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The militarization of space began as a rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union and grew to enormous proportions during the height of the Cold War. Satellite reconnaissance, navigation and weapons guidance, and electronic intelligence comprise only a few of the efforts taken to militarize and dominate space. Today as the prominence of information technology, computing, and telecommunications advances, so does the concept of space as a battlefield. In The Militarization and Weaponization of Space, Matthew Mowthorpe diligently analyzes the military space policies of the United States, the Soviet Union/Russia, and the People's Republic of China from the Cold War period to the present day. Mowthorpe focuses on the development of the ballistic missile defense and other anti-satellite systems and aptly assesses to what degree space will become armed. This work cogently addresses an issue of increasing urgency to scholars of international politics.

Weaponizing Space

United States. Congress. House. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 128


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Weapons in Space examines how the United States is forcing forward—in violation of international treaties—to militarize space. Based on excerpts from U.S. government documents, award-winning investigative journalist Karl Grossman outlines the U.S. military's space doctrine, its similarity with the original Stars Wars scheme of Ronald Reagan and Edward Teller, and the space-based lasers, hypervelocity guns, and particle beams it plans to deploy in its mission to "dominate" earth. Grossman shows the intimate link between the militarization and the nuclearization of space, and follows the flow of billions of U.S. tax dollars to the corporations that research and develop weapons for space. His book explains the Outer Space Treaty and gives a history of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear power in Space: what it is doing, what it plans to do—and what the reader can do to challenge U.S. plans to turn the heavens into a war zone.
This overview aims to inform the public discussion of space-based weapons by examining their characteristics, potential attributes, limitations, legality, and utility. The authors do not argue for or against space weapons, nor do they estimate the potential costs and performance of specific programs, but instead sort through the realities and myths surrounding space weapons in order to ensure that debates and discussions are based on fact.
A new and provocative take on the formerly classified history of accelerating superpower military competition in space in the late Cold War and beyond. In March 1983, President Ronald Reagan shocked the world when he established the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), derisively known as “Star Wars,” a space-based missile defense program that aimed to protect the US from nuclear attack. In Weapons in Space, Aaron Bateman draws from recently declassified American, European, and Soviet documents to give an insightful account of SDI, situating it within a new phase in the militarization of space after the superpower détente fell apart in the 1970s. In doing so, Bateman reveals the largely secret role of military space technologies in late–Cold War US defense strategy and foreign relations. In contrast to existing narratives, Weapons in Space shows how tension over the role of military space technologies in American statecraft was a central source of SDI’s controversy, even more so than questions of technical feasibility. By detailing the participation of Western European countries in SDI research and development, Bateman reframes space militarization in the 1970s and 1980s as an international phenomenon. He further reveals that even though SDI did not come to fruition, it obstructed diplomatic efforts to create new arms control limits in space. Consequently, Weapons in Space carries the legacy of SDI into the post–Cold War era and shows how this controversial program continues to shape the global discourse about instability in space—and the growing anxieties about a twenty-first-century space arms race.
In this era of globalization, the world is facing a host of challenging security problems—from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to international terrorism to accelerating climate change to energy security—that cannot be resolved unilaterally, especially through the unilateral use of military force. One key issue that requires urgent global attention is literally "out of this world": the military use of outer space. This collection of essays by leading Russian experts analyzes the current military use of outer space. The book describes the space weapons programs of various countries. It details the history of negotiations to prevent, or at least control, the weaponization of space, including analyses of the political, military, technical, and legal problems facing negotiators trying to avoid a catastrophic new space race.
The proliferation of counterspace weapons across the globe often calls into question what can be done to best protect satellites from attack. This analysis from the CSIS Aerospace Security Project addresses different methods and technologies that can be used by the United States government, and others, to deter adversaries from attack. A wide range of active and passive defenses are available to protect space systems and the ground infrastructure they depend upon from different types of threats. This report captures a range of active and passive defenses that are theoretically possible and discusses the advantages and limitations of each. A group of technical space and national security experts supported the analysis by working through several plausible scenarios that explore a range of defenses that may be needed, concepts for employing different types of defenses, and how defensive actions in space may be perceived by others. These scenarios and the findings that resulted from subsequent conversations with experts are reported in the penultimate chapter of the report. Finally, the CSIS Aerospace Security Project team offers conclusions drawn from the analysis, actionable recommendations for policymakers, and additional research topics to be explored in future work.
Considering the historical background of space militarization and providing an overview of the United States' efforts to militarily dominate space since the dawn of the space age, this book argues that America must either ensure that space-related weapons are verifiably banned for all nations through an international treaty or definitively choose a policy of unilateral space dominance that may lead to an arms race in space and possibly to another cold war. Through a careful discussion of the history of space programs, their impact on past policies and events, the tactical and strategic influence of space weapons on the engagement of war, and the potential pitfalls of a dominance strategy, this book concludes that unilateral military dominance of space by the United States would be a supreme mistake and that it would make Americans less secure.