India and Pakistan fought an intense four-day war in May 2025 and the media narrative was dominated by fighter jets, drones and missiles. That short war was, arguably, the first between two nuclear-armed states to be shaped decisively by the use of satellites. South Asia is now sliding into a new kind of arms race with no rules to restrain it. Modern strikes run on satellites: satellite imagery to find targets, navigation to guide weapons and links to hold it together. It has already demonstrated its ability to destroy a satellite in orbit in its 2019 Mission Shakti test.