Thus the physical characteristics of space create a number of strategic elements and terrain-like features including common routes, chokepoints, celestial lines of communication, and hubs or bases of operations. Common routes in space-going terms are the orbital paths used for most standardized missions and functions, such as low earth orbit for weather satellites and geosynchronous satellites for communications. Choke points are limited-access locations through which large volumes of traffic must pass, including space launch facilities, passage through low earth orbit to medium and high earth orbit, Hohmann transfer orbits, and common pathways to avoid the Van Allen belts. Celestial lines of communication are those from, into and through space, including information links between satellites and their operators and among satellites. Hubs or bases of operations are the satellites in orbit and the communication relay stations on earth, continually passing information back and forth. Today there are certain desirable orbits, but future strategic locations for space vehicles could also include the so-called Lagrange libration points. First postulated in the 1700s, these are five points in space where it is theoretically likely the gravitational pull of the moon and earth cancel each other out, and where a space vehicle could therefore remain permanently fixed and stable with no fuel expenditure.
The character of spacecraft
Global presence and access
The defining features of space mean that spacecraft have some significant environmentally influenced characteristics. One is that such platforms, unlike those in any other domain, have global presence and coverage, with line-of-sight view to large portions of the earth and the ability to sustain this presence, once in orbit, with little or no use of fuel. Spacecraft are unique in that they are able to ‘see’ within the boundaries of sovereign states whereas air forces, for example, must normally get overflight permission. Spacepower’s global presence means it is flexible and versatile in that it can shift from one campaign objective to another very quickly. With global presence space forces can also produce both global and theatre effects simultaneously.
Space, strategic thinkers have noted, is the ultimate ‘high ground’ that military doctrine from time immemorial has advised commanders to seek and to hold. Forces on high ground or an elevated position are at an advantage because they can look down on enemy forces and because they are harder to reach and therefore less vulnerable to enemy fire. Similarly, British scholar Colin Gray argues space can be considered a (dramatically) new variant of the familiar high-ground concept. Space systems have a global vantage point and at the same time are, notwithstanding the advent of ground based anti-satellite weapons, relatively difficult to reach because of earth’s gravity well.7
A corollary to global presence is global access: a space vehicle can be observed from the ground and accessed for information throughout large portions of the day, and in the case of geostationary satellites all day. Moreover, with relatively few assets all locations on earth can be accessed simultaneously. The Iridium Satellite Company in low earth orbit with 66 satellites, GPS in medium earth orbit with 24 satellites, and a handful of satellites in geosynchronous orbit are indicative of the required number of assets at each level required to ensure all points on earth are in view at all times. A fundamental reason, then, to migrate capabilities in other domains – for example, those of Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System aircraft that pinpoint targets on the ground – to space would be to exploit the global presence and global access attributes of spacepower.
Non-manoeuvrability
A further characteristic of spacecraft is that they are ‘quasi-positional’ rather than manoeuvring platforms. Once in orbit they are in non-stop motion at high velocity, and they cannot manoeuvre, stop or reverse course in the manner of terrestrial vehicles. As Gray notes, ‘laws of motion that must govern celestial bodies are a permanent constraint upon the flexibility with which spacepower can be employed’.8 Celestial objects cannot persist in an area of operations the way, for example, naval vessels can. Spacecraft ‘persistence’ is comprised of repetitive over-flights of a given region, much as is done by aircraft in the air domain. Uniquely, however, celestial objects move in a predictable trajectory. Objects in space are in regular, unceasing motion around the world, an attribute that is useful for reliable global presence and access, but also presents vulnerabilities because friendly and enemy parties alike know the location of space platforms. (This is one reason, apart from cost, not to migrate earthly capabilities to space.)
Space craft are also congregational. The topography of space dictates that there are certain desirable orbits and areas of operation, and this in turn creates cluster points. The geostationary belt is especially crowded because of its utility, and space is limited by the fact that satellites must be sited far enough apart to avoid broadcast interference in the electromagnetic spectrum. Competition for space in geostationary orbit is so tight that it has required regulation by the International Telecommunication Union since the late 1970s.
Spacepower
It is against this backdrop of space and spacecraft characteristics that we can examine strategic thinking on spacepower. Lupton defined spacepower as ‘the ability of a nation to exploit the space environment in pursuit of national goals and purposes and includes the entire astronautical capabilities of the nation’. By contrast, in his 1999 volume Modern Strategy, Gray defines spacepower in narrower terms as ‘the ability to use space and to deny such use to a foe’.9 This is an understanding that is closer to that of ‘space control’ (see below).
Official US publications have consistently reflected the more comprehensive approach to spacepower. The Joint Doctrine for Space defines spacepower as ‘the total strength of a nation’s capabilities to conduct and influence activities to, in, through and from space to achieve its objectives’.10 As such, space is a nationwide endeavour and can include, depending on the country, up to four distinct yet overlapping areas of space activity: civil (like the space station); commercial (like telecommunications); intelligence (like surveillance and reconnaissance); and military (like military communications and ballistic missile detection). This is the approach taken in the 2001 Report of the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization, a bipartisan commission chaired by Donald Rumsfeld before he became Secretary of Defense, where the same four sectors of space activity are identified. And it appeared far earlier in Lupton’s work, which is also careful to stress not all four sectors need to be covered for a country to be a spacepower.11
A number of spacepower theorists have highlighted conditions that influence whether a country will become a spacepower, much as Alfred Thayer Mahan (see Chapter 1) drew out important conditions influencing seapower. Indeed, of the terrestrial forms of power, seapower is seen as being most like spacepower; it is an analogy that appears often in the literature. For Mahan the six conditions that define a nation’s seapower potential are geographical position, physical conformation and extent of territory, size of population, character of the people and character of the government. They are conditions that also ring true for spacepower. One spacepower theorist has identified the basic traits of spacefaring nations in terms of geographical size and location, national wealth, a large and well-educated population, a popular appetite for technology and, above all, political will. Geographical size and location determine whether there are suitable launch locations; wealth provides resources to focus on space endeavours; and a large population is more likely to have a critical mass of well-educated, technologically oriented people. But there are spacefaring countries that defy one or more of these traits, indicating that ‘[w]hen all layers are peeled away what is left is a state’s political will’.12 In addition, a national character that includes a commercial orientation and a popular appetite for technology are particularly important in the post-Cold War period.
Space forces and space missions
The military component of spacepower is called ‘space forces’. These may be capab
le of destructive acts themselves or, just like many land, sea and air platforms, provide support to such destructive elements. Benjamin Lambeth, an airpower theorist who has also written extensively on spacepower, divides the spectrum of space force missions into four: space support, force enhancement, space control and space force application.13 Space support involves things like launching satellites, the daily management of in-orbit systems and replenishing lost or malfunctioning satellites.
Force enhancement
It is force enhancement with which we are most familiar. When we say the 1991 Gulf War was the ‘first space war’, what we are really referring to is the force enhancement mission – enhancing the effectiveness of terrestrial systems through the synergistic support of space systems. Thus communications satellites enable the near-real-time transmission of voice, data and even images from, for example, UAVs; navigation satellites pinpoint coordinates for the application of precision airpower, seapower and, increasingly, landpower; and imaging satellites significantly augment the sensory picture provided by manned and unmanned aircraft.
Gray characterizes the force enhancement attributes of spacepower as providing the next ‘layer’ of increased force capability. ‘Spacepower augments the military effectiveness of airpower, just as airpower augmented the potency of seapower, and as airpower and sea power worked synergistically and “jointly” to enable land power.’14 Spacepower is thus quintessentially joint in nature in that its value lies in its synergistic application in concert with other military domains. In the decades since the end of the Cold War spacepower assets have been fully integrated into the sensor-to-shooter loop of active combat operations. Box 9.1 highlights some of the space-based force enhancement capabilities available today.
Box 9.1 Force enhancement
The force enhancement mission of space forces – that is, the contribution space-based assets make to terrestrial operations – dates to the Cold War. But the mission has become increasingly apparent and part of the public consciousness with every international conflict from the 1991 Gulf War onward. Force enhancement functions and representative assets include:
• Missile warning. The original space force enhancement mission was to detect the launch of ICBMs. In 1970 the United States launched the first satellite of its Defense Support Program (DSP) satellite system. The system has eight to ten satellites in geosynchronous orbit at any one time, with the last launched in 2007. Designed to warn of strategic missile launches, DSP’s first operational test came with the detection of tactical Scud missiles during the Gulf War. The system is to be replaced over the coming years with a new Space-Based Infrared System.
• Satellite communications. The ability to transmit voice, data and now images (for example, from UAVs to decision makers) in near real-time halfway around the world is central to the conduct of modern war. Located in geosynchronous orbit, America’s dedicated military satellite communication systems include MILSTAR, launched in the 1990s and early 2000s, and the next-generation Advanced Extremely High Frequency system, the initial satellite of which was launched in 2010. Countries like Britain and France also have dedicated military satellite communications systems but more common is for militaries to rent space on commercial satellites.
• Navigation. The application of satellite-guided precision force by air forces, navies and increasingly armies is dependent on America’s GPS. Located in medium earth orbit, GPS is the world’s only fully functioning satellite navigation system, but others are in the process of being established. They include Russia’s Global Navigation System (GLONASS) and China’s Beidou Satellite Navigation and Positioning System, both of which already have many satellites in orbit. The European Union is also pursuing a satellite navigation system, called Galileo, but political differences among the various EU countries on costs and funding have hindered progress.
• Earth observation. ISR information – the ability to ‘see over the next hill’ – can come from manned and unmanned aircraft, but the most strategic picture is provided by satellites. America’s Landsat Earth observation system has been operating in low earth orbit since the 1970s, providing an uninterrupted picture of the earth’s surface. France and Germany also have military surveillance earth-imaging satellites, the Helios II and SAR Lupe systems respectively, while other countries receive dedicated imagery from commercial satellites. Canada’s RADARSAT, for example, gives 1 metre resolution images of most of earth’s land mass every several hours, while a follow-on RADARSAT constellation will provide an almost continuous capability to monitor ships approaching North America from the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans.
Space control
The US Air Force officially refers to space control missions as ‘operations to protect US and friendly space capabilities while denying space capabilities to the adversary’.15 The idea that controlling space, or at least precluding control by a hostile power, could be just as critical in the future as is air and sea control first appeared in the scholarly military literature in the 1970s, ironically by the US Army. Yet perhaps because of the lack of US competitors in the early post-Cold War period, throughout much of the 1990s space control was not an area of focus for the Pentagon. In 1995 one space analyst prophesized that: ‘Today the United States is the undisputed leader in space-assisted warfare … [but when] an enemy can use the orbital highways overhead at will, or interfere with U.S. space missions critical to the course or outcome of a war, space control will no doubt receive the attention it deserves.’16 Gray underscored at the time that the space control concept had to be assigned ‘master status’ if America’s ideas for the military use of spacecraft were not to be rendered irrelevant.17
By the early 2000s the United States was more heavily invested in, and dependent on, its on-orbit assets than ever before, while potential adversaries were closing in on the ability to disrupt those assets. Strategic thinkers associated with the US Air Force began to stress the quintessential importance of space control. ‘Space control is not optional’, wrote Smith in 2002. ‘A growing reliance on spacepower assets by governmental agencies and the business community makes it essential to secure access to satellite services. It is equally important to deny access to unfriendly users’ (emphasis in original).18 Lambeth argued potential opponents would soon be able to threaten US space-based assets by means ranging from harassment, to neutralization, to outright destruction.19 A watershed and clear demonstration of potential future threats was China’s early 2007 destruction of one of its obsolete weather satellites in low earth orbit using a ground-based anti-satellite missile. In the following years America identified a growing number of non-hostile (space debris, spectrum interference) and hostile threats to US space assets. As a result, in 2015 Pentagon officials stated: ‘whereas previously DoD and the intelligence community have focused primarily on providing capability from space … now we must focus on the … task of assuring and defending our space capabilities against … counterspace programs of others’.20
Official US strategic thinking on space control is found in the 2012 Air Force Doctrine Document on Space Operations and, at the Joint Chiefs of Staff level, the 2013 Joint Publication on Space Operations. The space control mission comprises defensive and offensive operations. Defensive space control (DSC) operations include both passive and active measures to protect friendly systems from attack. System hardening and the simple dispersal of space systems can be passive measures, while more active measures include manoeuvring in orbit or changing frequencies to deny an adversary the ability to track or target a satellite. DSC operations may also target an adversary’s space control capability to ensure friendly access to space capabilities and, in this regard, can be a prelude to offensive space control (OSC) operations.21
OSC operations are designed to actively preclude an adversary from exploiting space. They include the full range of capabilities ‘to disrupt, delay, or deny enemy access to space by launching air attacks or ground assaults against ground nodes and terminals, jamming enemy satellite l
inks, introducing viruses into computer programs, and destroying hostile satellites’.22 An OSC strategy can involve ‘deception’ by manipulating or distorting information; ‘disruption’ by temporarily impairing system capability, without physical effects; ‘denial’ by temporarily eliminating system capability, without physical effects; ‘degradation’ by permanently impairing system capability, with physical damage; and ‘destruction’ by permanently eliminating system capability, with physical damage. When it comes to OSC, much of what is being controlled is not physically in space. Targets include on-orbit satellites, communications links between ground stations and satellites, ground stations themselves and launch facilities. Coalition air attacks against Iraqi satellite ground stations during the 1991 Gulf War have been considered in hindsight as a successful first-generation attempt at OSC.
DSC and OSC are dependent on ‘space situational awareness’ or knowing about space-related conditions and capabilities in, from, toward or through space. For space control it is necessary to monitor what sorts of space vehicles are in orbit at any given moment, where they are going, what they are capable of doing and what they are relaying to their operators. It is ISR of objects in space where the focus is on the space domain itself. Space situational awareness is considered the ‘enabler, or foundation, for accomplishing all other space control tasks’,23 and is identified by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff as a separate space mission (see Box 9.2).
Box 9.2 United States space mission areas
Official US space policy identifies five space mission areas:
Modern Military Strategy Page 30
