Evidence: Recently Added
The pressures on the space frontier are enormous -- from both an economic and a military perspective. Looked at in isolation, each of these pressures is severe enough to create conflict. In combination, they create the risk that future space conflicts could result in war -- either on earth, in space, or both. On the economic front, conflict has already occurred because of crowding in GEO orbits and through saturation of the available radio spectrum. On the military front, conflict has been avoided because the United States, in recent years, has retained an effective monopoly on the use of space during conflict. Conflicts involving the commercial use of space will continue to increase as crowding increases. There are limited unoccupied slots at GEO and a limited spectrum remaining to be allocated. On the military side, one cannot imagine the United States allowing an enemy to either threaten U.S. space capabilities or use space systems to their advantage, putting the U.S. at risk. Conflict involving space systems could be a significant part of the next major theater war involving the United States.
China's obsession with national prestige, which forms the backdrop for its commercial and military interests, also animates the country's space policy. The PRC government has long boasted about its status as one of the few major space-faring nations. Indeed, its manned space program has been driven largely by the desire to become the third nation, after the United States and the former Soviet Union, to launch humans into space. Success in China's manned space program will confer a strong sense of national dignity and international status on the country, which are viewed as crucial elements to sustain the legitimacy of the Communist Party and replace its declining ideological appeal. This intangible yet powerful expression of Chinese nationalism partially explains why Beijing invests substantial national resources into its space program.
Even if a spacecraft were shot down by accident, the implications would not be so grave when compared, for example, to an accidental launch of a nuclear tipped missile. So, asked Walter McDougall, "why is it more important to protect pristine space, where nothing lives, than the crowded earth?" This is a good question. It is a question that has never been addressed fully by the space sanctuary enthusiasts (apart from making the apolitical, astrategic point that attacking unmanned targets in space makes wars "more likely" or is escalatory), who tend to use only one "strategic" framework for assessing the implications of space weapons: the framework of apocalypse. Any use of weapons in or from space will bring doom to "our planet." Arms races will drain the life blood out of that national budget. Interception of nuclear-tipped ICBMs in space is a precursor to a treacherous instability, that kind that could lead to nuclear holocaust. A decision by the United States to use the space environment for protection will bring the acrimony of the entire world against Washington, asphyxiating U.S. national and economic security. This is not strategic though -- this is the worst case, even unimaginable-case scenario played to the hilt.
The exploitation of orbital assets by the US-led Coalition before and during the 1991 Persian Gulf war (January 17-February 28, 1991) reinforces this conclusion. The preponderant utilization of space assets during this conflict was force enhancement of terrestrial operations. The United States and its allies made heavy use of communications satellites for both inter-theater and intra-theater command and control as well as for long-distance communications. Sixteen military and five commercial communications satellites were utilized by Coalition forces; taken together, these systems provided a transmission rate of some 200 million bits per second, or about 39,000 simultaneous telephone calls. Imagery satellitesboth electro-optical (EO) and radarwere employed for order-of-battle and target intelligence, as well as for bomb damage assessment (BDA) following coalition air strikes.30 Additionally, ELINT and SIGINT satellites were used to establish Iraqi electronic order-of-battle and to monitor the operation of such things as Iraqi air defenses and military communications. By and large, though, none of these activities employed space systems as an integral, real-time element of lethal kill chains during combat operations.
Those nations capable of producing an ASAT system at least equivalent to Program 437 and its Thor-class booster [HAND] include Russia, North Korea (the Democratic People's Republic of Korea or DPRK), Iran, India, the People's Republic of China (PRC), and Libya. Russia has the most mature development and production capability of the group and has produced ASAT weapons in the past. However, given that the space capabilities of Russia are more widely known, a focus on nations other than Russia is of more interest here. Several possible launch vehicles are available on the open market from one or more of the states listed above. Conversely, a nation may attempt to use its own technical resources and production capacity to build a booster. Some countries, notably North Korea, India, and China, have established domestic missile production capabilities.
The arguments in favor of weaponizing space center around the fact that the United States relies heavily on space-based assets for both military and commercial needs. Protecting these assets will become increasingly important as access to space becomes cheaper and the technology needed for this access becomes more available. As General Estes said before Congress: "Increased reliance on space systems means improved capabilities, but also new vulner - abilities. . . . The U.S. must be able to control the medium of space to assure our access and deny the same to any adver - sary." Gen John Michael "Mike" Loh, USAF, Retired, former commander of Air Combat Command, echoed this concern at a Center for Security Policy roundtable discussion titled "The Need for American Space Dominance." In outlining US dependence on space-based assets, General Loh noted that "it is almost frightening when you . . . look at how little we have allowed for the protection . . . of those assets." While these statements do not explicitly call for space-based weap - ons to effect this control, a key underlying assumption of this argument is that space-based weapons are needed to do the job. As a consequence no restrictions should be placed on their development, testing, and eventual deployment.
Because achieving a particular orbit requires such enormous effort, significantly changing established orbits is not generally practical. As a result, it is hard to concentrate the efforts of a constellation of satellites in space and time. As defenses, space weapons are static in the same way that terrestrial fortifications are. Space-based defenses are inherently subject to saturation by a terrestrial opponent that is able to concentrate an attack against them in space and time. This limitation may be an advantage if a limited defense against a limited threat is needed that is observably incapable of destabilizing a deterrence relationship with another, larger threat.
It is almost certain that sometime early in the 21st Century, the fielding of space-based weapons will occur under the auspices of defense, in much the same manner as the nuclear weapon buildup that occurred within the latter half of the 20th. And, like nuclear weapons, once fielded, there will be no reversing course. This too is an historical lesson of warfare. As the world now grapples with the proliferation of nuclear weapons that were once the province of superpowers, so too will it see the initial weaponization of space be followed by increasingly sophisticated armaments as proliferation occurs there as well. A sobering thought is the prospect that as launch costs go down per unit of mass, the opportunity for other actors to put weapons into orbit about the Earth will go up.