Year: 2003
Type: article
Abstract: T he satellite gap between America and every other nation in the world is univer- sally recognized, and the significance of this fact is also unquestioned.America's unparalleled investment in space, in satellites, the infrastructure that goes with them and the precision weapons that best exploit them is appreciated as having made possible its successful campaigns against Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan.If anything, the gap seems certain to grow steadily greater in the coming years.In the three years between Yugoslavia and Afghanistan, American airpower went from being effective principally against fixed targets like infrastructure to routinely devastating moving formations using real-time intelligence with the help of faster satellite relays.The Army and Navy as well as the Air Force have been directed to devote increasing attention to space, specifically to "establish requirements, maintain a cadre of space-qualified officers, and research, develop, acquire, and deploy space systems unique to each service." 1 The United States is even slated to begin testing space-based weapons, starting with space-based interceptor missiles in 2006.The implicit technical possibilities have compelled some to envision the United States going even further and seizing outright the highest ground of all (happily unoccupied by anyone else) to impose a Wilsonian international order on the planet.With an invincible space force keeping the peace between nations, war as it has traditionally been known theoretically becomes impossible.On paper, the scenario (no longer limited to government reports, think tanks, and military and policy journals, but increasingly appearing in mainstream magazines like last April's issue of Wired 2 ) looks like a masterstroke, a geopolitical checkmate against all future aggression.While some acknowledgment is given to the fact that satellites are not invulnerable, the thornier problems and profound limitations of an "astrocop" system rarely get the consideration they require.In particular this sort of thinking about space power takes four dangerous myths for granted.
Author: Nader Elhefnawy
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W261509789