Over decades, IR scholarship saw outer space as a kind of sanctuary, a global commons ruled by the high-minded, but vague, ideals of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. Today, a new kind of "Iron Curtain" is being drawn, only this time, it isn't made of concrete, but of millions of shards of spinning metal. This is the Kessler Syndrome, which describes a situation in which the density of objects in low Earth orbit (LEO) becomes so high due to space pollution that collisions between these objects cascade. This phenomenon exponentially increases the amount of space debris over time.

Orbital debris is a passive weapon, unlike the nuclear weapons that need active intent in order to employ them. A state which is not technologically advanced to play the orbital dominance game can potentially have a strategic use of the Tragedy of the Commons. A weaker actor can easily counter the High-Tech Advantage of a superpower by developing a debris........

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