That said, for the longer term, the United States may need additional arrows in its quiver to provide a sufficient range of options to deny an adversary access to space capabilities. Diplomatic approaches may fall short, particularly when a provider of space goods and services has strong political or commercial motives to continue supplying an adversary. This will probably not be a major problem with respect to American allies, particularly if they generally support U.S. policies and actions vis-à-vis the country in question. France, for example, blocked Iraqi access to imagery from its SPOT remote sensing satellite during the Gulf War. However, restricting the availability of space services and products from uncooperative third parties or those obtained indigenously by the adversary would obviously be more difficult. Likewise, conventional military solutions to shutting off the flow of space-borne information might face any number of constraints depending upon the specific scenario. Ground targets might not be readily accessible due to distance, sophisticated defenses, or the lack of American or allied forces in the region. Concerns about overflight and collateral damage might impose political or operational restrictions. Therefore, as U.S. Space Command has argued in its Long Range Plan, the United States should have at its disposal military capabilities specifically tailored to quickly and precisely "produce reversible and permanent effects against all nodes of a potential adversary's space systems (emphasis added)." Additionally, such capabilities should be flexible enough to account for the fact that both friends and foes may be using space services from satellites in the same vicinity. According to U.S. Space Command, candidate systems that hold promise for meeting these desiderata over the next 10 to 15 years include ground-based lasers, and relocatable radio frequency and laser jammers. By the year 2020, its candidate list grows to also include space-based jammers and lasers, as well as a space operations vehicle (the current term of art for a military spaceplane).

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Klotz, Frank G. Space, Commerce, and National Security. Washington, D.C.: Council on Foreign Relations, January 1999. [ 12 quotes ] [ page 19-20 ]