Issue 102

28 Jun: Clayton Swope and Makena Young from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published an article exploring ways in which Russia may be influenced to refrain from placing destructive counterspace weapons, including a nuclear anti-satellite capability, on orbit. Excerpts below, read entire article here.

– One of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s top goals has always been to weaken the stature and influence of the United States. Because the United States maintains unrivaled advantages and prestige in space, while conversely Russian space equities have declined, there is no better domain in which Russia can erode U.S. standing.

– The United States has little economic leverage left, as Russia is mostly economically isolated from the West. On the other hand, China and India have significantly increased their trade ties with Russia. They have unique leverage that could be used to convince Russia to drop its pursuit of indiscriminate space weapons.

– Russia either already fields or is developing many different types of counterspace weapons. Russia is allegedly developing a nuclear space-based anti-satellite weapon that would probably be capable of disabling hundreds of satellites through radiation effects or the resulting electromagnetic pulse.

– China has far surpassed Russia as the second most prominent spacefaring nation behind the United States. India is motivated to succeed in space, landing a probe on the Moon last year and pursuing ambitious crewed missions to Earth orbit, and will likely soon overtake Russia as the world’s third most important space power.

– Russian space capabilities do not play a significant role on the battlefield. Russia’s version of GPS, called GLONASS, is extremely unreliable. Almost all of the GLONASS satellites are past their service lives and starting to fail. To supplement insufficient Russian satellite communications capabilities, Russian troops allegedly use illicitly procured Starlink terminals in Ukraine.

– Russia has little to lose from a disruption to space access, whereas the United States has everything to lose. Moscow is using its aerospace engineering expertise, derived from Soviet-era achievements, to develop counterspace strike capability that can harm vital U.S. space interests.

– Even with Western sanctions, the Russian economy managed to grow over the last year. In fact, the International Monetary Fund expects the Russian economy to grow faster over the next year than any other advanced economy. To a large degree, credit for this achievement goes to China and India. Trade between China and Russia hit a record high in 2023, increasing over 26 percent since the year prior. China gets more oil from Russia than from any other country. India is also buying a lot of Russian oil. Indian trade with Russia has markedly increased since 2022, with no signs of slowing down.

– Militarily and economically, China is probably as dependent on space capabilities as the United States. China’s military operates hundreds of ISR satellites in multiple orbits. Space is integrated into China’s Digital Silk Road initiative, strengthening relationships in Africa and the Global South.

– China and Russia have the economic leverage to impact Russian national interests. They could require Russia to abandon certain indiscriminate counterspace capabilities or suffer the economic consequences when China and India buy less Russian oil and China stops selling Russia advanced technologies.

– The United States could link Indian support for pressuring Russia to give up indiscriminate space weapons with the initiation of discussions with India on a free trade agreement, potentially like the Indian and Australian one signed last year.