During the Cold War, the linkage between military space systems and nuclear deterrence conferred a high escalatory potential to ASAT use. As Kurt Gottfried and Richard Ned Lebow concluded in 1985, when the executive branch last sought to weaponize space, "ASATs possess a considerably greater capacity for transforming a crisis into a war, and for enlarging wars, than they do for assisting in military missions or enhancing deterrence." The particulars of escalation have necessarily changed from the Cold War to asymmetric warfare, but the inherently escalatory nature of ASAT use remains inescapable. The flight-testing and deployment of space weaponry by any nation would likely generate responses in kind, as well as asymmetric responses. U.S. battle stations in space would become prime targets in the event of warfare and thus magnets for space mines or other countering devices that would cost a small fraction of the platforms to be defended. Because the presumed advantage in space warfare goes to the side that strikes first, preemption or preventive war is likely to constitute the backbone of space warfare doctrine for the defender as well as the attacker. Consequently, the deployment of space weapons would be inherently provocative and destabilizing, not only because weaker as well as stronger states would associate such weaponry with preemptive strikes, but also because distinctions between offensive and defensive weapons in space would largely cease to have practical meaning.

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Katz-Hyman, Michael and Michael Krepon. Assurance or Space Dominance? The Case Against Weaponizing Space. Washington, D.C.: Henry L. Stimson Center, April 2003. [ 16 quotes ] [ page 90 ]