To Deter, the U.S. Needs Offensive Space Weapons

During the past year, U.S. defense spending dwarfed the military investment levels of its closest national peer competitor by over 300 percent. Nevertheless, the most significant U.S. military investments rely upon assured functionality of communication, geolocation, and reconnaissance space systems which currently lack any means of averting an offensive anti-satellite (ASAT) strike from a capable military foe. Until it fields a space weaponization posture that can deter adversaries possessing improved ASAT capabilities, the United States has no means to ensure its continued role as a purveyor of peace and democracy in the coming geopolitical era. For this reason, the United States should prioritize investment in a robust ASAT space weapon capability to maintain its military primacy and preserve future global stability.ASAT systems are considered as part of a larger category pejoratively coined as “space weapons.” Space weaponization describes the deployment of systems along a wide, imprecise continuum that exists between space systems with limited military value and fully functional space weapon assets, such as space-based ballistic missile defense (BMD) systems or space-to-earth weapons (STEW). Dovish critics of space weaponization dismiss any attempt to improve the U.S. ASAT posture as a transgression of the idea of outer space as a “weapons-free sanctuary,” but these opponents fail to recognize that the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 does not impose any domestic or international legal regime on the development and fielding of anti-satellite systems. Because the Outer Space Treaty, Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, and Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty lack these restrictions, potential adversarial military powers have taken the opportunity to aggressively foster anti-satellite technology in the past decade. As exemplified by China’s development of the Dong Ning missile family and Russia’s attempt to field its own ground-based ASAT system, these countries have made strides toward establishing a long-term strategic advantage over the United States, which has a high concentration of space-based assets and limited counterstrike capabilities.The necessary modifications that the U.S. military must make to its existing ASAT capability posture are well-aligned with the nation’s ongoing space weaponization trajectory. Throughout Operation Desert Storm and the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, the U.S. regularly employed non-escalatory space assets. In 2009, the U.S. even launched a Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) from the USS Lake Erie to destroy a malfunctioning National Reconnaissance Office satellite, USA-193, during Operation Burnt Frost. Though these actions demonstrate a clear step in the right direction by the Department of Defense, its current systems remain highly inferior to those of potential U.S. adversaries, which are designed to effectively destroy satellites with extreme precision in increasingly distant orbital slots.Fortunately, while the United States maintains a disproportionately high number of space assets with respect to the rest of the international community, emerging military powers with developed ASAT capabilities are themselves increasingly reliant on space-based systems for commercial and military processes. In the past, potential foes maintained comparatively few space systems, rendering ASAT-based deterrence cost-ineffective from the perspective of the United States. However, democratized access to space has enabled a larger number of international actors to field commercial and military space systems. For this reason, U.S. development of a robust ASAT system would function as a deterrent force that engenders stability by rebalancing the scales of global military power in outer space.There is no viable or responsible U.S. alternative to matching or exceeding potential adversaries in ASAT development. Other options, such as bolstering the production or reducing the payload size of U.S. satellites, simply do not provide a comprehensive solution to the vulnerabilities created by the recent actions of potential adversaries. Without the development of a robust ASAT capability—an effort that clearly falls within the boundaries of “space weaponization”—the ability of the United States to preserve the use of space for peaceful purposes and military force enhancement will remain in doubt.