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Impact – Plan Causes Weaponization



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Impact – Plan Causes Weaponization



[____]
[____] The US has agenda setting power in space, if it pursues weaponization than an aggressive response is inevitable.
Michael Krepon, founding president of the Henry L. Stimson Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan institution, previously worked at at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, 2003, http://www.stimson.org/pubs.cfm?ID=81
Put another way, the dominant position of the United States provides agenda-setting powers in space. The flight-testing and deployment of space warfare capabilities is surely inevitable if the United States takes the lead in this pursuit, but not if Washington maintains prudent hedges against unwelcome developments in the form of a readiness to respond in kind to any flight tests or deployments of space weapons by weaker states. These hedges, as discussed in Chapter 3, should be sufficiently persuasive to foreclose such a competition, unless weaker space-faring nations make very unwise choices. While a hedging strategy is necessary, it is also insufficient. Hedges against the flight-testing and deployment of space warfare capabilities need to be accompanied by initiatives that underscore the positive and affirming uses of space for the benefit of humankind. Space assurance, broadly defined, also requires the reaffirmation of existing norms against the weaponization of space.

Impact – Weaponization Causes War


[____]

[____] A war in space would pollute space for decades to come and cause an accidental nuclear war.
Steven Lee Myers, reporter for The New York Times, 3/9/2008, “Look Out Below. The Arms Race in Space May Be On,” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/weekinreview/09myers.html
IT doesn’t take much imagination to realize how badly war in space could unfold. An enemy — say, China in a confrontation over Taiwan, or Iran staring down America over the Iranian nuclear program — could knock out the American satellite system in a barrage of antisatellite weapons, instantly paralyzing American troops, planes and ships around the world. Space itself could be polluted for decades to come, rendered unusable. The global economic system would probably collapse, along with air travel and communications. Your cellphone wouldn’t work. Nor would your A.T.M. and that dashboard navigational gizmo you got for Christmas. And preventing an accidental nuclear exchange could become much more difficult. The fallout, if you will, could be tremendous,” said Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington. The consequences of war in space are in fact so cataclysmic that arms control advocates like Mr. Kimball would like simply to prohibit the use of weapons beyond the earth’s atmosphere. But it may already be too late for that. In the weeks since an American rocket slammed into an out-of-control satellite over the Pacific Ocean, officials and experts have made it clear that the United States, for better or worse, is already committed to having the capacity to wage war in space. And that, it seems likely, will prompt others to keep pace.
[____] Placing weapons in space will be destabilizing for the entire world.
Nina Tannenwald, Joukowsky Family Research Assistant Professor and Director of the International Relations Program, Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University, Summer 2004, 29 Yale J. Int'l L. 363


The future of peace and security in outer space is at a critical juncture. The legal regime that guides commercial, military, and scientific activities in  [*364]  space is fragmented and increasingly inadequate to meet the challenges posed by the growing number of actors seeking to exploit space. The most serious challenge to the space regime is posed by the stated intent of the George W. Bush administration to pursue national dominance in space, which may eventually include stationing weapons there. Although space is already militarized to some degree - that is, used for military support purposes - no nation has yet placed weapons in space. Such a move would cross an important and longstanding threshold, likely provoking a battle for national superiority in space dominated by the United States. It would seriously undermine the current legal order in space that is widely supported by the rest of the world. The deployment of ground-based antisatellite (ASAT) weapons would also constitute a serious departure from the current regime. Without a concerted effort to develop a more comprehensive legal regime for space that will limit unconstrained weaponization, the international community will likely face a new military competition in space, with destabilizing consequences for national and global security. Such a competition will place at risk existing military, commercial, and scientific activities.






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