Chinese and Russian Perceptions of and Responses to U.S. Military Activities in the Space Domain

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Blanc, Alexis A.

Contributor:

Beauchamp-Mustafaga, Nathan

Bond, M. Scott

Flanagan, Stephen J.

Holynska, Khrystyna

Language:

English

Place of Publication:

RAND Corporation 2022

Summary:

U.S. military activities and policy with respect to the space domain have evolved significantly since the 1980s, and recent developments include the reestablishment of U.S. Space Command and the establishment of the U.S. Space Force in 2019. Yet, despite this activity and concerns regarding the increasingly congested and contested nature of space, there has been little open-source analysis of Chinese and Russian perceptions of these developments. To fill this gap, RAND researchers systematically reviewed a variety of Chinese and Russian primary sources, such as government publications, military journals, academic reports, and domestic media, to gain insights into internal Chinese and Russian perceptions of developments in U.S. military activities related to space and counterspace doctrine, exercises, and organization. To focus their efforts, the researchers developed a representative sample of ten U.S. "events" in the space domain, such as the Strategic Defense Initiative (1983), the U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty (2002), Operation Burnt Frost (2008), and the space policies of recent U.S. presidents. They searched each primary source for discussion of these events, which they used to assess how Chinese and Russian reactions to U.S. military activities related to space have evolved over time.