Policy Papers

Today, the United States is locked in a deepening great power rivalry with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In recent years, this contest has taken on many names. It was defined as “great power competition” during the Trump administration’s first term in office,[1] and subsequently first as “long-term strategic competition” and then as “managed competition” during the presidency of Joseph Biden.[2] In the second Trump administration, the terminology has shifted significantly, as has the emphasis. At their May 2026 summit in Beijing, President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasized the need for “strategic stability”—that is, the management of bilateral relations through a more predictable strategic relationship.
 

For U.S. forces and policymakers, the integration of UAS into PLA force posture raises the potential costs of intervention in a conflict with China.

Orbit has never been cheaper to reach than today, but nearly every satellite is still built to be used once, then abandoned. Static constellations can be held at risk by a widening set of counterspace weapons, disposable platforms are feeding the on-orbit debris population, and the supply chains behind space hardware are increasingly contested, throttling space capability delivered to orbit.

We argue that controlled atmospheric re-entry and satellite reuse belong in the category of foundational infrastructure for space resilience and a circular orbital economy, addressing each of these problems. In current military doctrine on space resilience, every named resilience attribute is bounded by the assumption that the satellite is one-time-use (disposable). The returnable satellite is the missing element of a resilient architecture, and amortized economics favor reusable systems across a wide range of assumptions.

Reusable rockets have drastically slashed the cost to reach orbit, but despite this capability nearly every U.S. satellite is still built to be used once and then abandoned. The U.S. should now focus on developing recoverable and reusable satellites to enhance American space resilience doctrine, reduce orbital debris, and increase defense-supply chain security. Particularly as our adversaries, like China, are already moving in that direction. Six recommendations for Congress and the Department of War (DoW) are outlined below, several of which align with the White House's new National Space Transportation Policy (NSPM-17, signed August 20, 2026).

In a manner reminiscent of the first Cold War, Washington and Beijing are now competing to entice smaller countries to their side. “China and the U.S. each represent one pole, with many ‘middle countries’ in between,” observes Shi Yuanhua of Fudan University. “Middle countries represent key targets for China’s diplomacy and competition with the U.S.”