Thirty-six thousand kilometres above the equator, in the band of space where satellites hover in perfect synchrony with the Earth’s rotation, a new kind of competition is underway. It is quieter than a missile test and more consequential than most of the military manoeuvres that dominate defence headlines. Three major space powers — the United States, China, and now Russia — are operating satellites in geosynchronous orbit whose primary mission appears to be the surveillance and, potentially, the manipulation of other nations’ satellites. The frontier of great-power rivalry has acquired a new theatre, and it operates by rules that nobody has yet written.
Geosynchronous orbit, or GEO, is arguably the most strategically valuable real estate in space. The satellites parked there — communications relays, early-warning systems, military data links — are the nervous system of modern defence infrastructure. They are also, by the nature of their fixed positions, predictable. An adversary who can manoeuvre close to those satellites can observe them, interfere with their signals, or in an extreme scenario, disable them physically. The ability to do so represents a form of leverage that no military strategist can afford to ignore.
The United States has operated its Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Programme — a fleet of satellites designed to monitor other objects in GEO — for over a decade. China’s equivalent capability, developed under less transparent conditions, has been tracked by Western intelligence agencies and academic space-watchers since at least 2018. What has changed in the past eighteen months is Russia’s acceleration of its own programme. A series of launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome have placed objects in GEO that subsequently executed manoeuvres consistent with proximity operations — moving close to, and in some cases alongside, satellites operated by other nations.
Colonel (retired) James Hargreaves, a former space operations officer who now consults on orbital security for a Gulf-based defence advisory firm, describes the dynamic as a ‘structured ambiguity game.’ ‘Every power with the capability is doing the same thing: putting eyes in the neighbourhood. None of them want to be the first to formally acknowledge that this is what they’re doing, because acknowledgement creates legal and diplomatic complications. So you get this situation where everyone is manoeuvring, everyone is watching everyone else manoeuvre, and the official position is that these are routine research and maintenance operations.’ The charade, he argues, is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain as the manoeuvres grow more aggressive and the distances between rival satellites grow smaller.
For the Gulf states, the GEO competition carries stakes that are often underappreciated in regional strategic analysis. The UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar all operate communications satellites in geosynchronous orbit, and all three depend heavily on GEO-based military and civilian communications infrastructure — much of it leased from US and European operators. If those operators’ satellites become contested assets in a great-power standoff, the downstream effects on Gulf connectivity and military coordination could be significant. A communications blackout, even a temporary one, in the middle of a regional security crisis is not an abstract concern.
The legal framework governing GEO behaviour is, to put it charitably, inadequate. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 prohibits the placement of weapons of mass destruction in space but says nothing about proximity operations, signal interference, or the use of manoeuvrable satellites to physically shadow or intimidate adversaries’ assets. Efforts to develop new norms — through the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and various bilateral dialogues — have proceeded at a pace that bears no relationship to the speed of the technology being developed.
Dr. Aisha Benali, a space law researcher at a UAE university who focuses on emerging orbital governance frameworks, argues that the Gulf states have both an interest and an opportunity in this space. ‘The major powers are too invested in preserving their own freedom of manoeuvre to agree on meaningful constraints. But middle powers — states with significant orbital assets and no aggressive proximity operations programme — could build a coalition around basic behavioural norms. The UAE’s growing space sector gives it standing in these conversations that it did not have five years ago.’ The argument has strategic logic: states that benefit from order in GEO have more incentive to create it than states that believe they can exploit disorder.
The near-term trajectory, most analysts agree, is toward more activity rather than less. The commercial satellite sector is expanding rapidly, placing more assets in GEO and creating more potential friction points. Military space budgets are growing in all three major powers. And the strategic value of the ability to threaten an adversary’s orbital infrastructure — as a deterrent, a negotiating chip, or a wartime option — is sufficiently clear that no power is going to voluntarily forgo it in the absence of a credible multilateral framework. The question for the next five years is whether that framework can be constructed before an incident in GEO triggers a crisis that the existing rulebook has no guidance for managing.