Between a Rocket and a Hard Place: Military Space Technology and Stability in International Relations

ABSTRACT

Military space technology is both stabilizing and destabilizing in international relations in respect to the distinction between passive and active applications. Space has been militarized from the dawn of humanity’s entry to space, but it is presently not weaponized. Although the benefits of passive military space technology are vast and promising, access to these benefits is exclusive and dominated by certain actors, leading other states to possible destabilizing influences of insecurity. Also, the failures of space law and treaties in regulating active military space technology stand to undermine the stabilizing effects of passive military space technology if not addressed.

Notes

^1. Karl D. Hebert, “Regulation of Space Weapons: Ensuring Stability and Continued Use of Outer Space,” Astropolitics 12, no. 1 (2014): 1–26 (quote from 1).

^2. Johannes M Wolff, “Peaceful Uses’ of Outer Space has Permitted its Militarization—Does it Also Mean its Weaponization?” Making Space for Security, UNIDIR Disarmament Forum 1 (2003): 5–13 (quote from 6).

^3. Ibid., 5.

^4. Dave Webb, “The Ethical Use of Outer Space,” in Ethical Engineering for International Development and Environmental Sustainability, edited by Marion Hersh (London, UK: Springer, 2015), 112.

^5. Ibid.

^6. Wolff, 5.

^7. Columba Peoples, “The Securitization of Outer Space: Challenges for Arms Control,” Contemporary Security Policy 32, no. 1 (2011): 76–98 (quote from 79).

^8. Ibid.

^9. Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, in United Nations Treaties and Principles on Outer Space (New York, NY: United Nations, 2002), 3.

^10. Ibid.

^11. Webb, 105.

^12. Michael Sheehan, The International Politics of Space (Oxford, UK: Routledge, 2007), 91.

^13. Peoples, “The Securitization of Outer Space: Challenges for Arms Control,” 76.

^14. Ibid.

^15. Ibid.

^16. Columba Peoples, “Assuming the Inevitable? Overcoming the Inevitability of Outer Space Weaponization and Conflict,” Contemporary Security Policy 29, no. 3 (2008): 502–520 (quote from 514).

^17. Wolff, 6.

^18. Ibid., 10.

^19. Peoples, “The Securitization of Outer Space: Challenges for Arms Control,” 79.

^20. Webb, 111.

^21. Wolff, 9.

^22. Simon Collard-Wexler et al., “Space Security,” Spacesecurity.org, 96, http://spacesecurityindex.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/SSI2006.pdf (accessed 25 April 2016).

^23. David C. DeFrieze, “Defining and Regulating the Weaponization of Space,” Joint Force Quarterly 74 (2014): 110–115 (quote from 111).

^24. Collard-Wexler et al., 96.

^25. Paul Roe, “The Intrastate Security Dilemma: Ethnic Conflict as a ‘Tragedy’?” Journal of Peace Research 36, no. 2 (1999): 183–202 (quote from 184).

^26. Glenn Hastedt, “Reconnaissance Satellites, Intelligence, and National Security,” in Societal Impact of Spaceflight, edited by Steven J. Dick and Roger D. Launius (Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2007), 383.

^27. Ibid., 379.

^28. Sheehan, 93.

^29. Collard-Wexler et al., 97.

^30. United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, Coming to Terms with Security: A Handbook on Verification and Compliance (Geneva, Switzerland: The United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 2003), 7.

^31. Ibid., 28.

^32. Ibid.

^33. Ibid., 3.

^34. Cesar Jaramillo, ed., Space Security Index 2014, Spacesecurity.org, 61, http://spacesecurityindex.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Space-Security-Index-2014.pdf (accessed 25 April 2016).

^35. Elbridge Colby, From Sanctuary to Battlefield: A Framework for a U.S. Defense and Deterrence Strategy for Space (Washington, DC: Center for a New American Security, 2016), 4.

^36. Space Security Index 2014, 61.

^37. Hastedt, 380.

^38. Ibid.

³⁹ Ibid.

^40. Scott Pace, “Security in Space,” Space Policy 33, no. 2 (2015): 51–55 (quote from 54).

^41. Collard-Wexler et al., 96.

^42. Sheehan, 93.

^43. DeFrieze, 111.

^44. Ibid.

^45. Wolff, 11.

^46. Benjamin Goodlad, “Missile Defence and Nuclear Deterrence Relationship in East Asia,” in Regional Approaches to the Role of Missile Defence in Reducing Nuclear Threats, edited by Marcin Andrzej Piotrowski (Warsaw, Poland: Polski Instytut Spraw Międzynarodowych, 2013), 65.

^47. Ibid., 63.

^48. Ibid.

^49. Ibid.

^50. Dean A. Wilkening, “Nuclear Zero and Ballistic-Missile Defence,” Survival 52, no. 6 (2010): 107–126 (quote from 107).

^51. John J. Mearsheimer, “China’s Unpeaceful Rise,” Current History 105, no. 690 (2006): 160–162 (quote from 160).

^52. Colby, 17.

^53. Webb, 116.

^54. Alvin M. Saperstein, “Weaponization vs. Militarization of Space,” APS Physics (2002), http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/2002/july/saperstein.pdf (accessed April 2016).

^55. Ibid.

^56. David C. DeFrieze, “Defining and Regulating the Weaponization of Space,” Joint Forces Quarterly 74 (2014): 110–115.

^57. Collard-Wexler et al., 114.

^58. Webb, 116.

^59. Space Security Index 2014, 76.

^60. DeFrieze, 111.

^61. Peoples, “Assuming the Inevitable? Overcoming the Inevitability of Outer Space Weaponization and Conflict,” 502.

^62. Webb, 115.

^63. Sheehan, 93.

^64. Hebert, 4.

^65. Pace, 3.

^66. DeFrieze, 111.

^67. Ibid.

^68. Bao Shixiu, “Deterrence Revisited: Outer Space,” China Security 3 (2007): 2–11 (quote from 3).

^69. Bruce W. MacDonald, “Steps to Strategic Security and Stability in Space: A View from the United States,” Disarmament Forum 4 (2009): 17–25 (quite from 19).

^70. Shixiu, 2.

^71. Forrest E. Morgan, Deterrence and First-Strike Stability in Space: A Preliminary Assessment (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2010), 3.

^72. Peoples, “Assuming the Inevitable? Overcoming the Inevitability of Outer Space Weaponization and Conflict,” 504.

^73. Morgan, 3.

^74. Peoples, “Assuming the Inevitable? Overcoming the Inevitability of Outer Space Weaponization and Conflict,” 504.

^75. Shixiu, 9.

^76. Ibid., 5.

^77. Colby, 6.

^78. Hebert, 8.

^79. Peoples, “Assuming the Inevitable? Overcoming the Inevitability of Outer Space Weaponization and Conflict,” 515.

^80. Daniel Möckli, “The Rise of China: Regional & Global Power Shifts,” CSS Analyses in Security Policy 2, no.8 (2007): 1–3 (quote from 1).

^81. See Secure World Foundation, https://swfound.org/media/115643/china_asat_testing_fact_sheet_aug_2013.pdf (accessed January 2017).

^82. Colby, 6.

^83. Hebert, 9.

^84. Ibid.

^85. Ibid., 9–10.

^86. James Clay Moltz, “The Past, Present, and Future of Space Security,” The Brown Journal of World Affairs 14, no. 1 (2007): 187–195 (quote from 193).

^87. Hebert, 3.

^88. Hebert, 10.

^89. Webb, 111.

^90. Shixiu, 7.

^91. MacDonald, 17.

^92. Ibid., 18.

^93. Ibid., 21.

^94. Ibid.

^95. Ibid.

^96. Ibid.

^97. Ibid.