Space Power and the Revolution in Military Affairs. A Glass Half Full

摘要

In this article we build upon the excellent prognosis for space power presented in the LRP by consolidating bridgeheads of intellectual and policy advances, slaying some of the dragons of misunderstanding that have crept into the debate about space. The US space community would be ill advised to hitch a ride with some protagonists in the contemporary RMA debate. The concept, and the capabilities, of space power are far too important to be hostage to the fate of a controversy over a possible RMA keyed to the exploitation of information technologies. It was unfortunate that the 1980s discussion of space power was dominated by attitudes towards a particular character of ballistic missile defense (BMD) in the SDI. It is scarcely less unfortunate that in the 1990s the debate over RMA largely has sidelined proper discussion of space power as space power (as contrasted with space power as provider of information). Space power needs protection from lobbyists for BMD and for information-led warfare. This article puts forward the argument that what has traditionally been perceived as space power is, in fact, only the beginning of how we will use space strategically. It challenges contemporary thinking on what many have regarded the present RMA to be-namely , it is proposed that space power will be the RMA. In order for space power to reach its full potential, however, space must be recognized as a geographical environment for conflict that is, in a strategic sense, no different from the land, sea, air, and the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS). Using historical case studies of the emergence of seapower and airpower as unique and separate forms of military power, as well as stressing the eternal nature of strategy, it will show that space power is on the threshold of something much more prominent, indeed will be a form of military power analogous to land power, sea power, and airpower. It is this emergence of space power that will mark it out as an RMA.