The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Dialogue with David Ignatius: Space as the future of warfare

Episode Date: June 18, 2024

One could be forgiven for thinking reality, these days, is stranger than fiction.  Fears of civil war in the United States if Donald Trump doesn’t get his way in the presidential election; a major armed conflict in Europe for the first time since the 1940s; and talk that the Russians were actually thinking of launching a nuclear missile into space to destroy all of the world’s satellites. All of it sounds like it was lifted off the pages of a Hollywood script.  One can therefore forgive veteran Washington Post journalist David Ignatius for turning to fiction to try and help us understand our current reality. Having covered international affairs and the CIA for decades, Ignatius has written a new novel called Phantom Orbit. The book is a work of imagination that aims to educate readers about a very real possibility: warfare in outer space.  Ignatius also shares his views on how the Biden Administration is handling the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.  The host of the Munk Debates is Rudyard Griffiths. Tweet your comments about this episode to @munkdebate or comment on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/munkdebates/ To sign up for a weekly email reminder for this podcast, send an email to [e-mail].   To support civil and substantive debate on the big questions of the day, consider becoming a Munk Member at https://munkdebates.com/membership Members receive access to our 15+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, newsletter and ticketing privileges at our live events. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue - https://munkdebates.com/ Executive Producer: Ricki Gurwitz Senior Producer: Daniel Kitts Editor: Kieran LynchBecome a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You don't help the poor by making everybody poorer. The media has a frame, and the frame is Israel is the oppressor, and the Palestinians are the oppressed. I shouldn't be forced to acknowledge my privilege unless I desire for that to be part of my interaction with somebody else. What I know to be true and what all of my fellow Gen Z know to be true is that this is the most talented generation yet. With respect to every indicia of disadvantage, there is still a racial hierarchy. And though I am, of course, in Anglo. I'm certainly not a fucking Saxon. Hello, Monk listeners.

Rudyard Griffith here, your host and moderator. Welcome to this, our continuing conversations called The Monk Dialogues. The Monk Dialogues are in-depth questions and answers with some of the world's sharpest minds and brightest thinkers. On each Monk dialogue, we go deep into the big issues and ideas that are driving the public conversation. While one could be forgiven for thinking

that reality these days is stranger than fiction. Fears of civil war in the United States, if Donald Trump gets his way come November, a major armed conflict in Europe, the largest, since the World War II, and talk of Russians recently launching a missile, a nuclear missile into space to destroy the world's satellites. All of it sounds like it was lifted off the pages of a Hollywood script, say a James Bond movie. Well, one can therefore forgive veteran Washington Post journalist David Ignatius for turning to fiction to try and help us understand our current reality. Having covered international affairs and America's intelligence agencies for decades, Ignatius has written a provocative and entertaining new novel called Phantom Orban. The book is a work of imagination that aims to educate readers about the very real possibility.

of warfare in outer space. David Ignatius, welcome to the Monk Dialogues. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Pleasure to spend some time with you, a longtime reader of your excellent columns, so many issues to delve into, but I want to start with the focus of your new book coming at Phantom Orbit. The book's premise is built around an issue that I'm sure maybe you weren't surprised to see. pop up in the news in a big way over the last few months. And it was around a scare, an international

scare that the Russians were potentially going to deploy a nuclear weapon into space or the threat of that had been crystallized for the United States and its allies. So let's begin our interview by just hearing a little bit of your thinking about why you wrote this book, why the focus on space warfare and what you see space warfare as in terms of its relative importance to the broader national security conversation that America is having right now. So when I began thinking about a new novel three years or so ago, I was trying to think what is the issue that we're going to be focused on when the book comes out to think ahead. And it was already obvious in 2020, 2020, 2021, that space weapons, unfortunately, are a growing reality.

Space has become a domain of warfare. The creation of the Space Force in 2019 was a signal that the U.S. had recognized that it was just more vulnerable in this area than it had thought. So I did begin thinking about how to learn about space weapons, space systems, how to investigate the way they were playing. a role, it turned out in the Ukraine War. I think the Ukraine war really is our first space war. So I've made four trips to Ukraine since the war began. Each time I go, I'm more aware of the role that space systems are playing in allowing the Ukrainians to maintain communication with their frontline forces. Their broadband connectivity comes from Elon Musk's Starlink system. Elon Musk has 5,000 satellites in lower orbit. They cover the globe.

but they cover Ukraine particular importance right now. In addition, Ukrainians have access to all the commercial satellites that are spinning the globe, collecting optical imagery, the kinds of spy photographs that the NRO used to take from its spy satellites. There are satellites that do thermal imaging that can see through clouds. There are satellites that have synthetic aperture radar that provide 3D images. There are even satellites that do SIGAN collection of voices and other electronic emissions. It's amazing what's available commercially. And in my trips to Ukraine, I've watched Ukrainian military people dial into the systems

that allow them to tap these Western commercial resources to try to defend themselves against the Russian invasion. So this is a real problem. The challenge for a novelist is to take things that are in the news. things that I cover as a, as a columnist, and make believable and compelling fiction out of them. So I tried to find characters that would embody the dilemmas that was writing about. Talks just a little bit about the thread that you explore through Phantom Warbit. What is the crux of this, the risks, the threat that you think in the book, at least,

it's important for readers to better appreciate and understand? I'll mention two things right at the outset of the book. The book opens in real time right now. The Ukraine war is going on. It's as devastating in my book as it is in real life. And a Russian scientist, an astrophysist who knows all about their own space programs, comes to believe that Russia and China have developed what he calls a kill switch that can turn off the GPS system on which the United States and its allies depend for an astounding array of

what we do. Every time we use our cell phones, we're using the GPS locators that give us precise positioning. Every time we use most forms of mobile commerce applications, every time we travel on an airplane, those signals are essential to how we live. So the idea. that they could be turned off by an adversary is frightening. It's Russian, although he's not a traitor, defector, feels he has an obligation to share this information with the CIA. So he does what people around the world do. He goes to CIA website and uploads a message warning them that their world, this world

that depends on satellite resources, could go dark. to his amazement, he doesn't hear anything back. And over the course of the book, he doesn't get the response that he's expecting. So one of the riddles that goes through this novel is, why is that? What accounts for this non-response? I won't say more. Another theme that begins right in the beginning after that opening in real time is we cut back to the beginning of this character, Yvonne Volcroft's education in space,

in as it happens, Beijing, China. He has tried to be a student at Moscow State University, the best university in Russia. It's 1995. Russia's broke. He comes from Russia's version of Pittsburgh, Steele Town, in the earls east of Moscow. He's got no money.

He's got no hopes. His family's busted up. So he goes to Beijing because he can get a scholarship there. And he realizes early in the book that the Chinese are looking at ways, they don't have any satellites of their own, it's 1995, but they see the importance of satellites, communications, commerce, eventually, for military purposes, sees the Chinese, finding ways to get inside the supply chain that feeds America's and Russia's space systems, too. So that's how we get the story started, all sorts of other things I could say about the characters,

But it basically is trying to introduce the reader to subjects that I think most readers, even of this sort of spy fiction, are not familiar with. But the more research I do, the more convinced I am, this is the futures, future warfare, future communications. Space is an absolutely central battleground, commercial area, you name it. It's fiction pointing at a trajectory, a path for a lot of us, which we may be headed on. And in that regard, David, what do you see as the current Russian capabilities, interests in space warfare? There is a perception that the Russians traditionally have had an active space program, that they are competent in this domain. what is your take about the relative position of the United States, China, and Russia when it comes to gauging how advanced and developed they are

in terms of thinking about space as a next frontier for pursuing their national interest, their national security, potentially through the weaponization of space? So the Russians once were the world's leaders, Russians had the first satellite in orbit. Russians had the first cosmonaut, as they called, called in orbit. They were out there first, and there was the shock, as people in the United States, in my generation, called it of Sputnik, the Russian satellite in the 1950s. It was just suddenly a sense that we were behind in a key area of technology. One of the things that happened in the declining years of the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet years of just kind of crazy cowboy capitalism was that that Russian space enterprise was in effect liquidated.

Russians ran out of money to support the state research. They began desperate commercial sales. They were in effect selling off the assets that they had. It's one thing that my character, Yvon Vokovac, has to live through is you know he's trying to work in this area as it gets more defunded every every every month a sign of of how primitive the russian capabilities are now is the recent threat that you referred to it that the beginning of our program uh congressman mike turn from ohio in february alerted the house that he wanted an urgent briefing from the national security council on what he

said was a severe new Russian threat to national security, which turned out to be Russian thinking about responding to America's incredible explosion of commercial space that has national security implications, those 5,000 satellites of Elon Musk's spinning around in lower orbit, responding to that by detonating a nuclear weapon in lower orbit. Why? Because they have no other way to stop that proliferation of satellites. They don't have anything like it themselves. And when you think about it, it's just such a bit's like pounding a nail on the wall with a sledgehammer. If you detonated a nuclear weapon in lower orbit, you would burn lower with orbit into a debris field for a generation where nothing could fly. It's just an insane solution to their problem. But they do have a problem.

the United States with its incredible entrepreneurs, like Elon Musk, say what you will about Elon Musk and Twitter, but with SpaceX, he's done a pretty extraordinary job. They have nothing like that. And the Chinese, actually, although they're very sophisticated in this space, don't have anything equivalent either. So the Russians are worried. They know that as in Ukraine, the United States has an extraordinary asymmetric advantage. and they're thinking of crazy ways

like detonating nuclear weapons to deal with it. David, is part of the concern of American security experts that the idea of a nuclear weapon in space creates another kind of confusion as to what

the potential use of nuclear weapons could be, how to deter against that hypothetical use, what the use would represent in terms of an actual threat and therefore what is the response to that use i mean do we have a doctrine david to try to think through the implications of the weaponization of space in the same way that we have for better or worse well articulated doctrines related to a whole variety of different

conventional and non-conventional scenarios for the use of force on planet earth so we thought that we had a treaty banning the use of nuclear weapons in outer space. It was understood that this would be very dangerous. And that treaty is still on the books. And the Russians, after this flap that resulted from Mike Turner's revelation, said, oh, no, no, we're not intended to do that. Nobody really trusts that. I think Russia as a declining power, let's be honest, realizes that it's

remaining leverage on the West is to threaten the use of the one thing it has that can really hurt us, which is nuclear weapons. And so repeatedly, Russians threaten that if they really get in trouble in Ukraine, they'll use tactical nuclear weapons. There was genuine anxiety in the Biden administration in October 2022 that they were in fact, you know, one person said to me, you know, it's 50-50, whether they're going to do it. I mean, we came that close. People don't realize that. So there's frantic efforts to talk to the Russians, understand their doctrine,

the reassurances were received. The truth is the Russians began doing better in Ukraine, so their need to use nuclear weapons receded. In terms of space, they have said, as they looked at the way in which Elon Musk and Starlink was providing essential resources for their adversary that western companies should understand that russia regarded them as fair game it was a speech given in new york by a russian ambassador named baronzo which didn't get much attention but he was basically saying we need to deal with this problem and be careful because

you're crossing a red line we're just drawing so the the report of their discussion of using nuclear weapons followed on the earlier warnings, I tend to think that even crazy Putin isn't crazy enough to blow up everybody's satellites, Russia's, China, everybody and all the world has satellites in the orbit. But I do think they're going to think of other ways to disable communications. There are ways to have electromagnetic pulses that would just basically fry the circuitry of things in space without leaving the debris fields that I can imagine I'm trying to do. But it's, I think the point I've made to your, to your listeners, is that although we haven't really spent much time thinking about it, we've entered an era in which space

and what happens in space is going to become much more important for national security and that we need to think about it more. We need to think about the legal implications of it. What are the rules for who owns things in space. We're going to start mining asteroids, for example. That's like a coming technology. What are the mineral rights for asteroids? I mean, nobody ever thought about that. I don't think there's any law that currently defines that.

So people are going to need to sit down. The U.S. has made proposals for what it calls the Artemis, of course, there's a whole string of proposals for dealing with complicated legal issues like this in space. in today's completely fractured, you know, acrimonious world. Nobody wants to talk about it. But, again, thoughtful people should say this matters and demand greater discussion of it. To what extent do you have a concern that we're starting to see an alliance of Russia and, for example, North Korea to support North Korea's ballistic missile program? but there are hints suggestions that it may include support for North Korea's own space ambitions,

which are not insignificant. You then, as you've mentioned previously, and as you explore in your book, China is a major player here, aggressively pushing forward with a space program, attempting as soon as this decade to land a probe on the dark side of the moon, and a moon manned mission in the next decade. Do you worry, David, that there's a not insignificant block, space block, that's setting up between Russia, North Korea, China, that can and potentially would pose a real threat to the United States and the rest of the world?

I worry about it a lot. You know, you don't write a novel to warn people the way you would in an op-ed piece. But I hope people will, when I read Phantom War, but it will take the risks that the book describes. I'm very specific about what the Chinese can do in terms of attack capabilities in space, some things that people I'm sure don't know about, but are on the public record. I hope they'll think about that. But it's more the diplomatic and legal regime that would prevent us. the idea that we're headed for a cold war with hot episodes in space,

in addition to here on planet Earth, just scares a heck out of me. We all have, I think, a basic notion of space as benign as the heavens, as this, you know, immensity in which our beautiful Earth is suspended. And the idea that it would become a battleground filled with, with debris, with the wreckage of war, it ought to make everybody gag and then do something about it because we're running out of time. As you say, though, there is a, there's a problem that any action, any weaponization of space

will list a counter response, any use of a weapon in space, as you say, could have catastrophic consequences for the entity, the group, the nation that initiates. conflict in space because they're equally dependent as the rest of us on satellite communication, free flow of data that powers their economies as much as ours. So, David, is there a potential here that maybe on issues, not that we've made a huge amount of progress on climate change, but is there a hope here that there's inherent mutual interdependence when it comes to the risks of outer space in managing those risks and the same way that we might map them to nuclear weapons or climate or artificial intelligence. Is there a capacity, a push to try to find

some way to manage these threats? So in a sane world, you treat space as we ought to treat the planet itself. So much as I think any rational person, knows we share everywhere in every country and interest in dealing with and slowing global climate change, which could change all of our lives, whether we're Chinese, Russian, American. I mean, we're all going to live and suffer consequences on the same planet. In the same way, we have an absolute shared interest, I think, in protecting space as it is the high frontier. It's where, you know, we'll be able as a planet as a species to extend the capabilities of what we can do. We're already trying that. Some of the very

smartest people on the planet, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk have a vision that, you know, someday, as Jeff likes to say, we'll think of Earth as a national park that we'll go back to from our, from our new homes out in space. It sounds far-fetched, but, But 100, 200 years from now, that may be the reality that we're living in. The idea that we would destroy the pathways to a future that's beyond planet Earth by doing really stupid things now, I think is tragic. Again, part of the problem is that people are just beginning to think about these issues. And I hope this novel will encourage a little bit more discussion about what's ahead, because some that's really scary. If you're enjoying the Monk Debates podcast, come over to our website at triple-w monkdebates.com.

That's MUNK DebateswithanS.com and check out our free monk membership. As a complimentary monk member, you get all kinds of great perks and benefits, access to our weekly email, summarizing our best debates, and ticketing privileges at our main stage debates, special news, information, and offers all courtesy of the Monk Debates. You can grab your complimentary monk membership again right now at triple W monk debates.com. Simply look to the top navigation on the website and follow the links. Thanks in advance for joining our community. Our remaining time with you, I'd just like to shift gears to another area on which you are an authority,

which is American foreign policy and particularly the foreign policy of the Biden administration. With everything going on in the world, how would you characterize that policy, as we've seen it this year, play out in the context of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine and the war that continues there with the seemingly intractable conflict between Hamas and Israel and Gaza? What is the thrust, the intention, the overarching idea or premise of Biden's foreign policy? So I think in both Gaza and Ukraine, we've seen the same basic approach, which is classic Biden. And then you need to decide whether they think that's his best attribute or a problem. Biden is a man of the center. He's a man of compromise. He wants to help our traditional ally Israel, but he also wants to prevent the death of Palestinian citizens.

civilians. So he straddles that. He doesn't make a break with Israel, but he increasingly calls for changes in our policy unilaterally moves to provide humanitarian assistance for Gaza. So he's in the middle on that one. On Ukraine, he said at the outset, his goals were to help the Ukrainians repel this illegal, unprovoked Russian invasion by providing American weapons. But he didn't want to see the war spread to other NATO countries, meaning he wanted to concentrate it in Ukraine, and he didn't want a confrontation between the United States and Russia. He felt that his responsibility is present was to avoid a conflict with another nuclear armed state. So he is that person. I tend to think that in most instances, avoiding extreme positions is sensible. I have a lot of

sympathy for how Biden versus one policy, something he gets blamed for, not having rushed the most deadly weapons to Ukraine that the Russians seem to be saying might provoke escalation from that. I think that was right. I think what Biden has managed to do is rather than jump over Russian red lines to kind of wiggle through them. So all the things that Russians said, don't do that, we're now doing. but we've done them carefully in a way that hasn't provoked a broader conflict.

We'll see in this year's election whether that style of Biden's, you know, old time, Paul is a man of compromise, man on the middle, whether that has any appeal for people. He seems to have trouble, I think, getting people excited about those skills of statecraft. But as somebody watches foreign policy, writes about it, I just have to be honest. I have a lot of admiration for many of the things that Biden's trying to do, the way he tries to thread the needle. How would you explain what seems to be, and I take your point of the cautiousness around the escalation of the war in Ukraine, at least NATO's assistance to the Zelensky government, but there seems to be some kind of tension between where the scale and approach to the conflict in Ukraine, Ukraine now, and it's, you know, kind of an argument for like maximal support of Ukraine at this

moment, versus, you know, a different lens being applied to Israel, one that seems repetitively to ask Israel to accommodate, to compromise, to pull back, to resist the type of response that, you know, a nation subjected to the kinds of horrific attacks that Israel was on October 7th, might normally engage in, like the type of response that America engaged in after September 11. Why is there this kind of divergence of calibration right now, at least, between the administration's kind of theory of the case with Ukraine versus Israel and the war in Gaza? So I would say that the administration is for you, and it's one that I share, is that it's important when we think about the Gaza war, to understand the need that Israel has to make sure that

October 7 can never happen again. And that means the demilitarization of Hamas, and effectively means Hamas never ruling Gaza again. And I think that's a just and appropriate goal and one that the U.S. is supported. There's a difference between that and having a sense. stable and secure neighbor in Gaza and building the conditions for that stability and security after the war is over. And what I have faulted Prime Minister Netanyahu for is not thinking with any clarity about how to get to that more stable future, which is something that Israel needs, certainly something that Palestinians have suffered pretty unusual loss of civilian life in this war also need. I agree that supporting Israel's desire for security after this nightmare of

October 7 is appropriate. People who have such short memories that they don't seem to remember what happened on October 7. I don't get that. But I do think Israel needs to be wise. Israel's made mistakes in this war that are sort of like the mistakes we made after 9-11. After 9-11, we were destabilized, traumatized, angry. We did some things that in retrospect probably were unwise. The invasion of Iraq, I think most people would say, was not a good idea. The 20-year war in Afghanistan, not a good idea. We didn't get much out of it.

I think Israel, unfortunately, has made some mistakes in how it pursued this war that led to a significant erosion of international support for Israel, which is important. Countries need to have support around the world to operate effectively. And that was part of any Israeli prime minister's job is to make sure that on that front of international opinion, you're not suffering significant damage. So, you know, in the aftermath of October 7, I understand why Israel was destabilized, just as I know America was after 9-11. But it's important to make good decisions for the long run that,

accept that you can create problems and trying to solve problems to take you down very long and difficult roads. I just want Israel to think about how it's going to be more secure and stable a year from now, not just a week from now. Finally, just sticking on the conflict in the Middle East, clearly one of the, both the catalyst for the conflict and one of the potential thorns in the south. side of a resolution of the conflict in a meaningful, lasting way is Iran. And the policies that the Iranian government has pursued in the region, and specifically

towards Israel. It seems as if U.S. foreign policies that relates to Iran is one of kind of conscious, you know, stasis or stalemate. I don't know if you agree with that characterization or not, I'd be curious to hear you on what is America's strategy towards Iran? Because it clearly seems to be the kind of chaos monkey that is on the back of the region, on the back of Israel, threatening global trade and commerce through the Straits of Hermos. This is a not-insificant security risk. And by every indication, I think one would say, that Iran has had a pretty good last eight months, hasn't it? That Iran's threat really has not been significantly retarded at this point.

So it's certainly true that Iran's proxy, Hamas, has wreaked havoc. It's other proxy, its most important proxy, Hasbollah and Lebanon seems to have been deterred from all-out attack on Israel. But every day, Hezbollah Iraq, are making northern Israeli towns unhabitable, and something's going to have to be done about that. I think the American theory of the case through many administrations has been that the instability produced by the Iranian Revolution in 1979 needs to be contained, checked, ultimately reversed. The U.S. supported Iraq basically gave them targeting information for almost 10 years during Iraq.

We're hoping they could deal with the Iran problem. By unwisely invading Iraq, we basically knocked out that whole work against Iranian power. It was not so wise. I learned something really important personally last month, watching Israel respond to a major Iranian assault. So Iran fired 100 ballistic missiles at Israel, following a swarm of more than 200 drones sent to Israel. And that attack was basically neutered. It had essentially no effect because of Israeli defenses. They were working with a coalition that included U.S., U.K. and French jets that were shooting most of the drones out of the air before they ever got to Israel.

They were working with a coalition unannounced that includes Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, other key Gulf countries that have coordinated air defense radar systems that were seeing Iranian missiles in action. It's never advertised, but one reason that Israel was able to be so successful, is that it is now, in effect, the leader of a coalition of states in the Middle East that hate Iran as much as Israel does. So that coalition succeeded. All those missiles were shot down. To me, it's an incredible feat of arms. But we don't see it as that because it was defensive.

But it's astounding to be able to process signals. Let me just imagine, you know, you've got a minute, you have 100 targets, you've got to track. you got to get telemetry, you got to shoot them down. You know, the software that's running that, software always crashes, right? Nothing crashed except the Iranian missiles that were getting shot out of the sky. So I think this was a demonstration of Israeli power

that was very different from what we've seen in the past. I've been covering in Israel since 1980s when I began covering the Middle East that felt it had to go it alone, that felt that power was offensive, you know, offensive, you know, punch him in the nose, punch him the nose again. And there are two new things. One is they don't have to go alone. They have allies, the U.S. obviously always, but also other allies, including surprisingly these Arab countries that don't like Hamas and don't like Iran. And they have incredible power in their defenses. If they'd had better defenses on October 7,

the nightmare of having to use offensive weapons to deal with Hamas would not have been present. I mean, that's just when you rewind the tape, there's so many things to say about the horror of October 7, but I hope people will remember that, but this is one of my kind of broad meta themes when I think about foreign policy and defense these days, is that defense is maybe more important than offense, and that people need to get their minds around that. And what happened in that Iranian attack is a really good example of just how powerful defense can be. Well, David Ignatius, thank you so much for your time today. I urge all of our listeners to grab a copy of Phantom Orbit. It must read to understand the kind of future of warfare in space, the threats,

the counter responses, all the important issues explored in fiction, which I love, David, when people go that route. It's a wonderful way to learn to become engaged and to, you know, share thinking and ideas. So congratulations on the book, and thank you so much for coming on the Monk Dialogues today. Thanks. Great conversation. Thanks for having me. Well, that wraps up today's dialogue.

I want to thank our guest, David Ignatius. He certainly gave us a lot to think about. If you have feedback or reflections on what you just heard on this or any of our podcast, please send us an email to podcast. at monkdebates.com. Thank you for lending your time and attention to our efforts to bring back the art of public dialogue, one conversation at a time. I'm your host and moderator, Richard Griffiths. The Monk Debates are a project of the Aurea and Peter and Melanie Monk Charitable Foundation.

The Monk Debates podcast is produced by Ricky Gerowitz and Daniel Kitts. Karen Lynch is the editor. Be sure to download and subscribe wherever. you get your podcasts. And if you like us, feel free to leave a five-star rating. Thank you again for listening.