However, if we imagine the code to have been binding international law for the past generation, the nation which has done more to violate it than the USA would be the PRC. Having just reviewed the actual text of the code to make sure I am not missing anything, the only violations I could find on the US side are the possible non-registration of some stealthy satellites. China gets credit for the 2007 ASAT test, which in terms of practical consequences dwarfs every other “violation” of every other nation on Earth combined.

What other “violations” of the actual EU code (see below) are you imagining the US has committed?

http://www.eu2008.fr/webdav/site/PFUE/shared/import/1209_CAGRE_resultats/Code%20of%20Conduct%20for%20outer%20space%20activities_EN.pdf

It becomes even more likely if the DF-21D actually functions as performed, because the only plausible defense is concealment. Destroying a Chinese RORSAT will leave debris…not destroying it means a Carrier and 5000 sailors might go to the bottom of the South China Sea. I can’t see this looking like a prelude to a nuclear first strike either — RORSATs aren’t used for early warning, and the Chinese thankfully have neither the capability nor the inclination to Launch on Warning anyway.

As the principal author and advocate of the Code of Conduct idea, you can justly be proud, take a bow, and accept the thanks of all of us for what has been accomplished. Even if the manner in which it came about is somewhat awkward, the Obama administration has now officially committed itself to the negotiation and implementation of an International Code of Conduct (ICoC), and barring defeat in November will undoubtedly carry that through. Whether it will obtain the partnership of China, Russia, India and other important spacefaring powers in this endeavor remains to be seen, but regardless of that, US commitment to the Code idea is a great step forward.

I don’t know of any “critics from the Left” who are opposed to the Code, and if they are, they are dead wrong. But so are you when you use those of us who believe that actual space arms control is possible — and necessary in order to call a halt to the actual space arms race — as strawmen to position the Code as the sensible center, balancing the weak but potentially troublesome opposition from the Right.

The Code, as you know, is not arms control at all. It avoids the issue of space weapons — ASATs and any weapons stationed or prepared for stationing in space — and places no meaningful restrictions whatsoever on their development, testing, production, stockpiling, deployment or transfer to other states.

The 2010 EU draft even explicitly allows “action which intends to bring about, directly or indirectly, damage, or destruction, of outer space objects” provided such action “is justified by the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence in accordance with the United Nations Charter or imperative safety considerations”. This legitimizes not only the use of ASATs in war — Is there a UN member state which will not claim to be acting in self-defense if it goes to war? — but implicitly also their development, testing, production and ownership. If such language survives in the ICoC, it will become not merely not arms control, but a precedent against arms control of space weapons.

As if in recognition of this, you argue that actual space arms control “cannot be scoped properly, is not verifiable, and is unacceptable to the US Senate.”

As to the last point, those who advocate arms control are supposed to be about defining and when necessary working to change what is politically acceptable.

The rest of your arguments here are as wrong as can be:

“Concerns that hundreds of TMD interceptors could be used as KE-ASATs are over the top: the use of only a few of them would produce destructive pin-ball ASAT effects by means of debris fragments.” Are concerns that thousands of nuclear weapons could be used, ending our civilization, also “over the top”? How about just a few of them? The fact is that the US is planning to deploy hundreds of TMD/NMD interceptors which could be used as KE-ASATs just by putting in the appropriate targeting data and pushing the button. As-planned, as-deployed, they will be operationally ready for use as ASATs. How can anyone expect that China will refrain from deploying similar weapons which could be used against American satellites? How can anyone expect India not to respond to China? How can anyone expect Russia to stay out? Last I heard, even France was moving towards joining the KE-ASAT club.

I agree it is unlikely that the US would ever decide use its planned arsenal of hundreds of globally mobile KE-ASATs in a spasm of destruction that renders Low Earth Orbit unusable for hundreds of years into the future. But is it so completely implausible that one or a few of them would be so used in a dire emergency, a crisis or war pitting the US against China or another nuclear armed “peer competitor”? And what hope is there of restraining an arms race in less environmentally damaging forms of space weaponry, such as coorbital ASATs, as well as ground-based lasers and jammers, if multiple nations deploy arsenals of KE-ASATs for “space deterrence”?

“…many essential, multi-purpose military capabilities can be used to interfere with, disable, or destroy objects in space. Some of these capabilities, such as land- and sea-based ballistic missiles, have existed for over half a century.” This is the “hammer is a weapon” argument — since anything can potentially be used as a weapon, it is impossible to define and ban or control weapons. The same argument can be made against any arms control, and it is no more true in space than any other domain. Space weapons, like any other weapons, will be developed, tested and optimized for their intended uses, and they will be recognizable as such. The residual potential for other things to be used as weapons is of much less concern than the prospect of an arms race to develop and deploy arsenals of highly threatening space weapons primed for immediate use.

The idea that ballistic missiles would be used as ASATs is really “over the top;” if you are talking about nuclear warheads, the effects would be too unpredictable and indiscriminate, and might include collateral damage on Earth via EMP. Above all, to use nuclear weapons in any role potentially opens the Gates of Hell. If you are talking about conventional warheads, they would not be effective without terminal homing, in other words, they could not be used as ASATs unless they were, in fact, ASATs.

“Banning all military capabilities that can be directed against satellites isn’t feasible.” Nor is it necessary. Blinding lasers are banned under the CCW, but I can buy one on ebay for a few hundred bucks. Again, what can reasonably be banned is not the existence of hardware that can potentially be used as a weapon, but rather the development of such hardware as weapons, suitable and readied for military use, produced in quantity, deployed for use as weapons and integrated into military doctrine. As well as their actual use.

“Banning weapon systems “dedicated” to the ASAT mission isn’t consequential, because so many technologies and weapon systems could be used as potential ASATs.” See how this sentence slides from “dedicated” ASATs to “potential ASATs.” But it is the “dedicated” ones that we have to worry about; the “potential” ones are much less dangerous and their existence does not constitute a destabilizing arms race. Moreover, a treaty banning any ASATs makes it much less likely that “potential” ones would ever be used as such.

In reality, the list of “potential” but not “dedicated” ASATs is far shorter than you seem to think. Even jamming satellite uplinks from the ground requires special equipment if the uplinks are hardened to military standards. The most dangerous “dual use” technology, apart from KE-BMD/ASAT, is that of robotic maneuvering satellites designed for operations in proximity and contact with other spacecraft, e.g. for refueling, repair, debris-clearing or orbital transfer. But this technology can potentially be developed in less threatening ways, e.g. by using economical electric propulsion instead of more muscular chemical rockets, and by openness and accountability in the way it is done.

Under a agreement by all spacefaring powers that they will abstain from developing ASATs and weapons stationed in space, activities that border on space weapons development would be open to question and would need to be justified in terms of their legitimate non-weapons purposes. Capabilities and numbers would matter. If any nation were developing a threatening space arsenal, this would be visible to all. This would undoubtedly lead to a breakdown of the agreement, but that would only leave us in the same situation we will be in if we continue to follow the present course. No nation would stand to gain from such a breakdown, and none would want to risk its consequences, so we may reasonably hope that that the agreement would hold.

“Beijing and Moscow are ramping up their space warfare capabilities as they call for a treaty that they know won’t be negotiated. The Pentagon is not sitting still, either.” As you know, this turns reality on its head; the US, far from sitting still, has led the way in developing, testing and deployment of every type of space weapons technology that is important today. Back in the 1990s and early 2000s, Washington’s attitude was that the US was so far ahead that it could do as it pleases without worrying about Russia, China or anybody else. Beijing and Moscow have a long way to go to catch up, but of course they will challenge the American monopoly on space weapons, even as they continue their calls for restraint and for an agreement by everybody to stop before it is too late.

I can’t apologize for the ravings of Dean Cheng and Baker Spring, but of course any claim that “a Code of Conduct would jeopardize the U.S. ability to engage in testing of both space weapons and space combat doctrines” is utter nonsense. To the contrary, again, the EU draft even implicitly legitimizes such activities. The evident US intention is to continue its pursuit of “space control” even while advancing and presumably adhering to an ICoC. That remains the problem.

Again, congratulations and thanks, Michael, for a great achievement. The Code of Conduct is a step forward to a safer world. But it is not nearly enough. Now that its realization has become official US policy, perhaps it is time for NGOs and other arms control advocates to move on, toward the next task: defining, advocating and achieving substantive space arms control, and putting a stop to the dangerous and destabilizing spiral that is fast becoming a real arms race in space.

And if opposing parties disagree as to where the “acceptable peacetime brinksmanship” vs “this means war” line is drawn, we get big problems.

For the next generation or two at least, the military forces of the major powers will be sized and shaped to cover the “What if World War III happens after all?” contingency, and that will include space weapons. We can camouflage them, if certain people insist hard enough. But with a proper code of conduct, we can probably keep them from being used in anything less than an actual World War III. That is worth doing.

Both will be available at http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/foreign-relations-the-united-states-series-salt-i-1969%E2%80%931972

Or if in the end they just went with the higher priority of the moment.

For example, before the Nixon Administration even articulated the concept of linkage, SALT was prevented from even getting off the ground during the Johnson Administration because the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia. The planned announcement of a US-Soviet summit on 21 August 1968 was scuttled, and fast! Similarly, President Carter was forced to withdraw the SALT II treaty from Senate consideration by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in late December 1979.

In both cases, the American tendency to connect arms control and other ‘non-strategic’ foreign policy issues seems not to have been considered by the Soviets. It would be interesting to know if this because of bureaucratic stove-piping, lack of understanding of the US political system, other factors, or some combination thereof.