The United States does not have any weapons in space, a State Department arms control official says, nor does it have plans to build any.
John Mohanco told members of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva June 13 that the United States steadfastly is committed to the exploration and use of space "by all nations for peaceful purposes." Mohanco, who is deputy director of the State Department's Office of Multilateral Nuclear and Security Affairs, defined peaceful purposes as including "appropriate defense activities in pursuit of national security and other goals."

He said parties to the treaty "have demonstrated that the peaceful use of space is completely consistent with military activity in space." Threats to the peaceful use of space, the oceans or the atmosphere "come not from the existence of military hardware," Mohanco said, "but from those who would disturb the peace no matter [what] the environment."

The necessity of using space to support commercial and military operations has led the United States to study the potential of space-related weapons to protect its space-based remote sensing or communications satellites from potential future surface-generated or space-based attacks, he said.

As long as the possibility exists that spacecraft, space stations or satellites could be attacked, Mohanco said the U.S. government "will consider the possible role that space-related weapons may play in protecting our assets."

Representing the State Department's Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, he said there is neither an arms race taking place in outer space, nor any "problem in outer space for arms control to solve."

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U.S. State Department. "U.S. Remains Committed to Peaceful Uses of Space." Washington File. June 16, 2006.