Anti-satellite painting by William K. Hartmann
By Leonard David,
Published in ‘Inside Outer Space’ – 5 February, 2021
A new report suggests that because the US military edge over prospective opponents is eroding, the United States now needs every advantage it can get. Inflicting surprise on our adversaries is one tool for regaining strategic advantage.
Mark Cancian, Senior Advisor to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) International Security Program, explains how the United States has used surprise in warfare in the past and how best to do it again in the future.
The new report, Inflicting Surprise: Gaining Competitive Advantage in Great Power Conflicts, highlights several components of a successful surprise, including exploiting adversary vulnerabilities, using intelligence and technology, employing secrecy and deception, and doing the unexpected. The report also contains over a dozen vignettes illustrating potential future surprises.
Domain of outer space
Regarding the domain of outer space, Cancian notes that a CSIS’s Aerospace Security Project identified four types of weapons that states or even some non-state actors can use to disrupt satellite networks:
— kinetic counter space
— non-kinetic counter space,
— electronic weapons, and
— cyber weapons
The authors of that earlier CSIS report —Harrison, Johnson, and Robinson—also identify how each great power competitor has made advancements in their offensive space capability. The Chinese, for example, have continued to develop anti-satellite weapons since the 2000s. Russia is also making a concerted effort to develop and test new anti-satellite technologies.
