Thread: Militarization of space?

G.,

A really good place to start, believe it or not, would be Sun Tzu's "Art of War". The topic of militarization of space lends itself well to abstraction so you might as well walk through the front door ready to go.

A good piece of primary source material you will want to be familiar with is the so called "Outer Space Treaty". Read it for free at http://www.state.gov/t/ac/trt/5181.htm .

Two major issues in the militarization of space are ballistic missile defense and anti satellite weapons. Two dated but very good volumes covering these two subjects were issued by the now defunct Office of Technology Assessment:

1. "Strategic Defenses: Ballistic Missle Defense Technologies, Anti-Satellite Weapons, Countermeasures and Arms Control"

2. "SDI: Technology, Survivability and Software"

After twenty some odd years, these two books are still great references.

The RAND Corporation published a report titled "Space Weapons, Earth Wars" that you may find useful. Available for free at http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc...c=GetTRDoc.pdf .

I have read several books by Michael O' Hanlon on BMD, the militarization of space and related topics. You might want to check his stuff out.

Though I have not read it yet, I understand that J.J. Klein's "Space Warfare: Strategy, Principles and Policy" is a good book on the subject.

As to journal articles, there is a wealth of stuff out there on the militarization of space. I have no cites off the top of my head, but I have seen a few in "Foreign Affairs" in the last six or eight years.

If you fish around fas.org , brookings.edu and the USAF Air University website, you will find all sorts of papers and articles on the militarization of space.

Hope all of this helps.

William