Saskatchewan potash developer clears final key permit ahead of 2027 startup

Story by Dylan Sikes - AllPennyStocks.com News
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Saskatchewan Potash Developer Clears Final Key Permit Ahead of 2027 Startup

Potash has drawn steady attention from policymakers as North American governments look to secure supplies of the minerals behind food production. Canada is the world’s largest potash producer, and Saskatchewan accounts for the bulk of that output, which makes the province the main focus of new development in the fertilizer sector.

Shares of Buffalo Potash Corporation (TSX-V: BUFF) (OTCQB: BLPTF) are higher Friday after the company received approval from the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment to construct and operate the Initial Production Module (IPM) at its Disley Project. The company described the approval as the final key regulatory approval it needs to complete construction and begin operating the IPM.

The approval, Permit No. PC26-153, follows the ministry’s Sept. 17 determination that the IPM is not a “development” requiring an Environmental Impact Assessment. It covers the surface works for the remaining phases of the IPM plan, including pipelines, brine and water storage tanks, processing equipment, electrical infrastructure, modular buildings and roads. Conditions include ministry approval of a groundwater monitoring plan, compliance with air quality requirements before processing equipment operates, and financial assurance acceptable to the ministry. The approval runs to April 30, 2027, with provision for extension, and applies only to the IPM.

The IPM is designed to produce 125,000 tonnes per year of soluble-grade potash and is the first of three planned solution mining facilities at Disley, which sits about 50 kilometers northwest of Regina next to the K+S Bethune and Mosaic Belle Plaine solution mines. Buffalo’s May 2026 preliminary economic assessment outlined a full build-out of up to 1,125,000 tonnes per year, with an after-tax net present value of US$1.1 billion at an 8% discount rate and an internal rate of return of 30%. The company noted that its IPM production decision is not based on a feasibility study with mineral reserves, which historically carries a higher risk of economic and technical failure.

Buffalo is developing Disley with its patented Horizontal Line-Drive method. Source and disposal wells and horizontal drilling for the IPM are complete, and site development is in progress. The next phase, brine circulation, is designed to establish communication along a clay seam between injector and producer wells, then develop the mining plane that will feed the IPM processing facility.

President and Chief Operating Officer Quinton Hardage said the approval allows the company to advance surface construction in parallel with brine circulation preparations.

“Our team, together with our contractors and consultants, has shown disciplined execution in keeping this project on schedule, and we continue to target first production in Q1 2027,” Hardage said.

Shares of BUFF are up 3.9% to C$0.81, while shares of BLPTF are flat at $0.5536.

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Salvage Operation Has Cleared More Than Two-Thirds of MSC Baltic III

The latest reprot says approximately 68 percent of the vessel's tonnage has been recovered (Canadian Coast Guard)

By The Maritime Executive 2026-10-16 

The salvage and recycling operation for the wrecked containershp MSC Baltic III continues to make strong progress. The Canadian Coast Guard in its most recent update on the operation says that Resolve Marine has removed approximately 68 percent of the tonnage of the vessel, with the remaining sections being pulled toward shore.

The latest figures compare with just over 6,000 tons that had been recovered as of the beginning of October. At that point, they said approximately 55 percent of the vessel’s tonnage had been recovered and sent for recycling. The latest calculation puts it at 7,445 tonnes recovered.

The 207-meter (679-foot) vessel had blacked out and beached on the coast of Newfoundland in February 2025. The focus of the first phase of the salvage operation was to remove the fuel from the ship and other potential pollutants as well as the cargo. The second phase, which focused on the recycling of the vessel, began in May 2026 with a contract to Resolve Marine.

After removing the accommodation block, most of the deck gear, and cargo hatches, the operation during the summer began cutting away the upper portion of the hull. By the end of July, the deconstruction of the upper portions of the hull was completed, and they began the pulling operation to move the remaining portion forward toward the shoreline for cutting and lifting. On September 9, a large portion of the bow section was removed from the MSC Baltic III.

 

Remaining sections of the hull are being pulled forward with large chain pulls (Canadian Coast Guard)

 

According to the latest report, the forward and midship section of the hull have now been moved forward a total of 170 meters (557 feet). Resolve Marine has also commenced pulling the stern section forward, having moved it a total of 78 meters (256 feet).

The operation will continue until winter conditions overtake the area. They have not said if the hull will be fully recovered this year, but in the past said some operations could continue into 2027. The operation also calls for a restoration of the cover where the ship grounded after the wreck is cleared.

The Canadian Coast Guard reported a heavier level of oil release during this phase of the operation. The tanks were emptied, but they had warned that there was residual oil in the systems that would likely be released. The new report mentions observed sheening in Cedar Cove, which has had shoreline impacts, including oiled vegetation and debris, as well as fresh tar stains, balls, and smears. There have also been three deceased birds recovered from the area, although the cause of death is not yet confirmed.

 

Wild birds rewrite rules for travel

The largest study of flight costs in the wild finds that riding the air can make flying cheaper than swimming, overturning a textbook ranking

Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior

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image: 

Adult male condor in Patagonia showing the soaring flight that allows birds to flap remarkably little despite their large size.

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Credit: Facundo Vital

An Andean condor and a trumpeter swan both weigh about 11 kilograms. Yet the condor covers each kilometer of flight for about a fifth of the swan’s energy bill. The difference is the air: the condor rides rising currents and flaps for 0.1% of its flight time, while the swan flaps for 99%. A new study of 50 bird and bat species in the wild showed that once the atmosphere is taken into account, flying can be the cheapest form of travel.

“To us, the sky might just look like background for flying animals, but it is an essential resource that can dramatically change the cost of a journey,” says first author Dr. Martina Scacco.

Textbooks rank the ways animals travel by cost: swimming is the cheapest, flying comes next, and running is the most expensive. That ranking comes from laboratory measurements of animals in swim tanks, in flight tunnels, and on treadmills. Outside the lab, the study found that this ranking changes.

“The laboratory rules tell us that condors and swans must have the same energy bill because they have the same body mass. Yet seeing how condors soar and swans flap, we know that clearly there must be a difference,” says senior author Prof. Emily Shepard from Swansea University.

The study put a price on that difference: the condor’s cost of transport was 79% lower than the swan’s, making soaring flight cheaper than swimming.

"When flying animals have access to natural atmospheric flows, they have free fuel from the sky. This study exposes the mistakes we make when we ignore the real-world conditions that animals have been responding to for millennia,” adds Shepard.

Published in Science, the work led by scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior (MPI-AB) and Swansea University is the largest study yet to examine the cost of long-distance travel for wild animals. It combines 17 years of GPS and accelerometer tracking from 850 birds and bats of 38 species with four years of radar data covering 12 size classes of smaller flyers. The animals range in size from about 12 grams to more than 11 kilograms. An international team of 68 researchers contributed data to the project.

The study is the first to factor in the role of atmosphere in the movement of so many wild animals at a global scale, offering a key to conservation and management of aerial species.

“If atmospheric conditions change, so too will the cost of flight, and therefore how animals decide to migrate and establish communities,” says senior author Dr. Kamran Safi from MPI-AB.

The findings offer a new framework for predicting the energetic cost of flight, and how climatic changes might affect where and when animals travel in the future.

Measuring cost of transport in the wild

The team used accelerometers to tell apart high-cost flapping from low-cost soaring. With GPS data, they matched each stretch of flight with the wind and rising air the animals met on the way. This enabled them to calculate the time individual animals spent flapping or soaring along a stretch of flight, and to approximate how much energy they spent per meter travelled—their cost of transport.

“We boiled the differences down to fuel economy, nature’s equivalent of miles per gallon,” says Scacco. This allowed the scientists to compare transport costs across species and flight modes, “like we compare freight costs of sea mail or air mail,” she adds.

Indeed, when compared, the 50 species fell into two main groups: soarers and flappers. Among the soaring birds, size had a marked effect on transport cost: the heavier a soaring bird, the less it flapped and therefore the lower its cost of transport.

How to fly a hundred laps of the planet

Soaring vultures offer a vivid example. The seven vulture species in the study flew for a combined 128,000 days and more than 4.3 million kilometers, enough to circle the planet more than 100 times. Remarkably, they achieved that while flapping only 0.1% to 7% of flight time. And the heaviest vulture, the Andean condor, flapped least of all.

They did this by exploiting atmospheric energy. Soaring birds rode rising columns of air, which lowered their cost of transport the most, “like us riding the elevator to the top floor,” says Shepard. “Soarers are masters at extracting energy from the environment. When conditions are right, they can drive their costs down to very little.”

But conditions are not always right. The larger the soaring bird, the more restricted they were in terms of when and where they could fly.

Costly, but flexible flight

Flapping birds, on the other hand, use high-energy movement to cope with more variable conditions. Wind had the most significant effect on their transport costs, with tailwinds providing support and headwinds presenting resistance.

Says Safi: “Air can drive flight costs up as well as down for flappers. What surprised us was just how much flappers operate in costly conditions where their fuel economy is really low. We hope that our framework will drive further investigations of the different trade-offs these two groups face, and of potential energy saving mechanisms we might still be missing.”

In future work, the authors aim to build on their findings by measuring animals’ energy use directly, such as through heart rate monitoring. Doing so will capture differences in individual physiology, providing an even more realistic measure of the energetic cost of flight.

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Journal

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.aee6550

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Airflows redefine the cost of aerial transport in the wild

Article Publication Date

15-Oct-2026

Related News Releases

• Wild birds rewrite rules for travel
  (Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior)

Condors in Patagonia [VIDEO] 

Adult male condor in Patagonia showing the soaring flight that allows birds to flap remarkably little despite their large size.

Credit

Alvaro Moya Riffo

Atmospheric conditions shape the energy costs of animal flight

Summary author: Walter Beckwith

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

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Studying data from 50 species of birds and bats using 17 years of observations has provided insights that challenge the traditional view that flight has a predictable energetic cost that’s always higher than the cost of other types of movement, like swimming or resting. Birds and bats can dramatically reduce the energy needed to travel, the new study shows, by exploiting winds and rising air currents. But to date, these environmental effects have largely been overlooked in estimates of flight costs. Current estimates of the energetic costs of movement across the animal kingdom are largely based on laboratory studies that do not capture the widely variable environmental conditions animals encounter in the wild. In nature, animals routinely exploit moving air and wind to reduce the energy required to travel long distances. These effects are particularly important for flying animals, as winds can dramatically alter how fast they travel, while updrafts can allow soaring birds to almost eliminate the need for flapping their wings and move vast distances at very low energetic costs. Although how atmospheric conditions influence birds’ flight behavior has been studied, the realized effect of these conditions on energy expenditure has not been measured directly. Here, Martina Scacco and colleagues measured the effective cost of transport – the energy flying animals use to travel a given distance – under real-world conditions. Scacco et al. analyzed data from 50 species of birds and bats spanning three orders of magnitude in body size (~12 grams to more than 11 kilograms), using 17 years of high-resolution GPS and acceleration sensor measurements from 850 animals, which was supplemented by radar observations of smaller species. The global biologging dataset allowed the authors to analyze how often animals flapped their wings versus soaring or gliding during sustained flights and compare the energetic costs of flights across species and environmental conditions.

 

The findings show that the energetic cost of flight in the wild largely depends on how animals interact with the atmosphere. Soaring birds, particularly larger species, can dramatically reduce their energy use by exploiting rising air currents and other atmospheric streams. This, in some cases, reduced flight costs to levels comparable to swimming or even resting. In contrast, frequent flapping species generally have flight costs closer to laboratory predictions and experience greater variation depending on wind conditions. According to the authors, the findings challenge the traditional view that flight has a predictable energetic cost based primarily on body size and biomechanics. Instead, Scacco et al. argue that atmospheric conditions are a fundamental part of flying animals’ energetic landscape and should be incorporated into models of animal movement, migration, and responses to environmental change. “The findings of Scacco et al. encourage researchers to further develop device-tracking technologies and conduct detailed wind-tunnel measurements of the metabolic costs of different flight modes,” writes Anders Hedenström in a related Perspective.

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Journal

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.aee6550

Article Title

Airflows redefine the cost of aerial transport in the wild

Article Publication Date

15-Oct-2026

 

First of Matson’s New Containerships Is Christened

First of Matson's new Jones Act-compliant containerships was christened ahead of deliver in early 2027 (Matson)

By The Maritime Executive 2026-10-12 

Work is proceeding on three new large container ships being built for Matson as part of what the company reports is a $1 billion investment in fleet expansion and modernization. The Makua was christened at the Hanwha Philly Shipyard on October 10.

At nearly 51,000 dwt, Matson's three new Jones Act-compliant vessels are being built to match the size and speed of Matson's two existing Aloha Class ships, Daniel K. Inouye and Kaimana Hila, which were also built in Philadelphia and introduced in 2018 and 2019. The ships are each 850 feet long with a capacity of 3,600 TEU, with 408 reefer slots.

Like their sisterships, the new vessels will be equipped with dual-fuel engines designed to operate on either conventional marine fuels or liquefied natural gas (LNG). They are being delivered LNG-ready to join the older ships, which were recently converted to LNG operations. They will have a top speed of 24 knots. Other "green ship technology" features include a fuel-efficient hull design, environmentally safe double hull fuel tanks, and freshwater ballast systems. 

"We're excited that adding three new Aloha Class ships to Matson's fleet over the next 18 months will improve operating efficiencies and reliability, and increase capacity in our core Hawaii service, as well as our China-Long Beach Express service,” said Matt Cox, chairman and chief executive officer of Matson.

Matson board member Jenai Wall officially christened the vessel Makua in front of an audience of approximately 300 invited guests, including U.S. Maritime Administration Deputy Administrator Mark Johnson, Matson and Hanwha executives, shipyard workers, and union leaders. The new ship is scheduled for delivery in the first quarter of 2027. Assembly of the ship began with the first grand block being placed in the dry dock in August 2025. The second vessel began assembly in May 2026, and steel cutting is underway for the third vessel. 

Matson plans to name the other two new containerships Malama and Makena, with delivery scheduled for the third quarter of 2027 and the second quarter of 2028. The three new ships will replace three vessels currently deployed in Matson's Hawaii and China-Long Beach Express services. In turn, those vessels will replace three older vessels currently deployed in Alaska service, introducing bigger and faster vessels into that trade lane.

The three Matson newbuilds are proceeding as Hanwha Philly Shipyard is also completing the last of the MARAD training ships, Golden State, which was assigned to California. The yard also recently finalized the contract to build the Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) new Missile Range Instrumentation Vessel (MRIV) due for delivery in 2030. The project, which will be managed by TOTE Services, calls for up to three ships built on the same hull design as the training ships. The new MRIVs will replace Pacific Tracker and Pacific Collector, which currently support missile range instrumentation missions and were constructed in 1965 and 1970, respectively.

Europe Must Prioritize Consistency And De-Escalation At The Space–Nuclear Nexus – Analysis

October 12, 2026
SIPRI
By Nivedita Raju

Key Takeaways:

Heightened competition, the expiry of New START, Russian nuclear-armed anti-satellite plans and uncoordinated satellite manoeuvres, plus the U.S. admission of on-orbit weapons and Golden Dome interceptors, have raised European fears of inadvertent escalation at the space–nuclear nexus amid fraying transatlantic ties.

European responses remain inconsistent: France and Germany are funding bodyguard satellites, lasers and other counterspace tools while the EU pursues resilience measures such as a Space Threat Response Architecture and Space Shield, yet no shared thresholds, deterrence concepts or lawful-response standards exist across all European states.

The author urges dedicated risk-reduction steps—protecting nuclear command-and-control systems, regular EU/NATO scenario exchanges on escalation thresholds, Europe-led dialogue with China and like-minded partners, and clearer application of the UN Charter to space—so that autonomy efforts do not accelerate arms-race dynamics.

Europe faces impending instability at the space–nuclear nexus in today’s changing strategic environment. In this new landscape distinguished by heightened competition among nuclear-armed states, waning interest in arms control, deteriorating transatlantic ties and multiple ongoing conflicts, the nexus between space and nuclear weapons features prominently. Space systems enable both conventional weapons and nuclear infrastructure, including in the ongoing conflicts, meaning perceived threats to strategically relevant systems have the potential to spark escalation and even nuclear use.

European states are responding to these strategic shifts by prioritizing their own security in the space and nuclear domains. However, their responses currently lack a consistent approach, which can contribute to uncertainty and the risk of inadvertent escalation.

Challenges for European security

Four years have passed since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Among European states, the ongoing war has fuelled worst-case scenario perceptions of Russia’s intentions in Europe and beyond.

A number of developments in the space domain have heightened European threat perceptions in this regard. In 2024, United States officials reported that Russia was pursuing a nuclear capability intended to target satellites, which Russia denied. Nevertheless, this reinvigorated European concerns about Russia’s willingness to conduct escalatory acts with permanent, indiscriminate effects—an assumption exacerbated by Russian nuclear signalling in recent years.

European anxieties intensified following reports that Russian satellites had conducted manoeuvres without prior communication near a satellite that provides high-resolution data to Ukrainian armed forces. Sometimes referred to as ‘non-consensual’ or ‘uncoordinated’ rendezvous and proximity operations, China, Russia and the USA have accused each other of undertaking such manoeuvres without coordination or transparency in recent years. These can be perceived as threatening, especially if they involve high-value space assets. In 2025, for example, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius publicly warned of growing Russian threats as he referred to two Russian systems ‘shadowing’ satellites used by Germany’s armed forces.


The increasingly hostile rhetoric used by the USA is amplifying concerns. In September 2026, the US Air Force declared that the USA now has ‘on-orbit space control weapons’, which is a significant departure in narrative from previous administrations. Subsequently, a US Space Command official claimed that this acknowledgement signals the USA’s readiness to employ said weapons should deterrence fail. Despite lacking in detail, these statements mark the first time the USA has explicitly admitted to deploying weapons in orbit.

These statements by the USA follow the 2025 announcement of the US Golden Dome missile defence initiative (previously ‘Iron Dome for America’), which aims to implement a layer of space-based interceptors in orbit. The interceptors could be effective anti-satellite weapons and they raise concerns, particularly in China and Russia, about undermining strategic stability by threatening the nuclear second-strike capacities of those two states. Although experts have underlined the technical impracticality of space-based missile defence, when coupled with the current US rhetoric, this initiative could accelerate nuclear modernization and expansion trends, as well as fuel uncertainties regarding how China or Russia may respond.

Several states have, for decades, been developing and testing various anti-satellite weapons and capabilities that can undermine space systems. However, the USA’s public acknowledgement of this, particularly regarding the operational status of its capabilities, could contribute to a dangerous trend of normalizing weapons in orbit. The public admission may encourage other actors to openly pursue similar capabilities or respond in the conventional military or even nuclear domain, which would accelerate arms race dynamics and have a clear impact on Europe. US actions can be seen as another step in today’s heightened strategic competition, with potentially destabilizing action–reaction dynamics across multiple domains. These fears are amplified by the expiry of the 2010 Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START) between Russia and the USA, which signified the end of verifiable restraint on nuclear weapons by the two states with the largest nuclear arsenals.


Compounding the above-mentioned uncertainties is the seismic shift that has taken place in transatlantic ties, with the USA pressuring European allies for contributions to cooperative security. The 2025 US executive order on ‘Ensuring American Space Superiority’, for example, primarily refers to ensuring allies’ contributions through space security spending, operational cooperation and investments in the US space industrial base. The 2026 US National Defense Strategy similarly underscores burden sharing with allies and partners. These policies were adopted following the Trump administration’s wavering intelligence sharing with Ukraine and threats to restrict Ukrainian armed forces’ access to the Starlink satellite network. Collectively, these events have impressed upon European states the extent of their space dependencies on the USA, and the unreliability of the USA as an ally.

In parallel, the USA–Israel war on Iran—the second conflict in four years initiated by a nuclear-armed state against a non-nuclear weapon state—has forced Europe to re-evaluate the credibility of the USA as a security partner. The unwillingness of some European states to support the USA in this war has been met with repercussions, such as the case of Spain, with US orders to halt all bilateral trade. The ongoing war risks magnifying the anxieties of non-nuclear weapon states by validating perceptions that their security is incumbent on nuclear weapons.

Inconsistent European responses

Across Europe, the changing strategic environment has triggered steps to reduce dependencies and pursue more autonomy in the space and nuclear domains. However, responses have varied greatly.

In the nuclear domain, some states are considering how to better leverage French and British nuclear weapons for a ‘European’ deterrent. France has announced its ‘forward deterrence’ initiative, which envisions greater European participation in French nuclear exercises, and temporarily deploying strategic aircraft to certain allies’ bases in Europe. However, experts have noted the difficulties of coordinating European interests in such initiatives, including the limited options available for British forces given their reliance on US support, and the possibility that formalized cooperation could make those states vulnerable to targeting.

In the space domain, European states are rapidly investing in military space capabilities, with some even exploring counterspace capabilities. France has committed an additional €4.2 billion to its space defence budget and is developing satellites that can ‘patrol’ in orbit to protect space assets. France is also testing techniques ‘against attempts at space interference’ and exploring directed energy weapons, including orbital and ground-based lasers. Meanwhile, Germany has allocated €35 billion towards the development of its space security architecture. Its ‘strategic lines of action’ include the development of ‘highly agile low-signal surveillance and bodyguard satellites’ and ‘reusable spaceplanes to inspect and effect an adversary’s systems’. While there is no further detail on these, their nature suggests use as co-orbital anti-satellite weapons that can trail and attack targets in orbit. The United Kingdom has taken similar steps with its first dedicated space squadron to ‘counter hostile threats to UK satellites’. It has also referred to forthcoming investment in counterspace capabilities ‘both co-orbital and Earth-based’, with the Chief of the Air Staff confirming the development of ‘capabilities for orbital warfare’.


Other European actors have not indicated an interest in counterspace capabilities. Instead, there are concerted efforts to enhance the resilience of space systems and establish measures for coordination. At the European Union (EU) level, the Space Threat Response Architecture has recently established a ‘space security toolbox’, which includes potential diplomatic and technical responses to a space threat, as well as targeted restrictive measures that can be imposed by the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. The European Commission has also announced an action plan for a European Space Shield. The plan aims to integrate national and commercial assets with existing EU space systems to strengthen defence against threats. It will also prioritize mitigating jamming and spoofing, given the rise of such incidents in Europe since 2022.

These steps will help to enhance coordination among EU member states, but they do not include European states beyond the EU. There will also be hurdles in implementation given the asymmetries in budgets, priorities and engagement in space diplomacy among member states. Moreover, despite shared goals of enhancing resilience and autonomy, member states have differing views on counterspace capabilities and no shared rationale for how certain capabilities (e.g. bodyguard satellites or directed energy weapons) strengthen security and stability. On a related note, there have been no reported exchanges among European states on the strategic significance of space systems. Consequently, a perceived threat to a specific satellite may warrant a response according to some states, but not necessarily others. There is also no common understanding of what constitutes a lawful, proportionate response to a perceived threat, with long-standing ambiguities about how United Nations Charter provisions on the use of force and self-defence should be interpreted in outer space. For example, it remains unclear when non-kinetic acts constitute use of force or when a state may lawfully act in self-defence.

Similar questions arise about deterrence. Several European strategies refer to deterrence in space, but with no detail, conceptual clarification or indication of a unified view among European states. EU policies suggest an approach embedded in deterrence by denial, namely investing in resilience and redundancies. Yet certain European states’ interest in counterspace capabilities suggests otherwise. Uncertainties are further magnified by a lack of communication of intent. European states pursuing counterspace capabilities have not elaborated on how they may be lawfully used or under what circumstances. In today’s strategic landscape, capability investment without clear communication about intended use can have a destabilizing effect.
Towards stability at the space–nuclear nexus

Looking ahead, the steps that European states are taking towards autonomy and resilience in the space and nuclear domains must be coupled with dedicated measures to reduce the risk of inadvertent escalation.

First, states should seek measures to delineate nuclear command, control and communications (NC3) systems as off-limits from attack or interference. As permanent members of the UN Security Council, France and the UK could initiate proposals for non-interference with NC3 systems. Simultaneously, in upcoming UN space security talks, European states could propose characterizing interference with NC3 systems as ‘highly escalatory acts’ and seek consensus on defining this category. Nuclear detonations in space, kinetic strikes on space systems and debris-creating acts would also fall within this category and help to build consensus on escalation risks.


Second, there should be regular exchanges among European states on their own space–nuclear dependencies and escalation thresholds. Given the absence of a singular institutional format that includes all European states, allies and partners, EU and NATO level exchanges utilizing scenario exercises could be a useful starting point. This would enable focused exchanges and build a common understanding of different views on the strategic significance of space systems and legitimate responses to perceived threats. These consultations should also focus on deterrence, particularly which concepts apply to space and how, as well as signalling in space operations. However, deterring all types of attacks on all types of space systems is neither feasible nor credible. Additionally, thinking on nuclear deterrence requires consideration of developments in the conventional military as well as the cyber and space domains. European states cannot achieve a coordinated stance on space security and defence without exchanging views about how space could be integrated into a multidomain deterrence posture.

Third, Europe should spearhead diplomatic engagement to contribute to overall stability. For the space–nuclear nexus, this could be reflected in Europe-led dialogue to assess the risk calculus of all space actors, including China and Russia. As exhibited in recent years, the risk aversion of the latter states varies widely, given their differing priorities. Yet the distinction between Chinese and Russian objectives for space security continues to be poorly understood within Europe. There is potential for dedicated Europe–China engagement on space and strategic stability issues to address different perceptions, build common understandings of terminologies and concepts in space activities, and identify steps to restrict certain behaviours and capabilities in outer space. The annual EU–China security and defence consultations could include initial, track 1 level exchanges on space security. This would be an opportunity for European actors to pursue their own security priorities disentangled from those of the USA. Moreover, it would be a welcome step towards confidence building in the light of both the USA’s recent actions and China’s concerns about ‘military alliances’, expressed in China’s 2025 white paper and in past UN space security talks.

In parallel, regular cross-regional dialogue on space and strategic stability is required with other like-minded states, including Japan and South Korea, as well as Australia and New Zealand. There are few dedicated channels for the comparison of language and procedures in space activities between these actors. Closed dialogues would also be an opportunity for European states to privately exchange views with like-minded states on the implications of the space-based layer of the USA’s Golden Dome, especially given potential responses from China and Russia.

Finally, European states should uniformly uphold international law. In the midst of multiple ongoing conflicts, the UN Charter is under serious pressure regarding the use of force and self-defence and there are questions about how certain provisions apply to space. Simply reiterating that a provision applies without legal certainty of the thresholds will only exacerbate unpredictability. Upcoming space security talks provide an opportunity to clarify how these norms and other space treaty provisions should be interpreted.

As European states respond to strategic shifts in the space and nuclear domains, it is crucial that their responses are consistent and actively minimize the risk of inadvertent escalation. Prioritizing these areas is necessary to slow arms race dynamics and to advance stability at the space–nuclear nexus.

About the author: Nivedita Raju is a Senior Researcher in the SIPRI Weapons of Mass Destruction Programme.

Source: This article was published by SIPRI


About SIPRI
SIPRI is an independent international institute dedicated to research into conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament. Established in 1966, SIPRI provides data, analysis and recommendations, based on open sources, to policymakers, researchers, media and the interested public. Based in Stockholm, SIPRI also has a presence in Beijing, and is regularly ranked among the most respected think tanks worldwide.
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