space weaponization

Amidst the boundless arena of space, the race for dominance has reached new heights as a multitude of nations pursue weaponization of technologies in space as vehicles for power. Within the depths of the vast expanse of our solar system, a mysterious satellite called Kalina orbits high above our planet. This enigmatic satellite is unlike the rest that consume the night sky - it’s a vital component of Russia’s secret space surveillance system, a threatening constellation of satellites known as Krona. This is a weapon primed for reconnaissance, espionage, and spacecraft destruction: a powerful tool to monitor interests located on and off the planet, consequently providing its creator a significant edge. Kalina is a dark reminder that space is not a peaceful domain, but a future battlefield and it has not been a sanctuary from violence since the USA tested the first satellite weapon in 1960, “a Bold Orion missile launched from a B-47 bomber”. Some may argue that space weaponization is necessary, and some may push forward the dangerous implications of turning the pristine realm into a terrorized zone. But as civilization pushes beyond our planet, the rewards outweigh the risks of harnessing the power of the cosmos for a theater of war. Although some may argue that entering space as a potentially violent and weaponized nation is unfavorable due to risks of cost, debris, and nuclear war, America should instead aim to militarize and further develop existing space weaponry technologies in order to increase national security and ensure future access to the grounds of scientific and economic advancement. Through discussing the value of space internationally in the future to understand scope, the current reliance on existing satellites, debating nuclear and scientific tension, America can formulate sufficient reasoning against stepping aside in this crucial domain.

Beyond competitive space exploration, the region outside Earth is a literal and metaphorical economic minefield, which has largely motivated nations (and even private sectors), including our own, to develop technologies to aggressively obtain such high value resources for both material and scientific wealth. Essentially, weapons to display dominance and control of the region and its potential. Such space technologies must be deployed by America in order to remain a player in the race existing on the final frontier, by both offensive and defensive military means. The Columbia Journal of Transnational Law released a detailed piece on the geostrategic competition and territorial acquisition occurring in this field. Informing that extraterrestrial activity in the coming decades will generate incorporable wealth, they subsequently provided an astonishing example of what this may very soon take shape as. Nasa has reportedly been “preparing to send a probe to an asteroid” and this is especially important as it “contains an estimated $10,000 quadrillion worth in asteroid mining”. An infamous projection has accordingly supplied that “the world’s first trillionaire will earn her fortune” through these exact methods in the space mining industry. Therefore, it is already established that the infinite investment in space has, and only will, intensify in the next generation of the frontier. The extraction of such valuable minerals (such as platinum used for electronic materials or precious metals) from celestial bodies that are rare and pricey on Earth make space a critical arena with its deep sea of abundant elements. If American loses their place of power in that sphere, they risk access beyond our planet entirely, strengthening the call for a firmer American military presence beyond Earth. Once foreign bodies become technologically superior in the space arms race, they will “set the rules governing space activities” to America’s detriment and “confine the United States to Earth and deny its use of space and the vast opportunities its presents”. This translated to a limitation in which the nation would no longer have any natural extraterrestrial assets to profit off of, as America no longer holds a dominant enough presence in the domain. While some may attempt to counter this utilizing the decades old Outer Space Treaty, it is insufficient as refutation. This treaty contains a prohibitory clause, stating that the Moon and other bodies beyond our planet “are not subject to national appropriation by claims of sovereignty”. By this logic, legally no nation can establish a claim on resources for mining such as a moon or asteroid, and therefore one may argue that no other country can drive us out or compete for these resources by ownership. So, in response to the point that losing military power in space results in limited access to vital resources, many may attempt to evoke the argument above: no national body can lay claim on these resources regardless of their military power. But this is simply untrue upon further analysis. The article referenced above defines the OST’s statements as ambiguous and in severe requirement of renovation as it was released over 45 years ago. The Center for Space Policy and Strategy introduced the concept of “gray area” in the context of international law in space. Gray zone activities are tactics that “achieve objectives while staying below the threshold of conventional war”. Fielding space weapons would “add another dimension of ambiguity” and expand the gray area significantly, so therefore proxy forces could challenge the USA without triggering a military response. So, what does this imply? Essentially, the current treaty is incapable of enforcing the concept sufficiently as many nations could still push America out of the domain efficiently with gray zone methods without violating the treaty. In order to hypothesize the progress of gray area actions in space, the scholarly article from Columbia provided an analogous example of a situation that runs parallel to the possible space gray zone activity. On the surface of our own planet, in the South China Sea, illegal island building has begun. This situation was framed to be similar to space as this sea has incredible military importance: “nearly one third of all trade passes through the Straits of Malacca”. Through the construction of artificial islands that intertwine the purposes of both “expanding regional influence and projecting military power”, China has violated obligations set by the United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea yet has only continued to expand its control over the region with ADIZ identification zone with minimal reported repercussions. If such an established and broadly acknowledged form of international law can’t constrain the nation from solidifying strategy that directly opposes it, how can we expect it to perform accordingly beyond our atmosphere? Outer space offers significantly more possibility than any region sea, especially in the absence of appropriate legal limits. The new discipline of space law suffers from premature enforcement challenges and is unequipped to supply any protection to any spacefaring nation involved in the political climate of space. Nations such as China, Russia, India, France, and Korea are all poised to acquire resources from above through malicious methods that avoid formal warfare. Through the application of the territorial disputes in the sea, we can predict the outcome of the upcoming ones in the sky. Current faculties will not suffice and are not a stable structure to rely on. “Once base building begins, it will be very hard to stop”, as we now compete in the currency of moons and planets. But the need for a military space presence doesn’t end at resources for the future, it in fact begins with a need to protect our current use of space as a nation too.

If America becomes incapable of deploying defensive space technologies and aerospace threats, it will have severe impacts and high capacity for national risk – attacks on our space infrastructure by rival nations will consequently impact the significant American population reliant on it. Our potential assets in space currently pale in comparison to the ones most citizens are reliant on currently. The expansion of space capabilities in the last decade has caused new industries to emerge internationally which have grown to be intimately connected to the lifestyles of many Americans: these industries are only capable of catering to the populations needs from commercial and government satellites. A report from the Center from Strategic and International Studies expands on our space system dependency in terms of both American economic & military security, claiming examples such as “Uber and Lyft, ultra-efficient supply chains of businesses, and delivery services” are fully integrated by the USA’s military operated Global Positioning System. The space age has motivated the creation of such influential markets and offered economic power to our nation, notably in the past years since the Covid19 era of quarantining in 2020 as the coronavirus caused an increase in worldwide internet connection reliance. StarLink, Elon Musk’s branch operated by SpaceX for example, services satellite internet connection coverage internationally. Our digital dependencies are largely allowed by these and similar satellite technologies on an individual scale as American citizens, and increasingly so since the post-pandemic conditions where remote living and conditions were the spine of our lifestyles. Losing power, and therefore access, in the vast region of space will negatively impact the general national population substantially on a regular basis. Attacks and fatal damage to our space technologies also threaten our national security far more than may be realized – while the offense may occur in orbit the major resulting physical dangers remain on the planet. Space based imagery and surveillance systems provide “real time global monitoring of adversary forces” and are deterrents that may prevent a variety of attacks via surveillance intelligence, For example, counter terrorism operations in the Middle East are reliant on GPS drones and our observations from space help deter missile launches, as well as ensure command authority remains connected. In order both protect our lifestyle and large-scale safety, we require appropriate defense of national space assets. In fear of escalation dynamics, we should not sacrifice our defensive measure and risk facing significant challenges in the long term, especially in consideration of the growing capabilities of other nations. The director of the same CSIS report’s Aerospace Security Project claims that “with its 2019 test, India made clear it believes kinetic Earth-to-Space ASAT weapons are a legitimate means of self-defense by deterrence” as an example of this. As Chief of Space Operations, General Raymond, also phrased it “space is a vital national interest” and “if deterrence fails, we must be prepared to fight and win” much like India. This isn’t, however, to say that concerns about escalation are invalid in comparison by prioritizing defense.

Nuclear war tensions, one of the primary concerns at the heart of militarizing space technologies, are an incredibly important argument raised by critics and should be spotlighted in consideration of this issue. Escalation caused by formal space weaponry deployment and development could foster a more dangerous atmosphere on Earth via exponentially increased nuclear capacities. The Center for Space Policy and Strategy has explained that space weapons “present a broader geopolitical risk” as they have “a close relationship to nuclear stability”. To further support this connection, the Roadmap for Assessing Space Weapons explains in context that the visions of many future weapons portray them to be equipped with powerful speed and accuracy. This means that the weapons may perform nuclear attacks on targets with minimal warning or possibility of failure, and most significant without possible defense by the targeted nation. Not only could they attack from orbit, but they could simply shoot down any deterrence from the other country if the nuclear weapon was utilized on Earth, leaving no means for retaliatory strike. If we further allow and participate in largely unregulated weaponization and increase tensions, then we further open the door to extremely destructive nuclear forms of warfare. A chart from the Defense Intelligence Agency released in March of 2022 graphically categorizes space weapons by their differing degrees of damage, placing nuclear detonation furthest on the spectrum of towards nonreversible and permanent effects. This imagery only further displays the severity of nuclear space weapon capacity in comparison. All citizens who advocated space weaponry militarization for America must be capable of assessing the scope of nuclear war risks effectively. Yet, in response to this argument, restraining space warfare through means of international enforced laws would be incredibly difficult as nuclear deployment technologies in orbit (at least with current technologies) will be impossible to deter if deployed by any national body, as mentioned above. I would additionally include that preexisting framework, such as the 1967 OST, already placed a basic restriction on nuclear weapons. Yet, as I mentioned previously, would be incapable of defending a nation if violated (in theory) simply by the nature of the nuclear weapons’ capabilities of defensive satellites today. Enacting American weapons in space mitigates the risk actively and with more assurance. By participating in the activity of developing weapons in space, we may in fact more effectively prevent the likelihood of a nuclear attack from space by establishing parallel military dominance rather than relying on currently speculative outcomes from a mode of prevention with would be difficult to enforce. As a space news article had phrased it “the cost of space weaponization may not seem justifiable in the long term, but in the long term the cost of inaction is higher”. So yes, tensions and probability of nuclear space attacks may increase in general space military weapons are not well defined and prohibited on the ground. But how effective would the legal framework even be when confronted with weapons they can’t intercept if launched (unlike on Earth)? The argument runs obsolete in better consideration of the capability of our technology today, and nuclear attacks are an unavoidable possibility that can only be responded to with less passive approached such as developing our own methods or security in space independently.

Ultimately, who’s domain is space? It’s the scientists and researchers across the world, not the political forces. They are in control of the majority of technologies currently in space and the ones that will be, and most are likely against weaponizing this world of exploration for power, and rightfully so. Yet they are, in fact, the demographic who would benefit most from the militarization of space. In order to conduct their research, they must ensure the safety of their spacecrafts, and debris from warfare could damage the machinery in orbit. Not only that, but funding and attention would be directed towards the department manufacturing satellites for war, not science. Lastly, it could potentially create hesitation among international missions and collaboration, especially at the risk of sharing sensitive data or technologies when nations are competing. However, nations will interfere in our scientific progress regardless with their own weaponry deployment, and we could in fact benefit from an enhancement of protective technologies. As the US military phrased it to “ensure freedom of action in space for the US”.

Diligent examination of the array of factors and subcategories of space weaponry and their capabilities provides scope of what an approaching future of space weaponry may look like. War is inevitable and a foundational piece in how global dynamics shift an alter over time. And opening another domain if available is inevitable as a nation the most reliant step that can be taken in our best interest is towards maintaining our assets and enforcing our power through a formal approach to militarizing space. Merging technologies will continuously expand the bounds of what foreign satellites are capable of equipping themselves with. Take quantum computing for example. Quantum cyber-attacks on satellites represent a highly potent threat to the functionality of these critical assets – unlike traditional cyber warfare, which rely on exploiting software or hardware vulnerability, these take heavy advantage of the unique properties of quantum mechanics to manipulate data by disrupting satellite signals. The attempts at hacking, much like the other space weapon attacks, are virtually impossible to detect or defend against with our existing encryption methods. Therefore, they can cause severe damages to a satellite’s internal system and render it disabled. As similar technologies develop, restraining from defending ourselves via the path of deploying weapons as well with prove fatal as the weapons grow exponentially more skilled. As we maneuver through America’s prospective military presence in space, we must essentially decipher how we can unlock the vast potential of space without sacrificing the security of not only Earth but our nation, as the unavoidable space conflict could potentially have catastrophic consequences for our corner of the planet if dealt with inaction.