It is getting more and more cramped in outer space. Nowadays, there are about 1000 active satellites in near-earth orbit alone, not to mention a variety of space debris. Satellites relay television signals, provide communications, help car owners cope with traffic jams, monitor the weather, synchronize the activities of the world's financial markets, and many other tasks. Their capabilities are in demand by many armies of the world.
For several years now, the Bundeswehr has been using 2 communication satellites for its own purposes, which allow them to conduct telephone conversations protected from wiretapping, access the Internet without any risk and conduct videoconferences. In the field of navigation, Germany still uses the American GPS satellite system, but the strategic importance of positioning on the ground is so great that Europe, like Russia and the PRC, is working on creating its own navigation system. An employee of the German Society for Foreign Policy (DGAP) Cornelius Vogt notes that in the realities of the modern world, no one wants to be completely dependent on anyone, not even the United States, which is one of our partners in the NATO bloc.
Currently, the international community permits the use of satellites for military purposes only on condition that this will help maintain peace on the planet. For example, according to the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), spy satellites currently contribute to the stability of the situation in Southeast Asia, since with their help India and Pakistan can monitor each other's military movements. However, as the strategic importance of space satellites increases, the temptation to neutralize them also increases. Therefore, when in 2007 Beijing destroyed its own meteorological satellite with a rocket as an experiment, it became the subject of sharp criticism from the world community and China. And when a year later, the United States shot down the damaged satellite with a rocket, this provoked a response from Beijing.
The current international situation and the trends in the emergence of new military conflicts on the planet suggest that the well-known concepts of the conduct of war are already seriously outdated. The goals of the wars of the future are not to seize the territories of a conventional enemy, but to deliver well-thought-out strikes at his main pain points. The massive use of ground forces and armored vehicles fades into the background. The role of strategic aviation is diminishing. The emphasis in the traditional concept of "strategic weapons" from the "nuclear triad" is increasingly shifting to non-nuclear weapons based on high-precision weapons (WTO) systems of various basing methods.
In turn, this leads to the deployment in space of an increasing number of orbital support vehicles: satellite warning, reconnaissance, target designation, forecasting, which in themselves need defense and protection. According to the calculations of military experts, for example, Vladimir Slipchenko, who passed away not so long ago, already in the current decade the number of WTOs in the leading countries of the world will grow to 30-50 thousand, and by 2020 - to 70-90 thousand. The growth of high-precision weapons systems will be associated with the build-up of satellite constellations, without which all these weapons, capable of hitting a target the size of a mosquito, will turn into the most useless iron.
So hundreds of seemingly completely harmless "passive" spacecraft, which themselves are not strike systems, in fact turn out to be an integral part of the main weapon of the XXI century - high-precision. Does it follow from the above that the militarization of outer space, which is caused, among other things, by the need to protect satellite constellations, is only a matter of time? If we mean the deployment of strike weapons systems in near-earth orbit, that is, those systems that are able to independently destroy targets in space, on Earth and in the atmosphere, then yes. In this case, space risks becoming a "gun tower" that will keep the entire Earth at gunpoint.
Today, the most significant potential for the militarization of outer space is possessed and is capable of realizing this potential in the foreseeable future, primarily the United States, Russia and the PRC. At the same time, Washington is the undisputed leader, which has a significant arsenal of the latest space technologies, as well as a sufficiently developed, powerful scientific and technical base for the development and, possibly, adoption of individual samples of anti-missile and anti-satellite systems of land, sea and air-space based already in the coming years. The administration of US President Barack Obama actually acts in this area on the basis of principles that were developed by a commission chaired by Donald Rumsfeld back in 2001. These principles recommend vigorously implementing the option of placing weapons in outer space to repel threats and, if necessary, protect against attacks on US interests.
In the past two decades, China has also sharply intensified its work in the space sector. The fast-growing industry and the very high scientific and technical potential of this Asian country allow it to allocate huge funds for these purposes. Today, China's military space program is aimed at developing means that, in the event of the outbreak of military conflicts, either prevent or restrict the enemy's use of space weapons against Chinese spacecraft, as well as ground objects of strategic importance.
In the interests of solving the designated tasks, not only research is being carried out on the development of various types of space weapons, including beam, kinetic, microwave, etc., but also practical work on the study of anti-missile and anti-satellite technologies. An example that proves this well is the tests carried out by the PRC of anti-missile and anti-satellite weapons, which took place in 2007, 2010 and 2013.
According to Russian experts, at this stage of development, the possibility of deploying and using in outer space of 3 main categories of weapons is seen: directed energy weapons, kinetic energy weapons and conventional warheads delivered to and from space. That is, first of all, such systems and types of weapons as kinetic, laser and beam. Moreover, this weapon can be both space-based and land-based, sea-based or air-based. According to its purpose, it can be subdivided into anti-satellite, anti-missile, anti-aircraft weapons, as well as weapons used against land and sea targets and objects.
Experts believe that it is interceptor missiles that can potentially become the first real weapon deployed in outer space. Space provides an opportunity for the effective use of interceptor missiles and vehicles that can be equipped with both non-nuclear and nuclear warheads that strike enemy military satellites and missiles either by the impact of fragmentation elements of high-explosive fragmentation ammunition, or by direct impact with them. A relatively recent phenomenon in global space activity is the miniaturization of spacecraft and satellites, including military ones. Nanotechnology and modern materials make it possible to deploy compact, lightweight and efficient spacecraft in outer space, capable of effectively solving various tasks, including the destruction of larger satellites and space objects.
Consequences and risks of a possible arms race in space
Today, many military experts believe that space weapons can be safely attributed to strategic weapons, since a state that can deploy such weapons in space will receive significant advantages. In fact, such a country will be able to monopolize access to space and its use. At present, several main goals of the deployment of space weapons can be distinguished: the development of new capabilities for striking enemy air and ground targets, strengthening the missile defense system (combating strategic ballistic missiles), the emergence of the possibility of a sudden disablement of the main space systems of a potential enemy, which will lead to significant material damage.
Risks associated with the operation of space weapons systems: a fairly high probability of man-made errors in military systems and a large amount of damage in the event of failure of civilian systems (meteorology, navigation, etc.), which very often work in the interests of several states at once. According to the estimated information of the American expert Michael Crepon, the use of satellites in the world economy brings the global space industry income, which is more than 110 billion dollars a year, with more than 40 billion dollars of this amount coming from the United States.
Given that the United States has made the most significant investments in space assets and is more dependent on them for global military operations, the potential vulnerability of these assets to relatively simple weapons of destruction poses a greater threat than any other possible danger in space. Therefore, speaking objectively, a ban on space weapons would be mainly beneficial to Washington in order to secure its own assets.
Other consequences of a possible space arms race can be called the clogging of the near-earth orbit: testing and building up anti-missile and anti-satellite orbital groups can lead to a man-made clogging of space, primarily low orbits, which will adversely affect the solution of problems of remote sensing of the Earth, as well as manned programs. In the international political process, this can cause serious damage to the existing world structure of agreements on limiting various weapons systems, primarily nuclear missile systems. It can stimulate a new round of the arms race, help weaken control over the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and missile technologies.
During the Cold War, space generally remained peaceful. A certain deterrent role in this, undoubtedly, was played by the Soviet-American ABM Treaty, which, among other things, imposed restrictions on the creation by both states of systems or individual components of interceptor missiles based in space, and also obliged both powers not to interfere with national technical means of control over the other side. …However, not wanting to remain bound by this agreement, the United States withdrew from it unilaterally in 2002.
In modern conditions, Washington's military space ambitions can only be contained by strengthening the already adopted and existing international legal norms and agreements that prohibit the use of outer space for the deployment of this or that weapon there. An important measure on this path could be the joining of the United States and other world powers with strike space potential to the Russian moratorium on the first non-deployment of weapons in outer space, as well as conducting full-scale negotiations on the implementation of the Russian-Chinese initiative to create a treaty to prevent the deployment of weapons in outer space. space (DPROK). To our great regret, the launch of such negotiations at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva has been hampered for many years by the actions of both the United States and a number of other states.
