Redefining Space Policy – A New Strategic Context

When President Kennedy declared the US intention to send men to the moon, he single-handedly defined the strategic context of space.  Space was no longer a physics problem; it was now a Cold War problem.  Starting in 1958 and explicitly stated in 1961, “space” became synonymous with national prestige, national security, and to some, national survival.  Space was a way to beat the Soviets.  The strategic context was blatant.  After Apollo, when the ‘race was won,’ the context became less important.  Space lost its political saliency.  Ford, Nixon, and Carter did very little to change it.^[1]

President Reagan dramatically shifted national policy concerning space, just as Kennedy had done.  Reagan opened up space markets to commercial ventures, made wide declaratory policies concerning national defense, specifically, his announcement of a space-based wide-band missile defense system known as the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).  By 1988, the DoD’s satellite budget exceeded NASA’s entire budget, excluding the money spent on Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).^[2]  Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD)[3] had been a bedrock doctrine of the United States since Eisenhower, and in a ten-minute speech, Reagan changed everything.  Reagan made it clear to the world that he intended to militarize space and SDI was the way.

Presidents Kennedy and Reagan reaffirmed the role of space in the strategic context. Both Apollo and SDI were tied to nuclear policy. Both intended to ‘fight the Soviets’ without actual war. Both had clearly defined goals. Kennedy linked space to national security in a very public way, while Reagan reaffirmed space’s role in national security and national survival.  Both initiatives focused on the same underlying foundation, the Soviet threat.  Remove the Soviet Union from the equation, and the whole meaning of space in our national culture evaporated.^[4]

When the Soviets disappeared, so did the strategic need and political willpower.  Since then, space policy has been lacking in definition.  Space has lost its strategic context.  At the national level, space has lost its meaning; therefore, defining new space-based capabilities in this manner is an inherently losing proposition.

The political, social, economic, and technical environments of the Kennedy and Reagan eras, while different from each other, were fundamentally similar.  Today all of those environments are different at a fundamental level. The bi-polar superpowers are gone, economies have globalized, and technological advancements and utilization has shifted affecting social structure.  Therefore, a ‘threat-based’ strategic initiative is less likely to provide the strategic context necessary to prioritize space in the national mindset.

NASA attempted to insert the International Space Station into the area of national prestige, but it struggles to prove its purpose to the ordinary citizen.  The US is developing capabilities to go to Mars, but no one knows why we want to go to Mars.  Is it just exploration or is there a deeper meaning?  Apollo was more than just exploration, it was how the US fought the Communists.  Several administrations have tried to replace the Soviet threat with a Chinese one, and while that may prove effective in increasing the size of the US Navy fleet and fielding a hypersonic cruise missile, it has not worked in space.

No one doubts the importance of space. For emerging countries, space is now a vital element of their strategic positions. Space systems today fill vital roles in environmental monitoring, communications, positioning, timing, tactical warning, attack assessment and ISR missions. Nevertheless, when push comes to shove the fragile link between the earth and space is vulnerable and may not be available when it is needed. Countries without their own space capabilities can buy services. This makes the launch ability of a country less important and the possession of such capabilities less important now than in the past.

The architecture of space programs is a result of decades of nuclear policy with a focus on nuclear warfighting and deterrence. The Cold War mentality forced US space programs towards large budgets, convoluted acquisition processes, and awkward organizational oversight. While the end of the Cold War produced dramatic shifts in space’s strategic context, it did nothing to change its procurement style. That mentality produces a handful of large and expensive systems to supply vital space services to US and allied forces.  Air Force General Robert Kehler, former commander of USAF Space Command, noted the strategic approach to space today is no different from that of the Cold War era. The entirety of the space architecture is in need of a redefinition. It is no longer needed to just fight a nuclear war. Today’s architecture must focus on conventional warfighting sustainability for the joint force. Today’s space need is robust and resilient.[5]

To move forward in space, the US can repeat old ideas and move space forward by doing the same thing for the same reason. Kennedy and Reagan used space to enhance deterrence at a strategic level, but they did it specifically because the threat was specific. Today’s threats are not, therefore, space and its role in deterrence must be disaggregated strategically to redefine its context. Using space to fight the Soviets worked because socially Americans felt the specific threat. Today, very few Americans feel the Chinese theat. Fundamentalism and extremism are threats but applying these ideas to space is non-sensical to most as the fight does not take place in space.   Therefore, the US should not tie space to combating specific threats, but demonstrate space as one of the avenues on a holistic national security roadmap. Effectively, tying together strategic deterrence with space into the fabric of daily life.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, daily life has transformed.  Economic and technological advancements have led to an ever-increasing number of nations using space in meaningful ways. Space is now ubiquitous and pervasive, not just to military forces, but to everyday life.  The US must communicate that reckless action in space will have unacceptable consequences for everyone, including the reckless actor.  This is the new Mutual Assured Destruction. Because space is so vital to everyone, anyone that seeks to destroy assets in space risks destroying all assets in space.

“[The space community needs to] strengthen the resilience of our architectures to deny adversaries the benefits of an attack.” National Security Space Strategy [6]

 

NOTES:

[1] W.D Kay, “Space Policy Redefined: The Reagan Administration and the Commercialization of Space,” Business and Economic History, 27, 1998, 242.

[2] Kay, 242.

[3] Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) was both military doctrine and national security policy.  It assumed that both sides had enough nuclear weapons to destroy each other and any use of nuclear weapons would result in the complete annihilation of both sides.  Rooted in deterrence theory, MAD takes from the Nash Equilibrium.  This form of Strategic Stability, states, once armed, neither side has any incentive to initiate a conflict or to disarm.  Reference the work of John von Neuman and especially that of Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War, (New York: Transaction Publishers, 2006), 145.

[4] Kay, 239.

[5] “Space Domain Mission Assurance: A Resilience Taxonomy.” Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Security & Global Security. September 2015.

[6] National Security Space Strategy (Unclassified Summary), Jan 2011, pg. 10