This essay was originally posted on Ethics & International Affairs by Ann C. Thresher and Mai’a Cross.
The Head of U.S. Space Command, Gen. Stephen Whiting, recently called for a significant ratcheting up of the notion of space as a warfighting domain. Speaking at the 40th Annual Space Symposium, he stated, “It’s time that we can clearly say that we need space fires and we need weapon systems. We need orbital interceptors. And what do we call these? We call these weapons, and we need them to deter a space conflict and to be successful if we end up in such a fight.”1 To be sure, it is not the first time that a military actor has called for space weaponization, but it is the latest and most explicit call.
In a period of growing geopolitical tensions, with China and Russia increasingly seen as strategic threats, including in space, it may seem that calling for the weaponization of space is a logical next step in national security planning. However, we argue that such a move would not only be strategically counterproductive but also do serious harm to those of us who rely on space for our daily well-being. This is, in large part, because much modern infrastructure on Earth—from communications and finance to weather prediction and navigation—relies on space-based systems.
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