Proliferate, Don’t Obliterate: How Responsive Launch Marginalizes Anti-Satellite Capabilities

​Concern over the Kessler syndrome — in which destroying satellites creates an impenetrable field of debris that blocks all access to space — has generated considerable public opposition to anti-satellite weapons. Nevertheless, a number of countries, the People’s Republic of China foremost among them, continue to actively research, develop, and test both kinetic and nonkinetic anti-satellite capabilities. This has led to something of a miniature arms race, with geopolitical rivals rushing to field offensive anti-satellite capabilities alongside the defensive measures to counter them. The conventional wisdom appears to be that anti-satellite weapons represent a singular danger, as existing legal frameworks
The post Proliferate, Don’t Obliterate: How Responsive Launch Marginalizes Anti-Satellite Capabilities appeared first on War on the Rocks.