As different nations begin conducing operations on the lunar surface, humanity's penchant for geopolitical struggles will likely be along for the ride. Tension between nations and/or corporations could grow. There are few rules and treaties that can calm this potential rising tension.
Humans from different nations can struggle to get along. Will we take our Earthly geopolitical struggles to the Moon as nations generate a sustained presence there? Image Credit: RegoLight, visualization: Liquifer Systems Group, 2018.
ESA Standard License As different nations begin conducting operations on the lunar surface, humanity's penchant for geopolitical struggles will likely be along for the ride. Tension between nations and/or corporations could grow. There are few rules and treaties that can calm this potential rising tension. What kinds of conflict might erupt and how can it be prevented? Humans have shown an ineptness when it comes to dividing things fairly. In multiple cases, nations attempt to take by force what could be shared peacefully. The same is true with companies in competition with one another. Researchers developed a table top exercise to examine how competition on the Moon could play out.," was published in the journal Space Policy. The lead author is Mariel Borowitz from the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "To examine the possibility of conflict resulting from activities on the Moon, we designed a tabletop exercise set in 2029, just five years in the future from the perspective of participants," the authors write."In the exercise, countries and private entities find themselves in a hypothetical scenario involving conflicting interests in regard to a commercial 'safety zone' claim." The tabletop game centered on conflicting definitions of the safety zone among fictional competitors. One of the fictional competitors is called"Chandra Ltd." and is based in India. Chandra lands a spacecraft near the Shackleton Crater on the lunar south pole. It's a prominent crater about 21 km in diameter. Its significant because parts of it are in permanent shadows and desirable water ice deposits persist there, while its rim receives a lot of sunlight, desirable for solar power. This visualization of Shackleton Crater uses data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The crater has permanently shadowed regions that hold large quantities of water ice. Image Credit: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio. After landing near Shackleton Crater, Chandra declares a safety zone with a 50 km diameter that encompasses the entire crater. Next, two other fictional commercial entities enter the picture, one Chinese and one American. They're named Yuecai and Space Harvest respectively. Both had previously announced their intended landing sites, but now both lie within Chandra's declared safety zone. This map shows the TTX landing sites and the safety zone declared by Chandra, the first to land. The other landing sites lie within the proclaimed safety zone. Image Credit: Borowitz et al. 2015. Space Policy"The use of TTX is relevant for both political science and policy," the authors write."Tabletop exercises, wargames, scenario analysis, and simulations are part of a burgeoning trend in international relations scholarship. In particular, TTXs, a type of wargame, were developed for military strategists and simulate real-world environments using hypothetical scenarios ." The TTX proceeded in two phases. The first involves teams discussing the scenario and reacting to it in small teams. In the second phase, the teams refined their positions and took part in a discussion moderated within the framework of the. COPUOS was established in 1959 to promote international cooperation on the peaceful uses of space. 24 participants took part in the TTX, eight teams of three people each. All of the participants are experts in"space and regional dynamics," according to the authors. The teams represent the United States , United States , Europe, India, UAE, Russia, China, and United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space Bureau. Members of the research team sat in as observers and took notes throughout the entire TTX. In the first phase, participants reacted to the scenario and determined whether or not their nation or organization would accept Chandra's safety zone and their reasons for either accepting it or not. Then they convened in two multilateral blocks for discussions. One was based on the Artemis Accords and included the United States, Europe, India, and the UAE. The second block was theThe powerful Space Launch System is the primary launch vehicle for the Artemis Moon program. Image Credit: NASA. The US Military team saw India's safety zone as an attempt to prevent Chinese interference. They referenced"aggressive behavior in the South China Sea against the claims of other regional states," and called on the international community to follow existing law. The team proposed this statement:"The US military asks that all nations consider the principles delineated within the Artemis Accords regarding the importance of operations taking place on the lunar surface, and refrain from any intentional actions that may create harmful interference with each other’s use of outer space in their activities under these Accords." The United States' civil/commercial group spent a lot of time considering how the safety zone would impact future commercial activities. They were concerned that the safety zone could lead to a default claim of ownership by Chandra Ltd. and urged for a more formal process to create safety zones and what exactly they mean. They also considered whether a safety zone requires ongoing activity rather than just the presence of some type of facility. The European countries agreed with much of what the US civil/commercial group said. They mirrored the idea that while safety zones have a purpose, they shouldn't be exclusionary. They stressed communication and transparency between all groups and that the safety zones should be in place to prevent disruption of scientific activities. , which occurred in reality shortly after this TTX took place, aligns well with this idea." The TTX showed that participants didn't enter the exercise with clear rules they wanted to establish. None emerged from the scenario."Instead, the focus was more on the process of developing rules – ensuring that it was fair, inclusive, and adaptable – than on the specific content of the rules," the authors write. While there's a desire to establish norms and rules, the participants don't seem to know what they should be. In their conclusion, the authors explain that"Participants gained an appreciation of how a simple declaration by a state trying to deconflict the activities of one of its commercial companies with the plans of other states and their companies could lead to an international crisis, due to the current lack of an internationally accepted procedure." Interestingly, it wasn't the safety zone itself that caused the most concern, instead it was the lack of a transparent multilateral process for declaring one. Some nations also disliked the idea that non-state actors could declare safety zones. "In the end, preventing conflict related to activities on the Moon will depend on the perceived legitimacy of these procedures," the authors write in their conclusion. We're fortunate that there's still time to work through these issues before lunar exploration and development really gets going. "But the clock is ticking, and it would be far better to have a governance regime in place before future conflicts occur than to try to develop one after the fact," the researchers conclude.
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