Evidence: Most Popular
Non-kinetic forms of physical attack can be just as effective at disrupting, degrading, and destroying satellites while being less visible and, in some cases, more difficult to attribute. Directed energy weapons, such as lasers and high-powered microwave systems, can target space systems more quickly (within seconds) and create effects that may not be immediately evident to the satellite operator. Furthermore, directed energy weapons can be based on ships, aircraft, other satellites, or the ground. A high-powered laser, for example, can be used to damage critical satellite components (such as solar arrays) by overheating parts of a satellite. Additionally, a relatively low power laser can be used to temporarily dazzle or permanently blind the sensors on a satellite. The attacker, however, may not be able to anticipate whether the effects of its attack will be temporary or permanent. Even once an attack is conducted, the attacker will not know for sure if it was effective, because there may be no readily-evident external indications that a satellite’s sensors are not working.
Targeting a satellite from Earth with a laser requires high beam quality, adaptive optics, and the advanced pointing control needed to steer the laser beam as it is transmitted through the atmosphere. This technology is costly and not widely available.44 In September 2006, China reportedly illuminated U.S. satellites using ground-based lasers in what may have been an attempt to blind or dazzle the satellites, which is an indication that this technology, while advanced, is not beyond the reach of potential adversaries.45 Intelligence also indicates that Russia is developing an airborne lazing platform, which can be more di icult to track and can target a wider array of orbits in a timely manner.46
Rather than attacking the satellites on-orbit, an adversary could achieve similar effects by attacking the ground stations that support them. Ground stations are perhaps more vulnerable to attack, because they are often highly visible, located in foreign countries, and relatively soft targets. For military communications satellites, the data transmitted to and from forward-deployed users is often sent via satellite to a teleport ground station, where it is relayed through another satellite or terrestrial net- works to users around the world. To reduce the dependence on ground stations, some military space systems use inter-satellite links to transmit data directly between satellites without passing through an intermediary ground station.
Ground stations are vulnerable to kinetic physical attack by several means. Guided missiles and rock- ets can be used to attack ground stations from range, while rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire can be used to disable ground station antennas at close range. Ground stations can also be disrupted by attacking the electrical power grid, water lines, and the high-capacity communica- tions lines that support them. While attacks against ground stations could have large implications, the e ects would not be permanent. Unlike satellites, which require years to build and o en cannot be repaired once they are launched, ground stations can be repaired in a matter of days or weeks, depending on the level of damage incurred.
Missile defense systems can be adapted to serve as ASAT weapons, as the United States demonstrated in 2008 by launching an SM-3 missile to intercept and destroy a disabled U.S. military satellite that was projected to re-enter the atmosphere within days.36 Because the SM-3 intercept occurred at a much lower altitude (246 km37 versus over 850 km38 for the Chinese ASAT test), the debris it created did not linger in orbit and threaten other satellites. Attacking satellites at higher altitudes—such as medium earth orbit (MEO) where Global Positioning System satellites reside, or geosynchronous orbit (GEO) where many communications and missile warning satellites are located—requires a larger, more complex missile with multiple stages. Higher orbits also take longer to reach, providing greater warning for the satellite being attacked. For example, a typical launch trajectory to geosynchronous orbit takes more than four hours to reach apogee. China appears to be developing and testing mis- siles with the capability to reach higher orbits, but tests since 2007 have been non-destructive.39 According to the Director of National Intelligence, Russia is developing and testing a new generation of direct ascent ASAT weapons, including an air-launched ASAT missile.40
The following proposal about potential elements of a fully developed reassurance- based regime for space security is intended as a stimulus for discussion and for creative thinking about how existing resources could be combined and expanded into something much more valuable than the sum of the original parts. Many of the elements would require unprecedented forms of cooperation, but such cooperation would be much closer to current practice than is the vision of a nuclear weapons-free world. Building a reassurance-based regime for space security should also be easier than eliminating nuclear weapons because the most consequential security commitments in regards to space involve continuing to refrain from doing things that have never been done before—i.e., not deploying weapons in space or attacking other countries’ satellites. By contrast, nuclear elimination requires the most powerful countries in the world to give up tens of thousands of weapons that have constituted the centerpiece of their security policy for the last 60 years.
Indeed, establishing some type of reassurance-based regime for space security may be a prerequisite for eliminating nuclear weapons. Certainly, Russian and Chinese leaders have indicated that the failure to prevent the weaponization of space would destabilize their strategic security and that they will not consider deep cuts to their nuclear arsenals if they believe that the United States will offset its nuclear reductions by deploying more useable space-enabled conventional global strike weapons. Even if one is not literally a prerequisite for the other, progress made and lessons learned in the space case would create a more favorable context and set valuable precedents for the nuclear one.
Finally, traditional arms control has often approached verification and compliance measures as additional opportunities for adversaries to compete for strategic advantage, with verification being depicted as an information control game between “hiders” and “finders,” and highly politicized non-compliance accusations being used to call for “immediate, swift, and sure” punishment or retaliatory treaty withdrawal.39 A reassurance-based approach would use systematic transparency as a means to increase mutual benefits from cooperative arrangements. Agreed mechanisms for collecting and exchanging information to document compliance would increase overall confidence in space security and identify compliance concerns that would warrant a regulatory management response. They could also provide additional benefits by making it easier, safer, or less expensive for members to accomplish other peaceful objectives in space. For example, with or without new arms control agreements in space, both states and nongovernmental organizations have an interest in improving overall space situational awareness—i.e., knowledge about what is in space, what it is doing there, and how it is moving in relation to other space objects.40 The same information needed for avoiding collisions and assessing the health of the space environment could also be useful for verification. Countries and commercial operators will be much more willing to share this type of information, and to broadly support increasing the total quantity and quality of shared information, if these efforts are undertaken in the context of a space security regime that reassures participants that collecting and sharing such information will allow them to benefit from space, reduce the risk of collisions, and will not be misused for competitive purposes, be they commercial or adversarial.
From a strategic standpoint, the fundamental problem of security in space has remained constant—i.e., how to provide enough reassurance that others tolerate and maybe even facilitate your space activities. The context for this question, though, has shifted from one where two roughly equal adversaries were locked in a deterrence relationship to a much more asymmetrical and highly interdependent world. Long after the end of the Cold War, the United States maintains military superiority in space and on Earth, but its greater dependence on space means that there is also relatively greater U.S. vulnerability to deliberate or inadvertent interference. As information technology becomes more central to the global economy, many countries see it as strategically important to have their own basic space capabilities for development, economic growth, political influence, and military modernization. Yet, the global spread of space capabilities also distributes the rudimentary means to interfere with others’ space assets.38 Because it is technically and economically impractical to protect unilaterally all the governmental and commercial satellites on which it depends, the United States needs reliable reassurance that other countries will neither use their space-related capabilities to attack its satellites nor engage in irresponsible space behavior that puts these satellites at risk. The rest of the space-faring world also seeks reliable reassurance that the United States will be a “responsible” space power: that it will abide by the same rules as everybody else does, that it will respect other countries’ rights to use space freely in the same ways it does, and that it will not exploit space for unfair military or commercial advantages. Furthermore, they want reassurance that they can have a place at the table when key decisions affecting their use of space are made.
The more countries depend on satellites for military, economic, and political ends, the more tempting it may be for potential adversaries to interfere with these satellites, particularly when doing so could let a much weaker player exploit its adversary’s vulnerabilities or enable a much stronger player to preserve its overwhelming tactical military advantages. Of course, there are technical constraints and practical complications associated with each potential form of interference, and nations can adopt countermeasures if the risk to their assets outweighs the added expense. Furthermore, the same trends that have increased capabilities and incentives to interfere with space assets have also increased disincentives. These include the higher probability of retaliatory attacks; the greater likelihood that satellites other than the intended target would become collateral damage; and the potentially massive, unpredictable, and uncontrollable economic consequences if global financial markets were to get spooked by hostile action in space between economically entwined countries.19 As capabilities and incentives for interference with space assets increase, though, clearer rules and stronger mutual restraints are needed to reinforce these disincentives. This is especially the case with respect to actions that would not necessarily violate the OST, but that would reduce space security or damage the space environment.
The OST needs to be supplemented with more explicit rules protecting peaceful satellites and regulating potentially dangerous space activities for two other, equally important reasons. One involves changes in the security context since 1967, especially in the principles guiding U.S. security policy, that compound the technological reasons why it has become increasingly difficult to differentiate between “passive” military support activities traditionally accepted as “peaceful” (denoting “non-aggressive”) and more “active” support for on-going military operations that might not be consistent with international law. The other rationale reflects the OST’s inadequate process for members to make joint decisions about contentions questions, verify compliance, and manage compliance concerns–concerns shared with other early arms control accords.
The more countries depend on satellites for military, economic, and political ends, the more tempting it may be for potential adversaries to interfere with these satellites, particularly when doing so could let a much weaker player exploit its adversary’s vulnerabilities or enable a much stronger player to preserve its overwhelming tactical military advantages. Of course, there are technical constraints and practical complications associated with each potential form of interference, and nations can adopt countermeasures if the risk to their assets outweighs the added expense. Furthermore, the same trends that have increased capabilities and incentives to interfere with space assets have also increased disincentives. These include the higher probability of retaliatory attacks; the greater likelihood that satellites other than the intended target would become collateral damage; and the potentially massive, unpredictable, and uncontrollable economic consequences if global financial markets were to get spooked by hostile action in space between economically entwined countries.19 As capabilities and incentives for interference with space assets increase, though, clearer rules and stronger mutual restraints are needed to reinforce these disincentives. This is especially the case with respect to actions that would not necessarily violate the OST, but that would reduce space security or damage the space environment.
The OST needs to be supplemented with more explicit rules protecting peaceful satellites and regulating potentially dangerous space activities for two other, equally important reasons. One involves changes in the security context since 1967, especially in the principles guiding U.S. security policy, that compound the technological reasons why it has become increasingly difficult to differentiate between “passive” military support activities traditionally accepted as “peaceful” (denoting “non-aggressive”) and more “active” support for on-going military operations that might not be consistent with international law. The other rationale reflects the OST’s inadequate process for members to make joint decisions about contentions questions, verify compliance, and manage compliance concerns–concerns shared with other early arms control accords.
While space has become more diverse, disruptive, and disordered, it is also more dangerous because the targets in space—particularly U.S. military satellites—are more attractive for adversaries to attack in a wide range of scenarios with a wide array of counterspace weapons. The 1991 Gulf War, 1999 NATO bombing campaign in Yugoslavia, and 2003 Iraq invasion demonstrated the tremendous advantage that U.S. military space systems provide as a force multiplier in conven- tional conflict, particularly in command and control (C2) and the employment of precision-guided weapons.28 While in the First Gulf War, less than 8 percent of the munitions used were precision-guided (including both laser-guided and GPS-guided), by the 2003 Iraq invasion, more than 60 percent of the munitions used were precision-guided.29 This trend continued to grow, and by the opening phases of operations in Syria in 2014, some 96 percent of munitions used were precision-guided.30 The demand for satellite communications (SATCOM) has also grown significantly, in many cases outpacing the capacity of military systems and forcing DoD to lease capacity from commercial satellite operators. The increase in demand for satellite communica- tions bandwidth in U.S. military operations has grown exponentially, from 100 megabits per second (Mbps) in the 1991 Gulf War to 250 Mbps in Joint Task Force Noble Anvil in 1999, 750 Mbps in the early months of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan in 2002, and 2,400 Mbps in the opening phases of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.31
A stand-alone ban or normative prohibition on KE ASAT activities might seem like the most obvious area of overlap among traditional proposals for space arms control, emerging concerns about the space environment, and U.S. military preferences for temporary and reversible ASAT options over permanent and debris-generating ones. But a stand-alone KE ASAT proposal is too limited and lopsided to be a fair test of interest in cooperative space security. Moreover, if—as in the EU Code of Conduct—the rule included an exception for KE ASAT activities conducted in such a way as to reduce net space debris or to satisfy imperative safety concerns, but did not include an independent process to weigh competing claims about the positive safety or environmental benefits against the negative effects on space security, then the proposal would seem unfairly biased against the type of KE ASAT test that China conducted in 2007 and in favor of the kind that the United States conducted in 2008.
Without tighter legal constraints or other reassurances that satellites will not be used in intolerably threatening ways, key countries are unlikely to give up the right to damage or destroy them should national security imperatives override environmental considerations. This is especially true if one assumes that the United States has more non-debris-generating anti-satellite options than do other countries because of the relative magnitude of its military space programs and its preference for temporary, reversible, and environmentally friendly ASAT options. Nor would a stand-alone ban necessarily be a good stepping stone to broader cooperative space security. In the unlikely event that China and Russia agree to the space equivalent of the Limited Test Ban Treaty—e.g., an accord that addresses environmental concerns and constrains only the subset of activities most clearly in U.S. interests—it would decrease U.S. incentives to negotiate further restrictions on those military uses of space where it retains a significant interest and advantage.