Apes on a Treadmill in Space

In 1975, Paul Warnke published a celebrated article entitled "Apes on a Treadmill," in which he criticized the wastefulness and the danger of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. nuclear arms race.1 Warnke likened the two superpowers to simian imitators who slavishly copy each other's weapons deployments, endlessly pursuing and endlessly denying to the adversary any meaningful strategic superiority.

Shortly thereafter, Warnke became President Jimmy Carter's chief negotiator for the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) II treaty, director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (and this author's first professional boss). Warnke advanced the effort to cap and then reduce global nuclear arsenals, which he regarded as absurdly overdeveloped and as so mutually offsetting that they could offer neither protagonist a significant, sustainable advantage.

Today, the vision that Warnke abhorred is spooling out again, in a different but equally futile venue: outer space, where a third central character, China, has joined the original two apes in another hazardous, expensive arms race, all going nowhere, this time at rocket speed.

Jolted by the surging security dangers in space, the United States, its rivals, and its allies are devoting more attention at last to the sustainability of their vital spacecraft, on which so much of the world's economy, military, and civil society have come to depend. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking at the Conference on Disarmament in February, has called for "developing standards and norms of responsible behavior in outer space."2 The UN General Assembly in December 2020 inched beyond its previous tepid resolutions by expressing the desire that member states "reach a common understanding of how best to act to reduce threats to space systems in order to maintain outer space as a peaceful, safe, stable and sustainable environment."3 Even the U.S. Space Command has recognized the need for advancing arms control in space, with Major General DeAnna Burt calling for the articulation of additional, legally binding international restraints on threatening space behaviors.

These calls for action to reduce threats to space systems require prompt follow-through. The growing competition involving the United States, Russia, and China demands a more nuanced and comprehensive approach from leaders in Washington, Moscow, and Beijing that takes into account Warnke's original insights, which are now more than 45 years old. The security...