The Center for Global Security Research (CGSR) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) convened, in October 2024, a distinguished cadre of global experts for a two-day workshop titled “Refresh or Reform: US Space Strategy in 2025.” Lively discussions spanned various economic, geopolitical, policy, and technical facets of anticipated strategic guidance. To be effective and actionable, a future US space strategy would do well to address several taxing problem sets, of which CGSR’s workshop participants deliberated in detail.

Rather than summarize the dialogue, this article spotlights but a handful of thought-provoking space security matters and opinions of interest to the author.

Today, there is a convincing case to be made that the linear growth of government-driven policy has been eclipsed by the exponential growth of commercial-driven space technology. US space strategy spans nearly six decades of edicts, currently bookended by the Outer Space Treaty (1967) and the Commercial Space Integration Strategy (2024). Looking ahead, the burgeoning and lucrative space economy (purportedly valued at $1 trillion) is poised to grow, and the US retains the largest market share. Against the backdrop of strategic competition, one ponders the fusion of the commercial space industry with US national power, especially as a diplomatic tool. Perhaps commercial actors may soon have a role in preventing the normalization of unwanted behaviors.

Calls for integration in space – both with the US Government and with international allies and partners – would do well to consider the feats necessary to galvanize cohesion among a myriad of stakeholders. Tasks such as information sharing, infrastructure interoperability, and threat perception are core primers, not only for an effective space strategy, but for a grand strategy that endeavors to marshal all elements of national power.

To promote risk reduction, prevent miscalculations, and avoid concessions with strategic competitors in space, US Government dialogue would do well to endeavor for non-ambiguous, non-hypocritical rules of engagement and, where applicable, mutually binding constraints. However, today’s reality dictates that the US should not count on swift collaboration, as strategic competitors may lack the motive or interest to engage in the creation (and subsequent promulgation) of norms perceived antithetical to their own national interests. Some may argue that the US (and its international allies and partners) should instead leverage a discrete balance of incentives and dis-incentives to dissuade strategic competitors from acting with impunity in space.

Interestingly, science offers a route that transcends the waxing and waning of terrestrial geopolitics: the physics of space remains unchanged (pending revolutionary discoveries, perhaps made possible by LLNL). Space traffic management, for example, requires transparency and a shared understanding among all nations to prevent accidental collisions at a point in space and time. Perhaps it’s only a matter of time before strategic competitors recognize the necessity for dialogues concerning space.

Consider a nation’s peacetime deployment of a defensive space-based capability, whereby this action is perceived by another nation as a hostile first-strike capability. At its core, this scenario suggests that the more one nation develops a defense, the greater premium is placed on offensive weapons by an opposing nation. Consequently, nations would do well to endeavor for the application of space-based technologies in so far as they do not increase the hazard.

Despite the emphasis placed on deterrence, what happens if deterrence fails, thereby exposing a nation’s vulnerability, which, in turn, emboldens a strategic competitor? Drawing parallels to nuclear non-proliferation – and coupled with the earlier mention of balanced incentives and dis-incentives – perhaps the best defense against space-based weapons is to prevent their creation in the first place. As an aside, could the Cold War-era premise of Mutually Assured Destruction morph into Mutually Assured Resilience, whereby nations compete to offset one another in space?

Nonetheless, the indispensable benefits to daily life made possible by space-based capabilities suggests that their resiliency and continuity is of greater importance than the ability to destroy another nation’s space-based capabilities. Borrowing maritime lexicon, space is more akin to “green water” (i.e., littoral) as everything in space supports humanity on earth. In this vein, space-based capabilities ought to provide war-winning advantages to a nation’s terrestrial forces.

Relatedly, two important lessons emerge from the Russo-Ukrainian War. Firstly, is the leverage afforded by GPS and communications-jamming capabilities, as well as the normalization of GPS interference to obscure the ground-truth on the ground. Secondly, is the contested battle for superiority of “no man’s land” in the skies above the battlefield. If past is prologue, US space strategists would do well to wargame a protracted struggle for space superiority with tough scenarios. Among them, the race to reconstitute vital space-based capabilities while under fire and possible inflection points such as nuclear weapons in space.

Some of the most thought-provoking discussions to emerge at CGSR’s workshop theorized a “space Cuban Missile Crisis” and a “space Pearl Harbor.” Unlike naval blockades and dive-bombing aircraft – and notwithstanding the likely kinetic targeting of critical ground infrastructure elements – are the “visible” effects of a space conflict confined to an ever-glistening night sky littered with space debris (as the Kessler Syndrome suggests) or lingering aurores from a high-altitude nuclear weapon detonation?

Truly, an “invisible” space conflict may challenge a nation’s populace to grasp the nature of the threat and, consequently, support the marshalling of a proportionate response. Here, one of the pressing issues facing the US Government is its ability to convey to its citizens the role and importance of space when it may seemingly not present a tangible impact on their daily lives, unlike grassroots or domestic matters. Consider the following funneled contextualization: Athenian historian and general Thucydides opined that nations go to war for fear, honor, and interests. Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz opined that war is an extension of politics by other means. Former Speaker of the US House of Representatives Tip O’Neill opined that all politics is local.

Convened two weeks before the 2024 US Presidential Election, CGSR’s workshop underscored the importance of convening such stimulating and timely dialogues – and subsequent thought leadership publications – to help shape and advance US space strategy. As President Elect Donald Trump’s transition team takes stock of the state of US space strategy he will soon inherit, a fundamental question arises: refresh…or reform?

Kyle Nappi is a Washington, DC-based management consultant with over a decade of experience developing lessons learned and strategic foresights on security matters. He is currently a member of the Pacific Forum’s Young Leaders Program.

Disclaimer: All opinions in this article are solely those of the author and do not represent any organization.

Photo: President Trump watching the SpaceX rocket launch Saturday at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Source: Doug Mills/The New York Times