"The U.S. has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action." 

"Space control encapsulates the mission area required to contest and control the space domain -- employing kinetic and non-kinetic means to affect adversary capabilities."

"These capabilities can be employed for offensive and defensive purposes." 

U.S. Space Force spokesperson

US Space Command has announced it has put weapons in space for the first time. (Reuters: US Space Command/Christopher DeWitt)

 

"[The] weaponization of outer space turning it into a battlefield, as well as an arms race there [must be avoided at all costs]."

"We urge the U.S. side to stop expanding its military capabilities and preparing for war in outer space."

Guo Jiakun, Foreign Ministry, China 

 

"[Space must be kept] free of any weapons."

"We are counting on broad international consolidation to continue working toward the complete demilitarization of space."

Dmitry Peskov, spokesman, Kremlin, Russia

The US Space Force's deployment will likely provoke other countries to follow suit, experts warn. (Reuters: Mike Blake

 

American authorities unceasingly portray China and Russia as aggressors worldwide. And the truth is, they have proven themselves to be just that, in their focus on territorial expansion and their willingness to author conflicts to gain their goals. Russia for the time being, more obviously prepared to declare war by any other descriptions which ends up killing tens of thousands of civilians and military alike. China's forte has been on the commercial side, with loans to developing nations for vital infrastructure, making for indebtedness, just as it has succeeded in becoming the global colossus of manufacturing, stripping it from the West, providing cheaper alternatives to a welcoming marketplace. 

 

Taiwan awaits the inevitable from China in Beijing's long march toward 'unification' where war is not ruled out to achieve its intentions. Although the United States has been the leader in space exploration, China has been close behind, landing a rover on the far side of the moon and acquiring valuable samples to answer astronomical questions of Earth's evolution even as the U.S. looks further into the universe to decipher its origins and creation. Russia was first in space exploration with Sputnik, falling behind ever since.

 

China is among the countries with its own space ambitions. (Reuters: China Daily)

 

International cooperation with the long-shared Space Station that temporarily housed both Russian and U.S. astronauts and scientific experiments, worked well as long as it lasted, but a resurgence in American pride and status as the world's sole superpower urges it forward continually to distinguish itself from its competitors seeking similar status and recognition. And then there is India which has also convincingly demonstrated that the world's most populous country is also capable of great scientific engineering feats in outer space.  

"The only difference is that the U.S. used to keep it ambiguous, whereas now it has gone public, which shows that Washington is no longer trying to hide it."

"China will not stand by and do nothing."

"Whether China deploys weapons in space will depend entirely on whether the United States moves in that direction."

Song Zhongping, independent military commentator, Hong Kong 

U.S. Space Force Guardians assigned to Space Delta 5 monitor computer workstations at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, U.S., December 18, 2025. U.S. Space Forces/David Dozoretz/Handout via REUTERS

 

The sensitive issue of the militarization of space is a troubling one. The very thought of these national powers developing the methodology and structures involved in producing space weaponry to challenge each other's military aspirations beyond the confines of Earth is bedeviling beyond measure, representing a failure of human willingness to respect parameters beyond which none should seek to venture. The executive branch of national politics and their elite military counterparts see no reason to curtail their ambitions.

 

That life on Earth will become more fraught with existential challenges while the heavens above are wracked with powerfully destructive weapons of mass annihilation, particularly at a time when artificial intelligence is being worked to contribute to the functions of design, manufacture, scheduling and  schemes of alpha conquest and control, risking at the same time the eventual autonomous devolution of AI estimating that humankind has failed its own test of humanity, and that it is time for a higher intelligence that is not human to make its mark, adds substantially to 'what could conceivably go wrong'.

 

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket launches a classified payload for the United States Space Force at Cape Canaveral in Florida in 2024. Photograph: Joe Marino/UPI/REX/Shutterstock

 

Neither the advance toward the militarization of space, nor that which continues to further develop artificial intelligence capabilities beyond the capacity of human ingenuity to control can be of any benefit to humanity, and indeed has the potential to end humanity. That the United States of America under the controlling mind and hand of a a megalomaniac for whom caution is a difficult-to-spell word and a concept he will not recognize, as his whims and arrogance disrupt human relations and nation-to-nation coherence is no shrugging matter.  

"There is a regulatory vacuum because Article 4 of the 1967 treaty only forbids weapons of mass destruction and nuclear weapons in orbit."

"Moscow and Beijing have been wanting to work for about 20 years on a treaty to prevent the placement of weapons in space [while] western states are trying instead to work on the notion of responsible behaviour."

"The U.S. announcement will likely give impetus to the restrictive approach that Moscow and Beijing are pushing for." 

Laetitia Cesari, space law expert  

The US military's unmanned X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, pictured at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, the US in 2025. — Reuters/

 

"It is a privilege and an honour for me to stand before this distinguished House. I do so as the Prime Minister of India, and as a representative of one ancient civilization addressing another."

"I bring with me the greetings of 1.4 billion Indians, and a message of friendship, respect, and partnership."

"India has also endured the pain of terrorism. We feel your pain. We share your grief. India stands with Israel, firmly with full conviction, in this moment and beyond."

"Like you, we have a consistent and uncompromising policy of zero tolerance for terrorism, with no double standards."

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi 

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, in Jerusalem on February 25, 2026. (Photo by ilia YEFIMOVICH / AFP via Getty Images)

 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi just concluded his second visit to Israel. His first took place in 2017, becoming the first prime minister of India to visit Israel. He spoke of the acknowledgement of much in common, historically, culturally and politically between the two nations. In speaking of India's high alert over terrorism, addressing the Knesset, it is clear that Islamist terrorism that has kept Israel on guard since 1948, is the very menace that India too has faced, and from that very same year-before, when Pakistan divided from India and a mass exchange of population took place through partition.

 

The Partition offer made by the United Nations between Israel and those calling themselves Palestinians failed to conclude with two states side-by-side, when Israel gratefully and ebulliently took up the offer and the Arab Palestinians rejected it. That rejection has continued with each offer Israel has made through negotiations where concessions were never enough for the Palestinians demanding the ultimate concession of  Israel's dissolution and the land 'from the river to the sea' turned over to the Palestinians; land historically and ancestrally Judean. 

 

India and Pakistan continue to confront one another over the disputed border of Kashmir. India aspires to live in peace with its combative neighbour, while knowing that there will be eruptions of violence emanating from Pakistan into India. Internally, India hosts the third largest Muslim population globally as citizens, about 14 percent of its population. Distrust between the fractious nature of Muslim vs Hindu can flare at any time. India with its vast population base and huge ethnic/religious/ideological groups must also grapple with threats from its Sikh population that promotes a geographic schism in the Punjab called Kalistan. 

 

But it was a fundamentalist Islamist Pakistani group that launched a massive attack on India's financial hub in south Mumbai that brought home the extremist hatred of religious domination through jihad when a dozen coordinated attacks in 2008 shut the city down for three days while Indian security forces battled with murderous armed terrorists shooting and setting off explosives in a catastrophic scene of pandemonium and bloodshed, where in total 175 civilians, security personnel, and nine attackers, were killed. Bodies of many of the dead hostages showed signs of torture or disfigurement. 

 

Thursday, Nov. 27, 2008, fire engulfs a part of the Taj Hotel in Mumbai, India. Teams of gunmen stormed luxury hotels, a popular restaurant, hospitals and a crowded train station in coordinated attacks across India’s financial capital,taking Westerners hostage and leaving parts of the city under siege. The terror lasted for three day which killed 195 people. (AP Photo/Gautam Singh)

"[India honours the ancient Jewish communities of India]: the Bene Israel of Maharashtra, the Cochini Jews of Keralam, The Baghdadi Jews of Kolkata and Mumbai, and the Bnei Menashe of the North East have enriched India."

"In my home state, Gujarat, there is a school set up by a Bene Israeli family -- Mister and Missus Best. It is an excellent school, and of course, it is called the Best School!"

Prime Minister Modi  

Cochin Jews, c. 1900.

 

India is forced to arm itself in readiness for the prospect of defending itself against further violence from Pakistan. Like Israel, India is also a nuclear power ... as is Pakistan. Pakistan battles its own insurgent Islamists as it happens, as well as preparing itself for conflict with Afghanistan where skirmishes have already taken place between the two through accusations by Pakistan that Afghanistan is giving haven to Pakistan's Taliban that threaten Islamabad. The irony being that Pakistan had sheltered and its Intelligence Services had trained the Afghanistan Taliban.

 

According to the Stockholm International Research Institute, 34 percent of Israel's total arms exports between 2020 and 2024, valued at roughly $20.5 billion have gone to India. Israel supplies India with "missiles, seekers, radars, sensors, electronic warfare suites, UAV technologies, and a host of force multipliers." 

 

India represents one of the few geographies where persistent antisemitism has not made its way into the culture; Jews have lived safely in India for centuries; unlike the Jewish experience throughout Europe where diaspora Jews have lived for millennia. In India no pogroms threatened the security of Jews living there, no expulsions took place, nor state-institutionalized persecution. Much less ghettos imposed upon Jewish-Indian enclaves.  

 

Times of Israel

"Israel is often called the 'startup nation'." 

"Our aspirational spirit aligns naturally with Israel's innovation ecosystem. I see a lot of synergies in areas such as quantum technologies, semiconductors, and artificial intelligence."

"We are also working with Israel on creating cross-border financial linkages using our Digital Public Infrastructure." 

Prime Minister Modi 

China Welcoming Friends Old and New

"This parade showcases the ascendancy of China propelled by Trump's inept diplomacy and President Xi's astute statecraft."

"The Washington consensus has unravelled, and Xi is rallying support for an alternative."

Jeff Kingston, professor of Asian studies, Temple University, Japan 

 

"Though the Russia-North Korea tie has resumed to a military alliance, China refuses to return to the year of 1950 [when Beijing sent soldiers to support North Korea's invasion of the South and the USSR provided critical military aid]."

"It is wrong to believe that China, Russia and North Korea are reinforcing bloc-building."

Zhu Feng, dean, School of International Relations, Nanjing University 

 

"I want to say that no one has been plotting anything, no one was weaving any conspiracies."

"None of the three leaders had even thought about such a thing."

Yuri Ushakov, Putin foreign affairs adviser

 

"Kim can also claim a diplomatic victory as North Korea has gone from unanimously sanctioned by the U.N. Security Council for its illegal nuclear and missile programs to being embraced by the UNSC permanent members Russia and China."

Leif-Eric Easley, professor of International Studies, Ewha Womans University, Seoul

China put its military might on display Wednesday with a large parade. Also on display was China’s Xi Jinping flanked by Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, a group of leaders united in a desire to challenge the dominance of the United States.  Still from video/CBC

 

Standing shoulder to shoulder, leaders of China, North Korea and Russia watched high-tech military hardware moving impressively along with thousands of soldiers marching the streets of Beijing in an massive show of strength and power. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke with private confidence, smiling, clasping hands at a meeting several days before the military parade, at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

 

The meetings represented living proof of a message being sent to the United States of America and its allies through a shift from the U.S.-dominated world order led by the West with American President Donald Trump withdrawing from his nation's historic alliances, while imposing trade tariffs on friend and foe alike, shaking the world economy, puzzling allies and placing them on the defensive, looking elsewhere for validation of their right to aspire to economic and political stability, left adrift by the one guiding-light nation that has turned inward.

 

"Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin and (North Korean leader) Kim Jong Jun, as you conspire against The United States of America" was President Trump's message to his Chinese counterpart, while congratulating China on its celebration of emergence from the Second World War, free from Japanese occupation. A freedom from occupation not due to China's own defences, but owing to the offensive offered by the United States in humbling and defeating Japan through the persuasive power of its then-emerging nuclear capabilities.

The latest drones, missiles and other weapons were on display during a military parade to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, in front of Tiananmen Gate in Beijing on Wednesday. Chinese President Xi Jinping invited dozens of leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to his nation's largest-ever military parade. (Liu Xu/Xinhua/The Associated Press)

 

The 80th anniversary in Beijing commemorating the end of the Second World War was the annual showcasing of Beijing's dedication to its own burgeoning nuclear arsenals on land, in the air and at sea. China's assertiveness, its expansionist imperatives and economic/manufacturing/infrastructure/trade and foreign investment through its ambitious Belt and Road initiative signal it as the emerging counterpart of the powerful United States of America.

 

The leaders invited to share China's celebratory commemoration, from Russia to North Korea, India to Turkey, Iran and to Cuba, share one issue in common between them, isolation and sanctions from the United States and its Western bloc of allies. Beyond that shared connection is the fact that each of those nations is fully focused on their own aspirational futures, some in direct contradiction to China's. Even while isolation drives their friendship, it is a facade, since they all aspire to achieve their goals, while gravitating around China's lead.

 

YJ-21 hypersonic anti-ship ballistic missiles are seen during a military parade marking the 80th anniversary of victory over Japan and the end of World War II, in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on September 3, 2025.   Pedro Pardo/AFP/Getty Images

 

China remains concerned with North Korea's nuclear power which has softened its support for Kim. Making common cause with Putin, both deeply isolated from the West, belies the reality that though both have signed a military pact strengthening their overt ties, they still and will always have territorial disagreements in a silent infiltration of Chinese in Russia's far east, scantly populated by Russians and increasingly taken possession of by Chinese settlers.

 

The free trade agreement that India and Washington were negotiating fell apart when Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff across the board as punishment for the Russian oil New Delhi has signed on to; with combined tariffs at 50 percent taking Modi aback at a time when relations with the U.S. were on rocky ground of late, forcing India to look elsewhere for support and for the time being, moving closer to China and Russia.  

"India is carefully walking this tightrope between the West and the rest, especially when it comes to the U.S., Russia and China."

"[Modi did not participate in Beijing's military parade since] distrust with China still exists."

"Because India does not believe in formal alliances, its approach has been to strengthen its relationship with the United States, maintain it with Russia, and manage it with China."

Praveen Donthi, senior analyst, International Crisis Group 

Military personnel take part in a military parade to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Japan’s World War II surrender held in front of Tiananmen Gate in Beijing, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Canadian Khalistani Threat to India

A flag of the Kahlistan movement and the Canadian flag

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"[A small number of Khalistani extremists] continue to use Canada as a base for the promotion, fundraising or planning of violence primarily in India." 

"[A situation which served, in turn, to draw the attention of India and fuelled Indian foreign interference actions in Canada]."

"[India is outlined as one of the] main perpetrators [of foreign interference and espionage."

"[Links between the Government of India and the 2023 murder of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar represents a significant escalation in India’s repression efforts against the Khalistan movement and a clear intent to target individuals in North America."

"[Canada] must remain vigilant about continued foreign interference conducted by the Government of India, not only within ethnic, religious and cultural communities but also in Canada’s political system."

Canadian Security Intelligence Services (CSIS) 2024 report 

 

CSIS observes and diagnoses the situation it has called out from the perspective of incomplete or selective data, bypassing the provocations that a small, vocal, violent and conspiratorial group within the overall Canadian Sikh population represents in plotting against India on Canadian soil, hoping to incite an insurrection against Indian rule of its Sikh population by fulminating against India and demanding that the Indian government assent to fracturing its territorial integrity by gifting a portion of the Punjab to Indian Sikhs as a sovereign homeland, to be called Khalistan.

 

This, at a juncture when the issue has fairly well dissipated in India itself; its Sikh population no longer interested in separating from India, and reflected in its largest expatriate community located in Canada where most Canadian Sikhs have no interest in calling for a geographic separation between Sikhs and Hindus. 

Relations between India and Canada have been strained ever since Justin Trudeau became Prime Minister.  If the India-Canada bilateral readouts after the brief meeting on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in New Delhi reflected a relationship that’s destined to head the Pakistan way, then the diplomatic war that has been declared by Trudeau and joined by India has ended all pretense of normal ties and reduced Canada to the status of a new Pakistan. Observer Research Foundation

 

The deadliest terrorist attack in Canadian history took place forty years ago when ferociously anti-India Sikhs in Canada plotted an act of aviation catastrophe, and succeeded in blowing up an Air India passenger jet, killing 329 people on board, 268 of whom were Canadian citizens. An act of terrorism that the RCMP is still investigating, although it is well known and acknowledged that a particularly virulent Khalistani radical group was responsible for masterminding the attack and acting on it.

 

Enquiries and trials that eventually took place failed to lead to establishing guilt, leaving the perpetrators to walk away, free men. Since then the perpetrators of that appalling lethal attack have never been called to account. An outcome that failed to impress India favourably. Much less the fact that the government of Canada has failed India's requests to surrender to their authorities Canadian Sikhs who have been found guilty of major crimes in India.

 

The extremist Khalistani movement remains hale and hearty in Canada which has chosen to harbour them rather than condemn their actions and ongoing incitements to violence against India. In their parades, the Khalistanis take pride in venerating those among them infamous for violent lethal acts against Hindi India. They mock the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by one of her Sikh bodyguards, and desecrate her image, just as they hang India's current Prime Narendra Modi in effigy. 

 

Khalistan flags last year in Surrey, British Columbia. India has repeatedly accused Khalistan-related activists in countries like Canada of sponsoring gang warfare, drug trafficking and extortion in India.  Credit...Jackie Dives for The New York Times

 

In 2023 the U.K. government commissioned a review that revealed Khalistani activists exploited government ignorance, threatened and intimidated Sikhs, indoctrinated youth and solicited funds from Sikh temples to further their extremist agenda. No such revelatory actions have been taken in Canada. Instead the government has no reaction to the Khalistani penchant for extolling the heroics of the terrorists among them and the vicious vilification of India's majority Hindu population and their government.

 

India's concerns and overtures to the Canadian government have availed it nothing. Instead, the federal government continues to equate the extreme fringe Khalistanis with the majority Sikh population in Canada who have nothing whatever to do with them and who have no interest whatever in espousing for a Sikh Khalistani homeland. All this, in the Liberal government-of-the-day courting an ethnic bloc vote.  

 

CSIS in fact revealed that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency aided and made use of the Khalistan movement in its own bid to destabilize India. 

 

India maintains that Pakistan's involvement of protecting, funding and training the Khalistanis, enabled the group to emerge into a transnational criminal enterprise. In British Columbia Khalistani terrorists murdered some of its prominent Sikh critics. Former British Columbia Premier Ujjal Dosanjh himself was mercilessly beaten by Khalistanis, furious that a Sikh-Canadian from a place of political prominence, attacked them as human-rights violators.

 

Peel Regional Police recently dismantled a major narco-terrorism network in the Greater Toronto Area linked to suspected Khalistan sympathizers. Proceeds from the illicit drug trade were involved in financing anti-India activities in Canada; protests, referendums and the acquisition of weapons among them. Moreover, Khalistan sympathizers are believed to have forged links to Islamist terror groups in the Middle East and South Asia. Linked in a common purpose of anti-Israel, anti-India sensibilities.

 

Out of the nine arrested, seven are Canadian citizens of Indian origin. A huge narco-terror network with links to Khalistan sympathizers has been busted by police in Canada.

"Some Canadians participate in legitimate and peaceful campaigning to support the Khalistan movement," the CSIS report goes on to say. "Non-violent advocacy for an independent state of Khalistan is not considered extremism. Only a small group of individuals are considered Khalistani extremists because they continue to use Canada as a base for the promotion, fundraising or planning of violence primarily in India. While there were no CBKE-related attacks in Canada in 2024, ongoing involvement in v ..

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"Some Canadians participate in legitimate and peaceful campaigning to support the Khalistan movement," the CSIS report goes on to say. "Non-violent advocacy for an independent state of Khalistan is not considered extremism. Only a small group of individuals are considered Khalistani extremists because they continue to use Canada as a base for the promotion, fundraising or planning of violence primarily in India. While there were no CBKE-related attacks in Canada in 2024, ongoing involvement in v ..

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Prime Minister Modi and his core
ministers and advisers are keen to build India’s global
influence and counter any activity they consider as
‘anti-India,’ at home or abroad, in the name of domestic
stability and prosperity. With that considered, there is
a long history of India arguing that Canada is a haven
for ‘anti-India’ activity, with the separatist Khalistan
movement being a particular focus of India’s concern,
which is rooted in the aftermath of the 1985 Air India
bombing and subsequent terrorist activity in India.                      CSIS 2024 Report

India's Operation Sindoor Against Pakistani Terrorists

"Pakistan and India have enough nuclear weapons to wipe the other side out several times over."

"Their nuclear weapons create a scenario for mutually assured destruction."

"[The arsenals are a defensive move to prevent and deter further fighting, because] neither side can afford to initiate such a war or hope to achieve anything from it."

Syed Mohammed Ali, security analyst, Islamabad, Pakistan 

"Pakistan has every right to give a robust response to this act of war imposed by India, and a strong response is indeed being given."

"[The] heinous act of aggression will not go unpunished".

Pakistan Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif

 

"Missile strikes by India in Pakistan-administered Kashmir targeted at least nine sites] where terrorist attacks against India have been planned."

"[The strikes - named] Operation Sindoor [were part of a] commitment [to hold] accountable [those responsible for the 22 April attack in Pahalgam, Indian-administered Kashmir, which left 25 Indians and one Nepali national dead]."
India Defence Ministry

People inspect a damaged mosque following India's strikes in Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-administered Kashmir   AFP via Getty Images

"Throughout 2024, violence continued in Kashmir in response to increasing efforts by New Delhi to consolidate territorial control. Attacks specifically targeted Indian travelers and workers in the region. In June 2024, militants opened fire on a bus carrying pilgrims traveling to a Hindu shrine in the town of Reasi. The attack killed nine and injured over thirty. In October, militants killed seven in Kashmir at a construction site for a tunnel project connecting Kashmir to the northern region of Ladakh."

"On April 22, 2025, tensions escalated after militants attacked Indian tourists in Kashmir, killing twenty-five Indian nationals and one Nepalese national. The incident marked the deadliest terrorist attack in Indian territory since the 2008 Mumbai attacks. India blamed Pakistan for harboring the group responsible for the attack and arrested two Pakistani nationals as suspects. Pakistan denied any involvement, and its defense ministry even suggested the attack was a “false flag operation.” Although no group has been officially identified as responsible for the attack, the Kashmir Resistance—an offshoot of LeT—claimed responsibility online."

Global Conflict Tracker

Both India and Pakistan have a stockpile of nuclear weapons, each 'reminding' the other of a guarantee of mutually assured destruction with neither country publicly disclosing their nuclear capabilities. Each is thought to have amassed between 170 and 180 warheads; short-, long- and medium-range. Each country has its own system of delivery to launch and propel their weapons to targets. The arsenals serve as a defense in prevention and deterrence of conflict beyond the conventional. 

 

Each is aware that neither Pakistan nor India could survive a first nuclear strike and be able to retaliate through "second-strike capability"; a sobering perspective for any government. Both lay claim to Kashmir in its entirety. Border skirmishes equate to instability in the region and have for decades. A heavily militarized border divides each country's part of Kashmir where three wars have been fought in the past. Armed insurgents on the Pakistan side of the divide resist Indian rule, with Muslim Kashmiris in support of the goal of uniting Kashmir under Pakistani governance. 

 

The number of border flare-ups and attacks in India's portion of Kashmir, prompted New Delhi toward an increasingly tough position on Islamabad, accusing it of supporting 'terrorism', which more than adequately describes the reality of the situation. India, as the most populous nation on the planet, spent $74.4 billion on defence in the current year; one of the world's largest arms importers.

 

Indian army Trucks on highway leading to Ladakh, Kashmir    Danish Ismail, Reuters

 

Although Pakistan spends a considerable sum -- $10 billion last year -- in arms, India has over double the number of active armed forces personnel than Pakistan. But there is another looming threat that India has that Pakistan doesn't share; its neighbour China, with its aggressive maritime security stance in the Indian Ocean. On occasion both Pakistan and India launch operations into airspace and territories controlled by the other, intended for the most part to damage check-points, installations or sites used by militants. Their lethal antipathy toward one another is religion-driven, not territorial. 

For every step that India takes -- from closing down Pakistan's embassy in India, shutting off a traditional water supply agreement to Pakistan, closing its airspace to air traffic, to targeting sites in Pakistan known to harbour Islamist terrorist groups -- Pakistan follows suit and vows vengeance. Following missile strikes in Punjab province and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, a heavy exchange of fire between the two nations ensued. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif commended his armed forces for shooting down five Indian jets, hit, he claimed after firing their missiles, while still in Indian airspace.

 

Three planes fell onto villages in India-controlled territory, although India made no official comments. During the April attack in Kashmir, some survivors informed Indian media that the gunmen singled out Hindu men and shot them dead at close range. Pakistan stands accused by India of being behind the attack by a new militant group, Kashmir Resistance. India has identified the group with links to Lashkar-e Taiba, a Pakistani militant group long accused by New Delhi of being supported by Pakistan. 

Adnan Abidi, Reuters  An Indian soldier stands guard on a highway in Kashmir

 

Failed Canada-India Diplomatic Relations

"To remain somewhat viable and respectable in the eyes of the United States and Canada and Britain -- the Western world -- he claims to be non-violent."

"And if he didn't [the media] wouldn't give him a nano-second of coverage."

"I think he has bamboozled all of you for a long time."

Ujjal Dosanjh, Sikh, former B.C. premier/federal cabinet minister

"We are just trying to tell India and the world that it's a ticking time bomb which could detonate due to India's constant policy of violently crushing even the peaceful initiative of a referendum."

"The [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi regime's constant policy of crushing the Sikh peoples' initiative of ballots with bullets may, against our wishes, push this purely political conflict into a cycle of violence...SFJ's videos are not inflammatory but rather informatory."

"People under occupation from Punjab to Palestine will react and violence begets violence. If India is going to keep occupying Punjab, there will be a reaction."

"SFK believes in ballots, SFJ believes in votes. The liberation of Punjab is on the cards. India, the choice is yours: ballot or bullet."

Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, exponent, Sikh independence movement: Khalistan

Sikh activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun stands for a photograph in New York City on Oct. 25. Jeenah Moon for NPR

 

Pannun is a Canadian-American lawyer who has raised an issue of a global referendum to verify the Sikh independence-from-India movement, in a call to split India for the purpose of dividing the Punjab as a gift to Sikhs who view it as their homeland, one they call Khalistan. He is at great pains to deliver the message to Western democracies that his is the voice of reason, and his movement is one of moderation, wanting nothing other than recognition of the right of Sikhs to become a sovereign nation free of India.

He heads the group Sikhs for Justice. And in his online presence speaking for Sikhs for Justice, Pannun's rhetoric is volatile, his social-media posts appear to promote violence. Based in New York, Pannun speaks of the need to "balkanize" India in his mission to carve Punjab away from India's 'occupation', and includes support for other independence movements as well. Including common cause with Chinese President Xi Jinping, recommending he forcefully seize a disputed corner of Indian territory.

"President [Xi] Jinping -- now is the time to order the Chinese army to take Arunachal Padesh back."

"By 2047, the current boundaries and borders of India will be redrawn, and the current borders and boundaries will be wiped out from the world map."

"2024, one India. 2047, none India."

Gurpatwant Singh Pannum

Protesters hold yellow flags with the word Khalistan, as well as a banner with the picture of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh. Photograph:(Reuters)

 

"Violence begets violence" he warns; India has a choice between his referendum and possible armed rebellion: "ballots or bullets", comparing Palestinians to Sikhs in Punjab. In November, Sikhs, he said, should boycott Air India; those who fly on November 19 could endanger themselves. The shadow of 1985's bombing of an Air India flight by Sikh terrorists in Canada. Present at a Calgary rally for Sikhs, he led a chant: "Liberate Punjab, Kill India", a mild display of 'moderation'.

The non-binding referendum run by Sikhs for Justice asks whether Sikhs in Canada, Europe and anywhere the Sikh diaspora exists, asks whether there is support for making Punjab an independent country. Within India itself the issue appears to be of no moment. It is among the large expatriate Sikh community outside India -- particularly in Canada where the largest expatriate community lives -- that the issue of Sikh separation from Hindu India resonates and where Sikh fanatics overwhelm the Sikh-Canadian population uninvolved in the movement.

New Delhi, for which the prospect of such a separation is a non-starter, views Pannum as a terrorist. Interpol has been asked by India to issue a "red notice" for the arrest of the man. After deeming the request political or religious, not criminal, Interpol refused. Canada's large and influential Sikh population -- some 800,000 in number -- does not support political Sikhism/Khalistanis, but they are threatened and silent, harassed and fearful. Canada's Liberal government, however, appears to cater to the Khalistanis; some high-ranking Cabinet members who are Sikh are sympathetic to the Khalistan cause.

 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau waits to speak to a crowd during Khalsa day celebrations at City Hall in Toronto, Sunday, April 28, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston

 

Narendra Modi's government is fiercely opposed, needless to say, and disappointed and frustrated with the Trudeau government's response to its request for extradition of a number of Sikh-Canadians who have been found guilty of violent criminal activities in India. Justin Trudeau's public accusation of the government of India's involvement in the assassination of a committed Khalistani, denied by India, has caused a diplomatic rift in relations between the two countries, each expelling the others' diplomats.

Pannum, from his social media pulpit speaks of "genocidal violence" against Sikhs. In particular memory of the 40 years that have passed since a massacre of Sikhs by Hindus enraged after Indira Ghandi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards. Sikhs for Justice, he announced in a video, was in support of independence movements in the Indian states of Assam, Nagaland, Manipur and Kashmir. Another, earlier video had him connecting the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to the situation in Punjab: "People under occupation from Punjab to Palestine will react and violence begets violence".

 

 

 

 

"We have repeatedly raised our strong concerns regarding the violent imagery being used by extremist elements in Canada against our political leadership. Display of posters of Indian diplomats have also been put out across Canada threatening violence against them."

"Celebration and glorification of violence should not be a part of any civilized society. Democratic countries which respect the rule of law should not allow intimidation by radical elements in the name of freedom of expression."

"[We are concerned over the] security of our diplomatic representatives in Canada. [Ottawa should stop giving space to] criminal and secessionist elements."

Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson, India’s foreign ministry

The Inevitability of Real Star Wars

"We must protect our space capabilities while also being able to deny an adversary the hostile use of its space capabilities."

"Because if we do not have space, we lose."

"[By 2026 the intention is to have] substantial on-orbit capabilities that allows us to compete in full-spectrum operations."

General Chance Saltzman, chief, space operations. U.S. Space Force

Space is becoming an increasingly contested domain and more countries are preparing for war there.(ABC News: Graphic by Lindsay Dunbar)

 

In the conviction that China and Russia are achieving advances at a rapid rate on space-based operations that would inevitability present a growing threat to American military ground assets as well as orbiting American satellites, the United States is feverishly involving itself in an expansion of its capability to fight a potential war in space. Officials at the U.S. Defense Department obliquely but increasingly acknowledge the initiative is there, and on track as a major shift in American military operations, in the anticipation that space will inevitably become a battleground for supremacy. 

It is, in fact, a reprise of the historical U.S. hysteria that surrounded the secret, high-impact research at Los Alamos when Robert Oppenheimer was given his Army orders to develop an Atomic bomb. Convinced that the Soviet Union had its research on atomic weaponry well underway, the U.S. military under President Roosevelt's administration, then Truman's presidency, pursued the goal of discovery and even played with the idea of unleashing an atomic weapon as an experimental thrust in Germany figuring a million or so civilians were expendable to their program to present a show of implacable force.

 

Saner heads prevailed and the tentative initiative was shelved, since it was clear at that point that the Second World War Allies were prevailing, and war was certain to end shortly. Yet the urge to display the power of their newfound weapon's awesome might was irresistible to those who made the final decision to bomb Japan and demonstrate at Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the United States wasn't merely playing around -- even though it was known that Japan was on the verge of surrender. 

At the present time, while the American military is in pursuit of space domination in competition with Russia and China with their own similar aspirations, their plans are in the realm of classified information. The U.S. military is in search of a new generation of ground- and space-based communication tools to enable it to defend their satellite network from attack and/or to disrupt or disable enemy spacecraft in orbit.

 

The Soyuz TMA-19M rocket launching into space from Baikonur, Kazakhstan in 2015. NASA/Joel Kowsky via Getty Images

 

Through the U.S. director of national intelligence's recent unclassified assessment and American defense officials' confidence that Russia and China have tested or deployed systems like ground-based high-energy lasers, anti-satellite missiles or maneuverable satellites with the potential for their use in disrupting American space assets helped to propel the initiatives. Reports have emerged that Russia may be in the development stages of a space-based nuclear weapon capable of wiping out satellites.

It is, however, China's expanding fleet of military space tools that grips American military interest. China has proven its capabilities in space with its first-ever landing on the far side of the moon and related geological sampling. "China has fielded a number of space capabilities designed to target our forces", U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall claims. China tripled its network of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance satellites since 2018, according to General Stephen N. Whiting who oversees Space Command. 

 

Responsible for the use of space assets in defense of the U.S., General Whiting  described the Chinese satellites as a "kill web over the Pacific Ocean to find, fix, track and, yes, target United States and allied military capabilities". Charges that both Russia and China deny. They are concerned that it is the United States driving the militarization of space.

Both Russia and China urged the United Nations Security Council "to prevent for all time the placement of weapons in outer space". A failed precaution. After the U.S. itself sought a resolution reiterating that nuclear weapons not be deployed in space, John Plumb, assistant secretary of defense for space policy characterized the Russia/China proposal as "hypocritical because both Russia and China are deploying weapons."

The American solution? Pursuit of what American officials call "responsible counterspace campaigning", avoiding confirmation that the United States has plans to place weapons in space. The U.S. has also committed to the avoidance of creating massive debris fields in space resulting, should an explosive device or missile be used to blow up an enemy satellite. Such missiles have been tested by the U.S., China, India and Russia, but the U.S. vowed it would not again conduct such anti-satellite tests.

Some of the American concerns seem somewhat misplaced given that it possesses ground-based systems that allow the jamming of radio signals, disrupting the ability of an enemy to communicate with its satellites. The modernization of these systems, long in use, is also taking place. There has never been confirmation by the United States that it is in possession of space-based weapons. The Defense Department has a crewless space plane (the secretive X-37B), used on seven missions which speculation has it could be designed as a weapons platform.

On the drawing board is a new generation of military satellites that can manoeuvre, be refueled while in space or have a robotic arm that could grasp an enemy satellite. Two private companies have been awarded contracts to launch two specialized spacecraft, one acting as a mock enemy, the other equipped with cameras to observe the threat it could pose. No weapons will be present on the intercept satellite, though it has a cargo hold capable of carrying weapons. 

"By no means do we want to see war extend into space."

"But if it does, we have to be prepared to fight and win."

Lieutenant General DeAnna M. Burt, deputy chief, space operations

NOAA Photo Library via Flickr CC