THE DIPLOMAT

APLN member Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan warned that bringing nuclear elements into space, be it a nuclear weapon or a nuclear-powered counterspace weapon, will have serious repercussions. Read the full article here.

Deployment of a nuclear explosive would of course break several of the Russian commitments to keeping space as a peaceful domain. This would be a significant violation of Russian obligations under the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, though this assumes that Russia cares about or considers the international ramifications of its actions. This would essentially mean killing of the Treaty that has, by and large, managed to maintain the sanctity of outer space as a peaceful domain.

This is far more dangerous than any recent development, even in the context of states breaking unwritten moratoriums and norms that had prevailed for a long time. Breaking norms is easy, but getting states back to complying with those norms that they have violated is a lot harder. For example, if other major space powers followed Russia’s example, the situation may be difficult to recover.

Breaking norms and setting in motion a new destructive activity would trigger reactions and responses that may lead to further escalation. To give a concrete example: The norm to not test ASAT weapons had prevailed since the mid-1980s, but was broken by China with its first successful ASAT test in January 2007. Another example is the norm to not interfere in each other’s satellite functioning, but this too has been repeatedly broken through any number of electronic and cyber warfare incidents.

Instead of helping build the much-needed consensus for developing new rules of the road to regulate the kind of activities states engage in, Russia is busy breaking the existing norms, treaties, and other global measures. Bringing the nuclear element into space, be it a nuclear weapon or a nuclear-powered counterspace weapon, will have serious repercussions for space utilization. Russia’s own ability to use space will be hampered if it goes down this slippery path.

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