2 The United States Space Force law, but a society of the law of rules. This model must be placed in the ash can of history where it has always belonged if we are to win the space race. The streamlining and destruction of silos that will be neces- sary is so titanic that it will cause significant disruption, and many politi- cal fiefdoms will be threatened. The stovepiping is so extreme in D.C. that it threatens national security. I will be the first to acknowledge and support the Founders’ belief that overly centralized power is a threat to republican values and enhances the chance of the tyranny of the few or the one. However, let us also remember that the other fear that the Founders had was the tyranny of the many and their allies in a perma- nent political, bureaucratic class. America has “always been a spacefaring nation” (Raymond 2021). If we wish for the Pax Americana (the system of order created by the United States) to continue, it must embrace the Pax Astra (a new system of order that will govern space and earth). If national security strategy is dependent on grand strategy, what can we do in space? First, we must have a national space strategy synthe- sizing multiple ideas and fields. It must have an intellectual foundation that rests on accomplishing an American destiny in space. Second, it will need to wrestle with the numerous political challenges that are not only about political party, personality, and ideology but also a rising progres- sive movement that does not wish for American primacy in the future. Third, rules for space, space governance, and activity must be molded along with the “international liberal order” that has governed American- led international norms since the Second World War. This will require a firm commitment by Western powers to stand with the United States as it leads humankind into the twenty-first century. Equally, American diplo- matic efforts must shore up the various alliance structures between NATO, ANZUS, Japan, South Korea, Israel, Taiwan, and other nations that wish to join the American-led reach for the stars. This destiny will only be pos- sible by developing the space organizational structures and institutions to achieve it. It will primarily be accomplished by the new United States Space Force (USSF). Finally, America must lead a new economic revolu- tion that embraces space commerce, resource harvesting, colonization, exploration, transportation, surveillance, logistics, and research. None of this can be accomplished with a single administration’s space policy. Still, the embrace of a space strategy that takes the theories of space power to create space policy under the guidance of American primacy is necessary. Diplomats often talk about interests: vital, national, and peripheral. Much like the misuse of terminology over strategy, there is misuse over the terms vital interests and national interests. No discussion of national secu- rity is possible without an understanding of both. Vital interests are exis- tential interests whose failure to protect could bring about the extinction
Previous Page Next Page