ABSTRACT
With the launch of Sputnik I in October 1957, space joined air, land, and sea as a potential fourth domain of warfare. Over the next three decades hundreds of satellites were sent into orbit, including among them communications satellites in high earth orbit, navigation satellites in medium earth orbit, and earth observation satellites in low earth orbit. The combination of communication and navigation satellites enabled the dramatically increased precision in force application, and speed of information transmission, that figured so prominently in the 1991 Gulf War. These attributes have led many to characterize the Gulf War as “the first space war,” while others-fewer in number-claim that the distinction belongs to the Cold War. But “both claims are dubious,” argues one of a handful of spacepower theorists that have emerged in the period since the end of the Cold War. “Though replete with examples of space support for terrestrial forces, these conflicts were devoid of confrontation in space. It is doubtful history will remember either as space wars.”1 Indeed, the organizing principle of examining strategic thinking on the conduct of war in this particular domain is (fortunately) limited by the lack, so far, of empirical examples. Yet this doesn’t mean that there has not been discussion of the parameters and character of spacepower, and the potential role and mission of space forces acting both in and from space. This chapter examines strategic thought on spacepower. It begins by discussing what is
meant by “space” and the particular attributes unique to space, out to the geostationary belt around earth, that impact on its use. It then goes on to define spacepower, only one component of which is military, before drawing out some of the defining features of what might be the character of war in this dimension. Specific theorists are found largely in the United States defense community. They include the authors of official government and Pentagon documents, and also, and more notably, military and civilian scholars associated with the US Air Force. Despite their institutional affiliation, these thinkers are paradoxically united in the view that far from being an extension of airpower, as the term “aerospace” would indicate, space is a domain deserving and requiring its own tradition of strategic thought.
