"The End of Sanctuary in Space"

An article at War Is Boring examining the recent history, current status, and some thoughts regarding the protection of our space-based military assets (e.g., the various satellites) from enemy action. The title of the article refers to a particular school of thought that regarded orbit as a sanctuary from which the U.S. could obtain strategic information. It relied on international agreements and norms to prevent the weaponization of space--including weapons that could threaten those assets. However:

There is growing recognition that the current strategic situation in space between the U.S. and its potential near-peer adversaries is unstable. At the moment, the United States has the most well-developed space capabilities in the world and is far more reliant on space for national security and the projection of military power than any other country.

The previous dominance of the sanctuary school led the United States to develop national security space capabilities that are extremely vulnerable to a variety of attacks, particularly kinetic attacks. These capabilities are mainly concentrated in a limited number of large and very expensive satellites that take many years to build and launch.

Their importance to U.S. military power gives powerful incentives for potential adversaries to develop ASAT capabilities to take them out and to use those capabilities during conflict.

To many within the U.S. national security space community and Congress, the newly “contested” space domain is a serious problem because it undermines the ability of the United States to win a major engagement with a near-peer adversary.

Read the whole thing. My personal belief is that we are on the threshold of  another space race which will be driven by the militarization of space and based around smaller, cheaper satellites and space launch systems.