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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 ]

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Recent Calls for Space Weapons Funding have been Politically Stifled, Even After Chinese ASAT Test
 
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.
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 ]
Debris from China's Recent ASAT Test is Forcing U.S. and Commercial Sector to Consider Costs of Space Weapons
 
More seriously, China's incautious experiment has caused general worry in all quarters of the space field about worsening environmental problems in space. Indeed, China's generation of some 35,000 pieces of orbital debris had created an international firestorm throughout the space community, bringing widespread criticism of Beijing's action. It also caused a powerful and heretofore largely silent player in the space security debate--the commercial sector--to enter into the fray with strong calls for new forms of debris restraint and cooperative international control. The Bush administration responded by repeating past criticisms of arms control and "rules of the road" as possible solutions, reiterating its long-standing argument that there was no arms race in space. Nevertheless, within a few weeks, its representatives at the Geneva-based UN Conference on Disarmament quietly dropped long-standing US objections to discussions of possible new international measures for space security. In June 2007, the administration also backed passage by the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space of a voluntary convention against the release of orbital space debris.
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 202 ]
Previous Space Weapon Proposals were Stifled because of their Risk to the Collective Space Environment
 
A major problem in past and current arguments supporting testing and deployment of constellations of weapons in space has been the threat of possible--and indeed predictable--"collateral" damage to other space assets. China's 2007 test is a case in point since the USA has already had to move a NASA satellite to avoid a deadly collision, but there are corollaries in the 1962 US and Soviet nuclear ABM tests in space, in the 1968–1982 Soviet ASAT test program, and in the 1985 US ASAT test. The main risks to date have been EMP radiation from nuclear tests and orbital debris from kinetic weapons. Both of these threats are significant, and there is no currently available means to remediate them artificially. For this reason, any space-faring country considering the deployment of any significant constellation of space weapons faces the dangerous consequence of likely damage to its own space assets and those of others in the testing and deployment stages (as well as in any possible use scenarios). Such concerns clearly affected US and Soviet government plans regarding nuclear testing in space, as they do current global attitudes regarding the testing of debris-producing, kinetic-kill weapons against space-based objects.
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 202 ]
Environmental Constraints on using Space Weapons are Increasing as Space becomes more Crowded and Valuable
 
These constraints are increasing over time, not decreasing, as space becomes more crowded. Thus, critic of space arms control miss the point when they discount the possibility of unique military restraint in space as a "fallacy." Instead, it is a far worse "fallacy" to believe that states can overcome the laws of orbital physics. Put simply, orbital warfare on any scale cannot occur without ruining critical regions of space (such as low-Earth orbit) for other purposes. As few as a dozen explosions--capable of releasing some 420,000 fragments of dangerous space debris--could effectively shut down this region for decades. Thus, to expect that countries will act against their own interests by using space in this way is counterintuitive. To date, we have seen a powerful logic of "environmental security" at work in space. When countries have crossed the line in terms of damage to space, they have retreated (or been pushed) backwards by the risk of a loss of access ( More ... )
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 202-3 ]
SDI-era Space Weapons Push was Scuttled for Fear it would Ignite Space Arms Race with Soviet Union
 
Another factor that has thus far worked against promoters of space-based defenses and other types of orbital weapons has been the threat of hostile international reactions. This point is related to the issue raised above, but has different implications. Specifically, given that space currently has no weapons, supporters of space sanctuary arguments have the power of precedent on their side in observing that the start of a space arms race by any country (based on the ample experience of such contests in other fields, from machine guns to nuclear weapons) is going to be met eventually by adversaries. The result is likely to be reduced (not enhanced) security for all countries. During the Cold War, critics of space weapons could very credibly argue that whatever the USA did in space would eventually be matched by the USSR, if not directly then by other means. Indeed, this important concept became embodied in the so-called "Nitze criteria" for evaluating the costs of the SDI program. Former senior Reagan administration official Paul Nitze argued that it only made sense to continue with the highly expensive effort to field space-based defenses if it could be done more cheaply than the Soviets could deploy countermeasures. The failure of SDI to come even close to meeting this costefficiency metric--according to the administration's own criteria--proved to be an important nail in its coffin in the late 1980s.
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 203 ]
"Space Dominance" Claims Commit the "Fallacy of the Last Move" -- Recent Chinese ASAT Test Confirms Enemy will Always have a 'Vote'
 
Similarly, supporters of the deployment of space defenses have often been guilty of engaging in the "fallacy of the last move." In other words, analysts have frequently assumed that deployment of space weapons will create conditions of dominance over all other states, cowing them into submission. But this was unlikely during the Cold War and remains unlikely today. China's ASAT test set out a marker that an expected era of US "space control" was not going to go unchallenged. For this reason, decision makers in any country must factor into any plan to deploy space weapons the knowledge that their actions will be challenged by other states. This factor makes notions of "space dominance" spoken about freely before 2007 highly implausible.
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 203 ]
Space Weapons are too Costly an Investment Considering their Low Survivability and High Risk
 
As implied above, another factor that has affected the prospects of space's weaponization has been the extremely high costs involved. The root of this problem lies in the great expense of placing any objects into space, but it is exacerbated by the fact that orbiting objects are difficult to maintain and modernize, particularly if there are changes in technical capabilities and/or targeting information. But perhaps the most damaging factor in regard to cost is the fact that orbital physics require that any militarily significant constellation of interceptors placed in space must be deployed in considerable numbers, given the "absentee problem"--i.e., the fact that a harmful attack could be undertaken by an adversary at an "inconvenient" time in the orbit of any defensive system. ( More ... )
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 203 ]
Transparent Nature of Outer Space helps Preserve Norm of Military Space Restraint
 
Finally, another factor that transcends the three historical cases has been the role of transparency in promoting cooperation. In dealing with space nuclear testing and in assessing debris from kinetic-kill weapons tests, national decision makers have been able to act with confidence that they will know if their adversary attempts to achieve any "breakout" capability. Unlike in other environments, where the development of new destructive capabilities can often be hidden, the fact that space weapons need to be launched and tested in an internationally governed and highly transparent region allows any other country with a reasonable space surveillance system--such as the type possessed by both the USA and the USSR/Russia since the late 1960s and by at least also members of the European Space Agency and China today--can be confident that they will detect the development of any major weapons systems. This factor should play a positive role in weakening the credibility of claims that "secret" programs by potential enemies might create a "catastrophe" some day in space. ( More ... )
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 203-4 ]
Current Trends Point to Increasing Incentives for Cooperative Space Security
 
If these are some of the lessons of the past 50 years of space security, what can be said of the next 50 years? Undoubtedly, new national actors will emerge calling for the deployment of space-based weapons of various sorts to deter or defend against real, anticipated, or even hypothetical threats. At the same time, however, improved space situational awareness in many countries will greatly reduce the chances for national breakout and increase international knowledge of the problem of space debris. Similarly, the rise of new, non-military actors in space, including private companies offering new space services, universities, and new international consortia involved in science, commerce, and human exploration will begin to reduce the comparative weight of hostile actors and their militaries, who tended to dominate the early decades of space activity. These factors could increase the prospects for cooperative outcomes in space.
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 204 ]
Should not Draw Conclusions from 19th Century Mercantilist Model for Outer Space
 
On the other hand, there are those who argue the converse, specifically, that commerce will drive weapons into space as countries seek to defend their assets. As Franz Gayl argues: "... as with aviation, access and technology will drive forward to exploit any and all warfighting relevance, application, and advantage from space, quite independent of a nation's will to prevent it." However, such prospects hold true only if commercial actors remained as tied to individual nations as they were in the 19th century model of mercantilism. Such conditions are unlikely to govern in space, given the rapidly growing internationalization of space commerce, where companies may use technology from several countries, be based in another, and receive funding or contracts from customers in still other parts of the world. Such factors are likely to mitigate the purported commercial "demand" for defenses. For these reasons, predictions regarding the future of space security based on the experience of other past environments and periods should be viewed with at least some skepticism. Thus far, arguments and predictions about "inevitable" outcomes in space have held up surprisingly poorly.
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 204 ]
U.S. has Empirically Benefitted most from Norm of Military Space Restraint
 
Given the presence of four shared factors in encouraging military space restraint across the three cases of greatest tension in space security from the 1957-2007 period, we can conclude with some confidence that these are general trends in space behavior, at least for the first 50 years of space activity. Arguably, military space restraint has worked most to the advantage of the USA, since it has been able to use this norm to develop the most advanced scientific, commercial, and military support programs in the world. Indeed, as strategist Barry Posen argues: [The United States] benefits from the fact that those states capable of space activities have eschewed putting weapons in space. The United States has made the same decision, on the assumption that if it did, so would others. Ultimately the United States has more to lose than to gain from such a competition.
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 204 ]
Interational Cooperation will Increasingly be Used to Address "Global Commons" Problem of Space Debris and Space Security
 
In space, similarly, there are good reasons to believe that we will witness the steady growth of international attention to a host of emerging "environmental management" problems, including orbital debris, space traffic management, radio frequency allocation, and geostationary orbital crowding. Growing recognition of the shared incentives among space actors to cooperate (or at least coordinate) in addressing these problems could, in turn, have salutary effects on military competition, helping to divert it from past historical trends toward direct conflict. ( More ... )
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 204 ]