Brian Weeden Publishes Op-Ed on U.S. Strategy For Dealing with a More Contested Space Environment

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

SWF Technical Advisor Brian Weeden published an op-ed in DefenseNews on the U.S. strategy for dealing with a more contested space environment. In the article, Mr. Weeden discussed the implementation of the 2011 National Security Space Strategy (NSSS) which was created by the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to address what they saw as a more "contested, congested, and competitive" space environment.  Mr. Weeden argues that all the elements of the strategy - developing international norms of behavior, building commercial and international coalitions, enhancing the resilience of space capabilities, deterring aggression against critical space systems, and preparing to defeat attacks and operate in a degraded space environment - need to be pursued. Pursuing only offensive counterspace and active defensive capabilities, which were singled out in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015, will likely make the situation more unstable, and could potentially lead to an arms race instability scenario. The result would be increased threats to everyone's space systems and increased tensions that could lead to or escalate conflict.

You can read the article here.