Successive US presidents over the past twenty years have rejected offers by Russia and China to negotiate a treaty that would prohibit all antisatellite activities, ex-US Chief of Naval Operations science advisor Theodore Postol told Sputnik.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – Earlier this week, US Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Frank Rose expressed concern over Moscow and Beijing allegedly developing anti-satellite weapons, local media reported.

“There were more than 20 years of effort by Russia and China to get the United States to agree to a treaty that would ban all kinds of anti-satellite activities,” Postol, emeritus professor of science, technology and security policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, argued.

Throughout that time period, the US posture has been simply to “stick a thumb in the eye of both the Chinese and the Russians” with regard to this matter, Postol maintained.

“Whether or not this was the right response by China and Russia, it is absolutely no surprise that both are now demonstrating that they have the ability to attack US satellites if they choose to do so. This was true 20 years ago, and it is more true today.”

Postol also observed that the United States had failed to recognize that space was not simply the combat environment envisaged by generations of US national security policymakers.

“Satellites are fundamentally vulnerable to antisatellite activities. The simple equation is that it takes very little in the way of technology and investment to be able to attack satellites, but it takes vast resources that are well beyond even the United States to protect them.”

The huge cost of launching additional fuel for maneuver and other defensive measures into orbit meant space platforms would continue to be vulnerable, Postol pointed out.

“Space is a kind of ‘nuclear deterrent’ regime… satellites can be much more easily attacked then they can be defended,” he noted. “There is no way to armor a satellite sufficiently to survive a direct attack.”

Even if it were possible, Postol said, launch costs would make it completely prohibitive.

Other strategies like maneuver were just as pointless, Postol argued.

“The fuel required to maneuver a satellite away from an attacking homing vehicle would cause the size and weight of the satellite to be so large as to make it fundamentally unlaunchable. Arming satellites with protective interceptors is also out of the question due to the huge costs involved.”

Substituting large and expensive but highly capable satellites for less expensive less capable satellites had some merits. However, there were very large launch-cost penalties, and depending on the mission, the technology for building multiple less capable satellites may not be available, Postol cautioned.

“One would think that the geniuses in the Pentagon would have understood this for 20 years while they were refusing to accept offers to negotiate a treaty with China and Russia.”

During those two decades, the US Department of Defense consistently worked to block the possibility of negotiations for an antisatellite treaty, Postol recalled.