Excerpt from the article
Historically, nations that effectively controlled the dominant strategic domain of their era gained a decisive geopolitical advantage. For the past few centuries, the arteries of global power flowed through the oceans. Command of the seas allowed nations to become empires by controlling trade, establishing colonies, projecting military strength, and amassing transcontinental wealth and influence. Today, space has emerged as this new strategic frontier. Its rise as a competitive geopolitical arena is driven by an increased reliance on its unique technologies and the nature of the domain itself…
The reliance on space is realised as national power through a suite of critical technologies providing global communication, Earth observation, and precise navigation and timing. These are technologies deployed in space that serve Earth. Satellites in orbit provide the invisible backbone for global civilian and military communications. Emerging internet megaconstellations are rapidly expanding access and transforming communication during modern conflicts. Furthermore, Earth observation from space is used for military surveillance and resource monitoring. It underpins informed decision-making across diverse areas, including border security, maritime operations, climate action, and disaster response. Equally crucial are space-based positioning, navigation and timing services. They enable a vast array of applications—from missile strikes and commercial flights to banking transactions and smartphone GPS navigation…
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The author, Ashwin Prasad, is a Staff Research Analyst with the Advanced Military Technologies and Outer Space Programme at the Takshashila Institution. He welcomes inquiries and can be reached here.