No Space for Mistakes: Navigating the Gray Areas of Space Politics
Rocket launch from a private sector partnership between satellite communication provider Thaicom and Orbital Insight, a U.S. based geospatial data and intelligence firm. Photo by SpaceX.
Rocket science is difficult, but astropolitics might be even harder. Since the end of the Cold War, the political landscape has become exponentially more complex, both on and off the ground; gone are the days of two actors setting the agenda for the rest of the world. From India’s recent unmanned moon landing just this year to China’s lunar ambitions for 2030, it is clear that outer space will be the new arena for global powers to expand their spheres of influence in the coming decade. While exciting for some, this surge in space interest—dubbed the “Space Race 2.0”—has outpaced the international community’s efforts to establish comprehensive regulations for states and other actors. What, then, is causing this failure to launch, and is there anything that can be done to fill the veritable vacuum of regulatory power in our skies?
Since its adoption by the United Nations in 1967, the Outer Space Treaty (OST) remains the only comprehensive treaty for regulation of space. A product of its time, the OST no longer reflects the regulatory demands of outer space in the modern age. Today, over 4,000 space objects are currently in near Earth orbit, tens of thousands more than at the time of the Treaty’s signing. On top of that, the private sector has finally made its debut in the stars. Private companies like Starlink and Virgin Galactic are crucial providers of commercial services in space. Starlink has 4,500 satellites in the sky, accounting for more than 50 percent of all active satellites. Along with the satellites, 25,000 fragments of space debris orbit Earth, threatening to clash, collide, or destroy satellites and other facilities.
In addition to the proliferation of satellites and space debris, the skies have become increasingly militarized. In 2019, the U.S. established a Space Force responsible for protecting American interests in space. In the same year, NATO added space as a new operational domain (other than air, land, sea) to support the alliance in communications, navigation, and intelligence. The militarization of space has also been embodied in superpowers’ use of Anti-Satellite weapons (ASATs) that can crash satellites and destroy them. In 2021, Russia conducted an anti-satellite test to preemptively resist the U.S.’ attempt to gain a “comprehensive military advantage” in space. As tensions rise between the West and Russia, as well as China, there is every reason to believe that conflicts may reach the stars.
Faced with new threats both in scale and scope, many states have turned away from international regulation and have instead used industry-friendly contracts to outsource the logistical burden of development in outer space. In 2015, Obama signed the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act which allows American companies to mine celestial bodies, as well as to own and sell the materials harvested therein. This, of course, places disproportionate power in the hands of actors whose actions are least susceptible to regulation and whose allegiances are defined by profit. In order to avoid the dire consequences of miscalculation in such increasingly chaotic skies, states need to reverse this trend and instead focus on both disarming states and creating a rule-based order in the sky.
The imperative for a space disarmament treaty arises from the distinct challenges posed by a potential space war, which are amplified by the age-old military problem of signaling—essentially, the ability of one actor to convey its interests and intentions to other actors. In the absence of comprehensive and multilateral regulation, outer space turns into a domain ripe for misperception, miscalculation, and inadvertent conflict. The crux of this problem lies in that many objects in space have dual purposes that blur the line between civil and military use. Satellites famously traverse this gray area, with many serving a broad spectrum of commercial, civil, governmental, and military applications. These distinctions are not clear-cut, and if given the right circumstances, a commercial or scientific satellite could easily serve military objectives.
Elon Musk’s Starlink, for example, provides Wi-Fi services in war zones, communities suffering from natural disasters, and other areas where internet connection is not easily accessible. Although Starlink’s primary role is commercial and often humanitarian, its satellites have crucial geopolitical implications. In resisting Russian aggression, Ukraine has relied on Starlink for military communication. As seen in the war, this leaves Ukraine at the mercy of the infamously erratic Musk, who has previously restricted Ukraine’s access to Starlink’s satellites and significantly affected battlefield strategy as a result. Private companies like Starlink render space politics even more opaque and raise questions about tracing responsibility for (and indeed signaling the purpose of) actions in space.
Amid this confusion, one thing is clear: ASAT technology is the most explicit signal that a terrestrial conflict could spread to the sky. The U.S., Russia, China, India, and Israel have all developed ASAT systems which can drastically impact states’ defensive capabilities, GPS systems, internet connectivity, economic health, and almost every other facet of domestic life. ASATs also open the potential for self-perpetuating destruction, as using the technology would necessarily create orbital debris which, in turn, would mar other satellites and further raise tensions without a clear means to identify the source of the damage.
Faced with these problems, the United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Izumi Nakamitsu, remarked in November 2023 that in the “absence of agreed norms, rules, and effective measures, a number of these technological developments can be sources of mistrust and misperception, leading to an arms race in outer space.” The OST banned the use of weapons of mass destruction but left an array of other military activities unregulated. Despite the Treaty advocating for the “peaceful use of space,” there remains no guidance on how this can be achieved, much less maintained, in today’s multipolar world.
Despite calls for regulatory clarity, international cooperation in space has only continued to dwindle. The U.S. is heading the Artemis Program with the European, German, Japanese, Canadian, Israeli, and Italian space agencies to establish a human presence on the Moon. This collaboration features the usual Western suspects and their allies, naturally excluding non-Western-aligned powers for the sake of getting a head start on their international competitors. The initiative comes nowhere close to the cooperative spirit of the joint Soviet-American venture to build the International Space Station (ISS) in 1993, which was explicitly aimed to establish space as a shared domain for exploration and development. But, following the apparent trajectory of astropolitics in the new century, the ISS will retire in 2031 and be deposed in the Pacific Ocean to be replaced by commercially-run space stations.
Unfortunately, hopes for a peacefully regulated space will sink with the ISS unless states can come together to draft a new outer space treaty that addresses all of the above mentioned catalysts for conflict. Instead of focusing on servicing the bottom lines of private enterprises, a new treaty should direct its efforts toward enforcing a zero-tolerance policy toward celestial aggression and mitigating the informational asymmetries that we know can lead to war. This not only means outlawing the use of ASAT systems and similarly dangerous technologies, but clearly and comprehensively defining the principles that new private actors will need to abide by without giving them expanded powers that would threaten states’ sovereignty, effective international cooperation, and, by extension, global peace. The stakes of inaction, like the altitude of potential conflict, are astronomically high.
Elena Muglia (GS ’25) is a junior in the dual degree program with SciencesPo, studying political science and human rights.