This week on International Horizons, RBI interim director Eli Karetny interviewed Mallory Stewart, Chief Executive Officer of the Council on Strategic Risks. Stewart discusses the evolving role of the US Space Force and the shift in its doctrine toward achieving “space superiority” and orbital control. The blurry lines between the militarization and weaponization of space were widely noted, especially given the challenges of operating in a grueling and opaque environment. Stewart also commented on the limitations of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty in regulating modern technology, noting the US’s preference for establishing norms of responsible behavior rather than entering new, unverifiable treaties. Finally, Stewart recognized the importance of public-private partnerships in building resilience, but also acknowledged the urgent need for international risk reduction measures to prevent a destabilizing space arms race.

Transcript

Eli Karetny The recent headlines indicate that the guardians of the US Space Force contributed, quote, unquote, combat space power in the Iran War, including carrying out missile tracking and electronic warfare missions. Chief of Space Force operations, General Chance Saltzman, said last week that Space Force troops help US forces achieve a variety of complex military objectives across the battlespace. We’ve entered a new era of battlefield joint military operations, where the Space Force plays a key role in providing, quote, unquote, space power. But what exactly does that mean?

Welcome to International Horizons, a podcast of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies that brings scholarly and diplomatic expertise to bear on our understanding of a wide range of international issues. My name is Eli Karetny. I teach political theory and international relations at Baruch College, and have for years been the deputy director of the Ralph Bunche Institute at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. This year, as the institute’s interim director, I have the honor of hosting this podcast.

Here with me today is Mallory Stewart, the Chief Executive Officer of the Council on Strategic Risks. Mallory’s areas of expertise include weapons of mass destruction, law and policy, missile defense, outer space security policy, and risk management regarding emerging and disruptive technologies. 2022 to 2025, she served as the Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Arms Control, Deterrence, and Stability at the US State Department. She joined the bureau after serving as a special assistant to President Biden and Senior Director for Arms Control, Disarmament, and Nonproliferation at the National Security Council. Miss Stewart is a senior non-resident fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School and has served as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. She holds an AB from Harvard College and a JD from Stanford Law School. Welcome, Mallory. Thanks for joining us on International Horizons.

Mallory Stewart Thank you so much, Eli. I’m really happy to be here and looking forward to our conversation.

Eli Karetny So last month, CENTCOM commander, Admiral Brad Cooper, alluded to Space Force’s role in the Iran War, saying that they were degrading Iranian capabilities and helping to protect American forces. Although he didn’t go into much detail, General Saltzman, speaking this week about how Space Force operates in combat missions and how it integrates with the military, said there are asymmetric benefits derived from owning the high ground of space. Mallory, help us understand what this all means. How does the Space Force integrate with the US military on the battlefield, and what asymmetric benefits does it provide?

Mallory Stewart Yeah, thank you so much. You know, Space Force provides a hugely important role in enabling sort of Joint Force operations. GPS, communications, missile warnings, all rely on outer space capabilities, and Space Force trying to protect and allow the continued smooth operation of our space assets and really providing the corresponding communication capacity through our assets to our joint force operators. So you know, space being the backbone of terrestrial military operations, our Space Force is up there to protect those assets, and you know, to work to enhance our capacity to rely, sustain, and utilize those assets to continue communication with our terrestrial forces.

What I think is interesting, though, is Space Force’s evolution into the most recent issuance of the space power report that really emphasizes space superiority. That’s sort of an evolution we’ve seen in the Space Force from its creation under the first Trump administration, through the Biden administration, and now really focusing on this concept of an ability to control the space domain. It’s different. It’s different than it’s operated previous to this newest iteration, right? Recognizing fully that space is a war-fighting domain. The Space Force has moved into that war-fighting domain from a position of trying to define and maintain space superiority. And that’s a new evolution for the Space Force.

Eli Karetny That’s a really important framing. And that leads me to the next question, which is about how they’ve been, how the Space Force has been building out its terrestrial and orbital infrastructure, satellites and weapons, kinetic and otherwise, and has been developing tactics for what it calls, quote, unquote, orbital warfare. I’ve actually heard Space Force officers talk to me about the difference between the militarization of space and the weaponization of space. Just how meaningful is this distinction?

Mallory Stewart I mean, I think it’s a little bit of semantics, depending on who you ask, but I think there is a difference, clearly, in Space Force’s rationale and approach, in that they are recognizing the outer space arena is a military domain. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be, you know, loaded with weapons to the teeth, right? I think weapons exist in outer space, as I think the Secure World Foundation’s annual report provides quite accurately depictions of. And I think most recently, they said 13 countries are developing or have existing weapons capacity in space, and the Space Force acknowledges that. But it doesn’t necessarily mean we have to ourselves have every form of weapon in outer space or rattle the chains necessarily with respect to the need for more weapons in space.

Now, this is where I may differ from where Space Force wants to go, but I think there’s an advantage to trying not to feed the arms race in outer space. There’s an advantage to trying not to exacerbate what is already a very trust-deprived environment by saying we will weaponize ourselves to the teeth. And I think, you know, I think that’s where I think the Space Force should just be careful. And some of the things that it’s certainly not that I disagree with anything the Space Force has done in terms of acknowledging that space is a military zone right now, acknowledging that there is now a relevance to all military engagements of the space domain. It’s just a question of how we do it, so as not to feed into an endless arms race, and whether we can potentially slow down that arms race, or seek some guardrails or transparency to even stop certain spiraling out of control of arms race principles.

Eli Karetny So in thinking about their new policy or new approach, and where things might be heading under this administration, in a recent article, General Saltzman said the Space Force can no longer, quote, unquote, wait for perfect. He says that there’s an urgent need to deliver capabilities as soon as they offer a war-fighting benefit. What do you think changed here? Why did they once wait for perfect, and what does that even mean, whereas now there’s this urgent need to integrate new capabilities for immediate use in battle?

Mallory Stewart Yeah, I’m not exactly sure what he was talking about, but there have been several significant challenges in the Space Force arena that have slowed down purchasing and development of technology. You know, the US has a very, very low risk tolerance when it comes to new potential, extremely expensive programs and new technology, and even new science in the space arena. And I think there’s been some frustration that other governments may not have as low of a risk tolerance. And so this administration seems to me, has been focusing on trying to partner effectively and efficiently with the commercial arena, which may have a different risk tolerance, but also trying to raise an ability to acquire, test, and execute new programs in the outer space arena, without that historic slowdown, without that historic multiple testing environment and desire for a perfect outcome with respect to capability. So maybe that’s what he’s talking about, not positive.

But you know, I do want to get, though, to this new concept of what space superiority means for the Space Force, because I think it’s quite interesting and quite different than sort of where we have been historically.

Eli Karetny So can you say more about that? What was the kind of historical approach, and where do you see things heading under this administration, in terms of seeking to achieve space superiority?

Mallory Stewart Yeah, I mean, there’s been a little bit of a back and forth, right? And if you look at the evolution of our space capabilities and operations, we went from a period in which there was very few players that had space capacities, and the US and Russia being leaders in that arena. And we really had a concept of being dominant to a certain degree, in that we had great space capacities, or at least tied to a degree, or at least, you know, closely followed, or maybe even further followed, by Russia in space operating. We now have a multilateral, completely, sorry, multilateral, but global, non-governmental, academic, commercial realm of players in the space domain.

And there isn’t this concept that we will always be the lead in everything. And I think you’ve seen it back and forth in the language that our Space Command and our space operators have used. We went from, you know, asserting some sort of dominance early on to during the Obama administration, trying not to use words of dominance or superiority, so that we didn’t feed what was a burgeoning recognition of the militarization of space. So we tried not to feed the arms race that was clearly coming in the space domain, back to the issuance of Space Force under Trump one, where you do come to a recognition that the US government wants to be perceived as the superior player. Wants to have the leadership role. Biden kind of swung a little bit back towards, yes, we have a Space Force. Space is this war-fighting domain, but we again, do not want to continue to inspire further arms racing with our most close, strategic competitors. And we do want to allow the free access to space of all those interested in using it pursuant to the, you know, the four primary space treaties.

And now you have a Space Force in this Trump administration that defines space superiority as the ability to control the space domain, ensuring freedom of movement for its forces, while denying the same to adversaries. So there’s a clear acknowledgement that space control and even denying access or denying space usage by adversaries, is this new iteration of what superiority will entail. It’s more than just leading the charge in technologies and capabilities and being dominant in that way. It’s trying to achieve that leadership, but at the same time, deny access, deny advantage, deny capability usage to potential adversaries.

I think that is definitely an evolution. It further feeds into what will be perceived as an arms race, which is already happening, but it also requires some deep thinking about if we’re part of an active arms race, how we position ourselves and our allies and partners to be advantaged. In other words, are there guardrails we can place on those destabilizing aspects of arms racing that will prevent us from throwing too much money into a capability just because our adversaries have it, or throwing too much money into a capability that’s unnecessary, given we have other capacities? And so, you know, I think that’s really where the most recent lean into space superiority takes me, and that I wonder how we’re going to build those norms and rules of collective, collectively decided responsible behavior so that we can carve off some of the unnecessary destabilization that arms racing leads to. If that makes sense.

Eli Karetny Yeah, and it’s really an excellent way to frame, you know, this change that might be taking place right now within Space Force. But I wonder if that’s not a kind of a smooth change, if there’s some kind of internal tensions. I have to say, listening to a Space Force officer, you know, very effectively communicate the mission of Space Force in a meeting that I sat in on, I was really impressed to hear messaging that pointed to multilateralism, a recognition of a multipolar world. This is like, all over my notes. And I was really impressed to hear that kind of recognition of, you know, kind of a changed world, and yet, the messaging coming out of the leadership in recent publications and announcements seems something different, seems to be pointing in the direction that you’re talking about. So I wonder if there’s, is there some internal tension, or has the leadership kind of set the course towards superiority?

Mallory Stewart Yeah. I mean, it’s a good question. There’s a big debate right now, I think, in US domestic policy as to is the rhetoric reflecting a complete change in the Space Force’s approach? Because I do think Artemis Accords, which came up during Trump one, is still supported, and it talks about adhering to international law. Talks about the importance of cooperation and responsible behaviors and multilateralism in our, you know, our cooperation in the civil arena, but it also talks about the need for transparency and, you know, leadership on deconfliction of space activities. What due regard on the Outer Space Treaty is, how we try not to create orbital debris is still something that’s very much actively supported by the administration. And I think that’s excellent.

But your question reflects this somewhat inconsistent approach to rhetoric which we hear sometimes that I think may not be reflective of where the Space Force is. I mean, the Space Force has to acknowledge a multilateralism really broader than multiple governments, because it incorporates so much of the commercial arena, so much of the scientific and academic discoveries that enable Space Force to continue to operate. You know, the really great work that’s happening in AI labs and, you know, in electromagnetic scientific development in cyberspace arenas. And I think Space Force has to rely on that.

You know, the three primary mission areas that the space power report has discussed for counter-space operations is orbital warfare, electromagnetic warfare, and cyberspace warfare. And that suggests that it’s going to become very aggressive in these arenas that it relies on for other issues, right? There’s a debate over spectrum availability and orbital positioning. And so I just think that rhetoric should reflect a recognition that we need that commercial arena. We need that academic and sort of educational and science breakthrough that happens from multilateralism, and trying to support that in some way will enhance our national security, will enhance our global stability, and really allow the Space Force, I think, to move quicker into those technological advancements that it sees itself needing for this new war-fighting domain.

So there’s a little bit of a conflict, as you say, or at least a tension between the multilateralist approach, the responsible behaviors that Space Force has always supported since its formation, and the recent rhetoric of space dominance that can certainly be interpreted in the wrong way and plays into a narrative from Russia and China that the Space Force just wants itself to operate in the space arena, and wants to deny operational capacity to all others, which can’t possibly be true, because that is inconsistent with Artemis, inconsistent with the Space Force working with numerous other governments, and really inconsistent with the global use of the space environment.

Eli Karetny Thank you, Mallory. You bring up several important points that I want to get to. One, the issue of public-private partnerships, and the other is the kind of the international legal frameworks involved. But before we get to those two issues, let’s talk briefly about a case, the Venezuela operation. General Saltzman’s remarks come recently published remarks come three months after top military leaders revealed that Space Force’s operational role was decisive in the attack on Venezuela. That mission, which resulted in the capture of President Nicolas Maduro, saw Guardians of the Space Force join other parts of the military to disrupt Venezuelan defenses. Notably, Space Force and US Cyber Command both worked to help clear a path for American special operations teams to breach Caracas airspace. I’ve heard Space Force officers talk about, quote, unquote, non-escalatory deterrence. Do you see Venezuela, the operation in Venezuela, and the ensuing announcements about the role the Space Force played, is this an example of non-escalatory deterrence? And maybe you can tell us more about what you know in terms of the involvement of the Space Force in that operation.

Mallory Stewart Yeah. I mean, I can certainly say that Space Force’s involvement is consistent with their recent doctrine, emphasis on complete integration across space, cyber, and terrestrial forces and the need for continuous operations, despite potential interference in one of those arenas, or in all of those arenas. You know, the Space Force has been clear that it’s no longer just support providing. It may be experiencing an environment in the space realm that is directly contested and challenged through kinetic or other activities.

So, you know, we’ve heard about the weapons that are rising in the space control arena, such as jamming and spoofing and cyber intrusions. You know, reversible interference with communications and PNT, and attacks through proxies or other commercial entanglement challenges. All of that is very much happening in the space domain. And the descriptions I’ve heard of the Space Force’s engagement in the Venezuela operations was ensuring that no challenge to sort of communication capacity or observational ability of what’s happening on the ground, or directive and instructional coordination was successful. And so the Space Force was able to ensure continuous communications, continuous eyes on what was happening, continuous coordination between ground troops, aerial troops, and then the Space Force arena itself, making sure everyone was communicating.

I think that is useful for our military operations. Of course, I just, I don’t want to encourage an over-reliance on that being the example that proves we’ve mastered the problem. I think Venezuela is one situation with a certain capacity to do limited defensive maneuverings against that sort of layered coordination and communication. I think other countries, and when you think of other very active space-enabled operators, will have different capacities to defend itself, to actually spoof, jam, you know, intrude in the cyber domain, interfere with communication. So Venezuela was a success from the point of view of the Space Force coordinating, cooperating, and really facilitating an invasion operation. But I don’t think that should say that we’ve necessarily mastered this problem space. And I think the Space Force is aware that that worked out well, but they need to continue to emphasize their capabilities to defend against, you know, jamming, spoofing, and interference in other ways. I guess your question, yeah.

Eli Karetny That’s great. Jamming, spoofing, and interference, those make sense to me, but here’s one that I couldn’t quite make sense of. So help me out here. The space power report that you mentioned, which essentially, you know, announces a kind of formal doctrine, it talks about a distinct form of national and military power with unique physical, networking, and cognitive attributes. The physical attributes make some sense, although it gets very technical. Same with the network attributes, the architecture network nodes, electromagnetic spectrum as a primary conduit. I can make some sense of that. But the third one, the cognitive attributes, this was really interesting to me. They talk about perceptions, decision processes, deterrence, assurance, and influence, and say that decisive effects occur in the cognitive dimension. I really couldn’t make sense of that. And I can say this was something that was strange for me, that something Trump said about the quote, unquote, discombobulator. Did you hear him use this phrase and thinking?

Mallory Stewart I heard him use that phrase. Yeah.

Eli Karetny What’s going on there with these cognitive attributes?

Mallory Stewart So not being on the inside of this government, I can’t say that I know for sure, but I do think it is related to the human ability to rely on information derived from certain sources, whether we either feel comfortable relying on space-based information, or whether we don’t, whether we rely on something that’s been spoofed, that’s been, you know, sort of tampered with in some way, how the human absorbs that information. I think that may have been what he’s talking about, though I’m not sure.

I just will say that all of this really exacerbates the rush to either degrade our own space assets, thus, you know, it’s a sort of job security for the Space Force, which is, if you’re out there saying we will be superior, we will deny adversaries access to their own capabilities and degrade those capabilities, you’re then encouraging those adversaries to develop greater capabilities and greater access points, and even to develop greater weapons to take down our Space Force. So it’s one of these cyclical processes that doesn’t seem to have any endpoint, unless we understand that we all need to slow it down. We all need some endpoint, and we can’t just feed this space race indefinitely without risking deep financial challenges. And there’s no end to this racing without some type of guardrail structure. I mean, that may tie into the four treaties that we all are operating under. And maybe there’s where we can build even further.

Eli Karetny So shifting to the competitive landscape and also the role of public-private partnerships, General Saltzman wrote in a recent article about the future threats in the space domain, and he described space as a grueling environment which is and will be dominated by AI cyber agents and autonomous systems that can sense, decide, and act at machine speeds. Can you say more about what makes space a grueling domain and what’s the competitive landscape there?

Mallory Stewart Yeah, absolutely. I mean, space is physically grueling, right? At absolute zero temperatures, radiation fluctuations, not great transparency, though that is developing. Space situational awareness is improving. Far distances. We don’t know exactly what’s happening. You know, if you’re operating a domain in which you cannot in any way know in advance the intent of satellites that are either near you or in close proximity, in some orbital conjunction, something that could potentially penetrate your sense of security, that’s a grueling environment, right?

And any of those satellites that are peaceful purposes, right, intended for science, intended for weather, intended for all the observation capacity and PNT or banking requirements that we need could turn into a weapon if directed at another satellite, if intentionally used to be a weapon. Even the intentional creation of debris can be weaponized, of course, and so I think what he’s referring to is the traditional, you know, congested, contested, and competitive arena really reflects an opaque environment in which you have both physical challenges, solar radiation, and other degrading effects on hardware. But you also have the opacity of an arena in which you don’t know who’s doing what for what purpose. You can’t see everything as clearly as you’d like to see. And there’s an ability to hide intent, an ability to hide behind observational capabilities what’s going on at the dark side, right? Who knows what’s happening? And so you’re kind of living in this crouch mentality of anyone can come at me from any angle.

And so that’s, I think, the grueling environment, in addition just figuring out how we get our machinery to outlast a very harsh environment. So potentially, that’s what he’s talking about. And I fear that while that is absolutely true, to encourage arms racing, to sort of put a bull’s eye on us by saying that we will be superior and we will engage in warfare, either orbital, electromagnetic, or cyberspace as actively as possible, may make us have to resume even a further crouch, because others will assume that we’re doing aggressive maneuvering, so they will be more aggressive with us.

Eli Karetny And say more about the competitive landscape in space. In terms of, you know, great power rivalry, where do Russia and China stand and the other powers you mentioned? There are 13 countries with space capabilities. What’s, I mean, is there a sense of how their space power compares to ours?

Mallory Stewart Yeah. I mean, I think nobody is quite clear about, you know, their counter-space capabilities. Nobody’s saying, like, here’s a rundown of our weapon systems, but the Secure World Foundation report, which I recommend, continues to document the development of these 13 countries’ capabilities, and we see a proliferation of research and development into further capabilities, either non-destructive, you know, dazzling, jamming, or entanglement challenges, and an increase in the number of countries that are racing to get to the next best capacity on the space control landscape.

I also, you know, so we in the competitive arena, we know that there’s now a growing concern that we may not have enough regulation of the spectrum to allow for orbital slots to be equally provided to all the up and coming. So even in the non-military arena, you have the ITU that regulates through, you know, the World Radio Communication Conference, a lot of the policies going into access to radio frequencies and orbital slots. And that’s being competitively challenged now by all the huge constellations, by private and commercial operators. So, you know, there’s a straightforward commercial competition, but there’s also, of course, the military competition to get the next best weapon system to potentially affect your adversaries’ capacities to operate.

I’m also fascinated by the growing number of countries interested in developing bodyguard, quote, bodyguard satellites, which I think sounds much better in that you’re defending your own satellites. But again, it’s a challenging concept in a space arena, because any bodyguard could also just be a weapon if you turn it on another satellite, either mistakenly thinking it’s attacking you, or because you feel that you need to preserve the capacity of your satellites to operate. I mean, I prefer the terminology of bodyguard to superiority because, of course, it’s suggesting that you’re doing this for defensive purposes. And I think there has to be an acknowledgement that in space, defense and offense definitions are very blurry, if not completely intermingled. But sometimes the advantage of using that defensive language at least sets up less of an assumption that your satellite is going to be offensively minded, and thus should be taken out by other satellites that are feeling insecure.

Eli Karetny Thank you for that, Mallory. In the role you mentioned several times, and spend a few moments exploring this, the role of private industry in all of this, and the Space Force’s approach to public-private partnerships, is this the best way to meet the demands of a rapidly changing space domain? Maybe you could say a little bit about the benefits and drawbacks from having a Space Force that is, again, according to things that I’ve heard, understaffed, under-resourced, and yet derives some benefits from working so closely with the most innovative and advanced private enterprises.

Mallory Stewart Yeah, there’s absolutely an advantage to working with the commercial industry. I mean, we’ve seen huge advantage to collaboration with, you know, Starlink capacities, with other space operators. So I certainly would never say there isn’t an advantage to do it. I don’t think it should be an either or. I think we do have to make sure we staff our Space Force, we give it resources, and we actually try to also cooperate globally with the multilateral arena. I think we’ve been able to keep the space domain fairly peaceful, even though, of course, it’s a war-fighting domain now, because we do abide by, you know, the architectures of four legal space treaties.

And I think the global cooperation that we’ve seen that’s fed into our, you know, our great successes in the space arena, if you think about the benefits of cooperation with Russia and certain launches, and you know, our manning of the space station, if you think about cooperation with other governments that’s led to more resilience for our satellite infrastructure. If one or two satellites is taken out, we can jump around with the capacities that those satellites provide to hopefully provide greater resilience, and you know, deterrence in that arena is supported when you have numerous commercial or other governmental satellites that can carry on the work of your satellite that has been taken out. So it’s a huge advantage to cooperate commercially. But I also would argue that should not be to the exclusion of developing the Space Force’s own technical expertise, but also Space Force’s ability to cooperate with other governments and their Space Force counterparts.

Eli Karetny Excellent. Thank you. Thank you for that. Let’s kind of bring this all together by exploring the international legal frameworks governing space. You mentioned the four treaties. Maybe take us through, you know, where things began in 1967, right, with the Outer Space Treaty, and kind of how things have moved along legally and where we are now.

Mallory Stewart Yeah, definitely. Thank you. I mean, the Outer Space Treaty is really the backbone of space law from 1967. It developed after, actually, five years or so of concepts being discussed in the UN auspices, right? The idea of not placing a nuclear weapon in orbit around the Earth was discussed five years earlier under a resolution in the UN context. And ultimately, after recognizing the threats that the space environment could entail for escalation and nuclear escalation, the US and Russia having tested nuclear weapons in outer space, there was a recognition that we needed to have some guardrails and have some foundational space law concepts to guide space operations going forward. So that’s the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.

Hugely important by saying that, you know, space actors had to have due regard for each other’s operations, that there shouldn’t be any placement of WMD in orbit around the Earth. That actually countries can’t own celestial bodies, nor can they place, you know, WMD on those celestial bodies. But of course, it did leave open the idea of, you know, mining or extracting resources from the celestial bodies. It didn’t prohibit that. But let’s go from the Outer Space Treaty in 1967, which is still very much in force, reinforced most recently by a 2024 UN First Committee resolution that recognized the significance of the Outer Space Treaty, to the tune of 165, I think, countries agreeing that it’s important and significant and must be upheld and strengthened, especially Article Four’s prohibition of placement of nuclear weapons in space. So that’s even more countries than are party to the Outer Space Treaty itself supporting it.

Then we have the Rescue Agreement, 1968, where astronauts are to be treated as envoys of mankind, so that there’s a collaboration and cooperation element in this treaty, so that if, you know, any astronauts are stranded or have challenges, they can be protected by the global community operating under this treaty. We have the Liability Convention of 1972, making the important point that states will be liable for damage from either their space launch or space objects, space launch from their territory, or damage caused by their, you know, space activities and space assets. And that’s an important convention, because, of course, as you bring in commercial players, how does that work? If there is intentional negligence, if the commercial players become proxies for other governments, how is that going to play out? And there’s a lot of questions in that context. And then, of course, the Registration Convention, 1976, tracking and providing transparency for space objects.

There’s a fifth treaty that hasn’t been ratified by major space powers, which is the Moon Agreement. And the challenge of ratifying that treaty from 1979, of course, is that there’s an interest in extracting some resources, and that the Moon Treaty sort of went out of its way to prohibit that extraction capability and provided other sort of limitations that were inconsistent with where the major space players are hoping to go.

So the four background treaties provide certain context, right? No state can claim sovereignty over space or celestial bodies. Space should be free for the exploration and use for all states. You know, most of the use and activities should be for peaceful purposes, though that doesn’t prohibit the militaries from conducting space activities. But there’s, you know, there’s a sense that, especially on celestial bodies, there shouldn’t be a militarization. Again, the ban on weapons of mass destruction in orbit, and then again, the state’s responsibility and liability for space activities. And that’s an important concept, as we see the commercialization rise.

Eli Karetny So it’s been, if I understand this, it’s been 40, 50 years since we’ve passed any treaty or convention relating to space. And you mentioned that there’s disagreement over the Moon Treaty. I wonder what other issues are preventing kind of an update to international space law? Like, what, besides mining, what are some of the issues that are, you know, causing some international legal disputes?

Mallory Stewart Yeah, absolutely. I’m glad you asked that. I think one of the biggest challenges to any treaty architecture when it prohibits activities, is, you know, how you enforce it if there’s no verification mechanism. So I’m just going to put that out there. That’s not directly responsive to your question, but the Outer Space Treaty certainly was negotiated and concluded before the vast majority of technology we have right now even existed, and so there was no concept of how we would verify it. Space was much more opaque, and there wasn’t really an understanding of how we could build a verification architecture in an arena in which there are very few players and very few technologies that would allow us to see what’s happening. Now, as many years later, we do have the capability to sort of attribute certain actions and see what’s happening in the space arena, and hopefully that would result in accountability under the Outer Space Treaty, or sort of UN mechanisms. But that lack of verification, I think, is one of the biggest challenges that we face with respect to treaty law across the board, but especially in the space domain, when all of these treaties came about much before the technology existed.

But to your specific question as to what are some of the challenges, definitional challenges are problematic for trying to update the treaty structure, right? We’ve seen Russia and China put forward their Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space Treaty, known as PPWT. And the challenge for the US and our allies in that context has been the limited definition in that treaty really seemed to allow earth-based weapons, such as ASAT lasers and other capabilities to continue to exist, but prohibit, in an undefined way, space-based weapons. And without some sort of verification capacity, how do you even know what a space-based weapon is? Is there such a thing when, again, as I mentioned before, any satellite can be a weapon if it’s used in a malicious way?

And so we have suggestions that we need to have a treaty that would somehow encapsulate the prevention of a weaponization of space. And to the US mind, it’s not realistic, because these definitions are evolving. They’re not coherent in an arena in which everything is inherently dual-use. A satellite for peaceful purposes could become a weapon. And so what the US is pursuing is more a behavioral-oriented, rules of responsible behavior approach, which tries to work with the international community to understand what is destabilizing. And it’s been effective, right? We’ve managed to get 155 countries to agree in 2022 to a resolution that prohibited direct-ascent, so earth-space, destructive debris-creating anti-satellite tests. Because even though, yes, the US, Russia, India, and China have conducted these types of tests historically, you don’t need to do so moving forward. It’s destabilizing in the sense that you create massive amounts of debris that makes the space operating arena harder and potentially could even be weaponized against smaller satellites in other domains.

So you know, trying to take a behavioral approach, which is saying it’s not helpful to create more debris, to do it intentionally, to test an anti-satellite capability, is even more destabilizing. Let’s take steps to at least tell the global community that this is not something that the majority of the world wants to see. How you hold it accountable is another question. But at least if 155 countries have said this is a bad idea, we haven’t seen any such ASAT tests happen since the time of that resolution. And that’s a good sign, given that for every couple of years before then, we had some direct-ascent destructive ASAT tests between Russia’s in November of 2021 and India’s before that in 2019.

So that’s one example of the debate. Russia and China want to lock into a very structured treaty that is unverifiable, some prohibitions that may or may not advantage their ground-based space weapons, and use it to sort of wag their finger at other countries they think are weaponizing the outer space arena. The US agrees that space weapons are challenging, but we can’t define it and lock it into a treaty structure in any coherent way that allows you to actually implement it or verify it. And so that’s why we’re taking a behavioral approach. We could talk about close approach limitations. We could talk about whether we can put beacons on commercial operating satellites to sort of highlight the transparency that’s needed in that arena. But certainly, that treaty versus responsible behavior approach to space is one of the biggest conflicts, or at least debates, in how we stabilize the outer space arena, and there’s others, but that’s the biggest one. It’s…

Eli Karetny Interesting to hear the political dynamics at the international level, and where different countries line up on these important legal issues. I wonder as a final question, domestically, how do political forces line up on these questions? Like with everything else, is there a kind of a neat split along party lines on these issues, or are things more complicated?

Mallory Stewart I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s a neat split along party lines at all in the space arena, unfortunately. And if there is a neat split, I think it’s just too, you know, it’s too expedient to sort of fall into that trap. You know, there was some significant controversy about the Golden Dome initiative. There is significant controversy, I should say, because of its assertion that it’s going to work on space-based interceptors, essentially placing space weapons interceptor capacity in the outer space arena that could target ballistic missiles or other missile trajectories in Earth’s atmosphere.

And I think this reflects a deep concern of, one, destabilization for a strategic stability conflict. But two, a very, very clear signal that, you know, everyone’s going to have to arm themselves up against these space-based weapon systems. I think that aspect of Golden Dome is challenging, and I think there has been a split in those that support the initiative and those that don’t. But I would argue there are aspects of Golden Dome that reflect many, many years of ongoing developments, right? The need to coordinate between our missile defense sensors, the need to ensure that we have a clear flow of communication between our various, you know, satellite and sensor operators, that we can have greater space situational awareness, that we can, you know, sort of enhance support for those technologies that can lead to more transparency on our space arena so that we can protect ourselves against attacks. Those are not concepts that fall into Republican or Democratic talking points. They should merge both of them. They should be supported across political aisles.

I think you know, you do have political debates about the, again, the space-based interceptors, the more controversial aspects. But to have a multi-layered sensing structure that provides greater capacity to see incoming threats and greater capacity to understand the landscape, both on Earth and in the outer space arena of weapon systems, is not something that I think people really debate is needed.

But perhaps there is also a debate as to whether we could discuss the concerns that our potential adversaries have about Golden Dome space-based interceptors with them. I think it’s a perfectly good conversation to have. It’s a needed conversation to say, here’s the reason we need a Golden Dome. We’ve seen the rise in new and novel weapons. We’ve seen a failure to abide by existing arms control architectures. We’ve seen no impetus or incentive from China or Russia, really, to engage with us on risk reduction conversations. And now we’re feeling that, while we’ve tried for decades to be leaders in arms control and risk reduction and disarmament, we feel there’s been no corresponding response. And so we find ourselves in an environment in which we feel like, you know, we’ve got the short end of the stick, and we have to develop a capacity under the Golden Dome arena to address Russia’s eight new superweapons that are new and novel, to discuss the rise in China’s nuclear arsenal exponentially that they still have failed to acknowledge, and the fact that they rely on no first use as if we can trust that when they also have developed long-term warning capabilities and other sort of capabilities that may be challenging in a truly held no first use policy position.

So, you know, I think Golden Dome could provide a good basis to at least explain ourselves to them and explain why we think they need to come to the table so we can discuss why they’re concerned about Golden Dome. And that should be across the political spectrum. But you know, it remains to be seen if there’s support for rules and risk reduction in these emerging technology domains. Because thus far, the implication of this administration has been they don’t want to see regulations on AI, they don’t want to see more rules in the outer space arena, because they think they can basically win through US innovation all of these arms racing spaces.

Eli Karetny It’s a great place to end this in terms of thinking about an issue, and a really important issue, that could potentially bring political partners together, both at the domestic level and the international level. Mallory Stewart, thank you so much for your time and insight. An incredibly important topic that we’ll be hearing more and more about. So thank you again for your time.

Mallory Stewart Thank you so much, Eli. It’s been a pleasure. I really appreciate the opportunity to have a conversation about this with you. So thank you.

Mallory Stewart Bye.