Space operations
operations – and that Russia’s DA-ASAT experiment is just the start.
Space for competition
As seems to often be the case for many issues in our current geopolitical moment, our era of space competition began in the pall of the Cold War. The 1960s and 1970s saw both Washington and Moscow vie for control of the great beyond. But with Russia humbled – and China a minnow compared with the giant it would later become – the US in the 1990s felt sure it could rule the stars alone. “In 1991, we had a 25-year period without threats,” says Christopher Stone, senior fellow for space studies at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “As a result, we saw a resurgence of the ‘sanctuary’ mindset – that from here on out, in the so-called New World Order, we were going to have a free space environment for everybody.” If nothing else, this open-handed optimism is reflected in how the US and its allies exploited space through the years of Pax Americana. On the eve of the Gulf War, in 1990, there were just 464 satellites in orbit. Over a decade later, as the US prepared to invade Iraq once more, that number had almost doubled. And though many of these schemes were hard-nosed military ventures – one report suggested the US Department of Defense enjoyed a space budget of $19.4bn in 2003 – civilian projects proliferated too. If you have followed the remarkable rise of new technology over the past few decades, that is not hard to understand. GPS navigation alone uses two dozen satellites, with Stone emphasising that industries as varied as agriculture and banking all rely on orbiting satellites. Yet, as the US is increasingly learning to its peril, this interconnected world also comes with challenges. And as Dr Wendy Whitman Cobb explains, that is especially true now that the US’s time in the sun as the leading great power is juddering to a halt. “As countries generally have become more dependent on space assets, and have deployed increasing numbers of them, the chances for disagreements or conflicts naturally arises,” says Cobb, an associate professor of strategy and security studies at the US Air Force School of Advanced Air and Space Studies. Fair enough, especially when you consider how quickly the US’s rivals have caught up over the past few years. At the turn of the millennium, China had developed and launched just 47 satellites (and 10% of those were unsuccessful). This year, the People’s Republic controls 363 satellites – and supposedly has ambitious plans to launch a mega constellation of 13,000 more.
Go sky high
The rise of space technology is generally followed by the proliferation of new space weapons. Stone,
for his part, describes a strategy like China’s as a “multi-layered attack architecture”, encompassing a range of different options depending on the situation. Like the Russian test in November 2021, one prominent example are DA-ASAT missiles, fired from the earth’s surface against extraterrestrial foes. Satellites are also vulnerable to attacks from other satellites, which can deliver mines or other explosives to their targets. Not that militaries necessarily need to shoot actual projectiles to achieve their aims – non- kinetic weapons can be just as effective, with jammers, lasers and cyber tools all available to trigger-happy leaders.
Satellites can use a multitude of weapons against each other, including mines, lasers and cyber tools.
“As countries generally have become more dependent on space assets, and have deployed increasing numbers of them, the chances for disagreements or conflicts naturally arises.”
Dr Wendy Whitman Cobb Nor are these mere hypotheticals. Beyond
Russia’s actions, Iran has used jammers to block nearly 120 foreign Persian-language satellite TV channels. In 2005, China claimed to have successfully disabled a satellite using a mounted laser gun – though this was not confirmed independently. It is clear, at any rate, that many states have both the capacity and the will to use a range of space weapons. But beyond these relatively isolated incidents, what might a full-scale extraterrestrial conflict actually entail? Because space is so remote – and much harder to defend than a city or naval base – Stone argues that countries like China could try and use the sphere in
Defence & Security Systems International /
www.defence-and-security.com 1,500
The number of pieces of trackable debris left by the Russian DA-ASAT missile test in
November 2021. US Space Command
39
3Dsculptor/
Shutterstock.com
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