New Article: Deterrence in Orbit

Alyssa I. Agard | Agard Research Associates Inc. | April 2026

I am pleased to share my latest research article, Deterrence in Orbit: PLA Counterspace Doctrine, JADO, and the Vulnerability of Space-Based Nuclear Command and Control, now available as a pre-print through Agard Research Associates. A revised version of this article has been submitted to a peer-reviewed journal for publication.

(Views are the author's own and do not represent ARA)

What the Article Is About

The United States is pursuing two major military modernization efforts at the same time. The first is overhauling the infrastructure that enables the President to authorize and direct nuclear operations: nuclear command, control, and communications, or NC3. The second is a doctrinal shift toward Joint All-Domain Operations (JADO), which aims to integrate military capabilities across land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace into a unified warfighting framework. Both efforts respond to the realities of great-power competition. Yet they have developed along largely separate institutional tracks, and the space domain is where that separation becomes most consequential.

The satellites the United States relies on for nuclear early warning, secure strategic communications, and attack assessment are, in most cases, the same platforms that enable conventional military operations. JADO doctrine recognizes space as a contested domain, but it does not differentiate between the conventional support functions and the nuclear command-and-control functions that these constellations simultaneously perform.

The People's Liberation Army does not make that distinction either, but for very different reasons. Under its systems destruction warfare doctrine (体系破击战), the PLA treats the adversary's operational system as a unified target set. Severing command-and-control linkages is not a supporting task; it is the central operational requirement. China's growing counterspace arsenal, spanning direct-ascent antisatellite weapons, co-orbital systems, directed-energy platforms, and cyber capabilities, gives this doctrinal ambition real material substance.

The Space-Nuclear Firewall

The article introduces an original analytical concept: the space-nuclear firewall. This concept identifies the doctrinal assumption, embedded within JADO, that conventional space operations and nuclear command-and-control functions can be managed within a single unified framework without triggering escalation. The article argues that this assumed separation is operationally fictitious. PLA counterspace doctrine is specifically designed to collapse it, and JADO provides no mechanism to prevent that collapse.

The core paradox is this: JADO's central operational virtue, the convergence of effects across all domains, simultaneously deepens the entanglement between conventional and nuclear functions in space. Optimizing for speed, integration, and cross-domain synergy makes it structurally harder to isolate nuclear C3 from the broader operational architecture. The convergence that gives JADO its operational power makes the space-nuclear firewall thinner, not thicker.

Policy Recommendations

The article proposes reforms across four areas: doctrinal differentiation within JP 3-0 to establish distinct thresholds for NC3-relevant operations; operational disaggregation of nuclear C3 functions from conventional space support where technically feasible; operationalization of the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review's declaratory threshold regarding non-nuclear strategic attacks on NC3; and, most consequentially, the establishment of a dedicated Space-Nuclear Integration Cell (SNIC) within the JADO planning architecture. The SNIC would evaluate cross-domain operations for nuclear escalation risk before execution, maintaining a direct coordination channel to the NC3 Enterprise Center at U.S. Strategic Command.

Companion Simulation: Degraded Constellation

To accompany the article, I have developed an interactive geospatial simulation, Degraded Constellation: Counterspace Effects on Space-Based NC3. The simulation models PLA counterspace operations during the opening phase of a Taiwan Strait contingency, allowing users to simulate direct-ascent and co-orbital ASAT engagements against the SBIRS GEO constellation and Next-Gen OPIR transition satellites in geosynchronous orbit. As assets are degraded, the simulation visualizes the resulting missile warning coverage gaps and the escalation pressure dynamics that follow, applying Acton's damage-limitation window and misinterpreted warning pathways to dual-use NC3 degradation in real time.

The simulation uses approximate satellite positions and simplified coverage geometry for analytical illustration; actual orbital parameters and sensor specifications are classified. PLA ASAT launch site coordinates are derived from open-source intelligence. It is intended as an analytical companion to the article's scenario analysis in Section V, making the abstract escalation dynamics discussed in the text concrete and observable.

Pre-Print Availability

This article is currently available as a pre-print and has not yet undergone peer review. A revised version has been submitted for publication. The pre-print is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

To view the article, click here

For questions, please contact me at aagard@agardassociates.org.