Space in 21st Century Conflict: Calibrating Risks, Tailoring Strategies (Workshop Summary)
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
U.S. strategic thinking on outer space security has been slow to evolve since the 1990s and the DoD finds itself struggling to develop an adaptive and cohesive strategy for the domain. Russia and China, however, have been thinking about space in a holistic and integrated way for some time. Both countries recognize that U.S. conventional strength relies heavily on technologies and systems enabled by space-based assets. Thus, holding those assets at risk represents an opportunity to asymmetrically counter America’s ability to project power. China and Russia been developing a suite of anti-satellite (ASAT) capabilities to accomplish this, to include direct-ascent weapons, space-based weapons, jammers, and cyber capabilities; both countries have also incorporated these systems into their respective tactical and strategic planning. This represents a serious threat to U.S. power projection and assurance of our regional allies and partners. Assuring the U.S.’s ability to operate in space is paramount for supporting regional security missions in both Europe and East Asia. Assuring DoD operations and capabilities in outer space, however, remains a challenge for the defense community. One solution offered by strategists is to enhance U.S. resiliency in space to turn the domain from offense dominant to defense dominant. This, they argue, can be achieved by improving space situational awareness (SSA), protecting space assets with active and passive countermeasures, disaggregating assets and leveraging new commercial space capabilities, and integrating allied space capabilities. However, many barriers remain to accomplishing these objectives. For example, some think that the classified nature of many U.S. space activities is an obstacle to deepening cooperation with commercial partners and allies. Others acknowledge the lack of a working model for incorporating cheaper, diverse, and scalable commercial space systems. Identifying where space fits into broader U.S. deterrence strategies is a subject of contention. While discussions over the past few years have focused on the practicability of deterring attacks on space assets via cross-domain threats, this line of thinking has yielded few useful insights. Consequently, defense practitioners have more recently shifted to thinking of space as part of an integrated deterrence concept, one that envisions building resiliency and defenses into our space architecture while simultaneously holding an adversary’s space-based assets at risk to enhance deterrence more broadly. However, both approaches illuminate a larger problem in the discussion of the relationship between space and deterrence: there is a lack of consensus on what it is we are trying to deter, how space fits into broader deterrence and strategic constructs, and the role of space in extended deterrence and assurance of allies. For example, is the United States’ priority to discourage attacks in space, to ensure regional power projection and alliance support capabilities, to deter broader global conflict or all of the above? Answering such questions will be an important step toward integrating space into a comprehensive defense strategy.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC52-07NA27344
- OSTI ID:
- 1635765
- Report Number(s):
- LLNL-TR-747638; 931600; TRN: US2201421
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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