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The military space race:
unrealized fantasies?

Oznobishchev S.K.,

Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, s.sko96@yandex.ru

elibrary_id: 251323 | ORCID: 0000-0002-1623-8529 |

Klimov V.A.,

Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, vasily-klimov@mail.ru

elibrary_id: 1173665 | ORCID: 0000-0002-6910-1075 |

Article received: 2024.06.12 17:19. Accepted: 2024.08.12 17:19


DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2024.06.06
EDN: YAWURO

Rubric: Political discourse

For citation:

Oznobishchev S.K., Klimov V.A. The military space race: unrealized fantasies? – Polis. Political Studies. 2024. No. 6. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2024.06.06. EDN: YAWURO (In Russ.)

This article was prepared with the support of a grant from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation for major scientific projects in priority areas of scientific and technological development No. 075-15-2024-551 “Global and regional centers of power in the emerging world order.”

Abstract

The escalation of the military and political struggle between Russia and the West, which has led to the near-total collapse of the arms control system, has now extended to outer space, the ‘sixth ocean'. In the current year 2024, American rhetoric has become especially active, accusing Russia of attempting to turn space into ‘a battlefield of the future'. Another surge in suspicion, amid a sharp escalation of tensions, has occurred due to the lack of effective legal mechanisms to reliably regulate the activities of states in space. In the past, the Soviet Union and the United States, after a series of costly projects aimed at attempts to use outer space for warfare, redirected their activities towards non-military, peaceful purposes. They created a solid legal framework and moved towards cooperative relations, including in the outer space. In light of the current, largest military and political crisis between Russia and the Western countries since the end of the Cold War, new cooperative efforts are needed to strengthen collective security in outer space.

Keywords

space, space weapons, nuclear weapons, anti-satellite systems, missile defense, Cold War.

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