Asymmetric tactics may be what Putin next pulls from his bag of tricks. The head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Jeff Kruse, says that Russia “may be learning dangerous lessons from its space mischief,” according to Patrick Tucker of Defense One. During an Aspen Institute talk on Wednesday, Kruse suggested that the West is not standing up strongly to Russia’s increasingly aggressive activities in space and that it must be taught a lesson. A lack of financial and technical resources has not stopped Putin with moving forward with his military space plans.
“Russia [is] actively targeting, through electronic warfare, the lower orbit domain, and, you know, having minimal repercussions… We need to make sure we understand what lessons Russia might be drawing from that. And then how do we want to change the environment so that we understand essentially that there may be repercussions with respect to that?” according to Kruse.
Even more disconcerting is that Russia’s weak performance in its war in Ukraine may force Putin to turn his attention to targeting US and global space communications and navigation assets. Kruse points out that “Their lack of potential superiority drives…asymmetric issues.”
At the same meeting, Gen. Stephen Whiting, the head of the US Space Command pointed out that in response to the increased threat potential from Moscow, the Pentagon is making additional efforts to ensure all US satellites are able to withstand attacks. He described recent Pentagon efforts to make sure that its satellites can withstand attacks and pointed out that the United States’ newest generations of GPS satellites have greater capabilities to withstand intrusions and that “Now we fly with something called M-CODE, which is available to military users. It’s a military-specific satellite that improves our anti-jam capability.”
China, according to Whiting, is a very different type of threat in space. While Russia is targeting space with weapons that could eliminate the satellites of multiple nations, China’s military Space Force is relying on space to build a stronger force to confront the United States in the Pacific. He says that “In the last six years, they’ve tripled the number of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance satellites they have on orbit,” Whiting added that China is flying “hundreds and hundreds of satellites—again, purpose-built and designed to find, fix, track, target and, yes, potentially engage us and allied forces across the Indo-Pacific.” Russia is not, however, stopping its attempt to play a more dominant role in militarizing space.
Key Russian Roscosmos executives, according to Pavel Luzin of the Eurasia Daily Monitor, have signed and approved a schedule for deployment of a new Russian orbital station with the next decade. The Kremlin’s target date remains questionable given its expanding problems with a lack of personnel and shortages of scientific, technological, industrial and financial resources. Mounting problems, according to Luzin, may still lead to an indefinite pause in Russia’s military manned space program. Right now it remains a key link to Putin’s designs on the West. The aim of the new space station, according to Moscow, is to survey its Arctic regions, notes Luzin. The key problems for Putin remain financial and technical planning due to the war in Ukraine using scarce resources that might force Moscow to move forward without a permanent crew to carry out tasks. “Understanding Russia’s desire to develop indiscriminate counterspace weapons, including a nuclear anti-satellite capability, means recognizing that one of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s top goals has always been to weaken the stature and influence of the United States,” according to Clayton Swope and Makena Young of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Space is not a level playing field between the United States and Russia. Moscow views its use differently. The West should be concerned that Putin is either developing or possesses many different counterspace weapons. Given Russia’s economic isolation from the West, Washington has few options to pressure Russia to be more responsible to shut down its military space program.
Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.