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Overview
American strategists face a daunting challenge; they must assure
and defend American and allied interests, induce and encourage
international security cooperation, and deter, dissuade, and
defeat a diverse range of potential adversaries. This challenge
has been addressed by senior political leadership in recent policy
statements, such as the Nuclear Posture Review of 2002, and in
the formation of an expanded U.S. Strategic Command, but this
vision has not yet taken root in the Department of Defense components
responsible for providing operational capability.
We propose a new strategic posture based upon a war-prevention
focus. The central element of our proposal is a transformational
space and information sortie capability. American space
capabilities now depend on a fixed infrastructure of large, expensive
satellites. We argue for a complementary capability to launch
small, inexpensive payloads in time of crisis to augment and
reconstitute existing capabilities and perform entirely new special
operation missions and global conventional strikes through space.
These assets also would expand information operations beyond
network defense and network attack to create effects in the minds
of our adversaries and those who would support them.
An enabler for these new capabilities will be the technology
to deliver effects in and through space rapidly and affordably. A
similar capability will be needed to deliver effects through cyber
space. Space-based nodes would be critical components of an integrated
physical, cyber, and psychological application of military
force and strategic influence. These technologies exist today both
in the United States and elsewhere. But a focused and funded program
to develop them for military purposes is not yet in place.
This new strategic posture will arguably require the formation
of a new space and information military service to organize,
train, and equip the space and information force structure of the
future. The nucleus of such a new service exists today in the U.S.
Strategic Command and its components.
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