Last month, I reported for the New York Times that components of NASA’s robotic mission to Jupiter are catastrophically vulnerable to radiation. This is a big problem for NASA, but is perhaps a bigger problem for the Defense Department, whose satellites use the same components from the same manufacturer. Any critical American defense satellite that lacks adequate protection from Earth’s radiation belts is also highly vulnerable to nuclear detonations in orbit—precisely the sort of weapons we know Russia is actively developing.
Spaceborne assets have long been critical elements of modern warfare. Combatants only recently, however, have begun to consider space as a war-fighting domain unto itself. (NATO allies adopted this posture in 2019. The United States established the Space Force as a fifth branch of the armed forces later that year.) Perhaps because it is such a new conceptual battlefield, or perhaps because our vision has long been colored by Star Wars, for most of us, there is an element of the fantastic to space military operations.
Enter The Battle Beyond: Fighting and Winning the Coming War in Space, by Paul Szymanski and Jerry Drew: a masterful, sobering discussion of the complexities of space warfare, and the tactics that combatants will draw upon to wage it. The authors give context and language to space as a war-fighting domain, and whenever possible, find historical antecedents that might guide future actions. It’s more than “fire missile A at satellite B.” Here, Napoleonic interpretations of force maneuvers are reconciled with directed energy beams.
SURPRISE ATTACKS IN SPACE WARFARE
For a sense of what must be considered in space warfare, and depth of thought that Szymanski and Drew give the subject, consider the element of surprise. In warfare, it is a useful thing to do (see: Washington crossing the Delaware) and a terrible thing to have done to you (see: Pearl Harbor). Surprise doesn’t guarantee victory, as the Japanese can attest, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.
Historically, by way of reconnaissance satellites, space has hindered the ability of forces to conduct surprise attacks on the ground. But what would the element of surprise look like in space? In the best of circumstances, it’s hard to know what is happening in orbit. Sensors can only see so much, and “Napoleon did not have to consider what it means to mass [forces] in the electromagnetic spectrum,” the authors wryly observe. Moreover, there are myriad unknowns about spaceborne enemy weapons. What might exist? What might they do? Which ostensibly harmless satellites secretly possess offensive capabilities? We might not be able to detect offensive spacecraft even after their employment—or identify who employed them.
Spacecraft are particularly vulnerable to surprise attack, as Szymanski and Drew write, because it is impossible to armor satellites against hypervelocity weapons. In space, the side that attacks first might win by default. As with Cold War nuclear weapons, however, “the temptation to strike first and the inability to defend against such a strike may also make space warfare unstable for escalation control.”
It is a harrowing thought given the critical role spacecraft play in virtually every aspect of modern life: communication, storm forecasting, agriculture, travel. Once the shooting starts, when does it stop?
THE HUMAN ELEMENT
The authors meticulously break down the types of satellites circling the Earth today, or that might circle it soon—everything from GPS and weather satellites to space stations and inert debris. Some, such as the Disaster Monitoring Constellation, are civilian in nature, used for humanitarianism in the aftermath of catastrophes. Others are specifically military, such as orbital mines. Some satellites talk directly to Earth, while others talk to each other, relaying messages. Then there are otherwise-civilian spacecraft that carry military “ride share” payloads. During warfare, combatants would need full awareness of who owns what, what does what, where spacecraft are, how they’re moving, what’s their combat effectiveness, and how sure we are about all this information, anyway? (Does Russia have a space nuke or not? Are certain American spacecraft unexpectedly vulnerable to radiation?)
Space warfare is also about decision-making at the human level. “As tensions escalate on orbit, it will be essential for operators to understand what permissions they have for engaging other satellites,” the authors write, “especially if future satellites are equipped with an automated shoot-back capability.” To that end, the authors expand upon weapons release authorizations and suggested iconography for war planners to visualize and understand the possibilities of space warfare, and plot out meticulous vignettes and dilemmas we are likely to see in the future.
SPACE WARFARE IS COMING
For the layman and military strategist alike, The Battle Beyond is worth reading if only to gain some appreciation of the severity of the next war, and how it will almost certainly affect life back home. Adversaries of the United States have demonstrated not only the ability to conduct highly sophisticated spaceflight operations, but the willingness to use that ability to nefarious ends. Szymanski and Drew have written a compelling and nuanced account of what comes next, and a credible blueprint for how we might prevail.
