dedicated military satellites between 2025 and 2029, starting with the launch in April 2026. This is enhanced by the 2025 Joint Military Space Doctrine, which provides a seamless web of all-weather ISR, navigation, and targeting across South Asia. The borders of Pakistan, which are already porous in a conventional sense, are made transparent to this gaze: feeds updated in real-time may be able to direct the forces of India across the Thar Desert or into the valleys of Kashmir with surgical precision. This was highlighted during the May 2025 aerial skirmish, where satellite-based intelligence supposedly misjudged the land, causing civilian casualties, revealing some weakness in C4ISR that can never be completely overcome by a ground upgrade. 

Beyond this, India’s ASAT improvements under Mission Shakti, which now include laser dazzlers and electronic warfare payloads, pose an existential risk. A non-kinetic soft kill would put Pakistan in a state of near paralysis, shutting down its already limited satellite array (fewer than ten active units) to missile guidance and early warning systems in a crisis. Such asymmetry is not stagnant; it is gaining momentum. The Indian stock is over 100-130 satellites (compared to 7-8 in Pakistan), and is paired with AI-based analytics in predictive warfare. In principle, multipolarity disperses power, but in this case, it increases India’s bargaining power, as alliances are torn down along spatial lines. The space capabilities of the Chinese (nearly 628 satellites) give Pakistan a certain weight through China’s strategic partnership. The collaborative CPEC space technologies, such as the launch of a new Remote Sensing Satellite PRSS-01, from China’s Xichang Satellite Launch Center, which enhances 24/7 high-resolution imaging for precision agriculture, urban planning, disaster management, and mainly for geospatial mapping of CPEC projects. 

However, the US-India nexus, cemented by iCET (Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology) and mutual satellite data protocols, further creates hurdles for Pakistan, even with collaboration with China, as it doesn’t dismiss India’s aggressive posture in the region. This is not innovation; provocatively, it is imperialism reloaded. The space story of India resonates with colonial cartography: explorations and conquest of the heavens to create control over the earth. The parallels are not new in history; the British were also drawing arbitrary lines on maps, and now India is drawing orbital limits. According to the satellite database released by the Union of Concerned Scientists, military spending on space increased by 40 per cent after 2022 compared to civilian expenditures. 

The provocative point is that India’s space boom is not making the region rise to a higher plane, it is destabilizing the multipolarity in the grip of unilateral dominance. Pakistan cannot survive by compromising; it needs bold countermeasures. Balance in the shadow of stars is kept by a piece of thread, a cut off, and South Asia is reduced to heavenly anarchy.

India can avoid scrutiny of its arms control through its hybrid strategy in the multipolar world, where the USA, China, and Russia compete to influence the cosmos by positioning themselves as Western, technologically aligned, and projecting themselves as independent. An example of this was the 2021 UN resolution on space debris, which criticized the Russian tests but failed to mention the Indian ASAT that created debris in 2019, showing a Western double standard.  Orbital encirclement of Pakistan can lead to more dangerous doctrines, such as reduced nuclear levels, preemptive cyberattacks, or unconventional alliances. This is not paranoia; models of game-theoretic strategies in simulations by the RAND Corporation have predicted greater instability when one party gains a space advantage. Pakistan stands to be at the mercy of foreign space services economically because India can indirectly sabotage telecom or even weather forecasting services, which will paralyze the response to floods or famines. 

Pakistan requires disruptive innovation to break this siege. It needs to develop mobile ASAT missiles, as China did in 2007, and invest in quantum-encrypted communications to avoid surveillance. Diplomatically, mobilize the Global South in such forums as the Non-Aligned Movement, and tag the Indian programme as being stellar neo-hegemony, which erodes multipolarity. The United Nations should come forward and offer South Asian states demilitarization agreements, supported by inspections. Finally, diversify partnerships– and build Pakistan’s participation in Europe (through ESA partnerships) and the Middle East (through the UAE's space agency) to develop resilient, multi-source capability.

The provocative point is that India’s space boom is not making the region rise to a higher plane, it is destabilizing the multipolarity in the grip of unilateral dominance. Pakistan cannot survive by compromising; it needs bold countermeasures. Balance in the shadow of stars is kept by a piece of thread, a cut off, and South Asia is reduced to heavenly anarchy.