Space is the invisible front of the war in Ukraine, unspectacular but crucial, as we saw from the first days of Russian aggression. The access to the Starlink satellite constellation offered by Elon Musk to Ukrainian fighters has indeed played an essential role in the resistance. It was a reminder of reality. Outer space represents today more than ever a strategic issue, both a place of competition, of contestation, but also of more and more clashes between the great powers which have access to it.
“Space security is transversal to the extent that it is both a matter of national security (vulnerability of systems exacerbated by increased dependence on applications, force-multiplying space assets, etc.) and international security (war in space …) »notes Florence Gaillard-Sborowsky, responsible for space issues at the Foundation for Strategic Research, in her book Geopolitics of space. In search of space securitywhich it rightly focuses on the issue of space security.
The first challenge of such an approach is that of definition: what is outer space? Experts and space players estimate that it begins at an altitude of around one hundred kilometers, where, underlines Florence Gaillard-Sborowsky, “dynamic orbital forces become more important than aerodynamic forces”.
Extreme densification
For a long time it would also have seemed incongruous to talk about a geopolitics of space, considered a common good of humanity. And recognized as such by the Space Treaty of 1967, ratified by almost all States, in which it is written in Article 2 that it cannot be the subject of any national appropriation, as it This is the case for the Moon and the planets.
The situation changed radically with the relaunch of the space race at the end of the 1990s and the awareness of the growing importance of data provided by satellites, which constitute military issues. If the 1967 treaty in fact prohibits the installation in space of weapons of mass destruction, it does not prevent its increasing militarization. Added to this is extensive commercial exploitation with the launch since 1957 of some 14,200 satellites into low or geostationary orbit, more than half of which are still operational.
The extreme densification of space and the dangers represented by the debris of old destroyed satellites are a major challenge today. Nothing would be more logical, therefore, than to promote a collective security approach based on awareness of a common vulnerability.
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