U.S. and Russian delegations met in Vienna on July 27 for the first Space Security Exchange dialogue between the two countries. The delegations ended the day, however, without a joint declaration or individual statements, leaving news organizations speculating that the two sides failed to find any common ground. Trump Administration officials had hoped that the meeting in Vienna would lead to the establishment of a set of voluntary norms for operating in space and possibly a new communications channel to link space officials on each side, the Wall Street Journal reported. But Russia has advocated a different approach: a formal treaty against the placement of weapons in space, reflecting Moscow’s long- standing push to head off a potential U.S. effort to develop space-based anti-missile defenses.
Meanwhile, the British Empire‛s Chatham House (aka, Royal Institute for International Affairs) has weighed in to ensure that Russia is treated as the enemy in outer space. Two research fellows, Dr. Beyza Unal of the International Security Program and Mathieu Boulègue of the Russia and Eurasia Program, wrote in a paper posted just ahead of the SSE meeting that it‛s Russia that must prove that it‛s not weaponizing outer space. “By exploiting asymmetric advantages in space, Russia seeks to leverage its capabilities against competitors in space and in other domains,” they write. “This falls in line with Russia’s wider military strategy as well as its current Federal Space Program for 2016 to 2025.”
They claim that Russia‛s “buzzing” of a U.S. KH-11 spy satellite earlier this year was no different from Russian bombers flying around the British Isles or Russian submarine surveillance of Norway. “Despite Russia’s calls for a treaty to prevent the placement of weapons in outer space, there remains little international trust in Russia’s behavior in space so far” going into the SSE meeting, they claim. They then forecast that the SSE meeting might not achieve anything “since the future of outer space requires a wider multilateral dialogue with all parties involved – including China.”
“Space has been militarized since 1957 with the launch of Soviet satellite Sputnik,” they conclude. “But the increasing weaponization of space adds more uncertainty, and unveils more vulnerabilities, that states need to address before space warfare becomes a reality.” And naturally, it‛s all Russia‛s fault.
