2. Capítulo Marco Referencial Teórico
2.2 Marco Conceptual
2.2.5 Factores ambientales a trabajar en el proyecto
2.2.5.3 El Ruido Ambiental
The fourth subchapter of Chapter II presents concluding remarks and reflections based on the findings of the thesis so far. The purpose of the thesis is to explain why a space war has not yet 781 Ibid, 281.
782 Ibid. 783 Ibid.
784 Long and Li, “The Chinese Space Launch Program,” 869. 785 Mu and Fan, “An Overview of Chinese Space Policy,” 414. 786 Hilborne, “China’s rise in space and US policy responses,” 123. 787 Harding, Space Policy in Developing Countries, 93.
788 Weeden, “U.S.-China Cooperation in Space,” 126.
789 Seedhouse, The New Space Race: China vs. The United States, 56-57, 75.
790 Kevin L. Pollpeter, Michael S. Chase and Eric Heginbotham, The Creation of the PLA Strategic Support Force and Its Implications for Chinese Military Space Operations (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2017).
791 United States Defense Intelligence Agency, Challenges to Security in Space, 3-20. 792 Harrison et al., Space Threat Assessment 2019, 8.
occurred, and the history of international space politics must serve that purpose. The second partial conclusion argues the history of international space politics in the First Space Age (1957- 1991) and the Second Space Age (1991-) is very similar to the history of international politics on Earth in those same time periods.
The space race between US and the USSR was initially a weapons race spreading from Earth to space. It started perhaps already with the scramble for German rocket capabilities at the end of WWII. After the war, the US was the most powerful state in the world, and could have invested more in space, but had no urgent need to do so. The double-nuking of Japan proved to the world that the US in fact had the ability to deliver nuclear weapons across the globe. However, a rapidly growing USSR was catching up fast in both nukes and rockets. From the very beginning, international space politics played a central part in the Cold War. The quest for space power and power in general went hand in hand. Threats saw no borders, nor did the need to assure survival. The question quickly becomes: how similar are the causes of war and space war?
Moments of tension in space often occur during unstable times on Earth. The Space Age began after the Korean War, when Cold War war suspicions were already deep-rooted. A few years later, the USSR launched a manned space flight to draw attention away from the Berlin Crisis. Similarly, the Bay of Pigs fiasco triggered the iconic Apollo moon landing program. As the world stood on the brink of nuclear war around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the US and USSR were developing and testing space weapons. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan put an end to ASAT-talks and paved the way for the SDI, which ultimately helped cause the collapse of the USSR. The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution had direct consequences on China's space program. Stalin's death, the Sino-Soviet split, and the death of Mao were all important events in space history. The same can be said of incidents like Tienanmen Square, 9/11, Putin's ascendence to power, or, more importantly, the gradual rise of China.
The history of the First Space Age is in essence a history of the Cold War. The USSR took the first leap into space to project power and deter a nuclear US on Earth. At first, the US was caught by surprise and threatened by the Soviet superiority in space. Achievement after achievement was being used to prove the superiority of the Communist system. In essence, international space politics was a game of two superpowers circling each other, pushing the limits of space technology, demonstrating it in real life, and copying each other while making threats. However, the Cold War in space also ended with a collapse, as rising military expenditures proved too large for the Soviet economy.
The history of the Second Space Age is also a history of US dominance – even with a slow Russian revival and rapid Chinese growth with no end in sight. Since the end of the Cold War, the US has been the most advanced superpower the Earth has ever seen. Especially during the wars in the wake of 9/11, space power served as a key power component. The US has made bold, unilateral moves like pulling out of the ABMT, exploring weapons systems like “Rods from Gods”, and widespread use of force-enhancement, navigation, spying and missile defence. China and Russia feel threatened by this dominance. Therefore they are challenging US space superiority and taking advantage of its vulnerability. China, no longer focused only on commercial space, is testing space weapons while building legal resistance against them in the UN system together with Russia – at least the space weapons they don't have themselves. Russia is still a space superpower in many regards, but China is undoubtedly the “elephant in the room” called space.
Will China play the lead in the history of the Third Space Age? Leap-frogging on existing knowledge – especially from Putin's revivalist “patron space power” – the rising Chinese superpower has achieved impressive achievements in a short timeframe, taking its space program from fringe to world-class. Cutting-edge military counterspace capabilities, like ASATs, jamming and manoeuvrable microsatellites, have been developed, while new space alliances have been forged. The future in space is dependent on the future of Earth. China could overtake the US and become the next space superpower while Russia is making up for its lost decade. Meanwhile, a multitude of new states and private companies have began competing for space power. If the most powerful states will ever go to war in space, it seems likely to be because of a ground conflict in some shape or form.
The second partial conclusion argues that the history of international space politics is very similar to the history of international space politics. In hyperbole, “Space history is Earth history”, and the causes of space war seem to be closely related to the causes of major war in general. The Space Age began with a cold war superpower rivalry in space. Then, the US became the most powerful state. Now, China's space power is growing rapidly. Since international space politics is so closely related to international politics, there is a high risk of space capabilities being used together with nuclear weapons and other military capabilities in a potential great power war. A conflict on Earth could escalate into space, or a space war could lead to a major war on Earth. Thus, the two neorealist hypotheses, based on IR theory developed for international politics on Earth, both appear more plausible. The two different hypotheses will be tested in Chapter III.