Space Security
| Date | Thursday, May 28, 2009 |
| Location | Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2103 |
Security for a New Century hosted Michael Krepon, co-founder of the Henry L Stimson Center and director of its Space Security Program for a discussion on space diplomacy under the new administration.
Historically, space diplomacy is very rare – the last treaty concerning outer space was during the Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. One of the obstacles to space diplomacy is simply that it is very difficult to reach agreement between the high numbers of nation states who have some stake in space security, especially when many countries are wary of the US gaining too much power in this area. From the US perspective, there are other constraints – most notably political, where the question of whether the US should be looking to dominate outer space for its own security and strategic interests is highly contentious. Finally, all countries, including the US, struggle to define exactly what they want in space – what specific weapons and behavior to ban altogether, what to limit and what to allow.
For these reasons, few Presidents since the sixties have been willing to tackle space security head on, with two notable exceptions. The first was Reagan, who in his first term instigated the controversial Strategic Defense Initiative. The second was George W. Bush, who saw the ‘weaponizing’ of space on US terms as an important part of national security. The fact that both Reagan and Bush struggled to attract adequate support for their projects, both domestically and internationally, demonstrates the difficulty in addressing space security and helps explain why so many other Presidents have left the issue alone.
If the new President and his administration are to buck the trend and attempt to initiate space diplomacy, there are two likely options for doing so. The first is to seek a Treaty that would ban all destructive acts against man made objects in space. This would end the practice of destroying satellites in space, which creates large fields of debris which can be extremely dangerous. The second option, perhaps more likely to succeed politically, is to pursue a Code of Conduct for outer space. Again, the main focus would be to end the practice of destroying objects in space and thus avoiding the problem of space debris, most likely via an agreed norm against creating debris fields. A Code of Conduct could also address other key issues in outer space, such as a standard traffic management system, such as already exists for the skies.
Security for a New Century is a bipartisan study group for Congress. We meet regularly with U.S. and international policy professionals to discuss the post-Cold War and post-9/11 security environment. All discussions are off-the-record. It is not an advocacy venue. Please call (202) 223-5956 for more information.