Most would agree that space weaponization is not inevitable in the near term. Indeed, there is scant observable evidence to suggest that the military use of near-earth space will be substantially different in 2020-2025 than it is today, at least regarding the development and fielding of new technologies and systems that would broaden the use of our on-orbit assets from force enhancement to force application -- unless, of course, some unforeseen trigger event occurred to provoke it. ( More ... )

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Lambeth, Benjamin S. Mastering the Ultimate High Ground: Next Steps in the Military Uses of Space. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2003. [ 5 quotes ] [ page 119 ]

 

Although SPACECOM and its supporters aggressively assert their views, advocates of weapons in space may be in the minority, even in the Pentagon. As many observers recognize, the interests of the United States in space are much broader than SPACECOM presents. U.S. testing and deployment of orbital weapons could make using space for other military and commercial purposes more difficult. Many in the military, especially those involved in crucial military support activities, are quietly aware of this, as are officials at NASA and the international space station, and their supporters in Congress. ( More ... )

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Tannenwald, Nina. Law Versus Power on the High Frontier: The Case for a Rule-Based Regime for Outer Space. : , Summer 2004. [ 7 quotes ] [ page 5 ]

 

The United States does not have any weapons in space, a State Department arms control official says, nor does it have plans to build any.
John Mohanco told members of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva June 13 that the United States steadfastly is committed to the exploration and use of space "by all nations for peaceful purposes." Mohanco, who is deputy director of the State Department's Office of Multilateral Nuclear and Security Affairs, defined peaceful purposes as including "appropriate defense activities in pursuit of national security and other goals." ( More ... )

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U.S. State Department. "U.S. Remains Committed to Peaceful Uses of Space." Washington File. June 16, 2006.

 

But a sober reality check can put the issue into better perspective. If anything is likely to spark a "new arms race," this time in outer space, it's unlikely to be the usual suspects. Gung-ho space-superiority mantras have been coming from U.S. Air Force leaders for decades, but without funding, it has mostly been just bold talk. Space hardware with weapons-like applications has also been around, on Earth and in space, for decades — but using it to break things in orbit never made much military sense, then or now or in the foreseeable future.

Nothing here has changed. No, the impetus for a future foreign "reaction" doesn't need a genuine U.S. "action" — it only needs the near-hysterical ranting from American newspapers, from lobby groups posing as "information centers" but having long-familiar agendas, and from foreign nations eager to score cheap propaganda points. By whipping up anxieties with little rational justification, these self-serving fear mongers may actually lead to the creation of something well worth fearing: the arming of a new battleground, out in space.

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Oberg, James. "Hyperventilating over 'space weapons'." USA Today. June 13, 2005.

 

So scary tales about U.S. "death stars" hovering over target countries
promising swift strikes from space rely merely on readers not
understanding the basics of orbital motion in space. A satellite circles
Earth in an ever-shifting path that passes near any particular target
only a few times every 24 hours, not every 10 minutes. It's quicker and
cheaper to strike ground targets with missiles launched from the ground.

Nor is a space rendezvous robot, such as those under development by half
a dozen nations and commercial consortia, a "space weapon" — despite
media claims that one of them, the Air Force's XSS-11 satellite, could
perform as a weapon. Plenty of productive peaceful rationales for these
vehicles exist, from refueling to repair to resupply, and they are going
to be deployed in large numbers in coming years.

Raising unjustified fears about them and other so-far-totally-conceptual
space vehicles may be politically or ideologically satisfying to some,
but in the big picture, feeding foreign prejudices and stoking the
insecurities of some naturally paranoid cultures is a dangerous game.

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Oberg, James. "Hyperventilating over 'space weapons'." USA Today. June 13, 2005.

 

But the combined impact of sharply elevated defense spending for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a series of now-familiar technical problems in developing space-based missile defenses, and the unwillingness of most Democratic and many Republican members of Congress to move hastily into the weaponization of space before understanding its likely costs and geopolitical implications, led to the scaling back of many of these programs by mid-2006. In November 2006, the Democrats' seizure of both houses of Congress in the mid-term elections seemed to end any realistic prospects for near-term deployment of space weapons. Or did it? China's successful test of an ASAT weapon in January 2007 shocked the US political establishment. Proponents of space defenses, like Republican Senator Jon Kyl, argued for near-term deployment of orbital ASAT weapons, seeing China's action as the start of a space arms race that the USA could not afford to lose. But his calls fell upon deaf ears even among most of his fellow Republican members of Congress, as other defense priorities dominated their attention and the new Democratic majority all but eliminated prospects of significant new funding. Previous, rosy predictions of an era of unchallenged US "space dominance" now seemed hopelessly unattainable after just one Chinese test.

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Moltz, James Clay. "Protecting Safe Access to Space: Lessons from the First 50 Years of Space Security." Space Policy. Vol. 23 (November 2007): 199-205. [ 12 quotes ] [ page 201-2 ]