Space and Defense
Abstract
This paper examines the boundaries of possible United States redlines in space. A redline in space is a “marker” that when crossed would result in a military or strong diplomatic response—such as what might occur if a foreign actor temporarily or permanently interfered with any aspect of a U.S. space system. The United States has not published or possibly even defined its redlines in space—as recently noted during the 2010 U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) Deterrence Symposium by the then Commander for STRATCOM’s Joint Functional Component Command (JFCC) for Space in reference to the Schriever 2010 Wargames. The CDR JFCC Space noted the difficulties in addressing questions such as “How does an adversary understand what our redlines are….? Is jamming a satellite a redline? Is destroying a satellite a redline?” and further commenting that “There was a lot of debate that there was no loss of life when we lose a satellite, so what does that mean in terms of how the national policy apparatus would respond….?”
DOI
10.32873/uno.dc.sd.06.01.1141
Recommended Citation
Mazur, Jonathan
(2012)
"Past U.S. Actions: A Source for Foreign Perceptions of U.S. Redlines in Space,"
Space and Defense: Vol. 6:
No.
0, Article 5.
DOI: 10.32873/uno.dc.sd.06.01.1141
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/spaceanddefense/vol6/iss0/5
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