On Rich’s excellent piece on the tactical necessity of reconceptualizing the exoatmospheric environment as a theater of war, it needs to be said that earth’s orbit has already been weaponized.

The United States already relies on satellites for communications, reconnaissance, and navigation. Those satellites present a ripe target to America’s adversaries who, in a declared conflict, would do their best to knock out those capabilities in the relatively cheap pursuit of technological parity. That’s why America’s near-peer competitors, China and Russia, are already testing anti-satellite weaponry — recklessly, too, in ways that glut the orbital environment with dangerous debris.

But beyond those capabilities, space is already host to orbital platforms classified as “dual use.” This is to say that satellites with some commercial or military utility can be transformed into “kill vehicles” programmed to target and smash into an adversary’s satellites with relative efficiency. To Rich’s point, this is obviously sub-optimal insofar as kamikazeing your satellite into an opponent’s satellite leaves both parties down one satellite.

The Pentagon should invest in survivable anti-satellite vehicles in space not only to deter future adversaries from engaging in destabilizing behavior but also to protect the nascent commercial enterprises already venturing beyond the atmosphere. Moreover, as Rich notes, space-based interceptor missiles — which are entirely defensive and rely on inert warheads that only disable their targets by smashing into them — would be a sound policy designed to both deter aggression and react to accidents.

The exception to this program would have to involve the platforming of nuclear weapons in orbit. To the extent that we still have bilateral treaties with the Russian government that are mutually observed, preserving the proscriptions on stationing fissionable devices in orbit is valuable and should be extended. Indeed, it would be wise to attempt to establish similar verifiable agreements with the Chinese government.

A nation with a declared or even suspected space-based nuclear capability has a distinct advantage over its adversaries. Today, all nuclear-capable nations rely on observational capabilities in space to detect ground- or submarine-based launches, which allows some time for critical analysis. Without that lead time, governments who perceive themselves to be threatened by the prospect of a nuclear first strike are liable to get itchy trigger fingers whenever they see something that looks like an adversarial launch — events that occur and have only failed to spiral into nightmarish conflagrations because cooler heads had time to prevail. Absent that advanced warning, disaster could strike.