Introduction: Two years ago, Russia downed one of its satellites with a ballistic missile, creating a cloud of over 1,700 debris fragments. In response, SpaceX navigated its satellites to safety, while astronauts aboard the International Space Station took refuge in escape pods. Luckily, this event did not result in damage to other spacecraft. This was a direct ascent anti-satellite (ASAT) test. In the days following, nations chastised Russia as irresponsible and destabilizing to international relations. Over the next weeks and months, the US, nonprofits like the Secure World Foundation, and the UN launched diplomatic and political efforts to try to stop future ASAT tests. So far, these efforts have been insufficient.
Satellite operators use fuel to avoid collisions with debris. The more debris in space, the more fuel is needed. Fuel is expensive. Without space systems, there is no GPS, internet banking, or long-distance phone calls. Weather reports would be less reliable, disaster responses would be slower, and opportunities for climate change mitigation, wildlife conservation, and air quality improvement would vanish.
Space is an important part of everyday life, so it is vital that it is kept safe and sustainable from debris. Any collision could trigger a Kessler Syndrome, a hypothetical scenario when debris destroys a few satellites, thus producing more debris. The new debris then destroys more satellites, creating an exponentially growing cloud of debris. This debris cloud could become so dense that nothing could penetrate it, effectively trapping humanity on Earth for generations.
The key to preventing ASAT debris is understanding why a state would create debris. My research over the past few years has focused on this question. To start, I created a new way to measure national space power that I call the space power index. Tracking national space power is interesting on its own, but the index was just the first step toward answering this question.
Further analysis with international relations theory and correlating my results with debris from ASAT tests over time, led me to a significant discovery. I discovered that the more states undergo shifts in their power growth rates at one time, the more space debris will be generated in that year. This finding partly explains why states choose to perform ASAT tests, resulting in debris generation.
Since the first satellite launch in 1957, humanity has steadily added more things into orbit. Satellites congest space, but they have a benefit to humanity. Humanity also has added debris: non-functioning objects, into orbit. Abandoned satellites, old rocket parts, or destroyed satellites from ASAT tests are all examples of space debris.
Figure 1: Number of objects >10 cm in LEO. Credit: NASA ODPO
The amount of debris in orbit today is not an existential risk, though it has surged in the last two decades. This is because of two major events: China’s 2007 ASAT test and Russia’s 2021 ASAT test. China’s test unleashed over 3,500 pieces of debris, with 2,500-plus still encircling our planet today. Debris from these tests makes space more dangerous. In 2013, a piece of Chinese debris collided with an operational Russian satellite, knocking it off course and destroying it.
You would expect space sustainability to be an easy proposition. States can conduct ASAT tests with zero or limited debris, yet Russia and China produced thousands of pieces anyway. Although Russia and China have vested interest in protecting their space systems, efforts to make space more secure and sustainable are failing. The US, seeking to establish a new international norm and prevent space debris, pledged to stop testing direct ascent ASAT (anti-satellite) missiles and called on other nations to do the same. However, no other ASAT capable state has joined the pact. The UN’s Open-Ended Working Group on Reducing Space Threats was formed to come up with international law or recommendations to make space more sustainable. They met four times but the Russian delegate blocked attempts to produce even a procedural report.
The reason for these failures may lie in an overlooked cause of ASAT testing: how a nation perceives its power. Charles Doran connected the dots between a nation’s changing power status and its collective emotions in his Power Cycle Theory. A “power cycle” is a graph of a state’s power compared to other great powers (figure 2). Power cycles are consistent in shape.
Figure 2: A Typical Power Cycle
Doran linked this cycle to a nation’s collective psyche. He observed that countries at similar power cycle stages—known as “critical points”—exhibit comparable behaviors, marked by insecurity and a higher propensity for conflict. Critical points represent the transition between growth trends: from rapid growth to slow growth, slow growth to slow decline, slow decline to rapid decline, and finally rapid decline to slow growth. The more nations that reach these critical junctures at the same time, the greater the risk of conflict.
Measuring Space Power: In order to use power cycle theory, I needed a way to measure national power in space, so I created the space power index. The basis of the space power index is development measurements:
- space military capabilities,
- space science capabilities,
- and active spaceports
and size measurements:
- annual orbital launches
- annual payloads
- cumulative orbital launches
- annual military payloads
- and annual scientific payloads
After adjusting to a common scale, I added the values into one number that represented national space power. I used that index to plot power curves. Once I had space power curves, I was able to calculate the correlation between critical points and ASAT debris.
Results
Figure 3: Space Power Cycles and ASAT Tests
I found a modest correlation. In statistical terms, the correlation between the number of states in critical periods and the amount of debris that year is .43. In the second space age, post-1995, that same correlation was 0.51. This correlation is visualized in figure 3.
Here are some other correlation factors to help contextualize this result:
| Variables | Correlation |
| Income and happiness | 0.23 |
| Critical points and debris from 1961-1995 (The First Space Age) | 0.43 |
| SAT and First Year GPA | 0.51 |
| Critical points and debris from 1995-2022 (The Second Space Age) | 0.51 |
| Parent’s Education and Child’s Education | 0.55 |
| Height and Weight | 0.69 |
Explanation: States tend to act in predictable, destabilizing ways at each critical point. Not all critical points lead a state to conduct an ASAT test, but all critical points make an ASAT test more likely. Certain points might reduce a state’s desire to prevent another’s test or lead it to try to weaken international norms. All these points create uncertainty and risk. Here is a list of the different critical points and why ASAT debris is more likely.
| Critical Point | Typical Behavior | Example |
| Lower Turning Point | The state realizes its newfound strength and becomes more assertive, often challenging other states or norms. | India in 2018 conducted an ASAT test which generated a relatively small amount of debris. |
| First Inflection Point | The state’s rise slows down, and it blames the global order, often taking steps to undermine it. | China is attempting to build its own international order with a new space station, the Tiangong, launched in 2021. |
| Upper Turning Point | The state reaches its peak and starts to decline. Here, it might resort to war, attempting to defy this decline and hold on to its leadership role. | The US in the early 1960s conducted the Starfish Prime EMP test, a 1.4 megaton TNT warhead that damaged 3 satellites. |
| Second Inflection Point | The state is still in decline, but the fall isn’t as sharp. On one hand, the state fears its powerful competitors, but on the other, it feels if it acts decisively it could regain its lost position. | Russia feels paranoia about western encroachment and greed to restore its position as a dominant actor in space. Russia was on this critical point when it conducted its 2021 ASAT test. |
| Second Lower Turning Point | After a prolonged decline, the state levels out and starts to rise all over again. The state will often ally with others, seeking their help to protect interests it can’t guard on its own. These allies can be entangled into conflicts they would not otherwise engage in. | The US is at this point today, in 2023, and its actions around the Artemis Accord may represent these feelings. |
Predictions and Proposals: Doran argues that predicting the future with international relations is impossible. While I appreciate the complexity and unpredictability inherent in this field, I believe that applying theories of international relations to speculate about future events can be insightful and valuable. It’s true that the exact timing of critical points cannot be pinpointed, but the pattern they follow is consistent. Armed with this knowledge, I venture to offer the following predictions:
- China will reluctantly defend Russian space interests. Russia’s next critical point will be a lower turning point. At its next lower turning point, Russia will reclaim past interests and likely employ a powerful ally to protect these interests. Power Cycle Theory cannot predict who this will be. Given Russia and China’s present day relations, it seems plausible that Russia’s ally would be China. Historically, states at this juncture have caused disruptions, dragging allies into unwanted conflicts.
- The US and India will abandon the international order. Despite efforts to shape a cooperative space environment, particularly through the Artemis Accords, the US and India will hit their first inflection points, and see their rises constrained. They may ultimately opt to act independently, undermining global cooperation and enabling states like China or Russia to build a new international order based on their interests.
- China will conduct another ASAT test. China, who will hit an upper turning point, is the most dangerous state to the future peace of space. States who go through upper turning points see their rise finally end, and the beginning of decline. They often do not accept their fate and seek to change their destinies, often through war. In space, this could be aggressive actions like proximity operations or a non-debris causing ASAT tests.
These three predictions are best case scenarios. If these critical points occur simultaneously, China will likely do worse than proximity operations or non-debris ASAT tests, such as conducting another major ASAT test, or even attacking another state’s satellite system, sparking war in space.
Efforts by the US, UN, and other policymakers to secure space are commendable, but insufficient. To secure space, the international system must recognize and engage with the specific concerns of states at different critical points. Stakeholders should offer assurances, partnerships, and even aid to states feeling paranoia at upper turning points and second inflection points. Stakeholders should give states at lower turning points and first inflection points a larger international role to. A time will soon arise when multiple states simultaneously enter critical periods. If these realities are not recognized, overwhelmed by uncertainty, paranoia, greed, and fear, the system will falter. There will be another ASAT test and at least thousands more debris pieces will be added to our already crowded orbit, and the use of space could be jeopardized for generations.
