Verification will be critical to a comprehensive approach, including exchange of information, transparency, inspection, and shared observations about the technology and future directions of reconnaissance from space. The situation is aided by the fact that the observation of platforms in space from high-resolution telescopes on the ground or from space has become highly accurate. Nevertheless, verification will be extremely difficult for certain types of prohibited or constrained activities, such as space mines, which may be easily disguised as something else. While the United States and the Soviet Union readily accepted NTM as the baseline of their verification activities in SALT, augmented after the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty by on-site inspections and other measures, a verification approach based on NTM would likely be unacceptable in a multilateral agreement unless access to some form of NTM data was available to all. ( More ... )

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Rhinelander, John B. and Phillip E. Coyle. "Drawing the Line: the Path to Controlling Weapons in Space." Disarmament Diplomacy. No. 66 (September 2002). [ 2 quotes ]

 

The second consequence would be that a space-based arms race would be essentially irreversible--we would face the difficulty, if not impossibility, of assessing what is being put into space. Under the START regime, signatories currently cooperate in inspecting and monitoring each other's intercontinental ballistic missiles, bombers, and submarines, all of which operate within a narrow band above and below sea level. Most space payloads, however, are built and launched with great secrecy and can operate at any distance from the earth, even on celestial bodies such as the moon. Most satellites would operate up to geostationary orbit, or about 22,000 miles from the earth's surface, yielding a total operational volume millions of times greater than that now occupied by missiles, bombers, and submarines. Attempting to monitor weapons in this vast volume of space would be daunting. ( More ... )

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Robb, Charles S. "Star Wars II." Washington Quarterly. Vol. 22, No. 13 (Winter 1999): 81-86. [ 3 quotes ]

 

Third, previous discussions in the CD have demonstrated that verifying compliance with any new space arms control agreement will be problematic at best. The U.S. believes that many states would be unwilling to accept international inspections of space payloads prior to launch. Yet without such an inspection or development of a prohibitively expensive international space monitoring system, interested states will have little confidence that any violations of military significance would be detected in time to permit a response if necessary. Even if such measures were put into effect, it would be extremely difficult to determine if a satellite anomaly or failure was the result of an accidental collision, solar radiation, aging equipment, or purposeful interference or attack. ( More ... )

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Billick, Thomas W. Arms Control Implications for Military Operations in Space. Maxwell AFB, AL: USAF Air University, May 2001. [ 6 quotes ] [ page 52 ]

 

The medium of space is infinite in which is housed everything known so far to man. Within it reigns the cosmos (or under the quantum theory, chaos), generally speaking an unfriendly place for unprotected living creatures.It is, thus, extremely difficult to seek ways to control weaponization through regimes, agreements and treaties. In space everything moves, so that there are no fixed boundaries, save what could be staked out on celestial bodies, like the moon which also moves. Thus, verification and enforcement of treaty conditions is highly complex at best. This reality dictates the imperative that the United States must exercise the greatest care in any discussions or actions relative to another space treaty, for the question arises: Who will control whom and what and how?

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Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis. Independent Working Group on Missile Defense, the Space Relationship, and the Twenty-First Century, 2007 Report. Washington, D.C.: Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, August 28, 2006. [ 13 quotes ] [ page 72 ]

 

Space weapons are nearly impossible to identify and define sufficiently for the purposes of arms control agreements, as U.S. experience has demonstrated. Verification would be the same. Space weapons most obviously can be deployed on the surface of the earth for use in space, or to transit space; they may emerge from space systems designed (at least ostensibly) for scientific, civil, or commercial purposes. They may take a wide variety of forms and draw upon a large number of technologies, and new ones may emerge. Moreover, international agreements, or the very negotiation of them, that attempt to ban such unidentifiable "weapons" can have damaging consequences, intended or unintended, on U.S. rights in space and freedom of access to and use of space. The U.S. Government is generally well aware of this, which is a reason for its well grounded skepticism about such agreements and processes.

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U.S. State Department. Study on Space Policy: Report of the International Security Advisory Board. Washington, D.C.: U.S. State Department, April 27, 2007. [ 9 quotes ] [ page 8 ]

 

Clearly, the fact that a space object has been destroyed, or has sustained damage or injury, or that its parameters have been altered is detectable with high confidence by the satellite owner and, in some instances, by the National Technical Means (NTM) of other states. The attribution of such an action to another state may be possible with high confidence in the case of a direct intercept or of a collision with an object known to belong to that other state. However, identification (as an attack) may not be possible if the other state denies that its action was deliberate. Further, identification (as an attack) and/or attribution (to a state) may not be possible in other instances – e.g., if there were no observable intercept or collision, as in the case of a remote, covert telemetric attack on the software of the object's operating system or if the damage were caused by "space debris." Attribution also could be a challenge with certain types of launches, e.g., from locations at sea.

Moreover, in the absence of documentary evidence or public statements to that effect, it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to determine with certainty that such action was deliberate, i.e., intentional, as noted previously. Neither NTM nor cooperative measures, such as data exchanges or on-site measures, can be depended upon to shed any light on this issue. (Indeed, the acquisition of information to shed light on this issue from any source is likely to be fortuitous, at best, and subsequent independent confirmation in most instances will be unachievable, at least in a timely fashion.) Most, if not all, detected actions that affect the objects in space of another state likely would be alleged by the suspected state to be the result of an error, malfunction, or unintended consequence of a legitimate act; determining in a timely fashion that the actions in question were deliberate would be virtually impossible. Even patterns of action likely would be explainable in this way. For example, if one of the 2,600 pieces of trackable space debris of the nearly 100,000 estimated pieces of debris resulting from the Chinese ASAT test of January 2007 were to strike and destroy the satellites of other states, would such an event be considered to be an unintended consequence of a legitimate action or a prohibited use of force?

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DeSutter, Paula A. Is An Outer Space Arms Control Treaty Verifiable?. Washington, D.C.: U.S. State Department, March 4, 2008. [ 6 quotes ]

 

Let me begin by noting that virtually all space arms control proposals call for verification, but none has identified specific tools envisioned for the "verification toolbox" that could be used for this purpose. This, to me, suggests that no one has been able yet to identify tools that could do the job effectively.

Presumably, any reasonable approach to verifying a space arms control treaty would anticipate that NTM would be among the permitted verification tools. These are sensor capabilities that sometimes are deployed on satellites for the remote observation of ground-based activities; other NTM may be deployed in other modes. Other tools that some have suggested include data declarations and on-site inspections of satellites, their payloads, and the locations where they are produced, stored, and/or launched – assisted, where appropriate, with technical sensors that on-site inspectors might carry with them or permanently emplace.

We know that NTM capabilities would, in most instances, enable states to detect the fact of a launch and monitor its trajectory. We also know that data exchanges could provide basic information on the numbers, types, and locations of permitted systems, thereby possibly enabling a state to have an "order of magnitude" assessment of the breakout potential of other states. Further, on-site inspections may be able to help confirm this information, although protecting legitimate commercial proprietary and national security equities might mean that they could never be intrusive or detailed enough to go beyond providing a general confirmation of data.

However, even with the most intrusive and extensive of on-site inspections, a key question remains: what would one look for to verify intent? How could one construct an inspection regime that would provide definitive information on whether activities and items visited or observed were to be used for hostile purposes or were explicitly deployed for prohibited hostile purposes? It is not even necessary to consider how exceedingly difficult this task would be, were a state intent on cheating. This is an exceedingly difficult task in any event, given the dual-use nature of many space assets and activities. In the world of arms control, in the absence of definitive information, it is exceedingly difficult – indeed, many would argue, virtually impossible – to reach actionable conclusions in a timely fashion.

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DeSutter, Paula A. Is An Outer Space Arms Control Treaty Verifiable?. Washington, D.C.: U.S. State Department, March 4, 2008. [ 6 quotes ]

 

One plausible cheating scenario would be to develop seemingly peaceful satellites with sufficient latent maneuvering capability that they could, upon command, leave their specified orbits and kinetically attack other satellites. Such a capability might require only modifications that either might not be detectable or could reasonably be explained as logical safety or operational improvements, e.g., to enable maneuvering to avoid space debris. If a satellite routinely received encrypted commands and suddenly veered off-orbit, it would be impossible to determine whether the loss of orbit was due to a malfunction or was a deliberate plan to test or exercise a capability to attack another satellite.

Another plausible cheating scenario could be to launch and orbit satellites that contain hidden secondary satellite-interceptor payloads, or payloads with a covert interceptor capability. Hidden secondary payloads could be impossible to detect with NTM; even very intrusive inspections – including of a type unlikely to be acceptable, for commercial and national security reasons – might be unable to detect the fact of a hidden secondary payload. Even if an inspection detected such a payload, it likely would be unable to determine the purpose of the secondary payload, particularly if steps were taken to hide its true purposes.

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DeSutter, Paula A. Is An Outer Space Arms Control Treaty Verifiable?. Washington, D.C.: U.S. State Department, March 4, 2008. [ 6 quotes ]

 

Unfortunately, even with all of these tools, undetected and undetectable cheating remains quite possible. Neither National Means and Methods of Verification (NMM) – which include but go beyond NTM – nor negotiated cooperative measures (including declarations and on-site inspection of satellites and their payloads prior to their launch) would enable verifiers to determine with confidence whether an activity circumvented or exploited loopholes in the definition of banned activities, or could be rapidly converted for prohibited uses. For example, the rendezvous and docking operations conducted by an automated cargo transfer vehicle could be used to conceal the development of co-orbital ASAT guidance, navigation, and control subsystems. Similarly, a test to confirm the ability to hit a target in space could be concealed in a launch that resulted in a close fly-by of a target satellite or a point in space.

Moreover, neither NMM nor negotiated cooperative measures (including declarations and on-site inspection of satellites and their payloads prior to their launch) would enable verifiers to determine with confidence whether observed changes in orbiting satellites or payloads were due to malfunctions, or deliberate actions as a result of either covert modifications or inherent capabilities. Even the most intrusive of on-site measures prior to launch – measures whose acceptability, for commercial or national security reasons, to any nation is highly doubtful – could do no more than indicate the maneuvering capability of a given system and the degree of sophistication of that capability. Additionally, maneuvering capabilities are the norm for satellites. Neither NMM nor negotiated cooperative measures would enable verifiers to determine with more than low-to-very low confidence whether the intent of that capability extended beyond normal operating and safety requirements. Even then, it would be highly possible for a state to hide its true intent or change it quickly, and to take the necessary actions to exploit a latent or covert capability.

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DeSutter, Paula A. Is An Outer Space Arms Control Treaty Verifiable?. Washington, D.C.: U.S. State Department, March 4, 2008. [ 6 quotes ]

 

The biggest policy hurdle for an ASAT treaty is the issue of verification: that is, whether verification provisions could give "timely warning, with appropriate confidence, of violations of formal provisions of a treaty limiting ASAT acts, capabilities and preparations." Critics of an ASAT treaty uniformly claim that such an instrument would be an unverifiable leap of faith that rogue nations could covertly ignore with impunity. Satellites are inherently "dual-use" because the same satellite can be used for both peaceful and military purposes without any detectable alteration. Dating back to the Reagan administration, critics have uniformly dismissed ASAT treaties as "effectively unverifiable" and therefore not worth pursuing. A renewed push for an ASAT treaty in response to the Chinese test must thus address how party-states could verify compliance with the treaty.

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Walsh, Frank M. "Forging a Diplomatic Shield for American Satellites: The Case For Reevaluating The 2006 National Space Policy in Light of a Chinese Anti-Satellite System." Journal of Air Law and Commerce. Vol. 72 (Fall 2007): 759. [ 28 quotes ] [ page 787-788 ]

 

Some countries have called for a ban on space weapons without providing credible or convincing ways to verify such a ban. Such far-reaching proposals are troubling because they seem to demonstrate a disregard for the profound risks these proposals, if enacted, would pose, based in part on their major verification challenges. When the stakes involved are low, where violation of an agreement by one party would pose no serious threat to another party to the agreement, such a verification problem may not be a major obstacle. If Country A violated a fishing agreement, it would be a matter of concern, but it would not pose a major threat to the security of Country B. Yet space is so interwoven into the economic and military fabric of some spacefaring states that sudden major damage to its space infrastructure could result in economic and military devastation. A ban on space weapons understandably must demand a much higher and more reliable standard of verification before such an agreement could be seriously considered. Failure to provide such credible approaches to verification demonstrates a misunderstanding of the new strategic landscape of space. It also suggests a diminished level of seriousness of the proposal that is not commensurate with the security stakes involved. Some suggest that the opposition of the Bush Administration to all space arms control is behind the US objections to this approach, yet the verification problems of such a ban were raised many years before, for example, by the Congressional Office of Technology’s 1985 assessment Anti-satellite Weapons, Countermeasures, and Arms Control.

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MacDonald, Bruce W. "Steps to Strategic Security and Stability in Space." Disarmament Forum. No. 4 (Winter 2009): 17-26. [ 8 quotes ] [ page 22-23 ]

 

The potential that ballistic missile defense systems could be used as ASAT weapons must also be considered. Certain weapons systems in the U.S. ballistic missile defense program should be able to intercept targets at altitudes that encompass nearly every satellite in LEO. Dual-use concerns are likewise raised by the existing or prospective ballistic missile defense systems of other countries, such as China. It is possible that countries could devise software-only modifications to convert ballistic missile defense systems to ASAT weapons, enabling a sudden breakout capability from a ban on ASAT possession that would be impossible to detect under any realistic verification regime. For this reason, proposals for complete bans on ASAT weapons seem incapable of achieving what Paul H. Nitze called ‘‘effective verification,’’ the ability to detect a militarily significant violation in time to respond effectively and deny the violator the benefit of the violation.

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Chyba, Christopher and Ross Liemer. "A Verifiable Limited Test Ban for Anti-satellite Weapons." Washington Quarterly. Vol. 33, No. 3 (July 2010): 149-163. [ 8 quotes ] [ page 153-54 ]