Building a Responsible Counterspace Campaign

At this year's Defense News Conference in September, General Michael Guetlein, the vice chief of space operations, drew attention to the Space Force's theory of success known as "Competitive Endurance." The concept was outlined in a January, 2024 white paper and founded upon three core tenets: (1) avoid operational surprise in space, (2) deny first-mover advantage in space, and (3) undertake responsible counterspace campaigning. The Space Force's efforts to build better space domain awareness and more resilient satellite constellations have contributed substantially to the first two pillars of the strategy. It is the last — responsible counterspace campaigning — that requires the most work to become a reality.

Due to the imbalance in dependence on space, deterring escalation in the domain must begin with a clear setting of red lines together with an expressed willingness to resort to non-space-based responses to the crossing of those lines. The setting of red lines on escalation in space is one area where the U.S. has fallen short. While it has criticized the proliferation of nuclear-armed anti-satellite weapons and stated its desire to see space used for peaceful purposes, it has not articulated any clear thresholds at which it would be willing to respond with force to certain actions.

A mixed strategy employing elements of both denial and punishment is the best means of enforcing red lines once they are set. Adversaries must perceive that they will both be denied the benefits of escalation in space and that any escalation will be met with a response that impacts things important to them. Space Force efforts to build more resilient satellite constellations contribute to denial. Because of the imbalance in dependence on space, the threat of punishment would be best built through surface capabilities.

At lower levels of escalation, the Space Force could spotlight malign behavior. The Space Force already fields Bounty Hunter, a system capable of locating the sources of electromagnetic interference against friendly satellites. If EM techniques were used by adversaries against U.S. or allied satellites, information on where the interference originated could be publicly released, showing the world China and Russia's provocative actions. Bounty Hunter could also be integrated with strike warfare assets in order to actually target EM interference against satellites. The Space Force could exercise Bounty Hunter information sharing with the other services in order to demonstrate such a capability. It should also work to improve its ability to locate other types of ground-based counterspace capabilities, such as direct ascent anti-satellite weapons. As with Bounty Hunter, such information could be shared with other services in order to target them. At still broader levels of escalation, the U.S. could respond to irresponsible counterspace activities by striking adversary critical infrastructure on the ground, causing proportional losses to what would occur if the U.S. or its allies lost access to space.

Responsible counterspace campaigning is a problem of deterrence. It begins at a policy level with the setting of clear red lines regarding various forms of escalation in space. Once these lines are set, the Space Force and other services must work to be capable of enforcing these lines, both by denying adversaries the benefit of crossing them and by punishing such escalation. Due to the imbalance in dependence on space capabilities between the U.S. and its adversaries, the U.S. must be capable of flexibly responding to various forms of counterspace escalation on the ground.

Luke Widenhouse is a research assistant at the Yorktown Institute and senior at St. John's College in Annapolis, MD