Space, the final frontier.
In March 2018 the President proposed creating a “Space Force” which would be like the Air Force, except for Space[1]. I doubt he came up with this idea all by himself, while resting between his twitter storms, so the question is why is this now becoming a thing? Will we, or do we, intend to make Space a place for overt state versus state offensive military operations? A friend recently suggested we do. Perhaps we already have – since we have so many military assets in space.
Let’s start with what we know about Space and the current laws. First and foremost, Space is really pretty big. I suppose technically we are talking about everything from about 188 km (73.2 miles)[2] to the edge of the ever-expanding universe. Covering our activities in this domain is the Space Treaty[3] signed and ratified by the U.S. in 1967. In simple terms the treaty forms the basis for current space law, holds the nation-states responsible for activities (either governmental or commercial) originating from that nation-state, prohibits the placement of “weapons of mass destruction” in space or on the moon, and calls for the human explorers to be considered “envoys of mankind.” Since this is a UN treaty I am not sure how much it actually deters a rouge power if that power chose to ignore it, but as a signatory, we do have legal obligations as we consider the roles and missions of our newly proposed Space Force.
It seems to me we are kind of where we were in the late 1930s when proponents of an independent U.S. air power began actively lobbying for a separate Air Force, and in turn, their fair share of the military budget. It was then we began to see the predominant military air power theorists argue that air power should be a co-equal to the Army and the Navy and that air power alone could bring an adversary to the peace table and end a war. At best, history has shown unless we are willing to take the consideration of civilian humanity out of the equation and just bomb the country into oblivion this is a flawed assumption. At worst it is just wrong since unless we are willing to turn the land into a nuclear wasteland somebody has to eventually occupy the space and fill in the political vacuum we’ve created.
On the other side of the coin, control of the air domain is absolutely essential to allow U.S. ground and sea forces to maneuver and operate effectively. Control of the space domain, at least within the standard orbital sphere, is equally essential to our success or failure in any sort of national engagement. If we lose control of that space our assets essential for intelligence, communication, and navigation are lost, and so is our ability to operate within the domains below it. So far, both commercial and military enterprises have placed only limited resources towards independent redundant capabilities in all those areas, and our reliance on those assets in space grows daily.
For the sake of argument let’s assume we create this Space Force to control and exploit what the U.S. Air Force today calls the “high ground.” What exactly would their mission be? Within military parlance controlling the high ground has always been essential for successful military operations. We put castles and fortresses on hills for two reasons, they can better see what is coming at them, and attacking forces would have to fight uphill to overcome them. What exactly would we need to do to control the high ground in Space, is it even possible without completely eliminating all potential opponents.
What happens to global stability if we, operating singularly or with allies, choose to place offensive weapons in space to destroy another nation's access or use those weapons to target our adversaries’ capabilities in the air, sea and land environments. To me, that is the $64,000-question. It raises the same questions for the risk of war that emerged with the cold war when the two opposing sides developed extensive nuclear arsenals – ostensibly for the defense of their homelands. Fortunately for us, reasonable men found ways to hold that power in check despite the tensions that arose.
We successfully avoided that nuclear war because the political stakes were so high, and the politicians in charge had all seen the cost of war up close and personal. The same cannot be said of today’s politicians or the societies they control. The political elite no longer understands what war really means from a social and economic standpoint. On top of that, we have a new breed of non-state actors with access to the technology once only available to large governments who create a whole new wild card in the game.
I am not sure how increasing the federal bureaucracy through the creation of new layers of command and building yet another force that will fight for funding for its own academy and the obligatory NCAA Division I football team will ensure we can effectively protect our interests in the Space domain.
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