The idea of a Space Force seems absolutely crazy. We should care less about how absurd it is and more about why anyone would want it.
Space Force.
Even the words make me laugh.
It seems like a farce. Like the moonshot gamble of a desperate administration. Mocking it so tempting.
And where did it come from? We imagine the room filled with officials looking to come up with some way to distract the people.
“Let’s build a space army!”
We imagine the chatter and chuckles falling away as it dawns on the room. It grows quiet. Then they start to look at each other.
Yes. This is actually perfect. Let’s do it,
they all agree.
Let’s do this space thing!
It all seems so goofy and crazy.
It sounds so stupid we all dismiss it out of hand. Like the Reagan debacle they called Star Wars. The kind of absurd idea that only stoned college students would actually want to crunch the numbers on. After ordering the pizza.
Let’s come up with a way to shoot a speeding bullet with another speeding bullet! And we’ll make people think of Jedi and wookies!
Of course, its absurdity is pretty plain.
Much less plain is the danger.
The plan is obvious.
The basic case for a space force sounds simple and appropriate. After all, it is just another branch of the military. But that isn’t all it is.
It is also yet another protectionist policy reinforcing the brand identity. Critics should note that this consistency is good brand management. The protectionism and it’s isolationist underpinnings are neither surprising nor hard to miss.
But therein also lies the problem.
It is both short-sighted and foolish in exactly the same way Star Wars was foolish. Not because it required a level of precision and technical ability beyond our present understanding. But because it relies entirely on a kind of global supremacy we don’t actually want.
To actually make this work would require our being something we aren’t.
The problem should be just as obvious.
Breaking international treaties, single-handedly redefining the boundaries of our planet, wresting control over the neutral territories of space would be more than a diplomatic nightmare. It would lead to chaos.
It isn’t defense, it’s a redrawing of the geopolitical map.
Much like the threat of nanotechnology depicted in the movie Ant-Man: the technological power to eviscerate our global treaties and circumvent the entire ordering of the world is horrifying. And of course, that same power could be used against us.
The potential is frightening, but not just because we could win or lose. But because of who we would become.
Because it isn’t just the scale. It’s the nature of dominance the United States would have over the entire world. The calculus which would make a space force successful would also fundamentally transform us. It would make us tantamount to a global fascist empire.
And we don’t have the heart to rule the world.
Space isn’t ours to control.
This isn’t to say that empire is the plan. Then again, it rarely is at the beginning. But security through power and dominance over others is always a present danger.
It doesn’t take a dystopian nightmare to see why we shouldn’t build a space force. Really, it’s a bad geopolitical move likely to increase the threat it hopes to prevent.
The true reason we don’t need a space force is that we already have a NASA. And space which isn’t just neutral, but a place of cooperation.
Really, we have perhaps the greatest symbol of hope for our future in space already. We are directly collaborating with former enemies on mutual work with an international space station. We’ve torn down walls and set down guns and even give each other rides into space.
We’re already working together. And there’s plenty more to do.
In just half a century, we’ve already populated the space around our planet with enough space junk as to make whole sections of our orbit unusable. A space race to war footing makes this danger even more acute.
The coming rise of for-profit sub-orbital travel will greatly populate the lightly-regulated reaches of our atmosphere in ways national autonomy can’t enforce, moving from above one continent to another in minutes.
The U.S. can’t solve the complexity of human use of space on our own. Space isn’t ours to control.
Militarizing a frontier presently blooming with cooperation in unethical and would be a great historical tragedy.
Protecting it, building on it, seeking ways to free ourselves of space junk, and reinforcing global projects to protect all of creation is an infinitely more ethical and beautiful goal for a people devoted to peace while honoring and protecting our patch of dirt and all its inhabitants.
We don’t need to build up a space force. We need to build up a space peace.