May 27, 2005 :: Analysis
Pavel Podvig, author of Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, argues that Russia has lost the ability to compete with the U.S. in space. On RussianForces.org, he refers to the remarks of a low-level Russian diplomat at a recent conference in Virginia, who was quoted by the Financial Times as saying, “Russia could respond with force if the US put a ‘combat weapon’ into space.” Podvig disagrees: “Russian diplomats like to think they live in the world where this rhetoric works … The reality is quite different.” He argues the Russian military space program “has lost its capability to carry out serious development projects in military space and is very unlikely to recover it.”
Opponents of U.S. space-based military assets often warn about the dangers of a space arms race between the U.S. and Russia. According to this argument, the “weaponization of space” would lead to new forms of brinkmanship and perhaps even military conflict. Yet if Podvig is correct and Russia has truly lost the ability to compete with the U.S. in space, then the U.S. need not worry about going head to head with the Russians, if such a race even occurs. Either the U.S. will win the space arms race, or the Russians will decline to challenge the U.S. due to their current lack of resources, technology, and expertise. (Article)
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