Alexander K. Bollfrass, Ester Sabatino & Chelsey Wiley
1. Lessons From Ukraine for Europe’s Military Use of Space
Space data and services are increasingly an integral part of modern warfare. Earth observation (EO), intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), positioning, navigation and timing (PNT), and satellite communication (SATCOM) can assist a broad range of military tasks, supporting geolocation, targeting and battle-damage assessment, among others. Space further enables other military actions that rely on space-based data and services, such as the use of GPS-guided weapons. The growing military importance of space is also reflected by the growing number of space-related organisations focused on national security or defence tasks. NATO recognised space as a military domain in 2019, implying that conflicts might affect both ground- and spacebased space capabilities and that an attack in the space domain may lead to the invocation of the Alliance’s Article 5 collective-defence clause.
The targeting of satellite networks has been prominent in Russia’s war against Ukraine and represents a major change in the way space has been regarded as it pertains to military operations. Since Operation Desert Storm space systems have played an important role in supporting military operations, but in the last decade or so it has become a domain in which military operations can be performed.2 This means that in addition to supporting the military in the collection of ISR, EO, PNT and SATCOM, militaries can target space and space-based capabilities of adversaries to disable their use of space. An initial example of the use of space to perform military operations is the GPS interferences registered in Syria.3
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