Aviation and Space Education Commons^™

Book Review Crowded Orbits: Conflict And Cooperation In Space By James Clay Moltz (Columbia University Press, 2014), Deron Jackson

Space and Defense

A popular space primer serves both the policy and academic communities. Human beings have perceived outer space as infinite for centuries, and since the observations of Edwin Hubble in the 1920s, scientists have studied phenomena that suggest the universe itself is expanding. However, as the title of Clay Moltz’s most recent book points out, the region of space most important to the economic and physical security of residents on Earth is increasingly viewed as far from infinite.

Meeting Growth Challenges Of Mexico Aerospace: The Queretaro Cluster, Monica Casalet

Space and Defense

Growing the Aerospace sector in Mexico requires multilevel agreement between original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), including foreign companies, and national and sub-national governments to stimulate programs and instruments for sector growth. In addition, space for local learning must be cultivated within a process of production organized hierarchically and highly regulated on the international level. The case of the Queretaro cluster is important due to the density of networks created, extensive public-private collaboration, and the emergence of specialized institutions to train and shape highly skilled (professionals and technicians) in the aerospace industry. Ultimately, there remains an important vacuum to fill in the …

Brazil Space: Military Dependency And The Case Of The Geostationary Satellite Of Defense And Strategic Communications, Gills Vilar Lopes

Space and Defense

In Brazil, there has been no transition model of space capabilities promoted by the military sphere (especially the Brazilian Air Force) for nurturing the civil one (Brazilian Space Agency). Drawing upon official documents and legislation as primary sources, the case study of the Geostationary Satellite of Defense and Strategic Communications (SGDC) is analyzed in light of the space strategic sector. Main factors that impede the PEB are related to military-technological dependence and poor resource management, with draconian budget cuts and projects canceled before having achieved realistic milestones.

Attack On The Brain: Neurowars And Neurowarfare, Armin Krishnan

Space and Defense

Is neurotechnology leading nation-states toward a new domain of war? Neuroscience is on the verge of deciphering the human brain. As a result, brains will become a part of the battlefield against which attacks will be directed. As neuroscientist James Giordano argued: “the brain is the next battlespace.” It is foreseeable that this will have tremendous implications for warfare and could amount to a true military revolution in the sense of military historian Williamson Murray: it would completely change the characteristics of conflict, as well as transform state and society.

Editor's Note Volume 9 No. 1, Damon Coletta

Space and Defense

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents Volume 9 No. 1, Space And Defense

Space and Defense

No abstract provided.

Front Matter Volume 9 No. 1, Space And Defense

Space and Defense

No abstract provided.

Notes For Contributors, Space And Defense

Space and Defense

No abstract provided.

Cadet Voice: A Curious Trinity: War, Media, And Public Opinion, Laura Olson

Space and Defense

The following USAFA cadet Capstone project from spring 2017 won the Best Undergraduate Class Paper Award from the national Political Science honor society, Pi Sigma Alpha. The article appears, below, as submitted, with allowances for Space & Defense formatting.

August, 2012- President Obama drew a “Red Line” on chemical weapons use in Syria. Just over a year later, a UN report confirmed Syrian chemical use. Two words, spoken by the most powerful man in the world, generated massive media coverage. Around the world, news outlets and people everywhere looked for Washington’s reaction. Words are powerful because of the narrative they …

Arms Control And Deterrence In The Age Of Cross-Domain Coercion, Damon Coletta

Space and Defense

For deterrence, now, first seek arms control. The old relationship linking deterrence, defense, and arms control served U.S. policy makers for decades during the Cold War. It was manifest through the Spirit of Geneva (1955) and the Reykjavik Summit (1986). Much later, during the rise of cross-domain coercion and following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the same idea reemerged in NATO’s Warsaw Communique (2016).

Building Beyond Samba And Soccer: Why Brazil Ventured A Nuclear Program, Saint-Clair Lima Da Silva

Space and Defense

Contrary to conventional wisdom on Brazil as a case of nuclear proliferation, archival evidence indicates that, rather than geopolitical rivalry with Argentina, enduring desire for national autonomy—honor more than sword or shield—drove Brazil during the 1980s to master its own uranium enrichment cycle.

Communicating Cyber Consequences, Timothy Goines

Space and Defense

More consideration ought to be accorded “loud” cyber weapons for signaling resolve in 21st century deterrence contests.

“Deterrence is at times a necessary or useful instrument of foreign policy, but the correct and prudent use of deterrence strategy is by no means self-evident or easily determined in all circumstances.”

In their seminal text, Alexander L. George and Richard Smoke thoroughly examined the topic of deterrence, tracing its historical roots and conducting case studies on its use. The product of this intense study was a formula that encapsulates the essence of deterrence theory. “In its simplest form, deterrence is merely a …

China's Military Space Strategy: A Dialectical Materialism Perspective, Sam Rouleau

Space and Defense

China’s military space strategy accommodates in significant ways the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) ideological commitment to dialectical materialism. This Marxian commitment persists and manifests in China’s investment in space power despite the Party’s widely acknowledged development of state capitalism to guide China’s economy.

Editor's Note Volume 11 No. 1, Damon Coletta

Space and Defense

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents Volume 11 No. 1, Space And Defense

Space and Defense

No abstract provided.

Front Matter Volume 11 No. 1, Space And Defense

Space and Defense

No abstract provided.

Notes For Contributors, Space And Defense

Space and Defense

No abstract provided.

Book Review: The Physics Of Wall Street: A Brief History Of Predicting The Unpredictable By James Owen Weatherall, Brian M. Kruchkow

Space and Defense

A USAFA graduate comments on predicting the unpredictable when surveying new spaces at the frontiers of defense policy.

James Owen Weatherall’s book about the robust interplay of Wall Street and physics is a captivating romp about select physicists as well as a lesson on how finance both succeeds and falls short when it applies mathematical models to predict economic behavior.1 Such a book is a surprising candidate for a review in Space and Defense. Yet the ideas Weatherall presents are innovative, and they offer a framework for thinking about the problems with which this journal is concerned. In fact, The …

Cadet Voice: Hypersonic Weapons' Effect On Stragetic Stability, Darren Sency

Space and Defense

Initial exploration of the relationship between new technologies and strategic stability finds that hypersonic weapons, regardless of which power deploys them, first, could raise the probability of nuclear war.

Managing Criminalized Power Structures: The Predominant Spoilers Of Peace Processes, Michael Dziedzic

Space and Defense

Criminalized Power Structures (CPS) exploit illicit wealth acquisition to usurp political power and constitute a leading source of obstruction when the international community intervenes in states struggling to emerge from civil conflict. Structures operating outside domestic or international law may constitute a crucial barrier or spoiler for UN and coalition peace operations. This held true in the post-Cold War interregnum before 9/11 and is likely to continue for stabilization operations, regardless of outcomes from enormous international security investments in Afghanistan and Iraq. By understanding the different types of spoilers acting across cases, the United States and partners in the international …

Legislating For Humanity's Next Step: Cultivating A Legal Framework For The Mining Of Celestial Bodies, Joseph Crombie

Space and Defense

Rapid expansion in the space sector by state and private sector actors highlights the need for a new legal regulatory framework, particularly regarding property rights. The exploitation of space-based resources through the mining of asteroids is currently subject to a cold-war era international agreement that did not include clear consideration about how future off-world commercial exploitation might be regulated or property rights assigned. This article explores two empirical examples, the International Seabed Authority and the International Telecommunication Union, to determine whether they provide useful models of a future international legal framework for off-world property rights.

The Russian Sapce Sector: Adaptation, Retrenchment, And Stagnation, Bruce Mcclintock

Space and Defense

Senior Leader Essay

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia focused on its public space sector and consciously chose not to cultivate competitive, private space companies. Russia’s overall space enterprise is now in systemic crisis due to multiple factors and, despite positive rhetoric from the government and with the partial exception of national security space capabilities, faces yet another generation of stagnation.

Editor's Note Volume 10 No.1, Damon Coletta

Space and Defense

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents Volume 10 No.1, Space And Defense

Space and Defense

No abstract provided.

Front Matter Volume 10 No.1, Space And Defense

Space and Defense

No abstract provided.

Notes For The Contributors, Space And Defense

Space and Defense

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Tom Nichols, The Death Of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge And Why It Matters (Ny: Oxford University Press, 2017) 252 Pp., Damon Coletta

Space and Defense

This review is dedicated to Lt Gen (ret.) Brent Scowcroft, twice National Security Advisor and one-time head of the Department of Political Science, U.S. Air Force Academy. If he is looking down on our work today, we hope he liked this book, Death of Expertise, by a much admired Naval War College professor and enjoyed our department’s enthusiasm for participating in the conversation. Thank you, Gen Scowcroft (1925-2020).

Naval War College professor Tom Nichols built upon his popular essay in the Atlantic to deliver a blunt warning.1 After a venomous election in 2016 that swept the incumbent party from power, …

Cadet Voice: Extended Deterrence And Resilience In The Baltic States, Liam J. Connolly

Space and Defense

The following USAFA cadet independent study was supported by the Academy’s Nuclear Weapons & Strategy minor and the Cadet Summer Language Immersion Program to Lithuania. With minor formatting changes, the paper here appears as submitted to the USSTRATCOM Larry D. Welch Writing Award and the summer Deterrence Symposium (Omaha, NE), July 31-Aug. 1, 2019, where it won junior division, first place.

Since the end of the Second World War the United States has practiced extended deterrence as a means of resisting Russian expansion and aggression. In Europe, the US has done this with the support of the North Atlantic Treaty …

Cadet Voice: Artificial Intelligence And Stability In Nuclear Crises, Marshall D. Foster

Space and Defense

The following USAFA cadet independent study, with the exception of minor grammatical corrections, is produced as presented at the winter conference of the Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI), Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C., Dec. 11, 2019 (https://www.csis.org/events/poni- 2019-winter-conference).

Technological advances in artificial intelligence (AI) by the United States, China and Russia jeopardize the longstanding nuclear peace that the world has enjoyed since the end of the Cold War.1 The desire to obtain AI capabilities for the purpose of strengthening defense and security postures could spur a new arms race among these powerful nuclear states, and the United …

Deterrence In Cyberspace: A Game-Theoretic Approach, Abderrahman Sokri

Space and Defense

This novel application of the Stackelberg leader-follower game from economic theory illuminates situational constraints that point to a sweet spot, an optimal level of investment in cyber defense, for deterrence by denial.

Deterrence is a form of persuasion intended to manipulate the cost-benefit analysis of would-be attackers and convince them that the cost of taking an action against the defender outweighs its potential benefit (Brantly, 2018; Wilner, 2017).1 It is the prevention (of a target) from committing unwanted behavior by fear of the consequences (United States (US) Department of Defense (DoD), 2008; Taipale, 2010). Deterrence differs from compellence by focusing …