Todd Harrison, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Keywords: Space Policy, Space Weaponization, Insurance, SSA, STM, Space Law
Abstract:
The Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Aerospace Security Project is working on two space policy research efforts focusing on key issues in space governance and national perspectives on the development and deployment of space weapons.
The first part of this research analyzes the views of countries on key governance issues in the space domain, focusing on countries other than the United States, Russia, and China. The preliminary findings indicate that the national space policies on space sustainability, rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO), and insurance requirements are uneven and irregular. This is also reflected in international policies and standard-setting mechanisms. Interestingly, nations with relatively fewer satellites on-orbit are in some cases defining more clear and precise policies than more advanced space nations. Yet, while some nations seem to be laying out policies in advance of need in some areas, these same nations may be relatively unengaged in other key areas that need immediate attention. For example, there is a broad lack of dialogue or consensus on defining RPO activities and requirements for satellite or launch insurance.
Without clear national perspectives or policies, the prospect of finding international consensus and defining technical standards for key issues in space governance remains bleak. However, there are apparent areas of consensus among nations, such as the need for individual nations to support rules for space sustainability. Easy first steps may be establishing norms of behavior or updating end of life (EOL) guidelines.
Within this broader dialogue several states have suggested international mechanisms for space traffic management. There are several examples of international consensus for traffic or transportation management in the aviation, automobile, and maritime communities. While these frameworks have been suggested by space policy experts in the past as a basis for building an international space traffic management (STM) organization, a strong movement from the international community has yet to occur. Even if the international community agreed on a system for STM, it would take years to negotiate and make such a system a reality. The non-binding UN COPUOS guidelines alone took over a decade.
The second part of this effort analyzes international perspectives on space weapons and the weaponization of space, again focusing relatively more on countries other than the United States, Russia, and China. It examines how existing international agreements define and limit certain types of space weapons and weapons-related activities. It also analyzes proposed international agreements, the reactions of other nations to these proposals, and current developments that relate to space weapons and the weaponization of space.
Since the Outer Space Treaty was signed in 1967, little progress has been made in negotiating international agreements that would limit the development, test, deployment, and use of weapons in outer space. The main sticking points are a lack of consensus on what constitutes a space weapon and mechanisms for verification and enforcement of an agreement. Competing definitions for key terms has proven to be a particularly difficult issue to overcome. Nations use phrases like space weapons, the militarization of space, and the weaponization of space to mean different things at different times, often to suit their own geopolitical agendas. And increasingly nations are seeking to delineate between offensive and defensive counterspace weapons, although the capabilities are often indistinguishable in practice.
In the United Nations, much of the focus on space weapons has been in the Conference on Disarmament and its efforts to prevent an arms race in space. But concern about preventing an arms race is based largely on the assumption that weapons in space would lead to instability and ultimately conflict. However, conflict could occur in space without an arms race, and an arms race in space could potentially lead to a stable deterrence posture that prevents conflict, just as the nuclear arms race between the United States and Soviet Union ultimately deterred nuclear war on Earth.
Efforts to place limits on the development of space weapons, create a code of conduct, or even establish norms of behavior in space have so far failed to gain consensus among the key nations needed for such an agreement to be effective, namely the United States, Russia, China, India, and the European Union. While discussions continue at the United Nations about preventing an arms race in space, the actions of some nations—namely Russia and China—are leading others to prepare for conflict.
Date of Conference: September 15-18, 2020
Track: SSA/SDA