Modern Military Strategy

by Elinor C Sloan

  1 Space situational awareness. This refers to understanding what is happening in space itself, including detecting and tracking objects in space, and recognizing them as belonging to certain missions and countries. Space situational awareness assets may be space-based themselves, or they may be ground-based and ‘look up’ at space.

  2 Space force enhancement. This refers to the use of space to provide understanding of what is happening on earth (surface and air). Space force enhancement assets, such as satellites that enable fighter jets or ships to launch precision strikes, are based in space and ‘look down’ on earth.

  3 Space support. This involves delivering satellites into space and sustaining them while in orbit.

  4 Space control. This refers to ensuring freedom of action in space for friendly forces, and denying the use of space by adversary forces if necessary. Actions taken may be defensive or offensive in nature. OSC missions may take place in space or terrestrially (for example, air strikes against satellite ground stations). OSC missions conducted in space may be kinetic or, more likely, non-kinetic in nature.

  5 Space force application. This would involve the use of space-based weapons against terrestrial targets. It is akin to precision airpower taken to the heights of space. Information on this mission area, beyond the title of the document (DoD Instruction 3100.13, Space Force Application) is not available in the unclassified realm.

  See: US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Space Operations (Washington, DC: Joint Publication 3–14, 29 May 2013), Chapter II.

  Some experts argue the best way to negate adversary satellites is in orbit. The physical, i.e. kinetic, destruction of satellites using ground-based anti-satellite capabilities is one way of doing this. Both the United States and the Soviet Union pursued such a capability during the Cold War but the only successful anti-satellite test was by the United States against one of its own low earth orbit satellites in 1985. The satellite China shot down in 2007 was also in low earth orbit; however, strategic thinkers have long theorized that by virtue of the fact that satellites are so predictable in their orbits there is no apparent reason why, with the use of a larger launch vehicle, intercepts could not be accomplished up to geosynchronous orbit. In future, space-based kinetic-energy anti-satellite capabilities could also be used to physically destroy satellites. The United States, Russia and China are thought to be developing micro-satellites that could be used for this purpose. In the mid-2000s America’s Missile Defense Agency worked on a space-based kinetic-energy weapon designed to destroy ballistic missiles in their mid-course phase and experts noted at the time that such weapons could also be used as space-based anti-satellite weapons.

  A major problem with the kinetic destruction of satellites is debris. Indeed, one outcome of the 2007 Chinese anti-satellite demonstration, which created thousands of pieces of dangerous debris in low and medium earth orbit that could orbit for infinity, may have been to definitively confirm that the kinetic destruction of anything in space, whether a satellite or a mid-course ballistic missile, is not a viable option. The unique physical attributes of space, specifically the lack of gravity, mean that unlike sea, land or air forces, future space forces cannot – or at least should not – kinetically engage one another. ‘Battlefields in space are … fundamentally different from those on land, at sea, or in the air’, note some spacepower scholars. ‘Battlefield debris in space … can last for decades, centuries, or even millennia, thereby constituting an indiscriminate lethal hazard’ to the very high-value satellite systems the satellite warfare was meant to protect.24

  Thus it is likely that to the extent the United States and other countries pursue anti-satellite capabilities in the future, these will be of the non-kinetic variety. Apart from electromagnetic jamming, ground-based lasers may be an option. But more likely are micro-satellites that render inoperable adversary satellites by firing paintball-like material at them, or by burning out their wiring with lasers. Along these lines, a manoeuvrable satellite carrying laser weapons was first foreseen in the 1970s. Others have suggested somehow non-kinetically dislodging a satellite from its orbit. ‘[A] bump or a push in the wrong direction is all that is necessary to send [a satellite] spinning off into a useless or uncontrollable orbit.’25

  Space force application

  A fourth space force mission is space force application, first raised in the US context by the Rumsfeld Commission in early 2001. ‘Many think of space only as a place for passive collection of images or signals or a switchboard that can quickly pass information back and forth over long distances’, the Commission pointed out, ‘[but] [i]t is also possible to project power through and from space’.26 The US Joint Chiefs of Staff defines space force application as ‘combat operations in, through, and from space to influence the course and outcome of conflict by holding terrestrial targets at risk’ (emphasis added).27 In a joint publication on space operations the space force application mission area is specified to include BMD and force projection capabilities such as ICBMs. Thus ICBMs, which reach well into medium earth orbit (about 1,500 kilometres up) in their mid-course phase, travel ‘through’ space, while BMD that intercept missiles in the mid-course phase would operate ‘in’ space. The doctrine is silent on any future space-to-terrestrial power projection capability that would operate ‘from’ space, but acknowledges the existence of a classified doctrine document called Space Force Application.

  For its part the US Air Force discusses the space force application mission alongside that of strategic attack using airpower.28 Its doctrine document implicitly points to a seamlessness between air and space forces, without identifying specific capabilities. It states, for example, ‘the role of air and space … capabilities in strategic attack is founded on the characteristics of air and space resources’, including range, speed, precision, flexibility and lethality; and ‘strategic attack may be carried out with nuclear and conventional global strike capabilities from all the components: bombers, attack aircraft, ballistic and cruise missiles [and] offensive space capabilities’.29 Discussing space- and air-based power projection in the same breath points to an implicit acknowledgement of the potential application of force from space against terrestrial targets.

  Space force application weapons

  An early attempt at a space-to-ground capability was the Soviet Union’s Fractional Orbit Bombardment System (FOBS), an ICBM that was to go into low earth orbit and be called on to de-orbit for ground attack. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty banned the placing of WMDs in space, but the Soviets continued to test the FOBS without the warhead for over a decade. More recently, both the United States and China are thought to be exploring space-to-ground attack weapons. Indeed, US Space Command considered the force application mission as far back as in its 1998 Long Range Plan, which discussed, among other things, the technology areas that required attention if a spacecraft were to be able to reliably hit terrestrial targets. One of the four operational concepts included in the Long Range Plan (of which there is no more recent unclassified version) is ‘global engagement’, a concept that is given the explicit 2020 end-state objective of ‘[a] robust and fully integrated suite of space … capabilities providing … the ability to identify, track, and hold at risk designated high value terrestrial targets’.30

  Advocates of space-to-ground weapons argue they may be uniquely able to strike two types of terrestrial target: those that are time critical, for example, mobile scud missiles or biological weapons laboratories; and those that are considered ‘denied access’ – that is, geographically remote, hardened or deeply buried. To this list we might add the value (for avoiding space debris) of using space-based weapons to destroy ballistic missiles in their launch or terminal phases within the atmosphere, rather than ground- or sea-based interceptors designed for interceptions in the mid-course, exoatmospheric stage.

  The weaponization debate

  The Space Command Long Range Plan also underscored ‘the notion of weapons in space is not consistent with US national policy’, and that plan
ning was being done only in case the government ‘should later decide the application of force from space is in the [US] national interest’.31 Thus was raised the elephant in the room behind all discussions of the force application mission – whether space is or should be weaponized, or whether space can somehow be sanctuarized. The latter, sanctuary school of spacepower thought seeks to preserve space as a weapons-free zone to prevent states from threatening other states, and to prevent triggering security dilemmas. The basic tenet of the school, which has its basis in the Cold War, is that non-offensive spacepower helped prevent nuclear war and create strategic stability by providing each superpower with the means to see within one another’s sovereign boundaries and to detect a nuclear attack. In the post-Cold War era the sanctuary school has argued that the United States, as the country most dependent on space assets both militarily and commercially, has the most to lose should space be militarized and its own assets put at risk.

  But many spacepower thinkers are of the view that while the weaponization of space is probably undesirable, it is nonetheless inevitable. ‘Can humans transcend their power urges and instincts to engage in cooperative behaviour?’, asks Robert Pfaltzgraff. ‘Will earthly competition inevitably be expanded into space? There is little, if any, evidence to support the proposition that human behaviour in space would differ substantially from that on earth.’32 In its 2001 report the US Commission stated this perspective directly: ‘We know from history that every medium – air, land and sea – has seen conflict. Reality indicates that space will be no different.’33 Indeed, strategist Norman Friedman draws a direct link between the force enhancement attributes of space-based assets and space’s eventual weaponization. Information gathered and distributed by satellites has become central to victory on land, he notes. ‘It follows that eventually war will be fought in space. After all, air warfare began with reconnaissance. The first fighters were designed to deny enemies that information.’34

  Although the timing is not known, at some point in the future it can be expected that the nature of the international system of sovereign states and the nature of mankind will combine to put weapons into orbit. Thinkers predict space-based weapons will eventually be used against targets on land, sea and in the air. Lambeth, for example, expects the force application mission ‘will eventually entail the direct defensive and offensive imposition of kinetic and non-kinetic measures from space in pursuit of joint terrestrial objectives’ including the range of hardened bunkers, surface vessels, armoured vehicles and enemy leadership targets.35 Others argue space forces will become directly engaged in traditional combat – killing targets and receiving hostile fire – adapted for the unique environment of space, while at the same time retaining the spacepower role of force enhancement. Space-based weapons may fill specific niches, ideal for some missions during certain phases of operations.

  Some theorists argue space is the dominant theatre for military operations and that force application from space could have decisive effects on terrestrial conflicts. Spacepower could succeed in coercing leaders by holding high-value, well-defended targets at risk from space attack. But most strategic thinkers concede that, as with airpower, spacepower alone is insufficient to control the outcome of terrestrial conflict or to ensure the attainment of political objectives. Gray approaches the debate in the context of space as a ‘leading-edge’ military force, under which ‘leading edge’ can mean the military capability that takes the war to the enemy (as airpower did in the 1991 Gulf War), or that determines the outcome of a conflict even if that capability is not of the combat sort.36 From this perspective, spacepower can decide the course and outcome of some conflicts, even though space forces may not be combat ones with offensive capabilities. ‘No claim is made that spacepower by itself can be decisive in conventional warfare’, Smith similarly argues, ‘but it may help set the conditions for victory under some circumstances’.37 The newest high ground may be secured by the country that seizes the initiative and secures low earth orbit.38

  The conduct of war

  For Lambeth, only once it is possible to directly inflict harm on adversaries from space against space-based, air-breathing and terrestrial targets, will it become possible to truly speak of ‘spacepower’. Today, military space activity remains limited to enabling rather than actually conducting combat operations and this, combined with concerns about weaponizing space, has meant that there has been only limited strategic thinking (in the unclassified domain) on how and why combat operations might be conducted in and from space.

  … from space

  Combat operations from space – that is, the force projection component of the space force application mission – may be considered conceptually analogous to air-to-ground warfare. Strategic thinking on its use and value, when it comes, may parallel or at least have some similarities to strategic thought by airpower theorists on the use and value of strategic bombing (see Chapter 3). Against the argument that spacepower could coerce leaders by holding high-value targets at risk, for example, future space force application theorists may determine that force application from space ‘doesn’t matter’ and that achieving political objectives still requires ‘boots on the ground’. Alternatively, and again echoing the airpower debate, it may be determined that force application from space can reduce the casualty costs of warfare, doing much of the battlefield work prior to introducing ground forces. These debates are still many years off, but it is not difficult to foresee their likely future facets.

  … in space

  It is with respect to combat operations in space that the most innovative ground will eventually be broken on spacepower strategic thought. Theorists speak of space warfare as involving not only attacking terrestrial nodes (similar to striking any other building), and disrupting lines of communication between earth and space assets, but also targeting the satellites themselves. Already thinkers within the US Air Force and Navy have put forward some ideas about the conduct of war in space.

  Strategic thought on combat in the space domain discusses the difficulty of the defence. Despite the protection of earth’s gravity well, space forces are vulnerable. They are bright objects against a dark background, they travel in predictable orbits and, unlike terrestrial forces, they do not have sovereign barriers behind which they can find refuge. Space forces are like ships on the open, ungoverned seas, with the added circumstance that they cannot seek protection by returning to friendly waters. (The exception here would be trans-atmospheric vehicles. China is thought to be conducting theoretical research on space planes that can transit and fight up and down between the upper atmosphere and space.) Smith has characterized satellites as ‘delicate, fragile devices’ that can easily fall prey to lasers, radio frequency jamming, brute force weapons, and ground-launched anti-satellite kinetic kill vehicles. Satellites in low earth orbit are most vulnerable to anti-satellite measures, yet ‘satellites all the way out to the geostationary belt and in highly elliptical orbits share a universal vulnerability to radio frequency jamming and electromagnetic brute force attacks’.39 It is possible to arm satellites against some types of electromagnetic interference, but arming a satellite against physical attack as one would, say, a tank is not feasible. The cost limitations of propelling extra weight into space mean that satellites have little carrying capacity beyond that which is necessary to carry out their mission.

  In its official doctrine the US Air Force includes the dispersal of space systems as one possible defensive counterspace measure. Strategic thinkers in the US Navy concur, provided such forces retain the flexibility to combine dispersal with concentration. ‘Space forces and systems should in general be dispersed to cover the widest possible area yet retain the ability to concentrate decisive force. Dispersal of forces will allow the protection of a nation’s space assets … [but to] defend against or neutralize a significant threat … space forces should quickly concentrate firepower.’40 Lupton goes further on the defensive side, proposing that space force clustering – a predominant
tendency in any case because of the topography of space – could actually be advantageous because it might simplify the defensive problem: ‘High value assets might be defended individually, whereas strategic chokepoints might be provided an area defense.’41

  The difficulty of the defence in space means that many emphasize the importance of the offence: ‘The first and most enduring mission of space forces is to gain relative space control over enemies, enabling the space offensive.’42 Strategists caution it would not be easy for an offensive space force to achieve decisive victory and the force must be careful not to throw away space assets on ‘ill-considered attacks’.43 But offensive counterspace does not have to be total to be effective, since an adversary will likely have satellites that do not especially affect its warfighting capability. ‘Circumstances and strategy will dictate the degree of offensive space control required.’44 The choice of offensive measures is limited by concern for space debris, which impacts friendly and enemy forces equally, but some theorists have proposed tactical measures that could address this battlefield problem. The pace of technological development in microsatellites may allow a major spacefaring nation to launch enough independent kinetic kill vehicles in the lowest of low earth orbits – where it is physically likely any debris from a kinetic destruction would fall through the atmosphere – to effectively deny entry to space of any other state. In future, this orbital band could become central to an A2/AD strategy in the space domain.

  Strategists also argue offensive and defensive operations in space are mutually complimentary: a country wanting to initiate limited war in space needs a defensive capability against any unlimited counterattack. Moreover, some aspects of space weigh equally on the offence and defense. While electromagnetic waves travel unimpeded throughout space, kinetic and laser interactions between objects must involve either aligning or intersecting orbital paths. Changing direction at orbital speeds can be difficult or impossible because of the limited fuel available. Thus spacecraft, whether attacking or evading, cannot rely on manoeuvrability to conduct their operations or increase their survivability, and to the degree that they do manoeuvre they do so in relatively predictable transfer orbits.