Developing norms of space warfare may require voluntary actions by some leading countries rather than binding treaties. (credit: UN)

Space is the front line and not the final frontier

The United States should prioritize developing proactive norms of space warfare

by Magdalena T. Bogacz
Monday, November 24, 2025

A popular view of space as a sanctuary officially expired at least half a decade ago when countries such as the United States and China designated space as a distinct and unique warfighting domain. Unofficially, the vision of space as having potential to be free from all conflicts was always destined to fail before it could realize. A brief and shallow survey of the history of humanity reveals that war is not something we wage, but rather, war is something we are. Our proneness to competition and conflict mixed with our ambitions to discover, conquer, and overcome, both ourselves and our friends and foes, paints a clear picture: human nature is violent. Or, as Thomas Hobbes put it Leviathan, the condition of man is a condition of “war of everyone against everyone.”

If the “will to power” and desire to exercise authority truly is the main driving force in humans, then any expectation to simply leave behind our fundamental dispositions and characteristics and start anew in the outer space is naive and misguided, at best. At worst, upholding the view of space as a sanctuary can harm all of us. This is because fixating on deterring conflicts in space using cooperation, interdependency, and diplomacy, for the benefit of all humanity, slows down Western space powers, like the United States, from proactively developing laws of space warfare.

Full-scale space wars are unavoidable. Only by precisely delineating rules of engagement in space and grounding them in a universal ethical theory before actual conflicts arise, will the United States and its allies have the first-mover advantage and be able to, if needed, start and win just wars. The time to assume the position of the benevolent hegemon is now. The alternative is the ordering of space led by authoritarian regimes and the United States and its partners playing catch-up.

Increased weaponization of space against current laws of space warfare

The current laws of space warfare draw from at least three sources: general laws of armed conflict that evolved from just war tradition, the Outer Space Treaty, and a few other space treaties, such as the Rescue Agreement, the Liability Convention, the Registration Convention, and the Moon Agreement. In addition, military rules of engagement (ROE) are built upon traditional understanding of justice in war as it applies to land, sea, and air operations.

More recently, the Woomera Manual, which is the product of years of effort by top international humanitarian law experts, was released to serve as the first comprehensive examination of the field of military space operations. However, despite the immense positive impact that the manual, the fact that outer space is a unique spatial and temporal environment with fast evolving actors and technology means the regulations on warfare and the rules for initiating and executing military operations must evolve as well. This is imperative since the last decade made space more congested, contested, and competitive than ever before.

Yet, prescriptive frameworks for when and how to act to prevent grave danger from, to, and though space lag. The assumed approach must be proactive, not excluding preemptive wars because of the magnitude of unwanted second- and third-order effects that hostile space activities can produce on Earth. Arguably, some sophisticated space systems have or will have in the near future potential for serious destructive consequences in space and on Earth.

The idea that space is militarized and it becomes increasingly weaponized is not new. This is evidenced by countless counterspace capabilities being actively used in armed conflicts today, in addition to some of the major powers joining the space club of anti-satellite weapons (ASATs) testing. China last tested its capabilities in 2007, while the United States in 2008. More recently, India tested its ASAT in 2019 and Russia in 2021.

Following the Russian show of force in space through its ASAT test, the United States proposed a unilateral moratorium on ASAT testing that prohibits destructive, direct-ascent anti-satellite missile testing. The US moratorium, which can be loosely interpreted as a voluntary self-ban, set a good example that other nations could follow, but there is no reason to believe that its adversaries would do the same. To the contrary, by decreasing self-defensive testing as well as offensive weapons and capabilities development, in whatever form this might be, the United States and its allies might actually make themselves more vulnerable to attacks. As the popular saying goes, strength comes from reps and sets.

Weaponization of space may reach new heights with the current race between the United States and China-Russia coalition to deploy a lunar nuclear reactor by 2030. If China or Russia wins the race, builds such a reactor, and starts enriching uranium for weapons-grade material and potentially posits a state of global emergency, what would the United States or its allies do? One can only wonder.

But there is a better way forward. Since international law is stagnant and current frameworks for prescribing code of conduct in space warfare are either non-existing or simply insufficient to accommodate scenarios like the one mentioned above, it is critical to proactively develop a set of moral rules of engagement, make them public, and be ready to act when danger arises. Some argue the best way forward is through non-binding international agreements.

New framework for space warfare

Non-binding international agreements have many benefits, from allowing each individual state to embrace and promote their divergent interests to flexibility to adjust to the fast-evolving technological context of space conflict. Their downfall is in the name: non-bindingness. But there is a difference between bindingness and membership. A few examples can help illustrate that.

A total of 115 countries are parties to the Outer Space Treaty, with another 22 countries having signed by not yet completed ratification. Of those 115 countries, the Moon Agreement governing peaceful and shared exploration and use of the Moon and other celestial bodies, although legally binding, was signed by fewer than 20 states and none of the major space powers. Similarly, the previously mentioned ASAT test ban pledge offered by the United States fails to deliver on its proposal. Even though the International Court of Justice generally recognizes unilateral statements made in good faith and with the intention of being binding as actually legally binding, three out of four countries that demonstrated successful ASAT testing did not join the pledge. In comparison, Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines released by the United Nations were adopted by all major space powers, although they are “only” voluntary guidelines.

The lesson is the following: some impactful agreements require a small number of states to succeed. The new framework for space warfare might be one of those. As such, it may require a value-driven and influential space superpower, such as the United States, together with the coalition of the willing nations, to usher in a new era of moral conduct in space warfare. Furthermore, the new framework for space warfare should fulfill at least the following criteria: 1) it should be grounded in a universal ethical theory, 2) it must be prescriptive, 3) it should be made public. Satisfying these three criteria is nonnegotiable to ensure any war-related activity is justified, comes with a proper level of authority, and clearly communicates its assumed intent.

Magdalena T. Bogacz is a Professor of Military and Security Studies and a Course Director for Theory and Philosophy of War with the Space Scholars Program at the Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies, in Washington, DC. Her most recent research project discusses the grounding of norms and behaviors in space in a universal ethical theory and the just war debate between traditionalists and revisionists with its application to norms of space warfare. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official guidance or position of the United States Government, the Department of Defense the United States Air Force or the United States Space Force.

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