NATO’s Final Frontier – Space?

It appears that The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has agreed, at least in spirit, that space is a military ‘operational domain’ and decisions in the future should be made accordingly. This is a sharp contrast to the thinking decades ago, where European Space Agency’s (ESA) 22-members had stated that space ‘must’ remain non-militarized, even as the U.S. and Russians continued to covertly plan for the future wars in space, or use of space assets for dual purpose – instruments of experimentation and weapons of war. What changed?

After all, the Russians and Americans both participated along with Europe, Japan and other nations in the ISS (International Space Station). Most all developed and even some less-than-developed nations have communication satellites. China has a robust space program, India too. After the cold-war with Russia we learned of secret and not so secret U.S. and Russian space weapons projects. Since then both China and India have downed their own satellites by way of missile intercept launches to destroy them.

Today, we have guided munitions which could not operate without space assets. The entire concept of Net-Centric Warfare is based on space-based surveillance and communication. Hypersonic missiles will go into low-Earth orbit before hurtling towards earth at break-neck unheard of speeds. Our enemies have found sophisticated ways to blind our satellites, spoof GPS, hack into satellites or flash them. Somehow, all the ‘feature creep’ of military tech has become reliant on space assets. It would be impossible to put that genie back in the bottle now.

NATO’s Space Declaration of Operational Domain

One could say that NATO really has no choice otherwise it will be left behind and become a sitting duck of a future adversary. Being able to detect a missile launch threat early will mean the difference between eliminating the threat and thus, only able to respond after the fact. Another huge consideration is the hardening of satellite communication used for GPS and other critical telemetry and data. China is preparing also, and considered space superiority crucial for its military. Thus, China is integrating electronic and cyber warfare with its space program.

Early warning and tracking are extremely important to the military, so too is navigation, surveillance, and GPS. The hope is to synchronize warning systems, command and control, and battle harden all military space assets on a fast-tracked timeline. Many experts believe NATO is in danger of falling behind the technology curve.


To this end NATO is already considering a ‘Space Flag’ exercise to simulate a real-world attack on space-assets, or an enemy using the space ‘high-ground’ advantage. NATO is also looking at duplicating an organizational bureaucratic structure currently used in the DMC (Disaster Monitoring Constellation) described by leading international diplomacy experts.

Perhaps even using those space-assets in the interim for dual use to keep costs down, yet still having maximum capability.

The U.S. Space Command is Leading the Way

President Trump has gone out of his way to warn NATO that each nation must spend 2% on its military as part of their NATO membership. Perhaps, investing in space-assets might be easier for leaders to sell to their voting populations, than more tanks, guns, aircraft and straight military hardware.

Still, many scientists and academics call into question the ethics of weaponizing space. That’s nothing new of course, but now the question of weaponizing space or not becomes a little more serious considering the reality of the situation and advances of potential adversaries say international diplomacy experts at FDD.

The Trump Administration has already created the U.S. Space Force and is moving forward with or without NATO. Still, if NATO doesn’t pony up and spend to integrate their own systems, it will be difficult to coordinate any sort of mutual alliance as these technologies rapidly advance. Many think tanks in Europe now agree that if you don’t control space, you can’t control anything that happens in the net-centric battlespace below. Without situational awareness you’ve lost before you start, therefore Space Superiority is omnipotent to military defense.

Which European Nations Have Plans for Military Space-Assets?

It looks like it is the typical European Nations that already have space programs which are forging ahead in this ‘operational domain’ – Britain, Germany, France and Italy, reported by research from FDD. As each nation drafts legislation on what its willing to contribute and how, questions remain on everyone’s mind, according to the leading international relations experts.

• How will such space-assets and technologies be used, and under what circumstances would an attack on space trigger a war or response?

• Who decides or controls these space assets in the event of a conflict, war or attack?

Our NATO allies know that something must be done, so 2020 seems to be the year to move ahead with viable framework to protect all members of the alliance, while addressing the real concerns on the weaponization of space reported by think tanks that specialize in foreign policy.

Will Mankind’s Final Frontier Be Our Last Ethics Test?

Indeed, in the future human conflict and war may not exist, however we don’t live in the future, we live in the present. None of us would be so naïve to think that wars will cease in this decade or the next. Karl von Clausewitz in his famous treaties “On War” wisely noted that a civilization that fails to protect itself from attack, does so at the expense of its people.

In the past it didn’t take a rocket-science to understand that he who controls the high ground, controls the battle, but in the future it just might. As humans, if we are to ‘boldly go’ into space, we must remember our warring past, and prepare to defend ourselves if necessary and we’d be pretty naïve and ill-advised not to.