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• 5 THE SHATTERED SANCTUM How Might Space Be Used against the United States? The twentieth century is notable in history for the United States' rise to world leadership, economic dominance, and military preeminence. Paradoxically, technological developments in that same century also tempered U.S. strategic leverage by creating new vulnerabilities, for no longer could Americans rest blissfully behind shelters propped up by distance and supported by the surrounding seas. Alexander Hamilton was one of the first national leaders to recognize that, although abundantly blessed by geography, new technologies and the dynamics of international politics one day would impose new national security challenges. In The Federalist he noted, "Though a wide ocean separates the United States from Europe,... various considerations ... warn us against an excess of confidence or security.... The improvements in the art of navigation have, as to the facility of communication, rendered distant nations, in a great measure neighbors. Britain and Spain are among the principal maritime powers of Europe. A future concert of views between these nations ought not to be regarded as improbable These circumstances combined admonish us not to be too sanguine in considering ourselves as entirely out of the reach of danger" (No. 24). Hamilton's warning, published more than 210 years ago, foreshadowed a time when future inventions would strip away the natural ramparts that Americans took for granted. New technologies and weapon systems established conditions in the world that compelled U.S. military forces, despite possessing capabilities to establish ground and sea control and command the air, to plan for sudden assaults emanating from distant regions (especially by ballistic missiles) and enemies having enhanced space-battle knowledge, especially in overseas theaters. As a medium The Shattered Sanctum 143 providing global access, outer space is today a "flank" of concern for the armed forces. Space is a big common area, or a "new" ocean, as John R Kennedy referred to it in 1962.1 Many foreign countries and companies (domestic and foreign) are determined to chart it, ply it, and learn how it may be turned into national advantage and profit. This is the reality for which twenty-first-century defense planners must account and plan. As foreign national and commercial capabilities to reach and exploit circumterrestrial space spread, we must try to understand what others can do in space to harm the United States. Iraq, North Korea, Pakistan, India, Brazil, Russia, or China fires an object into space—what is it and who owns it? Is it an advanced satellite for gathering intelligence or for communications? Or does it carry a payload of deadly agents? Are our satellites under attack? Can we, should we retaliate? Can we, should we shoot it down? Can we, should we stop other nations from using space in hostile ways? In the not-too-distant future all enemies will have access to mobile communications with encryption technology, one-meter resolution imagery from commercial providers, GPS and maybe even Russian GLONASS or European Galileo satellite navigation systems, as well as other space technologies developed in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s (with a smattering from the 1990s). Space launch services will be available and foreign rockets will proliferate. Common sense tells us this trend marking the growth in space expertise and capabilities will carry onward, that the one-time superpower space monopoly now belongs very much to the past, and that proficiency in space operations is widening steadily to the point where it now reaches every corner of the earth.2 U.S. commanders and stewards of national security should anticipate that, in some circumstances, adversaries will be watching the United States at ports unloading materiel, counting F-15s deployed at local air bases and tracking B-2s as they arrive in theater for their bombing runs, observing troop movements, and communicating with their own forces in the field with a level of efficiency once achievable only by a handful of advanced countries. The one-time sanctum, where only a few countries blissfully operated just a short time ago, has been shattered once and for all. What Foreign National Space Capabilities Exist? With computing power doubling every eighteen months, countries today have much more processing capability available to them than did the United States or the Soviet Union during the cold war. Steady growth in the space commercial sector and increased investments in the cultivation of space expertise means that large space infrastructures are not required.3 Advances in highly sophisticated pro- [3.136.154.103] Project MUSE (2024-04...

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