September 30, 2026
The Outer Space Treaty and the Race for Space Control
The rules governing space were not designed for an age when satellites have become military targets themselves.
By: Andrew Davidson
In September, the United States publicly acknowledged for the first time that it operates weapons in orbit. The announcement confirmed how far the military competition in space had already progressed. Beijing and Moscow criticized the U.S. announcement, but both are developing systems that can threaten an opponent’s satellites while protecting their own access to space. China has demonstrated close approaches and robotic servicing, while Russia has jammed satellite signals and tested ground-based anti-satellite weapons.
Possessing these capabilities does not necessarily violate the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which bars weapons of mass destruction from orbit but does not broadly prohibit conventional counterspace systems. However, much has changed in the past six decades, especially the depth of military reliance on satellites. Satellites now support communications, navigation, targeting and command in conventional war while remaining part of missile-warning and nuclear-communications systems. An attack intended to disrupt conventional satellite operations could reduce warning times or be interpreted as the opening of a disarming nuclear strike. This dependence is accelerating a race to disrupt rival space services while keeping one’s own operating. The treaty could remain intact even as competition weakens strategic stability.
The Treaty’s Original Logic
The Outer Space Treaty did not demilitarize space. When it entered into force, the United States and the Soviet Union already used satellites for reconnaissance and communications, and space-based warning systems were under development. The treaty kept space open to all states, barred national claims of sovereignty, and prohibited nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction in orbit. It did not expressly prohibit conventional weapons, military satellites or most counterspace capabilities.
This arrangement served both powers. Satellites could pass over rival territory without violating national airspace, making military forces and preparations harder to conceal. That visibility reduced the risk of surprise and helped Washington and Moscow verify arms control agreements. The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and the subsequent Strategic Arms Reduction treaties added a specific protection. Each side could use national technical means, including satellites, to monitor compliance. The agreements prohibited either side from interfering with those systems. These rules covered treaty verification, not military satellites generally, and were separate from the Outer Space Treaty. New START expired in February 2026 without a replacement, ending that treaty’s explicit noninterference rule. China was never part of that U.S.-Russian arrangement.
The treaty preserved access to space and satellite overflight, which supported observation, warning and arms control verification. It is less suited to an era in which satellites enable conventional warfare and have become military targets themselves.
Dependence, Vulnerability and Nuclear Entanglement
The greatest strategic danger concerns satellites used for missile warning and nuclear command. Infrared satellites can provide the first indication of a missile launch by detecting the heat from a missile’s engines. Ground radars then help confirm the attack and refine its trajectory. Protected satellite communications also connect leaders with nuclear forces. Some satellites, ground stations and communications networks support both conventional and nuclear missions.
This overlap makes an attack difficult to interpret. In a conflict over Taiwan, China might disrupt U.S. missile warning satellites to reduce warning of its conventional missile strikes. But Washington could interpret the same attack as an attempt to weaken its nuclear warning before a nuclear strike. During the Cold War, space-based early warning gave American and Soviet leaders more time to identify the source and scale of an attack and issue orders. Survivable nuclear forces gave each side a second-strike capability, enabling them to retaliate after absorbing a first strike. Early warning did not create that capability, but it helped leaders direct surviving forces.
The consequences of an attack also depend on where a satellite operates and how easily it can be replaced. A geostationary satellite orbits above the equator at the same rate the Earth rotates, enabling it to remain over the same region and provide continuous coverage. That fixed position makes its location predictable. Military warning satellites in geostationary orbit are relatively few, expensive and difficult to replace quickly. Satellites in low Earth orbit move rapidly over the surface, so continuous coverage requires large constellations and an extensive ground network. If a satellite were forced into repeated evasive maneuvers – to avoid an incoming attack, for example – it would consume its limited supply of propellant needed for station-keeping and shorten its operational life. And missiles are not the only physical threat; for example, spacecraft designed to inspect, repair or refuel another satellite could use the same technology to interfere with an enemy’s satellites.
A kinetic attack can also create debris that threatens the attacker’s own systems. Repeated destruction in crowded low Earth orbit could contribute to the Kessler effect, a cascade of collisions producing more debris. This risk favors nonkinetic counterspace weapons, including jamming, cyberattacks and sensor dazzling, which can disrupt services without creating debris.
The important point is that counterspace weapons do not need to destroy an opponent’s nuclear forces to affect the strategic balance. By reducing decision time and disrupting the orders needed to use surviving forces, attacks on warning and command systems can increase the risk of miscalculation and escalation.
Competing Approaches to Space Control
The U.S., China and Russia face the same need to protect, disrupt and restore space services, but they have different resources to do so.
The U.S. has built much of its way of war around space support, giving it a strong incentive to develop the necessary capabilities to defend its satellites and quickly recover from attacks. It is distributing warning, communications and tracking functions across larger constellations, fielding on-orbit weapons and drawing on commercial launch and satellite production. SpaceX demonstrated its launch cadence in September 2026, when Falcon 9 rockets carried three classified Space Force missions from Vandenberg Space Force Base within 16 days. Commercial networks provide additional communications and imagery, while allied sensors and ground stations expand tracking and geographic coverage. Much of this capacity remains concentrated in a limited number of companies, launch vehicles and launch sites. Launch capacity matters only if replacement spacecraft and payloads are ready before they are needed.
In addition to protecting its own growing dependence on satellites, China must prepare to disrupt U.S. space support in the event of a regional war. It is expanding its reconnaissance, communications and warning constellations while demonstrating close approaches, coordinated maneuvers, robotic servicing and the relocation of another spacecraft. The U.S. assesses that China likely conducted an on-orbit refueling demonstration in 2025, which could allow satellites to maneuver more often and remain useful longer. Beijing is also expanding a state-directed commercial launch industry to increase production and launch frequency. China lacks the global network of commercial providers and allies available to the U.S., but its industrial base gives it the ability to narrow that gap.
Russia faces stronger industrial constraints. Its smaller commercial and production base makes competing constellation for constellation more difficult. Moscow instead emphasizes jamming, spoofing, cyberattacks, direct-ascent anti-satellite weapons and spacecraft that can shadow foreign satellites. Russian jamming of satellite signals in Ukraine has shown how services can be disrupted without destroying spacecraft. The same limitations leave Russia less able to replace its own losses during a prolonged conflict.
Strategic Implications and Forecast
The Outer Space Treaty will probably survive because it still serves the major powers without seriously restricting the conventional systems they want. Withdrawal from the treaty would carry diplomatic costs while providing little military benefit. Additionally, the U.S. assesses that Russia is developing an orbital nuclear anti-satellite weapon. Deploying a nuclear weapon in orbit would violate the treaty’s central prohibition.
Most competition will intensify below the treaty’s limits. States will favor temporary or reversible interference over physical destruction. They will also distribute critical functions across larger constellations, protect sensitive spacecraft and prepare to restore lost services. Each effort to improve resilience will encourage opponents to expand their ability to disrupt it.
Concern over attacks on nuclear warning and command systems could push states toward limited agreements but probably not a new treaty. Such agreements could require notification before close approaches, agreed minimum distances from sensitive spacecraft or noninterference with missile warning and nuclear command systems. Broader protections will remain difficult because many of these systems also support commercial and conventional missions.
The clearest signs that the competition is deepening would be formal warnings that attacks on certain satellites could trigger retaliation, dedicated escort satellites and exercises demonstrating the replacement of lost warning capabilities. A confirmed attack that physically damaged another state’s satellite would mark a more serious escalation.
Competition within the treaty’s limits will place growing pressure on the strategic stability that satellite warning and observation helped create.