The Fairchild Papers are monograph-length essays of value to the

Air Force. The series is named in honor of Muir S. Fairchild, the

first commander of Air University and the university’s conceptual

father. General Fairchild was part visionary, part keen taskmaster,

and “Air Force to the core.” His legacy is one of confidence about

the future of the Air Force and the central role of Air University in

that future.
AIR UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Ten Propositions

Regarding Spacepower

M. V. SMITH

Major, USAF

Fairchild Paper

Air University Press

Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama 36112-6615

October 2002
Air University Library Cataloging Data

Smith, M. V.

Ten propositions regarding spacepower / M. V. Smith.

p. cm. -- (Fairchild paper, 1528-2325).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents: Schools of thought on American spacepower – The ten propositions --

A spacepower theory. 

ISBN 1-58566-113-9

1. Astronautics and civilization. 2. Astronautics and state. 3. United States. Air

Force. 4. Space warfare. 5. Astronautics, Military -- United States. 6. Military doctrine

-- United States. I. Title. II. Series.

358.80973--dc21

ii

This Fairchild Paper and others in the series are available electronically at the AU Press Web site http://aupress.maxwell.af.mil and

the Air University Research Web site http://research.maxwell.af.

mil

Disclaimer

Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those of

the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of Air University, the United States Air

Force, the Department of Defense, or any other US government agency. Cleared for public release: distribution unlimited.
This work

is dedicated to those who

dare fight for spacepower.

Contents

Chapter Page

DISCLAIMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

DEDICATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

ABOUT THE AUTHOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

ABSTRACT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv

1 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

The Evidentiary Base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Analytical Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Limitations of This Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

2 SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT 

ON AMERICAN SPACEPOWER . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Lupton’s Four Doctrines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

The Historical Evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Alternative Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

3 THE TEN PROPOSITIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Proposition No. 1.

Space is a Distinct Operational Medium . . . . 36

v
Chapter Page

Proposition No. 2.

The Essence of Spacepower Is Global 

Access and Global Presence . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Proposition No. 3.

Spacepower Is Composed of a State’s 

Total Space Activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Proposition No. 4.

Spacepower Must Be Centrally Controlled 

by a Space Professional . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Proposition No. 5.

Spacepower Is a Coercive Force . . . . . . . . . 56

Proposition No. 6.

Commercial Space Assets Make All Actors

Space Powers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Proposition No. 7.

Spacepower Assets Form a National

Center of Gravity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Proposition No. 8.

Space Control Is Not Optional . . . . . . . . . . 69

Proposition No. 9.

Space Professionals Require Career-Long

Specialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Proposition No. 10.

Space Weaponization Is Inevitable . . . . . . . 79

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

4 A SPACEPOWER THEORY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

The Nature of Spacepower . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

The Hypothesis Is Rejected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Lessons Learned . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

The Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Unfinished Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Appendix

A Oberg’s 12 Truths and Beliefs

about Spacepower . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

vi
Appendix Page

B Gray’s Eight “Clausewitzian” Ideas

about Spacepower . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

C Gray’s Seven Most Vital Assumptions

about Spacepower . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

D Mantz’s 10 Axioms of

Space Combat Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

E Findings and Recommendations of the 

Commission to Assess United States National

Security Space Management and Organization

(Space Commission Report) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

GLOSSARY/DEFINITIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Table

1 Military Space Doctrines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

vii

Foreword

Major M. V. Smith’s Ten Propositions Regarding Spacepower

is an important contribution to the spacepower literature.

Within weeks of being written, an early draft found its way

into the various colleges around Air University’s Academic

Circle. Within months it reached colleges and universities

across the United States and even the international academic

community.

Major Smith’s work begins to quench the growing thirst

among those seeking to understand elements contributing to

spacepower. More importantly, it offers a view of what spacepower will mean for the United States in the coming decades. 

I believe Ten Propositions Regarding Spacepower will live up

to its aim: assisting political leaders, military professionals,

and interested citizens to understand better the nature of

space as a source of national and military power. It is a “must

read” that belongs at the very top of your reading list. 

ix

LANCE W. LORD

General, USAF

Commander, Air Force Space Command

Maj M. V. Smith was born in North Conway, New Hampshire, on 3 July 1964. He graduated with honors from Kennett

High School in 1982 and cum laude from Saint Michael’s College, Burlington, Vermont, in 1986, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology. A distinguished graduate of the Air Force

Reserve Officer Training Corps, he received a regular commission upon graduation. In 1987, Major Smith was a distinguished graduate of Undergraduate Missile Training and, in

1994, a distinguished graduate of Undergraduate Space Training. He has served in various missile and space positions, including missile combat crew commander, instructor and evaluator, wing executive officer, and missile maintenance officer.

He has served as space crew commander, trainer, and evaluator of several systems.

A distinguished graduate of the US Air Force Weapons

School—Space Division in 1996, Major Smith later served as

an instructor there, teaching the employment of national and

Department of Defense space systems into strategic, operational, and tactical war planning and execution. During Operation Allied Force, he served in the Combined Air Operations

Center at Dal Molin Air Base, Vicenza, Italy, in the air component Strategy Cell and on the Guidance, Apportionment, and

Targeting team, helping to shape the air campaign and the

subsequent peacekeeping operation. In July 2001, Major

Smith became a strategist assigned to the Air and Space Operations Directorate at Headquarters Air Force, the Pentagon.

xi

About the

Author

Maj M. V. Smith
Following the events of 11 September, Major Smith deployed

to US Central Command Headquarters where he served as a

strategic planner in the Space and Information Operations Element and other campaign planning cells affecting operations

in Afghanistan and throughout the Middle East.

Major Smith holds the Master of Arts degree in political science from the University of South Dakota, the Master of Military Operational Arts and Science degree from Air Command

and Staff College, and the Master of Airpower Arts and Science

degree from the School of Advanced Airpower Studies. He returned to the Pentagon in 2002, serving as chief of the Doctrine Branch in the Strategy, Concepts, and Doctrine Division,

also known as the “Skunk Works.” 

xii
Acknowledgments

Special thanks go to my thesis advisor, Lt Col Peter Hays,

and to my reader, Lt Col Forrest Morgan. The conversations we

had not only helped me get my arms around this project but

also furthered my appreciation for spacepower’s evolution. Col

Phillip S. Meilinger, author of Ten Propositions Regarding Air

Power, provided sage advice at the outset of this study. Considerable help also came from other School of Advanced Airpower Studies faculty, especially Dr. Karl Mueller, Dr. David R.

Mets, Dr. Harold Winton, Prof Dennis Drew, and Maj John

Terino. Interviews, lectures, and seminar sessions with several

general officers helped me understand the organizational, political, and bureaucratic constraints imposed upon our national power in space as the Air Force wrestles with its future

and the concept of “aerospace.” Among them were Gen

Charles “Chuck” Horner, Gen Ralph “Ed” Eberhart, Gen John

Jumper, Gen Howell M. Estes III, Gen Joseph Ashy, and Gen

Richard Myers. Lt Gen Glen “Wally” Moorhead, Lt Gen Roger

DeKok, and Lt Gen Lance Lord were helpful, as were Maj Gen

Lance Smith, Maj Gen Howard Mitchell, Maj Gen John Barry,

and Brig Gen William Shelton. 

My brother space weapons officers also deserve considerable credit for helping me frame the propositions over the past

three years. Lt Col “Mr. Bill” Billman, and Maj “Scout” Kinnan

remain my constant mentors and stand out as significant contributors. Lt Col Greg “Chappy” Chapman provided valued

comments from the Space Division at the USAF Weapons

School. Lt Col Michael “Mik” Beno and Maj James Cashin from

the Air Command and Staff College provided enthusiastic encouragement for this project and much needed reviews of early

drafts. Over the past year, Maj Fred “Zelder” Gaudlip, a true

spacepower advocate, and Maj Rob “Snort” Givens, a believer

in the “vertical flank,” helped me hammer out many of the arguments presented here. Maj Scott Cook, from the USAF Doctrine Center, spent several hours engaged in very productive

discussions with me. Welcomed commentary came from Dale

“Boots” Hill of Science Applications International Corporation,

Dr. Rob Mullins of RAND, and Dr. Larry Weaver of Synergy. My

xiii
wife Alice also deserves considerable credit. She not only endured many lonely hours while I worked; she tolerated me

while I bounced ideas off her . . . over and over. 

Most of the credit, however, goes to Nate—a little boy who is

still too young to understand why Daddy closes his door. He

paid the greatest price for this work. We are both looking forward to spending more time together.

xiv
Abstract

As political and military leaders ponder the future of space

operations, the time has come to frame propositions regarding

spacepower. Specifically, this study seeks to answer the question, “What is the nature of spacepower?” It also tests the

aerospace integration school’s hypothesis that spacepower is

simply a continuation or extension of airpower. Two points

come immediately to the forefront of this work. First, spacepower is different from airpower even though both share the

vertical dimension of warfare. Second, space operations have

matured to a point wherein valid and unique propositions regarding spacepower are identifiable. The method used to derive these propositions involved literary research that resulted

in a long list. The list evolved over three years during numerous brainstorming sessions with several space experts—most

of them space weapons officers with theater and, often, combat experience—until the list was carefully refined into the 10

most salient propositions. The author deferred to Col Phillip S.

Meilinger’s approach, in Ten Propositions Regarding Air Power,

of citing each proposition as a thesis statement, with supporting material immediately following. The objective of this work

is to stimulate discussions and encourage those who do not yet

understand or appreciate the nature of spacepower in modern

warfare.

xv
Chapter 1

Introduction

Space, to a large extent, is an unknown to many throughout

our country and to many leaders in our government who are

being asked to make critical decisions that will chart the

course of space for the United States—both inside and outside the military.

—Gen Howell M. Estes III 

One should bear in mind that there is nothing more difficult

to execute, nor more dubious of success than to introduce a

new system of things: for he who introduces it has all those

who profit from the old system as his enemies, and he has

only lukewarm allies in all those who might profit from the

new system.

—Machiavelli

Either you are a separatist or a conformist. The separatists

will often be killed by the party faithful; the conformists will

kill the very organization they seek to defend.

—Gen Charles A. Horner 

The objective of this work is to promote discussions and encourage those who do not yet understand or appreciate the

nature of spacepower. Its aim is to help political leaders, military leaders, practitioners of war, and interested citizens to

better understand the nature of space in order to fully exploit

its use as a source of national and military power. American

airmen in particular will benefit from pondering the discussions contained herein as they wrestle with their evolving role

in space operations. At the heart of this study lies the question, “What is the nature of spacepower?” The propositions

presented in this study—along with supporting arguments—

provide an answer to this question.

1
At the turn of the twenty-first century, American spacepower

is on unsure theoretical and doctrinal footing. Despite more than

40 years of spacefaring experience, there is still no great book

about spacepower—no Clausewitz, Mahan, or Douhet.1 Consequently, the United States Air Force (USAF) has yet to arrive

at a definitive way to conceptualize space. It vacillates between

the terms aerospace and air and space within its lexicon to describe the operating environments beyond the surface of

Earth. Indeed, this distinction gives rise to a heated and ongoing debate between members of two schools of thought

within the Air Force.2 It boils down to a political and organizational debate regarding whether or not space operations

should remain in the Air Force or evolve into a separate service. The aerospace advocates view space as the manifest destiny of airmen, whereas many air and space advocates believe

space is the manifest destiny of an independent space force. 

This study will help train the judgment of military practitioners by pointing out the unique considerations of spacepower. At the same time, it will help readers to assess the

strengths and weaknesses of the two competing schools and

decide which side of the debate they favor. Readers are free to

consider spacepower as a stand-alone concept or as one of the

three pillars of “aerospace power,” which also includes airpower and information power.3 Regardless of how the Department of Defense (DOD) organizes, trains, and equips to provide military spacepower for the nation, there are fundamental

propositions regarding spacepower that persist in the face of

bureaucratic, organizational, and political wrangling. This

study identifies 10 of these propositions and argues their case.

These propositions may also serve as a foundation beyond the

classical theories of statecraft and warfare upon which to base

spacepower theory, doctrine, and strategy.

This study unabashedly rides the coattails of Col Phillip S.

Meilinger’s Ten Propositions Regarding Air Power. While

Meilinger’s propositions are controversial, his book is

nonetheless widely read. It stimulates healthy debates about

airpower. Spacepower deserves the same attention, particularly as America pits its desire to preserve space as a peaceful

2

FAIRCHILD PAPER
sanctuary against its fears of foreign aggression that may ultimately lead to the weaponization of space. 

Definitions

Words mean things. This is especially true when one is

framing propositions. Unfortunately, there is no fixed and

time-honored definition for many of the terms used regarding

spacepower. In all fairness, however, most military terminology is also in a dynamic state of flux. Authors tend to use specific terminology differently. This places a burden on the

reader, who must exert some effort to fully grasp the meanings

used by each author. Therefore, it is necessary to provide definitions to help guide the reader during the discussions that

follow.

Proposition

Before defining a proposition, it is helpful to explain what a

proposition is not. First, a proposition is not a principle of war.

The principles of war apply to all forms of military power, not

just spacepower.4 Second, a proposition is not a tenet. A tenet

is an enduring belief about how to employ a particular form of

power that rises to the level of institutionalized doctrine.5 This

is similar to a proposition, but a proposition neither focuses on

employment nor meets the criteria for doctrine. Third, a proposition is not a core competency. Core competencies are basic

areas of expertise for practitioners within a form of power.6

For the purpose of this study, a proposition is a statement

suggested for acceptance. This is consistent with the definition

used by Meilinger.7 The reader is free to accept or reject any

proposition based on its own merits. It is possible that political or technical changes over time will supersede these propositions or their supporting arguments.

Power

The term power has many meanings. A precise definition

depends on who is using it. For the purpose of arriving at a

suitable definition of spacepower, power is the ability of a state

3

SMITH
or nonstate actor to achieve its goals and objectives in the presence of other actors on the world stage.8 This definition does

not require the actors to be states, nor does it require a precondition of competition between actors for power to exist in

the global system.

Space

There is no approved definition of space, and a formal definition is probably not forthcoming. From the genesis of space

flight, neither the United States nor the Soviet Union wished

to define space for fear of constraining their activities in this

new environment.9 Instead, both nations elected to use a functional definition: whatever is in orbit is in space.

10 Nevertheless, many people develop their own definitions of space for

the purpose of clarification. For example, Air Force officers entering the equivalent of today’s undergraduate space training

in the early 1990s read the following in their basic text: 

If trying to define where space begins for biological reasons, one might

choose 9 miles above the Earth since above this point a pressure suit

is required. If concerned with propulsion, 28 miles is important since

this is the limit of air-breathing engines. For administrative purposes,

one might find it important that US astronaut wings [are] earned above

50 miles. An aeronautical engineer might define space as starting at 62

miles above the Earth’s surface since this is where aerodynamic controls become ineffective. Conventional and customary law defines the

lower boundary of space as the lowest perigee of orbiting space vehicles, about 93 miles.11

The conventional and customary definition is preferred for

the purpose of this study: space begins at the lowest perigee of

an orbiting satellite, about 93 miles beyond Earth’s surface, and

extending out to infinity. This is essentially the functional definition, which all concede: if it is in orbit, it is in space. It includes objects that are not in orbit but that achieve altitudes

that may interfere with objects in orbit—such as ballistic missiles in transit. However, this definition is at odds with the official USAF position, which claims that it is impossible to divide

air from space because there is no distinguishable barrier

between the two since the atmosphere trails off so gradually.

Still, the Air Force concedes that if an object is in orbit, it is in

space.

4

FAIRCHILD PAPER
Spacepower

For the purpose of this study, spacepower is defined as the

ability of a state or nonstate actor to achieve its goals and objectives in the presence of other actors on the world stage

through . . . exploitation of the space environment.12 More simply, spacepower is doing something in space in support of policy. This definition is remarkably similar to a definition for any

other form of power, be it air, land, sea, or information. In the

broadest sense, spacepower includes all activities performed

by an actor—or exploited by an actor—in the space environment for civil, military, commercial, or other reasons. 

Air

Air requires definition because many of the arguments used

in this study refer to the air medium. Air is the area extending

upward from Earth’s surface to an altitude at which air-breathing engines can no longer operate, approximately 28 miles. This

definition is also at odds with the official USAF policy, which

recognizes no upper limit to the air medium for the same reason it does not recognize a lower boundary for space. Ironically, the highest-flying aircraft in the Air Force’s operational

inventory, the U-2, only soars to an altitude approximately 16

miles above the surface.

Notice that the definition of air offered here is also a functional definition. When functional definitions of air and space

are used, it becomes apparent that air and space do not meet.

Airmen claim that air and space are a seamless continuum because it is impossible to identify a discrete altitude where air

suddenly ends and space begins. While it is true that no discrete altitude divides air from space, it is really quite irrelevant. Between the ceiling of aviation and the floor of astronautics, there is a region nearly 65 miles wide that divides air

and space. This is the transverse region, wherein neither aerodynamic flight nor orbital rotation is possible. Despite rhetoric

to the contrary, the transverse region divides air operations

from space operations and removes the practicality of an

“aerospace continuum.” 

5

SMITH
Operations inside the transverse region are not practical because the energy expenditures required to maneuver there are

too great. Vehicles can exploit neither Bernoulli’s aerodynamic

principles nor Kepler’s astrodynamic principles to maneuver

or conserve energy. Consequently, the transverse region lives

up to its name as a boundary across which vehicles travel but

in which they can do little else. The cost of space operations

hinges on spacelift vehicles—large, fiendishly expensive rockets that generate the huge amounts of energy required to lift

payloads through the transverse region and into orbital speed

and altitude.

Aerospace 

The term aerospace arrived on the scene in 1958 when Gen

Thomas D. White first argued that air and space are indivisible and thus claimed space as the natural realm of the Air

Force.13 The Air Force has used the term in various doctrine

and other types of publications. The other services viewed this

as a bureaucratic attempt by the Air Force to lay claim over a

greater share of the future defense budget pie. As Hays and

Mueller point out, “the other Services and the Office of the

Secretary of Defense have never accepted the Air Force’s definition of aerospace and have certainly not ceded all operations

in this realm to the Air Force.”14 Not surprisingly, the term is

missing from the Report of the Commission to Assess United

States National Security Space Management and Organization

(hereinafter cited as Space Commission), submitted to Congress on 11 January 2001, except in a reference to industry.15

Nevertheless, the term was never more “in vogue” inside the

Air Force than at the turn of the millennium—and never was

it more controversial.

The term is evolving. Traditionally used as a noun, it is synonymous with “air and space,” as if they are one and the same.

In 1959, the Air Force defined aerospace as “an operationally indivisible medium consisting of the total expanse beyond the

Earth’s surface.”16 Even doctrinaires find this form of the word

confusing because it ignores the obvious differences between air

and space, often resulting in gross generalizations of the characteristics of one to the other.17 Increasingly, aerospace is used

6

FAIRCHILD PAPER
by the Air Force to indicate “of or pertaining to the total expanse

beyond the Earth’s surface.”18 Although a matter of semantics,

this definition allows separate treatment of air and space under

the umbrella concept of aerospace. It becomes a term much like

maritime, which the Navy uses in referring to operations by

ships at sea and/or Marines ashore—a term that accommodates both separate services and joint operations.19

The October 1999 USAF Doctrine Center publication, 50

Questions Every Airman Can Answer, describes aerospace

power, airpower, and spacepower. 

Aerospace Power

Aerospace power is essentially the ability to create political

and military effects using aircraft, spacecraft, and information. Aerospace power involves the effective use of the full

range of the nation’s resources to allow us to use the physical

environments of air and space and our information resources

to our national advantage. Air Force Doctrine Document 1, Air

Force Basic Doctrine, defines the combination of air and space

power as the synergistic application of air, space, and information systems to project strategic military power.20

Airpower 

Airpower is the fundamental ability to use aircraft to create

military and political effects. Another way of defining it is “military power that maneuvers through the air while performing

its mission.” Airpower is a subset of aerospace power.21

Spacepower 

Much like airpower, spacepower is, in essence, the ability

to use spacecraft to create military and political effects. Another way of saying it is “military power that comes from, resides in, or moves through space while performing its mission.” Spacepower, like airpower, can place an adversary in

a position of disadvantage. Spacepower is a subset of aerospace power.22

7

SMITH
The Evidentiary Base

Two criteria are required of the evidence used to construct

and argue propositions regarding spacepower. First, the evidence for propositions must be rooted in experience to the extent possible. Second, the evidence must be stripped of bureaucratic and organizational prejudice. Given these criteria,

it is clear that more recent source materials are preferred

since the modern experience base is broader. However, the

majority of recent works are advocacy pieces that all but ignore spacepower while arguing—sometimes quite passionately—for a preferred organizational model in an attempt to

manage space systems more effectively. While this limits their

contribution to framing a spacepower proposition per se, such

works are nonetheless valuable because they provide excellent

arguments used to support or attack certain propositions presented in this study.

The origins of American spacepower are unique when compared to other forms of military power. Whereas land power,

sea power, and airpower evolved out of private and commercial

endeavors, spacepower did not. Moreover, the other forms of

military power expressed themselves fully in the First and Second World Wars—arguably total wars fought without much restraint. Spacepower did not because it had not yet arrived on

the scene. This difference affects the evidentiary base for any

study regarding spacepower. 

The story of US military spacepower begins in the mid-1940s

with notes from Gen Henry H. “Hap” Arnold to Dr. Theodore von

Kármán inquiring about the untapped potential of space. This

was in the wake of the Second World War, after the atomic bomb,

in the fledgling days of the United Nations, and on the eve of the

Cold War. Consequently, space systems developed as large governmental endeavors under the strictest military secrecy and

with considerable presidential oversight. For these reasons,

some of the most basic space-based capabilities remained a mystery to the public and much of the military until recently. This

stands in stark contrast to the developments of air, land, and sea

power. Perhaps this explains why no great spacepower theory

has been forthcoming despite more than 55 years of contemplation. In its place, civilian authors created an entire literary genre

8

FAIRCHILD PAPER
of space-related science fiction and science fantasy. Television

shows and movies such as Star Trek, 2001: A Space Odyssey,

Star Wars, Battlestar Gallactica, Alien, and Starship Troopers—to

name just a few—have permeated the popular culture and

planted fantastic and quite unrealistic ideas about space. Part of

the struggle to make America and its military members more

aware of the true nature of spacepower requires undoing what

the media has done. 

While there is no great book about spacepower, recent years

have witnessed an exponential growth in the body of papers, articles, speeches, and other documentation focused on spacepower. Military members fulfilling requirements for professional

military education courses generate many of these works. Private

think tanks such as the RAND Corporation, congressional studies, and a handful of interested civilian authors also contribute

to the body of literature with growing frequency.

Three occurrences in the last 20 years prompted this explosion of critical thought and writing regarding spacepower. The

first was President Ronald W. Reagan’s national missile defense (NMD) or “Star Wars” proposal, which generated international debate but failed to materialize. The second is the

ever-increasing military and commercial reliance on space

systems, which now form a significant national infrastructure

requiring protection. Finally, the ongoing effort to transform

the American military in the post-Cold War era places emphasis on exploiting new technical capabilities such as those offered by space systems—along with a revised proposal for a

missile defense system by President George W. Bush. 

America has pursued space operations for several decades,

but the nation at large is only now realizing the great potential

of space. While the evidence on propositions regarding spacepower is still ripening, it nonetheless provides a sufficient base

from which to draw reasonable propositions regarding the fundamental nature of spacepower.

Methodology

The method used to derive the propositions presented here

involved three years of literary research and extensive personal

9

SMITH
interviews that resulted in a long list of statements regarding

spacepower. The list evolved during numerous brainstorming

sessions with several space experts—most of them space

weapons officers with combat experience.23 During more than

36 months of debate, the list was carefully refined into the 10

most salient propositions regarding spacepower. In sifting

through the evidence, arguments supporting and refuting

each proposition emerged. The arguments on both sides are

presented with each corresponding proposition in chapter 3. 

At the turn of the twenty-first century, we do not have warfighting experience in, from, and through space, in the classic

sense. Therefore, many people view military space activities as

merely an avenue to support the information needs of terrestrial forces. While this is certainly important, the propositions

presented here argue that spacepower is much more than

support. While the propositions are rooted in our space experience to date, it is proper to use analogies to predict, within

reason, certain ways spacepower is likely to evolve. A case in

point is the proposition that the weaponization of space is inevitable. Support for this proposition comes from historical evidence, which shows that humans have always weaponized

the different media. Therefore, it is reasonable to predict that

space will also be weaponized.

Analytical Criteria

To answer the central question of this study, “What is the

nature of spacepower?” the evidence must culminate in propositions that describe various aspects of spacepower. In turn,

each proposition must serve as a logical answer to the central

question. Each proposition must also serve as a premise for

arguments supporting and/or refuting the hypothesis being

tested in this study (described below). 

A proposition regarding spacepower may be very similar to

a valid proposition regarding some other form of military

power. Such similarity does not, however, invalidate a claim

that spacepower is different. In fact, similarities should occur

for the same reasons that the principles of warfare are common to all forms of military power. As Clausewitz described

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war, “Its grammar, indeed, may be its own, but not its logic.”24

If military spacepower is truly a form of power, then it should

fall in line with a common logic guiding the reasoning of other

forms of warfare. As such, similarities to propositions that

apply to other forms of military power are expected. 

Hypothesis

The hypothesis tested in this study is the assertion of the

aerospace integration school that spacepower is simply a continuation or extension of airpower; that is, it is not an independent form of power. The test of this hypothesis occurs in

the presentation of evidence supporting and refuting each

proposition presented. Finally, this hypothesis is evaluated in

the concluding chapter of this study after all the evidence has

been presented and debated. 

Limitations of This Study

When Meilinger framed his propositions regarding airpower,

he had more than 80 years of airpower history to draw from.

His overwhelming evidentiary base included two world wars

and hundreds of other air campaigns among dozens of nations. In the wake of Operations Desert Storm and Allied

Force, and in the midst of Enduring Freedom, many now claim

that airpower has become the force that “can do most of the

work” in modern combat.25 Most nations maintain separate air

forces, and many have academic institutions dedicated to the

study of airpower as a distinct discipline. Spacepower advocates can make no such claims, although Russia recently established an independent space force. It remains unclear

whether Russia’s initiative is a sign of support for an independent role for spacepower or is indicative of some systemic

organizational weakness.26

The discussion of the evidentiary base of this study points

to a stark limitation: The evidentiary base for spacepower is

meager in comparison to that available to air, land, and sea

power advocates. Spacepower’s development is different from

the development of other military power forms because it came

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into being after World War II and evolved under a shroud of secrecy during a highly politicized era of limited warfare. It is unreasonable to expect our national concept of spacepower to

match that of air, land, or sea power since it has yet to be

pushed to its extreme by total warfare. It also lacks the romantic heraldry of battle-proven war fighters passing the

torch to succeeding generations. The lack of glamour undoubtedly dissuaded some potential authors from contributing to serious spacepower literature. 

When one is conducting personal interviews, a strange dichotomy arises. The more senior in rank the interviewee

(colonels and higher), the less likely he or she is to have had any

operational experience with space systems and the more likely

he or she is to be involved in the making of bureaucratic and organizational policy that affects military-related space operations. Conversely, the more junior the interviewee (captain to

lieutenant colonel), the more likely he or she is to have had extensive experience in space system operations and the less

likely he or she is to have any meaningful insight into the jungle of politics surrounding their senior decision makers. This dichotomy exists because space operators have not progressed to

the senior ranks inside the Air Force within their operational career field. To meet the standards established for the evidentiary

base (experientially based, and stripped of bureaucratic and organizational politics), one must exercise special care when evaluating the information provided by the interviewee.

Another limitation of the evidentiary base is the lack of extensive human experience in the space environment itself.

Other forms of military power are much more tactile in nature,

since humans physically operate their equipment in the other

media. One can easily imagine bygone days when some dashing

aviator climbed out of his Sopwith Camel on some misty French

aerodrome and manually tightened the guy wire supporting one

of his wings. This image is literally lost in space. Military spacepower predominantly employs unmanned robots in the space

environment. The thought of invisible data streams carrying

ones and zeros between operator and satellite, and from satellite to user, does not conjure a romantic image—nor does it provide a concrete image. Yet, this unique form of military power is

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of ever-increasing importance in modern warfare.27 Between

wars, airmen raised the “airmindedness” of the nation by barnstorming and participating in air shows. Space has no such opportunity, although the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has generated some enthusiasm for space

exploration by broadcasting images and video from the space

shuttle, the international space station, and a number of exploratory probes. Also, various space camps around the country introduce youths into the exciting aspect of manned spacepower but they do not create a general awareness of military

spacepower—particularly as regards the use of uninhabited

satellites. Space professionals perceive a lack of “spacemindedness” among the populace, and authors of spacepower documents often limit their works to very elementary discussions.

This is pervasive across the genre of spacepower literature. In

framing the propositions presented here, care is given to keep

the language simple while encompassing the range of issues

faced by the space professionals themselves.

Some critics will argue that it is premature to suggest

propositions regarding spacepower. Their argument has merit

only if we trivialize our present operational experience in

space. The evidentiary base is comparatively meager, admittedly, but it is no less important than understanding the foundations of any other form of power. There is no attempt to raise

these propositions to the level of spacepower tenets, although

that may eventually happen. It is vital to the continued growth

of America as a spacepower nation, however, that basic propositions regarding spacepower be laid down to promote deeper

understanding of this increasingly important medium. Critics

must answer the following question, which has been asked repeatedly in several top-level commissions: “If not now, when?”

Overview

Chapter 2 uses the framework proposed by David E. Lupton

in On Space Warfare to provide a brief summary of the evolution of American spacepower doctrine. The purpose of this discussion is to familiarize the reader with the political and military environment in which spacepower evolved and operates.

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It exposes shifts in the geopolitical landscape that may cause

America to dramatically alter its spacepower doctrine, making

it more important than ever for policy makers to understand

the fundamentals of spacepower. 

Chapter 3 is the core of this work. Presentation and argument of the 10 propositions regarding spacepower occurs here.

The purpose of this chapter is to deliver the evidence addressing the central question of this study: “What is the nature of

spacepower?” This evidence also supports the testing of the hypothesis that spacepower is merely a continuation or extension

of airpower—that it is not an independent form of power.

Chapter 4 answers the central question of this study by describing the nature of spacepower as revealed in the evidence

for the 10 propositions. It is here that the hypothesis is specifically accepted or rejected. Finally, this study concludes with

a brief spacepower theory.

The appendixes provide a brief look at the attempts of other

authors to frame statements that capture the essence of

spacepower. In a sense, these are their propositions regarding

spacepower although this was not the focus of their work. The

purpose of reviewing the work of other authors is to provide

readers with additional information from which to judge the

propositions that are central to the work at hand. In some

cases, presumably because an inherent truth is apparent, the

propositions presented here overlap the work of other authors.

In other cases, because of differing intents, methodologies, analytical criteria, and focus of their works, the propositions are

dissimilar to the work of other authors. The recommendations

of the Space Commission also appear in an appendix because

this landmark document will likely influence future spacepower debates and space policy. 

Notes

1. Perhaps no great book about spacepower is possible in the classic

sense. Contemporary authors must meet higher academic standards than

the great theorists. Their works would likely be doomed by modern editors

for failing to cite their sources and for resting their arguments on untested

theory—often without using historical analogies as proofs. 

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2. To witness the ongoing debate, refer to Aerospace Power Journal (Air

Power Journal prior to Winter 1999), particularly the following editions:

Spring 1999, Summer 2000, and Spring 2001.

3. Frederick L. Baier, Fifty Questions Every Airman Can Answer (Maxwell

Air Force Base [AFB], Ala.: Air Force Doctrine Center, October 1999), 3.

4. Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD) 1, Air Force Basic Doctrine, 1

September 1997, 11–21.

5. Ibid., 21–27.

6. Ibid., 27–34.

7. Col Phillip S. Meilinger, Naval War College, interviewed by author, 20

July 2000. 

8. James L. Hyatt III et al., “Space Power 2010,” Research Report no. 95-

05 (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air Command and Staff College, May 1995), 5.

9. Walter A. McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of

the Space Age (New York: Basic Books, 1985), 180, 259.

10. John F. Graham, Space Exploration: From Talisman of the Past to

Gateway for the Future, n.d., n.p., on-line, Internet, n.d., available from

http://www.space.edu/projects/.

11. Capt Carol Laymance, “Science of Space,” in Space and Missile Orientation Course (Vandenberg AFB, Calif.: 30th Operations Support

Squadron, 1993), 1–3, cited in “Space Power 2010,” 93.

12. Hyatt et al., 5.

13. Gen Thomas D. White, “Air and Space Are Indivisible,” Air Force,

March 1958, 40–41. For an in-depth discussion of the roots of aerospace,

see Maj Stephen M. Rothstein, Dead on Arrival? The Development of the Aerospace Concept, 1944–58 (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, November

2000), 44–58.

14. Lt Col Peter Hays and Dr. Karl Mueller, “Going Boldly—Where? Aerospace Integration, the Space Commission, and the Air Force’s Vision for

Space,” Aerospace Power Journal, Spring 2001, 36.

15. This commission was chaired by now Secretary of Defense Donald H.

Rumsfeld. 

16. Air Force Pamphlet (AFPAM) 11-1-4, Interim Aerospace Technology

Reference, 30 October 1959.

17. Maj Shawn Rife, “Does Aerospace Mean ‘Air and Space?’ ” n.d., n.p.,

on-line, Internet, 12 February 2001, available from http://sac/saic.com/

space/docs/does.htm.

18. AFDD 2, Organization and Employment of Aerospace Power, 17 February 2000, 133.

19. The maritime environment is defined as “the oceans, seas, bays, estuaries, islands, coastal areas, and the airspace above these, including amphibious objective areas.” Found in Joint Publication 1-02, Definitions Related to Command and Control, 14 June 2000, 280.

20. Baier, 3.

21. Ibid., 6.

22. Ibid., 7.

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23. A space weapons officer is a space operations officer (13SXX) graduate

of the Space Weapons Instructor Course at the USAF Weapons School at Nellis AFB, Nevada. This is the USAF’s graduate-level training program for the

tactical and operational employment of American space systems in combat.

24. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and

Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), 605.

25. Robert A. Pape, Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War

(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996), 326; and Benjamin S. Lambeth, The Transformation of American Airpower (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000), 7. 

26. Nikolai Novichkov, “Russia Gives a Boost to Space Effort,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, 7 February 2001.

27. Maj Gen John L. Barry, lecture, School of Advanced Airpower Studies, Maxwell AFB, Ala., 3 April 2001.

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Chapter 2

Schools of Thought on American Spacepower

History, by apprizing [men] of the past, will enable them to

judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of

other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges

of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to

know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and

knowing it, to defeat its views.

—Thomas Jefferson

Contemporary critics of spacepower have too little sense of

history. Whatever wonders “the stars” hold for our future,

there is a vastly nearer-term strategic logic of spacepower

that is all but entirely comprehensible in principle today.

—Dr. Colin S. Gray

“Because it’s there” was the reason Sir George Leigh Mallory

gave for wanting to climb Mount Everest. Some may argue this

is why America went to the moon (if they dismiss the perceived

race against the Soviets and the international prestige associated with being first). The reasons for exploiting the space

medium for military advantage are far more practical than the

simple quest for adventure, knowledge, or glory. 

The reasons for pursuing spacepower are perhaps best

summarized by Thucydides, who explained more than 2,000

years ago that “fear, honor, and interest” serve as the three

strongest motives for taking action.1 These three motives help

to explain much of the underpinnings of America’s military

space effort. This chapter uses David Lupton’s framework to

survey how these motives have driven the evolution of American spacepower.2

Lupton’s Four Doctrines

In his 1988 work On Space Warfare: A Space Power Doctrine,

author David E. Lupton provides a comprehensive framework

17
for analyzing the rationale for various military activities in

space. He describes four main schools of thought (doctrines)

associated with military spacepower: Sanctuary, Survivability,

Control, and High Ground. These schools of thought represent

an escalating spectrum of commitment to military spacepower

as a source of national and military power. 

The Sanctuary School

This school holds that the primary value of space forces is

their capability to “see” within the boundaries of sovereign

states. This value stems from the space vehicle’s overflight capability. Proponents of sanctuary doctrine argue that past

arms limitations treaties could not have been consummated

without space systems that serve as a “national technical

means of treaty verification.” Moreover, the prospects for any

future treaties would be extremely dim without the ability of

space systems to fulfill President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s

dream of treaty verification through open skies. Thus, space

systems have had a tremendous stabilizing influence on relations between states. Finally, these advocates caution that

overflight is a granted right that nations have not attempted to

deny and that any proposed military use of space must be

weighed against the possible loss of peaceful overflight. This

train of thought leads to the conclusion that the only way to

maintain overflight legality is to designate space as a war-free

sanctuary.3

The basic tenet of the sanctuary school is that satellite reconnaissance systems make nuclear war less likely and foster

stability in the superpower relationship.4 From a realist’s perspective, exploiting overflight rights for satellite reconnaissance of potential adversaries reduces potential security

dilemmas brought about by fear of the unknown. In one sense,

it is a vaccine against a surprise attack. With the knowledge

gained from space, policy makers are better able to assess

their national security situation and scale their defense expenditures appropriately. At the dawn of the space age, satellites were a symbol of great national achievement. This built

an aura of prestige associated with space programs—which

the superpowers used to attract third world nations to their

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causes, thereby gaining power. Sanctuary school advocates

seek to preserve space as a weapons-free zone to prevent

threatening other states and triggering security dilemmas.

Space weaponization might not only diminish the honor of the

offending state; it might entice other nations to contest the

right of overflight—an action that could close reconnaissance

access to many parts of the world and return the space powers to security dilemmas rooted in fear of the unknown. 

The Survivability School

The basic tenet of this school is that space systems are inherently less survivable than terrestrial forces. Weapons have

long-range effects in the space environment, and proponents

of this school believe nations are more likely to use nuclear

weapons in the remoteness of space. They also argue that

space forces cannot rely on maneuverability or terrestrial barriers to increase their survivability. Survivability school proponents believe the political insensitivity of space forces creates uncertainty about the implications of an attack; for

example, would we go to war if a satellite were destroyed? Finally, survivability school advocates have serious reservations

as to the military value of space forces. Advocates of the survivability school concede that space is an excellent place to

base many military systems, especially those that augment or

enhance terrestrial forces. They also agree that space forces

can do certain military functions (communication and weather

data gathering) more economically and more efficiently than

other forces in peacetime. They believe, however, that space

forces must not be depended on for these functions in wartime

because they will not survive.5

Realists point out that it is in a state’s interest to exploit

space to gain an advantage in military power over other states.

Triggering a security dilemma by developing space-based force

enhancement capabilities is not particularly worrisome to

them. Survivability school proponents argue, however, that exposing vulnerabilities to an enemy by relying on “fragile” space

systems is a constant source of fear for the state that uses

space assets for military and economic purposes. 

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The Control School

The control school declines to place an exact value on space

forces but suggests their value by using analogies. For example, Gen Thomas D. White argues that whoever controls space

can exert control over the surface of Earth. Others argue that

there are space lanes of communications that, like sea lanes

of communication, must be controlled if a war is to be won in

the terrestrial theaters. Control school advocates argue that

the capability to deter war is enhanced by the ability to control space and that, in future wars, space control will be coequal with air and sea control.6

Control school advocates believe space is just another

medium analogous to air, land, and sea. As such, they advocate controlling this medium vigorously with both offensive and

defensive operations. They believe space control is essential to

securing victory in any terrestrial conflict. A realist would point

out that it is in a state’s interest to control space because it is

a route of commerce comparable to terrestrial lines of communication. Fear of triggering security dilemmas in other states is

not a dominant concern in this school of thought.

The High-Ground School

This school harkens back to the old military axiom that

domination of the high ground ensures domination of the

lower lying areas. Disciples of this “high ground” school advocate a space-based ballistic missile defense (BMD). They argue

that the global presence of space forces combined with either

directed-energy or high-velocity-impact space weapons provide opportunities for radical new national strategies. In their

view, space-based defensive forces can reverse the current

stalemate caused by the preeminence of the offense and create either an offensive-defensive balance or a preferred defensive stalemate. This rebalancing would allow replacement of

the flawed strategy of assured destruction with one of assured

survival. The high-ground school believes space forces will

have a dominant influence.7

“Lupton’s final doctrine, high-ground, argues that space is

the dominant theater of military operations and is capable of

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affecting terrestrial conflict in decisive ways.”8 This is analogous

to Douhet’s implicit contention that aircraft are the solution to

strategic and tactical stalemates and that all future wars can be

won from the air.9 High-ground advocates favor full weaponization of space, including missile defense systems. Space control

is essentially a prerequisite. A realist would contend that the

high-ground school is the ultimate exploitation of space to secure the interests of the state and to avert fear of another state

exploiting space against those interests. Like so many airpower

theorists in the early days of aviation, high-ground advocates

rest their case regarding the decisive nature of space upon optimistic speculation with little empirical support. Table 1 summarizes Lupton’s four military space doctrines.

The Historical Evidence

Since the dawn of the space age, there have been advocates

for each school of thought. In general, it is fair to say that

America followed the sanctuary doctrine during the Cold War.

After the Cold War drew to a close, America began focusing on

the force enhancement opportunities offered by space-based

systems, signaling a move towards a survivability doctrine. Gen

Ralph E. Eberhart, commander in chief of US Space Command

(USCINCSPACE), began leading the charge in the year 2000,

advocating that America pursue a new doctrine: “space control.”10 The remainder of this chapter will use Lupton’s model

to survey the evolution of spacepower doctrine, and will look at

the current conditions that may lead to a shift in that doctrine.

It is necessary to ask what has changed and whether a move

towards a space control strategy is feasible in the current political and military context. It is important to answer these

questions because adopting a space-control strategy would be

a significant departure from long-standing space policy. 

Sanctuary Doctrine (Cold War to Desert Storm)

Just as military fixed-wing aviation was born in the First

World War as a method of conducting reconnaissance over

enemy territory, military satellites were born during the Cold

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Doctrine Primary Wartime

Purpose of Employment Mission of Preferred

Space Forces Strategy Space Forces Organization

Sanctuary: Strategic Optimize for Limited

Stability NTMV*

Arms Control Vulnerable Orbits

Limited Numbers

Fragile Systems

Survivability: Above Hardening Force Unified Command

Functions Plus: Crosslinks, Less Enhancement or Major

Vulnerable Orbits Command

Force Degrade

Enhancement On-orbit Spares Gracefully

Reconstitution

Capability

Defense Convoy

Maneuver

Stealth

Redundancy

Control: Space Control Space Control Space Force or

Significant Force Counterspace Unified Command

Enhancement Capability

Surveillance

Significant

Force

Enhancement

High Gound: Above Above Space Force

Functions Functions

Plus: Plus:

Ballistic Ballistic

Missile Missile

Defense Defense

Decisive Decisive

Impact on Space-toTerrestrial Space and

Conflict Space-toEarth

Force

Application

*NTMV—national technical means of verification

Table 1

Military Space Doctrines
War to conduct reconnaissance over enemy territory. Arguably, the greatest security dilemma facing the United States

in the 1950s was the fear of a nuclear showdown with the Soviet Union. This drove the need for gathering intelligence

about the Soviet Union. Accordingly, in May 1955 the Eisenhower administration established its intent to launch a satellite “to establish a legal regime to legitimize overflight and

thereby open up the closed Soviet state to satellite reconnaissance by the secret WS-117L spysat system.” This policy,

along with Eisenhower’s concern over the growing power of the

military-industrial complex, “also led to the creation of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), America’s secret and independent military space agency.”11 Establishing the NRO also

provided a convenient civilian cover story for the building and

launching of reconnaissance satellites. 

Eisenhower succeeded in making unimpeded satellite overflight acceptable to the international community—a task made

easier by the Soviets, who were the first to establish the precedent with the launching of Sputnik I on 4 October 1957. Subsequent administrations would formally hammer out treaties

in the United Nations that set aside space for peaceful purposes and prevented any nation from claiming sovereignty

over any part of space.12 In effect, these efforts established

space as a “sanctuary” for peaceful operations. These principles, now a matter of accepted international law, continue to

influence US national space policy and military space strategy

in very fundamental ways.

Until Operation Desert Storm in 1991, space systems were

essentially an adjunct to other political and military operations. At that time, the Air Force mission statement read, “To

defend the United States through the control and exploitation

of the air.”13 Any reference to space was missing because despite more than 30 years of Air Force space activity, the capabilities of space systems were unknown to the Air Force at

large, and what existed was limited to a supporting role. This

was mostly because space systems evolved to support the extremely sensitive nuclear mission of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), which dominated the Air Force during the Cold

War. Consequently, the Air Force space program focused on

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providing missile attack warning, global weather, global positioning, and global command and control communications to

support the president and SAC. Likewise, reconnaissance

support from the NRO was limited to the National Security

Council (NSC), SAC, and very few others. 

The sanctuary doctrine was highly effective in this era for a

number of reasons. First, the national space policy and military space strategy were perfectly aligned. Both gave top priority to supporting the nuclear mission. Second, the only peer

competitor the United States had—the Soviet Union—was also

interested in establishing its own spysat network. This made

it easy for diplomats to secure the principles discussed above.

Third, although the Soviets and the Americans pursued some

space control capabilities, such as antisatellite (ASAT) technologies, none matured to the point of presenting significant

threats to space capabilities. Ultimately, the United States

canceled all of its ASAT programs because of technical difficulties and a lack of political will to commit strained budgetary resources in the face of marginal threats. Cancellation also

alleviated concerns about the weaponization of space. Finally,

given the limitations of satellites themselves, the limitations of

computing power, and the extremely high classification of

space products during this period, integrating space capabilities into operations at levels lower than the NCA and strategic

planning centers was rare—and difficult at best. In reality,

technical limitations may have constrained America to follow

the sanctuary doctrine. 

Survivability Doctrine (Desert Storm to 2001)

Desert Storm was a watershed event for spacepower.14 The

Cold War was over, and the fear of a surprise nuclear attack

withered along with the emphasis on nuclear deterrence. This allowed space operators to strengthen their emphasis on providing

force enhancements to conventional warfare, in a manner consistent with Lupton’s survivability doctrine. Desert Storm gave

them an opportunity to showcase their capabilities. During the

war, missile warning satellites and the Global Positioning System

(GPS) became the sweethearts of the USAF space program. Unfortunately, the war fighters typically lacked the appropriate se24

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curity clearance, the proper ground exploitation tools, and the

necessary training to use other types of intelligence-related space

support that was available to senior political and military leaders. In the aftermath of the war, many generals complained bitterly about these shortcomings.15 However, most agreed that

spacepower was a significant contributor to the war effort and

that much more was possible.

In June 1992, Gen Merrill A. McPeak, Air Force chief of

staff, announced a change to the Air Force mission statement.

He added the words “and space.”16 This represented an overt

institutional shift toward policies inherent in Lupton’s survivability doctrine. It essentially entails the Air Force and other

services working to provide force enhancements by pushing

space products down to the operational and tactical users by

removing security barriers, providing training, and acquiring

newly available computers powerful enough to exploit spacederived data.17 It is essentially the integration of space capabilities with terrestrial forces to enhance terrestrial operations. 

The shift toward the survivability doctrine was consistent

with White House policy as evidenced by President George H.

W. Bush’s decision to declassify the existence of the NRO in

1992, making access to space-derived data much easier.

Space integration also made sense from a fiscal perspective,

since it created opportunities to eliminate unnecessary duplication of effort—for example, replacing some aircraft reconnaissance platforms with satellites and replacing ground radio

navigation aids with GPS. At the same time, it brought new capabilities to the campaign planners and war fighters. More important, adopting the force enhancement elements of the survivability doctrine did not cross the imaginary line of space

weaponization and did not set off significant security dilemmas amongst other states. 

Space Command’s General Eberhart believes the effort to integrate space-derived force enhancements into terrestrial operations is succeeding: “The fact we heard so much about [the

need for integration] after Desert Storm, and didn’t after

Kosovo, tells me we’re on the right track.”18 Regardless of what

other spacepower doctrines the United States might pursue, it

appears that force enhancement will continue as more and

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more systems plug into space-derived information sources. In

fact, the tendency to exploit commercial space assets to support military operations is growing at the dawn of the twentyfirst century.

Control Doctrine (Beyond 2001?)

In November 2000, General Eberhart went beyond the need

for integrating space-derived assets: “I don’t think we would be

good stewards of space capabilities if we only thought about

‘integration.’ We also need to be spending resources and intellectual capacity on space control.”19 In essence, the general

joins the control doctrine advocates, who favor developing the

capability to use force, if it should become necessary, to secure American access to space and to deny the same to an adversary. Many of these same advocates also support President

George W. Bush’s call for a missile defense system. This represents a significant departure from the doctrinal philosophy

of either the sanctuary or the survivability schools, as it may

entail negating adversary satellites on orbit and crossing the

threshold of putting weapons in space—in line with the highground school of thought. 

What has changed? First, the continuing force enhancement

effort makes all of America’s armed forces increasingly reliant

on space support. Thus, the vulnerabilities predicted by the

survivability doctrine are created and require protection. Second, commerce in the Western world has also become increasingly reliant on satellites for the collection and routing of essential information. The international banking community, the

global telecommunications industry, and the stock markets became heavy users of space services in the 1990s. Whether the

commercial sector understands the threat, or wants protection,

is unclear.20 Third, other nations, many of which are potential

adversaries who may employ their space capabilities against

the United States, are also increasing their use of space. Finally,

several countries, including Russia and China, have already

developed counterforce weapons that directly threaten US

space operations.21 Other states are likely to proliferate these

or similar weapons in the coming decades. In sum, since US

military forces are increasingly relying upon space assets, it is

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in their interest to protect them from enemy attack. At the

same time, the United States has an interest in denying adversaries the ability to exploit their own space assets to gain an

advantage. In light of these changes, General Eberhart’s assertion that America needs to focus more on space control may be

warranted from a military strategist’s point of view—but is it

prudent from a national policy perspective?

The National Space Policy of 19 September 1996 is contradictory and confusing regarding space control. It asserts, on the

one hand, “The US is committed to the . . . use of outer space

by all nations for peaceful purposes,” and “considers the space

systems of any nation [to have] the right of passage through and

operations in space without interference.”22 This assertion is

consistent with the sanctuary doctrine. On the other hand, the

document later asserts that the “DoD shall maintain the capability to execute the mission areas of space support, force enhancement, space control, and force application” (emphasis

added).23 National Space Policy therefore attempts to advocate

two mutually exclusive doctrines: sanctuary and control. The

result is a policy set adrift in a sea of confusion.

Actions speak louder than words, however, and DOD currently has little or no space control capability. Despite the initiation of various space control programs by the Kennedy,

Ford, and Reagan administrations, subsequent administrations cut these programs in favor of abiding by the sanctuary

doctrine. For example, the Clinton administration cut, canceled, or delayed several initiatives related to space control,

including Clementine II, the Space Plane, and the Kinetic Energy Anti-Satellite Weapon. President Clinton also deferred the

approval for NMD component construction (mainly radars) to

his successor—a system Lupton describes as part of the highground school of thought.

The sanctuary doctrine’s appeal to political leaders is rooted

in four basic assumptions. First, since the United States is the

nation most dependent on space support for its economic and

military interests, it has the most to lose by abandoning the

sanctuary doctrine. Second, pursuing a space control doctrine

might destabilize the worldwide balance of power since other

nations might see it as threatening their own space assets,

27

SMITH
thereby causing security dilemmas of an unpredictable nature.24 Third, several intelligence agencies argued during the

Clinton administration that, since there were no operational

threats to American space systems, there was no need to make

the heavy financial investments to fulfill a space control strategy. To the contrary, however, Russia has a long-standing

ASAT program, and China has openly declared that they have

an operational ground-based ASAT laser.25 Furthermore, the

Chinese are developing “parasitic satellites” for use as

ASATs.26 Finally, and perhaps most important, the United

States may lose diplomatic power by abandoning the sanctuary doctrine. NATO allies have repeatedly voiced concerns regarding America’s propensity to push technology beyond their

ability to integrate as equal partners and fearing the destabilization of the global power structure. Moreover, UN Secretary

General Kofi Annan is a strong advocate of the sanctuary doctrine and believes that “the advantages of space technologies

should be shared amongst everyone, and military conflict in

space threatens this prospect.”27 Shifting towards a space control doctrine appears to have been impossible during the Clinton administration for political reasons. 

General Eberhart, despite his position as USCINCSPACE,

was unable to significantly influence national space policy toward a space control doctrine during the Clinton administration. He was, after all, only one voice in the larger strategic

culture of space policy decision making. When Gen Charles A.

Horner was USCINCSPACE in the mid-1990s, the chairman of

the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Sam Nunn (DGa.), asked him if he was in charge of space. General Horner

replied that he could not exercise unitary control over his own

command. In addition to the president and USCINCSPACE, a

number of other agencies and organizations share responsibility for making military space policy. Among them are Management and Budget, Science and Technology, National Security

Council, Central Intelligence Agency, National Aeronautics

and Space Administration, and the Departments of Defense,

State, Commerce, and Transportation.28

These agencies and organizations intrude on the USSPACECOM budget, resources, and decision-making authority. “In

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addition to the governmental intrusion into his joint command,

USCINCSPACE must also deal with service infighting over who

should have the dominant role in space.”29 The Air Force believes it should play the dominant role since it dedicates more

resources to space missions than the other services. It is important to note that the Air Force embraced the survivability

doctrine, pressing the space community to provide greater

force enhancement capabilities to airmen. In its Global Engagement vision of November 1996, during Gen Ronald R.

Fogleman’s tenure as chief of staff, the Air Force issued what is

probably the most strident position it has ever issued regarding the importance of space to the Air Force’s future: “We are

now transitioning from an air force into an air and space force

on an evolutionary path to a space and air force” (emphasis in

original).30 The enthusiasm was toned down considerably in

1998 by the subsequent chief of staff, Gen Michael E. Ryan,

who insisted that air and space form a single aerospace

medium. This is the basis for the Air Force’s “aerospace integration” effort, which attempts to blend the air and space communities into a single body of like-minded professionals.

From a bureaucratic politics perspective, all outward appearances of this effort suggest it is merely an attempt by the

Air Force to secure future missions and resources for itself

over its sister services.31 Only the Air Force views space as

part of an “aerospace continuum.” This represents a major departure from the current national space policy and DOD space

policy, not to mention the 2000 Annual Report to the president

and the Congress by the secretary of defense. All of these documents refer to space as a separate medium, with spacepower

being of equal importance to the nation as air, land, and sea

power.32 The disparity between the Air Force’s position and

that of its political and joint leadership is striking. Unfortunately, as General Horner pointed out, there is no single leader

of the military space effort. Consequently, space strategy evolves

from a highly politicized, bureaucratic process. This is likely to

change soon.

Two events that occurred in January 2001 will likely move

American space strategy toward the control doctrine. The first

event was the Space Commission Report, released on 11 Jan29

SMITH
uary.33 It identifies several known threats to American use of

space systems, including Russian GPS jammers, and it formally recommends that “the US must develop the means to

both deter and to defend against hostile acts in and from

space.”34 Furthermore, the report states, “The Commissioners

believe the US Government should vigorously pursue the capabilities called for in the National Space Policy to ensure that

the President will have the option to deploy weapons in space

to deter threats to and, if necessary, defend against attacks on

US interests.”35 These capabilities will include the ability to

negate hostile satellite threats.36 Although the Space Commission refers to this as part of a larger deterrence policy, it

nonetheless has a space control doctrine at its core. 

The second event was the inauguration on 20 January of

President George W. Bush. President Bush is likely to abandon formally the sanctuary doctrine in favor of a space control

doctrine with some elements of a high-ground doctrine. In the

opening weeks of his administration, he immediately began

strongly advocating the development and fielding of a missile

defense system, which some members of the media and Congress believe implies basing weapons in space.37 He also appointed Donald H. Rumsfeld, former chairman of the Space

Commission, to the position of secretary of defense, increasing

the likelihood that DOD will implement the Space Commission’s recommendations. Right away, Secretary Rumsfeld indicated his desire for the United States to renegotiate with the

Russians or withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty,

which he called “ancient history,” to facilitate the missile defense program.38 It now appears, given the findings of the

Space Commission and a more realist-centered Bush administration, that the United States will likely pursue the space

control doctrine—and possibly elements of the high-ground

school as well.

Alternative Strategies

The alternatives to adopting a space control or high-ground

doctrine must be given consideration by policy makers. One

alternative would be to regress back to the sanctuary doctrine

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by weaning military and commercial users from the space

support to which they have grown accustomed. This will close

the vulnerabilities that space dependence breeds, and will reduce the storm that will invariably occur should the United

States trigger security dilemmas while pursuing a more aggressive space policy. As appealing as this might sound, it

rests on the assumption that the United States will have uncontested space superiority for at least the next 10 to 15 years

and that the military services will be willing to fall back to terrestrial technologies.

A second alternative would be to covertly adopt a space control doctrine and secretly field the necessary systems while

preserving the appearance of abiding by the sanctuary or survivability doctrines. If the secrecy should endure, it would prevent security dilemmas. Such an approach risks great diplomatic repercussions, however, and would hamper the ongoing

force integration efforts. Secrecy would likely prevent space

control systems from integrating effectively into real-world operations in much the same way that secrecy prevented integration in Desert Storm and earlier operations. 

A third alternative would be for the United States to improve

the durability of its satellites, allowing them to withstand attacks

in a continuation of the survivability doctrine. This is by no

means a perfect solution, but it does add a degree of assurance

that friendly space support would be present when needed.

As a fourth alternative, the United States could add a space

denial strategy to its survivability doctrine. Space denial would

involve traditional air, land, and sea power; special operations;

and information attacks in an effort to destroy an enemy’s

space launch and ground control infrastructure. It may also

include striking whatever ground-based antisatellite weapons

the enemy might possess. Space denial is analogous to a blockade and is entirely possible through use of current force structures, but it suffers from the same weakness as blockades at

sea; that is, the adversary can break down or circumvent the

blockade or receive support from third parties.39 Finally, the

United States could pursue a combination of these approaches. 

31

SMITH
Conclusions

During the Cold War, the United States pursued the sanctuary doctrine, securing overflight rights of spysats to provide

an element of stability in the midst of an anarchic international system. However, the end of the Cold War and advancements in technology allowed the United States to migrate

quickly toward the survivability doctrine—focusing on spacederived force enhancement capabilities. However, the increased national reliance on space systems opened new vulnerabilities to potential adversaries who are now fielding

credible space threats. Accordingly, General Eberhart called

for a move towards a space control doctrine, which was contrary to the policies of the Clinton administration. His call has

likely fallen on more fertile soil in the new Bush administration, which appears to embrace a new role for spacepower in

America. With the former chairman of the Space Commission

sitting as the secretary of defense and several congressionally

sponsored studies citing America’s growing reliance upon its

increasingly vulnerable space assets, changes in space policy

and doctrine are more likely now than at any time in recent

years.

The turn of the twenty-first century finds America at a

crossroads in space. What course America ultimately pursues

will likely have far-reaching effects that will resonate for many

years. In these defining moments, it is essential for the people

of a spacefaring nation to contemplate some basic propositions regarding spacepower. 

Notes

1. Thucydides, “The Peloponnesian War,” in A Comprehensive Guide to

the Peloponnesian War, ed. Robert B. Strassler (New York: Free Press, 1996),

43. Thucydides is recognized as the spiritual father of realism. The realist

perspective focuses on the state as a unitary actor in an anarchic international system. Realists argue that states pursue security, autonomy, and

power relative to one another and that conflict is caused by security dilemmas wherein a state fears an unacceptable loss of power forcing that state

(or states) to act. Discussed in Barry B. Hughes, Continuity and Change in

World Politics, 3d ed. (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1996), 46–53. 

2. David E. Lupton, On Space Warfare: A Space Power Doctrine (Maxwell

Air Force Base [AFB], Ala.: Air University Press, June 1988).

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3. Ibid., 35.

4. Peter L. Hays et al., eds., Spacepower for a New Millennium: Space and

US National Security (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000), 3.

5. Lupton, 36.

6. Ibid., 37.

7. Ibid., 36–37.

8. Hays et al., 3–4.

9. Giulio Douhet, The Command of the Air, trans. Dino Ferrari (1942; new

imprint, Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1983), 15–29.

10. Space control refers to the use of force to gain access to space while

denying the same to an adversary. It is a relative term and does not imply

absolute control. It may include using weapons placed in space such as missile defenses.

11. Lt Col Peter Hays and Dr. Karl Mueller, “Boldly Going—Where? Aerospace Integration, the Space Commission, and the Air Force’s Vision for

Space,” Aerospace Power Journal, Spring 2001, 36.

12. These principles are laid out in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967.

13. R. Cargill Hall and Jacob Neufeld, The US Air Force in Space: 1945 to

the Twenty-First Century (Washington, D.C.: USAF History and Museums

Program, 1998), 174.

14. 57th Training Support Squadron, “Global Positioning System

Overview,” USAF Space Weapons Instructor Course, MSN574Z, 2 February

1999. Desert Storm is often cited as “the first space war.” This is only true

if you discount its contributions to the Cold War and the Vietnam War. One

can argue that Desert Storm was the first time that space operations affected every American in the battle space. My favorite quote comes from a

young Marine who told a CNN reporter, “Space didn’t have anything to do

with Desert Storm. All I needed was my M-16 and this little box that tells me

where I am (pointing to his Global Positioning System [GPS] receiver)!” 

15. This was Gen H. Norman Schwarzkopf’s number one complaint. Gen

Charles A. “Chuck” Horner was the joint forces air component commander

during the war. He later became USCINCSPACE and frequently related his

frustration at trying to integrate space into the fight only to be thwarted by

security barriers.

16. Hall and Neufeld, 174.

17. Ibid.

18. William B. Scott, “CINCSPACE: Focus More on Space Control,” Aviation Week and Space Technology, 13 November 2000, 80–81.

19. Ibid., 80.

20. Maj Gen Lance L. Smith, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, interviewed by author, 9 March 2001. Commercial satellite operators typically do not want to

add protection to their satellites because doing so would increase weight;

therefore, their launch costs would go up. During the Schriever 2000 war

games in Colorado Springs, Colorado, one corporate leader of a satellite

company told General Smith, “Protection? That’s what insurance is for.” 

33

SMITH
21. Gen Richard B. Meyers, “Space Superiority is Fleeting,” Aviation

Week and Space Technology, 1 January 2000, 54.

22. The White House, National Space Policy, 19 September 1996, 1.

23. Ibid., 4. 

24. John B. Sheldon, “Space as the Fourth Environment: For Warfare or

a Supporting Role?” RUSI Journal, London, October 1999, 2.

25. “China Develops Anti-Satellite Laser System,” Jane’s Defence Weekly,

2 December 1998, 18. The Russian and Chinese antisatellite programs are

further elaborated on by Vice Adm Thomas R. Wilson, “Global Threats and

Challenges Through 2015” Statement for the Record, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 7 February 2001, 14, on-line, Internet, 12 April 2001,

available from http://www.dialumni.org/images/dr_testimony.pdf.

26. Cheng Ho, “China Eyes Anti-Satellite System,” Space Daily, 8 January 2000, n.p., on-line, Internet, 8 January 2001, available from

http://www.spacer.com/news/china-01c.html.

27. Kofi Annan, “Keep Space Peaceful,” Space News, 23 August 1999, 4.

28. Frank G. Klotz, Space, Commerce, and National Security (New York:

Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1998).

29. Bruce M. DeBlois, Beyond the Paths of Heaven: The Emergence of

Space Power Thought (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, September

1999), xiii. 

30. Gen Ronald R. Fogleman and Hon. Sheila E. Widnall, Global Engagement: A Vision for the 21st Century Air Force (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Air Force, November 1996), 8. 

31. House, Missile Development and Space Sciences: Hearings before the

Committee on Science and Astronautics, 86th Cong., 1st sess., February and

March 1959, 76–77. This was asserted during the hearings on “Missile Development and Space Sciences” in 1959 during the testimony of the Air Force chief

of staff, Gen Thomas D. White. The criticism has endured ever since.

32. National Space Policy, 1–12; Department of Defense, Space Policy, 9

July 1999, 2; and Department of Defense, Annual Report to the President and

to the Congress, 2000 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office), 84.

33. The report is formally titled “The Report of the Commission to Assess

United States National Security Space Management and Organization.” 

34. Ibid., 100.

35. Ibid., xii.

36. Ibid., 29.

37. James Dao, “Rumsfeld Plan Skirts Call for Stationing Arms in Space,”

New York Times, 9 May 2001, n.p., on-line, Internet, 15 May 2001, available

from http://ca.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/ebird?doc_url=May2001/e20010509rumsfeld.htm.

38. Steven Lee Myers, “Bush’s Choice for Defense Sees Immediate Bid to

Raise Spending,” The New York Times, 12 January 2001.

39. Sheldon, 4.

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Chapter 3

The Ten Propositions

If you develop rules, never have more than ten.

—Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

19th Rule of “Rumsfeld’s Rules” ———

The objective of these propositions is to help train the judgments of political and military practitioners regardless of their

organizational affiliations. Strategists and operational planners will find these propositions particularly helpful in developing their understanding of spacepower. Largely, these

propositions are 10 things to keep in mind when building

spacepower for the nation or when employing spacepower in a

strategic or operational sense to secure national or military

objectives. The particulars of tactical employment are left for

others to ponder.

Nearly 50 years of spacefaring experience has delivered

many lessons regarding spacepower. Unfortunately, these lessons frequently disappear from view because of organizational

interests. This is not to say that evil people are plotting to keep

spacepower from rising to its full potential out of organizational self-interest. The fact remains, however, that access to

space is relatively new. Until Desert Storm, those who were

thinking about spacepower as an element of military and national power were often marginalized or considered to be entranced by the fantasy of space evidenced in science fiction

movies, television programs, novels, and magazines. This has

changed somewhat; but space operations remain very expensive, complex, and mysterious to all but a relatively small

group of operators, a smaller group of general and flag officers,

and even fewer political leaders. The organizations in which

spacepower is currently vested have their own long-standing

priorities and a bureaucratic inertia that changes slowly over

time. Assessing these issues was the mission of the Space

Commission, whose findings and recommendations appear in

appendix E of this study. The propositions listed and discussed

35
below simply provide a coherent way of thinking about spacepower for the nation. 

• Space Is a Distinct Operational Medium

• The Essence of Spacepower Is Global Access and Global

Presence

• Spacepower Is Composed of a State’s Total Space Activity

• Spacepower Must Be Centrally Controlled by a Space Professional 

• Spacepower Is a Coercive Force

• Commercial Space Assets Make All Actors Space Powers

• Spacepower Assets Form a National Center of Gravity

• Space Control Is Not Optional

• Space Professionals Require Career-Long Specialization

• Space Weaponization Is Inevitable

Proposition No. 1

Space Is a Distinct Operational Medium

To land, sea and air may now be added infinite empty

space as an area of future intercontinental traffic, thereby

acquiring political importance. This third day of October

1942 is the first of a new era of transportation—that of

space travel. 

—Maj Gen Walter Dornberger

V-2 Project Director ———– 

We airmen who fought to assure that the United States has

the capability to control the air are determined that the

United States must win the capability to control space. . . .

There is no division . . . between air and space. Air and

space are an indivisible field of operations.

—Gen Thomas D. White—--

USAF Chief of Staff, 1957

Space is a medium like the land, sea, and air within which

military activities shall be conducted to achieve U.S. national security objectives.

—DOD Space Policy, 9 July 1999

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Space is a medium like the land, sea, and air where military

activities are conducted.

—William S. Cohen—–

Secretary of Defense

Space is not simply a place from which information is acquired and transmitted or through which objects pass. It is

a medium much the same as air, land or sea. 

—Space Commission Report

11 January 2001—–——–

A significant milestone in human achievement occurred on

2 November 2000. On that date, astronauts took up permanent residence aboard Alpha, the International Space Station.

In that sense, space is much more like the land upon which

people live than the oceans or the air through which people

traverse. In another sense, Alpha is like a ship at sea that

never returns to port but swaps out its crew at regular intervals. The astronauts aboard Alpha will serve four-month tours

of duty, similar to the duration of routine overseas deployments served by American airmen.1 The bottom line is that

“space is a place, not a program.”2 It is quite literally a place

that is “out of this world.” 

The proposition that space is a distinct operational medium

may seem intuitively obvious, but the assertion that space is

somehow operationally different from the air is anathema to

many American airmen who believe that air and space form a

“seamless medium unconstrained by arbitrary divisions of

the vertical dimension.”3 This is the central argument of the

aerospace integration school of thought.4 The divisions between air and space are not arbitrary, however. There are distinguishable physical, operational, and political divisions between air and space that neither rhetoric nor technology can

resolve. Failure to appreciate the differences between these

two distinct media not only prevents both airpower and

spacepower from developing their full potential but, more important, may lead to serious political and military consequences if spacepower is applied as if it were merely an extension of airpower.

37

SMITH
Air Force doctrine recognizes the physical differences between the air and space environments, but it denies any separation between them.5 A separation becomes apparent, however, when we consider the limitations that physics imposes

on practical applications in the two media. In doing so, we realize that the upper boundary of the air medium is 28 miles,

the highest altitude attainable by an air-breathing aircraft.6

Conversely, the lower boundary of space is approximately 93

miles, the lowest possible perigee for a satellite. These functional limitations make it obvious that air and space do not

meet. A region nearly 65 miles wide separates air from space.

This is the transverse region, wherein neither aerodynamic

flight nor orbital rotation is possible. Despite claims of an

“aerospace continuum,” the transverse region forms an invisible barrier 65 miles thick that divides air operations from

space operations.7

Operating inside the transverse region is not practical because the energy expenditures required to maneuver or loiter

there are too great—by orders of magnitude. Vehicles can exploit neither Bernoulli’s aerodynamic principles nor Kepler’s

astrodynamic principles to conserve energy. Consequently, the

transverse region lives up to its name as a boundary across

which vehicles transit but do little else. The cost of space operations hinges on space-lift vehicles—large rockets—that

generate the huge amounts of energy required to lift payloads

through the transverse region and accelerate them to orbital

speed and altitude.8

Claims that technology will eventually overcome the limitations imposed by the transverse region, thereby enabling vehicles to operate with agility in both media, rest on optimistic

speculation. To date, the wings mounted on space vehicles,

such as the space shuttle, space maneuvering vehicle, and

other experimental craft currently in development, are merely

recovery systems analogous to parachutes. One wonders how

much extra time, money, and payload trade-off went into designing winged recovery systems and their ground and airspace

support infrastructures when a parachute system would weigh

less and provide a similar effect—safe return to Earth. A cultural bias is the likely explanation for efforts to force space

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systems into the mold of aircraft, in much the same way the

original “saddles” on bicycles resembled horse saddles.

One of the primary reasons the Air Force resists recognizing

space as something separate from the air is to avoid creating

“arbitrary lines on a map” that create command and control

problems similar to the Army/Air Force controversy surrounding the fire support coordination line (FSCL).9 The fear is that

command and control issues will somehow hinder the freedom

of air and space assets to maneuver and employ weapons if

space is established as a geographic area of responsibility

(AOR) and as a distinct theater of operations.10 This seems unlikely to pose a major problem, however, given the great separation between air and space imposed by the transverse region.

In fact, to a large degree, the Air Force has already lost this argument because separate coordination with space forces is already required. “Any Department of Defense agency wanting to

fire a laser [or any other weapon] above the horizon [into space]

must first get permission from US Space Command’s Laser

Clearing House, which uses the center’s information on satellite vulnerabilities to help determine if there are any satellites

in the [weapon’s] path that should be avoided.”11 It therefore

appears that an FSCL is already in place, whether or not DOD

ever recognizes space as an AOR or theater.

Lt Gen David L. Vesely, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of

Staff, expressed another core belief of the aerospace integration school when he stated, “Whatever differences there are

between air and space are not important to the theater commander (strategic level) or the war fighter (tactical level). What

is important is the effect on the battlefield. Whether it’s

weapons, communications, or information, the warriors out

there don’t care where it came from as long as it has the desired impact on the battlefield.”12 Other generals insist, “At the

operational level of warfare, air and space are absolutely identical.”13 Are they claiming that air and space are essentially

the same at all levels of warfare? There seems to be some confusion in the minds of aerospace integrationists about exactly

where the art and science of airpower and spacepower converge within the seamless medium they have constructed. 

39

SMITH
While it is certainly true that tactical-level war fighters do

not care where support comes from, they are particular about

the type of support they receive. Some aircraft and spacecraft

perform similar missions (reconnaissance, surveillance, communications), but the type of support each can deliver is different. This is because aircraft and spacecraft operate in different media with vastly different ranges and speeds relative to

targets—and they are constrained differently by the physical

laws of motion. This means the differences between airpower

and spacepower are important to theater commanders, component commanders, and operational planning staffs—at least

they ought to be! These people are involved with creating the

plans that connect the ends with the means in warfare. If the

means are different, so must be the plan. 

Airpower and spacepower present war planners with different means to accomplish the ends they seek. At the tactical

level of warfare, airmen and space professionals practice entirely different sets of war-fighting skills—flying an aircraft in

a theater of operations is dramatically different from operating

a global network of satellites from a remote site in the continental United States (CONUS). At the operational level of warfare, air operations centers (AOC) around the globe focus almost exclusively on the air situation in their respective

theaters. Conversely, the one and only Air Force Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base (AFB), California,

maintains a global perspective and tasks its assets to support

users worldwide.14 At the strategic level of warfare, combined/joint force commanders obtain their space support via

a supported/supporting relationship from USCINCSPACE. At

the grand strategic level of national policy, the president and

several agencies frequently task space assets independently of

other forces in the DOD to achieve political ends.15

The physical remoteness and the laws of orbital motion in

space create several defining operational characteristics of

spacepower that separate it from other forms of power. In Modern Strategy, Colin S. Gray points out several of the inherent

advantages associated with operating above the transverse region in the space environment. 

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First, space is but the latest variant of the “high ground”

that doctrine often advises military commanders to seize and

hold. As with forces on all kinds of high ground, space systems

look down on friend and foe and are relatively difficult to reach

and grasp. To attack uphill had never been easy; to attack up

the Earth’s gravity well would continue that military condition.

Second, the high ground of space is both global and of all but

infinite military depth. The country or coalition which can operate at will in space is able thereby to operate from the highest vantage points. And finally, space power, obedient to Keplarian laws of orbital motion, translates as satellites that can

be available globally as either a regularly repeating or a constant overhead presence.16

Gray also points out some of the operational limitations imposed by the space environment: 

Spacepower has several limitations. The high cost of transportation

into orbit (i.e., launch costs) limits the pace of advance of military, scientific, and commercial space systems. . . . Next, the laws of orbital motion that govern celestial bodies are a permanent constraint upon the

flexibility with which spacepower can be employed; those laws can be

overridden to a degree, but only with a virtual attrition in payload imposed by the fuel necessary to achieve some anti-Keplarian agility. . . .

Predictability “on orbital station,” or predictable orbital passage, is

both a blessing and a vulnerability. The orbital task calculated by us

to provide the necessary terrestrial support is also calculable by the

anti-satellite weapon systems of the foe. [Finally,] it is in the nature of

spacepower to be distant from terrestrial events. Although it is the distance overhead that is militarily beneficial, still distance from Earth is

an important limitation.17

The issues that Gray raises about operating in space are similar to those faced by practitioners in the other media. Operators

in all media are concerned about the high ground, presence,

cost, maneuver, defensibility, and range. Gray argues that these

similarities exist because “spacepower . . . is not governed by a

distinctive strategic logic,” rather it follows the same strategic

logic that applies to any independent medium of operations.18 A

listing of Gray’s other insightful observations regarding space as

it relates to its nature as an operational medium can be found

in appendixes B and C of this study.

The advantages and limitations of spacepower that Gray

identifies are no surprise. Space professionals understood

these enduring characteristics of space operations at the outset

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SMITH
of the space age. Many authors have addressed these characteristics as a way to appreciate the differences between air

and space operations. Lt Col Michael R. Mantz is one such

author.

Air and space are operationally different. Aircraft have maximum maneuverability, while spacecraft have greater altitude

and speed, but can’t maneuver [with even a fraction of an aircraft’s agility and flexibility]. The principles of war of mass and

maneuver certainly do not apply in the same way. Aircraft can

mass repeatedly through maneuver over a target, while spacecraft can mass for short periods after great effort, but will disperse almost immediately with a repeat manning unlikely. Aircraft operations are “on demand,” while spacecraft operations

are “as scheduled” or “when available.”19

The space medium therefore requires its own concept of

operations—integrated with all other forms of national and

military power but fully accommodating the unique physical

and operational attributes of spacepower.

Perhaps the most important distinction between space and

the other media is found in the political arena. Numerous

space-specific treaties, agreements, and arrangements of customary law separate space from the terrestrial media. If air

and space are truly a seamlessly integrated medium of operations, then why do spacecraft have unrestricted overflight

rights whereas aircraft do not? Why is an aircraft carrying

bombs aloft not considered the weaponization of space? Why

did the UN pass a nonbinding resolution in November 1999

calling upon governments to “contribute actively to the prevention of an arms race in outer space and to refrain from actions contrary to that objective?”20 The answers to these questions are rooted in the fact that the international community

understands space as a separate and distinct operational

medium. Different political rules apply to space, as demonstrated by the following space-specific treaties the United

States has agreed to abide by: 

• The 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty, which prohibits any

nuclear weapon test, or any other nuclear explosion in

outer space.

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• The 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which proscribes placing

weapons of mass destruction in space or on the moon or

other celestial bodies for any military purposes.

• The 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, which prohibits the development, testing, or deployment of spacebased components of an antiballistic missile system.

• A number of arms control treaties that are intended to

prohibit the United States and Russia from interfering

with the other’s use of satellites for monitoring treaty

compliance.

• The 1980 Environmental Modification Convention, which

prohibits all hostile actions that might cause long-lasting,

severe, or widespread environmental effects in space.21

The political implications of military spacepower are quite

apparent, in that a powerful international lobby wants to preserve space as a peaceful sanctuary. Many fear that conducting offensive operations in, from, or through space has the potential to destabilize the global power structure and cause

unpredictable security dilemmas. Several nations voice this

concern regularly through the UN Secretariat of the Conference on Disarmament.22 

If Clausewitz is correct that war is an extension of politics,

and if space has a unique set of political considerations associated with its use, then military planners at all levels of warfare must be very careful to employ spacepower consistent

with the political aims of the war.23 In most cases, this will be

in a manner quite different from the employment of airpower.

Operations in the space medium will likely require their own

rules of engagement apart from those guiding other forms of

military power because of the unique set of political constraints regarding space.

The physical, operational, and political nature of space set

it apart from the terrestrial media. These factors are especially

important to military planners at all levels of warfare because

spacepower has several unique planning considerations that

must be taken into account when designing the means to

achieve the desired effects (objectives) in the battle space. This

makes space a distinct operational medium. 

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Proposition No. 2

The Essence of Spacepower Is

Global Access and Global Presence

This is Friendship 7 . . . Zero “G” and I feel fine . . . Oh, that

view is tremendous!

—Mercury Astronaut John Glenn

Like most Americans, President Eisenhower could never forget Pearl Harbor. His scientific advisor, James Killian, remarked that Eisenhower “remained ‘haunted’ . . . throughout

his presidency by the threat of surprise nuclear attack on the

United States.”24 Indeed, a survey conducted in the mid-1950s

indicated that more than half of all Americans believed they

were more likely to die in a nuclear attack than from old age.25

Feeding this sense of paranoia was the closed nature of the

Soviet Union, which, as Eisenhower noted, gave them an advantage in planning a secret attack when compared to the

open American society.26 The problem facing the administration was how to gain access to the Soviet Union in order to assess their military capabilities and intentions.

Ultimately, the Eisenhower administration tried four methods of peeking behind the Iron Curtain. First, at the July 1955

Geneva Four Power Summit Conference, the president proposed an initiative called “Open Skies,” wherein US and Soviet

reconnaissance aircraft would freely overfly each other’s country.27 The Soviets rejected this initiative. Second, in January

1956, Eisenhower authorized the release of reconnaissance

balloons to overfly the Soviet Union under the guise that they

were merely weather balloons. This practice ended a few days

later amidst serious Soviet protests and very few useful photographs recovered.28 Third, in July 1956, the president authorized overflights by the newly operational U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. This was a great success until May 1960, when

the Soviets shot down Francis Gary Powers in a U-2 over their

homeland. In the political aftermath, the United States terminated all overflights of the Soviet Union. Shortly thereafter, Soviet space law theorist Georgi Zhukov warned that, since the

USSR had proved it could shoot down American spy planes,

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the United States would “rush development of a new method

via satellites in space.”29 How right he was! Satellite reconnaissance was the fourth method the Eisenhower administration

pursued in order to gain intelligence about the Soviet Union, but

the effort to build a spysat had begun some years earlier.

Since 1946, scientists seriously contemplated reconnaissance

satellites. In that year, the RAND Corporation published a study

titled “Preliminary Design of an Experimental World-Circling

Spaceship.” A satellite offers “an observation aircraft which cannot be brought down by an enemy . . .,” the report observed.

Other military roles included the “spotting of points of impact of

bombs launched by us, and the observation of weather conditions over enemy territory.”30 Over the next decade, politicians

and scientists alike would come to appreciate the idea of satellites as a means to access denied geographic regions, such as

the Soviet Union. This prompted the Eisenhower administration

to seek a way to establish freedom of international overflight

rights for satellites (a logical extension of their “Open Skies” policy). While the administration intended to establish the precedence of overflight rights by launching satellites as part of the

International Geophysical Year, planned for late 1957–early

1958, the Soviets beat them to the punch and shocked the

world by launching Sputnik I on 4 October 1957. Freedom of

passage in space became customary law and, later, international law.31 In August 1960, just three months after the U-2

overflights ended, satellites began returning images from inside

the Soviet Union. This information allowed political and military

leaders to shape their diplomatic and military efforts more effectively to address the real threat and not some perceived

threat based on guesswork. Space was no longer merely a science project, but an instrument of policy in the Clausewitzian

sense. True spacepower had arrived.

The driving reason for America’s initial voyage into space

was to exploit the unique element of global access, an inherent attribute of most satellites in low earth orbit (LEO).32 Jim

Oberg, author of Space Power Theory, discussed this issue. 

The primary attribute of [Earth-focused] space systems lies in their extensive view of the Earth. Ability to service large areas from a distance

of less than a thousand kilometers for most low Earth systems is the

key ingredient for stationing the vast majority of systems in space. It is

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this extended area—virtually global in nature—that not only represents spacepower’s most valuable asset, but also sets it apart from all

other forms of power. While all other forms of power are effectively regional, spacepower allows worldwide access in time spans measured in

minutes as opposed to hours and days.33

Closely related to the attribute of global access is the attribute of global presence. By placing several satellites of a particular type into orbit at certain altitudes and distribution, we create a “constellation” of satellites. The more satellites added to

the constellation, the more coverage of Earth’s surface. Another

factor, however, is the constellation’s altitude above Earth’s

surface. For example, the Iridium Satellite Company operates

66 satellites in a low Earth orbit (485 miles) that provide

telecommunications worldwide.34 Still higher, at a medium

Earth orbit (11,000 miles), USAF’s GPS employs 24 satellites to

maintain global coverage while ensuring all points on Earth are

in view to at least four satellites. Finally, at a much higher geostationary orbit (22,300 miles), only three satellites are required to provide missile warning surveillance or communications over most of the globe. At this altitude, a single satellite

views nearly 40 percent of Earth’s surface.35 However, for the

sake of redundancy and the security of overlapping coverage

areas, more than three satellites are typically used.

When selecting an orbital altitude for a particular satellite or

constellation of satellites, there is a trade-off between sensor

range to the surface of Earth and the total number of satellites

needed to provide global coverage. Traditionally, reconnaissance

and other Earth-sensing satellites are placed in low Earth orbits

in order to take advantage of the relatively close range to the surface. In order to provide global presence with these types of satellites, constellations of several hundred satellites would be required—at an enormous expense. As a result, nations have not

fielded reconnaissance satellites in sufficient numbers to yield

global omnipresence; instead, they find it adequate to accept frequent revisits by these satellites to all areas of interest.

For missions that require global coverage (navigation, communications, and missile warning), economic factors typically

drive the purchase of a few satellites placed in higher orbits to

achieve global coverage. There is another reason to place satel46

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lites on the geostationary belt, at 22,300 miles above the equator. Only on the geostationary belt can satellites remain in one

spot relative to the surface of Earth. This is particularly useful for large communications systems because users on the

surface of Earth can keep their antenna fixed in one position

instead of having to track the movements of particular satellites while perpetually moving their antenna. Customers of

telecommunications systems that employ several satellites in

low Earth orbit, such as Iridium, get around the problem of

tracking satellites and adjusting antennas by using very lowpower handsets that use omnidirectional antennas to reach

any one of the satellites in the constellation.

The essence of spacepower is global access and global presence. These attributes are often the answer to the question,

“Why do we go to space?” They are the reasons for performing

most military, civil, and commercial missions that are performed in space. This point was widely recognized only a few

years ago. In the former Air Force Doctrine Document 2-2,

Space Operations, dated 23 August 1998, a section titled

“Global Coverage” provides the following explanation:

Space-based systems in appropriate orbital deployments provide

worldwide coverage and frequent access to specific Earth locations, including those denied to terrestrial-based forces, on a recurring basis.

Unconstrained by political boundaries, satellites deployed in specific

orbits and in sufficient numbers maintain a continuous presence over

enemy [and friendly] territory....Space systems provide an instantaneous presence not available from terrestrial-based forces, permitting

the United States to leverage information to influence, deter, or compel

an adversary or affect a situation. The use of multiple space platforms

allows warfighters to exploit the various sensors, resulting in a synergistic battlespace perspective that reduces the fog of war. Although

space systems provide global coverage, some can be focused to provide

information on specific areas of interest, which can improve situational

awareness and planning tempo and can enable information dominance

for all friendly military forces. By exploiting comprehensive space capabilities, space forces can focus on and provide detailed services for a

specific geographic area and support regional planning requirements.

The attribute of global coverage offers significant advantage to Air

Force battle management. Properly positioned in sufficient numbers,

space-based systems could provide a global capability for much of the

information currently provided by airborne platforms such as the joint

surveillance, target attack radar system (JSTARS) and the Airborne

Warning and Control System (AWACS).36

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There is a great risk that the Air Force is losing sight of the

essence of spacepower in its fervor to advance aerospace integration. The latest version of this document, dated 27 November

2001, fails to articulate the unique global access and global

presence of spacepower that set it apart from all other forms of

power.37 Doing so would undercut the aerospace argument that

air and space are a seamless operational continuum.

In reality, the different attributes of airpower and spacepower mean they do different things, and whatever they do

that is similar is nevertheless done differently. For example,

aircraft do not routinely overfly politically denied areas. Spacecraft do. Airpower does not provide a global presence. Spacepower does. Airpower is much closer to the fight than spacepower, but several capabilities provided by spacepower are

always present during war and peace, whether or not terrestrial forces are present. 

When airmen speak of the global nature of airpower, they

mean something very different from what space professionals

mean when they speak of the global nature of spacepower. An

airman means that airpower has global reach. Global reach is

the ability of an aircraft to take off from point A and travel to

point B anywhere on the globe to achieve an objective. In contrast, a space professional means that some spacepower assets provide nearly ubiquitous presence around the entire

globe with some capabilities while other spacepower assets

provide frequent revisits of all areas of the globe with other capabilities. Spacepower provides its effects across the globe all

the time. This is because global access and global presence

comprise the essence of spacepower. 

Proposition No. 3

Spacepower Is Composed

of a State’s Total Space Activity

Air power is not composed alone of the war-making components of aviation. It is the total aviation activity; civilian and

military, commercial and private, potential as well as existing.

—Gen Henry H. “Hap” Arnold

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Space power is not composed alone of the war-making

components of space. It is the total space activity; civil,

commercial, defense, and intelligence, potential as well as

existing.

—M. V. Smith’s Space Corollary to

Arnold’s Air Power ——–————

Going to space is hard. If it were easy, mankind would likely

have gone there long before Sputnik I circled the globe in

1957.38 Taking the initial steps into space was possible because the competing superpowers, reacting to security dilemmas during the Cold War, were willing to support huge government programs to get there. This makes space unique

because government interest in both sea and air grew only

after civilian curiosity and private enterprise opened these terrestrial media. With more than four decades of spacefaring experience behind us, going to space is still difficult and expensive, even though we have answered most of the fundamental

questions and resolved many of the technical problems. 

In Space Power Theory, author Jim Oberg identifies several

attributes of a spacefaring nation. “Several basic traits are

shared by most spacefaring nations: geographical size and location, national wealth, an extensive and well-educated population, existing national power, a popular appetite for technology, and political will.”39 It is difficult to tell which of these

attributes is most important, but he claims that “spacepower

can be conceived as a combination of all the quantitative factors multiplied by the qualitative factor of will.”40 It is immediately obvious that a state must have a great deal of intellectual, industrial, and capital capacity if it is to build a

successful space program. In addition, the internal political

environment must tolerate such expenditures. A government

that must spend every available penny on social programs is

not likely to develop or sustain a space program.

In short, many things must be going right inside a state for

it to afford the investment in a start-to-finish space program.

The Russian space program, possibly the leader in the late

1950s and early 1960s, faltered in the wake of the Soviet

breakup in the early 1990s. Russia’s social needs outweighed

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the continued investment required to reconstitute their satellite constellations and meet their fiduciary commitments to

the International Space Station. Nearly 10 years after the

breakup, it appears they have resolved many of their earlier

problems and may be ready for resurgence in space. Other nations, most notably China (and perhaps India), have finally developed a national infrastructure wherein they can realistically

set the goal of conducting manned space missions.41

Spacepower in the United States migrated quickly from its

defense-related origin and evolved into four distinct sectors of

space activity: civil, commercial, defense (also referred to as

military), and intelligence. When considered together, activities in these four sectors describe US national spacepower and

become a useful template to describe the national spacepower

of other states. Peter Hays described the four sectors in Spacepower for a New Millennium. 

The US Government conducts civil space activities in order

to explore the universe and advance human knowledge. The

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) performs these missions, and they are funded by the government.

Examples include human spaceflight missions conducted

under the Apollo, Skylab, and International Space Station programs; robotic exploration performed by programs such as

Viking, Voyager, Galileo, and Mars Pathfinder; and scientific

missions of the Earth Observation System or Landsat programs. These types of civil space missions are probably the

first space activities to come to mind for most people, but they

are only the tip of the iceberg of all space activities.42

Commercial space activities are performed by the private

sector to make money. Communications satellites and

telecommunications services form the oldest and most profitable segment of the commercial space sector. Other commercial

space services that are or soon may become profitable include:

navigation and positioning, launch, and remote sensing. Many

commercial space sector activities are highly volatile economically and are governed by a complex set of international and

domestic legal regimes such as those established by the 1967

Outer Space Treaty and the Commercial Space Act of 1998.

These legal regimes are enforced by international and domes50

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tic regulatory agencies such as the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the Federal Aviation Administration.43

The intelligence space sector consists of surveillance and

reconnaissance missions designed to collect information for

use by the US government [and its allies]. Throughout the

Cold War, space-based intelligence gathering activities, such

as the Keyhole (KH) photo reconnaissance satellites, and the

organizations involved in procuring and operating these systems, such as the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO),

were highly classified or “black” due to the political sensitivities and cutting-edge technologies involved in this sector. Spy

satellites are often given great credit for helping to stabilize

the superpower relationship during the Cold War. They were

the most important national technical means of verification

(NTMV) for arms control agreements prior to the advent of onsite inspections (OSI) that were first allowed as part of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty of 1987 and,

today, are critical for a wide range of increasingly complex

missions beyond verification.44

The military space sector contains all the remaining national

security missions. These are directed by the Department of

Defense (DOD), commanded by USSPACECOM, operated primarily by Air Force Space Command (AFSPC), and provide

data streams to enhance the effectiveness of US and allied

forces worldwide. The vast majority of military sector systems

and missions are now declassified, but some aspects remain

black. Military sector missions cover a wide variety of actual

and potential activities that range from supporting space operations to applying force to, in, and from space.45

Hays points out that there is substantial overlap between

these four sectors,46 which creates opportunities for the sectors

to leverage off one another to yield a synergistic effect. They

often combine research dollars and readily adapt technologies

from other sectors to their own. They share facilities and resources such as the eastern and western ranges and the Air

Force Satellite Control Network (AFSCN). More important,

they provide redundancy in satellite commanding, commercial asset leasing to cover requirements, debris avoidance

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warning, and space object tracking (space surveillance). This

not only builds a more robust national spacepower, but also

creates a new dynamic that complicates the policy-making

process for space.

Military use of civil and commercial systems will pose many

questions as yet unanswered. For example, is a commercial

satellite system a valid target if it is providing information to an

adversary? Is it legitimate to strike an adversary’s satellite control network if it provides support services to international consortia? While these questions and many others remain unanswered, the mixing of commercial, civil, and military assets in

other arenas raises the same types of challenging questions.

The most important development in national spacepower

has been the rise of the commercial sector. In the late 1990s,

international commercial investment in space finally exceeded

the combined spending of all governments in space. This

marks a clear turning point. In the words of the Space Commission Report, “Unlike the earlier era, in which governments

drove activity in space, in this new era certain space applications, such as communications, are being driven by the commercial sector. An international space industry has developed,

with revenues exceeding $80 billion in 2000. Industry forecasts project revenues will more than triple in the next

decade.”47 Space is now a place for business, capital investment, and profit.

It seems likely that market forces will now dictate the cost

of space programs, regardless of the sector. Although the military and intelligence sectors will undoubtedly have somewhat

unique requirements, it is likely that most of their systems or

subsystems will be compatible with commercially available

systems. The advantage of using commercial off-the-shelf systems is in the tremendous cost savings over having to develop

entirely new systems, as was the case only a few years ago. 

The rise of the commercial space sector also brings space

much closer to every human on the planet. We do not know how

deeply spacepower will touch the fabric of our lives, but we are

confident that the effects will be significant.

Space-based technology is revolutionizing major aspects of

commercial and social activity and will continue to do so as

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the capacity and capabilities of satellites increase through

emerging technologies. Space enters homes, businesses,

schools, hospitals and government offices through its applications for transportation, health, the environment, telecommunications, education, commerce, agriculture, and energy.

Space-based technologies and services permit people to communicate, companies to do business, civic groups to serve the

public, and scientists to conduct research. Much like highways and airways, water lines and electric grids, services supplied from space are already an important part of the US and

global infrastructures.48

However, unlike aviation pioneers who made the public

more air-minded by providing very exciting and tangible examples of airpower, such as air transportation, barnstorming

(air shows), and air races, spacepower remains relatively hidden. Spacefaring states must therefore keep the imaginations

of their citizens sparked to the idea and potential of spacepower because only states of high science and energized industry can sustain a space program. A permanent commitment to the hard sciences and the strategic arts will be

required to make it all possible. In other words, “No bucks, no

Buck Rogers.” The bucks begin with building a space-minded

nation because spacepower is ultimately composed of a state’s

total space activity.

Proposition No. 4

Spacepower Must Be Centrally

Controlled by a Space Professional

[Space] warfare cannot be separated into little packets; it

knows no boundaries on land and sea [or air] other than

those imposed by the radius of action of the [space]craft; it

is a unity and demands unity of command.

—Air Marshal Arthur Tedder –

(“space” substituted for “air”)

Did we not learn anything in North Africa? When Operation

Torch began in November 1942, airpower was neither independent nor centralized because senior army officers, both

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British and American, insisted on controlling their own airpower to provide local protection and deal with local problems.49 The results were disastrous. Many historians assert

that the early failures of Torch, especially the Battle of Kasserine Pass, can be blamed on ground leaders who failed to listen

to their airmen’s advice on controlling air resources.50 The solution to the problem was to give airmen what they had clamored for since the First World War: centralized control of airpower at the theater level by an airman with close liaison to

Army headquarters.51 With this change, airmen went from following orders to filling requests—with the freedom to manage

airpower in the most efficient manner their expertise made

possible.52 With centralized control and close coordination

with ground forces, the Allied air forces quickly turned the tide

on the Luftwaffe and hastened the defeat of Germany’s Afrika

Korps.53

Nearly 60 years later, the Air Force is making the same mistake with spacepower by promulgating in its basic doctrine

that “Air and space power must be controlled by an airman who

maintains a broad strategic and/or theater perspective in prioritizing the use of limited air and space assets to attain the objectives of all US forces in any contingency across the range of

operations.”54 The idea that an airman with a theater perspective should ever control space assets, which are properly

“tasked and assigned from a global perspective,” should send

shivers up the backs of military leaders.55 Think North Africa!

Here rises a conflict in the aerospace integration argument.

Physical differences aside, air and space do not form a seamlessly integrated operational medium because airpower is best

managed from a theater perspective while spacepower is best

managed from a global perspective.56 Airpower focuses on

providing effects that support a combined or joint force commander; spacepower focuses on providing effects that support

all joint war fighters and civil users around the globe.57

Airpower is a theater-focused form of military power, which

is why independent air components exist in every theater. Socalled “global airpower” assets such as B-2 Stealth bombers

support only one theater at a time. Airpower has essentially

achieved global reach with theater assets. Conversely, space

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assets must be controlled apart from the many pockets of airpower to allow space professionals to properly prioritize and

optimize support for multiple users around the globe. These

factors culminate in the need for space professionals to centrally control spacepower from a global perspective to achieve

the greatest economy of force while supporting the highest priority needs of all users—especially the joint war fighters. 

Space assets must not be broken into “penny packets” by allowing airmen (or anyone else) in various theaters of operation

to control whatever space assets are present or in view of their

theater.58 Doing so would result in friction caused by the lack

of a centralized mechanism to eliminate duplication or to prioritize limited resources as war fighters in adjacent theaters

compete for the same space assets. Also, allowing theater control of satellites in low, medium, or highly elliptical orbits

would likely degrade the readiness of those satellites to perform their missions on the opposite side of the globe.59 Such a

situation would bring a “déjà vu” of North Africa and Kasserine Pass.

Conflict occurs over the issue of who will exercise operational control of space forces.60 Current doctrine is a victim of

editors who have simply replaced the word air with aerospace

or air and space in an honest attempt to be inclusive.61 Unfortunately, doing so “force fits” the attributes of airpower to

spacepower and the theater mind-set of airmen to space professionals, creating an endless source of confusion.62

In its zest for aerospace integration, the Air Force now refers

to its various theater AOCs as “aerospace” or “air and space”

operations centers. This signals an increasing effort by the Air

Force to coordinate and control space support and counterspace operations for the entire theater, a job arguably best left

to the combined or joint staff because it involves coordinating

space support for all theater components from a CONUSbased unified command (USSPACECOM).63 The role of the

handful of space professionals inside each AOC is to advise

the air component commander on space operations and spend

the rest of their time coordinating with unified commands and

space centers in the CONUS. It is questionable whether an airman (or anyone) can readily switch between a theater per55

SMITH
spective when employing airpower and a global perspective when

employing spacepower—the example of Army leaders not listening to their airmen advisors in North Africa arises yet again.

In considering where to centralize the control of space

forces, the importance of the operator’s perspective or mindset cannot be overemphasized. Gen Wilbur L. Creech, former

commander of Tactical Air Command, credits the success of

the AirLand Battle doctrine to Gen Donn A. Starry, commander of the US Army’s Training and Doctrine Center in the

1980s. Creech claims that Starry “saw combat in a much

broader perspective than the traditional Army.”64 It was the

first time the Army recognized a theater perspective beyond

the corps area, and it acknowledged the legitimacy of the airman’s mind-set.65 Creech asserts that this mutual understanding laid the foundation for modern joint operations,

which were proven in Desert Storm.66

This lesson of mutual understanding and joint partnership

appears lost on airmen who cannot appreciate the necessary

differences between the theater mind-set of airmen and the

global mind-set of space professionals. The insistence that air

and space form a single operational medium called aerospace

is a roadblock, as is the denial that the effects spacepower

shares with land power and sea power are just as great as

those shared with airpower. 

Just as the expanded mind-set of airmen drove their need

for centralized theater-level control of airpower by an airman,

so too, the further expanded mind-set of space professionals

drives their insistence that spacepower must be centrally controlled by a space professional. 

Proposition No. 5

Spacepower Is a Coercive Force

The photoreconnaissance satellite is one of the most important military technological developments of this century,

along with radar and the atomic bomb. Without it, the history of this century would be very different. Indeed, without

it history might well have ceased.

—Jeffrey Richelson, 1990

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We are entering an era—if we have not already entered it—

when the use of space will exert such influence on human

affairs that no nation can be regarded as a world power or

remain a world power unless it possesses significant space

capabilities.

—Gen Robert T. Herres

On 11 May 1998, India surprised the world by detonating nuclear devices. The international diplomatic response was immediate and quite negative, including such headlines as “Pakistan

Feels Let Down by US Spy Satellites” and “India Tricks US Satellites.”67 The Pakistanis were counting on the United States to

provide advance warning, presumably so their government could

take whatever actions deemed necessary for state security.68 Indian officials later revealed that they managed to conceal the

tests from US satellites by conducting nuclear tests “when sandstorms normally swept across the Thar Desert and intense heat

could disrupt surveillance sensors. Activity was also timed

around the flights of spy satellites.”69

American spacepower clearly failed to deter India from conducting nuclear testing, but the presence of surveillance and

reconnaissance satellites did force India to work around the

gaps in satellite coverage. This begs the question of whether

persistent coverage of India by spy satellites would have deterred India from detonating a nuclear device. Unfortunately,

there is no way to answer this question. According to Maj

Christopher J. Kinnan, however, round-the-clock satellite coverage does not necessarily bring about the desired behavior:

“Coercive spacepower is not a foolproof means of bringing

about a desired change in adversary behavior, no more so

than coercive air, land, and seapower.”70

In Arms and Influence, Thomas C. Shelling describes coercion as “finding a bargain, arranging for [an adversary] to be

better off doing what we want—worse off not doing what we

want—when he takes the threatened penalty into account.”71

Robert Pape simplifies this idea somewhat when he describes

coercion as “efforts to change the behavior of a state by manipulating costs and benefits.”72 Coercion can take two basic

forms. The first is deterrence, which seeks to preserve the sta57

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tus quo by discouraging an opponent from changing his behavior. The second is compellence, which comprises a wide

range of strategies that may include any combination of national instruments of power to force an opponent into accepting the terms of the coercer.73

Traditionally, spacepower’s claim as a coercive force rests

on the deterrent value of surveillance and reconnaissance

satellites. Surveillance satellites that detect missile launch are

an integrated part of America’s nuclear deterrent architecture.

The early detection capability they provide makes it possible

for the United States to formulate retaliation strategies that

may include launching its intercontinental ballistic missile

(ICBM) force on warning instead of absorbing an adversary’s

first strike. This may negate the value of a first strike designed

to eliminate America’s ICBM force in their silos. This form of

coercion raises the cost and risk for any adversary who would

attack the United States.

Another deterrent value of spacepower is its ability to serve as

a national technical means of verification (NTMV) for arms control agreements. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START)

prescribes the method of demolishing bombers and missile

silos in ways that facilitate satellite verification. Frequent

satellite inspection of the demolished equipment deters either

state from attempting to break the treaty and raises the cost

for any adversary who would fail to comply with arms control

agreements.

Some may argue that the reaction of politicians and diplomats armed with the information gleaned from satellites is the

real deterrent force, not spacepower itself. And it is true that

deterrence is based on the presumption that undesirable actions will meet with undesirable consequences. It nevertheless

remains that the presence of surveillance and reconnaissance

satellites themselves shapes a potential adversary’s behavior.

India’s having worked around spacepower’s operating limitations to build a nuclear weapon is evidence of this fact. Indian

officials had no way of knowing whether the reconnaissance

satellites passing overhead were operational. Still, they reacted as though they were operational. 

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In the past, spacepower’s coercive force rested upon its deterrent value. However, spacepower is increasingly contributing to compellence efforts as well. The decade of the 1990s

ushered with it an evolution of the spacepower mission. GPS,

only a budding technology during Operation Desert Storm, enabled the US Army to maneuver flawlessly through the desert

of the Middle East. However, with the advent of technologies

such as Joint Direct Attack Munitions, spacepower began to

play a more direct role in the force application mission.74 In

this sense, spacepower is moving from an information role to

being an integral part of the “sensor to shooter kill chains.”75

This reality is beginning to gray the lines between force enhancement and force application, and between deterrence and

compellence, though the tide is still probably closer to enhancement and deterrence.76

Looking ahead, it appears that spacepower will continue to

grow as a coercive force. Improved intelligence, surveillance,

and reconnaissance (ISR) satellite networks will improve

spacepower’s deterrence potential and close the gaps in our

coverage that India found and exploited. Space will eventually

be weaponized, and space weaponization will bolster both deterrence and compellence capabilities. Obviously, both of these

developments will have far-reaching geopolitical and strategic

impacts. US strategists are carefully assessing these potentialities.

Maj Gen Lance L. Smith, commander of the Air Force Doctrine

Center, was the senior leader in the Schriever 2001 space war

game held at Colorado’s Schriever AFB in January 2001.77 In the

scenario, he played the commander of a bolstered US Space

Force that had at its disposal a wide variety of potential

space-based improvements that may become reality by the 2017

time frame in which the war game was set. In a press interview

during the war game, he explained that spacepower is a coercive

force that may offer the ability to suppress a potential adversary

without resorting to actual force. “Today, we use lethal options

when we want to demonstrate resolve, such as bombing

nonessential targets,” Smith said. “Space could allow us to

demonstrate to an adversary how we can hurt him militarily and

economically without actually carrying it out and force him to

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negotiate. It may allow a face-saving dimension for the enemy

which we hadn’t thought about before.”78

William Scott, a writer for Aviation Week and Space Technology, commented on these same war games: “Having a robust

space force could actually promote global stability, effectively

deter a potential aggressor, and avoid armed conflict. Simply

being able to constantly monitor the buildup of an adversary’s

forces, then publicly display imagery of them, can be a major

deterrent.”79 The United States demonstrated this at the UN

when it revealed U-2 imagery of Soviet missiles in Cuba at the

outset of the Cuban missile crisis. 

The purpose of spacepower is to achieve goals and objectives

through control and exploitation of the space environment.

This is possible because space assets collect and disseminate

information that decision makers can exploit. On another

level, the presence of space sensors deters some actors from

certain forms of behavior. Increasingly, spacepower is inside

the closed sensor-to-shooter loop—and weapons will eventually migrate to space. All of these factors indicate that spacepower is a coercive force. 

Proposition No. 6

Commercial Space Assets

Make All Actors Space Powers

Mercenaries are worth three men; one in our army, one who

is not in our enemy’s army, and one of our citizens that can

remain at work and pay taxes.

—Frederick the Great

Commercial satellites are worth three military satellites; one

in our service, one that is not in our enemy’s service, and

one less satellite program to pay for.

—M. V. Smith’s Space Corollary to 

Frederick’s Mercenaries ———-

Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous.

And if a prince holds on to his state by means of mercenary

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armies, he will never be stable or secure; for they are disunited, ambitious, without discipline, disloyal; they are

brave among friends, among enemies they are cowards.

—Machiavelli

If you have a credit card and access to a telephone or the Internet, you can build your own spacepower.80 Like the condottieri of the Italian renaissance, several companies are ready to

sell commercial space products to anyone who can meet their

price.81 The types of services for sale include photographic imagery down to 1.0-meter resolution (soon to be 0.5-meter resolution), infrared detection, radar scanning, communications,

GPS receivers, and access to refined weather data.82 Just a few

years ago, these capabilities were the exclusive privilege of the

superpowers; today, they can be yours if the price is right.

This is becoming a major issue in modern competition between actors. Among the findings of the Space Commission

was that “small nations, groups or even individuals can acquire from commercial sources imagery of targets on Earth

and in space. They can acquire accurate timing and navigation

data and critical weather information generated by governmentowned satellites. Improved command and control capabilities

are available through commercial communications capabilities. Even launch capabilities can be contracted for with legitimate companies.”83 The report goes on to note, “Commercial

satellite ground communications equipment has electronic

jamming capabilities that can easily be used to disrupt the

functions of space satellites.”84 Perhaps an even greater concern is the fact that the Aviaconversia Company in Russia “is

[openly] marketing a handheld GPS jamming system.”85 A

four-watt version of the device was displayed at the Moscow

Airshow in September 1997, with a price tag of less than

$4,000.86 Such a device threatens to jam, at ranges over 100

miles, GPS signals used to aid the navigation of aircraft and

several other weapons systems. It may also deny access to the

GPS timing signal that modern military and commercial digital networks increasingly rely upon to integrate and synchronize communications and information. 

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Commercial satellite service vendors are becoming modernday mercenaries, and the United States is helping to make

them so. During Desert Storm, more than 90 percent of all the

long-distance communications used by American forces went

through space.87 Commercial satellites provided nearly 25 percent of that service.88 At the same time, USAF purchased more

than 100 SPOT images of downtown Baghdad.89 The American

trend of using commercially derived space products to augment its own space capabilities continues to grow as the nation seeks greater cost savings by leveraging against capabilities available in the marketplace. For example, following Allied

Force, USSPACECOM estimated that 80 percent of the spaceborne communications used in the operation traveled on commercial satellites.90 As Lt Cmdr J. Todd Black stated in a

Naval War College Review article, “Commercial satellite systems are quickly becoming indispensable to the US military,

and they are almost certainly growing more useful to potential

enemy military, paramilitary, terrorist, and other unconventional forces.”91

The consequences of facing an adversary armed with the

types of information derived from commercial space systems

would be profound. If, for example, Iraq had had access to imagery and navigational data, the coalition’s victory would not

have been as easy. They might have unmasked preparations

for the ground forces’ “left hook” into Iraq.92 They certainly

weren’t expecting an attack out of their uncharted desert because the enemy knew, as Gen H. Norman Schwarzkopf points

out, “whenever his own forces went out there, they always got

lost.”93 GPS changes all of that, and modern adversaries will

use GPS to their own advantage.

There is a unique dilemma brought about by the sale of

commercial space products. It is likely that both parties in a

dispute will purchase satellite services not only from the same

company, but also derived from the same satellite. This actually happened during Operation Allied Force, wherein the Serbians leased communications bandwidth from the EUTELSAT

Corporation, a corporation that operates a fleet of communications satellites. Ironically, NATO nations were sharing a particular satellite with the Serbs. Eventually, diplomats raised

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this issue with the corporation’s Assembly of Parties, who

voted to suspend service to the Serbians until a later date.94

This raises serious legal and military issues. How should the

parties in a conflict treat a common service provider? What

legal obligations does the service provider have to the warring

parties? There is nothing in space law to establish a suitable

precedent. 

In 2001, a military exercise at Schriever AFB, Colorado, examined the problems of using commercial space products in

warfare. The war game was hypothetically set in the year 2017

with country “Red” massing forces on its border for possible

attack against its smaller neighbor, “Brown.” Brown asked

“Blue” (presumably the United States) for help. On Day 3 of

the game, privately owned foreign satellites became a key

issue. The Blue side asked the foreign firms not to provide

services to Red. In response, Red tried to buy up all available

services to constrain the US military, which relies heavily on

commercial space satellites for many of its communications

[and other capabilities]. Red offered to pay far more than is

customary. Blue then said it would top Red’s offer. The eight

people playing the foreign firms responded that they would

honor their contracts, which left Blue worried and unhappy.

Robert Hegstrom, the game’s director, concluded that “dealing

with third party commercial providers is going to be a priority

for USCINCSPACE.”95

There are still no good solutions to the military problems

presented by commercial satellites. In “The Opening Skies:

Third-Party Imaging Satellites and US Security,” author Ann

M. Florini states that militaries have three basic options in

dealing with commercial imaging satellites, although Black

claims these options also apply to other satellite types as well.

The first option is to adopt a free market approach, simply

attempting to outbid one’s opponent or beat him to the punch

by obtaining contracts early. The second option is to attempt

to negotiate agreed restraints in the marketplace and international assemblies. The final approach is taking direct countermeasures against satellites, their data-gathering assets, or

their ground systems.96 It is likely that some states will attempt a combination of all three approaches, but there is no

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telling what courses of action the various actors around the

globe will ultimately pursue.

The problems presented by commercial space assets are still

so new that no one has yet decided how best to handle them.

While advanced nations use commercial satellites to augment

their own intrinsic space assets, new actors now have access

to information that levels the informational playing field considerably. There is no doubt that various actors will covet commercial satellites that will be available from the new mercenaries. The bottom line is that all actors can become space

powers through commercial space assets. 

Proposition No. 7

Spacepower Assets Form

a National Center of Gravity

Space is becoming an economic center of gravity for the

United States and may well become such for other nations.

—Gen Howell M. Estes III

USCINCSPACE, 1997—

Space . . . is increasingly at the center of our national and

economic security . . . [S]pace is not just a military, but also

an economic center of gravity, and unarguably, a vital national interest.

—Gen Richard B. Myers

USCINCSPACE, 1999.

In On War, Clausewitz describes a center of gravity as “the

hub of all power and movement, on which everything depends.”97 It is therefore a source of strength and at the same

time a vulnerability requiring protection. He claims it is “always

found where the mass is concentrated most densely.”98

Clausewitz concedes, however, that an enemy may possess

several centers of gravity. “It is therefore a major act of strategic judgment to distinguish these centers of gravity in the

enemy’s forces and to identify their spheres of effectiveness.”99

By identifying where their spheres of effectiveness overlap, it

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becomes possible to trace multiple centers of gravity back to a

single one.100 If it is possible to reduce the enemy’s centers of

gravity to one, “it represents the most effective target for a

blow.”101 In essence, Clausewitz is describing the logic behind

nodal analysis and effects-based targeting. 

Spacepower assets (satellites, ground stations, and data

links) are not the national center of gravity, but they are centers of gravity. They have spheres of effectiveness that overlap

in sectors of civil, commercial, military, and intelligence activities. The relative value of spacepower assets depends on how

much an actor uses them and for what. For a small state such

as Burundi, spacepower assets do not form a significant center of gravity, although they are a potential space power by

virtue of access to commercial space products. However, as

Barry Watts points out, “American requirements for global

power projection suggest that the Unites States is more dependent on space systems than other countries.”102 In effect,

spacepower assets are a larger center of gravity for the United

States than for other countries at the turn of the twenty-first

century. Each space sector—civil, commercial, military, and

intelligence—deserves separate consideration as a center of

gravity. Each sector also overlaps its sphere of effectiveness

with other space and terrestrial interests.

Civil Space Sector 

The civil space sector does much more than manned space

flight and space exploration for scientific curiosity. It is a driving engine of scientific research and discovery. Many of the improvements in telecommunications, microelectronics, computing, and machine engineering that we enjoy today have roots

in space research sponsored by programs such as Mercury,

Gemini, Apollo, and others. Scientific and technological spin-offs

from the civil space sector not only fuel high-tech commercial

industries, they also generate popular enthusiasm and promote the types of educational programs in math and science

that fuel a high-tech society. Centers of research for the civil

space sector represent highly attractive espionage targets but,

as the Challenger disaster in 1986 demonstrated, fatal glitches

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in the manned space program can significantly impact

progress in this sector. 

Commercial Space Sector 

The biggest change in spacefaring activities is the recent

emergence and now dominance of the commercial space sector. Whereas governments drove space activity in the early

days of space venturing, commercial businesses launched

more payloads into space than governments in the late 1990s.

Business revenues exceeded $80 billion in 2000 and are projected to more than triple in the next decade.103 While this is

a drop in the bucket of the overall global economy in terms of

dollars, it is far more important to consider the type of information collected or moved by the commercial space sector and

the capabilities that will be lost if these satellites are negated.

Commercial satellites carry banking information, credit card

authorization networks, video feeds for cable and broadcast

feeds, cellular telephone networks, pager networks, communications networks, and corporate communications systems. All

rely heavily on the commercial space sector.104

In addition, the armed forces increasingly rely on commercial satellites as gap fillers for their own space systems and as

backups if military satellites should fail. In sum, the commercial space sector is not only a profit maker but, more important, it provides an infrastructure for key pieces of governmental, military, and economic information. Of greatest

concern are the relatively few commercial satellites that are

important to society as a whole and that are poorly protected.

They present a highly attractive target set to adversaries.

Military Space Sector 

Political leaders and terrestrial forces rely increasingly on informational support from space in order to find, fix, track, target, and guide munitions against enemy targets. It is an overstatement to claim that terrestrial forces are dependent on

space support, but it is fair to say that space support facilitates

greater situational awareness in the battle space and thereby

increases the timing, tempo, and precision of friendly forces.

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Without space support, political leaders and terrestrial

forces would operate more slowly, using previous generations

of technology. There is a growing union between the military

services and commercial space sectors. The armed forces increasingly rely on commercial services in lieu of fielding dedicated military systems. This propels the commercial sector forward by providing capital, but it limits the military to generic

services instead of highly specialized capabilities. Military systems also assist the commercial and civil sectors. USAF, for

example, provides global access to the GPS, allowing the commercial market to profit by selling receivers to the civilian market. US Space Command provides space object tracking to all

the space sectors. Still, the satellites operated by the military

represent an advantage over adversaries who lack similar capabilities. Any adversary who bases its strategy on leveling the

technological playing field must consider targeting military

satellites.

Intelligence Space Sector 

It is sometimes difficult to separate the military and intelligence space sectors in terms of operations since they work

hand-in-hand to provide capabilities to political leaders for assistance in achieving the goals of policy. The separation came

about during the Cold War when the Eisenhower administration established the NRO, a “black” organization shrouded in

secrecy until the 1990s, to operate spy satellites that would

peer behind the Iron Curtain. Conversely, the military became

the repository for openly acknowledged “white” space systems.

Although the actual missions and capabilities of many military

systems remained classified, they did not intrude on the

NRO’s intelligence-gathering mission. Today, the NRO employs

its satellites as a NTMV for treaty compliance and to provide

critical ISR support to political leaders and military forces.

Like the military, the intelligence sector increasingly buys

services from the commercial sector to complete its imaging

and other sensing and communications requirements. Satellites of the intelligence space sector, in concert with surveillance platforms in the military space sector, act as global sentries. Together, they keep a watch on potential trouble areas

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and signal political and military leaders whenever trouble is

afoot. These satellites are likely targets early in a conflict with

an adversary who seeks to preserve secrecy or gain the element of surprise. 

There is tremendous overlap between the sectors. Satellite

systems often share the same intellectual and industrial base,

the same launch facilities, the same control network, and

sometimes the same portions of the electromagnetic spectrum.

These overlaps present highly lucrative targets to an adversary. A single asset, such as a communications satellite, may

carry signals for hundreds or thousands of users all at once.

Any degradation to a satellite supporting multiple users has

an immediate global effect that reduces a state’s ability to operate abroad. However, access to similar commercial space assets adds capacity to a state’s spacepower architecture from a

third party, which suggests there may always be some access

to space services even in a war that exacts high attrition on a

state’s proprietary spacepower assets. 

The importance of spacepower to the United States is widely

recognized by political and military leaders alike. Increasingly,

the use of space is viewed not only as an inherent force multiplier, but also as a vulnerability that must be addressed. 

Soon after assuming command of the US Space Command,

General Estes noted that “we are the world’s most successful

space-faring nation . . . one of the major reasons the United

States holds its current position in today’s league of nations.

But we are also the world’s most space-dependent nation,

thereby making us vulnerable to hostile groups or powers

seeking to disrupt our access to, and use of, space. For this

reason, it is vital to our national security that we protect and

safeguard our interests in space. The ability of our potential

adversaries to affect our advantage in space is growing. We, in

military space, are just now beginning to consider and deal

with these threats.”105

The US armed forces currently use spacepower assets for

two primary purposes: (1) to improve the situational awareness of its forces; and (2) as a means of command, control,

and communications with its forces. The United States essentially exploits spacepower assets as a permanent informa68

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tional infrastructure that is globally available to friendly

forces. This allows friendly forces to operate on interior lines of

information around the globe. 

No claim is made that US military forces are neutered without space support. Terrestrial forces can still fight without

space support. However, the absence of space support will

inarguably increase the fog, friction, and overall costs of military operations. If friendly forces’ access to space is terminated, they will be forced to move information on exterior

lines. 

An attack that totally neutralizes America’s spacepower assets may not, of itself, be decisive. However, if an adversary

can increase the fog, friction, and costs of American operations by striking some or all of its spacepower assets, it may

turn the tide of battle against US forces and set up the conditions necessary to defeat the United States. 

As space products and services become ever more interwoven with American politics, economics, culture, and security, they become increasingly attractive targets for potential

adversaries.106 This is rooted in the basic logic spelled out by

Clausewitz. When that logic is extrapolated to the twenty-first

century, we understand that spacepower assets form a national center of gravity.

Proposition No. 8

Space Control Is Not Optional

Whereas those who have the capability to control the air,

control the land and sea beneath it, so in the future it is

likely that those who have the capability to control space

will likewise control the Earth’s surface.

—Gen Thomas D. White

Control of space means control of the world, far more certainly, far more totally than any control that has been

achieved by weapons or troops of occupation. Space is the

ultimate position, the position of total control over Earth.

—Lyndon Baines Johnson

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Whoever can seize control of space—that main area of future wars—will be able to change the correlation of forces so

decisively that it will be tantamount to establishing world

supremacy.

—G. Sibiryakov and A. Khabarov 

Unimpeded access to and use of space is and will remain a

vital national interest.

—Annual Defense Review, 2001

In the Second World War, sea power held vastly different

strategic significance for the Allies than it did for Germany.

The Allies depended upon freedom of the sea to logistically

connect the alliance and to take the war to their continental

foe. Germany, on the other hand, had little need for the sea,

other than to deny its use to her enemies.107 Accordingly, Germany dedicated substantial resources to build submarines,

which formed wolf packs to interdict Allied shipping in the Atlantic. Germany’s early successes cost the Allies precious time

and resources. Prime Minister Winston Churchill later commented, “The only thing that truly scared me during the Second World War was the Battle of the Atlantic.”108 Fortunately

for us, Germany was unable to capitalize on the increased fog

and friction their U-boats caused. In the end, the Allies gained

control of the sea and ultimately defeated the Axis powers. 

Today, the strategic significance of spacepower for the

United States is vastly different from the significance it holds

for other countries. “At the dawn of the 21st century, the preeminent user of near-Earth space for military purposes is the

United States . . . [which] is currently far ahead of any other

nation in the capability to exploit orbital systems for the enhancement of terrestrial military operations.”109 Friendly

forces stationed or deployed worldwide can plug into American

space systems to receive services that increase situational

awareness, improve precision engagement, and expedite command and control. American spacepower forms a global informational infrastructure that essentially improves the timing,

tempo, and precision of US operations beyond the ability of

adversaries to respond in kind. This translates into a very

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compelling incentive for adversaries to counter American

space lines of communications, whether or not they themselves are spacefaring nations.110

To date, the United States has enjoyed complete freedom to

capitalize on space systems to bolster its national power, at

the same time becoming increasingly reliant on space systems

for its economic and military success. In fact, the Space Commission Report states, “The US is more dependent on space

than any other nation.” The ability for US political and military

leaders to take for granted unimpeded access to space-based

capabilities may be rapidly coming to an end, however, as Gen

Richard B. Myers, USCINCSPACE, noted in January 2001.111

We can’t be deceived by the fact that we enjoyed space dominance in Kosovo and in the Gulf War. We controlled the high

ground, not because of superior technologies or strategies, but

because our adversaries didn’t use space. We gained space superiority by default; this was our bye round, and a key takeaway is that the whole world took notice. Just as Milosevic

modified his air defenses to try and deny our air superiority,

others will modify their forces to try and deny our space superiority.112

Other nations did take notice. In July 2000, a Chinese news

agency reported that its military is developing the means to

defeat American space-based systems, stating that “for countries that could never win a war by using the method of tanks

and planes, attacking the US space systems may be an irresistible and most tempting choice.”113 Subsequently, China

revealed that it is developing tiny “parasitic satellites” for use

as antisatellite weapons, claiming that this development will

“drastically change the Chinese–American military balance so

that the United States would not intervene easily in the event

of a conflict in the Taiwan Strait.”114 Despite mounting evidence

that more nations intend to challenge America’s space dominance, American space control efforts have focused heavily on

tracking objects on orbit (space surveillance) and not on defending friendly space assets or negating adversary space

threats. There is a growing concern that, without a concerted

and balanced space control effort, America might be setting itself up for a “Space Pearl Harbor.”115

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There is, however, a new awakening to the space threat

among Washington insiders. In the 2000 Annual Defense Review (ADR), the secretary of defense characterized space control as posing a “significant challenge to U.S. defense strategy.”116 However, in the 2001 ADR, the secretary of defense

raised the relative importance of space control to a “vital national security interest” and succinctly described space control. 

The ability of the United States to access and utilize space

is a vital national security interest because many of the activities conducted in space are critical to its national security and

economic well-being. Potential adversaries may target and attack US, allied, and commercial space assets during crisis or

conflict as an asymmetric means to counter or reduce US military operational effectiveness, intelligence capabilities, economic and societal posture, and national will. Therefore, ensuring the freedom of space and protecting US national

security interests in space are priorities for the Department. 

The mission of space control is to ensure the freedom of action in space for the United States and its allies and, when directed, deny an adversary freedom of action in space. The

space control mission area includes: the surveillance of space;

the protection of US and friendly space systems; the prevention of an adversary’s ability to use space systems and services, the negation of adversary space systems and services;

and supporting battle management, command, control, communications, and intelligence.117

What has changed to stimulate this new awareness, other

than a change of presidents? The simple answer is congressional interest and new intelligence. In 1999, several congressional commissions were established to assess America’s

progress in space, all reporting (among their many findings)

that the nation is increasingly dependent on spacepower and

proportionately vulnerable to space attacks. The Space Commission Report cited the following indications of the scope of

America’s potential vulnerabilities:

• In 1998, the Galaxy IV satellite malfunctioned, shutting

down 80 percent of US pagers, as well as video feeds for

cable and broadcast transmission, credit card authorization networks, and corporate communications systems.

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To restore satellite service, satellites had to be moved and

thousands of ground antennas had to be manually repositioned, which took weeks in some cases.

• In early 2000, the United States lost all information from

a number of its satellites for three hours when computers

in ground stations malfunctioned. Hackers are routinely

probing DOD networks and computers. The US Space

Command’s Joint Task Force for Computer Network Defense reported that detected probes and scans are increasing, access to hacking tools is becoming easier, and

hacking techniques are becoming more sophisticated. In

1999, the number of detected probes and scans against

DOD systems was just over 22,000; in the first eleven

months of 2000, the number had grown to 26,500.

• If the GPS system were to experience widespread failure

or disruption, the impact could be serious. Loss of GPS

timing could disable police, fire, and ambulance communications around the world; disrupt the global banking

and financial system, which depends on GPS timing to

keep worldwide financial centers connected; and interrupt

the operation of electric power distribution systems.118

The specter of space control being contested by an adversary was raised on 7 February 2001, when Vice Adm Thomas

R. Wilson, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee: “A number of

countries are interested in or experimenting with a variety of

technologies that could be used to develop counterspace capabilities.”119 “China and Russia have across-the-board programs underway, and other smaller states and nonstate entities are pursuing more limited—though potentially

effective—approaches.”120 It is often said that “freedom isn’t

free.” Now it appears that freedom in space is not going to be

free much longer. 

Faced with growing economic and military dependency in

space, the United States cannot afford to leave its space assets

undefended, or to leave itself open to attacks from space. Just

as mankind developed armed navies to protect its investments

transiting the sea, so too the United States is compelled to develop more robust space forces to protect its interests in

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space. This challenges the notion of “freedom in space,” and

“space for peaceful purposes.” Given the long-standing international body of laws governing “freedom of the seas,” and

mankind’s willing abandonment of such restraints in wartime,

the future of space as a permanent peaceful sanctuary appears bleak. Gray and Sheldon summarized the situation in

“Spacepower and the Revolution in Military Affairs: A Glass

Half Full?”

Space control is not an avoidable issue. It is not an optional

extra. If the US armed forces cannot secure and maintain

space control then they will be unable to exploit space reliably,

or reliably deny such exploitation to others. US ability to prevail in conflict would be severely harmed as a consequence. If

you fail to achieve a healthy measure of space control in the

larger of the possible wars of the twenty-first century, you will

lose.121

In future wars, the “Battle for Space” may be analogous to

the Battle of the Atlantic. Preserving its space lines of communications is a vital US national interest during war and

peace. Simply put, space control is not optional.

Proposition No. 9

Space Professionals Require

Career-Long Specialization

We’re going to solve our reconnaissance problem once and

for all. Get on the horn and tell them to park a [reconnaissance satellite] directly above Baghdad.

—Unnamed Commander—————

Joint Task Force-Southwest Asia

How many “Gs” is that satellite pulling (pointing to sinusoidal peaks made by the ground track of a LEO satellite on

a flat map projection)? 

—Unnamed USCINCSPACE———

(a fighter pilot) in his first week 

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The Department of Defense must create a stronger military

space culture, through focused career development, education and training, within which the space leaders of the future can be developed.

—Space Commission Report

Even though the Air Force manages 85 percent of DOD’s

space-related budget and personnel activity, flying aircraft

and operating satellites are as different as night and day.122

There is no common core competency between aircraft operators and spacecraft operators. One of the most important findings of the Space Commission is that “The Department of Defense is not yet on course to develop the space cadre the

nation needs.”123 The Commission noted that few space professionals are in leadership positions in either US Air Force or

US Space Commands. Instead, the Air Force and DOD have

installed senior officers who typically have no space expertise

whatsoever into space leadership roles. 

“General Carl Spaatz once commented in exasperation that

soldiers and sailors spoke solemnly about the years of experience that went into training a surface commander, thus making it impossible for outsiders to understand their arcane calling. Yet, they all felt perfectly capable of running an air force.

That comment, echoed by American airmen for decades, was

at the root of their calls for a separate air force.”124 Many space

professionals believe that airmen place them in a similar

predicament.

In the Air Force pilot and Navy nuclear submarine career

fields, military leaders have spent about 90 percent of their careers within their respective fields. In contrast, military leaders with little or no previous experience in space technology or

operations often lead space organizations. A review by the

Space Commission of over 150 personnel currently serving in

key operational leadership positions showed that fewer than

20 percent of the flag officers in key space jobs come from

space career backgrounds. The remaining officers, drawn from

pilot, air defense artillery, and Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) career fields, on average spend 8 percent, or 2.5

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ficers commanding space wings, groups, and squadrons fare

only slightly better; about one-third of the officers have extensive space experience, while the remaining two-thirds averaged less than 4.5 years in space related positions.125

In a paper prepared for the Space Commission titled “Military Space Culture,” Lt Col J. Kevin McLaughlin asserts, “This

keeps space organizations from reaching their potential.

Today, many leaders of space organizations spend most of

their assignments learning about space rather than leading.”126 The short tour length of senior officers, averaging less

than 18 months, exacerbates this problem.127 As a result, the

lexicon of space discussions seldom rises above the elementary level because the boss will not understand. Furthermore,

senior leaders who lack space expertise cannot immediately

grasp the contextual elements of problems or issues that may

arise. Finally, keeping the boss straight places a heavy burden

on the staff.128

Part of the problem may be the tendency inside DOD to

think of space as a mission instead of a place where various

missions are performed. Evidence of this tendency is found in

the way the US Air Force Weapons School is organized. The

school is comprised of 11 divisions. Each combat aircraft has

its own division and allows its operators to develop highly specialized skills, but all space-related things are combined into

a single space division, forcing space operators to develop

more generalized skills. Another example is Air Force Tactics,

Techniques, and Procedures (AFTTP) Manual 3-1. Each aircraft has its own volume, whereas all of the various satellites

and space systems are combined into a single volume.129 In reality, each of the various missions performed in space requires

a cadre of highly qualified and relatively specialized personnel.

This is significant because the disparity between space systems is at least as large as the disparity between aircraft types. 

Currently, the space career field is divided into five major

mission areas: (1) Satellite Command and Control, (2)

Spacelift Operations, (3) Missile Operations, (4) Space Surveillance, and (5) Space Warning. McLaughlin claims that the career path suggested for Air Force space and missile operators

prevents them from developing sufficient “depth,” or expertise,

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in any particular mission area. Instead, the goal is to have

brief assignments in as many mission areas as possible (touch

all the bases or fill all the squares). This prevents sufficient

maturation or “breadth” of expertise gained by officers working in various jobs within a particular mission area. Next, he

notes that “segregation” between research, acquisition, and

operations communities—as well as with the NRO—prevents

necessary exchanges of ideas. Finally, McLaughlin points out

that the sheer size of the Missile Operations mission area,

which accounts for two out of every three operational positions

in Air Force Space Command, are ICBM positions. This, he argues, makes it almost impossible to create officers with sufficient experience in specific space mission areas.130 And it is in

stark contrast to the career specialization of aircrew members

who typically spend several years operating one or at most a

handful of aircraft.

To correct the shortfalls identified above and develop a

cadre of true space experts that will become future space leaders, McLaughlin makes five recommendations: 

1. Specific selection, training, qualification, and assignment

criteria for all space-related positions would ensure that

the best-qualified personnel would join the space career

field. 

2. Combining current operations, research, and acquisition

career fields would create space operators with greater

depth in their profession. 

3. Creating separate career paths for each mission area to

ensure that leaders gain both depth and breadth within

specialized areas would foster expertise. He stresses leadership involvement to ensure a sense of equality among

the various mission areas.

4. Recruiting space professionals with the types of technical

degrees that fill the needs of the space career field and

giving Air Force Space Command centralized management

of personnel in the space career field without having to go

through the Air Force Personnel Center. Setting space

professionals aside from other Air Force personnel would

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be significant because it would recognize the fundamental

differences between the skills, mind-sets, and operational

specialties between airmen and space professionals. 

5. Providing science-intensive training and education along

the career path of a space professional would build space

leaders having the technical competency and intellectual

diversity required.

Interestingly, McLaughlin does not address the training

needs of the enlisted space professionals who comprise the

majority of all space operators and carry the brunt of the

workload. Improving the recruiting criteria and training of enlisted space professionals must be included in any plan for accelerating America’s spacepower excellence. 

However space leaders are grown, the Air Force must remember the unique global role of spacepower. The requirement for space support is not limited to Air Force operations

in theaters where combat operations are under way. Instead,

Air Force space assets and space professionals must simultaneously support all services in all theaters all of the time in all

conditions of war and peace. This is fundamentally very different from the roles and missions of airmen. At the same

time, space professionals must also take action to ensure relative control of the space medium to preserve friendly access

while denying an adversary the ability to exploit space against

supported nations. 

While it is certainly essential for Air Force space professionals to be active partners in the planning and operations cells

of AOCs around the globe, it is equally important for them to

be present in the Army’s corps-level planning centers and the

Navy’s fleet-level planning centers. While the Army and Navy

have their own space personnel, they need equal access to the

special expertise provided by Air Force space professionals as

well. Similarly, Army and Navy space personnel would provide

valuable expertise regarding their service’s space operations in

air and space operations centers. As a rule, space professionals need to interact with war fighters in all other media. Such

interaction will promote space integration across the board

and yield new synergies in warfare. 

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Going to space is still hard and much of spacepower is still

rocket science. Space is a place where several highly specialized systems perform a wide variety of missions. It is critical

for space professionals, with their unique global mind-set, to

rapidly evolve into the leaders of military spacepower so they

can set the vision for the future. When we recognize all of the

dynamics that pertain to space operations, many of them captured in these propositions, we also realize that space professionals require career-long specialization.

Proposition No. 10

Space Weaponization Is Inevitable

Space for peaceful purposes – what a bunch of !#%!.# bull.!%

that was!

—Gen Bernard A. Schriever

It’s politically sensitive, but it’s going to happen. Some people don’t want to hear this, and it sure isn’t in vogue . . .

but—absolutely—we’re going to fight in space. We’re going

to fight from space and we’re going to fight into space.

—Gen Joseph W. Ashy

Weapons in space are inevitable, and the U.S. ought to review existing arms control obligations that get in the way of

deploying a space-based deterrent.

—Space Commission Report 

Humanity has attempted to prevent or delay the proliferation of weapons for centuries, but history suggests that

mankind is driven to develop new weapons.131 At the Second

Lateran Council in 1139, the Church banned the crossbow for

being too lethal.132 Within a millennium, however, humans

had built nuclear weapons and used them in war. Competition

is part of the human condition, and war is a natural expression of this condition. If this were not so, states would likely

have forgone their military establishments and preparations

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for war a long time ago. We are not at the end of history—

states still vie for power in an anarchic international system

and will compete in every medium of human endeavor. Former

Secretary of the Air Force Sheila E. Widnall said, “We have a

lot of history that tells us that warfare migrates where it can—

that nations engaged in a conflict do what they can, wherever

they must.”133

Space is already militarized by virtue of the force enhancements derived from current systems on orbit. The weaponization of space is only a matter of time. Barry Watts believes it

may come about in one of two ways. There may be a dramatic

trigger event, such as the use of nuclear weapons to attack orbital or terrestrial assets, compelling states to place weapons

in space. Or there may be a series of small, seemingly innocuous developments in orbital capabilities over several years that

would, in hindsight, be recognized as having crossed the

boundary and weaponized space.134

There is a growing national debate on the issue of space

weaponization, initially sparked by President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative and now reinvigorated by President

Bush’s advocacy for a missile defense system. Although President Bush never mentioned placing weapons in space as part

of his plan, his critics, such as Senate Majority Leader Thomas

A. Daschle, claim this is implicit in his argument because

space is the ideal place to station a small number of assets

that can provide a global capability.135 Pundits from both sides

of the debate have forged the pros and cons of weaponizing

space over the years. Frank Klotz describes the debate this

way:

On one side are those who argue that the United States needs to develop a military capability to protect its satellites from attack and to

deny adversaries access to the benefits of satellite products and services. On the other side are those who contend that weapons should

never be employed in space. They urge instead that arms control and

other cooperative measures are the best means to protect American equities in space, as well as to prevent space from becoming an arena for

armed conflict.136

Both sides of the debate have valid concerns. Proponents of

weaponization claim the United States will enhance its national power by weaponizing space. They are quick to point out

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that “there is no blanket prohibition in international law on

placing or using weapons in space, applying force from space

to Earth, or conducting military operations in and through

space.”137 Hays and Mueller describe this side of the debate:

If the United States moves expeditiously to take advantage of its existing leadership in space technology and establish an unassailable dominance of orbital space, its position as the preeminent world power will

be enhanced and perpetuated; if, on the other hand, it fails to seize the

opportunity to establish unassailable superiority in space, its world

leadership will be threatened by more visionary rivals . . . [h]e who controls space will control the world—or at least he who doesn’t, won’t—

and, thus the more the United States invests in developing its spacepower, the more powerful and secure it will be.138

Conversely, advocates of preserving space as a peaceful

sanctuary believe space weaponization will reduce the overall

power of the United States as an actor on the world stage.

They are concerned about triggering security dilemmas that

will lead to an arms race in space. 

[Sanctuary realists] oppose space weaponization . . . because they believe it would reduce rather than enhance US power and security in

particular. They argue that the United States, as the leading user of

space, has by far the most to lose if space systems become increasingly

vulnerable to attack and that as the world’s preeminent air and surface power, it has the least to gain from developing such weapons.

Sanctuary realists also assert that if the United States takes the lead

in developing space weapons, it will be easier for other states to follow

suit, thanks to US technological trailblazing. Finally, they tend to be

skeptical that the military utility of space weapons, both for power projection and to protect US space assets, will be as great as the

weaponization proponents typically claim.139 

The numerous concerns over space-based weapons include

monetary costs, a questionable threat, lack of survivability,

lack of political will, incompatibility with democratic values,

problems with orbital dynamics and laser physics, treaty infractions, and international opinion—just to name a few.140 All

these concerns are serious and real. The solutions may not arrive for years, but they will come to fruition sooner or later. 

Regardless of which side of the argument is correct, the historical relationship between man and his weapons provides insight into the probable future of space-based weapons. Robert

L. O’Connell suggests that human nature—not technology—is

at the root of weapons development.141 Covetous motives re81

SMITH
quired early man to develop new ways to kill an opponent.

Today’s modern weapons are more lethal than the sticks and

stones of ancient days, but their purpose is still to gain an advantage over an adversary.

O’Connell suggests that humans will constantly develop

new weapons as long as their imagination discovers and exploits timeless and eternal scientific principles such as quantum mechanics and relativistic physics, which may give them

an advantage in war.142 Therefore, the very idea of weaponizing space becomes a driving force to do so, like the idea of

splitting and fusing the atom made doing so inevitable. “Because so much of this is a function of the physical universe

and the laws that govern it, the process is, in a very real sense,

beyond our control.”143

Formulating new and creative ideas for weapons may be inevitable, but man always has a choice whether to develop

those weapons or not.144 Dr. Colin S. Gray cautions that the

feasibility of deploying weapons in space does not mean that

such weapons are strategically required—or prudent.145 However, we are also warned that once someone begins development, the “technological imperative becomes nearly absolute”

and that “Once the initial conditions are set, however, the logic

of technology becomes nearly irresistible, at times sweeping us

toward destinations never contemplated or desired.”146 This

suggests the choice to weaponize space may be beyond rational decision making. If this premise is correct, some actor

may weaponize space as a poorly thought out reaction to some

unforeseen security dilemma, or may already be on the slippery slope towards weaponizing space as it seeks to protect its

space systems—the two conditions that Watts believes will

likely lead to the weaponization of space. The momentum is

not likely to stop over the long run.

There is another sort of risk that makes weaponizing space

much more likely. Without a world system of checks and balances that can ensure nonproliferation of space-based

weapons, spacefaring states have the option of developing

space-based weapons in a covert manner. Doing so might prevent an adversary from getting the upper hand. At the same

time, secrecy would mitigate the risk of triggering a security

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dilemma and a subsequent arms race in space. An actor could

place weapons on orbit claiming they were something else, or

the actor could store the weapons on the ground in a launchready configuration. The later option simplifies the problem of

maintaining secrecy and gives the opportunity to frequently

inspect and upgrade the weapons. Unfortunately, this simple

logic makes the secret development of weapons for space highly

attractive—and much more likely.

It would be nice to assume that the notion of space-based

weapons will just go away with the passage of time, but O’-

Connell suggests that time is the enemy. To fall behind and

allow an adversary to gain the advantage would be detrimental to any actor’s vital interests. Weaponizing space without

careful strategic thought is not the answer, and a spaceweaponization strategy is certainly not a “panacea” or a “single-point solution.”147

Sad though it is, war is part of the human condition. Wherever humans go, they bring their cultural baggage with them,

and weapons are part of the baggage. The utility of space is increasing in all areas of human activity and discourse. This

may be a pessimistic view, but “we know from history that

every medium—air, land and sea—has seen conflict. Reality

indicates that space will be no different.”148 The political and

military pragmatist must assume that space weaponization is

inevitable over the long term.

Notes

1. Todd Halvorson, “Destination: International Space Station,” Space

Views, 30 October 2000, on-line, Internet, 4 March 2001, available from

http://www.spaceviews.com/2000/10/30a.html.

2. Herbert F. York, Making Weapons, Talking Peace: A Physicist’s

Odyssey from Hiroshima to Geneva (New York: Basic Books, 1987), 160.

3. Maj Gen John L. Barry and Col Darrell L. Herriges, “Aerospace Integration, Not Separation,” Aerospace Power Journal, Summer 2000, 42. 

4. Ibid., 42–47.

5. Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD) 2-2, Space Operations, 23 August 1998, 1.

6. The X-15 achieved an altitude of 67 miles on 13 September 1968, but

this rocket-powered vehicle glided to this altitude after expending all of its

rocket fuel at a much lower altitude. 

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7. The term aerospace continuum is used repeatedly by Hon. F. Whitten

Peters and Gen Michael E. Ryan in America’s Air Force: Global Vigilance,

Reach, and Power (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Air Force, June

2000) and subsequently throughout Air Force publications. 

8. To give an idea of how much energy is required to cross the transverse

region, scientists calculate that 90 percent of the total energy required in accomplishing a mission to Mars is spent lifting the payload into a low Earth

orbit.

9. Maj Gen Lance L. Smith, Air Force Doctrine Center, Maxwell Air Force

Base (AFB), Alabama, interviewed by author, 9 March 2001.

10. Ibid.

11. Rich Garcia, “Lab Evaluates Satellites,” United States Air Force News

Release, 6 July 2000, n.p., on-line, Internet, 10 March 2001, available from

http://www.sor.plk.af.mil/pa/releases/2000/00-50.html.

12. TSgt Ginger Schreitmueller, “Assistant Chief of Staff Talks About

AEF Capabilities, Resources,” Air Force News, 31 July 1998. A very close

paraphrase of this quote is attributed to Gen John P. Jumper in a white

paper by the Hon. F. Whitten Peters and Gen Michael E. Ryan, The Aerospace Force: Defending America in the 21st Century (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Air Force, 2000), 3. This suggests collaboration among the

senior leaders of the Air Force to “stay on message” with the chief of staff’s

policy, or at least collusion between speechwriters. 

13. Smith interview.

14. Actually, the terms air operations center and space operations center

are passé. Both are now referred to as “aerospace operations centers.” This

is arguably more of a superficial change than a change of substance.

15. The National Command Authorities (NCA) frequently request specific

space-derived intelligence products from the National Reconnaissance Office. In addition, the NCA also tasks DOD space assets directly to achieve

political purpose, as was the case with the decision to terminate selective

availability of the Global Positioning System in 2000.

16. Colin S. Gray, Modern Strategy (New York: Oxford University Press,

1999), 260–61.

17. Ibid., 263–64.

18. Ibid., 260.

19. Lt Col Michael R. Mantz, The New Sword: A Theory of Space Combat

Power (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, May 1995), 79–80.

20. United Nations, “Assembly Urges Enrichment of United Nations ‘Internet’ Presence, Full Use of Emerging Information Technologies,” United

Nations Press Release GA/9677, 6 December 1999.

21. Report of the Commission to Assess United States National Security

Space Management and Organization (hereinafter Space Commission Report)

(Washington, D.C.: The [Space] Commission, 11 January 2001), 37.

22. Pericles Gasparini Alves, Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space:

A Guide to the Discussions in the Conference on Disarmament,

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UNDIR/91/79, Annex A (New York: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 1991), 2.

23. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and

Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), 605. More

precisely, Clausewitz stated that “war is simply a continuation of political intercourse, with the addition of other means.” 

24. James R. Killian Jr., Sputnik, Scientists, and Eisenhower: A Memoir of

the First Assistant to the President for Science and Technology (Cambridge,

Mass.: MIT Press, 1977), 68. Quoted in David N. Spires, Beyond Horizons

(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office [GPO], 1997), 30.

25. Curtis Peebles, High Frontier: The US Air Force and the Military Space

Program (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1997), 3.

26. Ibid., 4.

27. Ibid., 4–5.

28. Col Delbert R. Terrill Jr., The Air Force Role in Developing International

Outer Space Law (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, May 1999), 5.

29. Georgi P. Zhukov, “Space Espionage Plans and International Law,”

International Affairs, October 1960. Quoted in Walter A. McDougall, The

Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age (Baltimore, Md.:

Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), 259.

30. Cited in Peebles, 1.

31. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967, signed by 90 countries, including

the United States and USSR, established the idea that space is for peaceful

purposes only and that “passage through space . . . must be free from interference.” 

32. Reconnaissance satellites are typically placed in a sun-synchronous

orbit, meaning the satellite is placed in a retrograde orbit relative to Earth’s

rotation and the satellite’s south-to-north pass has a constant angle to the

sun. In this type of orbit, satellites typically complete one revolution every

70 to 120 minutes and repeat the same ground track every few days. 

33. James E. Oberg, Space Power Theory (Washington, D.C.: GPO, March

1999), 124.

34. “How Iridium Works,” Iridium Satellite LLC, n.p., on-line, Internet, 8

April 2001, available from http://www.iridium.com/.

35. One might assume that a satellite in a geostationary orbit might see

half of Earth’s surface, like an astronaut viewing a full Earth rising from the

surface of the moon. This would mean only two satellites would be required

to provide global coverage. In reality, geostationary satellites have a line of

sight limitation around the edges of the Earth sphere that accounts for the

10 percent reduced viewing area. Even when three satellites are employed in

geostationary orbits, there is still a loss of coverage at the polar regions; but

this can be compensated for by adding satellites in a Molnaya (highly elliptical) orbit that provides extended dwell time over those regions.

36. AFDD 2-2, Space Operations, 23 August 1998, 15–16.

37. AFDD 2-2 (draft), Space Operations, September 2000.

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38. Arguably, the Germans took the initial steps into space with their V2 rocket program, which accomplished its first successful flight into suborbital space on 3 October 1942.

39. Oberg, 131.

40. Ibid., 27.

41. “The People’s Republic of China recently announced its intention to

become the third nation to place human beings into orbits and return them

safely to Earth.” Cited in Space Commission Report, 10.

42. Peter L. Hays et al., eds., Spacepower for a New Millennium: Space

and US National Security (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000), 2. 

43. Ibid.

44. Ibid.

45. Ibid., 2–3.

46. Ibid., 3.

47. Space Commission Report, 11.

48. Ibid., 10–12.

49. Vincent Orange, “Getting Together: Tedder, Coningham, and Americans in the Desert and Tunisia, 1940–43,” in Airpower and Ground Armies:

Essays on the Evolution of Anglo–American Air Doctrine, 1940–1943, ed.

Daniel R. Mortensen (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, 1998), 25.

50. Daniel R. Mortensen, “The Legend of Laurence Kuter: Agent for Airpower Doctrine,” in Airpower and Ground Armies, 93. 

51. David R. Mets, “A Glider in the Propwash of the Royal Air Force? Gen

Carl A. Spaatz, the RAF, and the Foundations of American Tactical Air Doctrine,” in Airpower and Ground Armies, 50–56.

52. The airland command relationship at the time of Kasserine flowed

from Field Manual 31-35, Aviation in Support of Ground Forces, adopted in

April 1942. An outstanding summary of this failed command structure is

found in Bernard C. Nalty’s, Winged Shield, Winged Sword: A History of the

United States Air Force, vol. 1, 1907–1950 (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1997), 271–72. 

53. Warren A. Trest, Air Force Roles and Mission: A History (Washington,

D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1998), 91.

54. AFDD 1, Air Force Basic Doctrine, 1 September 1997, 23. 

55. AFDD 2-2, 5. 

56. Several recent documents assert the contrary point as part of the Air

Force’s aerospace integration initiative. See “The Aerospace Force: Defending America in the 21st Century—A White Paper on Aerospace Integration”

(Washington, D.C.: Department of the Air Force, 2000), 3. Also see Maj Gen

John L. Barry and Col Darrell L. Herriges, “Aerospace Integration, Not Separation,” Aerospace Power Journal, Summer 2000, 42. 

57. The Army, Navy, and Marines in all theaters need space support at

least as much as the Air Force.

58. “Penny packets” is a term used by Arthur Coningham to describe the

almost worthless value of airpower when divided amongst ground units in

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“Development of Tactical Air Forces,” Journal of the Royal United Services Institution, May 1946, 215.

59. Apparently, the joint chiefs have complained because a new series of

spy satellites that form part of the Future Imagery Architecture cannot take

collection commands from commanders in the field. To give field commanders this power would be a serious usurping of the centralized control principle. See Jeremy Singer, “Joint Chiefs Dissatisfied With New Series of Spy

Satellites,” Space News, 5 February 2001, 1. 

60. AFDD 2-2 (draft), 7–8.

61. Lt Col Peter Hays and Dr. Karl Mueller, “Boldly Going—Where? Aerospace Integration, the Space Commission, and the Air Force’s Vision for

Space,” Aerospace Power Journal, Spring 2001, 36–37.

62. Col Kenneth A. Myers and Lt Col John G. Tockston, “Real Tenets of

Military Space Doctrine,” Airpower Journal, Winter 1988, 54–68.

63. AFDD 2, Organization and Employment of Aerospace Power, 17 February 2000, 34.

64. Gen Wilber L. Creech, transcript of interview by Hugh N. Ahmann

(Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air Force Historical Research Agency, June 1992), 221.

65. Ibid., 222.

66. Ibid., 223.

67. Tara Shankar Sahay, “Pakistan Feels Let Down by US Spy Satellites,”

Rediff On the Net, 13 May 1998, n.p., on-line, Internet, 17 April 2001, available from http://www.rediff.com/news/1998/may/13spy.htm; and Krishnan Gurswamy, “India Tricks US Satellites,” Associated Press, 19 May 1998,

n.p., on-line, Internet, 17 April 2001, available from http://abcnews.

go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/india980519_nukes.html. 

68. Sahay, 1.

69. Gurswamy, 1.

70. Maj Christopher J. Kinnan, “Coercive Spacepower: Enabling a ‘Virtual Boots on the Ground’ National Security Strategy for the 21st Century”

(master’s thesis, School of Advanced Airpower Studies [SAAS], Maxwell AFB,

Ala., 15 November 2000), 2.

71. Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, Conn.: Yale

University Press, 1966), 4.

72. Robert A. Pape, Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War

(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996), 4.

73. Schelling, 69–78.

74. Maj John McMullen, “Spacepower as a Coercive Force,” (master’s

thesis, SAAS, Maxwell AFB, Ala., 16 April 2001). 

75. Barry D. Watts, The Military Use of Space: A Diagnostic Assessment,

Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments Report (Washington, D.C.:

Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, February 2001), 13.

76. Ibid., 43.

77. Smith interview. Maj Gen Smith is a career fighter pilot and an avid

supporter of the aerospace integration concept. 

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78. Mike Patty, “Air Force Conducts Virtual Space War,” Denver Rocky

Mountain News, 26 January 2001, on-line, Internet, 29 January 2001, available from http://ca.dtic.mil/cgibin/ebird?doc_url=/Jan2001/s20010129

conducts.htm.

79. William B. Scott, “Wargame: ‘Space’ Can Deter, Defuse Crises,” Aviation Week and Space Technology, 5 February 2001, 40.

80. Gen Richard B. Myers, “Space Superiority Is Fleeting,” Aviation Week

and Space Technology, 1 January 2000, on-line, Internet, 15 July 2000, available from http://www.peterson.af.mil/usspace/avweek-gen%20myers.htm.

81. The condottieri were leaders of mercenary bands or companies that

hired out their services as soldiers of fortune between the fourteenth and

sixteenth centuries in the northern Italian provinces.

82. Frank G. Klotz, Space, Commerce, and National Security (New York:

Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1998), 8.

83. Space Commission Report, 19.

84. Ibid.

85. Ibid., 20.

86. Charles Seife, “Where Am I,” Info-Sec.Com, n.d., on-line, Internet, 10

April 2001, available from http://www.info-sec.com/denial/denial

_012298a.html-ssi.

87. Klotz, 7.

88. Bob Preston, Plowshares and Power: The Military Use of Civil Space

(Washington, D.C.: National University Press, 1994), 132. Cited by Klotz, 9.

89. SPOT is an acronym for Satellite Pour l’Observation de la Terre. It is

a French commercial venture. Cited by Klotz, 9.

90. Watts, 41.

91. Lt Cmdr J. Todd Black, “Commercial Satellites: Future Threats or Allies?” Naval War College Review, Winter 1999, on-line, Internet, 10 April

2001, available from http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press/Review/1999/winter/

art5-w99.htm.

92. Klotz, 25.

93. James Oberg, “Spying for Dummies—The National Security Implications of Commercial Space Imaging,” Spectrum Magazine, November 1999,

on-line, Internet, 10 April 2001, available from http://jamesoberg.com/articles/spy/.

94. “Transcript: NATO Briefing On Operation Allied Force, 28 May 1999,”

on-line, Internet, 10 April 2001, available from http://www.usembassy.

it/file9905/alia/99052814.htm.

95. Thomas E. Ricks, “US Air Force Prepares Itself to Do Battle in Outer

Space,” Washington Post Service, 30 January 2001, on-line, Internet, 31

January 2001, available from http://www.ith.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?

template=articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId=9116.

96. Ann M. Forini, “The Opening Skies: Third-Party Imaging Satellites

and US Security,” International Security, Fall 1998, 103–23; and Black, 5.

97. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and

Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), 595.

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98. Ibid., 485.

99. Ibid., 486.

100. Ibid., 619.

101. Ibid., 485.

102. Watts, 1. 

103. Space Commission Report, 12–13.

104. Ibid., 22.

105. As quoted in Maj David W. Ziegler, Safe Heavens: Military Strategy

and Space Sanctuary Thought (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: SAAS, Air University

Press, 1998), 22.

106. Long Range Plan: Implementing USSPACECOM Vision for 2020 (Peterson AFB, Colo.: US Space Command, Director of Plans, April 1998), n.p.,

n.d., on-line, Internet, 11 April 2001, available from http://www.peterson.

af.mil/usspace/LRP/cover.htm.

107. Colin S. Gray and John B. Sheldon, “Spacepower and the Revolution in Military Affairs: A Glass Half Full?” Airpower Journal, Fall 1999, 31.

108. As cited by “Harry Tate’s Navy: The Royal Naval Patrol Service,”

British-Forces.com, n.p., n.d., on-line, Internet, 12 May 2001, available

from http://british-forces.com/links_recom/navy.html. 

109. Watts, 1.

110. Ibid., 12.

111. Space Commission Report, 18.

112. Myers. 

113. Space Commission Report, 22–23.

114. Cheng Ho, “China Eyes Anti-Satellite System,” Space Daily, 8 January 2000, n.p., on-line, Internet, 8 January 2001, available from http://

www.spacer.com/news/china-01c.html.

115. Space Commission Report, viii, xiii, xiv, xv, 22 (twice), 25. This is actually asserted seven separate times in the report’s executive summary and

main body. 

116. Secretary of Defense, Annual Defense Review, 2000 (hereinafter

ADR, 2000) (Washington, D.C.: GPO), 97. 

117. Secretary of Defense, Annual Defense Review, 2001 (hereinafter

ADR, 2001) (Washington, D.C.: GPO), 128. 

118. Space Commission Report, 22–23.

119. Vice Adm Thomas R. Wilson, “Global Threats and Challenges

Through 2015” (Statement for the Record, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 7 February 2001), 14, on-line, Internet, 12 April 2001, available

from http://www.dialumni.org/images/dr_testimony.pdf.

120. Ibid.

121. Gray and Sheldon, 36.

122. Space Commission Report, 55.

123. Ibid., 42.

124. Col Phillip S. Meilinger, Ten Propositions Regarding Air Power

(Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1995), 49.

125. Space Commission Report, 43.

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126. Lt Col J. Kevin McLaughlin, “Military Space Culture,” Space Commission Background Papers, n.d., n.p., on-line, Internet, 15 April 2001,

available from http://www.space.gov/commission/support-docs/article

02/article02.html.

127. Ibid.

128. Ibid.

129. AFTTP 3-1, vol. 28, is the volume related to space systems.

130. McLaughlin, 8–9.

131. The author wishes to sincerely thank Maj Scott Long for his contribution in writing this proposition. 

132. William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force,

and Society Since A.D. 1000 (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press,

1985), 68.

133. Hon. Sheila E. Widnall, secretary of the Air Force, “The Space and

Air Force of the Next Century,” address to the National Security Forum,

Maxwell AFB, Ala., 23 September 1997, n.p., on-line, Internet, 9 January

1998, available from http://www.af.mil/news/speech/current/The _Space

_and_Air_Force_of_html.

134. Watts, 98.

135. Sen. Tom Daschle called “placing weapons in space ‘the single dumbest thing I’ve heard so far in this administration.’ ” As cited by James Dao,

“Rumsfeld Plan Skirts Call for Stationing Arms in Space,” New York Times, 9

May 2001, n.p., on-line, Internet, 12 May 2001, available from http://

ca.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/ebird?doc_url=/May2001/e20010509rumsfeld.htm.

136. Frank G. Klotz, Space, Commerce, and National Security (New York:

Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1998), n.p., on-line, Internet, 12 May

2001, available from http://www.foreignrelations.org/p/pubs/klotz.html. 

137. Space Commission Report, xvii.

138. Hays and Mueller, 38–39.

139. Ibid., 39.

140. See political concerns from Lt Col Bruce M. Deblois’s article titled

“Space Sanctuary: A Viable National Strategy,” Airpower Journal, Winter

1998, n.p., on-line, Internet, 4 December 2000, available from http://

www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil./airchronicles/apj/apj98/win98/debloistxt.htm.

141. Major theme from Robert L. O’Connell’s book titled Of Arms and

Men (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).

142. Ibid., 10.

143. Ibid., 11.

144. Ibid., 5.

145. See the opening quote from Colin S. Gray and the discussion concerning the flawed strategy of the German V-2 program in Maj William L.

Spacy II’s CADRE paper titled Does the United States Need Space-Based

Weapons? (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, 1999), 9.

146. O’Connell, 11.

147. See practical considerations in Deblois, n.p.

148. Space Commission Report, 100.

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Chapter 4

A Spacepower Theory

The Air Force has identified itself with the air weapon, and

rooted itself in a commitment to technological superiority.

The dark side of this commitment is that it becomes transformed into an end in itself when aircraft or systems, rather

than missions, become the primary focus. . . . Even though

the Air Force is the lead military agency for space, space

systems will be competing for aircraft roles and missions,

posing difficult tradeoffs in budgets and force structure. . . .

[S]pace becomes a competing faction.

—Carl H. Builder

The Nature of Spacepower

The central question of this study is, “What is the nature of

spacepower?” There is no single answer to this question. Instead, the 10 propositions regarding spacepower answer this

question by revealing many of its characteristics. My findings

are presented below.

A Distinct Operational Medium

Space is physically very different from all earthly media. More

important, orbital operations are constrained in very unique

ways by the laws of physics. Their uniqueness creates a wall of

misunderstanding between space professionals and others who

do not understand orbital mechanics. These physical differences heavily determine operational methodologies and special

planning considerations for space activities. Most important,

space was diplomatically set aside as a separate medium during the Eisenhower administration. The international community now recognizes entirely different legal standards in space.

Every American administration and the DOD have reaffirmed

the US belief that space is a separate and distinct operational

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medium. Only USAF officially views air and space as a seamless

operational medium. 

Global Access and Global Presence 

The fundamental reason for moving earthly capabilities to

orbit is to exploit the global nature of spacepower. Access to

denied areas was the initial reason for putting up a satellite in

order to conduct reconnaissance. This is still a compelling

reason. However, the ability to conduct various missions globally with just a few assets is extremely compelling not only to

the military and civil sectors but especially to the commercial

sector. In space vernacular, “global” means more than access

to all locations on Earth’s surface; it may also mean access to

all locations on Earth’s surface at the same time, as is the case

with navigation and communications services.

Total Space Activity 

Space activities have pushed beyond their intelligence and

defense roots as states developed civil and commercial sectors.

Going to space is difficult, and a substantial infrastructure is

required to generate a space program. Spacefaring is most

likely among wealthy nations that have a solid educational

system that stresses the sciences, abundant natural resources, a stable political environment, and a strong will to

commit to a space program over the long term. 

Central Control 

Spacepower is different from other forms of military power because its missions are global in scale. Because spacepower assets are global in nature, it would be wrong to manage them from

a theater perspective as is the case with most terrestrial forces.

Doing so would handicap spacepower in the same way airpower

was handicapped at the outbreak of the Second World War when

it was broken into penny packets under Army control. A space

professional with a global mind-set must centrally control spacepower in order to balance scarce resources across theaters. At

the same time, space professionals must take charge of the

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battle for space control and not leave this responsibility to other

commanders with different priorities and concerns.

Coercive Force 

The mere presence of spacepower assets, such as reconnaissance and surveillance satellites, has already influenced

and will increasingly influence the activities of actors wishing

to conceal certain activities. This flows from the deterrent potential of collection assets that have long been used as national technical means of treaty verification. It is quite likely

that some actors are deterred from certain courses of action in

the presence of spysats. Increasingly, spacepower assets are

integrating into the sensor-to-shooter loop of active combat

operations. This, plus the inevitable emergence of weapons on

orbit, signals the expansion of spacepower’s coercive force into

the role of compellence as well as deterrence.

Space Powers 

The advent of commercial vendors selling military-related

space products has created a new form of mercenary. The type

of asymmetric advantage the superpowers once enjoyed because of their space prowess is quickly eroding because anyone who is able to pay the price can receive certain kinds of

space support. Military and law enforcement planners must

take into account the potential for any opponent to exploit

these commercial services.

A National Center of Gravity 

More and more segments of society are turning to spacebased assets for services. This makes the relatively few satellites on orbit very lucrative targets for an adversary who has

the will and means to strike them. While access to satellites is

seldom a single point of failure, losing access to the vital information collected and carried by them will increase the fog,

friction, and cost of operations. In certain circumstances, this

may turn the tide against spacefaring states such as the

United States.

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Space Control 

The increasing reliance on spacepower assets by governmental agencies and the intelligence, military, and business

segments of society makes it essential to secure access to

satellite services. At the same time, it is equally important to

deny an adversary access to these space systems. Adversaries

will likely compete for relative control of the space medium; a

state must therefore take measures to secure its national interests in space. 

Space Professionals 

Going to space is still hard. Despite more than 40 years of

spacefaring experience, we still face numerous technical challenges. Moreover, space operations are so different from any

form of terrestrial operations that highly specialized and recurring education, as well as careful career management, is

required to develop space experts.

Space Weaponization 

Wherever mankind goes, weapons follow. There are some

rock-solid reasons for not weaponizing space, but they fail to

take into account the technological imperative that often drives

human behavior in ways that are frequently beyond rational

thought. When weapons will be placed in space is anybody’s

guess, but the political and military pragmatist must assume

that someone will put weapons in space—and act accordingly.

The Hypothesis Is Rejected

This study rejects the hypothesis that spacepower is merely

a continuation or extension of airpower, as advocates of the

aerospace integration school claim. An independent form of

power, spacepower directly affects all other national instruments of power and increasingly affects the daily lives of ordinary humans. Because it forms a global informational infrastructure that the armed forces of advanced nations

increasingly rely upon, spacepower’s importance as a form of

military power is growing. In the future, spacepower will likely

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include counterspace weapons and systems designed to attack

terrestrial targets. 

Advocates of the aerospace integration school may fairly

criticize this study as stacking the deck against their case simply because using the term spacepower concedes an independence from other types of power. The logic behind this criticism is just as valid now as it was at the court-martial of Billy

Mitchell, who brazenly argued for something called “airpower.”

Aerospace integrationists frequently argue that spacepower

is not different from airpower because it delivers similar products to users, as if aircraft can do what spacecraft can do. This

is simply not the case. Aircraft cannot survey more than 80

percent of Earth with three aircraft, and aircraft cannot freely

pass over politically denied airspace as spacecraft can. A

handful of satellites can provide persistent capabilities on a

global scale. The GPS, for example, employs only 24 satellites

in its nominal constellation; yet it is described as “the first

global utility.” Aircraft simply do not do the types of globalscale missions that spacecraft perform very efficiently. While

it is true that some satellites perform photoreconnaissance

missions similar to those performed by aircraft, reconnaissance aircraft loiter over theater-specific areas of interest

while reconnaissance satellites transit the globe in a matter of

minutes—taking photographs in virtually every theater along

their route. Not only are air and space assets employed differently, but the fundamental differences between airpower and

spacepower create unique mind-sets among operators. Airmen

possess a theater-level perspective whereas space professionals possess a global mind-set. 

The aviation community has repeatedly attempted to make

an aircraft that can do what a spacecraft can do. There have

been many attempts to produce a space plane, but none have

become operational—in part because of technical problems,

but mostly because no one could ever explain why an enormous sum of money should be spent to make an aircraft do

what a satellite can do other than serve as a reusable spacelift

and recovery vehicle. Currently there are arguments that

America needs a combat-capable space plane in order to deliver ordnance more rapidly than aircraft—and to do so without

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requiring forward bases in a combat zone. These are compelling ends, but justifying the means will likely be as difficult

today as it was at the height of the Cold War. 

Lessons Learned

The highly politicized nature of space doctrine stems from its

clandestine roots in the spy versus spy era of the Cold War.1

There is undeniable tension between those who believe a state’s

power interests are best served by preserving space as a peaceful sanctuary and those who believe a state’s power interests demand the rapid development and fielding of weapons in space.

Military Space Doctrine Is Highly Controversial

The recent international debate regarding space weaponization as part of President Bush’s missile defense program indicates the global sensitivity to military-related space strategies.

This indicates that space weaponization will bring about security dilemmas quite unlike the introduction of new weapons

into the traditional media of air, land, and sea. 

Decision Making Is Fragmented and Bureaucratic

While spacepower policy ultimately rests with the president,

there is no single advocate for spacepower. USCINCSPACE

shares his authority with numerous agencies—each having a

say in space strategy—and the military space program is a

house divided since many voices are advocating different desires. The Space Commission recommended realignment of

the many agencies in the military space community to help

consolidate authority into a smaller group of decision makers.

The Air Force Is Out of Step 

The aerospace integration effort is at odds with national and

DOD policies that identify space as a separate medium coequal with air, land, and sea. Despite more than 40 years of

pushing the term aerospace, nobody is using it—at least not

outside the Air Force where the issue of space being a separate medium is already settled. This hurts the credibility of

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airmen who advocate for spacepower and does spacepower a

grave disservice since these advocates typically lack any degree of space expertise. The Carl Builder quote that begins this

chapter is partly correct—the Air Force is thrashing within itself over a budgetary and philosophical rivalry concerning the

nation’s spacepower. On a programmatic level, space and air

systems do compete for the limited resources in the Air Force’s

budget; and space systems do not always fare well in this

competition. On a doctrinal level, however, Builder is wrong to

assume that airpower and spacepower compete with each

other for roles and missions. This is simply not the case. Airpower continues to provide theater-focused forces; spacepower provides globally focused forces. The two complement

each other as joint partners with land and sea forces. 

American Grand Strategy Hinges on Space Superiority 

The successful integration of space forces with terrestrial

activities makes all of our instruments of power increasingly

reliant on space support. Without space control capabilities to

defend friendly access to space while denying the same to an

adversary, we rest our case on hope. The Space Commission

recommends in unambiguous language that the United States

develop and field space control capabilities to safeguard national interests.

The Space Commission May Be the Deus Ex Machina 

One of the basic findings of the Space Commission is that

“The US Government—in particular, the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community—is not yet arranged or

focused to meet the national security space needs of the

twenty-first century.”2 In one sense, the commissioners concluded that the military space community is broken. The

Space Commission made several recommendations that may

fix the deficiencies they identified. While it did not specifically

address the Air Force’s aerospace integration policy (in fact,

the term was conspicuously absent), it does recommend moving space experts into leadership positions within the space

community from which they will advocate for spacepower. The

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reform-minded nature of the Bush administration makes such

reforms likely, especially since the chairman of the Space

Commission is now serving as the secretary of defense. The

specific findings and recommendations of the Space Commission appear in appendix E of this study. 

The Theory

The introduction of this study posited that the 10 propositions regarding spacepower might serve as a foundation to assist in the creation of a spacepower theory. Such a theory

would serve political and military practitioners by providing a

framework to assess spacepower issues and guide their related decision making. Presented here is an attempt to synthesize the 10 propositions and lessons learned during this

study into the rough sketch of a spacepower theory. 

Spacepower, Statecraft, and Warfare

Any theory of spacepower must be firmly rooted in broader

theories of statecraft and warfare. Instead of rehashing what

the time-honored masters have already done so brilliantly,

suffice it to say here that students of spacepower should read

Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.

3 This book crisply describes the nature of statecraft and its nexus with warfare in a world where

states are in constant competition with one another. Next,

they should read Carl von Clausewitz’s On War.

4 This book, although difficult to read and easy to misinterpret, captures the

central premise of war: “War is nothing but the continuation

of policy with other means . . . the political object is the goal,

war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be

considered in isolation from their purpose.”5 With these intellectual underpinnings, and an appreciation of the propositions

regarding spacepower, students of spacepower are ready for a

theoretical discussion.

Military Spacepower

The purpose of military spacepower is to provide global capabilities to assist in achieving political and military objectives.

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It is an independent form of power that can be used alone or

in concert with other forms of power to achieve desired ends.

Space is a place where humans put systems in place to help

them resolve problems. It begins above Earth’s surface at the

lowest altitude where a satellite can sustain a circular orbit

(approximately 93 miles) and extends outward to infinity.

Eventually, humanity may extend its interests beyond nearEarth space. Military spacepower will likely protect those interests. Someday, far into the future, populations and their

political entities may migrate into space as well. For now, however, humans live on the surface of Earth; and contemporary

spacepower in this context refers to the struggles occurring

there—but this will evolve over time.

Near-Earth Space

The reason for going to near-Earth space is to gain access

to regions of Earth where terrestrial forces either cannot go or

cannot loiter as economically as some satellites. A relatively

small number of similar satellites spread out in orbital space

can survey the entire Earth’s surface, which gives space-based

constellations the ability to perform missions on a global

scale. In the opening years of the twenty-first century, space

missions are primarily informational; for example, providing

command and control, communications, and computer support (C4), as well as ISR support, to terrestrial forces. Air, land,

and sea forces also perform missions like these; but only

space systems (and some terrestrial communications networks) perform them continuously on a global scale. These

space networks create a global informational infrastructure

that links together expeditionary forces deployed anywhere in

the world and connects these forces with their homeland leadership. 

Terrestrial forces are predominantly concerned with performing these missions inside relatively small theaters of operation. In the future, humans will not only employ spacebased weapons to gain control of space, they will also employ

them against targets on the surface of Earth, at sea, and in the

air. With sustained national commitment to technological advancement and investments of time, talent, and treasure,

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space will continue to provide an excellent vantage point from

which to observe, support, and influence human events.

Space systems will require a vigorous defense, however. 

Space Control 

The first and most enduring mission of space forces is to

gain relative space control over adversaries when hostilities

occur. This means providing continuous situational awareness about what is happening in space and ensuring friendly

access to space while denying the same to any adversary.

Space control has both defensive and offensive components.

Defensive space control efforts must ensure that friendly

forces and their political leaders can continue to exploit space.

Space control is necessary to support theater operations

where combat operations are under way and to continue observing activities in all other theaters to assess other potential

threats requiring diplomatic or military intervention. Space

control will also enable a state to sustain such services from

space as communications and GPS data, upon which users in

all theaters are increasingly reliant. At the same time, commercial assets in space require some degree of defensive protection. Ideally, all satellites should be hardened from attack;

commercial investors, however, are reluctant to spend the

money to protect their satellites. This places a burden on defense planners to provide some protection to commercial systems that are important to the business interests of domestic

and allied economies.

An adversary’s counterspace weapons may be able to destroy space systems very rapidly. It is therefore imperative to

acquire the ability to find, fix, track, target, and destroy an adversary’s counterspace weapons very quickly. Such systems

may reside on land, at sea, in the air, or in space. It is equally

imperative to repair or replace lost satellite services on orbit.

The goal is to rapidly restore space support before it affects political and combat operations. Activating on-orbit spares, leasing commercial satellite services, launching new satellites to

replace those lost through attrition, or gaining access to an

ally’s satellite services may accomplish this. It is also essential

to acquire the ability to repair or replace lost satellite ground

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control systems. Methods for doing this may include transferring ground control responsibility to another location (fixed or

mobile), leasing commercial support, or obtaining ground support from an allied state. 

On the offensive side, space control does not have to be total

in order to be effective. For example, the enemy may have

satellites that do not especially affect his war-fighting ability

or influence the outcome of a conflict. The situation and the

strategy will dictate the degree of offensive space control that

is required. Factors to consider will be the time and place

where space control must be gained, how rapidly it is needed,

the number of satellites or ground control targets requiring

negation, how long space control must be sustained, and the

desired level of negation (destruction, degradation, denial, disruption). 

It is important to remember that an adversary’s satellites

are global assets. It may be politically untenable to permanently damage an adversary’s satellite for a number of reasons. For example, while an imagery satellite may threaten to

disclose friendly troop movements in one region, that same

satellite might perform treaty verification on the opposite side

of the globe or perform other missions on behalf of a friendly

interest. In many scenarios, offensive space control might best

be limited to very localized and temporary effects.

One way to deny an adversary’s access to space is to destroy

his space launch facilities. We must also be aware, however,

that the adversary may contract his space lift with other countries where he may have satellites in storage. Therefore, the

best way to deny space support to an adversary is to directly

negate the satellites he uses. While some satellite systems may

be particularly susceptible to the destruction of their ground

stations, other satellite systems may degrade gracefully in the

absence of ground control. An adversary may employ mobile

ground stations for tactically important space systems that

require frequent ground control. This not only makes targeting ground stations more difficult—it highlights the need to

negate an adversary’s satellites on orbit. It is also possible to

attack the users of space support by jamming or spoofing their

receivers. This tactic has the benefit of localized and temporary

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effects. In many scenarios, it is likely that a combination of attacks on all three segments of a space system (ground stations, satellites on orbit, and user equipment), as well as on

their linkages, will be required to achieve the desired effect. 

Space control efforts will be complicated if an adversary is

using launch facilities, satellites, or ground control systems

provided by commercial vendors, international consortia, or

an ally. Diplomatic efforts will likely be required to eliminate

third-party support to adversaries, but friendly forces must be

ready to expand the conflict by striking wherever adversaries

receive space support. If diplomatic efforts fail and policy does

not allow expansion of the conflict to strike third-party targets,

then the adversary has a sanctuary he will likely exploit.

Situational Awareness 

Situational awareness has always been critical in diplomacy

and warfare, but in the new era of precision targeting, situational awareness must be equally precise—a bomb is only as

accurate as the coordinates used by the planner, the war

fighter, and the munition itself. Precision targeting is well understood; but the need for precision intelligence, surveillance,

and reconnaissance is not. 

Multitudes of ISR sensors in all media characterize the modern battle space. Some collect signal intelligence while others

collect photoreconnaissance data. Still others collect radar information. These sensors and their operators not only attempt

to identify targets, they also try to determine each target’s precise coordinates. The ability of different sensors to determine

the precise coordinates of targets varies, but airborne sensors

are better at this than space-based sensors. Space systems

are typically much farther away from the targets than aircraft,

and satellites in the lowest orbits have relatively shorter dwell

times on targets than aircraft have. Satellites in higher orbits

are much more distant and are generally less able to precisely

refine target coordinates. Also, satellite sensors degrade over

time and no effort is being made to keep them in prime condition. Finally, given the relatively few ISR satellites in low earth

orbit, continuous coverage from space is currently impossible.

In sum, aircraft have several distinct advantages over spacecraft

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in regards to theater ISR collection, but space-derived ISR data

is critical to operations.

Space-derived ISR data is critical to diplomatic and military

operations because it provides a “first look” at the battle space

and assists planners in finding and coarsely locating many

targets before terrestrial forces move into the region. As a rule

of thumb, today’s space-derived ISR is useful in finding 80

percent of the targets and is able to determine their location to

roughly 80 percent of the accuracy required for precision

strikes. In some cases, space systems do better than 80 percent in finding and fixing targets; in other cases, they do

worse. What is important is the tremendous advantage space

systems provide politicians and commanders by giving them a

first look into the situation they face. With this information,

they are able to make decisions about how best to employ their

limited terrestrial ISR assets (aircraft, ships, submarines, reconnaissance ground forces) more efficiently. The first look

from space may suffice in some cases, but terrestrial ISR assets are usually required. During combat operations, spacebased ISR sensors continue to provide data, filling gaps in theater coverage. Space-based ISR sensors also frequently cue

terrestrially based sensors, as was the case during the Gulf

War when missile warning satellites cued Patriot batteries to

intercept Iraq’s inbound Scud missiles. 

Perhaps most important of all, day in and day out, during

war and during peace, spacepower provides an 80 percent first

look on a global scale. It allows analysts to watch the world

and report factors that give political and military leaders the

freedom to employ their terrestrial forces more expeditiously

and with greater confidence. Spacepower literally watches the

backs of terrestrial forces to make sure no threat is sneaking

up behind them. Thus, commanders can allow greater concentration of terrestrial forces in theaters of combat operations

because space-based ISR assets are sufficient to act as a kind

of global sentry. Space systems have unimpeded access

around the globe, and relatively few assets are required to sustain ISR missions on a global scale. 

Much more is possible. By increasing the number of low

earth orbiting sensors, continuously improving sensor quality,

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and developing the means to service and repair them, the 80

percent rule of thumb will creep closer toward the 100 percent

solution. As space systems become more capable, is it likely

that they will replace terrestrial forms of ISR collection? No!

Aerial reconnaissance did not eliminate the need for land and

sea forces to conduct reconnaissance of their own. There is no

reason to believe that space-based reconnaissance will replace

any other form of reconnaissance. 

Spacepower and Other Forces

Spacepower does not usurp missions from other forces.

Spacepower assets give new capabilities to a military power for

its order of battle. The ability to provide continuous coverage

on a global scale is a new contribution to warfare. The various

C4ISR capabilities—including weather observation, missile

warning, and navigation and timing broadcasts—give American forces a distinct informational advantage over adversaries

in the opening days of the twenty-first century. This advantage

will evaporate over time as other actors on the world stage develop, lease, or borrow similar capabilities.

Despite having to share much of their budget with USAF,

American space forces do not compete with terrestrial forces

for roles and missions. Airpower, land power, sea power, and

spacepower bring different capabilities to modern warfare. The

United States trains its military members in highly specialized

ways, the objective being to dominate operations within their

respective media. Operations in each medium require centralized control by practitioners of that form of power, in close coordination with their sister services, to ensure optimum management of resources.

A great fallacy resulting from the aerospace integration

mind-set is the oft-cited statement that “airpower missions

will migrate to space when it becomes reasonable to do so.”

This presumes that theater commanders are willing to trade

highly flexible organic airpower assets for less flexible (and

often less capable) space systems that another commander

would likely manage as global assets. Economic considerations

may force such a compromise; but a more prudent approach

is to develop robust spacepower capabilities in addition to

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airpower, land power, and sea power assets. Remember, the

difference between space systems and terrestrial systems is

that space systems provide global access and global presence

during both war and peace. Terrestrial systems should be developed as theater assets to fill gaps in space coverage and

provide more flexible and precise ISR data and strike capabilities.

When space forces eventually obtain systems that can create physical effects (conventional bombs or other weapons) at

any location on the surface of Earth, they will not replace the

aircraft that can do the same thing. Space operations are expensive, and economic considerations alone will likely require

air delivery of many munitions. Exceptions include times

when cost is not a consideration, such as combat in areas

where aircraft are denied access, when aircraft cannot respond to a time-critical situation as quickly as spacecraft,

when only a specialized weapon delivered from space will have

the desired probability of killing a target, or when surprise is

of the utmost importance. 

Some overlap exists between the capabilities of spacepower

and other forms of power, but this is a strength rather than a

waste. Just as bombers, submarines, and missiles during the

Cold War prevented an adversary from gaining a significant

advantage should they successfully counter one leg of the

triad, today’s redundancy prevents an adversary from gaining

a significant advantage should they successfully counter

space-based systems or terrestrial forces. There will be some

adjustments in force structures as space capabilities become

more robust, but no mission in any service should ever move

entirely to space. Under no circumstances should all of the

eggs ever be placed in the space basket. Instead, there should

be an integrated combined-arms approach.

Combined Arms 

During times of peace, spacepower assets monitor the globe,

helping to identify and characterize potential threats. When a

threat emerges, political and military leaders may opt to send

terrestrially based ISR sensors into the area of interest to get

a closer look. Should hostilities break out, space forces will

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gain the degree of space control required and will help friendly

forces in terms of ISR and strike capabilities. They still must

watch the rest of the world, in every other theater, looking for

tip-offs, warnings, and indications of other threats. 

Force application from space will take many different forms;

but it seems likely that space-based weapons will fill specific

niches, ideal for a handful of missions during certain phases

of operations. No claim is made that spacepower by itself can

be decisive in conventional warfare, but it may help set the

conditions for victory by friendly forces in certain circumstances. Conversely, if spacepower forces are defeated, this

may turn the tide of the war against friendly forces and contribute to defeat. There may be certain forms of limited warfare wherein information gleaned from space or strikes delivered from space may achieve the political and military aims of

an operation. If this defines decision in the battle space, then

so be it.

Unfinished Business

This study identified and argued the case for 10 propositions regarding spacepower. Doing so revealed that air and

space—indeed, airpower and spacepower—are different. With

a greater understanding of the nature of spacepower, it became possible to construct a spacepower theory. The theory

presented above supports the timeless principles of statecraft

and warfare, but it is also complementary to—not competitive

with—other forms of power. We are left with the unfinished

business of building spacepower that matches the vision laid

out in this theory. 

It is beyond the scope of this study to recommend who

should build spacepower for the nation. There are many possibilities. Should it be the Air Force? Should it be a space

corps within the Air Force filled with dedicated space professionals whose primary focus is spacepower? Should it be a

joint effort under a unified command? Should it be the responsibility of an independent space force? The nation should

address these questions in light of the 10 propositions presented here. Readers of this study should be better able to

106

FAIRCHILD PAPER
develop an informed opinion and make decisions concerning

spacepower accordingly.

Notes

1. It is interesting to speculate how spacepower might have evolved if it

came of age during a total war such as World War I or II. If the airpower analogy applies, then it is probably safe to presume that space would now be

fully weaponized and the global military power structure might be radically

different.

2. Report of the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space

Management and Organization (Washington, D.C.: 11 January 2001), ix.

3. Sun Tzu, The Art of War, trans. Ralph D. Sawyer (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1994).

4. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter

Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976).

5. Ibid., 69, 87.

107

SMITH
Appendix A

Oberg’s 12 Truths

and Beliefs about Spacepower

James E. Oberg completed Space Power Theory from a draft

by Dr. Brian R. Sullivan. Oberg worked for a NASA contractor

at the Johnson Space Center as a space engineer from 1975

to 1997. He is the author of several space-related books and

articles. He is also a consultant to news organizations, commercial corporations, the US military, and the Congress on

space-related subjects.1

Gen Howell M. Estes III, who served as USCINCSPACE from

1996 to 1998, commissioned the book. General Estes wanted

a book that would stimulate debate on spacepower in the

same way the works of Douhet, Trenchard, and Mitchell did

for airpower.2 The book touches a wide range of topics, including the importance of spacepower, legal issues, the nature

of the space environment, orbitology, current and future capabilities, and organizational issues. 

Oberg’s 12 “Truths and Beliefs” about spacepower are listed

below.3

1. The primary attribute of current space systems lies in

their extensive view of the Earth.

2. A corollary to this attribute is that a space vehicle is in

sight of vast areas of the Earth’s surface.

3. Space exists as a distinct medium.

4. Spacepower, alone, is insufficient to control the outcome

of terrestrial conflict or ensure the attainment of terrestrial political objectives.

5. Spacepower has developed, for the most part, without

human presence in space, making it unique among other

forms of national power.

6. Technology competence is required to become a space

power, and conversely, technological benefits are derived

from being a space power.

109
7. As with Earthbound media, the weaponization of space

is inevitable, though the manner and timing are not at

all predictable.

8. At some time in the future, the physical presence of humans in space will be necessary to provide greater situational awareness.

9. Situational awareness in space is a key to successful

application of spacepower.

10. Control of space is the linchpin upon which a nation’s

spacepower depends.

11. Scientific research and exploration pays off. 

12. There will be wild cards. 

Notes

1. James E. Oberg, Space Power Theory (Washington, D.C.: Government

Printing Office, March 1999), back cover.

2. Ibid., vi.

3. Ibid., 124–31.

110
Appendix B

Gray’s Eight “Clausewitzian”

Ideas about Spacepower

In Modern Strategy, author Colin S. Gray promotes his central thesis that “there is a unity to all strategic experience:

nothing essential changes in the nature and function (or

purpose)—in sharp contrast to the character—of strategy and

war.”1 Formerly a professor of international politics and director of the Centre for Security Studies at the University of Hull,

now at Reading College in the United Kingdom, Gray has researched and published numerous books and articles on

strategy. His recent interest lies in the impact of evolving technology upon modern warfare. In particular, he has spent

much effort contemplating the role of spacepower and the

need for a theory upon which to base the particular aspects of

spacepower strategy. Particulars aside, he contends that the

roots of all strategy can be found in the logic laid down by

Clausewitz in On War. Gray believes the logical underpinnings

for spacepower theory must have their roots planted firmly in

the Clausewitzian tradition.

Here are Gray’s “Clausewitzian ideas” about spacepower:2

1. War has a grammar, but not a policy logic, of its own.3

War in space has its own distinctive characteristics that

policy must know and respect, but such war has meaning only for the purposes of policy.

2. Countries have “centres of gravity” that are key to their

functioning.4 A country’s or coalition’s ability to wage

war successfully can be negated if those centres of

gravity are menaced, damaged, or taken. Space forces

can greatly enhance the ability of other kinds of military power to locate, threaten, harass, and destroy

such centres.

3. War is the realm of chance, uncertainty, and friction; the

fog of war blinds the commander.5 Spacepower assaults

111
some of the friction that impairs terrestrial military performance, but is itself subject to the workings of friction.

4. War is a unity.6 Spacepower is an essential team player,

probably due to become the team player who adds the

greatest value for lethality in combat in the twenty-first

century.

5. Policy makers and military commanders need to understand what the military instrument can accomplish

under particular conditions.7 The emergence of spacepower adds to the burden of comprehension by military

professionals and civilian laypersons alike.

6. As the Just War tradition maintains, there needs to be a

unity of character and intensity of political purpose with

the scale and kinds of military means: the principle of

proportionality.8 Contemplation of the military implications of a maturing spacepower has to accommodate appreciation of the value to policy of an unprecedentedly

discriminative military instrument, without being captured by techno-military fantasies.

7. Success in battle flows from the achievement of overwhelming strength at the “decisive point.”9 This maxim is

as sound for space operations as it is for other kinds of

military activity. 

8. Defence is the stronger form of waging war (on land).10 In

space, defence is probably the stronger form of waging

war in high- and medium-Earth orbit (HEO and MEO),

but probably not in low-Earth orbit (LEO). There is some

safety in sheer distance (equal to time, provided speedof-light directed-energy weapons are not relevant).11

With its Clausewitzian roots framed, Gray argues that the

elements of spacepower theory can be assembled in piecemeal

fashion from theories of airpower and seapower because the

logic of warfare in one medium applies to warfare in all other

media.12 His list of Clausewitzian ideas implies that space is a

distinct medium and potentially a center of gravity. The employment of space assets therefore requires special policy and

military considerations in order to exploit it properly—just like

the other media.

112
Notes

1. Colin S. Gray, Modern Strategy (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press,

1999), 256–57.

2. Ibid., ix.

3. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter

Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), 605.

4. Ibid., 595–97.

5. Ibid., 119–21.

6. Ibid., 607.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid., 88, 579.

9. Ibid., 204.

10. Ibid., 359.

11. Note that “HEO” is typically used in America as an acronym for

“Highly Elliptical Orbit.” Gray, however, is British and uses the acronym

“HEO” to mean “High Earth Orbit.” HEO, in the sense used by Gray, is an

orbit that extends beyond 35,000 km in altitude; MEO extends from 800 to

35,000 km; LEO extends from 150 to 800 km.

12. Gray, 257.

113
Appendix C

Gray’s Seven Most Vital

Assumptions about Spacepower

Having established the Clausewitzian roots as the framework

for a spacepower theory, Gray points out that air, land, sea,

and space have much in common. This must be so if he is to

prove his thesis that there is unity to all strategic experience.

Here are Gray’s seven most vital assumptions about spacepower:1

1. In all strategic essentials, spacepower is akin to landpower, seapower, and airpower.

2. The strategic history of spacepower is likely to follow the

pattern already traced by seapower and airpower.

3. Geographically, space is distinctive, but then so is the

land, the sea, the air, and even cyberspace.

4. People have only one natural environment: the land. To

function in any other geography, they require technological support. The vacuum of space admittedly is exceptionally hostile to human life, but it does not differ basically in character from sea and air. These three

geographies can accommodate humans only when machines provide their life support systems.

5. Because people live only on the land and belong to security communities organized politically within territorial

domains, military behaviour, no matter what its tactical

form, ultimately can have strategic meaning only for the

course of events on land. It follows that seapower, airpower, and spacepower function strategically as enabling

factors. The outcome of a war may be decided by action

at sea, in the air, or in space, but the war must be concluded on land—and usually with reference to the land.

6. The logic of strategy is geographically universal and temporally eternal. Different strategic cultures may “do it

their way,” but only if that way is consistent with the

115
laws of physics, inter alia. (Willpower is only hot air, if

the engineering is unsound.) 

7. The unique geography of space must find expression in

unique technology, operations, and tactics. That unique

geography does not point the way to some unique logic

of strategy, however, let alone a unique irrelevance of

strategy. 

Notes

1. Colin S. Gray, Modern Strategy (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press,

1999), 258–59.

116

FAIRCHILD PAPER
Appendix D

Mantz’s 10 Axioms

of Space Combat Power

In May 1995, Lt Col Michael R. Mantz published an Airpower Research Institute-sponsored research report titled The

New Sword: A Theory of Space Combat Power. The purpose of

the report was to present an “unconstrained and comprehensive” theory of space combat power.1 The report is essentially

an elaborate “think piece” that draws on Mantz’s extensive academic and practical experience. He graduated from the US

Air Force Academy in 1976 with a Bachelor of Science degree

in electrical engineering. Mantz completed his Master of Science degree in aeronautics and astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981 before his selection

and subsequent training as a space shuttle payload specialist

(astronaut) in 1982. 

In an appendix, Mantz included what he called “Axioms of

Space Combat Power,” a list of 10 statements that are very

similar to propositions. He included them because “any theory

uses axioms as building blocks.”2 He dealt primarily with the

concept of space combat, not spacepower as a whole.

Here is Mantz’s list of axioms:

1. Space strike systems can be employed decisively by

striking Earth forces, both independently and jointly.

2. Space strike systems can be employed decisively in war

when the enemy’s essential means for waging war (industry, transportation, and communications) are vulnerable to attack from space.

3. Space strike systems can be employed decisively by

striking at the decision-making structure (leadership

and command and control) of the enemy.

4. Space strike systems can deter hostile actions by holding

forces, decision makers (leadership and command and

control), and infrastructure (industry, transportation,

and communications) at risk.

117
5. Space denial systems can be employed decisively by

denying enemy access to space-derived data.

6. Space denial systems can be employed decisively by

physically denying enemy access to space.

7. Space protection systems can be employed to assure

friendly access and use of space.

8. Total space control (the combination of space denial,

space protection, and passive space defense measures)

is neither achievable nor necessary.

9. Space combat power must be centrally and independently controlled.

10. Spacepower is not intrinsically linked to airpower.3

Mantz goes on to provide an excellent discussion that links

his axioms to his theory of space combat. It is important to

note that Mantz sees space as a distinct medium of operations

and believes spacepower has an independent mission, separate from its role of supporting or augmenting surface forces.

Interestingly, he also believes that total space control is neither achievable nor necessary. 

Mantz remains on active duty in the US Air Force and continues to serve as a space professional.

Notes

1. Lt Col Michael R. Mantz, The New Sword: A Theory of Space Combat

Power (Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala: Air University Press, May 1995), xi.

2. Ibid., 74.

3. Ibid.

118
Appendix E

Findings and Recommendations of

the Commission to Assess United States

National Security Space Management and

Organization (Space Commission Report)

The Commission has unanimously concluded that organizational and management changes are needed for the following

reasons.

First, the present extent of U.S. dependence on space,

the rapid pace at which this dependence is increasing

and the vulnerabilities it creates, all demand that

U.S. national security space interests be recognized

as a top national security priority. The only way they

will receive this priority is through specific guidance

and direction from the very highest government levels. Only the President has the authority, first, to set

forth the national space policy, and then to provide

the guidance and direction to Senior officials, that

together are needed to ensure that the United States

remains the world’s leading space-faring nation. Only

Presidential leadership can ensure the cooperation

needed from all space sectors—commercial, civil, defense and intelligence.

Second, the U.S. Government—in particular, the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community—is not yet arranged or focused to meet the national security space needs of the 21st century. Our

growing dependence on space, our vulnerabilities in

space and the burgeoning opportunities from space

are simply not reflected in the present institutional

arrangements. After examining a variety of organizational approaches, the Commission concluded that a

number of disparate space activities should promptly

be merged, chains of command adjusted, lines of

communication opened and policies modified to

119
achieve greater responsibility and accountability.

Only then can the necessary trade-offs be made, the

appropriate priorities be established and the opportunities for improving U.S. military and intelligence

capabilities be realized. Only with senior-level leadership, when properly managed and with the right

priorities will U.S. space programs both deserve and

attract the funding that is required.

Third, U.S. national security space programs are vital

to peace and stability, and the two officials primarily

responsible and accountable for those programs are

the Secretary of Defense and the Director of Central

Intelligence. Their relationship is critical to the development and deployment of the space capabilities

needed to support the President in war, in crisis and

also in peace. They must work closely and effectively

together, in partnership, both to set and maintain the

course for national security space programs and to

resolve the differences that arise between their respective bureaucracies. Only if they do so will the

armed forces, the Intelligence Community and the National Command Authorities have the information

they need to pursue our deterrence and defense objectives successfully in this complex, changing and

still dangerous world.

Fourth, we know from history that every medium—air,

land and sea—has seen conflict. Reality indicates

that space will be no different. Given this virtual certainty, the U.S. must develop the means both to deter

and to defend against hostile acts in and from space.

This will require superior space capabilities. Thus

far, the broad outline of U.S. national space policy is

sound, but the U.S. has not yet taken the steps necessary to develop the needed capabilities and to

maintain and ensure continuing superiority.

Finally, investment in science and technology resources—not just facilities, but people—is essential if

the U.S. is to remain the world’s leading space-faring

nation. The U.S. Government needs to play an active,

120
deliberate role in expanding and deepening the pool

of military and civilian talent in science, engineering

and systems operations that the nation will need. The

government also needs to sustain its investment in

enabling and breakthrough technologies in order to

maintain its leadership in space.1

Following are the Commission’s unanimous recommendations.

1. Presidential Leadership

The United States has a vital national interest in space. National security space should be high among the nation’s priorities. It deserves the attention of the national leadership, from

the President down.

The President should consider establishing space

as national security priority.

2. Presidential Space Advisory Group

The President might find it useful to have access to high-level

advice in developing a long-term strategy for sustaining the nation’s role as the leading space-faring nation.

The President should consider the appointment of

a Presidential Space Advisory Group to provide independent advice on developing and employing

new space capabilities.

3. Senior Interagency Group for Space

The current interagency process is inadequate to address the

number, range and complexity of today’s space issues, which

are expected to increase over time. A standing interagency coordination process is needed to focus on policy formulation and

coordination of space activities pertinent to national security

and to assure that representation in domestic and international

affairs effectively reflects U.S. national security and other space

interests.

The President should direct that a Senior Interagency Group for Space be established and staffed

within the National Security Council structure.

121
4. SecDef/DCI Relationship

The issues relating to space between the Department of Defense

and the Intelligence Community are sufficiently numerous and

complex that their successful resolution and implementation require a close, continuing and effective relationship between the

Secretary of Defense and the Director of Central Intelligence.

The Secretary of Defense and the Director of Central

Intelligence should meet regularly to address national security space policy, objectives and issues.

5. Under Secretary of Defense for Space, Intelligence

and Information

Until space organizations have more fully evolved, the Office of

the Secretary of Defense would benefit from having a seniorlevel official with sufficient standing to serve as the advocate for

space within the Department. The Secretary of Defense would

assign this official responsibility to oversee the Department’s

research and development, acquisition, launch and operation of

its space, intelligence and information assets; coordinate the

military intelligence activities within the Department; and work

with the Intelligence Community on long-range intelligence requirements for national security.

An Under Secretary of Defense for Space, Intelligence and Information should be established.

6. Commander in Chief of U.S. Space Command and

NORAD and Commander, Air Force Space Command

The Commander in Chief, U.S. Space Command should continue

to concentrate on space as it relates to warfare in the mediums

of air, land and sea, as well as space. His primary role is to conduct space operations and provide space-related services, to include computer network defense/attack missions in support of

the operations of the other CINCs, and national missile defense.

This broad and varied set of responsibilities as CINCSPACE will

leave less time for his other assigned duties.

The Secretary of the Air Force should assign responsibility for the command of Air Force Space

122
Command to a four-star officer other than CINCSPACE/CINCNORAD.

The Secretary of Defense should end the practice

of assigning only Air Force flight-rated officers to

the position of CINCSPACE and CINCNORAD to ensure that an officer from any Service with an understanding of combat and space could be assigned to this position.

7. Military Services

The Department of Defense requires space systems that can be

employed in independent operations or in support of air, land

and sea forces to deter and defend against hostile actions directed at the interests of the United States. In the mid term a

Space Corps within the Air Force may be appropriate to meet

this requirement; in the longer term it may be met by a military

department for space. In the nearer term, a realigned, rechartered Air Force is best suited to organize, train and equip space

forces.

The Air Force should realign headquarters and

field commands to more effectively organize, train

and equip for prompt and sustained space operations. Assign Air Force Space Command (AFSPC)

responsibility for providing the resources to execute space research, development, acquisition

and operations, under the command of a four-star

general. The Army and Navy would still establish

requirements and develop and deploy space systems unique to each Service.

Amend Title 10 U.S.C. to assign the Air Force responsibility to organize, train and equip for

prompt and sustained offensive and defensive air

and space operations. In addition, the Secretary

of Defense should designate the Air Force as Executive Agent for Space within the Department of

Defense.

8. Aligning Air Force and NRO Space Programs

123
The Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community

would benefit from the appointment of a single official within

the Air Force with authority for the acquisition of space systems

for the Air Force and the NRO based on the “best practices” of

each organization.

Assign the Under Secretary of the Air Force as the

Director of the National Reconnaissance Office.

Designate the Under Secretary as the Air Force Acquisition Executive for Space.

9. Innovative Research and Development

The Intelligence Community has a need for revolutionary methods, including but not limited to space systems, for collecting intelligence.

The Secretary of Defense and the Director of Central Intelligence should direct the creation of a research, development and demonstration organization to focus on this requirement.

Competitive centers of innovation that actively pursue space-related research, development and demonstration programs are

desirable.

The Secretary of Defense should direct the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the

Services’ laboratories to undertake development

and demonstration of innovative space technologies and systems for dedicated military missions.

10. Budgeting for Space

Better visibility into the level and distribution of fiscal and personnel resources would improve management and oversight of

space programs.

The Secretary of Defense should establish a Major

Force Program for Space.

___________________________________________

The Commission believes that its recommendations, taken as

a whole, will enable the U.S. to sustain its position as the

world’s leading space-faring nation. Presidential leadership

124
and guidance, coupled with a more effective interagency

process and especially with improved coordination between

the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community,

are essential if the nation is to promote and protect its interests in space.2

Notes

1. Report of the Commission to Assess United States National Security

Space Management and Organization (Washington, D.C., 11 January 2001),

ix–x.

2. Ibid., xxxi–xxxv.

125
Glossary/Definitions

ACSC Air Command and Staff College

ADC active defensive counterspace

ADR Annual Defense Review

ASAT antisatellite

AU Air University

BMD ballistic missile defense

COTS commercial-off-the-shelf

DOD Department of Defense

FSCL fire support coordination line

GEO geostationary Earth orbit

GPS Global Positioning System

HEO highly elliptical orbit

ICBM intercontinental ballistic missile

LEO low earth orbit

MEO medium earth orbit

NASA National Aeronautics and Space 

Administration

NCA National Command Authorities

NMD national missile defense

NTMV national technical means of verification

NORAD North American Air Defense

NRO National Reconnaissance Office

OCS offensive counterspace

PDCS passive defensive counterspace

SAAS School of Advanced Airpower Studies

SAC Strategic Air Command

START Strategic Arms Reduction Talks

US United States

USAF United States Air Force

USCINCSPACE United States Commander-in-Chief Space

USSPACECOM United States Space Command

USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Proposition: “1. A plan or scheme suggested for acceptance . . .

5c. A statement containing only logical constants and having a fixed truth-value.” —From the American Heritage

127
Dictionary, Second College Edition (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1995) 994.

Spacepower: The ability of a state or nonstate actor to achieve

its goals and objectives in the presence of other actors on

the world stage through control and exploitation of the

space environment.

1

Notes

1. James L. Hyatt III et al., “Space Power 2010,” Research Report 95-05

(Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.: Air Command and Staff College, May 1995), 5.

128
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137
Allied Force, 11, 62

Alpha, 37

Annan, UN Secretary General Kofi, 28

Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, 43

Arnold, General Hap, 8, 48

Aviaconversia Company, 61

Battle of the Atlantic, 70, 74

Bernoulli, 6, 38

Black, Lt Cmdr J. Todd, 62

Bush administration, 30, 32, 98

Bush, President George H. W., 25

Bush, President George W., 9, 26, 30

Challenger, 65

China, 26, 28, 50, 71, 73

Clausewitz, 2, 10, 43, 64-65, 69, 98

Clementine II, 27

Clinton administration, 27-28, 32

Clinton, President, 27

Conference on Disarmament, 43

Creech, Gen Wilbur L., 56

Daschle, Senate Majority Leader

Thomas A., 80

Desert Storm, 11, 21, 23-25, 31, 35, 56,

59, 62

DOD, 2, 27, 29-30, 36, 39-40, 51, 73,

75-76, 91, 96

Douhet, 2, 21

Eberhart, Gen Ralph E., 21, 25, 26, 27,

28, 32

Eisenhower, President Dwight D., 18

Environmental Modification Convention,

43

EUTELSAT Corporation, 62

Florini, Ann M., 63

Fogleman, Gen Ronald R., 29

Global Positioning System, 24

GPS, 24-25, 30, 46, 59, 61-62, 67, 73,

95, 100

Gray, Colin S., 40

Hays, Peter, 6, 50

Horner, Gen Charles A., 1

India, 50, 57-59

Iridium Satellite Company, 46

Kármán, Dr. Theodore von, 8

Kasserine Pass, 54-55

Kepler, 6, 38

Kinnan, Maj Christopher J., 57

Laser Clearing House, 39

Limited Test Ban Treaty, 42

Lupton, David E., 13

Mahan, 2

Mantz, Lt Col Michael R., 42

McLaughlin, Lt Col J. Kevin, 76

McPeak, Gen Merrill, 25

Meilinger, Col Phillip S., 2

Myers, Gen Richard B., 64, 71

National Space Policy, 23-24, 27-30

NCA, 24

NRO, 23-25, 51, 67, 77

Nunn, Sen. Sam, 28

Oberg, Jim, 45, 49

Outer Space Treaty, 43, 50

O’Connell, Robert L., 81

Pakistan, 57

Pape, Robert, 57

Pearl Harbor, 44, 71

Powers, Gary, 44

RAND Corporation, 9, 45

Reagan, President Ronald W., 9

Rumsfeld, Donald, 30, 35

Russia, 11, 26, 28, 43, 49, 61, 73

Ryan, Gen Michael E., 29

Schwarzkopf, Gen H. Norman, 62

Scott, William, 60

Senate Intelligence Committee, 73

Shelling, Thomas C., 57

Smith, Maj Gen Lance L., 59

Soviet Union, 4, 23-24, 44-45

Spaatz, General Carl, 75

Space Commission Report, 29, 37, 52,

71-72, 75, 79

Space Pearl Harbor, 71

Spacefaring, 2, 32, 35, 49, 53, 66, 71,

82, 92-94

Spacepower, 1-3, 5, 7-14, 17-18, 21, 24-

25, 29, 32, 35-37, 39-50, 52-61, 64-

65, 68-70, 72, 74, 78-79, 81, 91-99,

103-107

Sputnik I, 23, 45, 49

Starry, Gen Donn A., 56

transverse region, 5-6, 38-40

USAF Doctrine Center, 7

139

Index
Vesely, Lt Gen David L., 39

Watts, Barry, 65, 80

White, Gen Thomas D., 6, 20, 36, 69

Widnall, Sheila E., 80

Wilson, Vice Adm Thomas R., 73

Zhukov, Georgi, 44

140
Ten Propositions Regarding Spacepower

Air University Press Team

Chief Editor

Preston Bryant

Copy Editor

Rita B. Mathis

Book Design and Cover Art

Daniel M. Armstrong

Composition and

Prepress Production

Vivian D. O’Neal