Lunar competition risks global stability
Traffic on the Moon is increasing, with over 100 lunar missions planned in the next decade. The UK government has recognised this and committed £50 million to companies developing communications and navigation services.
However, the Moon is more than just an economic opportunity. It’s also a theatre for the unknown, where states, companies and other stakeholders will have to quickly figure out how to work together, or risk costly disaster. The first step, as always, is a bit of honesty.
Governments are no longer leading space exploration. Instead, the diversification of actors has led to increasingly complicated relationships and coordination efforts, which in turn has led to a large number of segmented and independent partnerships.
Currently, there are over 100 space information-sharing agreements and temporary exchanges between public, private, and scientific actors, including the NASA-Chinese exchange for conjunction analysis around Mars. However, these are limited bilateral relationships, lacking a formal (and permanent) mechanism for sharing that supports collaboration across the wider array of actors.
The reason for the lack of commitment is an ongoing shift towards a politically multipolar world that has sparked significant geopolitical competition, as the 'global order' becomes increasingly contested between the US, China, Russia, the EU and an array of influential 'middle powers'.
Governments must now concurrently manage competition, cooperation, and strategic rivalry, within the same relationship on a topical basis. It has also made states increasingly sensitive to actual, or perceived, competitive actions – especially as the lines between civilian and state spheres have become blurred through the grey zone weaponisation of economics, supply chains, dual-use infrastructure and technology, and legal levers.
In this context, trust – the foundation for binding international agreements that can help constrain the increasing excess of competition – becomes a rarefied commodity.
Someone needs to take the first step.
Geopolitical competition and its consequential mistrust have already politicised environments believed immune to it, such as the Arctic and space more generally. It is now spilling over into the fledgling lunar environment.
The head of NASA recently raised concerns that China may attempt to control and restrict access to the currently limited points of interest on the lunar surface if it gets there first. Aggravating this are US concerns that China is likely aiming to operate in similar lunar locations as NASA – making both the controversy over the US-led Artemis Accords and the lack of universal agreement on off-world governance, far more pressing.
This is before any actor has even set foot on the lunar surface. Without intervention, the Moon is on a trajectory to become just another extension of geopolitical competition.
There are also tangible operational risks stemming from this quagmire that could see the emerging lunar economy throttled. These range from uncertainty over potential resource disputes to liability for accidents.
Increased activity invariably brings risk of collision. We’ve already seen accidents, such as the 2009 collision between the U.S. Iridium satellite and a dead Russian Cosmos satellite, creating nearly 2,000 pieces of orbital debris. Debris and crowding-related issues currently experienced in low-Earth-orbit are analogous to the growing problems in a rapidly changing lunar landscape, which has itself already experienced unplanned and accidental events.
As more humans and technology are established on the Moon the likelihood of catastrophic (and expensive) consequences increases exponentially.
That’s bad for everyone.
To begin to address these issues, we need trust. But trust-building mechanisms however are difficult to construct. They need to be acceptable to all parties while cutting across the increased sensitivity of governments to the myriad of competition-related threats.
The best way of doing this is to start small – concentrating on a key element plainly in everyone’s best interest. One that helps build the foundations of trust. In this case, that element is transparency regarding lunar activity. The lack of this, indeed, has already been raised as an issue by key actors.
Creating a mutually accessible platform that facilitates the regular updating of lunar-interested actors to the activities of others – even if only including basic information – would be a net benefit for everyone and help alleviate some of the tensions and risk in an already inhospitable environment.
While this alone won’t see competition or tensions evaporate overnight, it establishes a baseline foundation of trust, upon which further trust-building mechanisms and agreements can be constructed. Slow and steady, and always with a “buy-in” rather than “top-down” approach.
It might not win the race, but it will make sure it doesn’t blow up in our face.
Samuel Jardine writes alongside Rachel Williams, a Research Fellow at the Open Lunar Foundation.
Samuel Jardine is an experienced geopolitical consultant specialising in strategic competition, space, the polar regions, and the seabed. He is the Head of Research at London Politica, a Senior Advisor at Luminint, a Research Fellow at the Foresight Institute, and a Research Associate of the Climate Change & (In)Security Project.
