Space security : the impossible consensus between powers

In pre­vious decades, space was a domain hand­led among a mere hand­ful of key players such as the Uni­ted States and the Soviet Union. But this is no lon­ger the case ; mul­ti­pli­ci­ty of actors in outer space (pri­vate com­pa­nies, new states), both in num­ber and diver­si­ty, has accen­tua­ted the chal­lenge of glo­bal gover­nance. What are the rules ? And how can we enforce them ?

Fin­ding a consen­sus among the many sta­ke­hol­ders in the cur­rent cli­mate has become near­ly impos­sible. Moreo­ver, we are seeing increa­sed use of space assets in conven­tio­nal mili­ta­ry ope­ra­tions for com­mu­ni­ca­tions, as well as posi­tion, navi­ga­tion, timing func­tions, to name a few. In ear­lier decades, use of space by mili­ta­ries was pri­ma­ri­ly for stra­te­gic func­tions¹ such as arms control and trea­ty veri­fi­ca­tion, and ear­ly war­ning. Add to that the arri­val of new tech­no­lo­gies such as on-orbit satel­lite ser­vi­cing² that are typi­cal­ly used for remote satel­lite ins­pec­tion, refuel­ling and repair – meant to extend the life of a satel­lite or to clean up junk in space. Even though these belong to the cate­go­ry of pea­ce­ful use of space, ten­sions in glo­bal geo­po­li­tics and inten­si­fi­ca­tion of com­pe­ti­tion among major powers have dri­ven sus­pi­cions about their use. 

Still, regu­la­tion³ of these new tech­no­lo­gies⁴ and acti­vi­ties have not been deve­lo­ped and given the state of major power rela­tions, it is unli­ke­ly that there will be much pro­gress on this in the imme­diate future. Even though the US conti­nues to main­tain the lead in almost all aspects of space tech­no­lo­gy and com­pe­ti­tion, China’s gro­wing capa­ci­ties and its desire to rewrite the rules and norms in space has made space gover­nance more difficult.

The glo­bal rule-making exer­cise has become chal­len­ging for seve­ral impor­tant rea­sons. That the major powers can­not agree on what the most impor­tant chal­lenges are in the space secu­ri­ty domain is a major impe­di­ment in deve­lo­ping consen­sus on the next steps. Coun­tries like Chi­na and Rus­sia argue that the arms race and pla­ce­ment of wea­pons in outer space are urgent issues. Whe­reas the US and seve­ral other coun­tries per­ceive the gro­wing deve­lop­ment and deploy­ment of coun­ters­pace capabilities—technologies that can deny advan­tages that come from the use of space—as a more serious danger. 

Hence, space is no lon­ger “a sanc­tua­ry⁵ from attack and space sys­tems are poten­tial tar­gets at all levels of conflict.” 

It could also be said that there is a phi­lo­so­phi­cal dif­fe­rence bet­ween these two groups of states about future gover­nance of space. Wes­tern states per­ceive enor­mous bene­fits in pur­suing poli­ti­cal but non-legal ins­tru­ments. They do not have suf­fi­cient confi­dence in other powers to pur­sue legal­ly bin­ding mea­sures given the state of mul­ti­la­te­ral nego­tia­tions⁶ and so they argue that less bin­ding agree­ments may be the first step in buil­ding trust and confi­dence in each other. But coun­tries such as Chi­na and Rus­sia conti­nue to rei­te­rate that legal­ly bin­ding mea­sures are the only means to secure space.

The world is moving away from a “sanc­tua­ry” view of outer space towards the “space control” or even the “space high ground” schools of thin­king. The lat­ter consi­ders that “space has the abi­li­ty to be the cri­ti­cal fac­tor⁷ in deter­mi­ning the out­come of a battle.” 

Some of the recent glo­bal pro­po­sals for space gover­nance include the draft Trea­ty on the Pre­ven­tion of the Pla­ce­ment of Wea­pons in Outer Space spon­so­red by Rus­sia and Chi­na ; the Threat or Use of Force against Outer Space Objects (PPWT), ori­gi­nal­ly pro­po­sed in 2008 ; the EU-ini­tia­ted Inter­na­tio­nal Code of Conduct for Outer Space Acti­vi­ties (2010); the 2013 UN Group of Govern­men­tal Experts on Trans­pa­ren­cy and Confi­dence Buil­ding Mea­sures (TCBMs); the 2018–19 GGE on fur­ther prac­ti­cal mea­sures for the pre­ven­tion of an arms race in outer space (PAROS) and a more recent UK pro­po­sal on space secu­ri­ty. But there has been no pro­gress on any of these ini­tia­tives. The First Com­mit­tee of the UN Gene­ral Assem­bly voted in ear­ly Novem­ber to esta­blish an open-ended wor­king group on safe space stan­dards⁸. The for­ma­tion of this group, sche­du­led for 2022, is worth watching.

Why do we need new mea­sures urgent­ly ?  The exis­ting legal mea­sures, espe­cial­ly the Outer Space Trea­ty (OST) of 1967 have been use­ful in main­tai­ning the sanc­ti­ty of outer space but the Trea­ty and the asso­cia­ted agree­ments inclu­ding the Regis­tra­tion Conven­tion, Rescue Agree­ment and Lia­bi­li­ty Conven­tion have many gaps and ambi­gui­ties. For ins­tance, the OST is silent on wea­pons other than wea­pons of mass des­truc­tion (WMD). The fact that only the pla­ce­ment of WMD is pro­hi­bi­ted by the Trea­ty is a big lacu­na and the trea­ty can­not address contem­po­ra­ry chal­lenges such as those pre­sen­ted by coun­ters­pace capabilities.

Recent deve­lop­ments should bring some urgen­cy to the glo­bal gover­nance debates.  Russia’s ASAT⁹ test, France’s¹⁰ Space Force Com­mand, Germany’s¹¹ mili­ta­ry space com­man­der cen­ter, Australia’s¹² own ver­sion of a space com­mand¹³, and India’s Defence Space Agen­cy are all a recog­ni­tion of the gro­wing secu­ri­ty-domi­na­tion of outer space, and the chan­ging dyna­mics of space secu­ri­ty. Rus­sia came up with its own Rus­sian Space Forces even ear­lier in 2011 and Chi­na esta­bli­shed the Stra­te­gic Sup­port Force (PLASSF) in 2015, inte­gra­ting the Peo­ple’s Libe­ra­tion Army (PLA) space, cyber and elec­tro­nic war­fare capa­bi­li­ties, making a more potent force to deal with. 

The cri­ti­cal point here is to note that without mul­ti­la­te­ral nego­tia­tions, states will be com­pel­led to pur­sue their own means of secu­ring their inter­ests in space, by demons­tra­ting their coun­ters­pace capa­bi­li­ties inclu­ding anti-satel­lite (ASAT) wea­pons to deve­lo­ping dedi­ca­ted mili­ta­ry space ins­ti­tu­tions, all of which could only heigh­ten the poten­tial for conflicts in space.