Weaponization of Space: 

Understanding Strategic 

and Technological

Inevitabilities 

Thomas D. Bell, Lt Col, USAF

January 1999

Occasional Paper No. 6

Center for Strategy and Technology

Air War College

Air University

Maxwell Air Force Base
Weaponization Of Space:

Understanding Strategic and Technological Inevitabilities

by

Thomas D. Bell, Lt Col, USAF

January 1999

Occasional Paper No. 6

Center for Strategy and Technology

Air War College

Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama
Weaponization Of Space:

Understanding Strategic and Technological Inevitabilities

Thomas D. Bell, Lt Col, USAF 

January 1999 

The Occasional Papers series was established by the Center for Strategy and Technology as a 

forum for research on topics that reflect long-term strategic thinking about technology and its 

implications for U.S. national security. Copies of No. 6 and previous papers in this series are 

available from the Center for Strategy and Technology, Air War College, 325 Chennault Circle, 

Maxwell AFB, Montgomery, Alabama 36112. The fax number is (334) 953-1988; phone (334) 

953-2384. 

Occasional Paper No. 6 

Center for Strategy and Technology 

Air War College 

Air University 

Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama 36112 

The internet address for the Center for Strategy and Technology is: 

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awccsat.htm 
Contents

Page 

Disclaimer 

Author 

Preface 

Abstract

I. Introduction 

II. First Steps Toward Weaponizing Space 

.......i 

......ii 

.....iii 

.....iv 

......1 

......3 

III. US Air Force Must Adapt to New Means of Strategic -Bombardment ......7

IV. Conclusions and Recommendations ....17 

Afterword ....19 

Glossary ....20 

Notes ....21 

Bibliography ....24 
Disclaimer 

The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not reflect the official 

policy or position of the Department of Defense, the United States Government, or of the Air 

War College Center for Strategy and Technology. 

i 
The Author 

Lieutenant Colonel Thomas D. Bell, USAF, has been involved in USAF fighter aviation 

for the majority of his 18 year career. After finishing pilot training in 1979, Lieutenant Colonel 

Bell served as an F-111 pilot, then an instructor pilot and weapons officer both in Europe and in 

the United States from 1980 until 1988. From 1988 until 1990 Lieutenant Colonel Bell was a 

staff officer in the weapons and tactics division at Headquarters Tactical Air Command. 

Following intermediate service school Lieutenant Colonel Bell qualified as an F-117 pilot and an 

instructor pilot with responsibilities for F-117 contingency planning, weapons and tactics, and 

training. Prior to entering the Air War College, Lieutenant Colonel Bell served as Commander, 

Detachment 1, 57th Wing. In this capacity, Lieutenant Colonel Bell was responsible for the 

conduct of follow-on operational test and evaluation and tactics development and evaluation for 

the F-117 “Stealth Fighter.” Lieutenant Colonel Bell is a graduate of the United States Air Force 

Academy with a Bachelors Degree in Computer Science. His military education also includes 

graduation from the USAF Fighter Weapons School, Squadron Officers School, and the US 

Army Command and General Staff College. His civilian education includes a Masters of Science 

Degree in Computer Science from the University of Idaho. A 1997 graduate of the Air War 

College, Lieutenant Colonel Bell completed this research under the auspices of the Center. 

ii 
Preface 

This study focuses on the question of the relevance of aerospace power beyond the 

twentieth century. My purpose is to generate a debate about whether it is inevitable that we will 

weaponize space and the role of the United States Air Force in this transition. My premise is that 

in order for the Air Force to keep its place as the nation's premier provider of aerospace power, it 

must not just participate in this process � it must lead the rest of the nation to this destiny. 

Operationally, we have not yet started to walk down this path. However, many of the 

technologies that will form the basis of the first weapons we will use in this environment are in 

development today. To ensure that the United States develops the combat capability that the 

nation needs, it is essential to develop the strategy and doctrine under which future Air Force 

warriors will employ these weapons. Otherwise, the technology we develop may not meet the 

strategic needs of the United States, and equally in the next war the United States may not have 

the technological asymmetry on which it has relied for victory since World War II. 

The reader is encouraged to consider the position of the aviator in 1920, who was looking 

at the promise that aviation could provide strategic airpower for the nation. While keeping in 

mind the potential of strategic airpower to strike at the heart of the enemy, the reader should 

leave behind any personal prejudices as to the means for employing that power. This is not a 

discussion about bombers, or fighters, or missiles, or unmanned combat air vehicles. It is a 

discussion about what we as an Air Force need to do now in order to provide aerospace power to 

our nation as we approach the middle of the next century. 

I would like to thank Dr. William C. Martel of the Air War College faculty and Colonel 

Theodore C. Hailes, USAF (Ret.) for their support and encouragement as I struggled with the 

ideas in this study. That being said, I alone am responsible for any inadequacies in this paper. 

iii 
Abstract 

It is inevitable that mankind will weaponize space and equally likely that this will take 

place in the next thirty years. The United States is in the early stages of a transition from using 

space assets to support combat operations on the surface of the earth to using space assets to 

conduct combat operations in space, from space, and through space. This paper discusses factors 

driving the United States to take its first steps to weaponize space. It is time for the Air Force to 

build the doctrinal framework for combat operations in, from, and through space that will guide 

the technological development of space assets just as the doctrine of strategic bombardment 

guided Air Force thought and aircraft development prior to World War II. This paper discusses 

the transition from an air to a space force by examining required changes to Air Force doctrine in 

terms of the framework of its six core competencies in order to prepare the Air Force to organize, 

train, and equip aerospace forces for conducting combat operations in space. 

iv 
I. Introduction 

More than seventy-five years have passed since the guns fell silent in the MeuseArgonne. Before the ink was dry on the German surrender in the rail car at Compiegne,1 

historians were busy sorting out what had happened and why. Many were trying to assess how 

various forms of warfare broke the stalemate of the trenches and helped the Allies achieve 

ultimate victory over Germany. 

Historians saw the triumph of land warfare. They noted the impact of technological 

advances, such as the tank, in restoring maneuver to the battlefield. The creation of this technical 

asymmetry was vital in overcoming the horrors of trench warfare. Historians also noted, in many 

cases parenthetically, the role of air power.

2 

Air power advocates, on the other hand, believed that the First World War validated the 

accomplishments of their fledgling systems and provided a vision of what air power could 

become. As a spotter for field artillery, air power was “a decisive factor in creating and 

maintaining the stalemate.”3

 The fighter plane developed “according to the needs of battle, rather 

than according to a doctrine or in some deliberately chosen direction.”4

 In an escort role, it 

contributed to the defensive lull. In the pursuit role, it facilitated the offense.

5 

However, “[only] strategic air power seemed to offer a real alternative to the bloody, 

indecisive collisions along a static front: the swift, deep, surgically precise stroke at just the right 

objective�what Clausewitz called the enemy's center of gravity that would ensure his rapid 

collapse.”6 This strategic air power doctrine�or vision of what air power could become�served 

as the framework for air power theorists and technological developments throughout the interwar period. 

More than five years have passed since the guns fell silent along the Iraqi “highway of 

death.” Before the ink was dry on the Iraqi cease-fire in the tent at Safwan,7

 historians were busy 

sorting out what had happened and why. Many were trying to assess how various forms of 

warfare helped the coalition achieve ultimate victory over the Iraqi army and the liberation of 

Kuwait. 

Historians saw the triumph of joint and coalition warfare led by a decisive air campaign. 

They noted the impact of technological advances, such as stealth aircraft and precision guided 

munitions, in destroying the Iraqi command and control structure and removing the Iraqi 

capability to maneuver on the battlefield. The use of the existing technical asymmetry was vital 

in overcoming the potential horrors of fortified Iraqi defensive positions. Historians also noted, 

in many cases almost parenthetically, the role of space power. The index of the Air Force official 

history of the Gulf War, The Gulf War Air Power Survey Summary Report, addresses space 

assets on only one page.

8 The index does not make reference to the United States Space 

Command (USSPACECOM). Like air power in the First World War, space power in the Gulf 

War appeared as an auxiliary, that supported the main action; it was not itself at center stage. 

Space power advocates, on the other hand, argued that the Gulf War validated the 

accomplishments of their satellite systems. The Global Positioning System (GPS) was critical to 

the conduct of the war, despite the fact that it was not yet an operational system; only 16 of the 

21 then planned satellites were in orbit.9

 Coalition forces in the Gulf used over 12,000 hand-held 

GPS receivers.10 Six Defense Meteorological Satellite Program satellites furnished highresolution, near-real time meteorological information in the midst of the worst weather in the 

1 
Persian Gulf in fourteen years.

11 Defense Satellite Communications System satellites provided 

in-theater and inter-theater secure communication. Three Defense Support Program satellites 

“scanned for and reported bright infrared 'events'�the exhaust glow from Scud launches. Two 

civilian satellites systems also provided imagery: the US LANDSAT and the French SPOT 

[Systme Probatoire d'Observation de la Terre].”12 Like their air-breathing counterparts at the end 

of World War I, space power advocates left the Gulf War with a vision of what their systems 

could provide to the nation given the technology and the political will to turn the vision into 

reality. 

This essay examines that vision of space power and its implications for the 

weaponization of space in the twenty-first century.

13 It argues that it is inevitable mankind will 

weaponize space, and equally likely that this weaponization will occur with maturing of specific 

technologies over the next thirty years.

14 U.S. planning for military operations is in the 

transitional stage from relying on space assets to support combat operations on the surface of the 

earth to depending on space assets for the conduct of combat operations in, from, and through 

space. The US ability to conduct combat operations in this environment will provide the 

technical asymmetry that the US will need to win the next war, just as it used strategic bombers 

and the atomic bomb to win World War II and stealth technology and precision guided munitions 

to win the Gulf War. 

To make this transition, the US must overcome current legal and political impediments to 

doing so.15 It is assumed that the political will to weaponize space will lead to overcoming these 

obstacles. In addition to these hurdles, the USAF must overcome certain technical obstacles to 

make military operations from space a reality. The Air Force Scientific Advisory Board's report, 

New World Vistas: Air and Space Power for the 21st Century,16 outlines in great detail the technologies necessary 

to accomplish this objective. 

Perhaps most difficult of all, the Air Force must overcome institutional and doctrinal 

impediments to start building the doctrinal framework for space combat operations that will 

guide the technological development of space assets in much the same way as the doctrine of 

daylight precision bombardment guided Air Force thought and aircraft development prior to 

World War II. The Air Force's six core competencies provide the framework for analyzing how 

the Air Force as an institution must change the way it organizes, trains, and equips aerospace 

forces to conduct combat operations in the space environment. First, however, it is necessary to 

consider what will drive the United States to take the first steps to weaponize space. 

2 
II. First Steps Toward Weaponizing Space 

Just as the role of US military operations in space has gradually shifted from scientific 

interest, through intelligence collection, to robust combat support, so it will continue to shift 

inevitably toward the weaponization of space. In discussing the expanding role of the military in 

space, the term weaponization implies an increase in the capability to conduct warfare in, from, 

or through space. It is appropriate to use the term weaponization, rather than militarization, 

because both the United States and Russia have already militarized space. Since man's earliest 

days in space, intelligence and communications satellites have had military missions. While 

space has not been weaponized yet, there are historical reasons for suspecting that the 

weaponization of space is as inevitable as was the weaponization of the land, sea, and air media 

of warfare. The results from these cases show that, although the initial involvement in the land, 

sea, and air media was not for military purposes, the militarization and ultimate weaponization of 

each medium occurred because of the belief that it was necessary to protect resources in these 

environments. It is for this reason that the causes for the weaponization of these media are 

relevant to space. 

Selected Examples 

The development of combat forces on land predates recorded history. As people acquired 

more resources to protect, the need for land forces increased, and with that development societies 

turned toward citizen-soldiers for protection. The history of the militarization of land is the 

history of civilization itself. As civilization advanced, so too did its resources and the nature of 

the armies which guarded their security. 

As with armies, the development of navies precedes recorded history. By 1100 BC the 

Phoenicians were the dominant maritime traders in the ancient world. Their navies sailed the 

Mediterranean to protect Phoenician commerce. In 404 BC, Athens was the preeminent naval 

power in the Mediterranean given that the need to protect the maritime empire dominated the 

economy of the Aegean. But it was Sparta's ability to change its traditional land power strategy 

and to use the navy to project power that led to the ultimate defeat of the Athenian army in Sicily 

in the third phase of the Peloponnesian War. 

The same trends continued in more modern times. As with land forces, the need to 

protect vulnerable resources led to the development of navies. As the resource needing protection 

moved further from home, the ability to project power against the enemy also increased. 

Culminating in a centuries old desire to fly, the Wright Brothers invaded the sanctity of the air 

with powered flight in 1903. Within six years, they had signed a $30,000 contract with the US 

government to produce biplanes for the Army.

17 The weaponization of the air had begun. Early 

attempts at the weaponization of the air were unsuccessful. Winchester rifles strapped to the 

struts of 1st Aero Squadron aircraft in Mexico proved inadequate.18 

Even at the beginning of World War I, the weaponization of the air was not complete. 

“The relationship of opposing pilots of observation aircraft was quite friendly at first. As they 

crossed the front lines each morning, German and French pilots usually waved and returned 

friendly smiles. This, however, did not last long. As the fighting dragged on . . . more and more 

aerial incidents took place as bricks were thrown and a few shots from hand guns exchanged. 

3 
Hand dropped bombs were developed, making the airplane a real offensive weapon.”19 By the 

end of the war, opposing forces expanded the weaponization of aircraft to include machine guns 

firing through the propeller arc. 

Weaponizing Space 

The oceans are a vast but finite resource. Due to the locations of the continents and the 

nature of commerce between trading partners, some portions of the oceans are busier than others. 

The result is competition for limited resources and an opportunity to control the seas by 

controlling the chokepoints. Space, as currently used, is also a finite resource. The view space 

provides and the capability to pass information through space at the speed of light from one point 

to another on the surface of the earth makes certain satellite orbits more valuable, and hence 

busier than others. This leads to chokepoints in space.20 As in the case of the sea, the result is 

competition, and with competition will emerge conflicts; and from those conflicts, it will be 

necessary for societies to control space. 

The United States is extremely dependent on space assets.

21 The average US citizen 

depends on space assets each day for telephone communications, cable television, weather 

forecasts, and other information. American business is increasingly reliant on satellites for 

information transfer, to locate natural resources, to plot maps, to measure growth, etc. The 

number of business uses for space will only increase over the coming decades. The plan for 

business consortia such as Iridium and Teledesic to orbit satellite constellations (providing 

world-wide cellular phone and internet access via satellite) will inextricably link daily activities 

of businesses and ordinary citizens with space assets. With every day that passes, the political 

and economic system in the United States becomes even more reliant on the assured connectivity 

that space resources provide. 

The United States military is no less dependent on space assets. Key intelligence, 

surveillance and reconnaissance, strategic and theater level warning, weapon's guidance, 

communications, command and control, and environmental monitoring functions are migrating 

to space.22 

As an increasing number of these critical resources and capabilities migrate to space, the 

need increases to protect these resources, in peace and war. As prehistoric peoples developed 

armies on land to protect their resources, as the Phoenicians developed navies to protect their 

trade routes in the Mediterranean, and as nations developed air forces to protect their resources 

from attacks in the third dimension, space will become an arena for military operations. Having 

been militarized virtually since the beginning of man's experience in this medium, societies will 

weaponize space as they perceive threats to the ability to gather information, communicate, and 

trade in, from, or through space. The question is not whether societies will do so, but when and 

in response to what stimulus. 

Control of space is not only important to ensure access to satellites but to support military 

operations on the earth. Just as control of the air is a precursor to effective operations on the land 

or sea, control of space is a prerequisite to effective operations in all terrestrial media (land, sea, 

and the air). Any disruptions to military access to space could jeopardize American military 

activities as reliance on space assets is increasingly becoming a strategic center of gravity for the 

United States. 

Recognizing that political and diplomatic alternatives will be limited if the United States 

does not control access to space, President Clinton's space policy “directs the nation to maintain 

4 
its pre-eminent position as the world's number one space power.”23 The Commander-in Chief, 

US Space Command (USCINCSPACE), is “tasked with the missions of space control and force 

application in support of the joint warfighter.”

24 As the former commander General Estes stated, 

“control and access to the benefits of space . . . must be maintained and protected. Even today, 

terrestrial land and sea operations can only be conducted successfully by those who control the 

air and space above the battlefield.”25 These comments show the increasing importance of 

assured access to space to the security of the United States, as well as the increasing willingness 

of national leaders to discuss the weaponization of space. 

Is Now the Time? 

It is clear that societies will weaponize space as an increasing number of high-value 

resources in the form of commercial and military systems migrate to space. The questions that 

remain are whether now is the time to begin the inevitable weaponization of space; whether to 

protect space given ints increasing importance to the United States, whether the US should be the 

first nation to do so; and finally the implications for the United States Air Force of this 

weaponization. 

During the twentieth century, both to reduce the cost of maintaining large standing armies 

and to protect human life in battle, the US turned to technological superiority as the basis for 

success in warfare. In World War II, long range bombers, carrier aviation, and the atomic bomb 

provided the technological edge required for the defeat of the Third Reich and the Japanese 

Empire. Arguably, in Korea and Vietnam, technological superiority was present even if the will 

to use it was not. In the Persian Gulf War, the United States gained a decisive advantage through 

its ability to apply technological superiority. Whether measured in terms of space assets, air 

refueling, precision guided munitions, or stealth, coalition forces led by the United States fought 

the war on a different technological level than their Iraqi opponents. This technological 

asymmetry allowed the United States to fight a short war with minimal casualties. 

Technological asymmetry provides another advantage. It allows the United States to 

control crisis escalation. With technological superiority, America can threaten to escalate to 

prevent an unwanted turn of events (e.g., threaten to escalate to nuclear war against a nonnuclear adversary in response to a chemical attack). The United States never wants to fight a war 

from a position of technological parity or inferiority. To do so may well shift escalation 

dominance to the enemy, especially if that enemy is unconstrained by public opinion. 

The problem with technological superiority, however, is that it is never constant and 

never guaranteed. American forces were not the only ones to learn lessons from the Gulf War. 

Potential future adversaries also watched and learned. They saw the success of a well-led 

coalition that employed air refueling, precision guided munitions, stealth, and uncontested access 

to space assets. No doubt future adversaries are trying to develop their capabilities in these areas 

as well as develop countermeasures to reduce US effectiveness. 

The United States cannot hope to fight another war with the same technology and achieve 

the same level of success as in 1991. The US must never again plan to face an adversary who 

does not contest its ability to use information gained from space assets. The playing field has 

once again changed and the US military must also change in order to defeat the next enemy. 

The weaponization of space provides the asymmetric technology the US needs to win the 

next war. The United States is the only nation with the economic and scientific potential to make 

this technology a reality in the next thirty years. The technological development of weapons that 

5 
apply force in, from, and through space must have the goal of fielding weapons as the technology 

matures. Just as the doctrine of daylight precision bombing guided the development of the longrange bombers of World War II, today's Air Force must develop doctrine for the employment of 

space weapons. This space version of strategic bombardment doctrine will serve both as a guide 

to technological development and as a plan for the long-term structure of the Air Force. If no war 

comes, US space-based capabilities will have proven an effective deterrent force; if war does 

come, as the inevitable result of competition on earth or in space, technological asymmetry will 

once again be a large factor in giving the United States the capability for winning a decisive 

victory. To be effective, however, institutional and doctrinal change must accompany this 

technological asymmetry. 

6 
III. US Air Force Must Adapt to New Means of Strategic Bombardment 

Large bureaucracies are notoriously slow to change. The government is probably the 

slowest of these large bureaucracies, because unlike a corporation facing major change, it has no 

profit motive.

26 These large bureaucracies are also slow to divest themselves of portions of the 

organization which are no longer relevant to their operations in a new environment. As Major 

General (Retired) Perry M. Smith said in his book, Taking Charge: “[in] government, divestiture 

is a more difficult process because the obsolete areas are harder to identify and more difficult to 

exorcise from the organization.”27 In making the transition to weaponize space, the Air Force 

may find that the most difficult impediments to be overcome are those internal to the Air Force 

itself. 

Crossing the bridge to allow combat operations in space will be a difficult decision for 

the Air Force, both because of the new method of warfighting it creates and because those new 

methods will, at some point, replace old ones which have been the foundation of the institution 

since its inception. The change may not be immediate, but once the threshold is crossed, there 

will be no going back. Just as there are no longer any knights in shining armor or cavalry soldiers 

on horseback, one day there will no longer be bomber or fighter pilots. However, unlike the 

disappearance of these older forms of warfare, the decision that the time is right to move from an 

air force to a space force will likely be made by Air Force leaders who grew up in the 

organization, living and breathing the types of fighter and bomber aviation which space warfare 

will ultimately replace. The more important point, however, is that the Air Force needs to 

eliminate such military systems before these become obsolete. 

Making the transition to military operations in space will take fortitude, vision, and, most 

of all, timing. The fortitude will be derived from the need to shift from a means of applying air 

power that has matured since the promise of aviation first showed itself in World War I and one 

that arguably lived up to that promise in the Gulf War. It will require the vision to realize that in 

doing so, only the means of air power are changing. The ends, by which it is meant the capability 

to bypass the horrors of a prolonged ground war by immediately attacking the enemy's strategic 

center(s) of gravity, will not have changed; in fact, they will be enhanced by the new means of 

warfare.28 The timing relates to making these decisions as the technology matures. If the United 

States decides too late, which occurs when the capability for space warfare is not available when 

needed, the Air Force would have to fight a war at this time without the technological asymmetry 

space offers and upon which the nation depends. By contrast, if the United States decides too 

early, there will be a gap in the capability to provide aerospace power today because the requisite 

space technologies will not have matured. 

In the end, the question may not so much be whether the nation is ready to overcome the 

legal, economic, and political hurdles to conducting combat operations in space, but whether the 

Air Force is ready to give up fighter and bomber aviation and change its institutional mindset to 

meet the new strategy. As the nation's primary provider of air and space power, the Air Force 

must adapt to the strategic needs that space warfare will bring to the nation. To examine these 

changes the reader must assess the strategic setting in which the Air Force will operate, the Chief 

of Staff's strategic vision for the Air Force in the twenty-first century, and the need for a 

comprehensive Air Force doctrine to guide the development of technology to meet this future 

reality. 

7 
Twenty-first Century Politics 

The breakup of the Soviet block significantly altered the international scene. In place of 

the bipolar world that governed international relations from the start of the Cold War until 1989, 

the United States now finds itself in a unipolar world. This world, characterized by an unclear 

threat and a regional, rather than global focus, is not necessarily more stable than the bipolar 

world of the Cold War era. In places such as Yugoslavia, Africa, and the Middle East, the world 

has seen the reemergence of centuries old hostilities, no longer held in abeyance due to the 

overriding concerns of superpower confrontation. The peace dividend, so ardently hoped for at 

the beginning of the decade, has yet to emerge. 

President Clinton's national strategy calls for the United States to engage with other 

nations in an effort to “enlarge the community of . . . democratic nations.”29 Government 

agencies support the national strategy by using various instruments of national power to build 

regional partnerships with democratic and emerging democratic nations around the world. The 

national military strategy supports the national security strategy through the use of the military 

instrument of national power. As currently structured, the national military strategy is “a 

defensive strategy that will prevent, that will deter, or that will defeat any adversary who 

threatens [the United States or its] allies.”30 Increasingly, this strategy is based on the 

employment of a continental United States (CONUS) based contingency force since many of the 

forces deployed overseas during the Cold War have been brought home or demobilized.

31 

In 1996, General John M. Shalikashvili, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, published his 

vision for the United States military as it enters the first decade of the twenty first century. The 

document “Joint Vision 2010” provides a roadmap for the US military to follow in meeting the 

strategic challenges the military will face in this timeframe. In articulating his vision, 

Shalikashvili outlined four key operational concepts that US military forces must possess in 

order to accomplish their objectives in light of the expected future threat and strategic setting. 

These are dominant maneuver, precision engagement, full dimensional protection, and focused 

logistics.32 

A New Strategic Vision 

The Air Force is following Shalikashvili's lead in adapting to the needs of this new 

strategic setting. Through the document Global Engagement, the Air Force identifies the ways in 

which it intends to meet the problems of tomorrow's strategic environment. Dr. Sheila Widnall, 

the former Secretary of the Air Force, recently identified these problems as globalization, 

international competition, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and doing more with 

less.33 To meet the vision of Global Engagement, the Air Force must “renew and invigorate its 

core vision of aerospace power.”34 Through a revitalization process, the Air Force hopes to 

create for itself a “unified, coherent, compelling, vision of aerospace power”

35 which will guide 

the employment of strategic aerospace power in the 21st century.

36 

Global Engagement defines the Air Force's new core competencies as the link between 

doctrine and the acquisition process. It is more appropriate, however, to think of doctrine as the 

bridge between the core competencies and the acquisition process. Joint Publication 1-02 defines 

doctrine as “[fundamental] principles by which the military forces . . . guide their actions in 

support of national objectives.”37 The core competencies outline those skills that the Air Force 

8 
must possess in order to support the commander in the joint battlespace of the future. The 

acquisition process, quite simply, provides the tools with which Air Force members accomplish 

those tasks. In essence, a viable service doctrine forms the bridge between the delineated core 

competencies (what the Air Force must do) and the acquisition process (the means for getting the 

tools to do it). The absence of a viable doctrine weakens the linkage between the tasks and the 

means for accomplishing those tasks. 

To put this in perspective, it is once again appropriate to reflect upon the historical 

example provided in the years prior to World War II. Airmen came out of World War I with the 

vision that air power could take the war to the heart of the enemy nation without first fighting 

through the enemy army in the field. The core competency of strategic bombardment was 

developed as an avenue to avoid a repeat of the carnage of the trenches. The doctrine these 

airmen developed called for daylight precision bombing as the means to accomplish the 

objective of strategic bombardment. This doctrine guided the development of the B-17 and the 

Norden bombsight as the technological means for accomplishing that objective. 

The problem today is that even with the development of such technologies as the groundbased lasers, space-based lasers, and kinetic energy weapons that are discussed in New World 

Vistas, there is no space doctrine to form a bridge between the core competencies and the 

acquisition process. Now is the time to develop space doctrine for the twenty first century. 

Rather than being too early to think about this problem, it is imperative that the Air Force expand 

its doctrine to provide the connecting link between the scientists and engineers who are currently 

developing the requisite space technologies and the operators who will one day employ them in 

combat. If done correctly, the development of this doctrine will result in a fighting force better 

organized, trained, and equipped to perform its mission. 

A Doctrine to Meet Future Challenges 

The significance of Global Engagement is the identification of the Air Force's six core 

competencies, which are brief statements of the major tasks in which the Air Force must be 

proficient if it is to successfully provide air and space power to the nation. Those competencies 

� information superiority, air and space superiority, global attack, precision engagement, agile 

combat support, and rapid global mobility � “represent the combination of professional 

knowledge, air power expertise, and technological know-how that, when applied, [produce] 

superior military capabilities.”38 

Space will play an ever-increasing role in the way America projects military power in the 

twenty first century. To meet the nation's future needs through space, the Air Force must adapt to 

incorporate this new form of military operations into the way it organizes, trains, and equips the 

service. Viewing these changes through the framework of the six core competencies highlights 

how the very nature of the Air Force's most basic tasks must change to conduct warfare in, from, 

and through space. Doing so allows the Air Force to build a doctrinal bridge between the core 

competencies and the acquisition and programming process. It will also provide a reference for 

scientists and engineers in the development of applicable technologies to ensure that the products 

they field meet operational needs. Thus, the six core competencies provide a framework for 

understanding the doctrinal changes the Air Force must make in its transition to conducting 

military operations in space. 

9 
Information Superiority 

Information provides military commanders with a “comprehensive” picture of the 

battlespace. One of the coalition's largest advantages in the Gulf War was the information 

provided, in large part, by space assets. Coalition commanders made decisions based on 

information from space assets that were not available to Iraqi commanders or even the Iraqi 

national leadership. 

Future adversaries will not allow the United States uncontested access to information 

from space assets. As a nation, the US is becoming more and more reliant on information 

technologies. The Air Force of the twenty-first century must be able to act in a defensive role to 

protect the nation's means of observing the enemy. It must be able to combine this information 

with other sources to deduce the enemy's capabilities and intentions, as well as make decisions 

based on the available information. And finally it must be able to carry out these decisions in a 

timely and militarily effective manner. 

Offensively, the US must be able to deny this same capability to the enemy.

39 In 

recommending a space control strategy based on information dominance, rather than asset 

destruction, the “actual threat [to US interests] is the information space systems provide, not the 

space systems themselves.”

40 By controlling the flow of information to and from enemy 

satellites, the US could control the information on which future enemy commanders rely to make 

their strategic decisions. It is easy to envision the strategic advantage that the United States could 

gain in such a world. 

To execute this strategy, information superiority must become the cornerstone of space 

warfare, and the emerging technologies that are developed must support the strategy of 

information dominance. Maintaining the capability to use our information technology, while 

denying a similar capability to the enemy, is the primary objective of any future space control 

campaign. 

Air and Space Superiority 

The development of the doctrine for daylight precision bombing offers a lesson in the 

development of future space doctrine. One of the deepest convictions of daylight precision 

bombing doctrine was that once a well-planned and conducted attack was launched, it was 

unstoppable.41 In other words, the proponents of daylight precision bombing believed that their 

bombers were invulnerable. This overriding belief in doctrine, when combined with the 

technological problems associated with building fighter aircraft in the 1930s with performance 

that could match a bomber's range and altitude capability, meant American bombers entered 

World War II without long-range fighter escort.42 German fighters decimated the bombers. As 

many as 16 percent of the bombers dispatched on the Schweinfurt raid in August 1943 were 

lost.43 These horrendous losses forced Allied leaders to recognize that air superiority was a 

prerequisite to strategic bombing.

44 

Those developing the technologies and doctrines to weaponize space should be alert to 

the problem that their predecessors confronted when they developed the doctrine for aircraft. 

Force projection satellites will need protection from enemy antisatellite (ASAT) systems. 

Whether protection occurs in the form of escort satellites or an ASAT system based on the 

10 
ground is not important from a doctrinal point of view. However, what is important is to learn 

from the mistakes of the past by never again sending force projection assets into harm's way 

without air and space superiority. Space control will be a prerequisite for power projection from 

space. 

In the next 30 years, space superiority will join air superiority as the most important core 

competency as the Air Force mission expands to control the vertical component of a battlespace. 

Control of the air is currently a prerequisite for all of the force application, force enhancement, 

and force support missions that are conducted not only by the Air Force, but by the other military 

departments as well. Over the next 30 years, control of space will become an equally important 

prerequisite for projecting power on or above the surface of the earth.45 As we enter this period 

of transition to military operations in space, it is evident that the military is behind in 

understanding how to exploit the opportunities of space to attain an operational advantage. 

The advantages to the United States of operations in space are so significant that any 

future potential adversary will be obligated to target them. By the year 2000, roughly twenty 

nations will have access to space

46. Space will not be a passive sanctuary in future conflicts, 

which means that the United States has no choice but to weaponize space. If the US goal is “to 

keep [its] own freedom of action in space while denying it to the enemy,”

47 the US must develop 

the capability to disrupt, destroy, deny, and degrade enemy space systems and ground based 

control systems.48 To reach this goal, the United States must have the ability to accomplish three 

missions: space surveillance, space negation, and space protection.49 

To enhance space surveillance, the US must develop and maintain the capability to 

observe each satellite throughout its entire orbit, which will give the United States knowledge of 

all enemy satellites. It is a short step from awareness to the ability for each US satellite to protect 

itself. 

Second, the US must develop the capability to deny a potential enemy the use of its space assets. 

Limiting an adversary's access to space would be one way to accomplish this mission, while 

another method would be to deny the enemy the capability to control satellites in space. Yet 

another method would be to degrade an individual satellite's ability to sense the information the 

enemy tasks it to collect. The US must develop the capability to deny freedom of action to the 

enemy in each of these areas. Additionally, the Air Force should develop means to reverse the 

effects of at least some space denial weapons, including, for example, the capability to restore an 

enemy's satellites to their pre-conflict status. 

Finally, the Air Force must develop the capability to protect US space assets from enemy 

attempts to control the space environment. This includes the physical protection of both those 

assets in space as well as those space systems that reside on the earth.50 

Research must continue into technologies that can provide solutions to these strategic 

problems. Technologies recommended by the New World Vistas report � including ASAT 

systems, space mines, uplink and downlink jammers, space decoys, and satellite signature 

reduction techniques � may show promise over the next three decades.51 Some of these 

technologies exist or are in development. 

This section has primarily discussed the capability to control space and protect critical 

space control facilities on the earth. When reading the next section on global attack systems that 

provide the capability to attack strategic targets on the face of the earth from or through space, it 

is important to understand that these same technologies will eventually offer a capability to 

establish air superiority against aircraft. These space systems will provide a means to accomplish 

the offensive counterair, defensive counterair, and suppression of enemy air defenses mission 

11 
from space, and will reduce, if not eliminate, the need to deploy air-breathing air superiority 

assets to an operational theater of war. 

Global Attack and Precision Engagement 

The ability to conduct global attacks means that the Air Force can attack targets rapidly 

with available munitions anywhere in the world. The concept of precision engagement implies 

that the desired level of force can be applied against a specific target without damaging nearby 

facilities. Combining these two core competencies is sensible because the trend toward precision 

engagement means that any application of force from space will be subject to restrictions to 

minimize collateral damage. 

Force application from space will give a new meaning to responsiveness and lethality in 

global attack and precision engagement. It will revolutionize the way the United States projects 

military power because it will allow the application of force against any target on the face of the 

earth through space.52 From a robust space-based laser system, or a ground-based system 

transiting space, the US will have the capability to conduct a strategic air campaign on the order 

of Desert Storm in a matter of minutes without the need for deploying forces.53 By extension, the 

capability will also exist to conduct an interdiction campaign without the need to deploy forces.54 

A functional capability to conduct space-to-earth targeting will require a synergy between 

intelligence and operations. In the future, space assets will bear an increased share of the 

responsibility for determining the location of targets. Once located and identified, military 

operators will be able to attack targets virtually instantaneously. For example, lasers can attack 

fixed targets at will, which means that mobile targets will essentially become fixed as the time 

between acquisition and firing approaches zero. 

The laser system must have the capability to attack “short dwell” targets. These are 

defined as targets “that are vulnerable for a time short enough that their vulnerability is 

determined by the exposure time, rather than by characteristics of an attacking weapon.”

55 

Targets such as mobile Scud or cruise missiles fall into this category. To achieve operational 

effectiveness, designers and operators must minimize the time between target acquisition and 

weapon firing. It may be necessary to develop algorithms for autonomous attacks against highpriority targets that have verifiable signatures in certain scenarios. This may involve taking 

human operators out of the firing loop against these fleeting targets once commanders make the 

decision to engage this type of target. 

A mix of space weapons will offer the capability to destroy various types of surface and 

sub-surface targets with three types of weapons: continuous lasers that use heat to melt structures 

and destroy them;56 pulsed lasers that vaporize material and penetrate the structure;57 and kinetic 

energy weapons that provide the capability to attack targets hundreds of feet under the surface of 

the earth.

58 Radio frequency energy also provides interesting military capabilities. Although 

these are less mature than laser weapons, radio frequency weapons may well prove to be more 

valuable to the operational community. 

The technologies required to develop these directed energy systems are reaching 

maturity. In some cases, the development of these capabilities exceeds initial projections.59 

While the technologies that are required to bring these capabilities to fruition are several decades 

away,

60 these ideas offer the greatest promise in reaching the goal of an instantaneous capability 

for conducing global attacks. 

12 
The fact that twenty-first century technologies will allow the Air Force to conduct 

strategic air and interdiction campaigns without deploying forces raises three collateral issues. 

First, the ability to conduct a strategic air or interdiction campaign without deploying forces 

raises questions about the need for overflight or basing rights. The corollary is that the United 

States will have an unparalleled degree of freedom in those cases when political constraints do 

not permit the formation of coalitions. 

Second, if the Air Force does not need to deploy aircraft to conduct the strategic attack, 

interdiction, and air superiority missions, with the exception of heavy airlift, it is not clear what 

the function of aircraft in the force structure will be within several decades. Nor is it clear what 

the effect will be on logistics and basing. 

Third, the Air Force must consider whether close air support (CAS) is still an Air Force 

mission. Attacks against fixed targets outside the ground commander's area of responsibility will 

be relatively simple to coordinate and execute from the continental United States.

61 It may, 

however, be more difficult to coordinate attacks from space against moving targets that are near 

friendly ground troops because this will raise concerns about the risk (whether real or perceived) 

of fratricide. Perhaps as the air superiority, strategic attack, and interdiction missions shift to 

space, close air support (if still conducted by aircraft assets) should revert to ground forces. 

Doing so would provide the ground commander with an integral fixed wing capability for 

providing firepower that supports the scheme of maneuver, and thereby relieve the Air Force of 

the need to deploy and sustain forces for close air support. 

While working to develop offensive capabilities for applying force from space, the Air 

Force must not neglect a defensive capability against similar weapons. While it is broadly 

assumed that the United States will not face a peer competitor for the next twenty years, some of 

these technologies that could threaten the United States will not mature for at least that long. 

There will be a convergence between the rise of a peer competitor and the maturing of 

technologies that could threaten U.S. military dominance. It is true that “global presence with 

weapons capable of destroying or disabling anything that flies, in the air or in space, or anything 

on the ground or on the surface of the sea that is unprotected by armor, will drive a new warfare 

paradigm.”62 It is also true that “in that new paradigm, the very weapons that drive it will 

become threatened by their own kind, and the eternal measure-countermeasure contest will be 

renewed with new dimensions of technology and tactics.”

63 

Agile Combat Support 

The participants at the Fall 1996 Corona conference added agile combat support as a 

separate Air Force core competency in order to emphasize the how important deployment and 

sustainment are to military operations.64 The shift to conducting warfare from space will not only 

make major changes in the way that the Air Force conducts military operations, but it also will 

significantly alter the Air Force's support structure as well. The concepts of deployment, 

sustainment, and protection of aerospace forces will change as much as operational doctrine. 

The shift of warfare to space will dramatically lessen the need for military commanders to 

deploy forces overseas. Large deployment packages to the combat theater will not be necessary, 

because fewer (if any) fighter or bomber squadrons will deploy. At the same time, the ability to 

strike strategic targets from the US homeland will reduce the need to preposition or transport 

personnel and materiel to the theater. This will produce large savings in transportation costs 

because there will be less need to move bulky items to the theater, such as precision-guided 

13 
munitions, for striking strategic targets. There may be a reduction in the need to sustain forces 

given reductions in the number of personnel in the theater. All of this is consistent with the 

USAF view that we are well past the time when it is necessary to mass large amounts of material 

for overseas operations. 

The Air Force will also be able to significantly decrease its peacetime logistics 

infrastructure with the shift to space warfare. The decrease in the number of fighter and bomber 

units will produce a commensurate decline in the need to support these forces. For example, the 

decrease in the number of Air Force aircraft, in conjunction with common spare parts on the 

remaining aircraft, will cut Air Force requirements in half. 

Agile combat support involves not only “lean logistics,” but force protection as well 

because the transition to space operations will decrease the need for as many in-theater force 

protection assets.65 However, fighting the war from the US homeland means that protection for 

the force may be required at home when the focus of the contingency operation is halfway 

around the world.66 Especially important will be protection of satellite launch sites to ensure 

continued access to space. Equally significant will be the critical satellite uplink and downlink 

facilities through which the Air Force will execute space control and force application missions 

against enemy targets whether in space or on the earth. As combat operations increasingly are 

based from the United States and conducted in space, it is more important to defend US 

communications and intelligence gathering capabilities at home. 

With these possibilities in mind, the mission of Air Force security units must evolve from 

the traditional concepts of air base defense to a more robust capability for rear area security. This 

will involve integration of Air Force security units with units from its sister services, as well as 

local, state, and national law enforcement agencies. Responsibilities will overlap, especially 

during peacetime and short duration contingency operations. 

Rapid Global Mobility 

The concept of rapid global mobility is an essential element of the US ability to project 

power and sustain that power once it is deployed. Mobility assets move the personnel from all 

services and their materiel to the theater for the purpose of projecting force against the enemy. 

At first glance, it appears that the transition to warfare in space will only indirectly affect the Air 

Force core competency of rapid global mobility. As discussed earlier, the ability to conduct 

warfare from space will decrease the number of fighter and bomber squadrons that must be 

deployed to the theater of operations, and this in turn will reduce the demand on airlift because 

fewer forces will need to move to the theater. There will also be a proportional decline in 

replenishment by air and sea because it is no longer necessary to provide in-theater 

replenishment. One result is that joint military planners can shift airlift and sealift resources to 

support other missions. Another is that the decrease in airlift requirements will enable the Air 

Force to respond more rapidly to other types of missions, including humanitarian airlift, special 

operations, and support of Third World nations with available forces. 

There is, however, a second view. Space operators working with airlift planners will 

provide the key to keeping global mobility viable in the next century. Security of overseas lines 

of communication is a center of gravity for the United States. Without the ability to project 

forces across the oceans, and to sustain that combat power once deployed, the United States will 

be unable to accomplish many of its military objectives. Space technologies which protect 

mobility assets during loading en route to the operational theater, and off-loading cargo at the 

14 
destination would prevent an enemy from attacking this US center of gravity. Modifications to 

sensor technologies might allow space assets to detect an impending attack against a mobility 

asset, and thereby preserve the concept of full-dimensional protection for space, airlift, and 

sealift assets. 

Field Manual 100-20 Revisited: Command and Employment of Air and Space Power 

The core competencies addressed earlier provide a framework for viewing the changes 

the Air Force must make to adapt to the shift in warfare in, from, and through space. What is 

missing, however, is an overarching space doctrine to bridge the gap between these core 

competencies to develop, produce, deploy, and sustain these technologies. Looking again at the 

development of the Army Air Corps in World War II may provide some insights into the type of 

doctrine that the Air Force must employ for conducting military operations in space. 

Following the Allied landings in North Africa in 1942, the US Army Air Corps had its 

first chance to support ground forces in the European theater. According to one observer, ground 

commanders “parceled out [US air power] to support specific ground units with mission 

priorities set by supported ground commanders. With a divided force, airmen were unable either 

to seize control of the air or to provide effective support for the ground forces in the face of 

centrally controlled and concentrated Luftwaffe resistance.”67 To redress the “bitter experiences” 

of North Africa,68 the War Department issued Field Manual (FM) 100-20 on 21 July 1943.69 

This document gave air power an equal status with land power, and furthermore it centralized 

control of theater air operations under the command of airmen. It is appropriate to return to the 

concepts articulated in this seminal document as the foundation for future Air Force space 

doctrine.

70 

Relationship of Forces 

First, the fact is that land power, naval power, and aerospace power are coequal and 

interdependent types of military forces. With this fact in mind, the implication is that neither type 

of force is an auxiliary of any of the others. Each, therefore, must be viewed in terms of the 

totality of all the military forces that will be used by the United States to conduct military 

operations in, from, or through space. 

Doctrine of Employment 

Second, gaining air, space, and information superiority is the first requirement for the 

success of any major military operation on the earth. While air and space forces may be properly 

and profitably employed against all forms of enemy military power, ground-based military forces 

operating without air and space superiority must take such extensive security measures against 

hostile air and space attack that it will reduce their mobility and ability to defeat enemy military 

forces on the earth. Therefore, air and space forces must be employed primarily against the 

enemy's air and space forces until air, space, and information superiority are obtained. Only then 

can destructive and demoralizing air and space attacks against surface forces be minimized, 

while the inherent maneuver and firepower of modern land, sea, and air forces are exploited to 

the fullest. 

15 
Command of Air and Space Power 

The greatest asset of air and space power is its inherent flexibility in view of its ability to 

concentrate military power in a short time. The use of aerospace power is a battle-winning factor 

of the highest order. If the United States is to fully exploit the inherent flexibility to deliver a 

decisive blow, control of available air and space power within the theater must be centralized, 

and command must be exercised through the joint force air component commander (JFACC), 

which should be “dual-hatted” as the joint force space component commander.72 Therefore, the 

command of air, space, land, naval, marine, and special operations forces in a theater of 

operations will rest with the theater commander-in-chief (CINC), or designated to a joint task 

force commander. This commander will exercise command over air and space forces through the 

joint force air force component commander and command of ground forces through the land 

component commander. 

These changes to the Air Force core competencies and doctrine offer one view of the 

future, but it is not important for the Air Force to accept this vision. It is important for the Air 

Force to develop a doctrine to guide the emergence of space warfare technologies. Given the 

development of critical technologies, it is time to develop both the doctrine and the technologies 

in concert so that the Air Force can match the strategy of applying military power from space to 

the strategic requirements the twenty-first century. 

16 
IV. Conclusions and Recommendations 

The intent of this study is to spark debate about the future of the United States Air Force 

as it begins the transition to military operations in space. Similar to the state of air power at the 

end of World War I, the Air Force is contemplating a vision of what space power can offer the 

nation in the coming decades if technology, doctrine, and strategy all advance. 

Over the last four decades, the United States has become increasingly reliant on space, 

and so too has its military. The eyes and ears of the nation are now firmly rooted in space, which 

is exemplified by the fact that the military depends on satellites to support combat operations. As 

the United States becomes more reliant on space assets for its everyday existence, it becomes 

increasingly vulnerable to adversaries who, unlike Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War, will 

make every effort to destroy the eyes and ears of US military forces. 

The vulnerability (whether perceived or real) of United States space assets and those of 

our allies will inevitably drive the United States to weaponize space. As in bygone eras, people 

who felt similar vulnerabilities to their homes, commerce, and way of life militarized the land, 

the sea, and the air. Now is the time for the nation and the Air Force to think through the strategy 

and technology that is required to support this transition. Many of the systems that the US will 

need to make this transition are technologically feasible, including space-based and groundbased lasers and kinetic energy weapons. 

From a national perspective, the United States must overcome political, economic, and 

legal hurdles to make this shift toward military operations in space. The largest hurdles may be 

the inability of the Air Force to understand that its traditional means of employing air power with 

fighter and bomber aircraft are increasingly obsolete in technological and strategic terms. With 

these thoughts in mind, the Air Force must reassess its fundamental operational and doctrinal 

principles for the inevitable transition to military operations in space. To begin this transition, 

this study concludes that the Air Force should make the following changes: 

First, it is time to establish the US Air Force Space Command as the Space Combat 

Command. This new name more accurately reflects the developing mission of this command and 

demonstrates to the Air Force, to the military, and to the American people the changing nature of 

military operations in space. 

Second, it is necessary to energetically return to the roots of strategic air power doctrine. 

This will form the bridge between its core competencies and the process for developing new 

technologies. What the Air Force needs to aid the transition from an air force to a space force is 

an overarching strategy and coherent doctrine for space operations. By looking at its institutional 

past, the Air Force will find that it already has a strategy to guide this transition. However, it is 

only the means, not the ends, of air power theory that are changing. Whether using B-17s over 

Germany, F-117s over Baghdad, or ground-based lasers reflecting off space-based mirrors in the 

twenty-first century, the goal of air and space power remains to take the war to the heart of the 

enemy nation and attack its strategic center(s) of gravity without first having to fight through 

fielded ground forces. A by-product of this strategy is to isolate the battlefield and provide fulldimensional protection to national and allied resources at home and abroad. 

Doctrinally, the Air Force is in a better position to make this transition than many may 

imagine. The newly announced core competencies, which form the basis of the transition, are as 

applicable to warfare in space as they are to warfare conducted with air-breathing assets. Air and 

17 
increasingly space superiority will remain a prerequisite for all other operations in the aerospace 

environment, and will form the basis for full-spectrum information superiority. Through space 

superiority, the US will take the initiative to protect its space assets and maintain greater freedom 

of action. Without air and space superiority, the US will yield the freedom of action to the enemy 

and thereby allow it to dictate the tempo of the war. The concept of global attack will expand to 

include the capability to attack any target on the face of the earth in a matter of minutes and to 

engage that target precisely, with selective, yet decisive force. The accompanying transition to 

military operations from the US homeland will increase the demand for agile combat support and 

full force protection at home. Finally, the decreasing need to deploy large numbers of fighter and 

bomber units will increase the ability of limited mobility assets to meet other transportation 

requirements. 

Third, it is essential to vigorously pursue space weapons technologies such as groundbased and space-based lasers, radio frequency weapons, and kinetic energy weapons, among 

others, that will support the strategy of strategic bombardment in, from, and through space. 

Fourth, it is imperative to integrate air and space operators in the development of both space 

doctrine and technology if the United States is to make the successful transition from air to space 

warfare. But those technologies will not meet the needs of the operational community unless 

operators have been involved in its development, testing, and deployment. Those who ultimately 

bear the responsibility for employing the forces in combat must share in the responsibility for the 

development of the appropriate employment doctrine. 

Fifth, the benefit of integrating portions of the requirements directorates at “Space 

Combat Command” and Air Combat Command will ensure that exploring new concepts in the 

acquisition process will give equal consideration to both airborne and space borne alternatives to 

future military needs. This process should include the academic community on both the subject 

of the military in space and on the desired ends (as contrasted with the means) of the strategic 

bombardment mission in the new post-commissioning Aerospace Basic course that is conducted 

at Maxwell Air Force Base. Some of the lieutenants going through this course in the next five 

years will become the general officers who are charged with implementing the ultimate change 

from an air to a space force when these technologies mature in thirty years. 

Sixth, Air Force leaders must pave the way for the nation and the Air Force to understand 

the need for this transition. This study concludes with a haunting question for the United States 

Air Force: Can the Air Force make the internal changes necessary to permit the strategic 

application of air power from and through space if it means relinquishing fighter and bomber 

aviation in the process? 

18 
Afterword 

This research has given me an opportunity to think about the development of the Air 

Force and the changes that must take place to ensure that the United States retains its 

technological superiority and combat edge in the twenty-first century. 

One of the questions many have asked as they have reviewed this study is whether I am 

advocating a separate space force to execute the doctrine outlined in this paper. I have attempted 

to leave this emotionally charged issue out of my paper, but feel it deserves comment. At this 

time, my answer is no. 

Advocates of a separate space force state that the same arguments made by air power 

advocates in the 1930s and 1940s with respect to a separate air force are true today when applied 

to the separation of a space force from the Air Force. In many cases this is true. 

However, what has not changed as a result of conducting warfare in, from, and through 

space is the mission. The vision of air power has always been to use the third dimension to take 

the war to the enemy's strategic center(s) of gravity, to destroy its capability or will to wage war, 

without first having to fight through fielded forces. This was a different vision and mission from 

that of the Army in the 1930s and remains so today. What we see as space forces in the next 50 

years will give the United States a new means to perform this mission that will be more effective, 

responsive, and will do so at less cost and with lower risk of human life. But it does not change 

the basic nature of the mission. Just as naval forces currently operate on, above, and under the 

surface of the water to control sea lanes and project power ashore, air forces will soon project 

power from the media of air and space. 

In the future, new missions for space forces may emerge that provide a vision separate 

from that of air forces when space forces turn their attention away from the surface of the earth. 

When that time comes, the U.S. Air Force needs to be foremost among those who demand the 

creation of a new and independent space force. To do otherwise would show the lack of vision 

that would place Air Force leaders in the same position as Army leaders of the 1930s, who were 

more interested in the sanctity of the organization than in providing the most effective combat 

power for the United States. 

19 
Glossary 

AFM Air Force Manual

ASAT Antisatellite

AU Air University

AWC Air War College

CAS Close Air Support

CINC Commander-In-Chief

CONUS Continental United States

DSP Defense Support Program

DMSP Defense Meteorological Support Program

DSCS Defense Satellite Communications System

FM Field Manual

GPS Global Positioning System

JFACC Joint Force Air Component Commander

SPOT System Probatoire d'Observation de la Terre

USAF United States Air Force

USCINCSPACE Commander-In-Chief, United States Space Command

USSPACECOM United States Space Command

20 
Notes 

1. Larry H. Addington, The Patterns of War Since the Eighteenth Century (Bloomington, IN: 

Indiana University Press, 1984), 157. 

2. Lee Kennett, The First Air War: 1914-1918 (New York: The Free Press, 1991), 217. “To them 

it appeared as an auxiliary, preparing and supporting the main action without itself being center 

stage.” 

3. Ibid., p. 221. 

4. Ibid., p. 218. 

5. Ibid., p. 221. 

6. Ibid., p. 221. 

7. Richard P. Hallion, Storm over Iraq (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1992), p. 

239. 

8. Thomas A. Keaney and Elliot A. Cohen, The Gulf War Air Power Survey Summary Report 

(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993), p. 194. 

9. Hallion, p. 314. 

10. Peter Anson and Dennis Cummings, “The First Space War: The Contribution of Satellites to 

the Gulf War,” in Alan D. Campen (ed.), The First Information War (Fairfax, VA: AFCEA 

International Press, October 1992), p. 127. 

11. Hallion, p. 314. 

12. Keany and Cohen, p.194. 

13. See Frederick W. Kagan, “Star Wars in Real Life: Political Limitation on Space Warfare,” 

Parameters, Autumn 1998, pp. 112-20. 

14. The term “weaponize space” means to employ weapons in, through, or from space. 

15.These impediments are discussed in Michael J. Muolo, Space Handbook: A Warfighter's 

Guide to Space, Volume One (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993), pp. 1-47. 

16. USAF Scientific Advisory Board, “Summary Volume,” New World Vistas: Air and Space 

Power for the 21st Century. Report to the USAF Chief of Staff (Washington, DC: Government 

Printing Office, December 1995). 

17. Contrails: The Air Force Cadet Handbook, Vol 20 (USAF Academy, Colorado, 1974), p. 14. 

18. Ibid., p. 16. 

19. Ibid., p. 17. 

20. This term is used extensively in David E Lupton, On Space Warfare: A Space Power 

Doctrine (Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama: Air University Press, 1988). 

21. General Howell M. Estes, Commander, US Space Command, Address to the Air Force 

Association Annual Symposium, Los Angeles, CA, October 18, 1996. 

22. See briefing by USAF Long-Range Plans Division on Global Engagement: A Vision for the 

21st Century Air Force (Washington, DC: U.S. Air Force, 1996). For reference, see www.af.-

future.hq.af.mil/21/indext.htm, p. 6. 

23. See Estes Speech. 

24. See briefing by USAF Long-Range Plans Division on Global Engagement p. 6. 

25. See Estes Speech. 

26. Perry M. Smith, Taking Charge: A Practical Guide for Leaders (Washington, DC: National 

Defense University Press, 1986), p. 121. 

21 
27. Ibid., p. 121. 

28. The author wishes to thanks Carl Builder of The RAND Corporation, for his inspiration in 

this area. His book The Icarus Syndrome, helped put the ends and the means of air power, and by 

extension space power, into focus. 

29. The White House. A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement 

(Washington, DC: February 1996), p. ii. 

30. General Ronald R. Fogleman, Address on “Global Engagement” (Washington, DC: 

Smithsonian Institution, November 21 1996). For reference, see 

www.dtic.mil/airforcelink/pa/speech/current/Global_Engagement.html. 

31. US Air Force Long Range Plans Division, Global Engagement: A Vision for the 21st Century 

Air Force. Briefing, 12 November 1996. For reference, see 

http://www.af-future.hq.af.mil/21/indext.htm. 

32. Joint Vision 2010. America's Military: Preparing for Tomorrow (Washington, DC: Office of 

the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1996), p. 1. 

33. US Department of the Air Force. “Investing in Future Technologies.” Air Force Policy Letter 

Digest, June 1996. For reference, see 

http://www.dtic.mil/airforcelink/pubs/policy /letters/pl96-06.html. 

34. US Department of the Air Force. Aerospace Power for the 21st Century: A Theory to Fly 

By—-A White Paper from the Strategic Aerospace Warfare Study Panel (Maxwell Air Force 

Base Alabama, 4 October 1996), p. 7. 

35. Ibid., p. v. 

36. Ibid., p. 11. 

37. Joint Publication 0-2, Unified Action Armed Forces (UNAAF), (Washington, DC: 

Government Printing Office, 24 February 1995), p. GL-5. 

38. US Air Force Long Range Plans Division. Global Engagement: A Vision for the 21st Century 

Air Force, pp. 6,7. 

39. James G. Lee, Counterspace Operations for Information Dominance. (Maxwell Air Force 

Base, AL: Air University Press, 1994), p. 19. In this seminal paper, Lee recognizes that 

“proliferating space capabilities could provide regional powers with an advantage over US forces 

in any future regional conflict . . . by eliminating the US ability to achieve strategic and tactical 

surprise. The inability of US forces to achieve surprise could lead to protracted engagements.” 

40. Ibid., p. 27. 

41. Hayword S. Hansell, Jr., The Air Campaign that Defeated Hitler (Atlanta: HigginsMcArthur/Logino & Porter, Inc, 1972), p. 15. 

42. David MacIsaac, Strategic Bombing in World War II (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 

1976), p. 7. 

43. Victor B. Anthony, “The Combined Bomber Offensive in Europe” in History 202: Modern 

Warfare and Society (Colorado Springs, CO: Department of History, United States Air Force 

Academy, 1976), pp. 30-33. 

44. B. H. Liddell Hart, History of the Second World War, (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 

1971), p. 591. 

45. See Michael R. Mantz, The New Sword: A Theory of Space Combat Power, (Maxwell Air 

Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1995), pp. 36-46, who notes that these space control 

missions may take the form of earth-to-earth or space-to earth attacks against space launch or 

space control systems as well as earth-to-space or space-to-space attacks against space-deployed 

platforms. 

22 
46. USAF Scientific Advisory Board. “Space Technology Volume.” New World Vistas: Air and 

Space Power for the 21st Century. Report to the USAF Chief of Staff. (Washington, DC: 

Government Printing Office, December 1995), p. iii. 

47. Ibid., p. 8. 

48. Ibid., p. ix. 

49. Ibid., p. ix. 

50. The protection of ground segments of space systems is discussed later in this study. 

51. USAF Scientific Advisory Board. “Space Applications Volume.” New World Vistas: Air and 

Space Power for the 21st Century, pp. xvii, xxii, 76, 115, 117. 

52. USAF Scientific Advisory Board, p. ix. 

53. Ibid., p. ix. 

54. See Mantz, The New Sword, p. 46, for some ideas on possible target sets. 

55. USAF Scientific Advisory Board. Summary Volume, New World Vistas: Air and Space 

Power for the 21st Century, p. 40. 

56. USAF Scientific Advisory Board, Space Applications Volume, p. xxii. 

57. Ibid., p. xxii. 

58. Ibid., p.83. 

59. USAF Scientific Advisory Board, Directed Energy Volume, p. v. 

60. Ibid., p. vii. 

61. See Scott M. Britten, Reachback Operations for Air Campaign Planning and Execution 

(Maxwell AFB: Air War College, Center for Strategy and Technology, Occasional Paper No. 1, 

1997). 

62. USAF Scientific Advisory Board, Directed Energy Volume, p. xiii. 

63. Ibid., p, xiii. 

64. See Global Engagement: A Vision for the 21st Century Air Force. 

65. See Global Engagement. 

66. See Mantz, pp. 49-56. 

67. Air Force Manual (AFM) 1-1, Basic Aerospace Doctrine of the United States Air Force, Vol. 

2, March ,1992, p. 113. 

68. Ibid., p. 113. 

69. War Department Field Manual 100-20, Command and Employment of Air Power, 21 July 

1943. 

70. AFM 1-1, Vol. 2, p. 122. 

71. The reader will note that the headings and text of the next three sections are taken in large 

part from the 21 Jul 1943 edition of FM 100-20, Command and Employment of Airpower and are 

modified with appropriate references to emerging space doctrine. 

72. It is important to maintain control of air and space assets in the theater as well as on a global 

basis. The possibility exists that space assets will concurrently support operations in more than 

one theater. Just as the JFACC currently coordinates out-of-theater long-range bomber aircraft 

with the owning command (e.g., Air Combat Command through US Atlantic Command), that 

commander also will task USSPACECOM as a supporting CINC when theater missions require 

satellites for air defense or to kill targets on the earth. This will be accomplished through the Air 

Tasking Order process. 

23 
Bibliography 

Addington, Larry H. The Patterns of War Since the Eighteenth Century. Bloomington, Indiana:

Indiana University Press, 1984.

Air Force Manual (AFM) 1-1. Basic Aerospace Doctrine of the United States Air Force. 2 vols.,

March 1992.

“Air Force Modifies Core Competencies.“ Air Force News Service. 24 October 96.

Anson, Sir Peter and Cummings, Dennis. “The First Space War: The Contribution of Satellites to

the Gulf War,” in The First Information War, ed. Alan D. Campen. Fairfax, VA: AFCEA

International Press, October 1992.

Anthony, Major Victor B. “The Combined Bomber Offensive in Europe.” In History 202:

Modern Warfare and Society. Edited by the Staff of the Department of History, United States Air

Force Academy. USAF Academy, Colorado, 1976.

Baker, David. The Shape of Wars to Come. Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: Stein & Day., 1982.

Bellamy, Ian. “Controlling Military Activities in Space.” In The Militarisation of Space. Edited

by Stephen Kirby and Gordon Robson. Sussex, England: Wheatsheaf Books, 1987.

Brown, Neville. New Strategy Through Space. Leicester, England: Leicester University Press,

1990.

Builder, Carl H. “Doctrinal Frontiers.“ Airpower Journal. Winter 1995, 6-13. Reprinted in Air

War College Academic Year 1997 Department of Strategy, Doctrine, and Air Power Readings:

Volume III, pp. 602-609.

Builder, Carl H. The Icarus Syndrome: The Role of Air Power Theory in the Evolution and Fate

of the U. S. Air Force. New Brunswick, USA: Transaction Publishers, 1994.

Carnes, General Michael P. C., “A Commentary,” Address. National Security Industrial

Association Symposium, 10 November 1994; on-line, Internet, 26 November 1996, available

from http://www.cdsar.af.mil/apj/carnes.html.

Contrails: The Air Force Cadet Handbook. Volume 20. USAF Academy, Colorado, 1974.

Correll, John T. “The Rediscovery of Strategic Airpower.”Air Force Magazine. November 1996,

26-32.

Estes, Gen Howell M. IV. Commander, US Space Command. Address. Air Force Association

Annual Symposium, Los Angeles, CA, 18 October 1996; on-line, Internet, 30 November 1996,

available from

http://www.spacecom.af.mil/hqafspc/contents/library/speeches/18Oct96.html.

Fogleman, General Ronald R. USAF Chief of Staff, “Global Engagement,” Address.

Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 21 November 1996; on-line, Internet, 30 November

1996, available from

http://www.dtic.mil/airforcelink/pa/speech/current/Global_Engagement.html.

“Global Engagement: A Vision for the 21st Century Air Force.” Slides and Notes. 12 November

1996; available through Air War College Local Area Network, 26 November 1996.

Graham, Daniel O. “Space Policy 2000 � Double Prime.” The Journal of Practical Applications

in Space. Summer 1994.

Hallion, Dr. Richard P. Storm over Iraq. Washington: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1992.

Hansell, Major General Haywood, S. The Air Campaign that Defeated Hitler. Atlanta: HigginsMcArthur/Longino & Porter, Inc., 1972.

24 
Hart, Sir B. H. Liddell, History of the Second World War. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1971.

“History,” n.p.; on-line, Internet, 2 January 1997, available from

http://www.spacecom.af.mil/usspace/history.htm.

Joint Publication 0-2, Unified Action Armed Forces (UNAAF), 24 February 1995).

Keaney, Thomas A. and Cohen, Elliot A., The Gulf War Air Power Survey Summary Report.

Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993.

Kennett, Lee. The First Air War: 1914-1918. New York: The Free Press, 1991.

Kirby, Stephen. “Inevitability and Choice in the Militarisation of Space.” In The Militarisation of

Space. Edited by Stephen Kirby and Gordon Robson. Sussex, England: Wheatsheaf Books,

1987.

Lambeth, Benjamin S. “Technology and Air War.” Air Force Magazine. November 1996, 50-53.

Lee, Major James G. Counterspace Operations for Information Dominance. Maxwell Air Force

Base, AL: Air University Press, 1994.

Lupton, Lt Col David E. On Space Warfare: A Space Power Doctrine. Maxwell Air Force Base,

AL: Air University Press, 1988.

McKinley, Major Cynthia A. S. “United States Strategy and Policy.” Slides from HQ Air Force

Space Command Strategy and Policy Briefing, January 1996.

MacIsaac, David. Strategic Bombing in World War II. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc.,

1976.

Mantz, Lt Col Michael R. The New Sword: A Theory of Space Combat Power. Maxwell Air

Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1995.

Moore, Captain George M. (USN) ; Budura, Colonel Vic (USAF); and Johnson-Freese, Dr. Joan.

“Joint Space Doctrine: Catapulting Into the Future.” Joint Forces Quarterly. Summer 1994, 71-

76. Reprinted in Air War College Academic Year 1997 Department of Strategy, Doctrine, and

Air Power Readings: Volume III, pp. 549-554.

Moorman, Gen Thomas S. Jr. USAF Vice Chief of Staff. “The Challenges of Space Beyond

2000,” Address. 75th Royal Australian Air Force Anniverary Airpower Conference, Canberra,

Australia, 14 June 1996; on-line, Internet, 30 November 1996, available from

http://www.dtic.mil/airforcelink/pa/speech/current/The_Challenge_of_Space_Bey.html.

Muolo, Major Michael J. Space Handbook: A Warfighter's Guide to Space, Volume I. Maxwell

AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1993.

Myers, Colonel Kenneth A. (USAF) and Tockston, Lt Col John G. (USAF). “Real Tenets of

Military Space Doctrine.” Airpower Journal. Winter 1988, 54-68. Reprinted in Air War College

Academic Year 1997 Department of Strategy, Doctrine, and Air Power Readings: Volume III,

pp. 509-523.

Rankine, Major General Robert R. Jr,. “The US Military Is Not Lost in Space.” In Building A

Consensus Toward Space: Proceeding of the 1988 Space Issues Symposium. Center for

Aerospace Doctrine, Research, and Education. Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, April

1990, pp. 47-60.

Rhinelander, John B. “The Law and Space.” In Building A Consensus Toward Space:

Proceeding of the 1988 Space Issues Symposium. Center for Aerospace Doctrine, Research, and

Education. Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, April 1990, 3-12.

Robson, Gordon. “Introduction: States, Space, and Security.” In The Militarisation of Space.

Edited by Stephen Kirby and Gordon Robson. Sussex, England: Wheatsheaf Books, 1987.

Robson, Gordon. “The Strategic Context of Space.” In The Militarisation of Space. Edited by

Stephen Kirby and Gordon Robson. Sussex, England: Wheatsheaf Books, 1987.

25 
Rosenberg, Major General Robert A. USAF Retired. “Building A Consensus toward Space

Doctrine.” In Building A Consensus Toward Space: Proceeding of the 1988 Space Issues

Symposium. Center for Aerospace Doctrine, Research, and Education. Maxwell AFB, AL: Air

University Press, April 1990, pp. 115-124.

Shalikashvili, General John M. “Joint Vision 2010.” Washington DC: Office of the Chairman,

Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1996.

Shalikashvili, General John M. “National Military Strategy of the United States of America: A

Strategy of Flexible and Selective Engagement.” Washington DC: Office of the Chairman, Joint

Chiefs of Staff, 1995.

Shepherd, Lt Colonel Dennis. “Outer Space and Miltary Space Doctrine.” Law/technology,

volume 28, no. 2 (2nd Quarter 1995), 1 - 10.

Shepherd, Lt Colonel Dennis. “Space Law As A Core Area For The Air Force Judge Advocate.”

The Reporter, volume 20, no 5, 3.

Shepherd, Lt Colonel Dennis. “Summary of International Law; Air and Space Law,” class notes

of the author from lecture to Military Commander and the Law academic session, Air War

College, Maxwell Air Force Base, AL, 16 August 1996.

Shulman, Seth “Code Name: Corona,” Technology Review, 24 October 1996, 23-32.

Smith, Major General (Retired) Perry M., Taking Charge: A Practical Guide for Leaders

Washington: National Defense University Press, 1986.

Snyder, William P. “An Introduction to the Peloponnesian War.” Reprinted in Air War College

Associate Programs, Vol 1, Lesson 1, 4th Edition, Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air University

Press, 1983.

“Spacecast 2020.” Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1995. Reprinted in Air War College

Academic Year 1997 Department of Strategy, Doctrine, and Air Power Readings: Volume III,

555-582.

Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War, Translated by Benjamin Jowett. Reprinted in Air War

College Associate Programs, Vol 1, Lesson 1, 4th Edition, Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air

University Press, 1983.

“Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer

Space, Including the Moon and other Celestial Bodies,” 25 April 1967, n.p.; on-line, Internet, 2

January 1997, available from http://www.acda.gov/treaties/space1.htm. (Text of treaty itself can

be found at http://www.acda.gov/treaties/space2.htm.).

US Air Force Long Range Plans Division. “Global Engagement: A Vision for the 21st Century

Air Force.” Briefing Script. 12 November 1996; on line, Internet, 26 November 1996, available

from http://www.af-future.hq.af.mil/21/indext.htm.

USAF Scientific Advisory Board. “Directed Energy Volume.” New World Vistas: Air and Space

Power for the 21st Century. Report to the USAF Chief of Staff. Washington, DC: Government

Printing Office, December 1995.

USAF Scientific Advisory Board. “Space Applications Volume.” New World Vistas: Air and

Space Power for the 21st Century. Report to the USAF Chief of Staff. Washington, DC:

Government Printing Office, December 1995.

USAF Scientific Advisory Board. “Space Technology Volume.” New World Vistas: Air and

Space Power for the 21st Century. Report to the USAF Chief of Staff. Washington, DC:

Government Printing Office, December 1995.

26 
USAF Scientific Advisory Board. “Summary Volume.” New World Vistas: Air and Space Power

for the 21st Century. Report to the USAF Chief of Staff. Washington, DC: Government Printing

Office, December 1995.

US Department of the Air Force. “A New American Way of War.” Air Force Policy Letter

Digest, April 1996; on-line, Internet, 26 November 1996, available from

http://www.dtic.mil/airforcelink/pubs/policy/letters/pl96-04.html.

US Department of the Air Force. “Aerospace Doctrine—More Than Just A Theory.” Air Force

Policy Letter Digest, June 1996; on-line, Internet, 26 November 1996, available from

http://www.dtic.mil/airforcelink/pubs/policy/letters/pl96-06.html.

US Department of the Air Force. Aerospace Power for the 21st Century: A Theory to Fly By—-A

White Paper from the Strategic Aerospace Warfare Study Panel. Maxwell Air Force Base

Alabama, 4 October 1996.

US Department of the Air Force. Fact Sheet: YAL-1A Attack Laser. Kirtland Air Force Base

NM.: Office of Public Affairs, Phillips Laboratory, 12 November 1996.

US Department of the Air Force. “Investing in Future Technologies.” Air Force Policy Letter

Digest, June 1996; on-line, Internet, 26 November 1996, available from

http://www.dtic.mil/airforcelink/pubs/policy/letters/pl96-06.html.

Vessey, General John W. Jr., “1996 Thayer Award Acceptance Remarks,” Assembly,

January/February 1997, 22-26.

War Department Field Manual (FM) 100-20. Command and Employment of Air Power. 21 July

1943.

Weigley, Russell F. The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and

Policy. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1977.

Weinberger, Caspar W., Fighting for Peace: Seven Critical Years in the Pentagon New York:

Warner Books, 1990.

Widnall, The Honorable Sheila E. Secretary of the Air Force, “Adapting to an Altered Strategic

Environment,” Address. Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC, 25

November 1996; on-line, Internet, 30 November 1996, available from

http://www.dtic.mil/airforcelink/pa/speech/current/Adapting_To_An_Altered_Strategic_Environ

ment.htm.

The White House. “A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement.,” February

1996.

The White House:. Fact Sheet: National Space Policy. National Science and Technology

Council, 19 September 1996.

27 
Center for Strategy and Technology 

The Center for Strategy and Technology was established at the Air War College in 1996. 

Its purpose is to engage in long-term strategic thinking about technology and its implications for 

U.S. national security. 

The Center focuses on education, research, and publications that support the integration 

of technology into national strategy and policy. Its charter is to support faculty and student 

research, publish research through books, articles, and occasional papers, fund a regular program 

of guest speakers, host conferences and symposia on these issues, and engage in collaborative 

research with U.S. and international academic institutions. As an outside funded activity, the 

Center enjoys the support of institutions in the strategic, scientific, and technological worlds. 

Principal funding is provided by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), with additional 

support from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). 

An essential part of this program is to establish relationships with organizations in the Air 

Force as well as other Defense of Department agencies, and identify potential topics for research 

projects. Research conducted under the auspices of the Center is published as Occasional Papers 

and disseminated to senior military and political officials, think tanks, educational institutions, 

and other interested parties. Through these publications, the Center hopes to promote the 

integration of technology and strategy in support of U.S. national security objectives. 

For further information on the Center on Strategy and Technology, please contact: 

William C. Martel, Director 

Air War College 

325 Chennault Circle 

Maxwell AFB 

Montgomery, AL 36112 

(334) 953-2384 (DSN 493-2384) 

Email: wmartel@max1.au.af.mil 

28 
The Occasional Papers

series was established by the

Center for Strategy and Technology

as a forum for research

on topics that reflect

long-term strategic thinking

about technology and its

implications for

U. S. national security.

Center for Strategy and Technology 

Air War College 

Maxwell Air Force Base 

Montgomery, Al 36112