Atlantic Council Experts Argue for New "Proactive Prevention" National Security Space Strategy

In a report for the Atlantic Council, Theresa Hitchens and Joan Johnson-Freese argue that the incoming administration needs to relook at U.S. national security space strategy.   Instead of relying on alliterative slogans whose meanings are unclear, a goal-oriented strategy – “proactive prevention” — is needed to ensure that space remains usable for future generations and conflict in space is avoided.

Hitchens is a senior research scholar at the Center for International Security Studies at the University of Maryland and former director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR).  Johnson-Freese is a professor of national security affairs at the Naval War College and an expert on China’s space program.  The two discussed the paper at an Atlantic Council event on June 17, where Johnson-Freese stressed that the viewpoints are her own, not those of DOD or the Navy.

During the early years of the Obama Administration, two catch phrases became popular:  that space is “congested, contested and competitive”(the three Cs) and that the United States must maintain the ability to “deter, defend, and, if necessary, defeat” (the three Ds) efforts to attack U.S. or allied space assets.

While both have coexisted in U.S. space policy throughout the Obama Administration, the early focus was on the three Cs and the need to develop international agreements on how to ensure that space is “sustainable” for use in the future and not ruined, for example, by the growth of space debris.

A Chinese antisatellite (ASAT) test against one of its own satellites that created more than 3,000 pieces of debris in 2007 and a collision between an active U.S. Iridium communications satellite and a defunct Russian Kosmos satellite in 2009 added considerably to the population of debris in low Earth orbit.  Those events catalyzed U.S. efforts to create Transparency and Confidence Building Measures (TCBMs) through the United Nations.   In parallel, the European Union drafted a Code of Conduct (CoC) to define what constitutes good behavior in space so that countries could understand what constitutes bad behavior in the eyes of the international space community.  The idea was that peer pressure would encourage countries to behave well and not recklessly add to the space debris problem, for example.

Hitchens and Johnson-Freese argue that all that changed in 2013 when China tested an ASAT weapon that reached geostationary orbit (GEO).   Until then, all ASAT tests – by the United States, Soviet Union/Russia, and China – threatened only satellites in lower orbits.   While those are very important, Hitchens argues that the most critical national security satellites are those in GEO, which until then was thought to be a “sanctuary” where satellites were safe from attack. The 2013 Chinese test changed the threat perception and hardened U.S. attitudes.  Attention shifted to the three Ds (deter, defend, defeat).  At about the same time, Europe’s Code of Conduct effort essentially fell apart.

Today, Johnson-Freese and Hitchens argue that the United States needs to reassess what its goals are in space and how to achieve them rather than using the “bumper stickers” of the three Cs and three Ds or “scaring people” with recent rhetoric about the need to increase spending for space security by $5 billion and last year’s 60 Minutes segment with Gen. John Hyten and Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James discussing “The Battle Above.”

They describe their paper as a starting point for discussion that begins with the premise that the goal is to avoid conflict in space since the United States is heavily dependent on satellites not only for national security purposes, but for everyday life.  In fact, they argue that civil government agencies like NASA and NOAA as well as industry must be involved in generating a new national security space strategy – a “holistic” approach – since they are also deeply involved in space activities.

Hitchens and Johnson-Freese propose a “proactive prevention” strategy “aimed squarely at preventing a space conflict, while also preparing to win one if need be.”  Their paper is published on the Atlantic Council website.