Chairman Rogers, Ranking Minority Member Cooper, Members of this Subcommittee: Thank you for inviting me to offer my personal views on how best to safeguard US national and economic security interests in space.

The challenge of deterring attacks on US space assets and supporting infrastructure is not new. We faced this challenge during the Cold War against a very powerful ideological and geopolitical foe. The United States and the Soviet Union fought through proxies and experienced intense crises. We engaged in conventional and nuclear arms races, as well as a space race. And yet, anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons were tested infrequently and both Superpowers refrained from stationing weapons in space. Despite many predictions that warfare to seize the high ground in space was inevitable–and despite the absence of meaningful trade or financial relations to moderate the Superpower competition–warfare in space was avoided. 

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