Outer Space Weapons - Possible Ways Forward

In the face of such spirited advocacy for space weapons by U.S. public officials, and the time spent without making progress on a PAROS treaty, the international community has still managed to achieve significant accomplishments and possess important alternative resources for ensuring security in outer space.

While concerns about China's capacity to quickly develop a space weapons program of its own are not completely unfounded[1], they are possibly misplaced given that China has been the most vocal, along with Russia, in the call for a PAROS treaty. For years, both countries had steadfastly demanded that negotiations on both an Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT) treaty and a PAROS treaty be conducted simultaneously. In 1995, at the prospect that consensus could be reached on FMCT, China and Russia dropped their insistence for linkage. China went one step further in 2002, downgrading its demand for negotiations on PAROS to simply a request for discussion of the issue, to which the U.S. finally agreed.

China, Russia and five other states (Viet Nam, Indonesia, Belarus, Zimbabwe, and Syria) submitted a working paper in 2002 outlining the basic elements of an international legal agreement on prohibiting the deployment of any weapons in outer space. It included language prohibiting the threat or use of force against space objects, and thus ASATs would also be outlawed.

Most significantly, Russia has done much in the way of confidence-building by unilaterally declaring a no first use policy on space weapons. Confidence building is the area of greatest potential for progress. Declarations such as those from Russia, help to reduce the incentive for developing a robust space weapons program by discrediting the claim that a country's space assets will inevitably become targets for attack.

Numerous noteworthy proposals made by civil society demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of the world, including those most capable of developing space weapons, is in agreement on keeping space for peace.

As of the last relevant meeting of the Conference on Disarmament, a number of possible elements were proposed for addition to the PAROS working paper. These include periodic review conferences, a speical provision banning anti-satellite weapons, and specific technical measures to mitigate andprevent debris creation.

In October 2005 a draft of a PAROS treaty was released by many of the nations involved in earlier agreements. It once again reaffirmed the belief that space should be used for peaceful purposes.

References:
[1] U.S. Defense Report: China Working on Anti-Satellite Systems