Effects of Investment on Pathways to Space Security

April 2018 No Comments

Effects of Investment on Pathways to Space Security

Author(s): Dr. John Stevenson (NSI, Inc.)

[Q10] Does substantial investment and heavier commitment by both governments and commercial interests provide an avenue of approach for space ‘security’ and disincentive for kinetic military action?

Summary Response

Expert contributors wrestle with three factors in answering this question:

• Whether spending more will improve security and disincentivize kinetic action.

• Whether either or both commercial and government actors should spend more.

• If both, then whether commercial and government actors should do so independently or through partnership.

80% of the expert contributors affirm that increased spending would provide an avenue of approach for space security and disincentive for kinetic military action. The remaining 20% diverge on why they do not believe that spending would improve space security. Some contributors aver that the effect of spending on security and kinetic action is conditional on the type of adversary, or if the rules of the road resulting from increased investment reduced pathways toward inadvertent escalation, whereas others argue that increased spending increased the number of targets and increased the possibility of wasteful spending.

Almost every contributor supporting increased spending as a disincentive for kinetic military action argues that spending from both commercial and government actors would have the predicted positive effects, and that neither type of actors’ spending would be more efficacious. Only one contributor, Group Captain (Indian Air Force ret.) Ajey Lele of the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, suggests that one type of actors’ spending—state actors—would have greater impact.8 Finally, although most contributors did not specify whether they believe the positive effects from increased investment required partnership, or would occur even if commercial and government actors invested independently of each other, the few contributors that accounted for this parameter specifically mentioned public-private partnerships as the most effective vehicle for investment.

This publication was released as part of SMA’s Contested Space Operations: Space Defense, Deterrence, and Warfighting project. For more information regarding this project, please click here.