Space Law
Countering Space-Based Weapons of Mass Destruction
Russia’s alleged effort to develop a space-based nuclear weapon threatens to violate the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, undermine international peace and stability, and hold at risk the peaceful use of space for all nations. Other emerging threats, such as China’s...
Year Ahead – U.S. Department of Defense and Space Force Commercial Space Strategies
Editors’ note: We are pleased to announce that Articles of War has recently added several thematic editors to our staff. Each editor has contributed a post to this year’s Year Ahead series with thoughts on issues or situations they recommend our readers track over the...
The Woomera Manual and Military Space Activities and Operations
The ongoing armed conflict in Ukraine has clearly demonstrated the critical role satellites in outer space play in the conduct of contemporary armed conflict. The conflict itself has been termed the first commercial space war given the heavy reliance by both Ukraine...
Russia’s Alleged Nuclear Anti-Satellite Weapon: International Law and Political Rhetoric
The development and testing of anti-satellite weapons (ASATs), as well as debates concerning the legal and policy implications of ASAT testing and use, have existed since soon after the dawn of the Space Age. The centrality of these issues has waxed and waned over...
Space Privateers or Space Pirates? Armed Conflict, Outer Space, and the Attribution of Non-State Activities
Famously, George Clemenceau, Prime Minister of France at the end of the First World War, quipped that “generals always prepare to fight the last war, especially if they won it.” Such flaws of perspicacity, of course, are not limited to generals. After all, as Nobel...
Multi-Domain Legal Warfare: China’s Coordinated Attack on International Rule of Law
Law has emerged as an integral element of gray zone competition. State and non-State actors alike increasingly view law as a means to shape operational spaces, forge perceptions of legitimacy, constrain potential adversaries, and refashion the international system,...
Regulating Military Force Series – The Meaning of Prohibited “Use of Force” in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter
Editors’ note: The author delivered remarks on the subject of this post at the conference “International Law and the Regulation of Resort to Force: Exhaustion, Destruction, Rebirth?” at the Centre for International Humanitarian and Operational Law, Palacký University...
Russian Nuclear Weapons in Space
Recent news reports indicate that U.S. authorities fear Russia “wants to put,” a nuclear weapon into space, with U.S. intelligence describing this as a “serious security threat.” The suggested possible purpose of the weapons would be to target Western satellites in...
The Korean Space Race
At the end of 2023, we enter a new phase of competition and proxy war on the Korean Peninsula in what could be dubbed the Korean Space Race. Kim Jong-un, the mercurial North Korean leader, has long prioritized placing military spy satellites over the Korean Peninsula....
A New Silenus Box: The French Manual on the Law of Military Operations
French armed forces have participated in more than a hundred military operations since 1995. Enhanced operational activity notwithstanding, France strives to consistently keep its military operations in line with international law. The new French Manual on the Law of...
The US Space Force at 3: Growing Dangers for a Growing Branch
On 20 December 2022, the US Space Force (USSF) will celebrate the third anniversary of its creation—an anniversary that comes at the end of a year rife with space-related challenges. The after-effects of Russia’s November 2021 kinetic anti-satellite (ASAT) missile...
Can Starlink Satellites Be Lawfully Targeted?
In an earlier post, I discussed the special attribution regime in Article VI of the Outer Space Treaty (OST) and the risk of activities of commercial actors drawing States into existing armed conflicts. This analysis stemmed from Elon Musk providing Starlink services...
