Editor’s Note: North Korea defied strenuous U.S. and international objections with a multiple rocket launch on the Fourth of July that effectively ended its own self-imposed 1999 moratorium on long-range missile testing. The launch included the test of a Taepodong-2 intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering a weapon of mass destruction; the long-range rocket fell into the Sea of Japan less than a minute after it lifted off. The test, though failed, rattled the stock market and triggered a blistering array of negative diplomatic responses, sending leaders around the world scurrying to their telephones for high-level talks aimed at producing a coordinated global response to the North Korean threat.

Dr. Eligar Sadeh, a former aerospace engineer and assistant professor in the Department of Space Studies, and a widely respected space policy expert, agrees with colleagues around the world that the July 4 test represents a new complication in the global search for continued peaceful uses of space. Sadeh, managing editor for Astropolitics: International Journal of Space Politics and Policy (a peer-review journal) and a research associate with the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, has written extensively about the effects of militarization of space. In the following interview, Sadeh explains what the North Korean launch— and the technology it implies— means for the global space community.

Q. North Korea’s ballistic missile launch capability was no big secret, and Kim Jong-il, North Korea’s autocratic Stalinist leader since 1994, warned that his country would send a big one aloft. It’s also no secret that North Korea has developed a nuclear weapon (though the missile tested on July 4 did not carry a warhead). What do you make of this test?

A. In the space community, we were well aware that there had been space and missile technology transfer to North Korea. I think that, among other things, this test is more about North Korea projecting national prestige and demonstrating its capabilities to the world.

Q. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned North Korea thatWashington would consider the launch of a long-range ballistic missile to be “a very serious matter and indeed a provocative act” that would deepen North Korea’s isolation. What other consequences, say, in space policy, can you foresee following North Korea’s decision to launch?

A. This issue not directly tied to space issues, but there certainly are dual-use technology concerns. This is really a strategic issue and broader issue of ballistic missile proliferation. It raises concerns about rogue states, such as North Korea, that are not part of the international body of law; they operate outside the normally accepted norms of international behavior.

Q. The United States hinted recently that it possesses technology that would allow us to shoot down a North Korean missile; do you think this is, potentially, an appropriate response?

First, this is problematic. The nation’s missile defense system includes about a dozen interceptor missiles in Alaska and California and on some Navy ships, but it has suffered multiple test failures since President Bush ordered the Reagan-era program accelerated in early 2001. You would not want to threaten such a response when there is a probability of an embarrassing failure.

What is more likely is a call to enhance the Missile Technology Control Regime, which aims to prevent proliferation from states that have the technology to states that do not have this capability. The big question is how do you control and regulate this since missile and launch technologies are so proliferated to states that are hostile to international interests. Clearly, North Korea can be a regional and even an international threat.

Q. So what is your major concern after North Korea made good on its promise to launch?

A. I do not agree with the mindset that the regime is trying to be suicidal; though it may violate human rights, it is not seeking its own death. I think North Korea is seeking regional power and stating this to the world community, that “you can not just impose your will on us.” North Korea is also making the international law argument that it has the right to conduct whatever weapons tests it wants from within its own borders.

There definitely is a longer-term issue here; though, North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile launch failed— an earlier North Korean attempt to launch a satellite into space also failed— the link is that if you have an intercontinental ballistic missile, you also have a space launch vehicle. The space program worldwide— including the U.S. program— is pretty much derived from ballistic missile technology as the primary means to access space.

That means that North Korea can (and will) develop capabilities to go into space, and thus, potentially, threaten our assets in space.

Q. So there’s a lot more to this missile launch than a potential nuclear or other WMD threat to the United States?

A. Yes, indeed. The logical leap can be made, assuming North Korea continues on its present tack, that U.S. satellite assets will be under threat. The question is do we want to protect such space assets by active means. And that points to space weaponization— the U.S. might deploy space weapons to protect our assets from threats such as North Korea’s. Space might be used as a platform to control and eliminate such threats, for example, by knocking out a rocket from space.

And this is not just about military operations; we need to protect space assets that are critical in all sectors, not just military, for example, national intelligence use, civil use, commercial use— especially, telecommunications, positioning, navigation, and timing, and remote sensing.

Q. So what happens now?

A. This is not a one-time event, this is ongoing. The Korean peninsula still is very militarized, with a demilitarized zone with land mines and the presence of U.S. troops in South Korea. There are potential larger concerns with China and Japan, and North Korea’s actions could destabilize power relationships and balances of power in that area of the world.

At the same time, I do not think that the North Korean regime is going to last; the demise of this regime points to possible reunification of the two Korea’s. In the short term, I see that North Korea will serve as the pretext for advancing U.S. preemption policy, so instead of engaging in larger warfare such as the kind we are fighting in Iraq, we would preempt hostile regimes by using space-to-earth weapons. What is happening in North Korea strengthens the case for preemption and for a weaponization of space.

Albeit, I would like to note that a weaponization of space does present other issues and challenges for the international legal regime and political views on space, especially in regard to peaceful uses of space.

I am also sure that this will force us to focus more on U.S. space policy; one big issue is how does the United States develop a comprehensive space power doctrine that can guide military uses of space for various ends, from military ones to commercial and civil ones.