Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

James Clay Moltz holds a joint faculty appointment at the Naval Postgraduate School in the Department of National Security Affairs and in the Space Systems Academic Group. He is the author of Asia's Space Race: National Motivations, Regional Rivalries, and International Risks.

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The Politics of Space Security

Stanford University Press

Contents

Acknowledgments............................................................................viiIntroduction...............................................................................11. The Dynamics of Space Security: Existing Explanations...................................112. Space and Environmental Security........................................................423. Roots of the U.S.-Soviet Space Race: 1920s–1962...................................694. The Emergence of Cooperative Restraint: 1962–1975.................................1245. Challenges to Space Security and Their Resolution: 1976–1991......................1766. Post–Cold War Space Uncertainty: 1992–2000..................................2287. Renewed U.S. Space Nationalism: 2001–2008.........................................2598. Expanding International Norms amid Tensions: 2009–Present.........................3059. Alternative Futures for Space Security..................................................326Index......................................................................................355

Chapter One

Existing Explanations

The concept of national security describes the relationship between a country's capabilities and the challenges posed by the surroundings in which it must operate. When a country is secure, it enjoys the ability to conduct its activities free from harm. Although we normally view security as reliant solely on military power, it is also influenced by a variety of other factors: alliances, economic strength, treaty memberships, political stance (such as declared neutrality), social cohesion, and even perceived moral authority.

In space, the attainment of security involves the task of overcoming both man-made and natural threats, given the extreme hostility of the space environment. Since orbital dynamics require a certain level of interaction with other actors, the behavior of all space-faring entities (states, companies, universities, private citizens, and international consortia) inevitably affects the security of others, more so than in other realms. In general, we can define "space security" as the ability to place and operate assets outside the Earth's atmosphere without external interference, damage, or destruction. By this definition, all actors have enjoyed a high level of space security for most of the space age, with very few exceptions, as will be discussed later. Unfortunately, challenges to space security are increasing today, particularly as space becomes more crowded. Arguably, at least three policy alternatives exist: (1) space actors can assume the worst and prepare for eventual warfare; (2) they can hedge their bets with weapons research and begin efforts at better coordination and conflict avoidance; or (3) they can reject military options altogether and heighten their efforts to build new cooperative mechanisms for developing space jointly.

During the Cold War, the behavior of the Soviet Union and the United States dominated space security considerations. These two sides conducted well more than 95 percent of space activities during the Cold War. Although Russian activity has declined significantly since 1991, even as late as 2005 the combined total of U.S. and Russian activities still made up 50 percent of all commercial space launches, 63 percent of civil launches, and fully 68 percent of military launches. For each of these two countries, achieving space security was for many years primarily a matter of understanding the policies of the other side and trying to reach consensus on how to manage disputes and prevent hostile acts. As discussed in this book, space security evolved during the Cold War in two primary stages: the 1957–62 period (characterized by military-led approaches) and the 1963–91 period (characterized mainly by military "hedging" and negotiated approaches). With the end of the Cold War in 1991, space became a realm led mainly by the United States. For a decade, Washington continued a policy of negotiated space security, in close cooperation with the Russian Federation (drawing on the third option listed above). After 2001, however, a new U.S. leadership, focusing on emerging foreign missile threats and eventual U.S. space vulnerabilities, shifted course back toward a military-led strategy in the belief that hostile actors would arise among new space powers and create threats requiring military solutions. In part for this reason, it withdrew from one of the main, negotiated space security arrangements of the Cold War—the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty—and also developed more space-specific military plans for defensive operations. However, the United States did not abandon the 1967 Outer Space Treaty or a number of other cooperative agreements.

Some analysts believed that the George W. Bush administration's moves had finally paved the way for an historically inevitable process of space's weaponization and the occurrence of direct military conflict, which had been delayed by political and technological factors. As Steven Lambakis of the National Institute of Public Policy in a 2001 book complained regarding the behavior of past U.S. space policies: "If freedom of space is our guidestar, what is being done to nurture and protect it? Are not U.S. policy makers setting a bad precedent by unilaterally restricting national activities in the force-application and space-control areas, limiting in effect the country's freedom to exploit space?" For others, these developments marked a sharp and negative change from wise policies by past presidents that had helped create the foundations for U.S. space preeminence. As the Center for Defense Information's Theresa Hitchens argued in 2003: "Unfortunately, this [Bush] administration has done little thinking ... about the potential for far-reaching military, political and economic ramifications of a U.S. move to break the taboo against weaponizing space." Whether this outcome and the possible U.S. movement toward the deployment of space-based defenses is somehow historically predetermined or instead related mainly to the policy preferences of specific administrations remains a subject of debate among space experts.

These developments and the prospect of space-based defenses and offensive weapons raise a series of important questions: Is the deployment of space-based weapons somehow unavoidable, or can space actors prevent it through rules of the road, treaties, or tacit avoidance? Is there such a thing as the "partial" weaponization of space? Are there definable cut-off lines among systems and could they be enforced? Or, could weapons in space be used to prevent an arms race through some form of "space hegemony"? Skeptics believe that any form of weaponization would be a slippery slope, likely to result in a multilateral arms race and a reversion by states to military-led solutions. But there is also the possibility that recent military trends are an epiphenomenon and instead that the expansion of commercial actors in space will change priorities in Washington and other capitals and lead human space developments away from conflictual, weapons-based scenarios.

In seeking guidance on these...