The authors examine the application of classical deterrence theory to the space domain and argue that to build a tailored deterrence strategy for China in space, China's own objectives should be considered.

MacDonald recommends options and policies that will promote options and policies that will promote American security interests in space. He argues that the U.S. needs to take priority defensive military space measures to offset potential Chinese anti-satellite and related capabilities.

The proliferation of counterspace weapons across the globe often calls into question what can be done to best protect satellites from attack. This analysis from the CSIS Aerospace Security Project addresses different methods and technologies that can be used by the United States government, and others, to deter adversaries from attack. A wide range of active and passive defenses are available to protect space systems and the ground infrastructure they depend upon from different types of threats. This report captures a range of active and passive defenses that are theoretically possible and discusses the advantages and limitations of each. A group of technical space and national security experts supported the analysis by working through several plausible scenarios that explore a range of defenses that may be needed, concepts for employing different types of defenses, and how defensive actions in space may be perceived by others. These scenarios and the findings that resulted from subsequent conversations with experts are reported in the penultimate chapter of the report. Finally, the CSIS Aerospace Security Project team offers conclusions drawn from the analysis, actionable recommendations for policymakers, and additional research topics to be explored in future work.

This book examines the rise of great power competition in space, including the relevant and practical space strategies for China, Russia, the United States, and other countries. The work discusses the concepts and writings of past strategists, such as Thucydides, Sun Tzu, and Clausewitz, in relation to warfare initiated in or extending into space. This analysis underscores why polities initiate war based upon an assessment of fear, honor, and interest, and explains why this will also be true of war in space. Based upon the timeless strategic writings of the past, the book uncovers the strategy of space warfare, along with the concepts of deterrence, dissuasion, and the inherent right of self-defense, and outlines strategies for great, medium, and emerging space powers. Additionally, it highlights changes needed to space strategy based upon the Law of Armed Conflict, norms of behavior, and Rules of Engagement. The work also examines advancements and emerging trends in the commercial space sector, as well as what these changes mean for the implementation of a practical space strategy. Given the rise of great power competition in space, this work presents a space strategy based upon historical experience. This book will be of much interest to students of space policy, strategic studies, and International Relations.

The second half of the 20th century featured a strategic competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. That competition avoided World War III in part because during the 1950s, scholars like Henry Kissinger, Thomas Schelling, Herman Kahn, and Albert Wohlstetter analyzed the fundamental nature of nuclear deterrence. Decades of arms control negotiations reinforced these early notions of stability and created a mutual understanding that allowed U.S.-Soviet competition to proceed without armed conflict. The first half of the 21st century will be dominated by the relationship between the United States and China. That relationship is likely to contain elements of both cooperation and competition. Territorial disputes such as those over Taiwan and the South China Sea will be an important feature of this competition, but both are traditional disputes, and traditional solutions suggest themselves. A more difficult set of issues relates to U.S.-Chinese competition and cooperation in three domains in which real strategic harm can be inflicted in the current era: nuclear, space, and cyber. Just as a clearer understanding of the fundamental principles of nuclear deterrence maintained adequate stability during the Cold War, a clearer understanding of the characteristics of these three domains can provide the underpinnings of strategic stability between the United States and China in the decades ahead. That is what this book is about.

This book is focused on militarization as the nucleus of EU space policy and the interrelatedness of European security, industrial competitiveness, and military capabilities in the shaping of this policy. The EU and key member states have increasingly joined the US, China and Russia, among others, in regarding space assets as critical military, as well as economic, industrial, and technological, enablers. This book tackles this issue by, first, shedding light on the military aspects of EU space policy, with special emphasis on the security and defence dimensions of projects such as Galileo, Copernicus, Space Situational Awareness, and Satellite Communication. In this context, contributors confront the empirical aspect of developments, including the role of different institutional actors and the involvement of specific member states. Further, the volume analyses the discursive, ideological, normative, and theoretical foundations of the use of space by the EU for strategic purposes, drawing on the broad spectrum of European integration/International Relations theory. Last, but not least, the volume discusses initiatives outside the EU by key global space players, with an emphasis on the US and transatlantic space relations. All chapters maintain a solid empirical foundation, in the form of geographical or issue-related focus, with an area-specific emphasis on the EU as a whole, transatlantic relations, the policies of key member states (such as France and Italy), and core space powers such as the US, China and India. This book will be of much interest to students of space power, security studies, European politics and International Relations.

With many scholars and analysts questioning the relevance of deterrence as a valid strategic concept, this volume moves beyond Cold War nuclear deterrence to show the many ways in which deterrence is applicable to contemporary security. It examines the possibility of applying deterrence theory and practice to space, to cyberspace, and against non-state actors. It also examines the role of nuclear deterrence in the twenty-first century and reaches surprising conclusions.

China's recent reforms have led to unprecedented economic growth; if this continues, China will be able to turn its great potential power into actual power. The result could be, in the very long term, the rise of China as a rival to the United States as the world's predominant power; in the nearer term, China could become a significant rival in the East Asian region. In this context, the issue for U.S. policy is how to handle a rising power, a problem that predominant powers have faced many times throughout history. It is the contention of this report that the future Sino-U.S. context will illustrate many of the problems of deterrence theory that have been discussed in recent decades; deterrence theory will be, in general, more difficult to apply than it was in the U.S.-Soviet Cold War context. The key may be to seek nonmilitary means of deterrence, i.e., diplomatic ways to manipulate the tension to China's disadvantage.

This thesis was written to provide the reader with a firm understanding of the realities of the current DoD space deterrence concept, its shortcomings, and the threat that these shortcomings pose to the United States and its Allies if a more realistic, credible space deterrence concept is not created and deployed. To highlight these shortcomings, a review of deterrence theory from classical to modern writers were explored to compare and contrast with the DoD's present concept to highlight its lack of deterrence theory. In addition, it was highlighted through an analysis of the Chinese view of deterrence in space, space weapons and the United States, just how ineffective DoD space deterrence theory is and how the current National Security Space Strategy, the location of the DoD space deterrence concept, is more likely to give rise to a "space Pearl Harbor" than to prevent one. The United States must re-think its current posture in space and develop a tiered, tailor, triad of capabilities and concepts that credibly deter, or if necessary defeat an enemy attack on our nation's critical space infrastructure.