Evidence: Recently Added
One may ask, just because the United States unilaterally refrains from developing antisatellite weapons or space-based lasers, why do we assume that other countries will pause right alongside Washington? After all, not all innovations in war stem from provocation. While weapons developed and deployed by rival states surely influence decision making, it is unlikely that states procure weapons systems primarily to achieve a balance in arsenals. Some states certainly may strive to have what we have, but they also will strive to acquire and master those weapons that meet their unique security requirements. Washington's very reliance on satellites for security, moreover, would appear to be a more plausible motivation behind any hostile state's desire to acquire satellite countermeasures. While China might wish to integrate ASATs into its arsenal to offset Washington's deployment of ASATs as part of a deterrence strategy ("you hit one of mine, I'll hit one of yours"), Beijing is likely to be more inclined to acquire satellite countermeasures independently of what Washington does in order to degrade U.S. space advantages, which may be used to support Taiwan.
In this budget-constrained environment, funding for space weapons could only come at the expense of other US defense forces. These forces are constantly challenged by global competitors for technological and operational superiority. So far, the United States has done well to preserve its advantage through relentless modernization of its systems. Those modernizations are expensive, however, and today are stretched out beyond the life cycle of the systems they replace. While acknowledging that today's force can handle today's threats, the current chief of staff of the Air Force recognizes that resources are not available to modernize everything at once. His acquisition plan, therefore, calls for 'just in time' modernization. F-22s are phased in to replace today's fighters just as those fighters are made obsolete by foreign developments. The C-17 is delivered just as C-141s retire. 'We are phasing in the capabilities so that they arrive when we need them,' he states, but 'delays in the modernization will create vulnerabilities very soon.' The point is this: Why start an arms build up in space when budget limitations already threaten essential programs like the joint strike fighter and the evolved expendable launch vehicle? Funds allocated to space weapons undermine the budget upon which the American services' just-in-time modernization is predicated. It gambles that investing in space superiority is worth the resulting decline in relative advantage in the other mediums.
Second, Pakistan might target third-party satellites used by the Indian Army. Potential targets would include commercial imaging and communications satellites, as well as the GPS or European Galileo system if Indian forces were allowed to utilize those services during an offensive. Such attacks would have unanticipated affects on the United States. In one war game, the United States faced what one participant called "ugly choices" about commercial satellites being used by potential opponents. Participants discovered that they were unable to determine who might be affected by a decision to shoot down a commercial satellite. This, according to one participant, "vastly complicates the national security landscape."
The Russians already continue to maintain their forces on high rates of alert -- something that the United States has apparently been encouraging to reduce Russian fears about U.S. missile defenses. The follow-on Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II) agreement contained provisions for eliminating missiles with multiple warheads (which are usually kept on higher rates of alert), but the administration of President George W. Bush abandoned that restriction in the Moscow Treaty and Russia may resort to multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) to maintain a larger nuclear force. Russian President Vladimir Putin has called the prospects of space weapons "particularly alarming," while the commander of Russian Space Forces implied that Russia would respond to U.S. deployments of space weapons.
In light of international opposition, unilaterally deploying weapons in space has little to recommend it. Such an offensive attitude (in both senses of the word) would do little to generate international support for actions such as the 1991 Gulf War. Some may argue that the United States's current position of power makes international support irrelevant and that the United States did not need a coalition to defeat Iraq, but the costs of acting unilaterally would undoubtedly have been much higher. It seems unwise to alienate potential allies at the same time that force reductions may make acting unilaterally difficult or impossible.
Space systems will not survive if they are targeted. Military systems in space, like all others, follow well-established, fixed orbits (orbital transfers are energy- and cost-prohibitive). This leaves space systems exposed and vulnerable. As predominantly unmanned systems, they also require data link to a controller, leaving them vulnerable to interference in the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum. For instance, a nuclear explosion in spacewith force and radiation not attenuated by the atmospherecould negate the use of vast numbers of orbits. Or direct-ascent ASATs, constructed from modified cold war ICBMs, could disperse something as simple as sand in LEO, leaving anything passing through it (17,000 MPH @ 200 km) severely damaged or destroyed. Many futuristic war games are conducted throughout DOD each year, and the play of space systems has increased. One conclusion persists: the fight for space is first and fast, and many space systems do not survive. As space access matures, the survivability issue will become obvious. Nations will not rely on space systems for crisis situationsthey will rely on terrestrial systems (perhaps redundant with more efficient but more vulnerable space counterparts). Hence, the value of space weapons to deny those space systems will be moot.
What might happen if the debris strike occurred shortly after a false alarm showing a missile launch? False alarms are appallingly common -- according to information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, the U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) experienced 1,172 "moderately serious" false alarms between 1977 and 1983 -- an average of almost three false alarms per week. Comparable information is not available about the Russian system, but there is no reason to believe that it is any more reliable. Assessing the likelihood of these sorts of coincidences is difficult because Russia has never provided data about the frequency or duration of false alarms; nor indicated how seriously early warning data is taken by Russian leaders. Moreover, there is no reliable estimate of the debris risk for Russian satellites in highly elliptical orbits. The important point, however, is that such a coincidence would only appear suspicious if the United States were in the business of disabling satellites -- in other words, there is much less risk if Washington does not develop ASATs.
The U.S.. and Soviet experience with MIRVs is often brought up to show how Washingtons "nave" foray into missile madness provoked Moscow to respond in kind. But to arrive at this conclusion, one must suspend all awareness of the strategic context surrounding the MIRV decision and assume that America had (and still has) a monopoly on knowledge. While the United States appeared to lead the Soviet Union in mirv technology, throughout the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks of the early 1970s, which featured the MIRV negotiations, Soviet missile engineers were already busily integrating the technology into their systems. At the time, it was generally expected that Soviet planners, who demonstrated true MIRV technology as early as 1973, would fully exploit this new innovation. U.S. actions, in other words, do not deserve blame for having provoked a Soviet countereffort.