When we imagine space warfare, we picture shattered satellites and orbital debris. The reality is quieter but also more dangerous. The markers of modern orbital conflict are signal loss, deliberate misdirection, and sudden system failures.

In the initial hours of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a cyber-attack crippled Viasat’s KA-SAT network, severing vital communications across Europe. GPS spoofing incidents have similarly misled civilian aircraft and maritime vessels, luring ships into hazardous shoals or corrupting flight computers to trigger false terrain alerts effectively weaponising a platform’s own safety logic against its operators.

The next conflict in space will begin with silence, with jammed signals, altered coordinates, and compromised systems. Space is today critical infrastructure and vulnerabilities related to space are often tantamount vulnerabilities in human society.

This vulnerability is built into the architecture of space systems. Interference leaves no physical trace yet it can be devastating. It operates using three tools: jamming (or blocking signals), spoofing (sending false data), and ground station hacking (taking control of satellite systems).

As a result, no physical destruction is needed to paralyse an adversary — which is an important shift in the way conflict plays out in orbit. And because financial, energy, and communication networks depend on satellites, such intrusions can also trigger cascading failures on the earth.

Legal blindspot

This change exposes a deeper legal problem. As the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz observed, war is defined by its effects. If cyber operations can disable satellites that support power grids, financial systems or emergency communications, their consequences are indistinguishable from a physical strike. However, the United Nations Charter does not clearly address cyber operations within its Article 2(4) prohibition on the “use of force”.

A functional, effects-based test is therefore essential to interpret “use of force” in the orbital domain. As of 2026, several states have moved to the position that a cyber operation does not require physical ‘smoke and fire’ to violate Article 2(4). Instead, if a digital intrusion functionally disables a satellite, effectively bricking it, the strategic and economic consequences are identical to a kinetic strike. In this context, loss of functionality is the new shattered glass.

However, it also comes with a challenge, called the attribution gap. Under the International Law Commission framework on state responsibility, legal liability is contingent on identifying the perpetrator with high evidentiary certainty. In the digital domain, operations routed through proxy networks and spoofed identities create a layer of strategic anonymity that complicates traditional deterrence.

This is less a technical flaw and more a structural tension: as long as evidentiary standards are based on visible, physical proof, the invisible nature of cyber-disruption will continue to offer a significant strategic advantage to aggressors. In other words, existing international law recognises force by its consequences — yet it remains in a reactive posture as both the act and the actor remain obscured.

Collapse of civilian-military divide

The legal protections designed to safeguard non-combatants are deteriorating in the face of modern technology. The Outer Space Treaty and international humanitarian law rely heavily on the principle of distinction, requiring warring parties to differentiate between civilian objects and military targets.

However, modern satellites are dual-use by default. Civilian GPS networks, commercial broadband constellations, and financial timestamping systems now routinely support intelligence gathering and drone targeting. Because militaries piggyback on commercial infrastructure, these assets often lose their protected civilian status under international humanitarian law.

That said, in practice, the ‘civilian satellite’ is becoming a legal fiction. When commercial constellations provide ‘space as a service’ for military kill-chains — a.k.a. the Starlink Precedent — they dissolve the distinction entirely. In this environment, an entire network can become a legitimate grey-zone target, even if it simultaneously serves schools or hospitals.

State of silent conflict

Former British army officer and author Emile Simpson has distinguished between traditional Clausewitzian war and contemporary conflict: the former seeks a definitive military decision while the latter functions as a direct instrument of political communication aimed at fragmented audiences.

In space, cyber operations enable ambiguous, deniable attacks that are designed to shape perceptions of state power rather than to secure territorial gains. Because they avoid the debris and visibility of kinetic strikes, they incentivise constant, low-level disruption. This creates a persistent state of friction that never crosses the threshold of war but continuously undermines the political legitimacy of the targeted state.

For India, the 2026 CERT-In/SIA-India Guidelines institutionalised a “secure-by-design” doctrine for space systems. They embed cybersecurity into every stage of the satellite lifecycle, from design and launch to in-orbit operations and decommissioning. They also identify threats such as signal jamming, spoofing, and unauthorised command access, and recommend layered safeguards across space, ground, and communication segments.  However, an enforcement gap remains: India is expanding its presence in orbit faster than it is building the ability to detect and trace cyberattacks in real time. 

Objective of disruption

The response cannot remain reactive. States must move from advisory norms to enforceable “secure-by-design” standards, clarify when cyber operations in space constitute a use of force, and strengthen cooperative attribution mechanisms. Without this, ambiguity will continue to favour the attacker. In a digital battlefield, if an attacker cannot be identified within minutes, they cannot be deterred at all.

For the Global South, this digital battlefield poses the unique threat of orbital dependency. When the digital backbones of developing economies are hosted on third-party commercial constellations, a silent strike can blind a military and, more importantly, effectively paralyse a state’s ability to govern, disenfranchising a nation in a single digital stroke.

In this new era, the objective is no longer to destroy a satellite but to disrupt the society that depends on it.

Shrawani Shagun is a researcher focusing on environmental sustainability and space governance.