Duality in Space

Transcript

Bruce McClintock

The concept of a dual-use space system is the idea in general terms that something can be used either as a tool or as a weapon.

Krista Langeland

You can imagine a system that is developed for benign purpose, like active debris removal, a robotic arm, pulling a dysfunctional satellite into a graveyard orbit. This will support space safety and sustainability.

Bruce McClintock

But that same grappling mechanism can be used to grab onto somebody else's satellite to take it out of service. And one of the ways I put this is a one person's trash removal system is another person's anti-satellite weapon.

Anca Agachi

So these kinds of systems can serve multiple uses and multiple purposes, that can help both for instance for economic, civilian, military and other goals.

Bruce McClintock

I'm Bruce McClintock.

Anca Agachi

My name is Anca Agachi.

Karen Schwindt

My name is Karen Schwint.

Krista Langeland

My name is Krista Langland.

Melusine Lebret

My name is Melusine Le Bray.

Karen Schwindt

One of the main takeaways from this research is that there's not an agreed upon definition of dual use based systems, which creates challenges when trying to determine which systems need to be governed, how they need to be governed, and why.

Krista Langeland

So really in this first year, our objective was to to baseline our understanding of these systems and get all of these different regional perspectives. And we found a pretty wide variance. So that of course gets in the way of developing policy norms and governance for these systems.

Anca Agachi

There's three reasons why it's so difficult to find agreement on using space. Number one, space is one of the global commons we have. And so, because of that, it's very difficult to find agreement on how we can all use this resource while maintaining its sustainability. Second of all, different countries have different national interests, and sometimes those interests can collide or can conflict, which again makes agreement difficult. And then third, politics on ground affect what's happening above our heads. So, because of that, it's critically important that we have an international perspective on the research that we do and understand how different actors view this very important shared resource.

Bruce McClintock

Everybody should have some kind of a say in how we utilize common resources like space. And therefore, in my view, everybody should have a say in how we govern space for the long-term benefit of humanity. So our Duality in Space project had three regional teams that we focused our research on. The first was the Americas, so North and South America. The second was the Eurasia region. And then the third region was the Indo-Pacific region.

Anca Agachi

We found out that the Americas is an effervescent region. There's a lot going on, both in terms of investments and in terms of the policies that are being developed, and that partnerships play an increasingly important role, whether it is partnerships with the United States via the Artemis Accords or with China via various infrastructure projects.

Melusine Lebret

It was about bringing together fifteen participants from across Europe, Eurasia and from fifteen different organizations with fifteen different interests, expertise, and and oftentimes backgrounds. I think what was the most interesting bit of the workshop was of course to anticipate how to moderate this really multifaceted group of stakeholders.

Karen Schwindt

In each of the countries that we examined, the commercial sector is increasingly integrated into defense adjacent supply chains. Many participants disagreed on the best way to build consensus around which governance mechanisms should govern which dual-use based systems. With some countries advocating for minilateral as opposed to bilateral, multilateral approaches, and others instead advocating for revisions to or reinterpretation of existing international treaties.

Bruce McClintock

Another key aspect of our research was to complete an extensive literature review and country perspectives analysis that was led primarily by Krista Langeland.

Krista Langeland

Now that we've gathered regional perspectives, summarized our key findings, we have a better understanding of what existing policies are and how different regional actors think about those policies. In year two, we'll have in-person regional discussions to help us understand what policies need to do and what the constraints might be.

Bruce McClintock

The ideal outcome that we are contributing to through this RAND work is to have generally agreed upon definitions for what constitutes a dual-use system so that different nation states and owner operators have a common lexicon that they can apply as they're talking about what could be considered dual-use systems. It's a reality that there's going to be more things in space and that it's going to be hard to distinguish what things are serving a strictly military or national security purpose and what things are serving a strictly civil commercial purpose.

Anca Agachi

The risks for miscalculation and escalation can increase as countries are unclear about their intentions as well as their priorities. So it's very important that we develop early on policy and governance norms that we can use to manage this important domain for all of humanity.

Bruce McClintock

There's truly a need for this work because there are no common definitions. There's not any one entity that's advancing this conversation. So I'm excited to be part of a team at RAND that is contributing to filling that gap.