THE leading nuclear-armed states are contemplating nuclearizing outer space. These states’ nuclear weapons deployment in outer space would be militarily counterproductive and very alarming for the civilian outer space industry. Outer space nuclearization would kick start space weaponization, space weapon tests and mega investment in anti-satellite kill vehicles. The biggest causality of outer-space weaponization could be the disruption in the satellites’ path. The interference in the satellites’ operation would severely destabilize international economic stability.
Strategic analysts have a consensus that nuclear-armed states are comfortable with their nuclear postures based on a triad of nuclear forces. However, the increasing strategic competition between/among the United States, Russia and China has discredited the 20th-century arms control regime. Currently, the United States and Russian Federation together possess almost 90 percent of all nuclear weapons, and have extensive programs underway to replace and modernize their nuclear warheads, their missile, aircraft, and submarine delivery systems, and their nuclear weapon production facilities.’ Despite having overkill nuclear weapon capabilities, Washington and Moscow are striving to develop and deploy nuclear weapons in outer space. President Putin claimed that Moscow has developed space-based nuclear weapons to equalize the United States’ space capabilities.
The U.S. had carried out a series of high-altitude nuclear tests in the 1960s before the Outer Space Treaty was signed in 1967.The biggest of which was Starfish Prime, tested in July 1962. It “triggered an electromagnetic pulse much larger than expected and caused the formation of radiation belts around the Earth, which caused satellites in their path to malfunction.” Thus, the Americans had acquired rudimental outer space-oriented nuclear potential in the 1960s but had refrained from mastering outer-space nuclear weapons after the entry into force of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty, ratified by 114 countries, including the U.S. and Russia, prohibits the deployment of “nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction” in orbit or the stationing of “weapons in outer space in any other manner.” For fifty-seven years, the U.S. and the Soviet Union have honoured the fundamental nuclear taboo: nuclear weapons shall not be stationed in orbit or elsewhere in outer space. However, presently, the Russians and Americans seem to revoke the taboo, i.e., to refrain from deploying nuclear weapons in outer space. The deployment of space-based nuclear weapons violates the Outer Space Treaty and strengthens the counter-space capabilities of the U.S., Russia, China, and India. These four states’ modernization of outer-space weapons instigates other nuclear-armed states to acquire counter-space capabilities. The arms race in outer space increases the risk of rapid, accidental, and inadvertent military escalation among the nuclear-armed states, which severely undermines the international economy.
In February 2024, the Americans were alarmed by the intelligence estimate that Russia was working on an orbiting anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons system involving a nuclear explosive device. The increasing Russians’ space-based warfighting capability directly challenged the U.S. nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) system. The United States NC3 is space-based equipment, such as communications and early warning satellites. These systems provide three essential NC3 capabilities: missile warning, assured communications, and nuclear detonation detection. Hypothetically speaking, if a nuclear-armed state needed to turn off satellites currently supporting its adversary, it would only need to detonate one nuclear weapon in low-Earth orbit (LEO). “A high-altitude nuclear detonation would raise radiation in LEO, causing failure in as little as weeks of most, if not all, LEO satellites that have not been specifically hardened against this nuclear-pumped radiation.” The direct financial damages of the detonation of one nuclear weapon in LEO could be five hundred billion dollars and potentially over three trillion dollars in overall economic impact.
The prevention of an arms race in outer space (PAROS) is a critical issue on the U.N. disarmament and arms control agenda at the Conference on Disarmament, Geneva, Switzerland. Unfortunately, since I980, it has failed to receive the serious attention of the great powers. The encouraging news is that Japan’s foreign minister, Yoko Kamikawa, who chaired the council meeting, pledged the international community to refrain from putting any weapons of mass destruction into orbit. On February 20, 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin opined that Russia remains “categorically against…the placement of nuclear weapons in space.” The US has also expressed interest in engaging with States Parties to the Outer Space Treaty to explore ways to increase confidence in compliance with this Article IV obligation. To conclude, the trends in global geopolitics are not encouraging for PAROS. The U.S. and Russian nuclear arms race in outer space is frightening international security. Therefore, the international community ought to take the emerging threats in outer space seriously and initiate actional initiatives to ban nuclear weapons in outer space by strengthening the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, negotiating and executing PAROS.
—The writer is Prof at the School of Politics and IR, Quaid-i-Azam University.
