The Responsibilities of Space Faring Nations
Michael Krepon and Michael Katz-Hyman
A condensed version of this article appeared in the October 16, 2006 issue of Defense News
While NASA Administrator Michael Griffin was in China to discuss space cooperation, a story appeared in Defense News that China had illuminated a US reconnaissance satellite with a ground-based laser on at least one occasion. Reporters from Space News subsequently confirmed this report from no less a source than Donald Kerr, the Director of the US National Reconnaissance Office. Shortly thereafter, the Bush administration finally released an unclassified version of the US National Space Policy, which had been in the works for over two years. The Bush policy reaffirms the Pentagon’s option to “respond to interference; and deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to US national interests.”
Connecting these dots leads us to the most important space policy question facing this and future US administrations: What do we do about satellites that are absolutely essential and extraordinarily vulnerable? The Bush administration’s answer is to maximize freedom of action to, from, and through space, while opposing the development of new legal regimes or arms control initiatives broadly defined that might impair US efforts to “control” space.
What makes the Bush administration’s space policy different from those before it is the starkness of the choices it poses for space security. The new policy confines diplomacy to generating international support for the steps that Bush & Co. wish to take. This is a rather narrow pursuit, and one that the State Department has difficulty executing when US initiatives are deemed unwise by others.
To be sure, diplomacy can be a very weak reed in advancing US national security interests, whether in space, or on the ground. Alternatively, the use of force can also lead to very uncertain results that greatly penalize US men and women in uniform. Consequently, administrations usually shy away from stark choices between diplomatic instruments and the use of force. By framing this aspect of space policy as an either/or proposition, the Bush administration increases the likelihood that its preference will not enjoy a domestic consensus, and will therefore not be an enduring one. Stark dichotomies work well for wordsmiths, but they usually get policy makers into trouble.
It takes great hubris to believe that space, like some hostile environments here on Earth, can be controlled by military dominance. Asymmetrical space warfare is a game that a growing number of countries can play. The characteristics of sensors that make satellites so valuable also make them vulnerable to some forms of interference. Satellites, are typically sophisticated and expensive. Threats to satellites can be crude and inexpensive. A bag of marbles that costs two dollars, properly inserted into space, can wreck a satellite that costs hundreds of millions of dollars – or more.
The more we learn about space and the more we benefit from space, the more our options for space warfare are constrained. Early anti-satellite warfare techniques employed nuclear explosions. In 1962, the Kennedy administration discovered, as a result of the STARFISH test series, that atmospheric tests could create indiscriminate havoc to satellites in low earth orbit. In the 1970s and 1980s, kinetic kill ASATs were the instruments of choice. Now our sensitivity to the space debris problem, and the growing threat it poses to space operations, clarifies how unwise this choice is. Currently, the preferred techniques of what the Air Force euphemistically calls “counter-space” operations do not cause debris. But there are no guarantees that our foes will fight by our rules in space. The dictates of asymmetrical warfare suggest otherwise.
In addition to preparing to wage asymmetrical warfare, other space-faring nations can take pages out of the Bush administration’s play book. The lasing of satellites could serve a wide range of purposes, from benign to lethal. Lasers can be used for range finding, communication, information gathering, charging solar cells, dazzling, blinding, and damaging satellites. Lasing against one’s own satellites to assess the damage that could result – as the Clinton administration did in 1997 – can move space-faring nations to the wrong end of this spectrum.
“Painting” someone else’s satellite can similarly be provocative and unwise. We do not know if the Chinese laser test was preceded by similar US practices against Chinese satellites. But we, the Chinese, and Russians ought to know that playing paint ball in space can be a very dangerous game. Similarly, satellite jamming is not a new problem, but it is one that seems to be growing. Most recently Space News reported that Thuraya Satellite Telecommunications experienced extended intentional jamming that was traced back to a source located in Israel.
The central dilemma of US space policy – the essential and vulnerable nature of satellites used for national and economic security – is highlighted by recent developments. There is no exit from this dilemma. The more we seek to protect our satellites by the use of force in space, the more vulnerable our satellites will become if our own practices are emulated by others.
The dilemma requires compensating initiatives. Many of these steps—such as mitigating space debris and making sure satellite links are redundant and hard to jam – enjoy broad public support. But these initiatives still do not add up to a solution. The vulnerability of satellites to hostile acts is too great to be “solved,” and that vulnerability will only be accentuated by the use of force to “protect” satellites.
Because satellites will remain so vulnerable to multiple means of attack, a rough calculus of space deterrence is already in place between advanced space-faring nations: If one country interferes with or damages another country’s space assets, the aggrieved party has the means to retaliate. It may be galling for a nation that enjoys military dominance to again become reconciled to deterrence, but deterrence based on vulnerability in space is an inescapable fact of life. When space warriors pursue the flight testing and deployment of dedicated ASAT capabilities, they paradoxically reinforce deterrence while accentuating the satellite vulnerability they seek to escape.
Since vulnerability in space is so pervasive, we undermine space security whenever we close off avenues that can help prevent actions damaging to our satellites. By dismissing diplomacy, or relegating it to supporting a “do as I say, not as I do” approach to space, we forego negotiations to produce “rules of the road” for space that work in conjunction with other US initiatives to help protect satellites.
The United States Army, Navy and Air Force follow codes of conduct that govern military operations on land, sea, and in the air. A Code of Conduct for Responsible Space Faring Nations could also serve US national security interests while advancing our global economic interests. For example, common sense guidelines could provide pre-notification of unavoidable dangerous maneuvers in space, and help with space traffic management and debris mitigation.
President Bush reminds us repeatedly that great responsibilities fall to our great nation. So what does it mean to be a responsible space-faring nation? The Bush administration’s national space policy gives us part of the answer – but only part. Responsible space-faring nations do not engage in practices that make satellites more vulnerable, and they do not foreclose a Code of Conduct to help secure the vital services that satellites provide.
Michael Krepon is co-founder of the Stimson Center and Michael Katz-Hyman is a Research Associate at the Stimson Center.
