Why America Needs a New Playbook for Space Deterrence

On January 11, 2007, China destroyed one of its own satellites with a direct-ascent anti-satellite missile, demonstrating its ability to impair foreign space systems. The international community issued stern statements, but they did not implement significant consequences. As a result, more demonstrations followed. In 2019, India conducted its own anti-satellite test; then, in 2021, Russia 'killed' its own satellite: Kosmos 1408. For military strategists and policymakers, the lesson was clear: the space domain was no longer a sanctuary from conflict.

Today, more than 70 nations maintain space programs. The cost of reaching orbit has plummeted—from over $100,000 per kilogram in 1960 to less than $20,000 today. Nations have deployed constellations of hundreds, or thousands, of satellites, and they've developed anti-satellite weapons that can disable or destroy these systems without generating debris clouds. Meanwhile, modern militaries have grown deeply dependent on space systems for everything from precision strikes to logistics to communications.

These factors have created a dangerous paradox: space has never been more important to national security, yet it has never been more vulnerable to attack.

Yet despite the growing threat, America lacks a coherent framework for deterring attacks on its space systems. The problem isn't that we don't understand deterrence—it's that we're still using Cold War logic in a fundamentally different environment.

During the Cold War, space deterrence was relatively stable. Yet, these factors have eroded. The number of nations that possess anti-satellite weaponry has increased. Satellites now provide conventional, not just nuclear, advantages. New weapons—lasers, cyber attacks, electronic jammers—can disable satellites without creating debris. And the attribution problem has become severe: when a satellite malfunctions, was it a natural failure, a cyberattack, or deliberate interference? Who's responsible?

Adversaries like China have repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to conduct what General David Thompson of the U.S. Space Force calls "reversible" attacks—temporary interference with satellites using lasers, radio frequency jammers, or cyber intrusions. These gray-zone tactics probe American resolve without crossing clear red lines. They're the orbital equivalent of slowly slicing a salami: each individual cut seems too small to warrant escalation, but the cumulative effect is substantial.

Threatening massive retaliation isn't credible for these lower-level threats. Would the United States really launch a devastating counterattack because China temporarily jammed a communications satellite? Beijing doesn't think so, which is why these probes continue.

Introducing a new report from the Security and Democracy Forum: Building a Contemporary Space Deterrence Framework: Applying Coercion Theory to the Space Domain. This report, authored by our Research Associate Austin Hillebrandt, looks at applying the deterrence framework to the space domain.

The space domain is no longer a sanctuary. It's congested, contested, and increasingly competitive. America's Cold War deterrence playbook, which assumed rational actors would avoid debris-generating attacks out of mutual self-interest, no longer matches reality. We need a new approach—one that tailors deterrence strategies to specific adversaries, focuses on denial rather than punishment for lower-level threats, and invests in the resilience and debris removal capabilities that make our orbital advantages enduring.

The alternative is to discover, in the crucible of crisis, that our deterrent was never as credible as we believed.