Vania Trixie Widodo
The US has not destroyed a satellite with a missile since 2008, but that restraint has never become statute.
US Air Force Secretary Troy Meink has said the United States now has “on-orbit space control weapons.(Opens in new window)” He did not say what they do or when they went up, yet China warned of an arms race(Opens in new window) in space.
Two months earlier, Washington told a UN working group that it prefers voluntary rules(Opens in new window) to govern military activity in orbit. Its delegate called the Outer Space Treaty “essential and sufficient”, listed seven proposals for responsible behaviour, and dismissed bans on technologies as unworkable.
Yet none of the seven mentions the one pledge America has already made.
In April 2022, then Vice President Kamala Harris announced that the US would not test missiles that destroy satellites(Opens in new window). That December, the UN General Assembly backed the idea by 155 votes to 9(Opens in new window), and about three dozen countries(Opens in new window) have since made the pledge themselves. But for most countries – the United States included – it’s a promise that any administration can drop.
If any space rule could be written into law, I think this is the one. Most proposals founder on definitions – a satellite that can repair another can also disable it, for example. But a missile test that destroys something in orbit needs no definition. When Russia destroyed one of its own satellites in 2021, US Space Command counted more than 1,500 pieces of trackable debris(Opens in new window) that day, and seven people aboard the International Space Station(Opens in new window) sheltered in their capsules. Washington has already endorsed the ban, so it needs no deal with Moscow or Beijing, which say they want binding rules but voted against this one(Opens in new window).
Behind the debris sits a stalemate. Moscow and Beijing want a treaty banning weapons placed in orbit, and their May 2025 joint statement(Opens in new window) points to America’s Golden Dome plan for orbital interceptors as the threat it would stop. Washington answers that bans on technologies are unworkable(Opens in new window) and offers behaviour rules instead, starting with this pledge, which restrains the missile tests Russia and China have run and costs America little. Delegates in the UN committee called the pledge insufficient(Opens in new window). On my reading, each side offers a binding rule only where it gives up little it values. The pledge is the cheapest place to test that commitment.
Congress has not moved to make the pledge law, either. On 8 December 2022, Senator Dianne Feinstein and Representative Ted Lieu introduced resolutions (S.Res.864(Opens in new window), H.Res.1515(Opens in new window)) backing the UN vote. They lapsed with that Congress, and a Congress.gov search of the 118th and 119th Congresses found no later bill that would make the pledge binding. Congress did bind a president on this once: in 1985 it barred tests against objects in space as long as Moscow held off, and the next year Ronald Reagan threatened to veto(Opens in new window) a bill that kept the ban.
I can think of three reasons there is no statute today, each with different consequences. If the Pentagon wants a free hand, there should be testimony against a ban. If Congress forgot, there should be a few sponsors and then silence. Or if the White House likes a pledge it can drop, the record would look identical to forgetting, since nobody has to oppose a bill that never gets filed. A Pentagon official’s May 2025 testimony(Opens in new window) mentions Russia’s debris-making test, then warns against “unworkable and disingenuous treaties or standards that constrain our freedom of action.” I could not find the department’s view on putting the pledge in law, so that seems to fit the last two explanations equally well.
A Pentagon planner would answer that a weapon that can never be tested destructively is hard to trust, and that a surprise from Russia or China might make a future president want the option back. Yet the cost is small. America has not run such a test since 2008(Opens in new window), and a waiver can cover an emergency. The law should be narrow and write down only what others can check.
It would bar any missile test that destroys an object in orbit. It would cover a destructive test of the Space-Based Interceptor program(Opens in new window) that Meink also mentioned, while tests against warheads in flight stay legal. The president could waive it in an emergency by certifying so to Congress, the same device Congress used in the 1980s. A waiver weakens the law, but one the president must sign and explain to Congress is harder to do quietly than dropping an announcement.
A law gives other countries a commitment they can rely on after the next election, and that earns Washington the standing to ask Moscow and Beijing for the same. A US law barring the destruction of objects in space would not stop Russia or China, and it would not touch Meink’s weapon, which he has not described. But with the UN working group due to meet again on 23 November(Opens in new window) and its mandate running until 2028, it would set a tone.
*Vania Trixie Widodo is an Indonesian international researcher specialising in space security and governance, as well as global security affairs.
