By Huoyuan Tongxin and Feng Songjiang

At the recent UN Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) meeting on “norms of responsible behaviors in space”, the American representative called upon other countries to follow its step in no longer conducting “destructive direct-ascent anti-satellite missile testing” and planned to submit a draft resolution to the UN.

Such a resounding rhetoric cannot cover up America’s spuriousness.

On the one hand, the US began to carry out direct-ascent anti-satellite weapon testing as early as in 1959, two years after the first manmade earth satellite was launched. Now that its anti-satellite means is fully developed and it has possessed real-combat anti-satellite capability using relevant devices, the US has no need for such testing anymore.  

On the other hand, the draft resolution the US said it would submit to the UN only concerns testing without any mention of the R&D, production, deployment and use of anti-satellite weapons, which is downright evidence that its proposal is only restrictive to others but would not restrain itself in the least. Such a draft resolution has little meaning for arms control and almost zero value for promoting the process in the outer space.

Both in history and reality, the US has always viewed the space as a key domain for strategic competition. It has never stopped seeking unilateral strategic advantages in the outer space and its ambition for space domination has only swelled. From exiting the Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems (ABM) to strengthening multilateral cooperation with its allies in the space, from taking the space as a battlefield and actively forming the Space Force to developing space attack/defense weapons and holding space drills, the US has been taking faster steps to build its space military forces and committed to fostering a space order dominated by itself.

In its newly released Space Policy, the US DoD blatantly called the space “a priority domain of national military power”, and asked the US Space Force to operate “in, from and to space” in parallel in order to secure sustained strategic advantages and reinforce deterrence in space. The document also vowed to “defend the use of space for U.S. national security purposes, the U.S. economy, and allies and partners of the United States”, and to consolidate its own position as the absolute leader of space economy. Such unveiled wording clearly shows that the US is not only trying to fortify its space forces to suppress other countries for “military hegemony” in space, but also wants to use this hegemony as a leverage to secure absolute advantage in terms of space economy and order, and consequently control the space on all fronts.

In addition to strongly promoting its capability of space offensive/defensive operations and augmenting unilateral military advantages, the US has also issued the Combined Space Operations Vision 2031 together with Australia, Canada and other countries. That gave it an opportunity to further bind their interests together, integrate space forces available both at home and overseas, and enhance the ability of systematic space operations, so as to further ramp up its own edge in space.

As the acknowledged cornerstone for international law over the outer space, the UN Outer Space Treaty recognizes the common interest of all mankind in the progress of the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes, which, however, falls on deaf ears of the US. In 2017, the UN Group of Governmental Experts on the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space failed to present a report due to America’s unilateral objection, halting the efforts of the whole international community. Now it is the US again that is unilaterally cooking up the so-called “tenets of responsible behavior” – based on its own, selfish interests – to endorse its endeavor for “military hegemony” in space.

With the sustaining and deepening human exploration into the space and the rapid development of aerospace technologies, the space has become a key domain underpinning the production and life of modern society, and is seen as a strategic field concerning the country’ overall security and development. As the common asset of all mankind, it should be explored and used in peaceful ways and for peaceful purposes. America’s aggressive weaponization and militarization of the space, which is bound to make the space insecure, unstable, and uncontrollable, calls for high vigilance of the international community.

(The author is from the Space Security Research Center of Space Engineering University)