Satellites Under Threat: The Spread of Hit-To-Kill

Aaron Stein 0:08

Welcome to the Arms Control Wonk podcast. My name is Aaron Stein. I'm a contributor to the Arms Control Wonk blog. I'm also an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London and a PhD candidate at King's College. And I'm Jeffrey Lewis.

Jeffrey Lewis 0:21

I'm the founding publisher of Arms Control Wonk and the director of the East Asian Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

Aaron 0:31

And you're back in California.

Jeffrey 0:32

I am. I'm back from Hiroshima. I am happy to be out of the Humidity of Japan, although I love Japan, and enjoying beautiful weather. It's pretty gorgeous.

Aaron 0:43

Well, that's the reason why we didn't have a podcast last week, but I think we're going to make up for it this week. Today we're going to be talking about your latest column in Foreign Policy in which you describe the spread of hit-to-kill and sort of the ancillary risks associated with that these systems can be used for ground-based anti-satellite weapons.

And perhaps you're saying that the spread of hit to kill is a harbinger of things that could come with the risks that could be posed to satellites in the future by a whole bunch of nations. It's a topic I really like. When I first started at the Monterey Institute back in 2008, they make us take intro to public policy and nobody in the nonproliferation school actually wants to take intro to nonproliferation policy.

And for a semester-long project to write our memo about a public policy issue, I forced three non-nonproliferation students to spend their time researching and writing about ways in which to deal with the ASAT threat. And you survived the semester? I survived the semester, but I want to point out that it is you, my friend, who spent 3,000 words in foreign policy on the subject, and I have not written about it ever since.

Yeah.

Jeffrey 1:55

It's true. It's true. The best part is, so I write the column because the Chinese conduct this missile defense test, which I think is a test of a hit to kill system that's like way more threatening for satellites. And they release a 64 word statement. And I somehow stretched 64 words into nearly 3000 words of exegesis on the 64 word statement.

Aaron 2:16

They're more efficient than you are, it seems.

Jeffrey 2:19

Well, it was a marvel at how little they said, and so I felt like that was an appropriate time to revisit the history of China's tests of their hit-to-kill interceptor, which the U.S. calls the SC-19.

Aaron 2:35

They've certainly got better with the public rollout, 64 words aside. There's less controversy than in the past, I'd say. 2007, I'm thinking about.

Jeffrey 2:43

Yeah, so that is...

Aaron 2:46

I will be honest, I had a little axe to grind.

Jeffrey 2:52

So in 2007, the Chinese conducted a test of this system against a real satellite. They blew it up. They blew it to smithereens. And there was a huge... Because when the Chinese did this, they didn't announce it. And basically just the debris populated orbit and the U.S. intelligence community had known what they did, but eventually satellite watchers saw the updates in terms of all the debris and the story leaked out.

And when the story leaked out, the Chinese were totally unprepared and it was a total nightmare for them. And hence my interest in writing the public policy memo. Oh, that's what triggered it. Came one year later. Got it. Well, so... The general consensus in Washington, and Bob Gates says this in his memoir, he believes this to this day, was that this was somehow a rogue action by the People's Liberation Army in China.

And the ax that I had to grind is that my colleague Gregory Kulaki and I Traveled to China several times individually together in the wake of that test and talked to a lot of people, including people who would have reasons to understand the process that led to it. And It was super clear to us that it was not a rogue test, that there was a breakdown in the way they communicated it, but that decision had been made at, I think the phrase is, the highest levels, whatever that means.

And so we wrote all this up, and we published one of the papers I am most proud of in the nonproliferation review. Arguing that there was a logic to this test and there was a logic to their pursuit of this technology. And I felt like we'd talked to a bunch of the right people and we knew all of these details and we put it out there and it had no impact whatsoever.

Aaron 4:51

Well, now you have the power of the podcast, so perhaps maybe it's time to revisit some of those arguments.

Jeffrey 4:56

Well, so that's it. So I used my foreign policy column, and now I'm using this podcast to settle old scores.

Aaron 5:03

Right. Oh, what else is good for you? You know what I mean? Yeah, exactly, right?

Jeffrey 5:09

What do we have, like 6,000 downloads of the MH17 podcast? Yeah, we're going global. Yeah, that's great. Anyway, so... So yeah, the important point is that the missile defense interceptor that the Chinese tested a few weeks ago is, as best I can tell, exactly the same system as they used in 2007 to shoot down a satellite. And one of the things that we had been told after the fallout from the 2007 test, which was just a total disaster for the Chinese in terms of public impression, Is that there would be a new procedure put in place for vetting sensitive tests.

They wouldn't tell us whether there were going to be more, but you could sort of guess that, you know, Yes, there would. And since that event, the Chinese have tested the SC-19 interceptor at least three times. Each time they've done it as a missile defense test, they've been the ones to announce it. They've done it in a way that doesn't create debris.

And so they basically have found the politically safe way for them to conduct these tests. And that leads to this whole debate about whether it's really a missile defense system or whether it's really an anti-satellite weapon. And as I argue in the piece, that's kind of an irrelevant distinction.

Aaron 6:26

Right. I mean, but it seems as if the test was, in the first case, maybe it wasn't rogue, but perhaps it wasn't well thought out about the political impact that would come from the idea of shooting down a satellite without announcing it beforehand, sort of out of the blue. And perhaps... I mean, maybe the real breakdown that they said they would prepare for now is that they will forever now release 64-word statements.

So is that what you mean by the fact that they got it together, is that they squared their policy on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with that from the Ministry of Defense?

Jeffrey 7:06

Well, right. I think the first and most important thing is they discovered that if they tested this thing as a missile defense interceptor and not against satellites – There are two advantages of that. First, it's really hard for the U.S. to criticize them because we do missile defense tests. And second, because you can conduct the missile defense test in such a way that it doesn't leave any debris in orbit.

You know, the intercepts still happen in space, but you can arrange the geometry of the intercept so that the debris falls down. That's what the Chinese figured out. The Chinese figured out that they could go ahead and continue testing this system and But that they didn't need to test it against live satellites in ways that created a bunch of debris and then caused a huge political headache for them.

Because, you know, you know this, and maybe readers or listeners don't kind of pay attention to this kind of thing. But the problem with space junk is once it's up there in orbit, it's up there, right? Like, things in orbit are in orbit. And so it takes a really long time for... It to decay. And, you know, one of the consequences of the Chinese test was there, I know, I know there was a point at which the risk to the space station was such that it had to be slightly moved.

And although the mathematical risks are small, you know, just the public impression of creating a kind of mess that you don't clean up and that then poses a hazard to other countries. The public impression of that is, is, is pretty bad.

Aaron 8:39

Right. And as you mentioned in the piece, and I think it's worth noting here in the podcast, is the later tests are slightly changing in terms of how far they're getting up into space. And so you're seeing a slight change in the way in which these tests are being conducted.

Jeffrey 8:55

Right. Well, so what we're seeing is the actual intercepts where the interceptor slams into the targets. And, and that's why it's called hit to kill, right? It doesn't explode. It just uses kinetic energy and just, it's the contact that causes either the missile or the missile warhead or the satellite to just break up that when they're actually doing tests that involve hitting things, they do them against missiles.

So there is no debris. But then there is this curious incident I guess maybe last a year ago Where the Chinese did a very high altitude test of a sounding rocket. And there's some reason to think that it wasn't a sounding rocket at all, that it was this interceptor or a modified version of it. And so they can test against points in space.

You can fire the interceptor into space at a kind of imaginary point, and then you can see if you can measure how close it gets. It looks like they have figured out how to do a pretty realistic regime of testing for this technology without actually incurring any of the costs.

Aaron 10:14

I think it's worth noting that they're not the only country or the only people doing it. There are multiple countries that have At least some programs or some nascent programs going on, including us, including the United States.

Jeffrey 10:25

They're copying us. This is my big, you know, so the fashionable thing In the study of Chinese military modernization is to focus on so-called asymmetric threats, right? And the idea that if we invest in a whole bunch of money in a particular kind of system, like, say, weapons that use satellites for navigation, that the Chinese will then make an asymmetric investment in a much cheaper system Technology that's designed to say, shoot those satellites down, right?

Aaron 10:58

It's premised on the idea that the US military is the most networked military in the world. Therefore, if you take out the network, which is controlled by satellites, you can therefore render our armed forces blind.

Jeffrey 11:08

Right. So there's this whole idea that the Chinese are going to optimize their defense posture to exploit our vulnerabilities, and that they can do that Much more efficiently because we kind of, we move first, right? Right. Which is a wonderful defense theory. And if I were a Chinese policymaker, I would probably recommend that. But that is not what actual Chinese people do, right?

This is completely symmetric, I would argue. What happened is, starting in the 1980s when the United States got really interested in missile defense, the United States, one of the things that got developed and then eventually became the main technology that we rely on, Was the notion of kinetic kill because electronics had gotten so small and computers had gotten so powerful that we could actually imagine, you know, the old phrase was hitting a bullet with a bullet, right?

Aaron 12:01

They still use it, yeah.

Jeffrey 12:02

Yeah, yeah, it's a dumb phrase, but whatever. So when we showed that you could do that, right, the reaction of the Chinese was like, oh, I gotta get me some of that, right? Like it was totally symmetric. And so the argument that I make in the piece is that They're copying the technology. And whether they end up using it for missile defense or whether they end up using it for anti-satellite missions or both or neither or some other purpose, all of that stuff is going to be decided later.

What's happening right now is there's basically just a spread of an advanced defense technology that everybody wants to get because the U.S. is leading the way and nobody wants to be left behind. And once they figure out How well they can do, then they're going to figure out what they can use it for.

Aaron 12:53

I think it's worth mentioning that we've, I mean, I guess, overtly abandoned the idea of an anti-satellite weapon per se, but in favor of enhanced hit-to-kill that are nominally to be used against ballistic missiles, but we've also used as an anti-satellite weapon in the past, particularly I'm thinking about the USA-193 test. Right.

Jeffrey 13:13

So in the 1980s, the United States did a series of tests of what they call them kinetic kill vehicles. So there was a series of tests of something called the homing overlay experiment in the early 1980s. Which is really cool. It was part of SDI. And if you look at it, it's because the technology at first was so bad.

It's a giant, it looks like a giant fan and it has all these plastic arms, right? But inside the arms are pieces of metal. So it doesn't have to directly hit. It just has to get sort of close because the fan pops out and makes the kill vehicle significantly bigger.

Aaron 13:58

That's a joke you could make about the defense of London in World War II or something like that, World War I.

Jeffrey 14:03

Right. So I took my father-in-law to the Air and Space Museum, and they actually have one of these with its arms all spread out. And I showed it to him, and I was explaining what it was. And it was hilarious because he was like an elementary school science teacher, right? He's somebody really... Loves science and spends a lot of time thinking about science and technology and loves explaining it to people.

And he could not get his head around the fact that this would work.

Aaron 14:30

No comment.

Jeffrey 14:32

Yeah, right. Well, it did work. Actually, did you know there was a plan so that the experiments were successful? So that was fine. But there was actually a plan to lie about it? In the event that it missed, just to scare the Russians. I like that. That's smart. The GAO discovered that they had planned to rig the tests, ostensibly to fool the Soviets, although one wonders if it's really congressional appropriators who are intended to be fooled.

Aaron 15:05

Maybe both.

Jeffrey 15:06

Yeah, but it actually worked, so they didn't have to do it. So there was that, and then in the mid-'80s, the U.S. actually created an aircraft-carried, a fighter-carried ASAT that they used to shoot down a satellite, which was a pretty dumb thing to do. And all through the 1990s, there was a development of something called the Kinetic Energy Anti-Satellite, the KEASAT, which is basically exactly the same thing As our missile defense interceptors.

The kill vehicle is almost identical in many ways. But it's worth noting that The US military has exactly zero interest in using kinetic energy interceptors as anti-satellite weapons because they create debris, and we depend on space way more than anybody else.

Aaron 16:06

In a way, it's like the asymmetric test vulnerability would come back to us, although it would be self-inflicted. It would be like friendly fire.

Jeffrey 16:14

Well, that's exactly right. You could imagine if we were to try to shoot down a series of Soviet or Russian – Soviet when they started thinking about it and eventually became Russian – satellites. If that debris stays in orbit, then that poses a risk to any satellites we have whose orbital planes cross that debris cloud, which will eventually spread out over the entire orbit.

And so you could do it once or maybe twice. But if you did a lot of tests, you would load a lot of debris in orbit. And do you know there's this thing called collisional cascading? No, what is that? I actually have no idea. So you could get to a situation where there was so much mass in terms of debris in a particular orbit.

Aaron 17:03

Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey 17:04

That it was I guess you would say super critical so that you could have a single debris strike that creates multiple pieces of debris and that would trigger a chain reaction. And so you would have like a lethal amount of debris that would actually make an orbit unusable. Got it.

Aaron 17:24

I didn't know that.

Jeffrey 17:26

Yeah. So the National Academies did a study looking at this. And it's one of these things where, you know, it's like really mathy and we don't have the, we don't, when I started in this business, I guess we didn't track pieces of debris smaller than about the size of, smaller than I guess about the size of a softball, although I think they do better now.

Aaron 17:46

Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey 17:47

But a piece of debris the size of an M&M can destroy a satellite.

Aaron 17:51

Right.

Jeffrey 17:52

It's just that it's really small, so it's very unlikely to hit something. And so we don't have great... Knowledge about debris populations. So to some extent, this is all like a giant science experiment with the fate of humanity.

Aaron 18:04

Yeah, but I like in that, just to be ultra wonky, use the word chain reaction and softball. So you threw in some reference nuclear weapons. I like that.

Jeffrey 18:14

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, we got to get to USA 193.

Aaron 18:17

Right, we still did it. I mean, we felt compelled or at least... Well, let's go into that.

Jeffrey 18:23

We did it again. Okay, so rarely do I accuse President Bush of being clever, but in this case, they were very clever. Right. Right. So after the Chinese conducted their intercept, I believe there was a desire to demonstrate that we, too, Do such things, but interestingly, we didn't test the KE-ASAP, which that program was done. It was on the shelf. It was ready to go. It just needed a test. but the Bush administration has this satellite called USA-193, which was a a spy satellite, and it was, it had died, and it was allegedly filled with frozen hydrazine, right? That was a threat to mankind.

And it was asserted, I think on the basis of no evidence and probably considerable contrary evidence, that the ball of frozen hydrazine would survive re-entry and aerosolize as it burned up and would deposit a... Toxic hydrazine cloud on the ground. And it was further asserted that although, you know, two-thirds of the Earth is water and much of the Earth where people live is actually pretty unpopulated, you know, there was the infinitesimally small chance that the thing comes down in the middle of, like, Tokyo.

And so... Again, I'm totally unpersuaded by the math on this. And there's actually been efforts to FOIA the studies that led to this conclusion. And I have to say, I don't think history is going to kindly judge these statements. But, you know, we can wait. The Bush administration decided to take an SM-3 missile defense interceptor deployed on an Aegis warship and shoot the satellite down.

I think it was the Lake Erie. It was the USS Lake Erie. Yes, that's right. And some of us think it's anything who can do, I can do better. I can do anything better than him. But this raises this huge problem, right? Because missile defenses, hit-to-kill missile defenses, are exactly the same as anti-satellites. And the only thing they had to change was the software package.

Aaron 20:57

Right. It didn't take very long either.

Jeffrey 21:00

No. I know it was very stressful for the people involved, but now that they've done it, It would be very easy to install that software package as part of the normal software that some or all Aegis destroyers equipped with, SM3s.

Aaron 21:22

Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey 21:23

So that raises this really interesting policy problem because this technology that we have developed, the Chinese are copying that we are giving to our friends in Israel and Japan. We want to give to the South Koreans and the Russians are developing. Indians are developing this technology, which we mostly talk about being for missile defense poses an enormous danger to satellites.

And there is like nothing you can do to protect satellites because they, they're, you know, they travel in these fixed paths, right? Orbits, orbits are orbits. They're fixed. So the satellite is moving on a predictable path. Through a totally transparent environment, and weight is the major cost driver. So you can't, it's impossible to shield the satellites against these kinds of attacks, right? It's very expensive in terms of fuel to be able to move them, even if you could move them really quickly. and it's really hard to imagine outfitting them with, you know, little interceptors of their own to shoot back.

So you work through all of these problems, and satellites are just incredibly vulnerable. We depend on them tremendously, and we are watching a technology to destroy them proliferate really fast.

Aaron 22:46

So that's a problem. Yeah, no, you talk about some solutions in your piece. Let's discuss those first, because I have a few more recommendations I want to add on top of what you put out there. All right. One thing people are saying is try and limit or ban tests or debris-creating tests in space. Right. And some people say that's already happening.

But let's just go in there. Let's flush that out a little bit. Why would that be good for these ASAT tests?

Jeffrey 23:15

Okay. So, I mean, I think the place to start is that for many, many years – actually, in my case, 12 years – A lot of us have been arguing that the spread of anti-satellite weapons is going to be a real danger. Just imagine how badly the U.S. would react if, say, the Russians shot down our missile warning satellites, right?

But we can't imagine, or I can't imagine, banning anti-satellite weapons. The U.S. and the Soviet Union had these negotiations in the 70s. They went nowhere. They tried to revive them in the 80s. Even with Gorbachev, they went nowhere. And the reason they go nowhere is it's just technological, right? Because you can't The problem that USA 193 illustrates is you can't ban anti-satellite weapons without banning missile defenses.

Aaron 24:05

Right, which is a no-go. It's just not going to happen.

Jeffrey 24:08

So one question arose of, well, what's the major technology that is used for anti-satellite missions? Eventually there'll be lasers and there'll be maneuverable satellites and there'll be a whole bunch of other kind of things we have to worry about. But for the moment it was hit to kill. And The thing you could verify is an impact. It used to be that people loved creating debris with anti-satellite strikes because they knew they killed the satellite.

You know, if you hit a satellite with a laser, how do you know you killed it?

Aaron 24:41

Right.

Jeffrey 24:42

You don't know. But you do know if you, you know, smash it to smithereens. So... One thought was, well, why not ban tests where you create persistent orbital debris, right? Because orbital debris is bad. So everybody's against that. It's easy to verify because you can track the debris. You can see the debris. And it would prevent, and again, this was like way more valuable 12 years ago before the Chinese and the US each did it again, but it would prevent Building dedicated systems and testing them against live targets.

You could always develop a missile defense system and test against missiles, but the good part of the experience of USA 193 is how stressful it was for the engineers. They were not sure it was going to work. And so if you could make countries unsure whether their missile defense interceptor would be likely to kill a satellite, that's valuable.

Aaron 25:46

Yeah, but you make the point in the piece is that these things are spreading, and more and more countries are now interested in missile defense, thereby importing or at least trying to develop themselves, hit to kill, and how the problem may be growing more acute than it was 12 years ago, which is what you just pointed out.

So here's my little take on this. Could you now say... Ban anybody who's interested in it, or at least put a treaty out there that says you would just say that to limit it to missile defense. You understand what I'm saying? Sort of a pledge of new missile defense creating states that we're not going to use these things for anti-satellite weapons.

I know it's not very far, but it's sort of going on the record as saying we're going to use this for X, not Y, and then build towards what you're putting out there as some sort of ban on impacts that create debris in space. Maybe slightly altruistic, but... No, no.

Jeffrey 26:43

I mean, this gets to this question of what the best way to deal with space arms control is, right? Because for a long time, the Chinese and the Russians wanted a treaty. And the Russian and Chinese draft treaty is not very appealing at all. You know, it's the kind of thing where you look at it and you think to yourself, you guys maybe are not totally serious about this.

So... What I think the arms control community, for lack of a better term, and really it's Michael Cravon, contributor to arms control, a great figure in the community, a wonderful human being. Over a course of these meetings that the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva held, I went to every one between 2002 and 2010, I suddenly stopped getting invited.

That's okay. But I love, that's actually why I love Geneva so much, because I would go to this conference every year. Michael pushed for the development of codes of conduct. And his idea, which I think is the right one, is that part of the issue is an arms control issue. But there is actually a bigger problem. Maybe I should say, this is how I think of it.

I don't want to put words in Michael's mouth. But What we really have to do is get all of the parties who are interested in the use of space together and all of the communities of people who use different space for different reasons or use space for different reasons. And so... While you might have people in the military who think the debris risk from anti-satellites is manageable because all it means is you have to move satellites and that only reduces their lifetime, commercial satellite operators may not appreciate the financial hit that that means.

The people who ensure satellite launches and satellites in orbit may not be delighted at the increased risk profile that they're responsible for. Civil space users, people who use space for science, might be alarmed at some of these things. And so you really have to find a way to make sure that everyone's interest in using space gets due consideration.

And so for Michael, the notion was debris is really the biggest problem. And I think Michael's idea is that, yes, states should commit to some kind of politically binding constraint on the development of these capabilities. Right. As part of a larger code of conduct. And I have to say the Europeans have developed a code of conduct and the U.S. is, I wouldn't, you know, the U.S. has been constructive, but it's not signed yet.

Aaron 29:31

Okay. Yeah.

Jeffrey 29:33

And you know, I know that they say that they have some concerns here or there, but I think at some point it feels or starts to feel a little bit like with drag.

Aaron 29:48

Well, this is what bothers me. Let me jump in here again. It's that, It's in our overarching interest to create a code of conduct to prevent the militarization of space or at least the use of ground-based ASATs to threaten satellites. But when we drag our feet like we drag our feet over something as simple as a code of conduct, we actually inspire other nations like we were talking about earlier, like the Chinese who essentially just copy us.

It gives them an excuse to drag their feet. We'll say the U.S. isn't going to do it. We're not going to do it. And so we just end up going in this big circle that I believe is ultimately detrimental to our interests. Because again, we are the biggest purveyor and user of space. And our military is the greatest user of space.

I don't think the issue is... So we have an interest in trying to preserve that space.

Jeffrey 30:32

Well, and I would say two things about this. One is that if we were to agree to a code of conduct, I suspect... The Russians and the Chinese would be really reluctant at the end of the day to sign up to it, precisely because it strengthens the norm against something I think they're still tempted to do for the reasons that you mentioned.

The US is so dependent on space that no matter how many satellites the Russians or the Chinese put up in the near future, they may be tempted to hit the big reset button when it comes to space capabilities.

Aaron 31:11

I think the number between U.S. and Russian and Chinese satellites is staggering, the difference between them.

Jeffrey 31:18

There's no real way that I've ever seen to quantify dependence, but we really, both in terms of U.S. military, but also commercial activities, make tremendous use of satellites. Having said that, then the second thing I would say, which is often a little bit frustrating, is the whole emphasis on a code of conduct as opposed to a treaty and the whole emphasis on debris-creating anti-satellites as opposed to a ban on, say, all anti-satellites, that's all intended to be receptive to U.S. reluctance.

And in some cases, I think the U.S. reluctance made a lot of sense. I do think a treaty should be verifiable. But the politics of that are so hard because I think the EU, as they're developing this code of conduct, feels like they've already bent over so far in the direction of satisfying the United States. That even if I tend to agree with a lot of U.S. criticisms on their merits, there still is this question of equity and balance.

As the state who stands to gain the most and the state that's getting most of its way, regardless of what you think about all the individual issues, it's really a case where I think we should be playing a

Aaron 32:52

More active leadership role. All right. So what should they do? Let's give them some recommendations here. So I would say step one, sign the code of conduct.

Jeffrey 33:03

I realize that there are still a few issues here and there, but it's really getting, I think, maybe take another six months, maybe take another year, whatever. But I think there needs to be a high level commitment To getting this done. What that commitment means is not getting everything you want. The second thing is I think the US position has been, and the Obama administration in this sense is much better than the Bush administration, in that the old Bush administration position was no treaties, no agreements in space, no arms control.

The new Obama administration view is Well, probably no treaties, but you could persuade us that maybe something was in our interest, right? Which is at least being open-minded. I think I would go to a third place, which is I'd play a leadership role in trying to get a ban on tests that create debris. That's a very small measure, right?

It doesn't constrain U.S. missile defense at all. Sadly, it doesn't constrain the Chinese program as it's currently being conducted. But, you know, I would hope that as a first step, that could then lead to further discussions, because there are going to be other anti-satellite technologies that come down or that arise that are going to be problems. And so I think we've Got to have in place some kind of process to deal with those, unless we just want to suck it up and deal with a world in which our military is heavily dependent on incredibly vulnerable systems, and there's nothing we can do about that.

Aaron 34:44

And that's crazy, right? That is the one thing I don't want to do. In a way, it almost codifies the norm that was established after the Chinese screwed up so badly in 2007. I mean, some argue that that norm's already there, but I think you're right. It's time to push that one step further. It's time to stop dragging our feet and do this.

Jeffrey 35:04

Well, of course the norm's already there, but to my mind, and I think this is really important to say, having a norm against testing is valuable in the sense that it stops the creation of debris, but it's also, it provides weight for the development of Stronger, more comprehensive norms. So if you get to a point where you're never supposed to test these things and you're never supposed to use these things, then you can have a serious conversation about, well, why are you testing them against points in space?

Or why do you have a military doctrine that relies on them? And those are harder things to solve with arms control. Those are things you have to solve in a diplomatic context and They take longer and they're consensual and maybe you're never fully sure that you've solved them. But you can't even begin to address them unless you do that basic work.

And the problem is as long as the Chinese are doing it and the U.S. is finding clever ways like USA193 to do it... That was a danger to mankind, Jeffrey.

Aaron 36:12

I don't know what you're talking about.

Jeffrey 36:13

Yeah, right. There's going to be a cloud of hydrazine that's going to land on a kindergarten. We did the math. I mean, it's just so... Let me say... If we took drastic action, and I forget how much it costs now, it was Operation Bird Frost. It was fantastically expensive. The Republicans, and actually I think they're right about this, but Republicans are particularly fond of making the argument that you should cost regulations.

If the government's going to intervene... You should know how much a regulation is going to cost, and you should know what the benefit of that regulation is going to be so that you can achieve some sense of balance. I don't always agree with the way those calculations are done, but I think it's an intellectual argument that there's a point there.

Aaron 37:01

Interventions should be rigorous.

Jeffrey 37:06

If you apply that test to USA 193, it was a terrible idea. Because you save... A fraction of a person at, you know, this enormous cost. You know, like, you'd have been, like, way better off to let the satellite come down and, you know, whatever, give homeless people blankets and wear.

Aaron 37:25

Yeah.

Jeffrey 37:27

All kinds of things we won't do because they're too expensive, but, you know, in this case, we made an exception. Anyway, so, but seriously, the point is that as long as we're doing it and the Chinese are doing it, you're going to get into this situation with the Russians and the Indians and others are going to do it, too, and you're not going to have any norm at all.

Aaron 37:42

But on the bright side, I think you'll be able to write another 3,000-word column next year.

Jeffrey 37:47

Yeah, that's right. Now we're going to that dark place, Aaron.

Aaron 37:51

Dark place. I think at that point, this is a positive note. Or it's a somewhat note we're going to end the podcast on. We have some recommendations we put forward. And hopefully nobody shoots down another satellite next couple of years or months. Dare to dream. All right. Well, thanks, everybody, for listening. Thanks, Chip, for the conversation. All right.

Take it easy, Aaron.