Space Militarization & Debris
One Bad Test Could Lock Everyone Out of Orbit
Modern life runs on satellites: GPS timestamps banking transactions, weather and disaster warnings, and military communications all depend on them. Yet no treaty bans conventional anti-satellite weapons, only a non-binding 2022 pledge that Russia, China, and India refused to join. All four major space powers have already blown up a satellite to prove they could, scattering debris that will orbit for decades, and Russia is now reportedly developing a nuclear anti-satellite weapon that would disable satellites indiscriminately.
Debris already up there
Where the world stands
The evidence
Everyday Life Already Runs on Space
GPS timestamps banking transactions, satellites route weather forecasts and disaster warnings, and military communications and targeting depend on satellite constellations. A conflict that disables a country's satellites wouldn't just blind its military, it would degrade civilian infrastructure that has nothing to do with the fight.
Four Countries Have Already Proven They Can Blow Up a Satellite
China (2007), the United States (2008), India (2019), and Russia (2021) have each conducted a destructive direct-ascent anti-satellite missile test, destroying one of their own defunct satellites to demonstrate the capability. Every test was legal: the 1967 Outer Space Treaty bans weapons of mass destruction in orbit, but never mentions conventional kinetic anti-satellite weapons at all.
China's Single Test Is Still the Largest Debris Event in History
China's 2007 test destroyed the Fengyun-1C weather satellite at 865 km altitude, creating at least 35,000 trackable fragments and instantly growing the world's tracked debris catalog by roughly 25 percent. Nearly two decades later, more than 3,000 of those fragments are still in orbit, and the International Space Station has had to maneuver around them repeatedly.
Russia's 2021 Test Put Its Own Astronauts at Risk
When Russia destroyed its defunct Kosmos 1408 satellite in 2021, the resulting 1,500-plus pieces of debris forced the International Space Station's crew, Russian cosmonauts included, to shelter in an escape capsule and maneuver the station to avoid a collision. A single test can threaten every spacecraft in its orbital band, regardless of whose flag is on it.
The One Real Countermeasure Has No Teeth
In 2022 the US pledged not to conduct destructive ASAT tests and asked others to follow. The UN General Assembly backed the moratorium 155 to 9, and about 37 countries have formally joined. Russia, China, and India have not, and the pledge is non-binding regardless, nothing stops a signatory from testing again, and nothing requires anyone outside the list to ever start complying.
The Threat Has Moved From Debris to Something Worse
US intelligence disclosed in 2024 that Russia is developing a nuclear anti-satellite weapon designed to disable or destroy satellites en masse via radiation or electromagnetic pulse, indiscriminately, regardless of who owns them. A 2024 UN Security Council resolution reaffirming the treaty's ban on nuclear weapons in orbit passed 13 to 0, with China abstaining and Russia using its veto to block it.
What we can do
Phase 1: Convert the voluntary 2022 ASAT test moratorium into a binding treaty with verification measures, closing the loophole that lets any of the four demonstrated ASAT powers resume testing whenever it suits them. Phase 2: Extend the Outer Space Treaty's weapons-of-mass-destruction ban to explicitly cover nuclear, kinetic, and directed-energy anti-satellite weapons, since the 1967 text was written before any of these capabilities existed and its silence is currently read as permission. Phase 3: Build shared, non-military space-debris tracking and collision-avoidance infrastructure open to every spacefaring nation, so avoiding a runaway debris cascade stays a shared operational interest even when the diplomatic track stalls.
Sources: Secure World Foundation; Arms Control Association; UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNGA Resolution A/RES/77/41); US House Intelligence Committee disclosures (2024); Lieber Institute, West Point
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