Remarks By:
Frank A. Rose
Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance
ASEAN Regional Forum Space Security Workshop
Hoi An, Vietnam
December 6, 2012
I am very pleased and honored to join you here today to discuss space security in such a beautiful location in one of the most dynamic and important regions in the world. I’d like to thank our hosts in the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for organizing such an important and timely conference.
What is “space security?”
Before I discuss in depth the topic of this speech “transparency and confidence-building measures (TCBMs) and how they help strengthen the security and stability of the space environment”, I’d like to first talk briefly about what “space security and stability” means.
Today, space systems are vital to the daily life and workings of every nation around the world and their peoples. Space systems enhance our national security, foreign policy, and global economic interests; they expand scientific knowledge; and they improve life on the ground through weather forecasting, environmental monitoring, and city planning. Yet for all that we depend on it, we face a number of challenges in the space arena, including orbital congestion, situational awareness, and collision avoidance, all of which require our focused attention and concerted efforts to address as they directly affect the security and stability of space.
Each of the nations here likely has a different interpretation of what “space security” means based principally upon each respective country’s national interests. Based on the U.S. National Space Policy and other Presidential guidance, as well as our obligations under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and other international law, we in the United States associate “security” as it relates to space with the pursuit of those activities that ensure the sustainability, stability, and free access to, and use of, outer space in support of a nation’s vital interests. This interpretation is supported by long-standing principles of space law and including:
All nations have the right to explore and use space for peaceful purposes, and for the benefit of all humanity, in accordance with international law. Consistent with this principle, “peaceful purposes” allows for space to be used for national and homeland security activities.
The space systems of all nations have the rights of passage through, and conduct of operations in, space without interference. Purposeful interference with space systems, including supporting infrastructure, will be considered, in the U.S. view, an infringement of a nation’s rights.
Unless the international community adopts pragmatic and constructive measures in the near-term to avoid collisions and curb irresponsible behavior, the space environment around our planet will become increasingly hazardous to both human and robotic spaceflight. The United States and many nations around the world are pursuing a variety of unilateral, bilateral, and multilateral transparency and confidence-building measures to address these challenges and to strengthen long-term sustainability, stability, safety, and security in space.
What are TCBMs?
Today, the international community increasingly recognizes the usefulness of transparency and confidence building measures, or TCBMs, as a way to promote openness and to reduce tensions between nations, particularly in areas where misperceptions may exist.
