WASHINGTON – Fears that the US and Russia could embark on a new arms race in outer space are growing, after a US official voiced deep suspicion about Moscow’s pursuit of new space weapons. It comes just days after the US outlined plans for a new ‘Space Force’, which US Vice-President Mike Pence and Defence Secretary James Mattis said was vital to the country’s national interests, the Week reported Wednesday.
Despite this, Yleem D.S. Poblete, US Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, told a UN Conference on Disarmament which is discussing a new treaty to prevent an arms race in outer space, that Russia’s pursuit of counterspace capabilities was “disturbing”.
Russia has long maintained it is a priority to prevent an arms race in space, and signed a draft treaty to that effect with China a decade ago.
Poblete cited “six new major offensive weapons systems”, including the Peresvet military mobile laser system, unveiled by President Vladimir Putin in March, and the launch of a new inspector satellite which was acting in an “abnormal” way, as “yet further proof that the Russian actions do not match their words”.
Neither of these weapons would be prohibited by the joint Russian-Chinese space arms control treaty proposed in 2008. However, Alexander Deyneko, a senior Russian diplomat, noted that the Americans had not proposed any changes to the treaty and dismissed Poblete’s concerns as groundless.
“We are seeing that the American side are raising their serious concerns about Russia, so you would think they ought to be the first to support the Russian initiative. They should be active in working to develop a treaty that would 100 percent satisfy the security interests of the American people,” Deyneko said. “But they have not made this constructive contribution.”
Chinese disarmament ambassador Fu Cong called for productive negotiation on the matter. China is also hard at work developing an anti-satellite arsenal. Both Beijing and Moscow are thought to be years ahead of the U.S. in this area, and the gap is making American officials nervous.
The Daily Express reports that US believes that the Russian laser “will not just be used to destroy space junk and that the cannon and detection system will be used to destroy and spy on international satellites”, however, Russia remains adamant the laser will be used for space debris, claiming that in a few centuries, space junk could clog up Earth’s orbit so much that it could make launches impossible.
Poblete went on to say that Russia’s pursuit of counterspace capabilities “is disturbing given the recent pattern of Russian malign behaviour” and its proposed treaty would not prohibit such activity, nor the testing and stockpiling of anti-satellite weapons capabilities.
Yet some in Russia and China have accused the US of hypocrisy, given the country’s recent moves to create a sixth branch of the US army to operate in space.
Stressing the need for a special ‘Space Force’, Pence said on Thursday both China and Russia were actively looking for technologies that could interfere with or disable US space-based systems.
The South China Morning Post, however, says Chinese analysts expect Washington’s ambitious plan “to fuel an accelerating space arms race between the two nations and Russia, even though China’s technology still lags behind America’s”.
