After canvassing the arguments of proponents for space warfare capabilities, a recent RAND study cited four presumed advantages of space weapons: an ability to attack inaccessible targets, a rapid response capability, a long-range attack capability from protected distances, and a high likelihood of assured kills. These capabilities could prove especially useful, in the view of advocates, in targeting hardened, underground bunkers far distant from U.S. power projection capabilities. In addition, Simon Worden and others have argued that precision, space-based weapons could provide the basis for a new deterrence strategy built on space and information dominance, thereby avoiding dilemmas associated with nuclear deterrence. Might these presumed benefits against weaker foes warrant space weaponization? These presumed benefits have already been demonstrated by U.S. power projection capabilities featuring conventional munitions of increasing range and lethality. Further advances can be expected, so advocates of U.S. space warfare capabilities have the added burden of explaining why these terrestrial advances are insufficient to support a dominant U.S. military capability, and what added value would accrue from even greater increases in lethality, promptness, and reach from space. Moreover, further improvements in the range, promptness, and lethality of terrestrial weapons are likely to come far sooner, and at a fraction of the diplomatic, political, and financial cost, than the advent of “space strike” capabilities. Are space weapons needed to destroy hardened, underground bunkers? Existing or improved conventional weapons can serve to deny access to such facilities, thereby rendering the weapons inside unusable. The nullification of such threats could thereby be accomplished at a small fraction of the multiple costs associated with flight-testing and deploying space warfare capabilities.

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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 51 ]