Nuclear Reset - Program on Strategic Stability Evaluation (POSSE)

Chapter 23. Space Weapons and the Problems485more likely to be achieved, both from the standpoint of its mutualmilitary and strategic acceptability to the parties and in the tangibilityof its technical parameters and its verifiability.The proposed treaty will necessarily be of a partial and selectivenature both for military and political reasons and in light of objectivetechnical and physical realities (in particular, the uniquenessof the space environment). This was also true, incidentally, forthe 1972 SALT I and the 1979 SALT II arms limitation treaties.If not for these natural stages of disarmament, however, the partieswould have never been able to achieve the unprecedented comprehensivereductions, limitations, and transparency measures of START Itwenty years later, or reach agreement on the New START in Praguein 2010. If this first step to demilitarize space through the verifiableprohibition of all anti-satellite systems and space-based ABM testingis taken, however, limited though it may be, it could be followed byother, more sweeping and intrusive verification measures, as happenedfor strategic nuclear arms limitation.The possibility for indirectly developing anti-satellite capabilitiesthrough related fields of military technology does not provide anyassurance that these would function properly under actual wartimeconditions, particularly if they involve not demonstrative actions, buta rapid and coordinated strike against the adversary’s space-basedsatellite constellations as a whole to bring about a fundamental andirreplaceable degradation of that adversary’s overall military capability.In exactly the same way, development of an ability to interceptballistic missiles with space-based ABM systems would not grantany assurance that it would be capable of countering great numbersof missiles and warheads in flight unless the combat platforms weredeployed and tested in orbit. Without full-scale testing, the nationsresponsible would never deploy such expensive weapons systems sovitally important for military planning. Besides, such future spacebasedABM systems could be countered using other asymmetricmeans and measures.With the change of U.S. administrations in 2008 and the deepeningglobal financial and economic crisis, the prospects of an expensiveand complex strategic ABM system (in particular a space-basedversion) being built by the United States are dubious. This is especiallytrue of space-to-Earth weapons.Finally, the main argument in favor of the proposed treaty is basedupon the question of what kind of realistic alternative there could