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"The Militarization and Weaponization of Space: Towards a European Space Deterrent." Space Policy. Vol. 24 (): 61-66. [ 3 quotes ]

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Europe should Focus on Establishing a Space Deterrent through Development of a Space Surveillance Network
 
Europe does not have to imitate the United States. It is not exposed to the same risks and has no intention of being a rival as a dominating world power. On the economic level, Europe doubts it has the financial resources to be able to catch up with the United States in terms of the quantity of operational devices, even though it is the second economic power in the world. But having systems which are autonomous and complementary to those of its partners appears to be more and more of a priority, in the light of the recent advances observed in other countries. China has just reminded us of this. Germany has the FGANTIRA radar and the United Kingdom the PIMS optical instruments. They provide a capacity for detection, orbitography, the management of a catalogue of orbiting objects and their identification. However, these systems, with Graves, are not interoperable and don't satisfy the global need for detection, warning and response which future threats will require.

The relaunch of the defence effort in terms of space, which we are advocating, must on one hand include reinforcement of the protection of orbiting systems, naturally those which are exclusively military, but also European commercial satellites which have a role in providing services to the armed forces, and, on the other, make Europe able to anticipate possible attacks from "rogue States" or isolated terrorist groups and able to counter these threats by appropriate means.

The generalisation in the word of the use of space for military purposes with, ultimately, the access of regional and local powers to armament systems which may be used in space, in the first instance interregional and intercontinental ballistic missiles, leads us to propose the strengthening of our capacities for monitoring and response.
"The Militarization and Weaponization of Space: Towards a European Space Deterrent." Space Policy. Vol. 24 (): 61-66. [ 3 quotes ] [ page 65 ]
Even U.S. Weaponization of Space is not Inevitable
 
If the active militarization, offensive or aggressive (which the Americans call "counter space", "space denial ") of space is avoidable, how can we influence the players so that they reject this? In fact, despite having accumulated the technological elements necessary, the United States has not, since the demonstration of 1985, engaged in activities generating debris nor deployed even "simple" weapons. Some American researchers remain convinced that the operational implementation of numerous futurist systems would be random and costly. It is not impossible that the excesses of the Rumsfeld doctrine of the "revolution in military affairs" 8 and the fully technologyoriented policy will be tempered, at least momentarily. If stopping the arming of space is therefore still a realistic objective, we can argue for a European approach which is still to be organized around the shared views of France, Germany and Italy – quite close to the Canadian position. It would mean an increased securing of the outer space environment for space objects, whether civil or military, by means of rules of conduct similar to those recommended for the prevention of space debris, and/or political declarations drawing attention to the most significant efforts from the responsible nations.
"The Militarization and Weaponization of Space: Towards a European Space Deterrent." Space Policy. Vol. 24 (): 61-66. [ 3 quotes ] [ page 64-5 ]
Only European Union could Construct a Space Surveillance Network to Compete with the U.S.
 
France also has a capacity for detecting objects in low orbit : the bistatic radar Graves. Even if this has been able to, a posteriori, identify and analyze the consequences of the Chinese action, its performance is limited, in particular in terms of the size of targets. Consequently, France depends totally on the American capacities for identifying and dating monitored events. In practice, the burden of proof for a State, in the case of an attack, means it has to be able to unambiguously distinguish an event from any other which could result from a natural phenomenon or from the failure of one of these orbiting satellites. A system which is independent from the American one is only feasible at the European level: on the one hand, because it would naturally have to be seen in terms of the global objective of the security of the members of the European Union and, on the other, because the multiplication of observation centers would lead to a cost of installation and maintenance which only the Union could finance without a heavy impact on the budgets of the three armed forces. Incidentally, France is developing a low cost surveillance and ballistic delivery system warning demonstrator, two Spirale minisatellites. The objective is to test the technologies which may be implemented in future operational systems.
"The Militarization and Weaponization of Space: Towards a European Space Deterrent." Space Policy. Vol. 24 (): 61-66. [ 3 quotes ] [ page 64 ]