Dont Gamble on the Next Space Race: Win the Orbital Gray War Now

Abstract

The first wave of an extraterrestrial gold rush is rushing in as commercial firms rapidly innovate to seek wealth and riches from space. At the same time, America's adversaries are willing to exploit the gaps in space conduct norms to challenge, if not threaten, US national interests through the employment of strategic gradualism, subversion, and cohesive statecraft. Leadership in space is not an American birthright. Primacy in space has always been contested. As the United States adapts to win in a new era of great power competition, policymakers must gain an appreciation of the competitive and increasingly contested nature of space, and an understanding how gray war tactics will extend into space. To win the orbital gray war now, policymakers must overcome two challenges to statecraft and maintain the momentum the current administration has achieved on space security to preserve America's leadership in space.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 13, 2020
Accession Number
AD1104398

Entities

People

  • James Malachowski

Organizations

  • Naval War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Artificial Satellites
  • Cold War
  • Directed Energy Weapons
  • Gray Zone
  • Information Operations
  • International Law
  • International Organizations
  • National Security
  • Nuclear Weapons
  • Second World War
  • Space Debris
  • Space Objects
  • Space Systems
  • Space-To-Earth Weapons
  • Treaties
  • United States
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Aerospace Engineering.
  • Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.
  • Strategic Security Studies

Technology Areas

  • Space