Impact Turn – Space Good: Global Stability

Impact Turn – Space Good: Diplomacy

From its initial emphasis in the late 1950s as a means of superpower competition, through today’s use of space assets to enable terrestrial military forces, space power has conferred diplomatic advantages to those nations able to employ it. Even so, its potential remains underdeveloped. Since space is the newest medium in which military forces operate, it is to be expected that policy makers have not used space assets as tools of diplomacy to the same degree they have used other, more traditional means. Yet, their lack of focus on this particular tool or means is perplexing. Such esteemed space theorists as James Oberg have misunderstood the power of space assets to affect diplomatic objectives. He states, “Space power, alone, is insufficient to...ensure the attainment of terrestrial political objectives.”159 As affirmed in Colin Gray’s statement above, space professionals have given insufficient thought to (among other strategic implications of space assets) codifying precisely how, when, and where to use space assets for diplomatic purposes short of combat. The analysis that follows seeks to fill part of this void by classifying the diplomatic uses of space assets.160 While the model presented is holistic in its applicability across the spectrum of conflict, its rudimentary nature is evidence that future theorists and strategists still need to accomplish much work. Exploiting space systems to directly achieve diplomatic objectives is a capacity available now, and this opportunity is due to a confluence of trends. First, an increasingly important characteristic of the post-Cold War world is the escalating impact of globalization and interdependency among states. Particularly among the most developed states, those participating heavily in the information age, the development and distribution of knowledge is replacing the manufacturing and distribution of goods as society’s central source of wealth, prestige, and power.161 The linkages connecting these states to the outside world and to elements within their own societies are becoming indispensable, as these are the conduits for information exchange. Especially for states with global trade and military interests, and despite the enormous growth of fiber optics technology for data transmission and communications, space assets are a critical component for these information transactions. The same holds for lesser-developed states, particularly if their internal communications infrastructures are rudimentary or fragmented. For the United States, DoD Directive 3100.10, Space Policy, states the case flatly: “The globally interdependent information- and knowledge-based economy as well as information-based military operations make the information lines of communication to, in, through, and from space essential to the exercise of United States power.”162

Impact Turn – Space Good: Diplomacy