# Astropolitik  ## Metadata - Author: [[Everett C. Dolman]] - Full Title: Astropolitik - Category: #america-commercializing-space-expansion #america-moon-landing #america-commercializing-space-expansion ## Highlights - The Royal Navy practised sea power long before Alfred Thayer Mahan wrote in 1890 telling the world what they had been doing. So it is with space power, at least up to a point. A great navy seizes and exercises sea control (including sea denial) in order to enable friendly maritime mobility and to project power against the shore. ([Location 124](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=124)) - Astropolitik is grand strategy. Indeed, it is the grandest strategy of them all. The entirety of the Earth is reduced to a single component of the total approach, critically important to be sure, but in many cases no more than a peripheral component. ([Location 159](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=159)) - In its narrowest construct, Astropolitik is the extension of primarily nineteenth- and twentieth-century theories of global geopolitics into the vast context of the human conquest of outer space. ([Location 163](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=163)) - In his rigorous definition, Gray asserts that strategy is ‘the use that is made of force and the threats of force for the ends of policy’. 5 ([Location 186](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=186)) - While it may seem barbaric in this modern era to continue to assert the primacy of war and violence—‘high politics’ in the realist vernacular—in formulations of state strategy, it would be disingenuous and even reckless to try to deny the continued preeminence of the terrestrial state and the place of military action in the short history and near future of space operations. ([Location 188](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=188)) - It simply avers that this has been the pattern, and that policymakers should be prepared to deal with a competitive, state-dominated future in space. ([Location 198](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=198)) - The good intentions of the author of the current work aside, the potential for misuse and abuse of Astropolitik is plain. The theory describes the geopolitical bases for power in outer space, and offers suggestions for dominance of space through military means. ([Location 211](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=211)) - Some state will likely employ the principles of Astropolitik and may come to dominate space as a consequence. ([Location 214](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=214)) - The simple fact that Gray's definition of strategy is accepted, and is itself a modification of Clausewitz's renowned if widely misinterpreted dictum that war is a continuation of political discourse by other (extreme) means, indicates the hard-realist paradigm of ever-present violence and fear cannot be separated from Astropolitik and nor should it be. Astropolitik, like Realpolitik, is hardnosed and pragmatic, it is not pretty or uplifting or a joyous sermon for the masses. But neither is it evil. Its benevolence or malevolence will become apparent only as it is applied, and by whom. ([Location 223](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=223)) - Such is the enormous drain on national economies that advanced liberal-democratic states are the most likely to undertake and sustain a dominating space program. As more states democratize, these observations lead to the promise of an ever-widening democratic zone of peace, ultimately encompassing the globe then spreading out to the cosmos and ushering in an era of true cooperation and stability. ([Location 234](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=234)) - Tests of the hypothesis showed that democratic states appear just as likely to engage in war as any alternative politically organized state. What remained intriguing, and promising, was the empirical evidence and rationale that democratic states do not go to war with each other. ([Location 240](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=240)) - Any policy that efficiently enhances the process of democratization in authoritarian and developing states will have positive inter-state results, and should be thoughtfully considered. When all states are democratic, war will be a social relic. ([Location 246](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=246)) - If, however, primarily democratic states enter and exploit space, and these states are best equipped to sustain robust space programs, then the tenets of Astropolitik are structurally less malicious—since these states are unlikely to pursue violent confrontation with each other—and so can be used for commercial and system stability (policing) and productive economic advantages. ([Location 250](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=250)) - The widely held belief that disarmament promotes peace has long been acknowledged, and then quickly dismissed, by such eminent theorists as Friedrich Schumann and Hedley Bull. 11 ([Location 256](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=256)) - Stable peace, wholly desirable but fragile, can be obtained only via balancing strategies based on mutual positions of strength. 15 Democratic states may be especially vulnerable in a less militarized world, since their societies tend to be more open, mobilization is public and difficult, and they are thus susceptible to first strike attacks. 16 Under these conditions, all states should avoid eliminating or unduly weakening their armed forces. To do so would be an invitation to war. ([Location 275](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=275)) - If anything, the relationship between rising wealth and rising democracy is an ‘iron law’ of political science. Should the vast wealth of space be tapped and brought to constructive use on Earth, the wealth of all people should dramatically rise ([Location 291](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=291)) - The principles of astropolitics and Astropolitik promote such economic endeavors, and rising wealth should have a complementary effect enhancing democratization, in this way limiting the negative effects of space-based militarization. ([Location 294](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=294)) - Astropolitik proposes shifting the dispute to the role of military forces in shaping social and political institutions. Under a precise (and historically rare) set of organizing conditions, military forces can both promote democracy and enhance deterrent policies, ([Location 308](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=308)) - This is to be the ultimate contribution of astropolitics and Astropolitik: a full and heuristic understanding of the geopolitical determinants of space, an application of the assumptions of realism to the astropolitical model, and, in the end, an economically robust and peaceful exploration of the cosmos by humanity. ([Location 313](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=313)) - examples set by Sir Halford Mackinder and Nicholas Spykman, the formulation of a neoclassical astropolitical dictum is established: Who controls low-Earth orbit controls near-Earth space. Who controls near-Earth space dominates Terra. Who dominates Terra determines the destiny of humankind. ([Location 327](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=327)) - Daniel Deudney outlines five overlapping clusters of historically recognized geopolitical themes. 2 These include: (1) Physiopolitics, a type of naturalist social science that sees man's physical and political development as the product of his attempts to adapt to his environment; (2) the German school of Geopolitik, the most notorious of the geopolitical theories and its most regrettable; (3) Balance of Power politics between states, in its most recognized form the term Realpolitik suffices; (4) Political Geography, separated from geopolitics when Geopolitik was at its apex, dealing with the effects of manmade borders and boundaries on human activity; and (5) classical Global Geopolitics, which attempted to incorporate the roles of transportation, communication, and technology into a coherent view of the political world. ([Location 453](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=453)) - Identification and categorization are the keys to knowledge. ([Location 469](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=469)) - Geoffrey Parker has defined geopolitics in its broadest connotation masterfully. He calls it ‘the study of states as spatial phenomena, with a view toward understanding the geographical bases of their power’. ([Location 471](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=471)) - Geodeterminism (or for Deudney, physiopolitics) is the tenet that geographic location—influenced by such factors as climate, the availability of natural resources or endowments, and topographic features including mountains, plains, rivers, and oceans— ultimately decides the character of a population and the type of government and military forces that emerge. ([Location 479](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=479)) - Ideally, geostrategists attempt to gain a global advantage over competing states. ([Location 486](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=486)) - astropolitics, here defined as the study of the relationship between outer space terrain and technology and the development of political and military policy and strategy. ([Location 497](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=497)) - Astrostrategy, following the pattern already established, is the identification of critical terrestrial and outer space locations, the control of which can provide military and political dominance of outer space, or at a minimum can insure against the ([Location 498](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=498)) - Astropolitik, a term specifically chosen for its negative connotations, is identified as a determinist political theory that manipulates the relationship between state power and outer-space control for the purpose of extending the dominance of a single state over the whole of the Earth. ([Location 502](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=502)) - Please note that Astropolitik is but one possible outcome of an ongoing astropolitical analysis. It is neither necessary nor inevitable; it is not sought after or desirable. But it is imperative that we never forget the insidious depths which the modern study of one subset of unbridled geopolitical theory ultimately reached, and if at all possible prevent a similar descent for astropolitics. ([Location 510](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=510)) - In this age, war was the prerogative of kings, fought by and for the ruling elite. Most disputes between the petty aristocracies were settled in skirmishes of the nobility and their retinues, supplemented where needed by roving mercenaries. ([Location 551](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=551)) - Bands of well-trained and disciplined foot soldiers working in concert were able to defeat the mounted knight who so clearly represented the old aristocracies, but only if they relied upon and worked closely with each other. 25 This fusion of individuals into a coherent whole represented the kernel of the democratic ideal. ([Location 618](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=618)) - Quigley notes that in the debate over which tactics were preferable in naval engagements, democrats tended to prefer ramming while oligarchs went for boarding. 32 This is in part because oligarchs believed in the superiority of the individual combatant, and boarding agreed with their view of the navy as merely a conveyance to and from battle. ([Location 700](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=700)) - In Athens, unlike anywhere else in Hellas, the oarsmen were recognized as being as vital on water as the hoplite was on land, and were thus accorded equal privilege and political status. ([Location 713](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=713)) - Thucydides goes so far as to have his hero Pericles say that a man who ignores politics to concentrate on personal welfare is a man who has no business in Athens. ([Location 721](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=721)) - With the introduction of pay for naval service (only), even the poorest citizen could now fully participate in the defense, and hence the politics, of the city-state. ([Location 725](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=725)) - The result was that a vastly greater number of poor citizens were taking up arms and fighting for the polis than rich ones, and so gaining a proportionately greater share of political power. ([Location 727](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=727)) - Toynbee maintained that the existence of climactic harshness was imperative for the development of civilization, for without it people cannot be expected to toil with the purpose of overcoming their environments. ([Location 744](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=744)) - Unique to the geodeterminist milieu is Frederick Jackson Turner's thesis that the character of societies and political institutions is based on their proximity to frontiers. ([Location 759](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=759)) - His proposition is argued from two directions. Frontier peoples and states of necessity have a type of dynamism thrust upon them as they struggle to overcome their environments, and engage in direct combat/competition with frontier groups of other peoples. Individuals at the center or core of the state, not directly challenged by the dangers and lack of amenities at the frontier, will not develop to their full potential. Not only are the frontier people challenged to succeed by their environment, the frontier tends to attract individuals who are risk-takers. This group of explorers, entrepreneurs, the desperate, and occasionally the criminal elements of society, are dynamic individuals who are motivated, capable, and assured. ([Location 762](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=762)) - Should long-term colonization efforts be realized, these selectively recruited and experientially hardened groups can be expected to establish competent, dynamic, and powerful social and political associations, initially structured in accordance with hierarchical military organization or under the strict conformity of martial law. ([Location 794](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=794)) - Government structure in these circumstances can be expected to take the form of a rigid if not wholly coercive militocracy, at least in its early stages. Duty and sacrifice will be the highest moral ideals. Advancement to the top of the political ladder can be expected to be based on the most rigorous standards of competence. ([Location 799](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=799)) - Should this rather far-fetched scenario not play out, it is not hard to imagine other structural causes of enmity between on- and off-worlders. The more independence naturally asserted by future space colonizers, the greater the efforts to rein them in politically by their terrestrial controllers. As with all such efforts in the human experience, it will be resented. ([Location 811](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=811)) - Individuals who are years from Earth and subject to stringent and unique living conditions will eventually believe that Earth-bound citizens, whose experiences are increasingly out of touch, can no longer adequately represent their interests. ([Location 828](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=828)) - In time, the space-state system may come to resemble the ancient and Renaissance city-state systems of the Greeks and Italians, with a myriad of independent and unique governing units sharing a common history, past culture, and a formal common language. ([Location 834](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=834)) - The influence of a national reliance on sea power, for example, allowed for by geographic fortune, prompted the development of a specific kind of decentralized (conceptually liberal) government with a greater degree of individual freedom. ([Location 842](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=842)) - The critical difference between naval and land military power, it seems reasonable to aver, is in their ability to project force and to occupy territory. ([Location 849](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=849)) - Space forces have the theoretical potential for maximal power projection (as platforms for kinetic or laser energy weapons or with mass-destruction payloads; see Salkeld and Karras for now classic early assessments 45 ) but virtually no near-term capacities for terrestrial occupation. ([Location 859](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=859)) - Yet a further projection for the Space Age seems prudent. Perhaps the more pertinent issue is the prevalent focus of current military space missions. They are not for territorial occupation and pacification, but they are clearly appropriate for police-state control. Intelligence surveillance and information gathering, a legitimate tool of military operations engaged in external war making, is also a customary tool for internal law enforcement operations. ([Location 870](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=870)) - Just as satellites act as a battlefield force-multiplier, in the role of civil oppression, they can be equally effective, and equally repressive. ([Location 875](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=875)) - The influence of emerging technologies on geography, in essence the practical shrinking of the Earth, is the foundation of the geopolitical strategists’ thought. ([Location 884](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=884)) - An early proto-geostrategist who fully grasped this relationship was German economist Friedrich List. Edward Earle Mead writes: ‘The greatest single contribution that List made to modern strategy was his elaborate discussion of the influence of railways on the shifting balance of military power.’ ([Location 885](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=885)) - With the railroad, military power could be transferred quickly from front to front as needed. ([Location 891](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=891)) - Ultimately, List's early views became the foundation of the rail-dominated ‘timetable strategy’ of World War I. ([Location 894](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=894)) - Rail power has no clear parallel to space power with the exception that, as a new transportation and information technology, space asset deployment surely has the potential to alter the political and military relationships of the traditional world and regional powers. ([Location 896](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=896)) - Space-based communications require sophisticated encryption techniques for security, and can be limited by electronic jamming, but currently they are extremely secure physically. ([Location 906](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=906)) - An authoritarian state would much prefer a land-based, fiber-optic network for transmitting data and information than a broadcast one. ([Location 909](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=909)) - A fiber-optic support network would be extremely useful for a military that is set for point defense, inwardly focused with a primary design of territorial occupation, and maximized for a secondary police support role. ([Location 913](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=913)) - Having an opinion similar to List's, Mahan saw that the ability to quickly retract forces for defense of the state and then move them out to prosecute offensive action was the characteristic of such naval powers as ancient Athens and contemporary Britain that allowed them to rise to dominance in their respective eras. ([Location 920](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=920)) - Of course, in order to press this capability, the maritime state must be endowed with a suitable ‘frontier’ seaboard, studded with ‘numerous and deep harbors’ combined with ready access to the open ocean, and ‘a population proportioned to the extent of the sea-coast which it had to defend’. ([Location 923](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=923)) - The character of a nation's people must also be specially endowed. They must, at the very least, be appreciative of the value of sea-based activity, if not wholly immersed in it. They must be commercially aggressive, rational profit-seekers who recognize the potential bounty of sea trade, and who through hard work and persistence will achieve wealth from it. ([Location 929](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=929)) - The government, too, must be outfitted with appropriate institutions and political officeholders ready and able to recognize and take advantage of the state's position and attributes. ([Location 934](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=934)) - The citizenry of the spacefaring state must be willing to sacrifice earthly comforts for unspecified gains in the exploration of the unknown, be committed to scientific endeavors and willing to hand over a large share of their income to the taxes necessary to support expensive long-term space projects, have a great interest (bordering on fetish or worship) in space developments and advances, and be tolerant of unavoidable failures, mishaps, and setbacks. ([Location 937](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=937)) - First, as an island nation Britain did not have to incur the expense of maintaining a large land army so long as its navy was adequate for coastal defense, and second, because it had an unimpeded ability to concentrate its naval forces in defense. ([Location 959](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=959)) - Mahan's analysis was brilliant and convincing. If a natural chokepoint did not exist, it was possible and obviously beneficial in some cases for the forward-looking state to create one, and in the process eliminate a source of potential weakness. ([Location 980](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=980)) - Today, with the demise of the Cold War, the United States has the luxury of reducing its land, sea, and air forces, and channeling monies and efforts saved into its space activities. ([Location 993](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=993)) - For example, the United States military's Navstar/GPS navigational satellites were deployed to enhance its military power, as a force-multiplier, in the jargon of the military. The subsequent utility of these assets to global commercial navigation, communication, and above all commerce, has made them an indispensable world asset. ([Location 999](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=999)) - The United States must be ready and prepared, in Mahanian scrutiny, to commit to the defense and maintenance of these assets, or relinquish its power to a state willing and able to do so. ([Location 1005](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1005)) - the astro-strategist should advocate the establishment of colonies or outstations for space exploration and exploitation. ([Location 1013](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1013)) - In space there are specific orbits and transit routes that because of their advantages in fuel efficiency create natural corridors of movement and commerce. ([Location 1020](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1020)) - The state that most efficiently occupies or controls these positions can ensure for itself domination of space commerce and, ultimately, terrestrial politics. ([Location 1024](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1024)) - Mahan's influence was and is extraordinary, but the most memorable of the geostrategists was undoubtedly Britain's Sir Halford Mackinder. Mackinder acknowledged the historical importance of sea power on the rise and demise of the great powers, but foresaw the end of naval dominance with the advent of the railroad. ([Location 1027](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1027)) - As the railroads grew to transcontinental scope, however, Mackinder saw that the balance of power was shifting back again to land, specifically to the heartland. ([Location 1044](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1044)) - Mackinder believed the history of civilization was in fact a cyclical tale of alternating dominance by land and sea powers, and that a change to land dominance was currently underway. ([Location 1057](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1057)) - could not physically occupy the critical keys to geodetermined power, then it must deny control of those areas to its adversaries. ([Location 1067](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1067)) - The vast potential resource base of outer space is presumably so enormous, effectively inexhaustible, that any state that can control it will ultimately dominate the earth. ([Location 1068](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1068)) - Dutch-born Nicholas Spykman faulted Mackinder on two primary points: (1) he overemphasized the potential power of the heartland, and (2) the dynamic between land power and maritime power was oversimplified. ([Location 1072](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1072)) - Robert Strausz-Hupé complained that both Mahan's and Mackinder's theories were overly deterministic, and preferred to downplay geography's role in the status of strategic influence. ([Location 1088](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1088)) - Geopolitics is perhaps the most adept body of international theory when it comes to dealing with systemic change, and geostrategists have been remarkably prescient in their ability to project the effects of a specific new technology on the extant state system. ([Location 1098](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1098)) - Wells became last century's first advocate of geostrategic change due to the arrival of a new technology. ([Location 1111](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1111)) - Despite the fact that aircraft were essentially unimpeded by the Earth's surface features (a critical change in the evolution toward astropolitics), they were limited in their operations by critical air operations routes, which required precisely located takeoff and landing fields and effective maintenance and repair facilities at major hubs. ([Location 1115](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1115)) - His bombastic and irascible personality eventually got him court-martialed (for conduct unbecoming an officer), but Mitchell was posthumously revered in the United States Air Force for his foresight, when events and the course of World War II seemed to prove many of his assertions. ([Location 1124](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1124)) - By drawing air range arcs over the United States and USSR, he identified uncontested regions as areas of dominance and regions of overlap as areas of decision. 75 De Seversky's influence was widely persuasive, and became the policy foundation for the construction of the DEW (Defense Early Warning) radar line across northern Canada and Alaska to monitor former Soviet Union strategic forces. ([Location 1131](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1131)) - The cutting-edge strategists devoted their efforts not to winning wars, but avoiding them. The technology became one that was uniquely paradoxical. No nation that could afford nuclear power could afford not to develop nuclear weapons. But once deployed, no nation could afford to use them. ([Location 1140](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1140)) - The ‘sustaining myth’ of US superpower is that the United States is ‘blessed and divinely commissioned’ to transform the world in its own image, and the horror of nuclear power had been opportunely placed in its benevolent hands. ([Location 1144](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1144)) - To illustrate the span of competing nuclear theory, and to extend nuclear theory to the realm of outer space, three of the most perplexing dilemmas in the use of nuclear weapons are discussed: centralized versus decentralized control, the logic of the First Strike Advantage (FSA), and counterforce versus counter-C3I (Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence) strategy. ([Location 1154](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1154)) - Control varied by three broad categories: (1) weapons deployed outside the United States not under the sea—generally tactical nuclear weapons; (2) air and missile forces under the Strategic Air Command (SAC); and (3) the Navy's sea and submarine-based weapons. ([Location 1167](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1167)) - Ideally, tight control should be practiced in peacetime, providing the maximum assurance of safety. In a crisis or war situation, control is released to multiple decision centers and pre-launch procedures would be relaxed. ([Location 1178](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1178)) - This dual system has two primary faults. First, coupling the dissemination of control with rising international tension clearly could serve to increase the possibility of inadvertent war—tightly coupled systems ‘are notorious for producing overcompensation effects’. ([Location 1180](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1180)) - Second, tight control during peacetime increases vulnerability to surprise attack. ([Location 1184](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1184)) - Spacecraft with military missions, especially unmanned ones (for example, the proposed ‘Brilliant Pebbles/Brilliant Eyes’ kinetic kill vehicles envisioned in the Strategic Defense Initiative's (SDI) anti-missile shield) will of necessity work in a threat environment that may preclude constant monitoring and contact. ([Location 1194](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1194)) - During the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union took different approaches to limiting command vulnerability. The former relied on mobility and human redundancy, whereas the latter relied on hardened bunkers and anti-ballistic/anti-air defense systems. ([Location 1208](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1208)) - The terrain of space is essentially the unseen topography of gravity wells and electromagnetic emissions. ([Location 1215](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1215)) - now it is enough to make the analogy that realist nuclear theory and Astropolitik are enmeshed, and the latter is an outgrowth of the former. ([Location 1220](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1220)) - In this age of overkill, even a few bombers and submarines spared from the initial salvo could cause unacceptable devastation to the aggressor in a second-strike retaliation. ([Location 1232](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1232)) - Verl Stanley and Phillip Noggio concur that C3I warfare ‘makes it possible to seize the tactical initiative, cripple the enemy's command and control system, and thereby defeat his forces’. ([Location 1245](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1245)) - If one assumes that both sides are evenly matched in terms of destructive capability and each side's intelligence and warning networks would detect any hostile missile attack, analysis suggests only two options: surrender or massive retaliation. ([Location 1250](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1250)) - The dilemma of tight versus loose control cannot be solved; at least it has not been solved here. ([Location 1259](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1259)) - Tight control could lure an opponent into attempting a surprise decapitation strike. Loose control is a dangerous mess, and it is only a matter of time before an accidental or unauthorized launch tests the tolerance of the superpowers. Neither strategy decreases the likelihood of war. ([Location 1260](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1260)) - Since a decapitation strike would inevitably lead to general, not limited, war, to build such a system is not cost-effective. ([Location 1271](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1271)) - Geodeterministic theories perhaps inevitably led to the exploration of a political theory of natural selection. As such, they fall into the general category of Social Darwinism, replete with the misquoted theory of survival of the fittest. Once perverted, this transforms the individual or group from having a natural capacity for dominance to having a moral duty to dominate. ([Location 1280](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1280)) - Geopolitik was one of five components, or ‘organs’ of the state, that included: Kratopolitik, the government structure; Demopolitik, the population structure; Sociopolitik, the social structure; Oekopolitik, the economic structure; and Geopolitik, the physical structure. ([Location 1293](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1293)) - Kjellen insisted the dynamic state would grow and consume the weaker states around it. In doing so, the state achieved autarky, or national self-sufficiency. Ultimately, he believed, only a few large states would remain. ([Location 1295](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1295)) - Organic state theories seem to lead unavoidably to notions of Social Darwinism, more so even than the geodeterminist ones discussed earlier. ([Location 1310](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1310)) - Ability to expand is prima facie evidence of naturally mandated political and social superiority, implying an absolute right to expand. Such reasoning can lead to abuses of power. ([Location 1313](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1313)) - A state that successfully colonizes in outer space will undoubtedly extract pride from the accomplishment and probably will realize enhanced resources, spinoff technologies, and military power as well. ([Location 1314](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1314)) - Not inconsequentially, Haushofer's students based their plan for world domination on the basic tenets of Mackinder's dictum. Domination of Eastern Europe would provide Germany with access to Russia. Control of Russia would provide access to the vital Heartland. ([Location 1350](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1350)) - Of note, Geopolitik panregionalism may have been heavily influenced by nineteenth-century US foreign policy. The German plan was in fact publicly referred to as ‘a Monroe Doctrine for Europe’. ([Location 1360](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1360)) - Astropolitics is in this view the purest form of geopolitical analysis, converging entirely on elements of space and scale. ([Location 1604](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1604)) - This grandest of all perspectives reestablishes one of the great achievements of the modern geopolitical theorists: the recognition that the study of politics cannot be nationally isolationist in its perspective. ([Location 1605](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1605)) - Without a full understanding of the motion of bodies in space, in essence a background in the mechanics of orbits, it is difficult to make sense of this panorama. ([Location 1619](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1619)) - Knowledge of orbits and orbital mechanics is vital for one primary reason—spacecraft in stable orbits expend no fuel. Thus the preferred flight path for all spacecraft (and natural satellites) will be a stable orbit, specifically limited to a precise operational trajectory. With this knowledge we can begin to see space as a demarcated and bounded domain. ([Location 1621](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1621)) - The time it takes for a spacecraft to complete one orbit is called its period. Additional useful details can be found by determining the satellite's inclination, the angle measured as the difference between the satellite's orbital plane and the orbited body's equatorial plane. ([Location 1637](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1637)) - The inclination tells us the north and south latitude limits of the orbit. ([Location 1639](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1639)) - It is also useful to know the orbital plane's position relative to a fixed point on the rotating body of the orbited mass. For the Earth, this point is the vernal equinox. ([Location 1640](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1640)) - The distance from it to the spacecraft's rising or ascending pass over the equator is called its right ascension. ([Location 1641](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1641)) - The points where an orbit crosses the Earth's equatorial plane are called nodes. ([Location 1642](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1642)) - As a rule, the higher the altitude, the more stable the orbit. ([Location 1647](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1647)) - Circular or constant altitude orbits are generally used for spacecraft that perform their missions continuously, over the entire course of the orbit, while eccentric orbits usually signify that missions are conducted at critical points in the orbit—usually at perigee or apogee. ([Location 1653](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1653)) - Ascension is also differentiated according to mission needs. The most vertical ascension orbit has a 90° inclination, which is perpendicular to the equatorial plane. ([Location 1655](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1655)) - Inclinations below 90° are called posigrade orbits, meaning that the spacecraft tends to drift eastward on each orbital pass, while inclinations above 90° are retrograde, tending to drift westward. ([Location 1657](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1657)) - This is called a geostationary orbit, and is the only orbit that has this fixed-point capacity. ([Location 1660](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1660)) - This orbit has extraordinary value for terrestrial acquisition of the spacecraft, as a tracking station or satellite dish does not have to move to maintain contact with the satellite. It is today undoubtedly the most commercially lucrative of the terrestrial orbits. ([Location 1661](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1661)) - The effect is critical to space operations as satellites in a circular orbit with a period of less than 93 minutes require large amounts of fuel to make orbital corrections necessary to maintain spacing, distance, and velocity. Satellites in circular orbits with a period greater than 101 minutes are essentially unaffected by the atmosphere, and require relatively few attitude adjustments, as a consequence saving fuel and extending the useful life of the satellite. ([Location 1666](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1666)) - The Earth is actually flattened slightly at the poles and distended at the equator, a phenomenon that also creates small deviations in the flight path of a ballistic missile (one of the functions of geodetic satellites is to accurately measure the ever-changing oblation of the Earth—called spherical modeling—to increase the accuracy of intercontinental ballistic missiles [ICBMs]). ([Location 1672](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1672)) - Thus, no orbit is perfect and all spacecraft must have some fuel to occasionally make corrections. ([Location 1677](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1677)) - The useful life of a spacecraft is, for the most part, a function of its fuel capacity and orbital stability. ([Location 1677](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1677)) - Given these parameters, currently useful terrestrial orbits can be clustered into four generally recognized categories based on altitude and mission utility ([Location 1678](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1678)) - The first encompasses low-altitude orbits, between 150 to 800 km above the surface of the Earth. These are particularly useful for Earth reconnaissance (military observation to include photographic, imaging, and radar satellites, and resource management satellites that can take a variety of multi-spectral images) and manned flight missions. ([Location 1680](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1680)) - This is extremely important for imaging satellites, and is all the more useful because the satellite can be made to stay above early morning or early evening regions. This creates long shadows helpful in identifying and determining the height of objects seen from directly above. Low-altitude orbits have the added advantage that satellites can be placed into them with cheaper and less sophisticated two-stage rockets. ([Location 1685](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1685)) - Medium-altitude orbits range from 800 km to 35,000 km in altitude, and allow for 2 to 14 orbits per day. These are generally circular or low eccentricity orbits that support linked satellite networks like the recently deployed—and now possibly defunct—Iridium system from Motorola. ([Location 1691](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1691)) - High-altitude orbits, at least 35,000 km, provide maximum continuous coverage of the Earth with a minimum of satellites in orbit. ([Location 1699](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1699)) - Satellites at high-altitude orbit the Earth no more than once per day. When the orbital period is identical to one full rotation of the Earth, a geosynchronous orbit is achieved. ([Location 1700](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1700)) - Just three satellites at geostationary orbit, carefully placed equidistant from each other, can view the entire planet up to approximately 70° north or south latitude (see Figure 3.5, a satellite at geostationary orbit has a field of view of 28 percent of the Earth's surface). ([Location 1702](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1702)) - One technique to overcome this deficiency is to use the fourth orbital category, the highly elliptical orbit. This orbit is described as highly eccentric with a perigee as low as 250 km and an apogee of up to 700,000 km. ([Location 1710](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1710)) - So, following Mackinder's lead, astropolitics begins with a demarcation of the geopolitical regions of outer space ([Location 1734](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1734)) - The Moon, for example, is rich in aluminum, titanium, iron, calcium, and silicon. Iron is in virtually pure form, and could be used immediately. ([Location 1740](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1740)) - Terra or Earth, including the atmosphere stretching from the surface to just below the lowest altitude capable of supporting unpowered orbit. This is also known as the Karmann primary jurisdiction line, named after Theodore Von Karmann, the mathematician who first suggested its use. ([Location 1748](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1748)) - Terran or Earth space, from the lowest viable orbit to just beyond geostationary altitude (about 36,000 km). Earth space is the operating medium for the military's most advanced reconnaissance and navigation satellites, and all current and planned space-based weaponry. 6 ([Location 1756](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1756)) - Lunar or Moon Space is the region just beyond geostationary orbit to just beyond lunar orbit. The Earth's moon is the only visible physical feature evident in the region, but it is only one of several strategic positions located there. ([Location 1760](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1760)) - Solar space consists of everything in the solar system (that is, within the gravity well of the Sun) beyond the orbit of the Moon. The exploitation of solar space will be treated quite briefly, as expansion into this region using current technologies will be quite limited. ([Location 1764](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1764)) - The most surprising and enduring contributions evident in the expanded military role of outer space technology, however, may have come from the previously under-appreciated value of navigation, communications, and weather-prediction satellites. 8 With its performance in the Persian Gulf, space warfare has emerged from its embryonic stage and is now fully in its infancy. ([Location 1774](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1774)) - In future wars involving at least one major military power, space support will be the decisive factor as nations rely ever more heavily on the force multiplying effect of ‘the new high ground’. ([Location 1779](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1779)) - After the demarcation of space into astropolitically bounded regions, we turn to the ‘wide commons’ of Alfred Thayer Mahan, ‘over which men may pass in all directions, but on which some well-worn paths [emerge for] controlling reasons’, the aforementioned lanes of commerce and critical chokepoints of the open oceans. ([Location 1785](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1785)) - In space, gravity is the most important factor in both understanding and traversing the topography of space. It dictates prudent travel and strategic asset placement. The unseen undulations of outer space terrain, the hills and valleys of space, are more properly referred to as gravity wells. ([Location 1792](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1792)) - The total velocity effort (also called Δv or Delta V) is the key to understanding the reality of space travel and the efficient movement of goods. ([Location 1802](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1802)) - The previous discussion of orbital mechanics has shown that a spacecraft in stable orbit expends no fuel, and is therefore in the most advantageous Δv configuration. ([Location 1812](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1812)) - Using this logic, in space we can find specific orbits and transit routes that because of their advantages in fuel efficiency create natural corridors of movement and commerce. ([Location 1814](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1814)) - The most efficient way to get from orbit A to orbit B (the proper language of space travel) is the Hohmann transfer (see Figure 3.9). This maneuver is a two-step change in Δv. Engines are first fired to accelerate the spacecraft into a higher elliptical orbit (or decelerate into a lower one). When the target orbit is intersected, the engines fire again to circularize and stabilize the final orbit. ([Location 1818](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1818)) - Given the vital necessity to conserve fuel and increase the productive lives of spacecraft, the future lanes of commerce and military lines of communications in space will be the Hohmann transfer orbits between stable spaceports. ([Location 1826](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1826)) - A small but highly trained and equipped force carefully deployed to control the bottlenecks or chokepoints of the major sea lanes would suffice. Control of these few geographically determined locations would guarantee dominance over military movement and world trade to the overseeing state. ([Location 1834](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1834)) - The Hohmann transfer establishes the equivalent of the lane of commerce for space. Domination of space will come through efficient control of specific outer space strategic narrows or chokepoints along these lanes. ([Location 1836](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1836)) - The primary and first readily identifiable strategic narrow is low-Earth orbit itself. This tight band of operational space contains the bulk of mankind's satellites, a majority of which are military platforms or have military utility. ([Location 1837](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1837)) - At the edge of Earth space, beyond low-Earth orbit, lies the most obvious and discussed strategic narrow—the geostationary belt. This band about the equatorial waist of the Earth is the only natural orbit that allows for a stable position relative to a given point on the Earth. The geostationary belt has severe constraints on the number of satellites that can operate within it, however, due to the possibility of broadcast interference from adjacent platforms. ([Location 1842](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1842)) - The gravity well concept discussed above has important implications for military combat operations other than space transportation/logistics and way station location. ([Location 1863](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1863)) - The first, energy advantage, is a firepower benefit because weapons placed higher in the gravity well gain the downward momentum—velocity in the power equation, velocity times mass—while kinetic energy weapons firing up the gravity well lose momentum, thus power. ([Location 1865](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1865)) - The maneuver advantage comes because spacecraft higher up in the gravity well have more time to observe and react to attacks than those at lower positions. ([Location 1867](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1867)) - Lagrange calculated that there were five specific points in space where the gravitational effects of the Earth and Moon would cancel each other out ([Location 1872](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1872)) - An object fixed at one of these points (or more accurately stated, in tight orbit around one of these points) would remain permanently stable, with no expenditure of fuel. ([Location 1874](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1874)) - In practice, owing to perturbations in the space environment including solar flares, orbital drift and wobble, and micrometeorites, only two of the Lagrange points are effectively stable—L4 and L5. ([Location 1876](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1876)) - One last phenomenon of the region that requires mapping and understanding is the location and impact of the Van Allen radiation belts, ‘two donut-shaped regions circling the Earth inside the magnetosphere [that] trap charged particles and hold them. ([Location 1883](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1883)) - Astropolitical analysis describes critical chokepoints in space as those stable areas including the planets, moons, libration points, and asteroids where future military and commercial enterprises will congregate. ([Location 1896](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1896)) - The astropolitical question, given the current realities, is simply where on Earth are the vital centers most efficiently placed? ([Location 1905](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1905)) - The originating launch site of a spacecraft has a significant impact on its orbit. The equator, for example, has particular value as a launch site location, especially into geostationary orbit. This is because the spin of the Earth can be used to assist in the attainment of orbital velocity, and the relative velocity of the Earth's motion decreases from 1,670 kph at the equator to no relative motion at the poles. ([Location 1907](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1907)) - In a real world example, a European Ariane rocket launched due east from the French Space Center at Kourou, French Guiane, just 5° north of the equator, receives a 17 percent fuel efficiency advantage over a US rocket launched due east from Cape Canaveral, about 28.5° north of the equator. ([Location 1914](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1914)) - In perhaps a more powerful example, a Space Shuttle launched due east from Cape Canaveral has a cargo capacity of 13,600 kg. A Space Shuttle launched due west from roughly the same latitude (from the US Western Space Range at Vandenberg Air Force Base), can barely achieve orbit with its cargo bay empty. ([Location 1916](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1916)) - Launches due east (90°) of Cape Canaveral will enter into low-Earth orbit at an inclination of 28.3°. Indeed, launches due east from any site on the Earth will have an inclination exactly the same as the launch latitude, given a two-stage direct insertion launch. ([Location 1919](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1919)) - Launches on any other azimuth will place a satellite into orbit at greater inclination than the latitude of the site. Thus the launch site determines the minimum inclination (with a launch due east). A launch due west allows for the maximum inclination (in the case of the Cape, 151.7°, or 180° minus 28.3°). Launching due north or south will result in a polar orbit, that is, an orbit with an inclination of 90° relative to the equator. ([Location 1924](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1924)) - The polar, sun-synchronized orbit is in fact one of the most important for military reconnaissance and weather imaging. A spacecraft placed into polar orbit passes over both the North and South Poles. If placed in a slightly retro-grade motion (greater than 90° inclination), this configuration allows satellites to eventually fly over every point on the Earth, and to remain in the sunlight at all times—extremely important for satellite cameras that takes images in the visible light spectrum and for satellites that require continuous solar access for power. ([Location 1927](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1927)) - The highly stable orbits are inclined at 63.4° and 116.6° relative to the equatorial plane. ([Location 1941](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1941)) - The important point here is that in order to control satellites in space, or to control the Earth from space, a global network of terrestrial contact points or a global network of interlinked satellites, respectively, is required. ([Location 1951](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1951)) - Satellite-linked networks are more vulnerable to Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence (C3I) interference than non-linked networks, and are especially worrisome for espionage satellites. ([Location 1953](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1953)) - Terrestrial areas above 70° latitude routinely have transmission difficulties from satellites in geostationary orbit, especially in bad weather and during periods of heavy solar activity. These areas include much of Scandinavia, Russia, and Canada. They require an alternate or auxiliary network of three to six Molniya-type orbiting satellites for continuous communication. ([Location 1962](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1962)) - In order to provide truly global coverage of the Earth from space, including the polar regions, in theory a minimum of just four satellites is required. ([Location 1965](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1965)) - Conversely, in order to guarantee continuous communications with any one satellite from the Earth, at least three control stations spaced evenly around the Earth along the orbital plane are necessary for high Earth orbit and above altitude satellites (at inclinations of 63.4° or less, four or more for higher inclinations), and a minimum of 16 control stations for low-Earth orbit ones. This is why the United States maintains deep space-tracking stations in Australia and Spain (among other states), and Russia has kept a fleet of space-tracking and control ships deployed in international waters. ([Location 1972](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1972)) - The Iridium commercial mobile communications network initially deployed a network of 66 satellites at 725 km altitude to ensure that at least one satellite is always in view. 20 The system offered state of the art global positioning and communications; the venture ultimately failed due not to technical problems, but to marketing failures. ([Location 1982](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=1982)) - Essentially, one has to know where an individual will be in order to direct a space-based intelligence asset to look at that point at that precise moment. In other words, one needs intelligence to do intelligence. ([Location 2011](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2011)) - As space technology progresses, many of the above assertions will become dubious or even moot. New hypotheses will surface that have not yet been considered. However, the astropolitical dictum that control of certain terrestrial and outer-space locations will provide a distinct advantage in efficiency and will lead the controller to a dominant position in commercial and military power seems assured. ([Location 2023](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2023)) - None of this analysis may matter if the ongoing moribund efforts to conquer space continue at their current lackluster pace. The likelihood of a golden age of space exploration seems remote given the current conditions. ([Location 2026](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2026)) - These conjectures cluster around the hypothesis that without the re-establishment of a competitive, widely embraced, and recognizably astropolitical space regime (one that encourages space exploration on the basis of competition without confrontation), future growth in outer-space exploration is likely to be stunted. ([Location 2089](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2089)) - The technique these combatants chose was classically Mackinderian. They established an international regime that ensured none of them could obtain an unanticipated advantage in space domination—for if any one nation did, the face of international politics might be changed forever. ([Location 2095](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2095)) - Stephen Krasner, who has done more to develop the notion and explain the relevance of regimes to the academic community, describes them as: ‘Principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures around which actor expectations converge in a given issue area’. ([Location 2099](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2099)) - The four characteristics are arrayed in a strict top-down hierarchy: ‘Principles are beliefs of fact, causation, and rectitude. Norms are standards of behavior defined in terms of rights and obligations. Rules are specific prescriptions or proscriptions for action. Decision-making procedures are prevailing practices for making and implementing collective choice.’ ([Location 2102](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2102)) - Regimes are thus intended to be more than a substitute or expediency for short-term self-interest. They imply a continuing area of agreement and cooperation. ([Location 2110](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2110)) - Should the principle that all states are sovereign be revoked over time or by circumstances, the United Nations as an organization would crumble. ([Location 2123](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2123)) - This arrangement is routinely hailed as a model of international accord. It is an extension of the most successful international agreements already in place, and has been a framework for subsequent treaties. Yet herein lies the paradox. The outer-space regime, widely recognized as the acme of global cooperation, is in fact the product of Cold War competition and national rivalry. ([Location 2136](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2136)) - Walter McDougall asserts that all the world's space programs were born of four great inventions: Britain's radar, Germany's ballistic rocket, and the United States’ electronic computer and atomic bomb. ([Location 2140](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2140)) - All of the theoretical work for these inventions had been accomplished well prior to the war. The simple truth is that it took the massive infusion of public monies and the national imperative for total victory that fueled that conflict to provide the format for their practical emergence. ([Location 2144](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2144)) - In order to counter the US bomber threat and transcend the great distances that insulated North America from the rest of the modern world, the Soviets felt compelled to concentrate development efforts on an intercontinental rocket force. ([Location 2155](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2155)) - Laboratory tests indicated the latest bombs could be made small enough to permit a drastically reduced ICBM, and these smaller rocket requirements began to look increasingly attractive to the US military. ([Location 2166](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2166)) - Eisenhower was a fiscal conservative who wanted to get the most bangs for the bucks the United States was spending on its nuclear arsenal. He also wanted to reign in the budget for conventional forces as much as possible. The doctrine of Massive Retaliation was his answer. ([Location 2180](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2180)) - Nonetheless, the Democrats ran and won on the popular perception that the Soviets were far ahead in nuclear warheads and technology. In reality, the Soviets would not achieve parity until the mid-1960s. Interestingly, Vice-President Nixon, who knew the missile gap was not a fact but a projection, could not take that knowledge to the electorate because the sources of that information were classified. ([Location 2194](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2194)) - It was this pattern of perceived military necessity shouldered for fear of the growing power of a potential enemy that ultimately drove the development of space programs. ([Location 2198](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2198)) - The atomic weapon link is more obscure than the others, but it was indispensable to and spurred space programs for two reasons: (1) its enormous development and procurement expense, and (2) its wide-area destructive capability. ([Location 2202](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2202)) - As it turned out, the requisites for development of a successful intercontinental missile were in essence the same for development of a minimally competent space launch vehicle. ([Location 2206](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2206)) - Even though a missile development program puts a state on a path towards a space launch vehicle capacity, it does not guarantee that capacity. The reverse, however, constitutes a more powerful international declaration. A state that demonstrates a working space launch/orbital payload capability fully demonstrates the capability of an ICBM. 14 For this reason, many states have used the guise of developing a space launch capability when their true intention has been to develop an operational ICBM. In this manner, they skirt international sanctions in the transfer of ICBM technology, or at least paint for themselves a portrait of peaceful cohabitation with other states, via the acceptable pursuit of scientific—as to opposed to military—knowledge. ([Location 2215](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2215)) - Everything, it seemed, that the scientists brought to fruition in the lab or on the drawing board, science-fiction writers including Jules Verne, H.G.Wells, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and others, had already written about in marvelous detail a generation or more before. ([Location 2236](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2236)) - The space and arms races that began with the launch of Sputnik were destined to determine a global economic champion and establish the model of development for the world's emerging nation-states. ([Location 2254](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2254)) - ‘Russia has dealt a devastating blow to US prestige as the world's technological leader.’ 25 ([Location 2266](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2266)) - Second, and perhaps more important because it played upon the fundamental fears of modern humanity, the Sputnik launch brought home the realization that no person would ever again be safe from nuclear terror. ([Location 2274](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2274)) - Senator George Smathers is quoted in support: ‘We can’t afford to be second best; the stakes are our survival.’ ([Location 2280](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2280)) - ‘For the first time since 1814 the American homeland lay under direct foreign threat.’ ([Location 2284](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2284)) - Space was a race the United States could not afford to lose, and even the most technophobic isolationists reacted with patriotic fervor, ready now to sacrifice for the national interest. ([Location 2294](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2294)) - the editors warned that the Soviet Union was paying for its erstwhile supremacy on borrowed time and capital: ‘The cost of this satellite is 40 years of deprivation by the Russian people… Sputnik will not feed Khrushchev's subjects or cement the crumbling walls of his inhuman empire and irrational economic system.’ ([Location 2299](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2299)) - Knowledge cannot be unlearned, and when the destructive power of the atom had been unleashed, it could never be put back in the box. ([Location 2305](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2305)) - If outward cooperation could not be achieved, military neutrality in space was vital. ([Location 2319](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2319)) - Melvin Kranzburg observed: ‘Mankind's space programs have given visual content to what had previously been a vague abstraction: for the first time, everyone could see the earth whole, in its fragility and loneliness.’ ([Location 2329](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2329)) - The only politically correct perspectives of international relations in space were those dominated by terms such as ‘common heritage’ and ‘province of mankind’. ([Location 2333](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2333)) - Roman law held that certain resources were unsuited for ownership by individuals or governments, and they were so distinguished by the terms res communis, or a ‘thing’ (res) ‘for everyone’ (communis), and res nullius, or ‘thing for no one’. ([Location 2345](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2345)) - Walter McDougal distinguishes between res nullius, ‘space as belonging to no one’; res communis omnium, ‘space as the “heritage of all mankind”’; and res commercium, with space ‘sovereignty and jurisdiction vested in the UN’. 38 Some authors also distinguish res publicus, or a thing ‘open to al1’, while others incorrectly make no distinctions at all, for instance using the term res nullius exclusively to describe the classic state of the high seas prior to the 1958 and 1960 Law of the Seas Conventions. ([Location 2353](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2353)) - Included among his many contributions was the notion of innocent passage: a concept that has been part and parcel of the freedom of the high seas customs for the last 500 years, and that had its philosophic foundation squarely in the Roman tradition of res communis. 41 Innocent passage held that any vessel, even military craft, had right of access to unmolested transit on the oceans (so long as no state of war existed between the nations involved, or intention to commit an act of war was pending). ([Location 2364](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2364)) - The logic of this modified definition of res communis, as it had been developed in the course of naval tradition, being officially applied to the realm of outer space was arguably reasonable. ([Location 2386](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2386)) - By analogy, space appeared to have more in common with the deep oceans than land or air, and in the 1950s the transition was acceptable to all potentially space-capable nations. ([Location 2387](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2387)) - The first protests against this standing definition of res communis came, not unexpectedly given Cold War antagonisms, from the Soviet Union—though for an unexpected reason. ([Location 2391](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2391)) - The argument centered on the then-current communist doctrine of ‘peaceful co-existence’ versus the more traditional hard-line approach, which asserted that any capitalist-approved international law was by definition immoral, and therefore moot. ([Location 2394](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2394)) - No state could take better advantage of the West's res communis definition for national gain than they, and so the term as defined by the United States was formally accepted as a description of the status of outer space 46 —with this concession to the hard-liners: future negotiations would actively work to change the meaning of the term to make it consistent with contemporary socialist theory, specifically from a ‘no-public-sovereignty’ in outer space, to a ‘no-private-property’ provision. ([Location 2409](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2409)) - The ultimate goal of the Soviets was to limit space exploration to the state, and to keep out private enterprise, which they feared would give the West a competitive edge. ([Location 2413](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2413)) - As generally poorer and weaker members of the international community, states ill-equipped to develop a space program of their own naturally tended to decry the US-Soviet definition. Their argument was that since all humanity and therefore all states collectively ‘owned’ space (as the ‘province of mankind’), all states should share equally in its bounty, regardless of who admixes their labor. In other words, the non-space-capable states expected an equal share of the profits, technologies, and resources from space development, without paying for or even participating in the effort of exploitation. ([Location 2419](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2419)) - The Treaty states that ‘equitable’—if not exactly equal— benefits shall be shared among all the nations of the Earth. 51 This definition is so problematic and antithetical to the Western contention that resources should become the property of the extracting state, that neither the United States nor any other spacefaring nation has ratified the Treaty, and future ratification seems unlikely. ([Location 2438](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2438)) - The problems of res communis and the commons area stem from their joint use by all without restriction. ([Location 2453](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2453)) - Remember that only 100 cows can efficiently graze on the pasture, based on its 100,000 lb carrying capacity. With 101 cows now grazing, the weight of all the cows would go down by approximately 0.01 per cent (1,000 lbs/101), or about 10 lbs each. With competition for grass keener, each cow now weighs about 990 lbs instead of its previous 1,000. Thus, the rational herdsman's 11 cows have a value of £10,890 (11×990) and the remaining 10-cow herds have an adjusted value of £9,900 (10×990). ([Location 2477](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2477)) - The herdsman who has seen the value of his herd decline must rationally add one or more animals to make up for the loss, and the original profit maximizer will rationally counter by adding even more animals. ([Location 2481](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2481)) - It seems clear from this model that each individual attending solely to his or her own gain can never promote the public or common interest (when scarcity, not abundance, is presumed). Individuals are locked into a system that compels them to increase their individual herds to the ultimate demise of the community. They find themselves working harder and harder to obtain a diminishing rate of return from each animal, until suddenly the system collapses. Hardin laments: ‘Ruin is the destination towards which all men rush.’ 56 ([Location 2487](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2487)) - Because of these mathematical imperatives, we cannot expect technology to solve the problem of the commons; only artificial political organization and law can do so. The world is finite, and, without social restructuring, doomed to a dismal Malthusian future because of unchecked population growth and individual greed. ([Location 2495](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2495)) - Friedrich Kratochwil points out that Hardin is guilty of a major policy oversight, as do most of his critics, by not exploring further the historical solution of dividing the commons into exclusive rights or private property zones: ‘…we can see how the assignment of such entitlements counter-acts the fear generated by some types of generalized [prisoner's dilemma] situation, depicted in Hardin's “Tragedy of the Commons’”. ([Location 2501](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2501)) - The failure to consider the logical approach comes from the assumption that common property is more desirable and just than private property, an assumption that is never challenged. This failure has impoverished the national space programs of Earth, and set them on an entropic course toward apathy and demise. ([Location 2505](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2505)) - Crowe further argued that Hardin's solution, administrative management of the commons, was as problematic as free use. Since there is no ‘monopoly of coercion’ 64 in the international system—no ‘common power to overawe’ states, to draw from Thomas Hobbes—no single source of omnipotence focuses patterns of behavior in a selective manner. ([Location 2528](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2528)) - Finally, while it may not be a miracle solution, technology can be a valuable tool in the battle against scarcity and the diminution of the commons, if nothing else, by monitoring the environmental impact of its use. ([Location 2536](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2536)) - Daniel Deudney laments the failure of the various Green and peace movements in particular to seize a technologic initiative, ‘in part due to their technophobic cultural values’. 65 The assets of space might be particularly suited to assisting in forming environmental policy. Multispectral imaging land resources satellites already contribute heavily to our knowledge of actual rainforest destruction, ocean warming, and ozone depletion. ([Location 2540](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2540)) - When attempting to draft and implement a regime, negotiating states looked toward past cooperative activities and existing regimes for reference and guidance. In the 1950s, those existing regimes were dominated by the transnational scientific efforts at exploration. ([Location 2548](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2548)) - Kenneth Boulding has remarked that the periodical table of elements is the same in Russia as it is in the United States—and the often culturally transcendent character of its esoteric languages, physical and social scientists have a solid reputation for cooperation in the modern age that rises above the petty squabbles of diplomats and bureaucrats. At least, this is the perception on basic research. Scientific competition is as intense, secretive, and politicized as any other when it comes to breakthroughs, patent rights, and the prestige of the scientists involved. ([Location 2552](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2552)) - Representatives of 66 countries, including about 60,000 scientists and technicians, participated in the IGY, and it was sincerely hoped that in following the lead of the preceding Polar Years, spectacular results could be achieved. ([Location 2569](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2569)) - Initial government responses from both the United States and Soviet Union had been unenthusiastic, but after officials of the IGY requested an attempt to be made to orbit a satellite, their interest was piqued. ([Location 2577](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2577)) - This international event, the acme and future model of epistemic community cooperation intended to expand the frontiers of human knowledge, quickly degenerated into a global arena for international competition. ([Location 2583](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2583)) - In the 1950s, getting accurate information out of the Soviet Union was an extremely difficult endeavor. Eisenhower believed the tensions between the two states were based in part on the inability of either to accurately assess the other's military movements and stockpiles. He had already suggested a solution. International air law should be modified to permit ‘innocent passage’ of reconnaissance aircraft in order to gather vital information. The proposal was called ‘open skies’, and offered a reduction of international tension through the lessening of information asymmetry. ([Location 2601](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2601)) - To realize its long-term plans, the United States desperately wanted to have the prevailing notion of innocent passage as reflected in the law of the sea applied to outer space, and not to allow an upward extension of existing air law, in which territorial ownership extends upward, usque ad coloeum (as ‘far as the sky’). ([Location 2618](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2618)) - As it turned out, the Soviets launched first. Initially, US policymakers were stunned, but their dismay soon turned to elation when they realized that the Soviet Union had unwittingly solved the overflight dilemma for them. It ‘had no choice but to renounce its belief in unlimited “vertical sovereignty”’. 77 The Soviets had unwittingly placed themselves in a position where they could hardly argue the illegality of the trespass of their own Sputnik. ([Location 2624](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2624)) - ‘Having argued necessarily for the legality of their [own] satellites, the Soviets had to deal with the hidden American agenda, the use of satellites for espionage and military support.’ 78 ([Location 2632](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2632)) - So advantageous did the launch of Sputnik ultimately become for the US space program that several analysts and commentators, including McDougall, have advanced the possibility that the Eisenhower administration and/or his top security advisors deliberately held back US progress on a satellite to allow the Soviets to launch first. ([Location 2634](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2634)) - Why an attempt was not made is unknown, but two reasons stand out. The first, already advanced, was that the Soviets would be unable to protest the overflights of US spy satellites and the dangerous U-2 overflights could be ended. The second is more far-fetched and has the ring of conspiratorial fantasy, but it is not implausible. Eisenhower and his advisors were undoubtedly aware of the public outcry that would ensue if the United States were not first in space. To the military strategists, such an outcry could be used much as Roosevelt turned the bombing of Pearl Harbor into a patriotic call for immediate and enthusiastic entry into World War II. In effect, Sputnik would be the public relations equivalent of a Pearl Harbor for the Cold War. ([Location 2639](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2639)) - The specifics of the regime would have to come from legal precedent, and now the battle moved to which precedents were more advantageous to whom. ([Location 2648](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2648)) - The battle for national supremacy in space began in contentious diplomatic, legal, and scientific wrangling. These disputes were grounded in classical geopolitical imperatives. ([Location 2769](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2769)) - Irvin White makes a compelling case for the evolution of space law from a basis in international sea and air traditions. 1 The formalized law of the sea, in fact, sets precedents for the bulk of international space law, with air law gaining an increasing share. ([Location 2778](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2778)) - The major classifications of issues common to sea, air, and space law are delimitations, sovereignty, registration and liability, and innocent passage. All are contentious. ([Location 2785](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2785)) - The issue of delimitations is insufferably problematic for outer space. The question, simply put, is where does space begin? What defines the boundary of outer space? The points that land, sea, and air (essentially solid, liquid, and vapor) begin are clearly visible. ([Location 2787](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2787)) - ‘The precise location of the point where air and space ends and outer space begins is uncertain but unimportant, because the minimum height at which an aircraft can fly is at least twice the maximum height at which aircraft can fly.’ ([Location 2804](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2804)) - The approaches to delimitation of outer space are myriad, and include geophysical definitions, such as the upper limit of the ‘atmosphere’ (a difficult definition in itself, as it stretches from 20 to 20,000 miles, depending on the minimum particle-density criteria of atmosphere at different latitudes, times of day and year, and regions); meteorological criteria, including the altitude at which physical phenomena have no effect on the surface of the Earth (generally considered to be 40–50 miles, the limit of the mesosphere— though the ionosphere extends to 300 miles); the demarcation between ‘aeronautics’ and ‘astronautics’ (determined by the propulsion system of the transportation medium, already shown to be problematic in aerospacecraft that could conceivably use both); multioperational regional definitions including ‘neutral’ or ‘contiguous zones’, low and high-Earth orbit, etc.; any area beyond the ‘effective control’ of the expanse above terrestrial territory; the point where the gravitational pull of the Earth is no longer measurable; the minimum altitude at which space records (‘firsts’) can be counted (62 miles, agreed to by the United States and Soviet Union at the 4 October 1960 meeting of the International Aeronautics Federation; the lowest orbital altitude, or perigee, of a satellite; and finally, an arbitrary demarcation established for a fixed period of time or subject to periodic review. ([Location 2817](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2817)) - The two most prevalent approaches for defining outer space have been spatial and functional. The spatial approach explains that space begins just below the lowest point at which an object can be maintained in orbit. This has also been called the ‘Karman primary jurisdiction line’, the point at which aerodynamic flight ends and centrifugal forces take over, about 52 miles (named after Theodore Von Karman, its postulator). This seems to be the most likely candidate for ultimate implementation, as it is currently the most precise. ([Location 2905](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2905)) - This dark-horse candidate proposes air and space law combine and become indistinguishable—in other words, free overflight by any air or spacecraft—the unlimited right of innocent passage. ([Location 2915](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2915)) - As already mentioned, ‘open skies’, a policy in which aircraft overflights by any country would be allowed in peacetime (given a minimum advance notice and flight plan), has been a long-standing goal of the United States. ([Location 2922](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2922)) - One would tend to think that the precedence for outer space delimitation should be analogous to air law, a simple upward extension. In fact, for this application, air law is virtually useless in the environment of outer space. The farther ‘out’ one goes, the more difficult it becomes to determine what is above any given point on the earth. ([Location 2927](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2927)) - In all these early decisions, the right of air space jurisdiction is ultimately based in the Roman legal custom of cujus est solum, ejus est usque ad coleum (‘Who owns the land owns it up to the sky’). ([Location 2935](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2935)) - In this combined or overlap realm, aircraft of all nations observe a convention of ‘joint use rights’ or common use provisions detailed in both sea and air conventions. ([Location 2957](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2957)) - In astropolitical or Astropolitik terms, the only definition of sovereign space that may truly matter is one that incorporates the notion of a region that can be effectively defended. ([Location 2959](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2959)) - It continues to the formula of the 1885 Berlin Conference, which set the limit of air space control ‘upward into space as far as the scientific programs of any state…permits such state to control it’. ([Location 2963](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2963)) - In an age of shore-to-ship missiles, some nations have claimed a territorial ocean limit up to 200 miles, the current limit of a state's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). ([Location 2970](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2970)) - The Convention on the Law of the Sea requires that each nation maintain a registry of ships, but allows individual nations to apply their own rules and regulations for registration, safety, and the like. ([Location 2977](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2977)) - Worthy of note, and appropriate to this analysis, the most spectacular instance of international space liability came in 1978, when the Soviet nuclear-powered intelligence collection satellite, Cosmos 954, unintentionally de-orbited, spewing radioactive waste over a significant region of northern Canada. Under the provisions of the outer-space regime then in place, the Soviet Union (under considerable duress) acceded to full responsibility and agreed to pay for all damages. ([Location 2986](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2986)) - The requirements for registration of objects in space are stricter than those for sea or air, with the justification that such registration is necessary because of the greater potential for global physical and/or environmental damage. ([Location 2993](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=2993)) - The most compelling reason for registration of spacecraft, according to policy-makers, is to enhance national security. ([Location 3001](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3001)) - The registration issue is thus intrinsically tied to the extant regime's insistence on the use of outer space for ‘peaceful purposes’ only. ([Location 3005](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3005)) - Innocent passage on the seas is far less strict than the air regime, and the space regime is the least constrained of all. Innocent passage on the oceans, for example, allows for photographic and other reconnaissance activities in certain instances, and the former Soviet Union employed a fleet of so-called fishing trawlers equipped with sophisticated radar and electronic surveillance equipment close to US and NATO shores. ([Location 3010](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3010)) - In addition, the Chicago Convention includes provisions against overflights by ‘pilotless aircraft’, the allowance for the establishment of military or safety related prohibited or no-fly zones; and that states ‘may prohibit or regulate the use of photographic apparatus in aircraft above its territory’. ([Location 3020](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3020)) - It may seem odd, if not completely arbitrary, to include the international Antarctic treaty as a formal antecedent of the Outer Space Treaty, but the analogy is really quite keen. Antarctica is a vast and desolate place, inhospitable to human habitation, and at least equivocal in its potential for future economic gain. ([Location 3032](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3032)) - This was followed by a photographic expedition to the far side of the Moon. Shortly thereafter, the Soviets released a map in which they invoked the ancient right of discoverers by unilaterally naming the prominent features (in Russian, of course, not Latin), suggesting claimant rights based on discovery. ([Location 3060](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3060)) - The Preamble to the Antarctic Treaty states, ‘it is in the interest of all mankind that Antarctica shall continue forever to be used for peaceful purposes’. 34 This now politically incorrect (due to gender specificity) statement summarizes the reason for getting together in the first place, and was not contested. The Treaty also stated that the Continent was to be used for peaceful purposes only (Article I). ([Location 3076](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3076)) - The United States has been committed to the notions of international law and individual freedom from the earliest days of its history. Its first foreign war was against the Barbary Pirates of the North African coast over the issue of piracy on the high seas. ([Location 3096](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3096)) - President Eisenhower asked ‘the international community [to] seriously consider a plan to mutually control outer space missile and satellite development’. 38 This plan was to incorporate the tenets of common heritage and peaceful cooperation. Eisenhower followed words with action by endorsing the Aeronautical and Space Act of 1958, which espoused a peaceful and beneficial aim to carry out the civilian space program of the United States ‘for the benefit of all mankind’—a plain ruse according to prominent space historians. ([Location 3103](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3103)) - One of the first major obstacles in the negotiations over space applications was in the realm of legitimate space activity as defined by the ‘peaceful’ uses of outer space. The Soviet Union claimed the difference was clear and should be structured along the lines of military (illegitimate) or non-military (legitimate). Since nearly every conceivable space application had at least some military uses, the United States answered, the distinction should be between peaceful and aggressive uses of space. ([Location 3117](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3117)) - Since ICBMs in their ballistic arc must pass through outer space en route to their target, the next logical move would have been to call for the abandonment of the legally useless ICBMs. This was clearly a propaganda effort designed to portray the United States as the peacemaker. ([Location 3126](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3126)) - Kennedy knew the Russians had not the arsenal to trade nuclear salvos with the United States, and he also knew Khrushchev would never admit it. Khrushchev backed down and lost his power domestically. The next generation of Soviet leaders would not make the same mistake, and embarked on a crash program that brought nuclear parity with the United States by 1968 and superiority by 1970. ([Location 3137](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3137)) - The Ad Hoc Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (AHCOPUOS) was awkward from the beginning. The original AHCOPUOS, as proposed by the United States, was to have nine members, all with a demonstrated interest in space applications. ([Location 3156](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3156)) - Since they were the leading space power (in their view and the view of most of the world), they should have at least equal representation with the West, and they counter-proposed a representative makeup of three delegates each from the West, the Soviet Bloc, and the unaligned or third world. ([Location 3160](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3160)) - The debate over the permanent committee followed along the same lines as the one over the ad hoc committee and centered on representation. Once again, the Soviets— because of their dubious preeminence in space—insisted on parity, with one third representation each for the Soviet, Western, and non-aligned blocs. The United States, because of the greater number of countries in the West with legitimate space interests, insisted on superior Western participation. The compromise solution again increased the size of the committee to 24 representatives: 7 from the Soviet Bloc, 12 from the West, and 5 from non-aligned countries. ([Location 3180](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3180)) - Within the Declaration, he claimed, were four disputed positions, all of which were challenged by the United States. 60 The first position held that space should not be used for ‘propagating war, national hatred, or enmity between nations’. This position was rejected by the United States because of a somewhat dubious claim that, since the Soviet Union argued for and then refused to sign a similar agreement at a Geneva arms reduction conference, the Soviets could not be trusted to carry through with this resolution even though they had initiated it. The second position called for all nations to submit for prior discussion and agreement any space projects that ‘might hinder the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes by other countries’. This position was rejected as untenable, as it would give the Soviet Union an effective veto over any space project they might declare as militarily valuable. The third disputed plank in the Soviet draft declared that all space activities be carried out ‘solely and exclusively by states’ This provision would rule out private enterprise in space activities and forcibly impose socialist principles on the realm of outer space. 61 It was also clearly an attack on the lucrative and expanding space-based international telecommunications market, dominated to date by the Americans. The last disputed Soviet position denounced the use of intelligence collection satellites as ‘incompatible with the objectives of mankind in the conquest of outer space’. Gardner argued that reconnaissance from space, like the high seas, was consistent with international law, and, more importantly, that the use of space in this manner would some day ‘prove important in monitoring disarmament agreements’. Also, the United States would no longer be able to continue air reconnaissance flights, and space reconnaissance seemed the most reliable method for monitoring the Soviet Union's military. ([Location 3207](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3207)) - The purpose of the Treaty was not to address in detail all of the issues of concern, but to create a broad guideline for future negotiation. Under this formula, no party gained all that it wanted, but no party's major interests were unduly injured. A flawed process, to be sure, but widely recognized as a major achievement: ‘Any sort of reasonably coherent statement that has been ratified by nearly a hundred countries around the planet, including the superpowers, in an effort to profess a consensus, is important’. ([Location 3239](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3239)) - The international outer-space regime is composed primarily of four generally recognized treaties and a fifth unratified—though to date unchallenged—treaty on the Moon and celestial bodies. ([Location 3246](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3246)) - The first document, the Treaty on the Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (1967), is referred to throughout the literature as the Outer Space Treaty or OST. ([Location 3248](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3248)) - Moreover, it is the foundation of the de jure and de facto subordination of private interests in extra-terrestrial commercial development, and exemplifies the principles and norms of a regime that has no place for Astropolitik. ([Location 3275](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3275)) - The foregoing Resolution does little to clarify the OST, and arguably muddles it, leaving open to interpretation all the contentious issues of the negotiations. ([Location 3297](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3297)) - The third leg of the regime is the Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects (1973). ([Location 3298](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3298)) - This Treaty has been called the first of the next-generation revised space law because it represents a fundamental change in the definition of res communis from the traditional Western view of ‘equal access’ to the view espoused by the former Soviet Bloc and Less Developed Countries (LDCs) of ‘equal benefit’. ([Location 3319](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3319)) - The Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972 also pertains to the legal framework in space. This bilateral treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union requires that neither state undertake the development, testing, or deployment of ABM systems that are land, air, sea, or space-based. ([Location 3325](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3325)) - Each nation would further make no effort to interfere with the other side's ability to monitor compliance to the treaty, including the use of deception or deliberate concealment and electromagnetic jamming. ([Location 3327](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3327)) - After the Treaty was formalized, and construction begun, Washington lawmakers realized that deployment was a disastrously bad idea in a populist democracy, and quickly halted production. Two reasons dominated the change in view: (1) it seemed immoral for the lawmakers to spend billions on themselves for defense, yet legally proscribe even a dime for defense beyond the Washington Beltway (an argument that would persuade Reagan to go ahead with the Strategic Defense Initiative, despite the treaty specifications above); and (2), would nuclear war truly be less likely if those who made the decision to go to war were effectively protected? The consensus was ‘no’. ([Location 3331](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3331)) - The United States stands as the only nation currently likely to develop space mastery, and so the many international treaties based on Cold War parity are eroding. ([Location 3347](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3347)) - In December of 1976, the equatorial states of Brazil, Columbia, Ecuador, Indonesia, Kenya, Uganda, and Zaire declared that their national sovereignty extended to the geostationary belt, 22,000 miles above the equator. 66 This so-called Bogata Declaration was ‘in strict violation of custom, common sense, and the Outer Space Treaty’. 67 It has never been accepted by the international community, and probably never will be, but it remains important because it is representative of a growing desire in the LDCs to seize a greater share of the common goods. ([Location 3359](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3359)) - The Outer Space Treaty cannot be considered as a final answer to the problem of the exploration and use of outer space, even less when the international community is questioning all the terms of international law which were elaborated when the developing countries could not count on adequate scientific advice and thus were not able to observe and evaluate the omissions, contradictions and consequences of the proposals which were prepared with great ability by the industrialized powers for their own benefit. ([Location 3375](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3375)) - Under the current outer space regime, the only frontier in space that has been truly opened is in near-Earth space. ([Location 3400](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3400)) - The United States, Russian Federation, and other states with space-launch capability have been content to establish toeholds in LEO. Extrapolating from the current pace of activity in space, manned missions to Mars within the first half of this century are unlikely, regardless of NASA projections. ([Location 3404](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3404)) - The failure to open space beyond LEO to human exploration, settlement, and commercial development plainly cannot be attributed to technology shortfalls. The Apollo lunar landings were achieved with computers markedly less advanced than those available in many homes today. Rocket engines once developed for multistaged heavy-lift cargo capacity could be manufactured again. Several types of less expensive single stage to orbit launch vehicles are in development or prototype. Innovative communications and fresh multispectral and electronic imaging techniques, combined with remarkable advances in miniaturization and software applications, provide the potential foundations for a renaissance in space commerce and industry. ([Location 3406](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3406)) - No, it is not a lack of appropriate technology that has stifled the exploration and exploitation of space. Instead, much of the blame can be found in political motivation, or more precisely, in its absence. The reality is that political decisionmakers in the United States and the other states with space-launch capacity have little or no pressing political or economic interest in the further opening of this frontier. ([Location 3411](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3411)) - The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 was a tragedy because it drained away the energy the remaining twenty years of Cold War could have provided to space exploration. Had this not occurred, had the momentum of Apollo been allowed to continue, the United States would have moved to establish permanent bases on the Moon and Mars by the 1980s, and humanity might well be a multi-planet species today. ([Location 3420](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3420)) - Legitimate complaints about the politicization and militarization of space notwithstanding, Cold War competition was clearly good for the development of space because it forced the pace of activity in ways that scientific research and commerce could not. Ideological and military competition motivated the governments of the United States and Soviet Union to absorb the costs of developing the technology to access space in a comparatively short time period. ([Location 3433](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3433)) - The core problem in international space law is that the practical effect of collectivizing space has been counter to its intended purpose of encouraging the development of outer space. ([Location 3442](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3442)) - The treaty may actually have resulted in a collective inaction problem as states failed to invest in the development of space because an important incentive for its development had been eliminated. The argument here is that in rendering space and all celestial bodies res communis rather than res nullius, and thus eliminating them as proper objects for which states may compete, the treaty dramatically reduced the impetus for the development of outer space. ([Location 3446](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3446)) - Having been deprived of the possibility of assuming sovereign possession of new territory discovered and claimable on celestial bodies and in space, states did the same thing that individuals and firms do when domestic law deprives them of the possibility of assuming legal possession of real estate. They rationally choose not to make investments that would lead to its development. In the absence of some immediate political return in the form of new national territory, the attractions of political, economic, and social returns in the near term from investment in or consumption by states are likely to be underwhelming. ([Location 3461](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3461)) - This deprives all of humanity much less all states of the long-term benefits of the development of outer space. By collectivizing outer space, the OST vested legal rights in all states that they would not or could not exercise. That spacefaring states would not is the result of disincentives. The actual tragedy of the commons is that the effort to achieve collective action resulted in collective inaction. ([Location 3467](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3467)) - Therefore, if the policy goal is to encourage the development of outer space, then any assignment of sovereignty over territory in space and on celestial bodies would be preferable to the existing structure of vesting collective rights in all states. ([Location 3479](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3479)) - Without doubt, however, without the investment in space development by the spacefaring states and/or their national firms, the non-spacefaring states cannot possibly receive any economic benefits from the collective ownership of space. With investment in space development by the spacefaring states and/or their national firms, non-spacefaring states could reap some economic benefit from space. ([Location 3483](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3483)) - Moreover, Article 17 of the OST articulates a straightforward mechanism for withdrawal: ‘Any state party to this treaty may give notice of its withdrawal from the treaty one year after its entry into force by written notification to the Depositary Governments. ([Location 3488](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3488)) - The decision of the United States or China to withdraw from the OST would have far greater implications for the survival of the international space regime than the same decision by Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, or Papua New Guinea. ([Location 3493](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3493)) - One defection from the regime by a member of this group would no doubt lead to its effective collapse, as the remaining spacefaring states are unlikely to use the kind of coercion necessary to enforce the regime. ([Location 3497](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3497)) - That a claimed right to ownership has no economic value unless the property can be used or the legal right to ownership sold or bartered is crucial to understanding the interests involved. ([Location 3502](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3502)) - A new treaty could continue to designate genuine common pool resources as res communis while permitting space-faring states to claim sovereign ownership of territory on celestial bodies and other geo/astrographic positions while affording non-spacefaring states some opportunity to benefit from the exploitation of those same celestial bodies. ([Location 3507](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3507)) - A new norm that would permit states to claim sovereignty over territory on the larger celestial bodies such as the Moon and Mars according to a simple proportional allocation rule should be established. ([Location 3510](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3510)) - Priority of arrival would have the added benefit of spurring manned exploration. Another acceptable option would be pre-arrival assignation of territory in an analogy to privatizing the commons for its most efficient use. ([Location 3515](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3515)) - That the extant regime has stifled space exploration seems obvious. A new regime that harnesses national imperative and market incentives to re-ignite the Space Age is needed, but it will not be enough if states do not explore and embrace effective strategies for space control and exploitation. Whether it occurs in the next few decades or in the twenty-second century, the focus of space activities will inevitably move from the space immediately surrounding Earth to the rest of the solar system. In the short term, satellite communications and surveillance (both civilian and military) should continue to be the primary focus of development. Although far from inevitable, space mining and human settlement should follow. ([Location 3520](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3520)) - That the world is undergoing fundamental change in the aftermath of the Cold War has become almost axiomatic. Policymakers search for a new paradigm that will guide them through the tumult of the new era. ([Location 3635](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3635)) - He professes the continuing relevance of the three dominant world views of the twentieth century— realism, liberalism, and socialism—and argues persuasively that they maintain their validity in the twenty-first. Colin Gray is more adamant in his insistence that ‘there are elements common to war and strategy in all periods, in all geographies, and with all technologies’. ([Location 3644](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3644)) - Strategy, grand strategy in particular, is not simply the efficient military application of force. Since grand strategy is ultimately political in nature, that is to say the ends of national strategy are inextricably political, yet the means or dimensions of strategy are not limited. ([Location 3653](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3653)) - Clausewitz posited five elements of military strategy: moral, physical, mathematical, geographical, and statistical. ([Location 3660](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3660)) - Gray provides us with no fewer than 17 elements of strategy, grouped into three broad categories; People and Politics, Preparation for War, and War Proper. ([Location 3661](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3661)) - Society and culture: The astropolitical society must be farsighted and enthusiastic for space exploration and conquest. ([Location 3664](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3664)) - Political environment: The astropolitical state must be efficiently organized for massive public technology projects (e.g., self-sustaining space station). Perhaps counterintuitively, this means liberal democratic and capitalist in character. ([Location 3673](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3673)) - If it cannot monitor and control its population, or cannot protect that population from foreign adventurism, it cannot justify outward expansion. ([Location 3680](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3680)) - Marx recognized that free-market capitalism is the most efficient producer of wealth, and the historical record shows the folly of attempting to compete with it using other means and models. ([Location 3685](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3685)) - Physical environment: The terrain of space and the terrestrial basing requirements of space support operations have already been discussed in Chapter 3, and need no further elaboration here. The physical requirements of the spacefaring state itself are also of interest, however. The state should be large enough in physical terms to incorporate a broad natural and industrial resource base and have the sites needed for terrestrial space support. ([Location 3688](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3688)) - Military and technology: Because of the risk involved, military personnel have always been at the forefront of space exploration. The military should be organized and trained in such a way that personnel have maximum initiative to deal with a multitude of contingencies and unanticipated events, within the framework of a state-determined strategy and policy. ([Location 3693](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3693)) - Economic base: The industry of the state must be robust, high-tech, and adaptive to ongoing innovation. New applications for space resources and space explorations products are imperative. Government assistance in research and technology, and the free distribution of those results to civilian industry, is vital. ([Location 3700](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3700)) - Theory and doctrine: Strategy is more than just military maneuver and tactics. Theory and doctrine are more than just operational plans. They are the means for organizing knowledge, the lens through which we perceive the world around us, through which we evaluate and make sense of the infinite database of reality. ([Location 3709](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3709)) - Yet theory and doctrine do more than just coordinate and illuminate. The difference between theory or doctrine-driven strategy and, say, technology-driven strategy is profound. The first integrates new technology into a coherent vision; the latter abandons foresight and follows the apparatus wherever it leads. One is proactive, the other reactive. One wins, the other loses. When one accepts the authority of technology (or economics, or any other dimension) over strategy, the analogy is to the child who receives a hammer for a gift. Suddenly, a world of nails appears, and they all need pounding. ([Location 3717](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3717)) - To date, only James Oberg's Space Power Theory, a comprehensive effort commissioned by the United States Space Command, approaches the requirements laid out above. ([Location 3725](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3725)) - ‘Panama Hypothesis[:] that there are strategic areas in space which may someday be as important to space transportation as the Panama Canal is to ocean transportation.’ 10 According to Cole, roughly 80 percent answered in the affirmative. ([Location 3728](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3728)) - Cole advocated human colonization of asteroids, or planetoids, those ‘three-dimensional islands of the new three-dimensional sea’, as stepping stones to outer space conquest. 11 At least six factors influenced his focus on these celestial bodies: (1) as a source of new knowledge about the origin of the solar system and possibly life itself; (2) as a potential threat, asteroids or meteors could be deflected from a collision course with Earth; (3) as way stations for fueling interplanetary expeditions; (4) as raw materials for Earth industry; (5) if hollowed out, as desirable protected locations for colonies; and (6) again if hollowed out and then propeled, as massive space ships capable of sending sustainable human colonies to populate the planets of other stars. ([Location 3730](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3730)) - The general sentiment led to the first of the two primary schools of space power theory: space as strategic sanctuary and space as the ultimate high ground. ([Location 3739](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3739)) - As we destroy our planet through nuclear or political abuse and environmental misuse, space as a pristine frontier looms ever more valuable as the last, best refuge of humanity. ([Location 3743](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3743)) - David Zeigler provides a subtler and more powerful argument. 14 His space as strategic sanctuary thesis argues that the militarization of space actually detracts from the security of states that pursue it. Whereas a space militarization policy may have been consistent with Cold War strategies, it may not be at all appropriate in a post-Cold War world. Although the sanctuary argument, ‘in the strictest sense, [claims] space is a sanctuary when it is completely unthreatened by terrestrial or space-based weapons’, Zeigler, too, admits this is problematic. ([Location 3753](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3753)) - Space is already militarized, and there seems to be little or no chance it could be demilitarized perfectly in the near future. So Zeigler suggests a more flexible and useful claim is that space is a sanctuary ‘so long as nations truly intended never to use space weapons’, a condition he claims exists precariously today. ([Location 3758](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3758)) - Zeigler's argument rests on the conviction that military space power has been overstated, and that existing US conventional capabilities are more than adequate for its security needs (if properly funded) even with the loss of space-based support. The claim is not convincing. ([Location 3780](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3780)) - Space as the ultimate high ground is the more prevalent view, and as a counter to the space sanctuary argument it stems from the notion that the weaponization of space is inevitable. ([Location 3782](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3782)) - In 1997, then Commander-in-Chief of US Space Command General Joseph Ashy declared that the United States was becoming so dependent on space systems for its armed forces that it had (perhaps unwittingly) created an enormous incentive for future enemies to target them. The United States, Ashy said, ‘must be prepared to defend these systems’: ([Location 3784](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3784)) - At the same time, counter-pressures for limiting or reducing military and military-support activities in space remain viable. The end of the Cold War has dampened the various services’ enthusiasm for pressing for expensive new space theater of operations, as new funding made available for space will likely be drawn from existing conventional force structure. ([Location 3817](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3817)) - The United States is the dominant power in space, and so its policies will impact on all other spacefaring states. Given the mutual incompatibility of a common heritage perspective and a space control agenda, it is unlikely that the policy will remain coherent. A review is warranted to verify the dictums of astropolitics are in place and to evaluate the efficacy, or lack thereof, of its guidelines. ([Location 3825](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3825)) - President Clinton belatedly attempted to articulate a wide-ranging national position. His 1995 declaration of space policy identified five overarching goals. 24 In order, they are to: (a) enhance knowledge of the Earth, the solar system and the universe through human and robotic exploration; (b) strengthen and maintain the national security of the United States; (c) enhance the economic competitiveness, and scientific and technical capabilities of the United States; (d) encourage state, local and private-sector investment in, and use of, space technologies; and (e) promote international cooperation to further US domestic, national security, and foreign policies. ([Location 3830](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3830)) - Within this and the following mandate, the various military services have attempted to carve out a mission for space: Improving our ability to support military operations worldwide, monitor and respond to strategic military threats, and monitor arms control and non-proliferation agreements and activities are key priorities for national security space activities. [N]ational security space activities shall contribute to US national security by: (a) providing support for the United States’ inherent right of self-defense and our defense commitments to allies and friends; (b) deterring, warning, and if necessary, defending against enemy attack; (c) assuring that hostile forces cannot prevent our own use of space; (d) countering, if necessary, space systems and services used for hostile purposes; (e) enhancing operations of U.S. and allied forces; (f) ensuring our ability to conduct military and intelligence space-related activities; (g) satisfying military and intelligence requirements during peace and crisis as well as through all levels of conflict; (h) supporting the activities of national policymakers, the intelligence community, the National Command Authorities, combatant commanders and the military services, other federal officials, and continuity of government operations. ([Location 3840](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3840)) - For its part, the United States Space Command released its 1998 ‘Long Range Plan’. In keeping with the President's mandate and in compliance with Joint Vision 2020 expectations, the plan is based on the primary assumption that the protection of military and civilian/commercial space assets is in the vital national interest. ([Location 3861](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3861)) - These operational concepts include the notion of: (1) Space Control, that is, guaranteed access to space and the ability to deny enemies’ access to; (2) Global Engagement, which requires worldwide satellite indications and warning monitoring (intelligence) and ballistic and cruise missile defense; (3) Full Force Integration, the conceptual and operational integration of conventional and space forces to the point that ‘air, land, and sea [c]ommanders exploit space assets as intuitively as their more traditional assets’; and (4) Global Partnership, the strengthening of military space capabilities through incorporating or ‘leveraging’ commercial, other US agency, and allied national assets to the fullest. ([Location 3868](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3868)) - One point that is vigorously asserted, however, is that the ‘future force will include a mix of weapons, both space- and groundbased, able to shoot photon- and kinetic-energy munitions against enemy space and ground assets’. ([Location 3882](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3882)) - The Army is leading efforts for ground-based, aerospace defenses. As an extension of traditional air defense capabilities, the MIRACL laser and planned ground-based anti-missile interceptor are undergoing testing for anti-satellite operations. ([Location 3885](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3885)) - Astropolitik gets its moniker from the old, now completely discredited German school of Geopolitik. It is meant to be a constant reminder of the inherent flaws of letting the cultural dimension (specifically hypernationalism) drive grand strategy. One should also be struck by the affinity with the doctrine of Realpolitik. ([Location 3894](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3894)) - Just as the Athenians could argue that Melian neutrality was more damaging to their interests than outright hostility, Astropolitik declares that the lack of a hostile space power at the present is more damaging to US space interests than having aggressive, competing military space programs with which to cope ([Location 3909](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3909)) - In a parallel line of reasoning, the Athenians believed the toleration of a weak neutral close to the borders of its empire was a sign of weakness in themselves. It could induce current allies to switch to neutrality, depriving them of needed revenues (via tribute). The lack of an enemy in space is most assuredly causing complacency in the United States, stunting the expansion of its space capabilities, and further causing our allies (in Europe and Japan specifically, but in Israel most notoriously) to develop their own potentially conflicting military space capacities because they cannot be sure of US commitments in the future. ([Location 3912](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3912)) - First, the United States should declare that it is withdrawing from the current space regime and announce that it is establishing a principle of free-market sovereignty in space ([Location 3923](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3923)) - Second, by using its current and near-term capacities, the United States should endeavor at once to seize military control of low-Earth orbit. From that high ground vantage, near the top of the Earth's gravity well, space-based laser or kinetic energy weapons could prevent any other state from deploying assets there, and could most effectively engage and destroy terrestrial enemy ASAT facilities. ([Location 3927](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3927)) - Third, a national space coordination agency should be established to define, separate, and coordinate the efforts of commercial, civilian, and military space projects. This agency would also define critical needs and deficiencies, eliminate non-productive overlap, take over the propaganda functions iterated in step one above, and merge the various armed services space programs and policies where practical. ([Location 3935](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3935)) - The moral argument has many levels, and stems from both the high-ground and the modified-sanctuary theses (accepted here) that the weaponization of space is inevitable. The operational level contradiction is quite simply that it is unconscionable to assign to the military services the task of controlling space, and then deny them the best means with which to do it. ([Location 3951](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3951)) - The ability to shoot down from space any attempt by another nation to place military assets in space, or to readily engage and destroy terrestrial ASAT capacity, makes the possibility of large-scale space war and or military space races less likely, not more. ([Location 3959](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3959)) - So long as the controlling state demonstrates a capacity and a will to use force to defend its position, in effect expending a small amount of violence as needed to prevent a greater conflagration in the future, the likelihood of either scenario seems remote. ([Location 3963](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3963)) - But the advantages of a system that could eliminate the threat of accidental, rogue state, or terrorist launches of nuclear missiles is so compelling that it is highly likely to be attempted regardless of opposition efforts. ([Location 3973](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3973)) - If you want peace, prepare for war, goes the old adage. ([Location 3978](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3978)) - The 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty placed strict constraints on the ability of the two superpowers to defend themselves from missile attack. The logic was simple, if morally perverse. The deployment of an effective ABM defense would eliminate the threat of guaranteed retaliation, the vaunted ‘second strike’ capability that would deter any state from attempting a crippling ‘first strike’. The necessity of mutual and assured destruction was the dominant principle in the precarious balance of terror that would supposedly ensure world peace. ([Location 3984](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=3984)) - At some point, the student of nuclear war politics will ask, what of today? If a missile were launched, accidentally or on purpose, what would be the result? The answer, bluntly stated, is that it would hit and destroy its target. There remains today no means to protect the citizens of this or any country (excepting the city of Moscow) from nuclear devastation. ([Location 4001](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4001)) - The core of negative views centered on two general arguments: the United States cannot deploy SDI, and it should not deploy SDI. The first argument is technical, the second normative. ([Location 4009](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4009)) - The second, which contains two primary embedded contentions, argument is also flawed. The first contention, that fielding SDI would compel the Soviets to attack the United States in advance of operational deployment is astonishing. ([Location 4024](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4024)) - The latter of the embedded contentions is also problematic. It presupposes that spending on space weapons and technology will take away from the quality of life on Earth. Aside from the banal statement that the quality of life is minimized by death, forgoing a defensive system to put increased funds into infrastructure also assumes that the funds for SDI research would have been made available instead for expenditures preferred by the opponents of the program. ([Location 4036](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4036)) - To the contrary, the US and world economies have already benefited greatly in the miniaturization and computing technologies developed for the SDI/BMD programs. Military space programs, not the least of which is a robust space launch capacity, are the backbone of many civilian space operations, and the resultant economic advantages of telecommunications, navigation, earth-sensing, and weather satellites are obvious. ([Location 4042](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4042)) - By 1990, the plan was changed to a simpler, single-shot hit-to-kill kinetic engagement interceptor, with on-board sensors. Advances in miniaturization and computer speed meant that these autonomous weapons could be mass-produced and would weigh less than 20 kgs each. ([Location 4061](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4061)) - The concept is generally known as Theater Missile Defense (TMD). ([Location 4071](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4071)) - A space-based system would engage the target in the boost phase of flight; meaning that whatever state launched the missile would likely suffer the collateral damage of its destruction. Another advantage to boost phase targeting is that missiles with multiple warheads will not have separated, maximizing the defensive effect and minimizing the defensive problem of multiple independent re-entry vehicles (MIRVs). Third, and tied in closely with the second factor, TMD systems will engage targets that are spiraling down the gravity well while they must propel themselves up the well. ([Location 4080](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4080)) - Any BMD system will receive criticism from potential adversaries, as is evident with the routine vocal opposition that comes from Russia and China to any proposed US TMD system. ([Location 4087](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4087)) - In all these described circumstances, with a space-based BMD system the United States could effectively uphold the principle that aggression is wrong in international politics, as first stated in George Bush's post-Gulf War declaration of a New World Order. ([Location 4103](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4103)) - The moral superiority of the realist argument is revealed in this context. By following the three-part Astropolitik strategy—immediately renouncing the OST and acting to structure a property-based free-market regime in its place; deploying a space-based BMD system which would eliminate missile-borne threats and guarantee domination of space; and establishing a proper, cabinet or ministry level space coordination agency to encourage space efforts and promote popular support for space exploration—a dominant liberal democracy like the United States can usher in a new era of peace and prosperity. ([Location 4108](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4108)) - The potential social and political pitfalls of Astropolitik must be fully understood, monitored, and aggressively culled, however, through constant vigilance and blunt awareness of the dark record of past expressions of Geopolitik. ([Location 4195](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4195)) - Possibly because in its developmental stage, as a result of space flight's direct association with ballistic missile and nuclear weapon development, a chord of universal terror was struck in our communal consciousness. ([Location 4204](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4204)) - ‘Thus man's view of the cosmos changed from his little homocentric picture of creation to a scheme so vast that were it not for his own self-consciousness he might well regard himself as out of the picture.’ 3 ([Location 4219](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4219)) - Astropolitik demands a search for that cosmic island and the life-sustaining resources it can provide. ([Location 4231](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4231)) - What happens to the Earth from the perspicacity of an outer-space vantage happens to all people, therefore the exploration and exploitation of outer space is the direct business and concern of all its inhabitants. We are all united in our struggle; we are all one species. Whether we opt for rationed equality for all to survive, or rational expulsions of the sick and weak so that the strong can thrive, our destiny is recognized as indivisible. ([Location 4232](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4232)) - For power-optimizing realists, cooperation is an important tool. It allows time to regroup, reevaluate, and reorganize. ([Location 4244](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4244)) - The best way to solidify this confidence [in the scientific leadership of the US] is by a program of general and genuine free world cooperation. ([Location 4248](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4248)) - A program which allows foreign participation in the design and building of future satellites could benefit this country in two ways: (1) by providing new ideas for improved techniques; and (2) by cementing popular alliances which lie at the heart of the stable world order. ([Location 4250](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4250)) - It was believed that the communist colossus was churning out so many technicians and scientists that the United States could not hope to catch up in the near term. ([Location 4263](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4263)) - Stephen and Lisa Shaffer assert that US interest in international space cooperation stemmed from a wide variety of political goals, including: (1) creating an image of openness vis-à-vis the negative image of Soviet secrecy; (2) increasing US prestige by giving maximum visibility to US accomplishments; (3) providing access to foreign scientists to supplement US scientific capabilities; (4) pressuring the Soviet Union to open its programs to the scientific community; and (5) enlisting support of the international community for the prohibition of military activities in space and promoting the peaceful uses of outer space by providing opportunities for participation. ([Location 4267](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4267)) - Principal economic and technological goals are: (1) to obtain access to other countries for tracking stations, launch sites, and ground receive stations; (2) to increase ‘brainpower’ working on space projects; (3) to improve the balance of trade through creating new markets for US aerospace industries; (4) to save money through cost-sharing on Research and Development; and (5) to expand research opportunities through the expansion of the knowledge base. ([Location 4271](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4271)) - By its very nature, they believed, space exploration required a united human effort. It would be so demanding—not to mention expensive—that humanity simply would not have the will, time, or resources left over to get themselves mired in major conflicts on earth. This cooperation would lead to other benefits. It would be the end of the Iron Curtain, as scientists and explorers would learn to share data, the concept spilling over and spreading to the political realm. ([Location 4285](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4285)) - An intriguing dilemma is now presented by the paradox of political cooperation born of competition and rivalry. Could legal and diplomatic cooperation have come about in the absence of military competition? We may never know for sure, but it seems quite possible that cooperation and competition are members of that nebulous set of Great Social Dichotomies; paired concepts that are indefinable and practically impossible without the negative example of their inextricable counterpart. ([Location 4301](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4301)) - The Shaffers insist, ‘the extent and character of international cooperation in both space and defense have been shaped by two factors: (1) international competition between the United States and the Soviet Union in the Cold War; and (2) the distribution of relevant capabilities among the cooperating nation-states’, a purely neorealist view that echoes the academic arguments of Kenneth Waltz. ([Location 4308](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4308)) - The first was a nationalist expression and the latter was possible only if guided by the United Nations. In political-science parlance, the schools of realism and internationalism, cold warriors and utopianists represented them. Neither a combination nor compromise approach was ever seriously considered. ([Location 4322](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4322)) - Astropolitik provides liberal-democratic capitalists with an out. By drawing on the infinite resources of space, liberal democracy and capitalism will never reach wealth saturation. ([Location 4350](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4350)) - Indeed, there seems to be a bevy of potential contenders for space dominance. The Japanese, who are fashionably bashed for their presumably unfair competitive edge leading to an enormous trade deficit with the rest of the world, could be on their way to the status of worthy space competitor. The Europeans, whose Space Agency (ESA) easily ranks third worldwide in space expenditures, has a booming telecommunications industry and holds contracts for over half the world's commercial space launches through 2005. It is even remotely possible that the Russians themselves will realize that their spacecraft assembly lines and existing stock of space hardware could become a lucrative capitalist enterprise. ([Location 4365](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4365)) - Ty Twibell has effectively described the legal restraints that have crippled the commercial development of outer space: ‘Despite high profit margins [from] technical breakthroughs, the space industry has merely scratched the surface of what it can achieve. However, reaching beyond these current achievements proves near impossible under the current body of space law.’ 21 The vast wealth of space is undetermined, and the cost of going there is high. The ambiguous cost-utility calculation alone is enough to make space exploration daunting, though certainly not disqualifying. ([Location 4384](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4384)) - These are, quite simply (1) that no economic competitor shall be prohibited from attempting to gain access to the market (in this case to the commercial possibilities of space), and (2) that no competitor is so wealthy or large that it can dictate the terms of exchange (no economic monopolies or monopsonies). ([Location 4404](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4404)) - Take the known divisible regions of space and divide them up among the national entities of Earth. The formula can be determined in the future, based on population, GDP (Gross Domestic Product), or statehood—or a combination of all three. ([Location 4418](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4418)) - The Moon could be sectioned into several thousand tracts, each to be dispersed by an equitable, negotiated method. Once privatized, exploitation and speculation will begin at once. Of course, we know that not all curators of privatized commons will do what is in the best interest of their property. ([Location 4429](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4429)) - Those efficient in exploiting their lands will gain more. But this is not a guarantee, as strip mining and clear-cutting show. Some territory should therefore be set aside, as international commons, much as national parks are in this country. But to maximize space exploration, these must be limited. Despite the pitfalls, the parceling of space commons and distribution of it based on some criteria of useful exploitation makes sense. ([Location 4433](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4433)) - both Britain and Prussia realize 10 percent growth in their GDPs. This appears to be a good and equitable gain from the perspective of the larger state. The smaller state sees that even though both have had the same rate of growth, in absolute terms Britain has increased its GDP by ten units while Prussia has increased its GDP by only four. What was once a difference between them of 60 units, is now an expanded difference of 66 units. To be sure, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting richer—but the gap is growing! ([Location 4449](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4449)) - Militarizing space for the purpose of maintaining and enhancing exploration and free trade (and maintaining a global business climate free from the threat of nuclear or other large-scale war) is a cost the United States, with approximately 20 percent of the world's GDP, should gladly accept. ([Location 4456](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4456)) - A new space regime is needed, modeled not on the cooperative regimes of Antarctica and the Deep Oceans (which have not realized a fraction of their enormous resource potential), but on the regimes of free trade embodied in the post-World War II economic system based on the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement. ([Location 4459](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4459)) - As the great liberal democracy of its time, the United States is preferentially endowed to guide the whole of humanity into space, to police any misuse of that realm, and to ensure an equitable division of its spoils. But if the United States were to abandon its egalitarian values, corrupted by its own power, and follow a path of aggressive expansion into the cosmos using the riches gained to dominate the peoples of the Earth, what then? Does the benign era of Pax Americana end? Perhaps, but the likelihood of that outcome depends on one's current view of the benevolence of US hegemony and the future role of ongoing globalism. ([Location 4493](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4493)) - The foregoing is not meant to be an endorsement of continued and permanent nationalist exploitation of space. Once all of humanity is invigorated by space exploration, nationalist rivalry should diminish as we begin to see ourselves as citizens of Earth, separate perhaps from spacefarers (as the astrodeterminist model implies) but united in the source of our common planet heritage. ([Location 4504](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4504)) - That the space race is over and the Space Age is in decay seems dismally obvious. That it will some day revive seems nonetheless assured. Humanity's future is in the stars. Our indomitable will requires ever-greater challenges. Our insatiable appetites require vast new resources. ([Location 4516](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4516)) - Astropolitics and Astropolitik provide a military strategy and a legal-institutional blueprint that should ignite a new space race almost at once. ([Location 4519](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4519)) - So powerful is the lure of astropolitics that the relative gains anticipated for the state that successfully dominates space continues to provide a compelling incentive to act unilaterally. This incentive could provide dramatic short-term impetus to space-based expansion that seems to be missing since the most confrontational years of the Cold War period, and within the framework of the Astropolitik strategy should provide globally beneficial results. The analysis here is offered as an examination of optimal strategies and likely outcomes given an assumption of near-term continued nationalist military and economic competition (the assumption is made to set the geostrategic model in motion), it is not a prediction or a portend of probable outcomes. Within these analytic limitations, however, many classical geopolitical theories are fully compatible with, and prove remarkably applicable to, this vibrant realm of outer space. ([Location 4536](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BKWWNN9S&location=4536))