Report on "Advancing the Trilateral Europe-United States-Japan Space Security Partnership" Conference

Space Foundation Senior Vice President Steve Eisenhart recently participated in the third “Advancing the Trilateral Europe-United States-Japan Space Security Partnership” Conference held in Prague, Czech Republic. This by-invitation event for about 100 speakers and attendees was conducted by the Prague Security Studies Institute (PSSI), together with its partner, the Secure World Foundation (SWF), and accommodated under the auspices of the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Czech Ministry of Defense and the Czech Ministry of Transport.

The conference aims to advance common space security interests and to help strengthen the existing links among the relevant entities responsible for the development of Europe/US-Japan partnership. Panels and discussions focused on space resilience, space protection, norms, international cooperation, hostile threats and commercial in space operations.

Among speakers and panelists were Francois Rivasseau and Pierre Delsaux of the European Commission, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Doug Loverro, Commander 14th Air Force Lt. Gen. David Buck, Gen. Robert Kehler, USAF (Ret.), French Joint Space Command Chief of Staff Col. Jerome Bernier, ministry officials from Japan and Czech Republic and a small number of industry executives.

The inception of the PSSI’s Space Security conference series dates back to 2010. The first conference, held in Prague in June 2011 and co-sponsored by the European Space Agency, sought to establish space security as a policy priority directly relevant to the broader defense and strategic dialogue among Europe, the U.S. and Japan. The second conference, convened in Tokyo in October 2013 and co-sponsored by Japan’s Office of National Space Policy, examined more concrete elements of collaboration that would enhance each partner’s national and space security interests. It also sought to assess how best to combine their capabilities to prevent and/or preempt various space security threats from materializing, including the deliberate actions of one space-faring nation against another.

There have been major developments in the security policy portfolio since the beginning of this conference series. These include the first Comprehensive Dialogue on Space between the U.S. and Japan in March 2013, the convening of the first EU-Japan Space Dialogue in October 2014, and the new U.S.-Japan defense guidelines of April 2015. Accordingly, the Third PSSI Space Security Conference focused on the growing intersection of space security and terrestrial geopolitical events/conflicts. It reviewed steps that have been taken by European countries, the EU, the U.S. and Japan to address nationally and internationally the increasingly complex and fast moving space security developments, including efforts to align national space security priorities with various multilateral efforts.

This article is part of Space Watch: July 2016 (Volume: 15, Issue: 7).