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The rules that currently govern the use of space were codified in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty less than a decade after the first satellites were flown. They were designed to protect the common interest of all societies while regulating the competition for military advantage that dominated the pioneering programs of the United States and the Soviet Union. The rules assured universal rights of access and precluded sovereign jurisdiction over orbital transit. They permitted military support services, including reconnaissance, as long as the activity was peaceful, not aggressive. Orbiting weapons of mass destruction and using celestial bodies for military purposes were categorically prohibited, but sending nuclear missiles through space or placing conventional weapons there were not.
The United States was the principal sponsor of the original rules but has become the principal obstacle to their legal elaboration. In order to protect efforts to develop ballistic missile defense, the United States has refused since the 1980s to consider explicit rules prohibiting deliberate attack on space objects and the deployment of weapons in space. It has assertively blocked formal attempts to organize negotiations on those topics and has stood virtually alone against the rest of the world in doing so. The 2006 U.S. National Space Policy and supporting documents formulate the intention to dominate space for national military advantage and to control access by all other countries. The United States is spending tens of billions of dollars each year - far more than all other countries combined - to acquire advanced military space capabilities. The U.S. national security strategy outlines an intention to use these capabilities to eliminate emerging threats before hostile states or terrorist groups acquire dangerous technology - a standard of preventive protection that it does not propose to cede to any other country.
That officially stated formula violates the basic principles of the Outer Space Treaty and is inherently objectionable to all other countries. It is also technically and economically infeasible and surveys show that it would not command the support of the American public, a large majority of which wants additional legal provisions to protect satellites and prevent space weapons. But despite these apparent impediments, a policy of national military space domination prevails within the U.S. government at the moment and is being pursued with sufficient resources to mandate the concern of responsible security officials in other governments, especially those in China and Russia, but among U.S. allies as well. Informed observers can readily understand that the United States cannot dominate space to the extent imagined, but it can develop highly intrusive attack capabilities based on the use of advanced space assets. A predictable counter-reaction would be to hold at risk the satellites upon which the U.S. strategy of coercive prevention depends, which would in turn make all space assets more vulnerable than they currently are. The U.S. vision is too unrealistic to drive a classic arms race but does threaten to provoke asymmetrical responses that would be legally and physically destructive.
This situation clearly requires a more penetrating discussion than has yet occurred and ultimately a more rational balancing of real interests. Assets in space are becoming increasingly vital in daily life not only in the United States but throughout the world as well. In pursuit of an image of dominance that would not be tolerated and could never be achieved, current U.S. space policy threatens services that are integral to the performance of the global economy as well as our own military capabilities.
The American Academy called upon two scholars to evaluate both the feasibility and desirability of U.S. military plans in space. Nancy Gallagher and John D. Steinbruner (both of the Center for International Security Studies at Maryland) provide a comprehensive review of U.S. military plans for space, arguing that the current goal of establishing decisive military space "dominance" is no more feasible or desirable in a globalizing world where the United States is first among many countries with space capabilities than it was during the Cold War competition between two roughly equal space superpowers.
Gallagher and Steinbruner argue that the United States will not be able to "outspend and out-innovate all potential rivals in space." Moreover, they contend that the "costs of using military means to protect U.S. and friendly space systems against asymmetrical attacks” will outweigh the "benefits of seeking full-spectrum space dominance." For this reason, the authors urge the United States to abandon its current policies and to support international negotiations to build on the Outer Space Treaty by developing new rules that explicitly address the central problems of space security. These negotiated legal protections would prohibit deliberate interference with legitimate space assets, outlaw the deployment of weapons in space and other dedicated anti-satellite weapons, and define the legitimate limits of space-based support for military missions. Gallagher and Steinbruner conclude by highlighting some practical steps necessary for successful negotiations, including strategies for ensuring the equitable distribution of the costs of verifying compliance with these legal prohibitions.
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