Security and Stability in the New Space Age
This book examines the drivers behind great power security competition in space to determine whether realistic strategic alternatives exist to further militarization.
Space is an area of increasing economic and military competition. This book offers an analysis of actions and events indicative of a growing security dilemma in space, which is generating an intensifying arms race between the US, China, and Russia. It explores the dynamics behind a potential future war in space and investigates methods of preventing an arms race from an international relations theory and military-strategy standpoint. The book is divided into three parts: the first section offers a broad discussion of the applicability of international relations theory to current conditions in space; the second is a direct application of theory to the space environment to determine whether competition or cooperation is the optimal strategic choice; the third section focuses on testing the hypotheses against reality, by analyzing novel alternatives to three major categories of space systems. The volume concludes with a study of the practical limitations of applying a strategy centered on commercialization as a method of defusing the orbital security dilemma.
This book will be of interest to students of space power, strategic studies, and international relations.
Brad Townsend is currently an Army Space Officer assigned as a space policy advisor on the Pentagon Joint Staff, and has a Ph.D. in Military Strategy from the Air University.
Space Power and Politics
Series Editors: Everett C. Dolman, School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, USAF Air, Maxwell, USA, and Thomas Hoerber, ESSCA, France.
The Space Power and Politics series will provide a forum where space policy and historical issues can be explored and examined in-depth. The series will produce works that examine civil, commercial, and military uses of space and their implications for international politics, strategy, and political economy. This will include works on government and private space programs, technological developments, conflict and cooperation, security issues, and history.
Space and Defense Policy
Edited by Damon Coletta and Frances T. Pilch
Space Policy in Developing Countries
The Search for Security and Development on the Final Frontier
Robert C. Harding
Space Strategy in the 21st Century
Theory and Policy
Edited by Eligar Sadeh
Transatlantic Space Politics
Competition and Cooperation Above the Clouds
Sheng-Chih Wang
Understanding Space Strategy
The Art of War in Space
John J. Klein
A European Space Policy
Past Consolidation, Present Challenges and Future Perspectives
Edited by Thomas Hoerber and Sarah Lieberman
Security and Stability in the New Space Age
The Orbital Security Dilemma
Brad Townsend
Security and Stability in the New Space Age
The Orbital Security Dilemma
Brad Townsend
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2020 Brad Townsend
The right of Brad Townsend to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Townsend, Brad, 1980- author.
Title: Security and stability in the new space age : alternatives to arming / Brad Townsend.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York : Routledge, 2020. | Series: Space power and politics | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019052696 (print) | LCCN 2019052697 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367432072 ; (hardback) | ISBN 9781003001843 ; (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Space security. | Space warfarePrevention. | Space weaponsUnited States. | Space industrializationUnited States. | United StatesMilitary policy.
Classification: LCC UG1520 .T695 2020 (print) | LCC UG1520 (ebook) | DDC 358/.8dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019052696
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019052697
ISBN: 978-0-367-43207-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-00184-3 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
Contents
Less than a decade ago, as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) approver for external payloads launched from the International Space Station (ISS), I was asked to inspect a group of small CubeSats that were seeking permission to use the soon-to-be installed NanoRacks CubeSat mechanism on the ISS. I was given an address in Houston to meet a representative from the small startup company and I arrived to find myself at a U-Haul storage facility. Confused, I double-checked the address before calling my contact at the startup to ensure I was in the right place. Used to well-funded labs with clean-rooms operated by Boeing, Lockheed, and others I found it hard to believe I was in the right place, surely no spacecraft of any type was being stored or assembled at a U-Haul? I was wrong. One of the startup founders met me and escorted me into a small rented space at the U-Haul facility to inspect a group of satellites that were not much larger than elongated shoe-boxes. I left that day thinking that these small CubeSats were interesting toys that would never amount to much. Again, I was wrong. Today that company, Planet, has a multi-billion-dollar valuation and operates hundreds of small imaging satellites that, working together in a constellation, image the entire Earth each day, something that was inconceivable a decade ago. Planet is just one example of the commercial innovators that are driving an accelerating pace of change that is overturning long-standing paradigms for how we get to space and how we utilize it.
The long-term implications of this commercial revolution are as yet unclear, but what is clear is that the great space powers are in a race to leverage these new technologies to ensure their own security in the space domain. This competition shows worrying signs of developing into an arms race with uncertain outcomes. These observations led to several questions that form the basis of this book. Is an arms race in space necessary to ensure security in space or is there another possibility? Can competition in space be turned away from a security competition and toward a competition focused more on economic gains and scientific prestige? While conducting that research and completing this book I have found it difficult to keep up with the constant drumbeat of change as first the United States Space Command was resurrected and then a separate US military space service. These events and their strategic implications have only reinforced the relevance of the questions that drove me to write this book. A book that I hope will give its readers a lens through which to view the events occurring in space and contemplate possible alternatives.
