The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies released findings and recommendations last week from a two-day workshop held earlier this year that gamed out disaster scenarios in space warfare. The institute recommended the U.S. government establish benchmarks for interpreting hostile behavior in space and strengthen strategic messaging to deter potential adversaries.

Retired Space Force colonel Charles Galbreath, director and senior resident fellow for space studies at the Mitchell Institute, said the workshop included 50 subject matter experts from military, government offices, industry, and academia. "We wanted to understand how a conflict in space might manifest and what we and our allies or our partners could do to prevail in each of those situations," Galbreath said.

Facilitators presented hypothetical adversarial actions, beginning with a scenario where China docked one of its satellites with an inoperable European commercial satellite and repositioned it without prior coordination. Additional hostile activities were introduced at predetermined intervals at days 0, 45, 60, 90, and 180. These attacks were attributed to China, Russia, Iran, and an unidentified actor, and included both in-space and ground-based incidents.

Retired Air Force Colonel Jennifer Reeves stated that the challenge of maintaining escalation control becomes more difficult when multiple states coordinate actions. Reeves added that this coordination presents a greater escalatory risk than isolated actions by a single actor, particularly when space-related pressure coincides with other regional or global crises. The workshop participants also explored how potential adversaries might collaborate during coordinated assaults, with one scenario involving escalating attacks that moved from GPS jamming to a missile strike in the Middle East, and then to an attack on bridges at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

"Because there are still few widely accepted definitions for what constitutes conflict in space, decision-making can become slower, less certain, and more reactive," Reeves said. She noted the workshop underscored the central importance of attribution. "Before leaders can choose a credible response, they need confidence about what happened, who did it, how broad the effects were, and whether those effects were actually intentional." Reeves stated that repeated non-kinetic attacks, such as jamming, lasing, and cyber effects, can normalize hostile behavior if they are not clearly identified and addressed.

Galbreath, Reeves, and Kyle Pumroy emphasized the importance of strategic messaging for U.S. officials to define norms of behavior. Galbreath said that there needs to be an active campaign outlining acceptable and unacceptable actions, identifying critical infrastructure elements, and reminding stakeholders of the importance of space capabilities for national security. The authors also recommended that the Space Force continue conducting war games and enhance the protection of U.S. space infrastructure. Workshop participants indicated that the U.S. military possesses a broad range of response options combined with more resilient space architectures for deterrence.