Space and Defense Policy

Damon Coletta, Frances T. Pilch, Damon Coletta, Frances T. Pilch

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN:
  9780415777322
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135969653
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

This edited volume introduces the reader to the role of space in military and defense strategy, and outlines some of the major foreign and domestic actors in the space arena, as well as constraints of law and treaties on activities in space. It also addresses science and technology as they relate to space policy.

The book addresses three main questions:

• How does the realm of space fit into strategic thinking about national security?
• How does policy regarding space develop and what considerations, both in the United States and abroad, figure prominently in calculations about space policy?
• How do different states/nations/actors regard the role of space in their national security calculations and how do these policies impact each other?

This book fills a niche in the space policy field, providing insights into space and strategy from international experts from the military, academic and scientific communities. A unique feature of the book is the chapter on science and technology, which utilizes the latest information available concerning space utilization and exploration.

1 Space and grand strategy

James J. Wirtz

Strategy is the process whereby available resources are controlled and utilized in a militarily effective and politically compelling way to achieve national objectives, usually in the face of determined opposition. If the citizens of a nation are fortunate, their strategic thinking also will be informed by a coherent grand strategy which encompasses more than just plans to orchestrate the use of force. According to Edward Mead Earle, grand strategy “so directs and integrates the policies and armaments of the nation that the resort to war is rendered unnecessary or is undertaken with the maximum chances of victory.”¹ Grand strategy harnesses or reflects political, economic, military technical, social, and demographic trends to advance national interests. It is a political statement about a nation’s memories and expectations because it reflects a vision of a people’s past, their purpose, and their future. Grand strategies always advance a plan to enhance the prospects of national survival, and most offer a culturally appealing vision of how to preserve or enhance national grandeur. Grand strategy uses the resources of the moment to shape the future so that it better suits national interests.

Grand strategies can take a variety of forms. Some are symmetrical. They seek to outperform competitors by beating them at their own game. Others are asymmetrical. Instead of matching an opponent’s strengths, they seek to maximize military effects by exploiting an opponent’s weaknesses. Asymmetric strategies seek maximum political impact with minimal military effort. Some grand strategies call for the forward deployment of military forces, while others call for forces to be kept in a central reserve as part of a strategy of “offshore balancing,” an option available to states that enjoy a geopolitically insular position.² Alliances, international institutions, or the efforts and interests of other states can dominate some grand strategies, while others embrace stark autarchic concepts to guide their approach to the future. Some grand strategies posit a “year of maximum danger,” or are motivated by the idea that “time is not on our side,” ideas that cultivate preventive motivations for war.³ In contrast, others are based on the ideas of containment and deterrence and that an opponent’s position is unsustainable in the long run. Those who adopt containment as the guiding principle of grand strategy believe that if current trends continue, their opponents will inevitably be defeated by their own internal decay.⁴

A century ago, statesmen and military thinkers were preoccupied with the way a country’s “war potential” could be harnessed to achieve national objectives. They included several important measures of national strength in their estimates of war potential: the size of a country’s military and population, and the speed and extent to which it might be mobilized in wartime; demographic trends; national output of steel and cement; the extent and density of railroad and road networks; and whether or not a state possessed a modern chemical industry or manufacturing sector. Today a host of new capabilities, some of which were the stuff of science fiction just a few decades ago, are considered to be key determinants of a nation’s future economic, political, and security prospects. The information revolution, specifically whether or not a country possesses the human and technical capital to exploit the opportunities made possible by advances in computers and communications, is seen as a key determinant of future national prosperity. For countries that can direct these emerging technologies toward military applications, the information revolution is producing a revolution in military affairs (RMA). A new type of warfare is emerging, based on the availability of a global precision-strike and surveillance complexes. The George W. Bush administration’s emphasis on defense “transformation” reflects the judgment that future military success will not be found in “legacy” systems such as aircraft carriers, piloted fighter aircraft, or main battle tanks, but in new applications of technology, organizations, and doctrines to the battlefield. New technologies also are having a profound impact on societies, as people embrace an ideology of independence and direct action made possible by widespread access to the Internet.

An important factor in measuring a nation’s contemporary and future war potential is access to and mastery of space. The presence of Earth-orbiting satellites that are used for reconnaissance and communication purposes have clearly contributed to both the information revolution and the RMA. Access to space, space systems, and ongoing space operations have for decades enriched life on planet Earth, fostering scientific progress, economic growth, and security. But the emerging military, economic, scientific and political “geography” of space raises a host of questions for strategists. Does space represent such a unique geography that traditional strategic concepts have little or no applicability when it comes to understanding military operations in space? Will space operations shape terrestrial military or political competition, or will developments on Earth and in space fail to have much influence on the other? Is space an enabler of economic growth and military prowess, or is it something more? Most importantly, what would constitute a US grand strategy for space?

This chapter will address these issues by first exploring the different geographies addressed by theorists interested in land, air, and maritime warfare and the different types of grand strategies that emerged from these different physical settings. It will then explore space as a geography of strategic interest. The chapter will conclude by offering some observations about the nature of a grand strategy that fully recognizes the importance of space for contemporary and future US national security.

Strategic geography

Although the dialectical nature of military or political struggle is a constant no matter where combat occurs, the physical environment shapes the nature of combat.⁵ The fact that combat takes place in different geographic settings is largely responsible for differences in warfare at sea, on land, and in the air. Different strategic geographies lead to the adoption of different weapons and doctrines, and produce military institutions with different values and traditions.⁶ As Daniel Moran notes, the impact of strategic geography produces highly observable effects on military organizations:

The armies of the world resemble each other far more than they do the navies and air forces that fight under the same flags. A modern army, for that matter, resembles an ancient one more than it does a modern navy, since its most basic problems have not changed at all from one millennium to the next. The same is true for the other major military branches. Before any armed force can come to grips with its opponent, it must first master the immediate challenges of its physical environment. Ships must float. Aircraft must (however improbably) remain suspended in the air. Armies must propel themselves as best they can across an unyielding landscape rich with obstacles large and small. Warfare, the making of war, is first of all about making the most of one’s chances within the constraints imposed by Mother Nature.⁷

Strategic geography has an enduring impact on political and military competition and the institutions that exist to wage war.

In addition to shaping organizations and the conduct of warfare, different strategic geographies have produced different types of strategic theorists and theorizing. Although the best-known theorist of war, the Prussian philosopher Carl Von Clausewitz, used observations from early nineteenth-century land warfare to develop an explanation of war itself, suggesting that any variety of grand strategy can be derived from any strategic geography, this chapter highlights different types of strategic theory generated by focusing on different physical settings.⁸

Some theorists explain victory on the modern battlefield. Stephen Biddle’s work on the effectiveness of combined arms operations offers compelling insights into the sources of victory in modern land combat.⁹ Biddle offers a theory of victory for land combat, a theory that can be used as the basis of grand strategy. Some take a broader perspective by explaining how a successful campaign undertaken in a single strategic geography – here Giulio Douhet’s work comes to mind – can lead to victory in war by nullifying an opponent’s military strategy.¹⁰ Douhet’s grand strategy offers a path to victory by literally circumventing the bulk of an opponent’s military capability by directly attacking their political commitment to war. Others take an even larger perspective by highlighting how the mastery of a strategic geography can not only produce victory in war, but national prosperity and an enduring ability to frustrate future rivals. Alfred Thayer Mahan remains the darling of admirals everywhere because he offered a compelling vision of how a blue-water navy and mastery of the world’s oceans not only would produce victory in war, but would also enhance national grandeur and wealth, especially when compared to non-seafaring competitors.¹¹

Theory of battlefield success: land warfare

Terrain is the key feature of land warfare. Terrain channels the movement of forces along relatively predictable paths allowing natural obstacles like swamps, high ground, or forests to be incorporated into defenses. Because of the impact of terrain, the movement of units, deployment from marching to fighting positions, and supply of ground forces become dominating issues for ground commanders.¹² By exploiting terrain, however, commanders can increase their combat capabilities by creating force multipliers. The proper use of cover, for example, gives forces on the defense what many consider to be a 3:1 advantage over forces on the offensive that must leave their positions and expose themselves to enemy fire to complete their mission. Surprise and maneuver can serve as force multipliers for units on the offense because they allow them to strike enemy units at unexpected times and places.

Because land forces operate over vast expanses of territory and because communications can become chaotic even on the modern battlefield, responsibility for crucial decisions in combat is often thrust upon the most junior noncommissioned officers.¹³ To coordinate what are in fact thousands of independent decisions made in battle spaces isolated by terrain and the chaos of war, armies rely on doctrine to guide soldiers in combat. Doctrine is a highly refined and debated set of principles for the conduct of military operations that are communicated widely across armies to guide soldiers in the planning and conduct of military operations. It may at first appear counterintuitive that armies would disseminate information that logically should remain secret, but having everyone “read off the same sheet of music” in the chaos of battle has proven to be a key contributor to victory.

If terrain and doctrine play critical roles in land warfare, the use of scores of different types of weapons in land battle distinguishes it from air war and, to a lesser extent, war at sea. Armor, infantry, air power and air defense, to say nothing of logistics, intelligence, communications, and reconnaissance support, all have to be coordinated in the conduct of modern, combined-arms operations. To be used to their full effectiveness, these operations have to exploit available force multipliers and deny force multipliers to the opponent. Land warfare is complex. Commanders have to recognize the effects of terrain, the importance of doctrine, and integrate and use all available weapons into a synergistic campaign to prevail. Offense and defense also are useful terms when it comes to describing land operations, but they have less importance when it comes to explaining air and maritime operations.

Stephen Biddle’s “modern system of force employment,” is a type of grand strategy because it offers a succinct explanation of victory in land warfare that takes into account the complexity of ground combat. Combined-arms operations are the core premise behind Stephen Biddle’s explanation of victory and defeat in war. B...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Space power and politics
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Notes on contributors
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: thinking about space and defense
• 1 Space and grand strategy
• 2 Space, science, and technology
• 3 Space and the economy
• 4 Understanding space law: legal framework for space
• 5 Cooperation in space: international institutions
• 6 The policy process
• 7 Space and the military
• 8 Space and intelligence
• 9 The acquisition process: acquiring technology for space and defense
• 10 The civil sector
• 11 Russia and China: strategic choices in space
• 12 Toward a European military space architecture
• 13 The impact of foreign space developments on US defense policy
• Conclusion
• Appendix: landmarks in US space policy
• Index