Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “PAROS”
The history of arms control in outer space reads like a success story. Outer space is one of the few domains of human activity in which the focus has been on prevention. Although military satellites that provide communications, remote sensing, navigation, and timing services once dominated space and continue to provide essential military services, their operations have long been considered peaceful. Those of us working in space security say that space is “militarized but not weaponized.”
Outer space now provides vast social, scientific, and economic benefits to humanity, but the continued enjoyment of these benefits is anything but guaranteed. As the number of space users and applications has increased, so too have the threats to its long-term sustainability.
The world has entered a Second Space Age, marked by an intensification of our interactions and reach into outer space. A core part of the international Space Security Index project, managed by Project Ploughshares, is to look holistically at how states, companies, and people around the world access and make use of this domain. Looking to the year ahead, five …
U.S. President Trump’s desire to create a Space Force—a new military branch focused solely on outer space operations—has drawn public attention to the prospects of warfare in a domain that has been used only for peaceful and passive purposes. Despite the provocative name, the proposed mission would in many ways be mundane: the command and control of spacecraft rather than …
On Monday, U.S. President Trump was due to sign Space Policy Directive-3 on space traffic management. This was exciting to those of us who work on space governance, if not to many others. Then Trump announced that he would create a Space Force – a new branch of the U.S. military – and pointed to the chairman of the Joint …
A cautious optimism marked the opening of debates on outer space at the United Nations First Committee on Disarmament and International Security this past October. However, serious divisions quickly became apparent. Published in The Ploughshares Monitor Volume 38 Issue 4 Winter 2017 by Jessica West No weapons in outer space, yet Proposals were advanced to overcome the longstanding stagnation of efforts to …
Chair, today is an auspicious day to address this Committee on the security of outer space. On this very date, October 10th, the Outer Space Treaty—the bedrock of international space law—entered into force exactly 50 years ago. Outer space now provides vast social, scientific, and economic benefits to humanity. But the sustainability of this critical domain also faces critical challenges. …
Chair, Today is an auspicious day to address this Committee on the security of outer space. On this very date, October 10th, the Outer Space Treaty—the bedrock of international space law—entered into force exactly 50 years ago. Outer space now provides vast social, scientific and economic benefits to humanity. But the sustainability of this critical domain also faces critical challenges. …
January 27, 2017 marked the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Outer Space Treaty (OST), one of the most successful international treaties ever concluded. Negotiated in an era of intense military competition sparked by the launch of Sputnik in 1957, the Treaty created a legal framework for the governance of outer space, based on the principle that space is …
The many challenges facing the outer space domain can be generally grouped into two broad categories. On the one hand, there are those related to the risks that result from normal peaceful space operations, such us unintentional interference with space assets. On the other, there are clear risks associated with a potential arms race in outer space. While there is …
