The Militarization and Weaponization of Space

The Militarization and Weaponization of Space
Author: Matthew Mowthorpe
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2004
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780739107133

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The militarization of space began as a rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union and grew to enormous proportions during the height of the Cold War. Satellite reconnaissance, navigation and weapons guidance, and electronic intelligence comprise only a few of the efforts taken to militarize and dominate space. Today as the prominence of information technology, computing, and telecommunications advances, so does the concept of space as a battlefield. In The Militarization and Weaponization of Space, Matthew Mowthorpe diligently analyzes the military space policies of the United States, the Soviet Union/Russia, and the People's Republic of China from the Cold War period to the present day. Mowthorpe focuses on the development of the ballistic missile defense and other anti-satellite systems and aptly assesses to what degree space will become armed. This work cogently addresses an issue of increasing urgency to scholars of international politics.

Weapons in Space

Weapons in Space
Author: Aaron Bateman
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2024-05-07
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 026237739X

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A new and provocative take on the formerly classified history of accelerating superpower military competition in space in the late Cold War and beyond. In March 1983, President Ronald Reagan shocked the world when he established the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), derisively known as “Star Wars,” a space-based missile defense program that aimed to protect the US from nuclear attack. In Weapons in Space, Aaron Bateman draws from recently declassified American, European, and Soviet documents to give an insightful account of SDI, situating it within a new phase in the militarization of space after the superpower détente fell apart in the 1970s. In doing so, Bateman reveals the largely secret role of military space technologies in late–Cold War US defense strategy and foreign relations. In contrast to existing narratives, Weapons in Space shows how tension over the role of military space technologies in American statecraft was a central source of SDI’s controversy, even more so than questions of technical feasibility. By detailing the participation of Western European countries in SDI research and development, Bateman reframes space militarization in the 1970s and 1980s as an international phenomenon. He further reveals that even though SDI did not come to fruition, it obstructed diplomatic efforts to create new arms control limits in space. Consequently, Weapons in Space carries the legacy of SDI into the post–Cold War era and shows how this controversial program continues to shape the global discourse about instability in space—and the growing anxieties about a twenty-first-century space arms race.

Militarizing Outer Space

Militarizing Outer Space
Author: Alexander C.T. Geppert
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 454
Release: 2020-12-02
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1349958514

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Militarizing Outer Space explores the dystopian and destructive dimensions of the Space Age and challenges conventional narratives of a bipolar Cold War rivalry. Concentrating on weapons, warfare and vio​lence, this provocative volume examines real and imagined endeavors of arming the skies and conquering the heavens. The third and final volume in the groundbreaking ​European Astroculture trilogy, ​Militarizing Outer Space zooms in on the interplay between security, technopolitics and knowledge from the 1920s through the 1980s. Often hailed as the site of heavenly utopias and otherworldly salvation, outer space transformed from a promised sanctuary to a present threat, where the battles of the future were to be waged. Astroculture proved instrumental in fathoming forms and functions of warfare’s futures past, both on earth and in space. The allure of dominating outer space, the book shows, was neither limited to the early twenty-first century nor to current American space force rhetorics.

The Militarization of Space

The Militarization of Space
Author: Paul B. Stares
Publisher:
Total Pages: 348
Release: 1985
Genre: History
ISBN:

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From the front jacket flap: Contrary to widespread expectations in the wake of Sputnik, outer space did not immediately become a new arena for a superpower arms competition. Although the United States and the Soviet Union began to use space extensively for military purposes, both exhibited relatively little interest in the development of space weaponry. By the beginning of the 1980s, however, an arms race in space seemed inevitable. Now both the United States and the Soviet Union have developed the means to disable satellites and are now also considering the deployment of ballistic missile defenses in space. Why were these weapons never extensively developed earlier? What changed in the late 1970s to reverse the predominant trend in the militarization of space? What are the lessons for arms control and for Soviet-American relations in general? Paul Stares addresses these fundamental questions by examining the factors that have shaped United States policy towards the military use of space and in particular the development of antisatellite weapons. States relies heavily on declassified documents found in Presidential libraries and made available under the Freedom of Information Act, and he obtained additional information from a comprehensive series of interview with former members of the U.S. government and armed services. By judicious use of this material, he provides the first detailed account of United States space weapons policy and programs. An invaluable source of information for defense analysts and scholars of international relations, The Militarization of Space is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand present United States military space policy and its implications for the future.

Space Weapons and U.S. Strategy

Space Weapons and U.S. Strategy
Author: Paul B. Stares
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2021-01-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000280756

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This book, first published in 1985, analyses the factors that have shaped the militarization of space. By examining in great detail the determinants of U.S. policy, it explains why for over 25 years space did not become the scene of an arms race, and why this began to change in the late 1970s. Both superpowers did, however, develop a limited anti-satellite capability in the 1960s, and these programmes are also discussed.

Weapons in Space

Weapons in Space
Author: Karl Grossman
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Total Pages: 98
Release: 2001-06-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781583220443

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Weapons in Space examines how the United States is forcing forward—in violation of international treaties—to militarize space. Based on excerpts from U.S. government documents, award-winning investigative journalist Karl Grossman outlines the U.S. military's space doctrine, its similarity with the original Stars Wars scheme of Ronald Reagan and Edward Teller, and the space-based lasers, hypervelocity guns, and particle beams it plans to deploy in its mission to "dominate" earth. Grossman shows the intimate link between the militarization and the nuclearization of space, and follows the flow of billions of U.S. tax dollars to the corporations that research and develop weapons for space. His book explains the Outer Space Treaty and gives a history of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear power in Space: what it is doing, what it plans to do—and what the reader can do to challenge U.S. plans to turn the heavens into a war zone.

US Presidents and the Militarization of Space, 1946-1967

US Presidents and the Militarization of Space, 1946-1967
Author: Sean N. Kalic
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages: 199
Release: 2012-04-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1603446915

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In the clash of ideologies represented by the Cold War, even the heavens were not immune to militarization. Satellites and space programs became critical elements among the national security objectives of both the United States and the Soviet Union. According to US Presidents and the Militarization of Space, 1946–1967, three American presidents in succession shared a fundamental objective of preserving space as a weapons-free frontier for the benefit of all humanity. Between 1953 and 1967 Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson all saw nonaggressive military satellite development, as well as the civilian space program, as means to favorably shape the international community’s opinion of the scientific, technological, and military capabilities of the United States. Sean N. Kalic’s reinterpretation of the development of US space policy, based on documents declassified in the past decade, demonstrates that a single vision for the appropriate uses of space characterized American strategies across parties and administrations during this period. Significantly, Kalic’s findings contradict the popular opinion that the United States sought to weaponize space and calls into question the traditional interpretation of the space race as a simple action/reaction paradigm. Indeed, beyond serving as a symbol and ambassador of US technological capability, its satellite program provided the United States with advanced, nonaggressive military intelligence-gathering platforms that proved critical in assessing the strategic nuclear balance between the United States and the Soviet Union. It also aided the three administrations in countering the Soviet Union’s increasing international prestige after its series of space firsts, beginning with the launch of Sputnik in 1957.

Military Space Power

Military Space Power
Author: Wilson W.S. Wong
Publisher: Praeger
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2010-02-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 0313356807

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This book provides a background primer of the science and technology related to the harsh and unforgiving environment of outer space. As space is too often understood through the lens of popular science fiction, leading to beliefs inconsistent with reality, it is important to know what is and is not possible given current technology. From this basis, the book then looks at the key military developments of what may be called the second military space age-- the development of space systems with the purpose of enhancing the application of territorial military force. It then directs attention to military questions and concerns that have emerged regarding outer space as an independent and unique domain to competition, conflict, and potentially war, including a look at passive measures and active measures available and under consideration related to defensive and offensive military kinetic operations in space. Although warfare has not yet extended into outer space, and it remains a relatively pristine environment, the possibility that conflict and war may eventually extend into space cannot be ignored.

Space Weaponization

Space Weaponization
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 17
Release: 2000
Genre:
ISBN:

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The world may be on the verge of a new era of warfare, one where battles are not fought only within the biosphere of the Earth, but also in the space surrounding it. Recent conflicts have shown the tremendous advantages conferred upon those who have the advantage of space-based assets, helping forces navigate, communicate and spy upon their enemies. Some argue that fighting in space itself is inevitable, while others hold that space should be maintained as a sanctuary, free of weapons. 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. What space has not been, at least to this point, is weaponized. The purpose of this paper is to explore the arguments for and against the weaponization of space, and the political implications involved. The methodology of this paper will be to summarized both sides of this argument and present the key political challenges at the strategic level. I hope to convince the reader that after consideration of both arguments, it seems to be in the best interest of the United States to advocate a treaty banning space-based weapons entirely. Given the current international climate of antipathy toward weaponizing space, such a treaty is entirely plausible. Admittedly, space-based weapons are probably inevitable in the long term, however their eventual deployment can probably be delayed for decades, If not longer, with a carefully written treaty.