January 20, 2009 and After: Obama Favors Treaty Banning Space-Based Weapons

The Obama administration is moving towards seeking a worldwide ban on space-based weapons, a dramatic shift in US policy from the previous administration. While President Obama makes his inaugural speech, his advisers update the White House Web site with a number of policy statements, including a pledge to restore US leadership on space issues and seek a worldwide ban on weapons that interfere with military and commercial satellites. The statement also says that the US will consider threats to US satellites, and develop contingency plans to protect them from attack and keep information moving from them. One of the key issues surrounding the proposed ban on space weapons is defining what exactly such a weapon is. Even weather tracking satellites could be programmed to ram into and disable other satellites. No attacks on one nation’s satellites by another have been publicly documented, but both the US and China have destroyed their own satellites in recent years, showing that the capacity to bring down another nation’s satellites does exist. A defense official says that while Obama officials have not yet held briefings on the subject, it is clearly understood that the focus will shift towards more diplomatic initiatives. Work on classified projects involving what the official calls “active” military responses to attacks on US satellites may be halted in favor of more monitoring and passive protection measures, says the official, who declines to be more specific. Victoria Samson of the Center for Defense Information says, “There’s still a lot of wiggle room” in the administration’s statement on military space. “But just the sheer fact that they are discussing it represents a real shift from the Bush administration.… It’s not going to happen immediately, but it seems as though the wheels are in motion to initiate some sort of cooperative measure.” In his presidential campaign, Obama acknowledged the difficulties of securing a global treaty banning space-based weapons, and once suggested that a simpler and quicker solution might be a “code of conduct for responsible space-faring nations.” Such a code would include what Obama called “a prohibition against harmful interference against satellites.” [Reuters, 1/25/2009]