The Space Challenge of the American Foreign Policy

General/Situation Review

One of the most significant domains of the American-Soviet competition during the Cold War era has been the Space. The very first launch of an artificial communications satellite, the famous Sputnik, by the Soviets in 1957 was a start of a new epoch for humankind as the USSR demonstrated its capability to strike with nuclear weapons the continental US. After this significant event, the Space race was on with the Moon exploration as the first target of the two superpowers. Of course, the Americans finally won by sending astronauts to land on the Moon surface in 1969, “a huge step for mankind” and a tremendous boost of the American soft power. The implications however here on Earth of the space race have been significant. Today, the Soviet Union does not exist, however a new power has emerged to challenge the US dominance, China. The two powers are characterized as strategic competitors in many domains of the globalized world recently including Space. More detailed, the Space challenge for the US and specifically the American foreign policy (AFP) can be divided in two main sectors, firstly the space exploration and secondly militarization of it. This is a matter of crucial importance for the US foreign policy because the United States have been the dominant power in Space since the collapse of the Soviet Union, or even since the first moon landing, as the most advanced technologically and economically nation of the World with great political, diplomatic, and cultural influence. However, many other powers have history and presence in Space including like Russia and more recently China which is trying to surpass the US technologically. In this regard, the new Space Race is first and foremost a technological competition.

The news of the successful launch of a Chinese satellite (Singer & Lee, 2021), completes the Chinese global Beidou tracking system (Goswami, 2021), which are competitive to the American GPS and the European Galileo systems. Inevitably, this event turned the attention to Space since it has now become the new domain of the Sino-American confrontation. Furthermore, the competition between the two powers has recently included the exploration of planet Mars, as they both have launched exploratory vessels with only a few days apart (Reuters 2020) (Griffiths, 2020). China has launched Tianwen-1 (Reuters 2020), and NASA the Perseverance Rover. The two-reconnaissance spacecrafts have landed successfully on Mars in February 2021. This is the seventh mission for the Americans and the first for Chinese. The successful Chinese mission indicates a huge step forward for the Chinese Space technology. Despite its scientific interest, the struggle for space exploration has a political perspective (the US-USSR Moon race in the Cold War which ended with the historic first manned moon landing in 1969 giving victory to the USA). Modern competition has set an even more difficult goal, Mars. The Chinese authorities understand the prestige they will enjoy will be enormous if they surpass the US in space. For this reason, they plan the manned mission to Mars. In recent years, the country has invested $ billions in the development of its Space Service with another aim, the first Chinese manned mission in the Moon surface and the development of its own space station. CCP’s political target is to transform China to a major space power by 2030. Despite Chinese progress, the country will still have to struggle to catch up Washington, given the fact that it entered the Space Race late. The former US President has set targets for manned missions to both the Moon and Mars.

The hegemonic competition of the two greatest powers in the modern international system is leading more and more analysts around the world to conclude that one possible effect is the militarization of space. Other powers, comparatively of a smaller range and capabilities, are involved in this process, which means that several states now have the technological capacity to have presence in Space. These states include Russia, India, the UK, the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, and Argentina. But what does this new space challenge (competition and the militarization of it) means and how can affect the US interests? In other words, why the new Space Race outcome is significant to the US foreign policy regarding its rivalry with mainly with China but also with Russia? As we analyze further, the competition in Space (exploration) poses a real challenge to the US soft power and to make matters worse the militarization of it is a potential threat to the US national security in ways that the US has never experienced before in the past. More specifically, the latter incudes new weapon systems in low- Earth orbit as well as state-of-the-art ballistic supersonic missiles with multiple nuclear heads which can be launched and travel through Space to meet their targets. In this regard it would be extremely difficult for the defender (in this case the United States) to effectively intercept those missiles due to their trajectory.

In the third part of this paper, we will analyze three possible future scenarios from the perspective of the US foreign policy. The first will be more optimistic as the United States eventually win again the new Space Race and secure their dominant position in the international system. At the same time, they eliminate all the potential threats coming from Space, for their national security posed by China and Russia. The second scenario is more pessimistic as the US progressively lose their vital technological advantage in favor of their rivals, China and Russia. The latter manage to credible threat the American national security by sophisticated weapons in orbit and new missile systems while gain global prestige by landing the first humans on Mars. In this scenario the US is less important in Space than the superpowers, China and Russia. The third scenario poses the AFP policy response as it is the most realistic: The US foreign policy is challenged by revisionist China and Russia in Space at it considered the weaken link of the US security system. The trends which are already active indicate that the new Space Race will be divided in exploration, focused on planet Mars, and the research and development (R&D) of anti-space systems capable to intercept threats from Space (potential development of a 21st century Strategic Defense Initiative- SDI). In this case scenario we will take under consideration other stakeholders including the international community (civil society organizations) which put pressure on a new agreement for demilitarization of Space and the peaceful use of it by the entire humankind, as well other states allies of the US as well as the important Space industry (private sector), mostly advanced American corporations, which have focused on Space exploration.