For decades, preventing an arms race in outer space has meant acting before weapons and other capabilities to disrupt, disable or destroy space systems become normalized features of military competition. Recent developments suggest that this danger is no longer hypothetical.
This year, the debate over military capabilities that threaten space systems entered a new phase. On 14 September, the United States publicly acknowledged that it has “on-orbit space control weapons.” The exact nature of these weapons remains undisclosed, but the significance of the declaration should not be minimized: a major space power is now openly describing weapons as deployed in orbit.
This disclosure is distinct from, but coincides with, the pursuit of space-based interceptors for missile defence, which could also have anti-satellite applications. At the same time, other states are developing, or are alleged to be developing, a growing range of ground- and space-based capabilities that could threaten space systems.
States continue to affirm the peaceful use of outer space and warn against its weaponization. Yet new military capabilities are increasingly justified as necessary responses to the capabilities and intentions of others. This is the logic of an arms race unfolding in real time. Left unchecked, it risks making weapons and other counterspace capabilities expected rather than exceptional.
Declarations of peaceful intent are not enough. Preventing an arms race now requires concrete action to constrain arms racing dynamics already underway. That requires reciprocal and observable restraint, together with transparency, communication and other forms of reassurance that can interrupt the action-reaction cycle, reduce uncertainty, and diminish incentives for further escalation.
These risks cannot be reduced to weapons deployed in orbit. Space systems already face jamming, spoofing, dazzling, cyber operations, destructive anti-satellite capabilities, close approaches and other forms of interference. These activities differ significantly in their characteristics, effects and legal implications, but together they complicate assessments of capabilities, intentions and potential targets. The introduction of weapons into orbit adds another layer of uncertainty and creates additional incentives to develop counter-capabilities or to act before an opponent can.
Because military space systems are deeply intertwined with civilian infrastructure and, in some cases, nuclear command, control, communications and early warning, attacks on—or even perceived threats to—critical space systems can create pathways to escalation across domains. The use of space systems in contemporary armed conflict further increases these risks, including the possibility that actions directed at military functions will have broader civilian consequences here on Earth.
Those consequences could be profoundly destabilizing for global security and human well-being. Satellites support communications, navigation, financial systems, weather forecasting, emergency response and other services on which people around the world depend. Conflict involving space systems could disrupt these services, create long-lived debris, damage the orbital environment and impose costs on states and communities that had no role in creating the confrontation. Preventing an arms race in outer space is thus not only about preserving satellites; it is also about protecting the people and societies that depend on them.
Multilateral diplomacy must accelerate. The Open-ended Working Group (OEWG) on the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) in all its aspects provides a central multilateral forum in which states can address these risks comprehensively. Its mandate allows states to consider measures addressing both behaviour and capabilities, including legally binding and non-legally binding measures, rather than treating these approaches as competing alternatives.
Its work should now move from diagnosing threats toward developing and negotiating measures that reduce risks associated with existing capabilities and activities, constrain further escalation, and build the legal, political and technical foundations for effective arms control and strategic stability in space.
To preserve outer space for peaceful use and constrain further arms racing dynamics, First Committee delegations should:
- Build political support for strategic restraint in both capabilities and behaviour. Through First Committee statements and resolutions, delegations should reinforce the expectation that states avoid actions that would expand or normalize destabilizing counterspace capabilities, including the further deployment of weapons in orbit. States should pursue reciprocal restraint on capabilities and activities that create acute risks of escalation, miscalculation or widespread harm, whether based on Earth or in space.
- Strengthen and advance the OEWG on PAROS in all its aspects. States should give the OEWG clear political support, resist procedural fragmentation, and use its comprehensive mandate to advance both legally binding and non-legally binding measures addressing behaviours, capabilities and effects.
- Advance immediate risk-reduction measures. Building on existing transparency and confidence-building measures, states should develop practical measures to reduce the risk of misperception, miscalculation and escalation, including standards for safe and predictable proximity operations; notification, consultation and emergency communication mechanisms; protections for space systems that provide critical civilian services; and measures to reduce risks involving space systems that support nuclear command, control, communications and early warning. Discussion should move toward negotiation and adoption of agreed measures.
- Reaffirm and build upon existing legal obligations and restraint commitments. States should reaffirm the prohibition on placing nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit; adopt or maintain national commitments not to conduct destructive direct-ascent anti-satellite missile tests; and reaffirm applicable international legal obligations governing harmful interference with space systems.
- Use existing legal and diplomatic tools more effectively. States should make greater use of mechanisms already available under international space law, including consultation under Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty and information requests and exchanges under Article IV of the Registration Convention. These tools should be used more actively to reduce uncertainty, clarify intentions and address potentially harmful activities before they escalate.
- Build the foundations for meaningful arms control in outer space. States should advance shared understandings of relevant capabilities, activities, effects and threat perceptions; develop and test verification and monitoring approaches; identify measures capable of limiting the deployment or harmful use of destabilizing capabilities, wherever they are based; and work toward effective and verifiable legal constraints. Disagreement over definitions should not prevent progress on activities and consequences that states already recognize as dangerous.
- Put human, environmental and collective security consequences at the centre of PAROS deliberations. States should develop a common understanding of the potential civilian, environmental and systemic impacts of threats to space systems, including effects on civilian populations, essential services, the orbital environment and states that are not participants in a confrontation. These assessments should draw on meaningful participation by states from all regions, civil society, commercial actors and technical experts.
Action is also needed beyond First Committee. Nationally and through cooperative partnerships, states should:
- Translate strategic restraint into national policy and practice. States should adopt concrete measures of both behavioural and capability restraint and embed them in national space and defence policies, doctrine, procurement decisions and operational planning.
- Make military activities and restraint commitments more transparent and observable. States should publish and explain relevant policies and doctrine; provide non-sensitive information about the purpose and limits of military capabilities and activities affecting outer space; notify relevant tests, deployments and potentially hazardous operations; and support independent monitoring, space situational awareness and data-sharing. Transparency is not a substitute for restraint, but restraint that cannot be observed is difficult for others to trust.
- Apply strategic restraint across national space activities. States should incorporate relevant international obligations and political commitments into national legislation, regulation, licensing and procurement so that governmental and commercial activities do not undermine agreed measures of restraint or risk reduction.
Signatories: This statement was drafted in collaboration with civil society experts on space security. Their contributions are gratefully acknowledged. It is signed by the following organizations:
o Project Ploughshares
o Rideau Institute
o Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)
o Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space