Spying from from Outer Space or Managing Global Nuclear Threat and Verifying Treaties?

Presentation at IIFWP210909: Jasani

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Spying from from Outer Space or Managing Global Nuclear Threat and

Verifying Treaties?

Bhupendra JasaniDepartment of War Studies

King’s College LondonUK


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IntroductionSecurity Concept

Recently two reports have have identified threats to national and international security:

1. The Solana Report, issued by the European Union (EU) in December 2003 that identified the following threats: terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), regional conflicts, state failure and organised crime;

2. A 2004 UN report, issued by the former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that identified poverty, infectious disease, environmental degradation, conflict between and within states, proliferation of WMD, terrorism, and trans-national organised crime;

While the UN has taken a broader view of security by including poverty, infectious disease, and environmental degradation, there is, by and large an agreement on the threat perceptions between regional and international communities;

This presentation deals with one of the most important element of security, arms control, disengagement and peace treaties.


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Multilateral arms control treaties

For these to be meaningful, they have to be effectively verified; With increasing capabilities of civil/commercial satellites and more and more states launching and operating their own satellites, their application to monitoring arms control treaties on a multilateral basis becomes possible.

Examples of such treaties are:1970 NPT1992 CFE Treaty1993 CWC 2003 a ceasefire, disengagement and security agreement-such as Sudan Agreement1996 CTBT (Opened for signature but not in force yet)Future treatiese.g. a treaty on the cut-off of the production of weapons usable fissile materials (FMCT)


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Performance of panchromatic sensors

States such as China, France, India, Israel, Japan, Russia and USA have developed their own spacecraft and they launch them and operate them;

Performance of a sensor is assessed by, spatial, spectral and temporal resolutions;

Consider the spatial resolution of a panchromatic sensor which range from 30m to 0.41m on current spacecraft


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Performances multi- and hyper-spectral sensors

Some of the sensors also deploy multi-spectral and hyper-spectral devices


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Examples of what can be seennuclear fuel cycle – thermal signature that could distinguish between Pu

production facility and power production reactor

IKONOS-2 image taken on 11 November 1999 at 1m resolution; Bruce Nuclear power plant. Source: SpaceImaging

Landsat image with bands 6 as red (120m), 7 as green and 4 as blue (28.5m) over Bruce plantsSource: EOSAT


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Positions of Indian spacecraft in orbit shows high temporal resolution


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Are observations from satellites enough?

Information from satellites only is not enough

Many open sources of information are available that must be used

Examples are “grey literature”, technical and trade journals, news paper articles, internet, and institutes and universities


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Examples of open sources

“Grey literature” under which information is open but not readily accessible; e.g. annual reports by companies, conference papers, congressional hearings or parliamentary proceedings etc

Technical and trade journals, such as those produced by the Jane’s Publications in UK, news paper articles

Internet Institutes and universities


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Examples of some treaty monitoring

Consider first nuclear energy and weapons related facilities;

Targets studied were some of the nuclear facilities and weapon sytems;

Identification of civil and military targets and their locations;

As an example consider part of the nuclear fuel cycle.


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Nuclear fuel cycle

Nuclear power Nuclear power reactors and reactors and weapons require weapons require fissile materials: e.g. fissile materials: e.g. U-235 and Pu-239; U-235 and Pu-239;

U-233 is also usable U-233 is also usable but not employed in but not employed in practicepractice

U-235 and Pu-239 U-235 and Pu-239 are produced in are produced in enrichment facilities enrichment facilities and nuclear reactors and nuclear reactors respectivelyrespectively


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Space capability for the Middle East

We have some idea of the capabilities of commercial observation satellites; Data from these are openly available; As a result, in Europe we have been able to establish a European Satellite Centre for arms control and confidence monitoring and crisis management; I have suggested that a similar agency could be established in the Middle East.


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Space capability for the Middle East - continued

In the Middle-East there is an increasing feeling towards cooperation and away from confrontation; Middle-East peace process is indicative of this; Such tendencies are perceived in the Gulf region also; An example of the latter is the gradual improvement towards cooperation within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC); The success of such a development may be initiated with the development of confidence-building measures (CBMs); Adequate CBMs could overcome deep-rooted suspicions that often result in conflicts.


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Space capability for the Middle East - CSBMs

Suitable CBMs could help build trust making it possible to realise the concept of collective security; In the Middle East CBMs are not entirely new; The 1974 and 1975 Egyptian-Israeli disengagement and the 1979 peace treaty are examples of measures under which extensive CBMs have been developed; For example, demilitarised and reduced force areas and third-party verification systems have been established; An example is the 1974 reduced forces agreement between Israel and Syria with 3rd-party verification measures (UN); Moreover, after the Gulf War, the Madrid peace process introduced the multilateral Arms Control and Regional Security (ACRS) talks that did not get very far.


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Space capability for the Middle East – Peacekeeping Operation

QuickBird satellite images acquired over the Internet using Google Earth software


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Observations from space could be a very important CBM

Examples of what can be seen from commercial remote sensing satellites

Space capability for the Middle East – CBM Golan Heights Israeli side


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Space capability for the Middle East – CBM Golan Heights Syrian side


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Space capability for the Middle East – CBM Golan Heights Syrian side


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Some conclusions

Commercial remote sensing satellite capabilities are such that not only can they contribute to arms control treaty verification but in other areas of security also;

For example; conflict reduction, peace agreements (e.g. Sudan Peace Agreement), peace keeping operations (Like Golan Heights) and humanitarian assistance;

The latter would be for detection of refugees and monitoring their movements in order to deliver them aid (particular interest to the UN High Commission for Refugees);

Thus, we have some of the following options: Encourage more and more UN specialised agencies, e.g. OPCW,

CTBTO and UNHCR, to use satellite imagery; Encourage more regional satellite monitoring agencies, like EUSC, in,

for example, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, Latin America and Africa;

Ultimately develop a UN International Satellite Monitoring Agency

Spying from from Outer Space or Managing Global Nuclear Threat and Verifying Treaties?

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