…[P]aranoia aside, the systems are nevertheless accumulating. In 2014, for example, the U.S. Air Force launched a trio of satellites in geosynchronous orbit to keep “neighborhood watch” over other satellites. Indeed, “space weaponization is inevitable,” David C. Hardesty has written for the Naval War College Review—but inevitability, he adds, should not be confused with desirability or unquestioning acceptance. Hardesty emphasizes that we should determine the value of militarizing space “not by its inevitability” at all, in fact, “but by whether it is good or bad—by whether weaponization and its consequences will improve or degrade the national security environment.”
Existing international treaties and conventions do not provide much guidance. Aside from prohibiting the use of nuclear weapons and other “weapons of mass destruction” in space, there is very little to hold back future development of offworld armaments… That means that, while moral arguments for or against any particular nation-state claiming this ultra-high-altitude battlefield are still being formulated, the tech itself exists—and, in many cases, is ready to be deployed.