One Small Step for Mankind: Cislunar Space as a Region of Strategic Competition and the Need for Strategic Coherence
The quest to return to the lunar surface has seen the development of a new region of strategic competition: cislunar space. The region, largely devoid of satellites and over 1,000 times the volume of geostationary orbit (GEO), is a unique operating environment with characteristics that complicate traditional engagements and offer new opportunities for power projection. United States Space Force (USSF) posture sees cislunar space as a potential region for future adversary competition, with experiments into space situational awareness (SSA) to sense and engage in sustained flight operations by 2040. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is increasingly interested in the cislunar region, raising the stakes for the United States as it seeks to ensure space superiority. However, current U.S. actions and rhetoric vary wildly, risking miscommunication that could undermine the currently peaceful region. The U.S. cannot risk a new ‘Sputnik moment’ and cede its ability to set behavioral norms and control over critical regions of cislunar space. Therefore, there must be an overarching National Cislunar Strategy to create a roadmap to guide USSF and broader government cislunar policy at today’s critical inflection point.
The Cislunar Environment
Cislunar space is defined as the region beyond GEO to slightly beyond the Moon, roughly 400,000 kilometers from Earth. Unlike near-Earth orbits, the cislunar regime is governed by complex Moon-Earth gravitational interactions that create a ‘three-body problem’ in which orbits do not follow traditional circular or elliptical paths. This three-body problem also generates Lagrange points, five unique gravitational points that allow for limited stationary (within the Earth-Moon reference frame) orbits. Lagrange points, particularly L1 and L2, are strategically important because they provide advantageous locations for communications, observation, and future cislunar and lunar operations.
The distances and orbital dynamics of the cislunar regime complicate SSA. Until recently, USSF focused primarily on tracking objects in GEO and closer orbits, with only limited capacity for deep space observation and not at resolutions enabling robust systems analysis. This is further complicated by little coordination between different cislunar operators. Importantly, movement from cislunar space to GEO orbits and lower is significantly less fuel intensive than movements from GEO to low-Earth orbit (LEO), with even commercial companies have taken advantage of this to fix misaligned orbits. This can enable strategic surprise from the less well-tracked cislunar regions by adversary space systems, posing serious space security and control issues the Space Force hopes to address.
Strategic Context
With a growing focus on cislunar and lunar missions by the United States, the PRC, and other spacefaring powers, cislunar competition is spreading. The United States and PRC are committed to lunar landing and cislunar missions under competing international frameworks that partially mirror existing geopolitical blocs. Civil space growth is often mirrored by similar growth in military space missions, and some in Washington fear that the same will occur in cislunar space—either between competing international blocs or in direct U.S.-PRC competition.
In the economic realm, there is growing discussion of the medium- to long-term economic value and potential uses of the cislunar environment, increasing the likelihood of significant change. The Moon has vital deposits of water ice and minerals useful for manufacturing rocket fuel and other goods to sustain cislunar operations. While the feasibility is in debate, it forms the foundation of the U.S. long-term approach to the Moon. No universally agreed-upon international framework exists to regulate the extraction of these materials, raising fears of unilateral action contrary to U.S. interests. While sovereignty claims in space are not permitted under the Outer Space Treaty, ambiguities surrounding safety zones could enable states to exercise de facto control over strategically important locations such as Lagrange points through unilateral declaration.
Unlike the United States, the PRC has closely linked its civil space program to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) under its military-civil fusion strategy, including until recently, stipulating that all taikonauts must come from the ranks of the PLA. The PRC’s military-civil fusion strategy and unwillingness to separate its civil from its military space program, has led many in Washington to suspect PRC cislunar missions are part of a wider strategy to supplant U.S. civil and military space superiority. With little interaction, the chance of miscommunication is intensified, especially as the PRC shrouds its space missions in secrecy and ignores U.S. space overtures. While the United States has more space systems in the region, the PRC’s regional presence has focused more on creating the systems needed for long-term cislunar presence. The PRC has already demonstrated robust cislunar capabilities, including the first L1-L2 orbiting satellite, the first lunar relay satellite, landings on the Moon’s far side, and significant civil space activity. These missions have significant military and civil space potential and pose a growing challenge to U.S. effort to assert its cislunar space superiority in the new space age.
Current U.S. Cislunar Posture
In cislunar space, the United States has two critical lines of effort: the NASA-run Artemis program and the Department of War’s (DOW) movement towards cislunar SSA. Both programs are nominally separate, but there has been increasing focus on cislunar collaboration by both agencies.
Since 2019, the Department of Defense has made plans to extend the military’s reach into cislunar space, under the premise of preventing strategic surprise and the logic of ‘flag follows trade.’ Significant effort is underway by the DoW and Intelligence Community (IC), focusing on testing cislunar SSA; position, navigation, and timing (PNT); and communications systems. More recently, the Space Force has set up the Cislunar Coordination Office to create a roadmap for acquiring new cislunar technologies and better integrate cislunar activities into its acquisition structure. USSF has increased funding for cislunar modeling and concepts of operations, collaborating closely with NASA to build on their experience in cislunar operations, including testing cislunar SSA throughout the Artemis launches.
NASA’s focus on the cislunar environment has focused extensively on its Artemis program to bring humans back to the Moon and set up the first lunar outpost to support scientific and future exploration missions. NASA has also begun promoting commercial lunar missions through its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, where it purchases cheap payload services from commercial vendors. This builds industry expertise in cislunar operations while supporting NASA’s scientific missions and Artemis programs. Coordination between NASA and the DoW on cislunar activities has increased in recent years, with the USSF relying on NASA’s historical expertise in cislunar and deep space operations to fill near-term capability and knowledge gaps.
In the policy realm, the Biden Administration released the National Cislunar Science & Technology Strategy in 2022, focusing on long-term growth in cislunar space, cislunar SSA, PNT, and communications infrastructure for future scientific cislunar activity. The strategy builds on NASA’s Artemis program but makes scant mention of a possible role for DoW or how to integrate national security and civil space activity. More recently, the Trump Administration’s executive order “Ensuring American Space Superiority” explicitly outlined the need to “detect, characterize, and counter threats” from LEO to cislunar space. The inclusion of countering threats is notable, suggesting possible offensive counterspace capability, and is now used by the commercial sector to advertise its cislunar systems. However, public comments and future-oriented strategy documents suggest DoW remains focused on detecting and characterizing—rather than countering—threats in cislunar space.
Building Strategic Coherence Under a Space Force Cislunar Strategy
When looking at U.S. military cislunar posture, language and action create two different views. On the one hand, language in recent executive orders and speeches by senior Space Force leaders suggests the U.S. needs to counter threats within and ensure control of cislunar space. On the other hand, public Space Force activity focuses on SSA, communications, and PNT, not the ability to counter threats. This dualism between stated language and proposed plans creates the central dichotomy of U.S. cislunar policy: it is overinclusive without strategic guidance, confusing adversaries and allies alike. Future threat profiles see only the need for SSA and PNT in cislunar space, while simultaneously calling for a latent capacity to counter cislunar threats, without publicly funding programs outside SSA. Without clear direction, U.S. adversaries will expect the worst and could preempt perceived U.S. first moves, while policymakers and Congress will have difficulty resourcing cislunar activity for long-term strategic coherence.
To fix this mismatch and build a coherent message of its cislunar intentions, the government should propose a National Cislunar Strategy—laying out its goals and objectives in the region and how they align with broader space and defense priorities. Such a plan should lay out specific actions USSF is willing to undertake now, how these meld with broader government cislunar activities, and what norms of behavior it would seek to uphold. This way, the United States can explicitly outline the costs of malign behavior, incentivize better cislunar norms, and give a roadmap to policymakers and Congress on how to resource and organize military cislunar activity. The government can get ahead of the game and be the first mover for long-term responsible cislunar activity, while crafting language to prevent miscommunication and create a positive frame of reference for U.S. cislunar operations. This has the added benefit of building normative shielding around U.S. actions by creating strategic coherence, while passing the buck to the PRC if it seeks to operationalize the region and incur the associated political and reputational costs.
The United States should set responsible ‘rules of the road’ in cislunar space. By contextualizing existing capabilities within a broader public strategy, USSF operators would better understand how to work within cislunar space and with their government, commercial, and international counterparts. Explicitly stating a non-aggressive, peaceful intention for cislunar space—even if peaceful use includes national security activities—will ensure that U.S. moves receive the normative cover they need if the United States seeks to act if the strategic environment shifts. Key near-term normative focus should remain on SSA publishing and behavioral norms, but proactively regulating medium- to long-term activity, rather than a reactive posture, is needed if the U.S. hopes to prevent strategic surprise and build normative restraint.
By stating a policy of aggressive publication of cislunar SSA data on adversary systems and outlining costs, the Space Force can box in PRC adventurism and develop tools of reprisal to create an immediate, visible cost. A National Cislunar Strategy will require more than just making policy. Publishing cislunar SSA data, including potential adversarial systems imaging, will require lowering or removing classification metrics for cislunar space or developing comparable unclassified systems. Collaborating with commercial SSA providers is key in this endeavor, as their close links with open-source space analysts can bring nuance to the discussion without undermining classified programs.
The commercial sector is vital to this role, developing the necessary cislunar systems for this public messaging campaign, and a strategy helps guide their investment and ensures new entrants develop capabilities aligned with U.S. interests. By uniting national security and civil cislunar interests, the United States can best maximize commercial interest by having both sides of the cislunar equation be united around a common goal.
The strategy should focus on developing cislunar professionals across the force, while entrenching cislunar education in Space Force-wide training. The USSF can develop a cadre of cislunar professionals and operational concepts for a potential future of non-SSA cislunar activity, covering both to create a robust cislunar force without directly implying forceful action. Creating a whole-of-government approach is key. Learning from civil and commercial cislunar experience can close near-term educational bottlenecks, while entrenching DoW-desired norms within broader cislunar activity.
In fighting for space superiority and winning the next space race, the U.S. cannot separate its national security and civil cislunar missions. By creating rules of the road, portraying itself as a responsible cislunar actor, and aggressively publishing information on cislunar operations, the USSF can create a force prepared for potential cislunar operations and preempt potential PRC first moves without affecting its existing cislunar posture. The U.S. must move swiftly to avoid another ‘Sputnik moment’ in cislunar space and formulate a strategy to regulate its cislunar posturing, dispelling PRC aggression and competition to maintain its space dominance.
Views expressed are the author’s own and do not represent the views of GSSR, Georgetown University, or any other entity. Image Credit: NASA