ASYMMETRY, VOLATILITY, AND ESCALATION Asymmetry, volatility, and escalation: The potential for American military responses to Chinese offensive action in space by Simon Wells A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Social and Applied Sciences in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Human Security and Peacebuilding Royal Roads University Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Supervisor: Dr. Binoy Kampmark April 2020 Simon Wells, 2020 ASYMMETRY, VOLATILITY, AND ESCALATION i COMMITTEE APPROVAL The members of Simon Wells’s Thesis Committee certify that they have read the thesis titled “Asymmetry, volatility, and escalation: The potential for American military responses to Chinese offensive action in space” and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the thesis requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Human Security and Peacebuilding : Dr. Binoy Kampmark, The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology [signature on file] Dr. Robert J. Hanlon, Thompson Rivers University [signature on file] Captain Donald McFarling , CD, The Royal Military College of Canada [signature on file] Final approval and acceptance of this thesis is contingent upon submission of the final copy of the thesis to Royal Roads University. The thesis supervisor confirms to have read this thesis and recommends that it be accepted as fulfilling the thesis requirements: Dr. Binoy Kampmark [signature on file] ASYMMETRY, VOLATILITY, AND ESCALATION ii Creative Commons Statement This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc- sa/2.5/ca/ . Some material in this work is not being made available under the terms of this licence: • Third-Party material that is being used under fair dealing or with permission. • Any photographs where individuals are easily identifiable. ASYMMETRY, VOLATILITY, AND ESCALATION Abstract The potential for conflict in space or related to space systems is an under-researched issue. Space conflict could dramatically affect States and individuals, and therefore can be situated in the escalation, great power rivalry, and human security bodies of knowledge. A normative policy analysis of the potential for conflict resulting from space contestation between the United States and China will seek to determine if volatility in space is qualifiable. Using the stated positions of the U.S. and China, inquiries into strategic priorities, hazards and risk, and legal mechanisms for conflict escalation aim to pragmatically respond to this gap and indicate where, if at all, potential for space conflict escalation exists. A discussion of the results situates them within the strategic rivalry between the United States and China and leads to practical recommendations for further research in this new set of problems in a new domain. Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... i List of tables .................................................................................................................................................. ii Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................................... iii Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 1 Literature review ........................................................................................................................................... 5 Methodology and methods .......................................................................................................................... 20 Results ......................................................................................................................................................... 25 Discussion ................................................................................................................................................... 40 Conclusion and recommendations .............................................................................................................. 56 References ................................................................................................................................................... 60 List of tables Table 1: Research question and sub-questions……………………………………………………………22 Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge and thank my thesis supervisor, Dr. Binoy Kampmark of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, for his guidance and attentiveness to the most granular of details in this research paper. I am also grateful to my thesis committee: Captain Donald McFarling of The Royal Military College of Canada helped me refine the concept of this project, and Dr. Robert J. Hanlon of Thompson Rivers University and Royal Roads University heavily influenced my interest in China. In equal amounts, for their support of my work and my research, I extend my thanks to my team and superiors at 4 th Canadian Division Headquarters of the Canadian Army; Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) David Bashow, OMM, CD of the Canadian Military Journal and his team; Lieutenant Colonel Doug Moulton, CD of the Royal Canadian Air Force Journal and his team; Dr. Laura Grego of the Union of Concerned Scientists (USA); and Dr. Kenneth Christie and the School of Humanitarian Studies at Royal Roads University. For her support in this and all my endeavours, I thank my wife (soon-to-be, at the time of this writing) Dr. Aisha Ahmad of the University of Toronto. Finally, I would be remiss not to acknowledge the profound effects of legendary space figures on my life and on my research interests, including but not limited to: Commander Chris Hadfield, OC, OOnt, MSC, CD; The Honourable Marc Garneau, PC, CC, CD, MP; Dr. Roberta Bondar, CC, OOnt; and, the crews of the Space Shuttles Challenger and Columbia . ASYMMETRY, VOLATILITY, AND ESCALATION 1 Introduction Discussion of space conflict is sometimes initiated by comparing and contrasting it with reference to “Star Wars” or “Star Trek”, but that is ill-suited because it fails to capture the spirit of the space race. More accurate points of reference would be the Franklin Expedition or the first space race and the Cold War, which were respectively characterized by intrepid exploration into nearby but unknown environments, extraordinary mistrust, passive aggression, and volatility. There is a remarkable level of cooperation amidst rivalry in space that is analogous to Arctic exploration and research (Byers, 2019, p. 36), in which the immediate need to survive and function in a hostile environment co-exists with strategic competition. Space as a domain is much like that today: space powers and commercial actors are racing alongside each other into near- and high-orbit, onward to the Moon in order to project strategic advantages, both in national defence and security and in the marketplace respectively, back to Earth. The first space race included all of the globally-renowned human achievements accomplished by the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, notably cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s orbit of Earth in 1961; and, the Apollo program culminating in astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and six other crewed landings reaching the Moon. There existed a distinctly militant element to the space race, which was a proxy battle in the Cold War just as it was a set of triumphs for humanity. President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) is a prime example: proposed in 1983, it was an American development initiative for nuclear missile interception technology potentially comprised of lasers, microwave devices, particle and projective beams; however, the initiative was ultimately (and predictably) unproductive in space-based defence and was reorganized as a ballistic missile defence program ASYMMETRY, VOLATILITY, AND ESCALATION 2 at the end of the Cold War (The Learning Network, 2012, n.p.). The SDI is an early example of non-kinetic space-borne weapons being conceptualized to win the advantage in terrestrial conflict. Today, the advantages sought in space have increased but the basic principles remain the same. Space powers, primarily the United States and the People’s Republic of China, race to occupy orbital space and influence the system of actors, phenomenon, and threats to their favour. Amidst this traditional-style rivalry, the commercialization of space has been given an attractive outward appearance by popular billionaire business heroes Elon Musk of SpaceX, Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic, and Jeff Bezos of Blue Origin. This congestion is the very reason that the militarization of space is concerning to international security experts, military officials, and human security experts: the interconnectedness of space systems, the duality of civilian and military uses for space systems, and the possibility of disruption in the event of conflict pose serious risk to individual and State security on Earth. The International Committee on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (2016) reports that the American-led Global Positioning System (GPS) uses 27 satellites of varying models in six orbital planes, servicing increasing civil and military demands (p. 4) accurately within three meters horizontally and five meters vertically (p. 7). The