Extract
Space, Security, and the New Nuclear Triad
MISSILES ARE THE PRODUCTS OF dreamers: scientists like Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Robert Goddard, and Werner von Braun built rockets to explore the heavens.1 Those early dreams have taken humans to the moon, mapped stars, and connected nations. But as has occurred all too often, the same technologies that benefit humanity are pressed into service as weapons-50 years ago the Soviet Union first showed that the power of the atomic bomb could be hurled into space on intercontinental missiles.
Although the term revolution in military affairs is now too often used indiscriminately, the Soviets rightly considered the ability to reach through space to instantly destroy an enemy as the first and only true "revolution." The marriage of nuclear bombs and long-range missiles vexed the best strategic thinkers, and so the advent of the missile age generated myriad theologies of deterrence, limited options, and assured destruction, as strategists struggled for over a half century with a fundamental question: what are nuclear missiles supposed to do? The most essential answer, during the cold war, was that nuclear weapons were necessary to protect against a major exchange with another nuclear power. But with the cold war behind us, is this still the primary purpose of such systems?U.S. policymakers may have this very question in mind as they reevaluate nuclear strategy and the military uses of space in the wake of new space technologies that are challenging previous notions-and taboos-regarding nuclear arms and space weaponization. In some cases, these technologies are specifically designed to seek maximum military advantage without resorting to nuclear force. A concep...See the full content of this document
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