ABSTRACT
For decades, space capabilities delivered important asymmetric advantages to the United States. These advantages provided foundational elements of U.S. strength in the information age, but are now being undermined by many factors including the rise of China as a near-peer competitor with significant counterspace capabilities, emergence of a growing number of increasingly competent space actors, uncertainties and missteps in determining and implementing strategy for developing and employing space capabilities, and the financial crisis. Spacepower’s trajectory has reached an inflection point where business as usual will no longer improve or even maintain U.S. advantages – a point where the United States must effectively implement different approaches or face diminishing returns from its space investments, loss of space leadership, and erosion of its overall power.
