National Security Space Strategy Considerations

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As one component of a defense triad, system protection involves upgrading current systems where possible, and constructing future systems to be more survivable and thus less vulnerable to collision, interference, or attack. It also involves an array of improvements in system architecture, to make the entire satellite configuration more robust, redundant, and resilient.

Improvements in system acquisition and enhancement of interoperability among systems also fit into this category. Here the discussion highlights how protection relates to the broader issues of defense and deterrence—namely, by establishing the conditions for deterrence by denial by diminishing the probability that an attack against a space system would succeed in degrading or destroying the space services upon which the United States depends. In this sense, protective measures are a main source of deterrence by denial.

Given the number of agencies that have stakes in space, depend on space, and are involved in high-dollar projects to protect those assets, it is critical that these agencies undertake an effort to more fully appreciate their respective interagency authorities and the larger U. Any response to an attack. More specifically, deterrence by denial attempts to forestall an attack or other unwelcome act by persuading an adversary that an attack will not succeed. For example, if the target of the attack is hidden, mobile, or well-shielded, the aggressor may not be able to find it and strike it effectively.

Likewise, if the defender is capable of intercepting or disrupting the attack en route, and if the putative attacker is aware of this capability, it may conclude that the attack cannot attain its objective and may thereby be deterred from launching it. Categorizing and prioritizing risks in space and creating closer whole-of-government response plans are likely to have more value than drawing redlines in space.

Efforts are under way to organize DoD space efforts as a formal major force program MFP that would provide a more integrated understanding of the resources being devoted to all defense space activities. This action should better enable the DoD to set priorities and assign resources for the protection and defense of its space assets.

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Such efforts will require more than purely technical or military capabilities, but economic, diplomatic, and political arrangements that align the interests of other space—actor nations with those of the United States. In addition to the traditional forms of deterrence, such as denial of attack objectives and fear of retaliation, U. The second leg of the space defense triad is deterrence: Importantly, the success of deterrence measures against attacks on U.

Each side was deterred from launching a first strike against the other for fear of unacceptable retaliation. Much strategic thinking and weapons systems development was devoted to ensuring that, under any combination of circumstances, the ability to launch a devastating second strike was preserved, so that neither side could calculate that a first strike would be profitable.

Notably, the threatened response to a hostile action need not be in kind—retaliation in a different time, place, and manner may be more effective in influencing the calculation of the adversary, because the responder can exercise freedom to reply in a manner tailored to its advantage. It must be induced in the other. Effective deterrence is classically based on three principles: In each of these elements, the United States must draw upon the full array of elements of national power, including diplomatic, intelligence, military, and economic tools.

First, a potential attacker must believe that the defender can identify the source of an attack should one occur. An adversary that does not fear being caught has much greater latitude for action. This requires that potential adversaries believe that the United States maintains the capacity to detect, track, and identify a full range of space objects and to distinguish hostile attack from system failures, space weather, or other natural phenomena.

Deterrence efforts can be rendered effectively useless by an inability to recognize whether a system has been struck or interfered with, where in the system the attack has occurred, and who did it. It is important to note that the issue is not just one of diagnosis and attribution however; it is timely attribution.

Adversaries considering interference with U. Levy, Deterrence and coercive diplomacy: The contributions of Alexander George, Political Psychology 29 4: Potential adversaries contemplating interference with U. In considering the totality of U. Routine exercises could include a wide range of retaliatory actions across different domains to enhance the credibility of U. Because they are so crucial to the credibility of deterrent messages, rapid and accurate diagnosis of an attack wherever it might occur across the entirety of a space system and identification of its source are among the most essential capabilities for space defense and protection.

They are appropriately prioritized in U. What is not clear is the extent to which the priority for enhanced awareness is also applied to terrestrial aspects of space systems. Finally, it is important that these efforts are managed carefully with progress milestones and effectiveness measurement. This should occur not only on the technical side. SSA requirements and capability should not just feature space security policy but should also find their place in national security policy and implementing plans. Additional requirements for the credibility of deterrence messages are that potential adversaries believe that the deterrer has both the capability and the will to respond to an attack once identified.

It is not difficult to argue that U. The United States can respond. However, the credibility conundrum, often cited with regard to nuclear weapons, is the believability that the United States will respond in circumstances short of catastrophic damage or loss of conventional capacity. The nature and scale if not the details of response to all-out, strategic attack on the homeland are fairly easy to imagine.

However, if that attack were to avoid immediate loss of life, for example, what would be an appropriate level of response? Is limited attack that disables mission critical space service in an area of operations during a crisis more or less escalatory than total destruction of a global observation system in peacetime? Given that the fundamental value of almost all current U. The purpose of an intentional attack is not merely to disrupt or destroy the function of a space or cyber capability, but by doing so, to achieve some political or military.

Figure is derived from a RAND report on responding to cyberattacks of various kinds, including the problem of attribution. It is important to stress here the possibilities for cross-domain deterrence. That is, a threat to a space system need not be countered exclusively, or even mainly, in space. Especially when the United States is so much more invested in space—receiving so much benefit from its satellites and accordingly becoming so much more dependent upon them—artificially confining a confrontation to space may work sharply to our disadvantage.

It is critical to maintain flexibility in our deterrent posture, to be able to respond to a threat to NSS assets at a time, place, and manner of our choosing. In responding to attacks on cyber and space systems, it is helpful to understand the many sources of uncertainty for adversaries in mounting an attack and for the United States in responding to one. Reducing the sources of error in the decision cycle for responding to space attacks requires capabilities that also improve the resilience of space systems. Some of these needed capabilities are technical e. What is the deterrence objective with regard to space assets that the United States seeks to communicate?

It is relatively clear that the broad goal is to deter others from attempting to interfere with, deny, degrade or destroy the space services e. The committee has described what the objective and threat might be. Deciding on and communicating response options also requires a good understanding of why a potential adversary might act. Applied in the security context of the Cold War, costs were generally taken to be the loss of some military capacity or valued target by kinetic means. In a few instances costs could also be induced by international sanctions for violations of established norms.

However, as evidenced by U. To date, most discussion of which actors might threaten NSS assets and thus to whom U. In particular, China and Russia might view the ability to deny the United States use of space as an important means of deterring U. However, looking forward, the list of potential adversaries with incentives to degrade or destroy U. NSS assets does not, and will not, end with China and Russia.

As a recent Foreign Affairs article points out, with rapid advances in microcomputing as well as lower costs of commercial launch and ready-made satellites, new types of actors will without doubt be entering the space-faring community. As for threats to U. As technology progresses, proliferates and inevitably becomes less costly, a critical feature of the defense strategies possessed by even non-space-faring actors will include denying the use of space to militarily superior foes, so as to remove space as a source of strategic advantage.

Regarding some of the smaller space powers, the two types of deterrence discussed above will still be operating, but perhaps with somewhat different effect. For example, deterrence by denial might be somewhat easier, if emerging space players will at least initially be capable of launching only relatively less sophisticated and less numerous attacks on U. Deterrence by threat of U. The third leg of the deterrence triad focuses on the advantages of enlisting additional participants and the possibility of enhancing the security of U.

As noted, the United States space security actors enjoy partnerships with a wide array of players: These diverse capabilities support deterrence by providing multiple redundant pathways for the performance of vital space services, reducing the vulnerability of the United States. International actors can also contribute to deterrence by raising the political price of hostile space actions, by giving more players a direct stake in avoiding hostilities, and by creating more opportunity for pressuring the hostile actors to avoid arousing the entire community.

International law, through the creation and advancement of legally binding treaties and other meaningful norms of behavior, can contribute to this form of deterrence as well. No new agreements of this sort have been concluded for several decades, and none seems immediately on the horizon.

The United States has not taken advantage of the opportunity to lead the world in the consideration of additional possibly useful norms here. Outer space, like other areas of international relations, has seen its share of arms racing. In an arms race, it can be unclear who started it and it who is ahead may also be debatable.

Self-restraint at any point by any one country, including the United States, may not be effective in dampening down an emerging space arms race. But it does seem likely that if the United States pioneers a new development in space weaponry, other actors are likely to follow, more or less, sooner or later. However, since the United States depends on its NSS assets more than any other country, it has a big stake in promoting the security and sustainability of the space environment, and thus a strong interest in avoiding a space arms race—even if it were an arms race that the United States could, in some sense, win owing to its technological advantages.

In responding to the recent space weapons activities of other countries, therefore, the United States must be attentive to the long run—not just whether it can effectively outdo the most recent actions of China and Russia, but how those states will later counterrespond to our moves, and what cycle of competition may ensue. The premium, accordingly, should be on measures to negate or mitigate, to the extent possible, the weapons advances made by Russia and China, without.

Exercises that include groups from across the DoD, IC and combatant commands as well as participation from the Department of State and other interested space stakeholders offer both practical training and opportunities for deterrence messaging. Including domestic security and public resilience services in the simulation of emergency situations enhances these opportunities. Exercising the loss of systems including cross-service, emergency management and response, and public resiliency is one way to enhance the U. Indeed, the United States does not unilaterally decide questions about the future security of outer space: We surely have a voice—arguably the most important single voice—on those matters, but many stakeholders will participate, and will respond to our words and their own interpretations of our actions.

Finally, the fact that the United States is unlikely to be fighting alone against peer or near-peer adversaries is important when it considers appropriate space security strategies. The United States is inextricably linked and dependent upon its allies to fight with it—something that was well recognized by the establishment of interoperability standards—for example, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization standardization agreements STANAGS and common field training venues. Extending this paradigm to the space domain is critical for overall net resilience.

The purpose of this chapter has been to discuss the requisites for the nonmaterial aspects of the defense and protection of U. The importance of these assets to the safety and quality of life for people around the world and here at home is commonly underappreciated. However, there exists an opportunity today for the relatively small NSS community to engage the Congress and the public in a national discussion about the threat to U.

NSS assets, the U. Opening up the public discussion on what has fast become the new normal in space—an environment that is crowded with debris and one that international actors may seek to use for aggressive purposes—would educate the public about the threats to aspects of daily life often taken for granted. Within the limits of security classification and with sensitivity for how the discussion may be received abroad, a new openness could also facilitate discussion of what it will take in the current circumstances to defend U.

National Security Space Strategy Considerations

It is not yet 60 years since the first artificial satellite was placed into Earth orbit. In just over a half century, mankind has gone from no presence in outer space to a condition of high dependence on orbiting satellites. These sensors, receivers, transmitters, and other such devices, as well as the satellites that carry them, are components of complex space systems that include terrestrial elements, electronic links between and among components, organizations to provide the management, care and feeding, and launch systems that put satellites into orbit.

In many instances, these space systems connect with and otherwise interact with terrestrial systems; for example, a very long list of Earth-based systems cannot function properly without information from the Global Positioning System GPS. Space systems are fundamental to the information business, and the modern world is an information-driven one. In addition to navigation and associated timing , space systems provide communications and imagery and other Earth-sensing functions.

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Among these systems are many that support military, intelligence, and other national security functions of the United States and many other nations. Some of these are unique government, national security systems; however, functions to support national security are also provided by commercial and civil-government space systems. The importance of space systems to the United States and its allies and potential adversaries raises major policy issues. National Security Space Defense and Protection reviews the range of options available to address threats to space systems, in terms of deterring hostile actions, defeating hostile actions, and surviving hostile actions, and assesses potential strategies and plans to counter such threats.

This report recommends architectures, capabilities, and courses of action to address such threats and actions to address affordability, technology risk, and other potential barriers or limiting factors in implementing such courses of action. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

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This item has not been rated yet. Freedom of Space and Space for Peaceful Purposes. This community concentrated on three strategies to ensure their successes. The essence of the NSS Strategy, for 50 years, boiled down to acquiring the best technological solutions, locating them at the strategic high ground locations, operating them with the strategic and tactical operations in mind, and ensuring that the capabilities were sustained.

This set of authors looked back in time; viewing our successes and failures; and, suggest a movement forward to stimulate a better understanding of the strengths of a NSS Strategy. Log in to rate this item.

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