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TDI 2021 – Space Packet CompleteAff/Neg – Space Mining Aff – Space Mining AC – Inherency Private space mining and ownership allowed nowWilliams 20 [(Matt Williams, Reporter) “Trump signs an executive order allowing mining the moon and asteroids,” Phys Org, April 13, 2020, ] TDITrump signs an executive order allowing mining the moon and asteroidsIn 2015, the Obama administration signed the?U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act?(CSLCA, or H.R. 2262) into law. This bill was intended to "facilitate a pro-growth environment for the developing commercial space industry" by making it legal for American companies and citizens to own and sell resources that they extract from asteroids and off-world locations (like the moon, Mars or beyond).On April 6th, the Trump administration took things a step further by signing an?executive order?that formally recognizes the rights of private interests to claim resources in?space. This order, titled "Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources," effectively ends the decades-long debate that began with the signing of?the Outer Space Treaty?in 1967.New investments coming and companies are launching – economic incentives make it alluringTosar 20 [(Borja Tosar, reporter) “Asteroid Mining: A New Space Race,” OpenMind BBVA, May 18, 2020, ] TDIThis is not science fiction. There are now space mining companies, such as?Planetary Resources,?which has already launched several mini-satellites to test several of its patents. Other companies like?Asteroid Mining Corporation?or?Trans Astronautica Corporation,?although still far from their goal, are already attracting millions of dollars of private investment interested in being on the front line of a possible future space business.Is asteroid mining possible? This new space race already began back when the?Hayabusa?missions successfully returned a few grams of an asteroid’s regolith, so the technology to harvest asteroid material exists, we just have to change the scale. It is no longer a technological problem.Is it economically viable? We are increasingly dependent on rare elements (such as those in the palladium group), which are expensive to exploit on Earth and come with a high environmental cost, so the sum of these two factors could make it profitable to travel to the asteroids to extract these raw materials. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse argues that?the planet’s first trillionaire will undoubtedly be a space miner.AC – Debris Advantage Asteroid mining spikes the risk of satellite-dust collisionsScoles 15 [(Sarah Scoles, freelance science writer, contributor at Wired and Popular Science, author of the books Making Contact and They Are Already Here) “Dust from asteroid mining spells danger for satellites,” New Scientist, May 27, 2015, ] TDIStudy this is citing – Javier Roa, Space Dynamic Group, Applied Physics Department, Technical University of Madrid. Casey J Handmer, Theoretical Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology. Both PhD Candidates. “Quantifying hazards: asteroid disruption in lunar distant retrograde orbits,” arXiv, Cornell University, May 14, 2015, chose the second option for its?Asteroid Redirect Mission, which aims to?pluck a boulder from an asteroid’s surface?and relocate it to a stable orbit around the moon. But an asteroid’s gravity is so weak that it’s not hard for surface particles to escape into space. Now a new model warns that debris shed by such transplanted rocks could intrude where many defence and communication satellites live – in geosynchronous orbit.According to?Casey Handmer?of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and Javier Roa of the Technical University of Madrid in Spain, 5 per cent of the escaped debris will end up in regions traversed by satellites. Over 10 years, it would cross geosynchronous orbit 63 times on average. A satellite in the wrong spot at the wrong time will suffer a damaging high-speed collision with that dust.The study also looks at the “catastrophic disruption” of an asteroid 5 metres across or bigger. Its total break-up into a pile of rubble would increase the risk to satellites by more than 30 per cent (abs/1505.03800).Space dust wrecks satellites and debris exponentially spiralsIntagliata 17 [(Christopher Intagliata, MA Journalism from NYU, Editor for NPRs All Things Considered, Reporter/Host for Scientific American’s 60 Second Science) “The Sneaky Danger of Space Dust,” Scientific American, May 11, 2017, ] TDIWhen tiny particles of space debris slam into satellites, the collision could cause the emission of hardware-frying radiation, Christopher Intagliata reports.?Aside from all the satellites, and the space station orbiting the Earth,?there's a lot of trash circling the planet, too. Twenty-one thousand?baseball-sized chunks?of debris,?according to NASA. But that number's dwarfed by the number of?small particles. There's hundreds of millions of those."And those smaller particles tend to be going fast. Think of picking up a grain of sand at the beach, and that would be on the large side. But they're going 60 kilometers per second."?Sigrid Close, an applied physicist and astronautical engineer at Stanford University. Close says that whereas mechanical damage—like punctures—is the worry with the bigger chunks, the dust-sized stuff might leave more insidious, invisible marks on satellites—by causing electrical damage."We also think this phenomenon can be attributed to some of the failures and anomalies we see on orbit, that right now are basically tagged as 'unknown cause.'"Close and her colleague Alex Fletcher modeled this phenomenon mathematically, based on plasma physics behavior. And here's what they think happens. First, the dust slams into the spacecraft. Incredibly fast. It vaporizes and ionizes a bit of the ship—and itself. Which generates a cloud of ions and electrons, traveling at different speeds. And then: "It's like a spring action, the electrons are pulled back to the ions, ions are being pushed ahead a little bit. And then the electrons overshoot the ions, so they oscillate, and then they go back out again.”That movement of electrons creates a pulse of electromagnetic radiation, which Close says could be the culprit for some of that electrical damage to satellites. The study is in the journal?Physics of Plasmas. [Alex C. Fletcher and Sigrid Close,?Particle-in-cell simulations of an RF emission mechanism associated with hypervelocity impact plasmas]Scenario 1 is ClimateEarth observation satellites key to warming adaptationAlonso 18 [(Elisa Jiménez Alonso, communications consultant with Acclimatise, climate resilience organization) “Earth Observation of Increasing Importance for Climate Change Adaptation,” Acclimatise, May 2, 2018, ] TDIEarth observation (EO) satellites are playing an increasingly important role in assessing climate change. By providing a constant and consistent stream of data about the state of the climate, EO is not just improving scientific outcomes but can also inform climate policy.Managing climate-related risks effectively requires accurate, robust, sustained, and wide-ranging climate information. Reliable observational climate data can help scientists test the accuracy of their models and improve the science of attributing certain events to climate change. Information based on projections from models and historic data can help decision makers plan and implement adaptation actions.Providing information in data-sparse regionsGround-based weather and climate monitoring systems only cover about 30% of the Earth’s surface. In many parts of the world such data is incomplete and patchy due to poorly maintained weather stations and a general lack of such facilities.EO satellites and rapidly improving satellite technology, especially data from open access programmes, offer a valuable source information for such data-sparse regions. This is especially important since countries and regions with a lack of climate data are often particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts.International efforts for systematic observationThe importance of satellite-based observations is also recognised by the international community. Following the recommendations of the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) programme, the UNFCCC strongly encourages countries that support space agencies with EO programmes to get involved in GCOS and support the programme’s implementation. The Paris Agreement highlights the need for and importance of effective and progressive responses to the threat of climate change based on the best available scientific knowledge. This implies that climate knowledge needs to be strengthened, which includes continuously improving systematic observations of the Earth’s climate.To meet the need of such systematic climate observations, GCOS developed the concept of the Essential Climate Variable, or ECV. According to WMO, an ECV “is a physical, chemical or biological variable or a group of linked variables that critically contributes to the characterization of Earth’ s climate.” In 2010, 50 ECVs which would help the work of the UNFCCC and IPCC were defined by GCOS. The ECVs, which can be seen below, were identified due to their relevance for characterising the climate system and its changes, the technical feasibility of observing or deriving them on a global scale, and their cost effectiveness.The 50 Essential Climate Variables as defined by GCOS. One effort supporting the systemic observation of the climate is the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Climate Change Initiative (CCI). The programme taps into its own and its member countries’ EO archives that have been established in the last three decades in order to provide a timely and adequate contribution to the ECV databases required by the UNFCCC.Robust evidence supporting climate risk managementEarth observation satellites can observe the entire Earth on a daily basis (polar orbiting satellites) or continuously monitor the disk of Earth below them (geostationary satellites) maintaining a constant watch of the entire globe. Sensors can target any point on Earth even the most remote and inhospitable areas which helps monitor deforestation in vast tropical forests and the melting of the ice caps.Without insights offered by EO satellites there would not be enough evidence for decision makers to base their climate policies on, increasing the risk of maladaptation. Robust EO data is an invaluable resource for collecting climate information that can inform climate risk management and make it more effective.Warming causes extinctionKlein 14[(Naomi Klein, award-winning journalist, syndicated columnist, former Miliband Fellow at the London School of Economics, member of the board of directors of ), This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, pp. 12-14]In a 2012 report, the World Bank laid out the gamble implied by that target. “As global warming approaches and exceeds 2-degrees Celsius, there is a risk of triggering nonlinear tipping elements. Examples include the disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet leading to more rapid sea-level rise, or large-scale Amazon dieback drastically affecting ecosystems, rivers, agriculture, energy production, and livelihoods. This would further add to 21st-century global warming and impact entire continents.” In other words, once we allow temperatures to climb past a certain point, where the mercury stops is not in our control.? But the bigger problem—and the reason Copenhagen caused such great despair—is that because governments did not agree to binding targets, they are free to pretty much ignore their commitments. Which is precisely what is happening. Indeed, emissions are rising so rapidly that unless something radical changes within our economic structure, 2 degrees now looks like a utopian dream. And it’s not just environmentalists who are raising the alarm. The World Bank also warned when it released its report that “we’re on track to a 4-C warmer world [by century’s end] marked by extreme heat waves, declining global food stocks, loss of ecosystems and biodiversity, and life-threatening sea level rise.” And the report cautioned that, “there is also no certainty that adaptation to a 4-C world is possible.” Kevin Anderson, former director (now deputy director) of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change, which has quickly established itself as one of the U.K’s premier climate research institutions, is even blunter; he says 4 degrees Celsius warming—7.2 degrees Fahrenheit—is “incompatible with an organized, equitable, and civilized global community.”? We don’t know exactly what a 4 degree Celsius world would look like, but even the best-case scenario is likely to be calamitous. Four degrees of warming could raise global sea levels by 1 or possibly even 2 meters by 2100 (and would lock in at least a few additional meters over future centuries). This would drown some island nations such as the Maldives and Tuvalu, and inundate many coastal areas from Ecuador and Brazil to the Netherlands to much of California and the northeastern United States as well as huge swaths of South and Southeast Asia. Major cities likely in jeopardy include Boston, New York, greater Los Angeles, Vancouver, London, Mumbai, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.? Meanwhile, brutal heat waves that can kill tens of thousands of people, even in wealthy countries, would become entirely unremarkable summer events on every continent but Antarctica. The heat would also cause staple crops to suffer dramatic yield losses across the globe (it is possible that Indian wheat and U.S. could plummet by as much as 60 percent), this at a time when demand will be surging due to population growth and a growing demand for meat. And since crops will be facing not just heat stress but also extreme events such as wide-ranging droughts, flooding, or pest outbreaks, the losses could easily turn out to be more severe than the models have predicted. When you add ruinous hurricanes, raging wildfires, fisheries collapses, widespread disruptions to water supplies, extinctions, and globe-trotting diseases to the mix, it indeed becomes difficult to imagine that a peaceful, ordered society could be sustained (that is, where such a thing exists in the first place).? And keep in mind that these are the optimistic scenarios in which warming is more or less stabilized at 4 degrees Celsius and does not trigger tipping points beyond which runaway warming would occur. Based on the latest modeling, it is becoming safer to assume that 4 degrees could bring about a number of extremely dangerous feedback loops—an Arctic that is regularly ice-free in September, for instance, or, according to one recent study, global vegetation that is too saturated to act as a reliable “sink”, leading to more carbon being emitted rather than stored. Once this happens, any hope of predicting impacts pretty much goes out the window. And this process may be starting sooner than anyone predicted. In May 2014, NASA and the University of California, Irvine scientists revealed that glacier melt in a section of West Antarctica roughly the size of France now “appears unstoppable.” This likely spells down for the entire West Antarctic ice sheet, which according to lead study author Eric Rignot “comes with a sea level rise between three and five metres. Such an event will displace millions of people worldwide.” The disintegration, however, could unfold over centuries and there is still time for emission reductions to slow down the process and prevent the worst. ? Much more frightening than any of this is the fact that plenty of mainstream analysts think that on our current emissions trajectory, we are headed for even more than 4 degrees of warming. In 2011, the usually staid International Energy Agency (IEA) issued a report predicting that we are actually on track for 6 degrees Celsius—10.8 degrees Fahrenheit—of warming. And as the IEA’s chief economist put it: “Everybody, even the school children, knows that this will have catastrophic implications for all of us.” (The evidence indicates that 6 degrees of warming is likely to set in motion several major tipping points—not only slower ones such as the aforementioned breakdown of the West Antarctic ice sheet, but possibly more abrupt ones, like massive releases of methane from Arctic permafrost.) The accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers as also published a report warning businesses that we are headed for “4-C , or even 6-C” of warming.? These various projections are the equivalent of every alarm in your house going off simultaneously. And then every alarm on your street going off as well, one by one by one. They mean, quite simply, that climate change has become an existential crisis for the human species. The only historical precedent for a crisis of this depth and scale was the Cold War fear that we were headed toward nuclear holocaust, which would have made much of the planet uninhabitable. But that was (and remains) a threat; a slim possibility, should geopolitics spiral out of control. The vast majority of nuclear scientists never told us that we were almost certainly going to put our civilization in peril if we kept going about our daily lives as usual, doing exactly what we were already going, which is what climate scientists have been telling us for years. ? As the Ohio State University climatologist Lonnie G. Thompson, a world-renowned specialist on glacier melt, explained in 2010, “Climatologists, like other scientists, tend to be a stolid group. We are not given to theatrical rantings about falling skies. Most of us are far more comfortable in our laboratories or gathering data in the field than we are giving interviews to journalists or speaking before Congressional committees. When then are climatologists speaking out about the dangers of global warming? The answer is that virtually all of us are now convinced that global warming poses a clear and present danger to civilization.”Scenario 2 is MiscalcEarly warning satellites going dark signals attacks – causes miscalc and goes nuclearOrwig 16 [(Jessica, MS in science and tech journalism from Texas A&M, BS in astronomy and physics from Ohio State) “Russia says a growing problem in space could be enough to spark a war,” Insider,’ January 26, 2016, ] TDINASA has already warned that the large amount of space junk around our planet is growing beyond our control, but now a team of Russian scientists has cited another potentially unforeseen consequence of that debris: War.Scientists estimate that anywhere from 500,000 to 600,000 pieces of human-made space debris between 0.4 and 4 inches in size are currently orbiting the Earth and traveling at speeds over 17,000 miles per hour.If one of those pieces smashed into a military satellite it "may provoke political or even armed conflict between space-faring nations," Vitaly Adushkin, a researcher for the Institute of Geosphere Dynamics at the Russian Academy of Sciences, reported in a paper set to be published in the peer-reviewed journal Acta Astronautica, which is sponsored by the International Academy of Astronautics. Say, for example, that a satellite was destroyed or significantly damaged in orbit — something that a 4-inch hunk of space junk could easily do traveling at speeds of 17,500 miles per hour, Adushkin reported. (Even smaller pieces no bigger than size of a pea could cause enough damage to the satellite that it would no longer operate correctly, he notes.) It would be difficult for anyone to determine whether the event was accidental or deliberate. This lack of immediate proof could lead to false accusations, heated arguments and, eventually, war, according to Adushkin and his colleagues. A politically dangerous dilemmaIn the report, the Adushkin said that there have already been repeated "sudden failures" of military spacecraft in the last two decades that cannot be explained. "So, there are two possible explanations," he wrote. The first is "unregistered collisions with space objects." The second is "machinations" [deliberate action] of the space adversary. "This is a politically dangerous dilemma," he added. But these mysterious failures in the past aren't what concerns Adushkin most. It's a future threat of what experts call the cascade effect that has Adushkin and other scientists around the world extremely concerned. The Kessler SyndromeIn 1978, American astrophysicist Donald Kessler predicted that the amount of space debris around Earth would begin to grow exponentially after the turn of the millennium. Kessler 's predictions rely on the fact that over time, space junk accumulates. We leave most of our defunct satellites in space, and when meteors and other man-made space debris slam into them, you get a cascade of debris. The cascade effect — also known as the Kessler Syndrome — refers to a critical point wherein the density of space junk grows so large that a single collision could set off a domino effect of increasingly more collisions. For Kessler, this is a problem because it would "create small debris faster than it can be removed," Kessler said last year. And this cloud of junk could eventually make missions to space too dangerous. For Adushkin, this would exacerbate the issue of identifying what, or who, could be behind broken satellites. The future So far, the US and Russian Space Surveillance Systems have catalogued 170,000 pieces of large space debris (between 4 and 8 inches wide) and are currently tracking them to prevent anymore dilemmas like the ones Adushkin and his colleagues cite in their paper. But it's not just the large objects that concern Adushkin, who reported that even small objects (less than 1/3 of an inch) could damage satellites to the point they can't function properly. Using mathematical models, Adushkin and his colleagues calculated what the situtation will be like in 200 years if we continue to leave satellites in space and make no effort to clean up the mess. They estimate we'll have: 1.5 times more fragments greater than 8 inches across 3.2 times more fragments between 4 and 8 inches across 13-20 times more smaller-sized fragments less than 4 inches across"The number of small-size, non-catalogued objects will grow exponentially in mutual collisions," the researchers reported.Nuke war causes extinction – it won’t stay limitedEdwards 17 [(Paul N. Edwards, CISAC’s William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Being interviewed by EarthSky/card is only parts of the interview directly from Paul Edwards.) “How nuclear war would affect Earth’s climate,” EarthSky, September 8, 2017, human-world/how-nuclear-war-would-affect-earths-climate] TDI We are not talking enough about the climatic effects of nuclear war. The “nuclear winter” theory of the mid-1980s played a significant role in the arms reductions of that period. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the reduction of U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, this aspect of nuclear war has faded from view. That’s not good. In the mid-2000s, climate scientists such as Alan Robock (Rutgers) took another look at nuclear winter theory. This time around, they used much-improved and much more detailed climate models than those available 20 years earlier. They also tested the potential effects of smaller nuclear exchanges. The result: an exchange involving just 50 nuclear weapons — the kind of thing we might see in an India-Pakistan war, for example — could loft 5 billion kilograms of smoke, soot and dust high into the stratosphere. That’s enough to cool the entire planet by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.25 degrees Celsius) — about where we were during the Little Ice Age of the 17th century. Growing seasons could be shortened enough to create really significant food shortages. So the climatic effects of even a relatively small nuclear war would be planet-wide. What about a larger-scale conflict? A U.S.-Russia war currently seems unlikely, but if it were to occur, hundreds or even thousands of nuclear weapons might be launched. The climatic consequences would be catastrophic: global average temperatures would drop as much as 12 degrees Fahrenheit (7 degrees Celsius) for up to several years — temperatures last seen during the great ice ages. Meanwhile, smoke and dust circulating in the stratosphere would darken the atmosphere enough to inhibit photosynthesis, causing disastrous crop failures, widespread famine and massive ecological disruption. The effect would be similar to that of the giant meteor believed to be responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. This time, we would be the dinosaurs. Many people are concerned about North Korea’s advancing missile capabilities. Is nuclear war likely in your opinion? At this writing, I think we are closer to a nuclear war than we have been since the early 1960s. In the North Korea case, both Kim Jong-un and President Trump are bullies inclined to escalate confrontations. President Trump lacks impulse control, and there are precious few checks on his ability to initiate a nuclear strike. We have to hope that our generals, both inside and outside the White House, can rein him in. North Korea would most certainly “lose” a nuclear war with the United States. But many millions would die, including hundreds of thousands of Americans currently living in South Korea and Japan (probable North Korean targets). Such vast damage would be wrought in Korea, Japan and Pacific island territories (such as Guam) that any “victory” wouldn’t deserve the name. Not only would that region be left with horrible suffering amongst the survivors; it would also immediately face famine and rampant disease. Radioactive fallout from such a war would spread around the world, including to the U.S. It has been more than 70 years since the last time a nuclear bomb was used in warfare. What would be the effects on the environment and on human health today? To my knowledge, most of the changes in nuclear weapons technology since the 1950s have focused on making them smaller and lighter, and making delivery systems more accurate, rather than on changing their effects on the environment or on human health. So-called “battlefield” weapons with lower explosive yields are part of some arsenals now — but it’s quite unlikely that any exchange between two nuclear powers would stay limited to these smaller, less destructive bombs.AC – Africa Mining Advantage Space mining destroys the African economy Oni 19 [(David, a space industry and technology analyst at Space in Africa. He’s a graduate of Mining Engineering from the Federal University of Technology Akure.) “The Effect of Asteroid Mining on Mining Activities in Africa,” Africa News, 9/24/19, ] At the moment, Asteroid mining poses no threat to terrestrial mining; however, this will not hold for long. The space industry is progressing at such a rapid pace, and the prospects are unequivocally mouth-watering. The big question is, will asteroid mining lure away investors in Africa? The planetary resources company estimates that a single 30-m asteroid may contain 30 billion dollars in platinum alone and a 500m rock could contain half the entire world resources of PGM. Considering the abundance of minerals in asteroids, once asteroid mining materialises, it will severely affect the precious metals market, usurp the prices of rare earth minerals, and a whole lot more because minerals that are usually somewhat scarce on earth will be easily accessible on asteroids. While foreign investors run the majority of the large-scale mining activities in the region, reports say that many African countries are dangerously dependent on mining activities. For some African countries, despite massive mineral wealth, their mining sectors are underdeveloped, and this is as a result of much focus on oil resources and a couple of other challenges. The million-dollar question is, what will become of the mining activities in Africa?Economic decline causes Africa warTollefsen 17 [(Andreas For?, Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and Ph.D. in Human Geography from the University of Oslo) “Experienced poverty and local conflict violence," Conflict Management and Peace Science, 12/21/17, ] Civil wars are more frequent than any other type of conflict in the modern era, with the majority occurring in low-income countries (Hegre and Sambanis, 2006; Jakobsen et al., 2013). While most country-level studies find that poverty and inadequate economic development increase the risk of conflict—a relationship that appears to be causal (Braithwaite et al., 2016)—we lack consensus on the precise mechanisms driving this phenomenon (Justino, 2009). Researchers have explained a correlation between low GDP per capita and conflict using diverse hypotheses, including lowered opportunity costs for individuals to rebel (Collier et al., 2009) and responses to a state’s weak capacity (Fearon and Laitin, 2003).However, as argued by Hegre (2016), development’s highly correlated indicators make it difficult to distinguish between the theoretical mechanisms underlying the development– conflict nexus. Moreover, previously proposed models often represent processes operating on various geographical scales at individual, group, and state levels. Few researchers have backed up theoretical expectations with data at scientifically fitting levels of analysis, consequently ignoring intra-country variations of explanatory variables and outcomes. Furthermore, aggregated measures are incapable of capturing significant variations in economic conditions (Elbers et al., 2003) and conflict intensity (Rustad et al., 2011) within countries. In addition, conflict areas are, in general, atypical of a nation as a whole (Buhaug and Lujala, 2005), which calls for a subnational level analysis.Addressing these disconnects—and the fact that most conflict operates at a local level (Rustad et al., 2011)—a recent body of studies has focused on how subnational variations in poverty determine the locations within a country where conflicts break out (Buhaug et al., 2011; Hegre et al., 2009; ?stby et al., 2009). To date, their findings are largely mixed, with no consensus yet on strength, direction, or mechanisms behind the relationship. The problem here may be the use of varying proxies for poverty that are only loosely linked to the rationale for conflict and/or insufficient attention on the local sociopolitical context.The present study’s empirical contributions seek to help rectify the inadequate measures of poverty that have come to characterize the literature. To begin with, the article improves our understanding of whether and where a local poverty–conflict nexus exists by deploying experiential data on individuals’ actual wellbeing—which I argue is more closely connected to people’s motives and rationale for taking up arms. Second, the article examines the sociopolitical context’s conditioning effect on the poverty–conflict nexus. This is achieved by including data on individuals’ perceptions surrounding the quality of their local institutions, the presence of group grievances, and local unemployment rates. These factors, I argue, are more closely linked to reasons for fighting than are common proxies such as night-time luminosity and estimates of economic activity, both of which are often derived from dividing GDP per capita by local population counts.Poverty—a state in which individuals’ basic needs go unmet—has been shown to motivate people to join rebellions. Humphreys and Weinstein (2008), for instance, found that poverty predicted inscription in the Revolutionary United Front during Sierra Leone’s civil war. Barrett (2011) similarly saw how promises of loot lured the poor to enlist in the 1997– 1998 dispute in Nigeria’s local government area known as Toto. Combatants of the Toto conflict were also more likely to join the rebellion if they stood to gain personal protection, food, and shelter.For the present study, I developed a dataset by aggregating survey responses from the pan-African Afrobarometer survey to subnational districts and combining the results with information on post-survey violent conflicts. The dataset consists of 4008 subnational districts, spanning 35 African countries. As most districts were only assessed once, thus restricting study of within-unit variation, survey responses were also aggregated to higher-order subnational regions, resulting in a dataset of 111 regions that were surveyed at least twice; this permitted a region-level fixed-effects model design.Using a pooled cross-sectional dataset of districts, I found that high levels of poverty were linked to increases in local conflict-based violence. Districts with a large share of poor individuals, both in absolute terms and relative to country average, had a higher risk ofconflict than more affluent areas. This relationship held in a coarsened exact matching setup, as well as in a region-level fixed effects design with repeated measurements across time. While the results reveal a local poverty–conflict link, they do not aid in uncovering underlying mechanisms.Using interactions models, I found that poverty increased the risk of conflict, although only where local institutions are weak. The results also show that poverty-stricken areas in which individuals strongly perceive group injustice have a greater risk of conflict than similarly impoverished regions with no aggrieved population. A departure from the local individual opportunity cost explanation, local economic opportunities do not seem to condition the poverty–conflict nexus. In sum, the results suggest that while poverty is significantly connected to conflict, high-quality institutions and inclusiveness of ethnic groups can prevent violence. Although a wide range of robustness checks and alternative model specifications were implemented, including matching and fixed-effects models, the issue of endogeneity could not be ruled out; doing so would require some kind of exogenous instrument, which I have been unable to identify.The remainder of this article elaborates on the theoretical framework linking subnational poverty to local conflict-based violence. This is followed by a discussion of existing methods for measuring local poverty and their potential shortcomings. Next presented is the study’s research design and modeling strategy, followed by a discussion of empirical results. The conclusion considers the study’s limitations and proposes avenues for future research on poverty in locations that support rebel groups.Poverty and conflictA direct linkA connection between low income and risk of conflict is among the most robust findings in the literature on civil wars (Hegre and Sambanis, 2006). However, there is little consensus on the mechanisms through which poverty may produce conflict. Collier and Hoeffler (1998) claimed that low per-capita income lowers the opportunity cost of rebellion because when they have less to lose from taking up arms, poorer individuals become more inclined to rebel. Fearon and Laitin (2003) observed that poorer countries experience more conflict because they are unable to monitor and control all of their territory, thereby creating pockets of hospitable conditions for insurgents; Tollefsen and Buhaug (2015) identified a similar scenario at the local level.Great power warYeisley 11 [(USAF Lieutenant Colonel Mark O. Yeisley, assistant professor of international relations at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, Maxwell AFB, Alabama. MA Colorado State, PhD in international relations from Duke University) “Bipolarity, Proxy Wars, and the Rise of China,” Strategic Studies Quarterly, Winter 2011, ] TDIBipolarity, Nuclear Weapons, and Sino-US Proxy Conflict in AfricaIt is likely China will achieve economic and then military parity with the United States in the next two decades. China currently possesses 240 nuclear warheads and 135 ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States or its allies; that number of nuclear warheads is estimated to double by the mid 2020s.43 As during the Cold War, a bipolar system in which war between the United States and China is too costly will lead to policy decisions that seek conflict resolution elsewhere.44 But why would China’s rising necessarily lead to geostrategic competition with the United States, and where would this most likely occur? Unlike the Cold War, access to strategic resources rather than ideology would lie at the heart of future US-Sino competition, and the new “great game” will most likely be played in Africa. Despite Communist Party control of its government, China is not interested in spreading its version of communism and is much more pragmatic in its objectives—securing resources to meet the needs of its citizens and improve their standard of living.45 Some estimates show that China will overtake the United States to become the world’s largest economy by 2015, and rising powers usually take the necessary steps to “ensure markets, materials, and transportation routes.”46 China is the leading global consumer of aluminum, copper, lead, nickel, zinc, tin, and iron ore, and its metal needs now represent more than 25 percent of the world’s total.47 In contrast, from 1970 to 1995, US consumption of all materials, including metals, accounted for one-third of the global total despite representing only 5 percent of the world’s population.48 China is the largest energy consumer, according to the International Energy Agency, surpassing the United States in consumption of oil, coal, and natural gas in 2009.49 As the two largest consumers of both global energy and materials, the United States and China must seek foreign policy prescriptions to fulfill future resource needs. While the United States can alleviate some of its energy needs via bio- or coal-based fuels, hydrogen, or natural gas alternatives, China currently lacks the technological know-how to do so and remains tied to a mainly nonrenewable energy resource base. Since the majority of these needs are nonrenewable, competition of necessity will be zero-sum and will be conducted via all instruments of power.50Africa is home to a wealth of mineral and energy resources, much of which still remains largely unexploited. Seven African states possess huge endowments of oil, and four of these have equally substantial amounts of natural gas.51 Africa also enjoys large deposits of bauxite (used to make aluminum), copper, lead, nickel, zinc, and iron ore, all of which are imported and highly desired by China. Recent activity serves to prove that China seeks greater access to natural resources in Africa by avidly promoting Chinese development in a large number of African nations. South Africa, the continent’s largest economy, has recently allowed China to help develop its vast mineral wealth; it is China’s number one African source of manganese, iron, and copper.52 Chinese involvement in Africa is not wholly extractive; the continent provides a booming export market for China’s goods and a forum to augment its soft power in the region by offering alternatives to the political and economic baggage that accompanies US foreign aid.53 Of primary interest is open access to Africa’s significant deposits of oil and other energy resources. For example, China has 4,000 military personnel in Sudan to protect its interests in energy and mineral investments there; it also owns 40 percent of the Greater Nile Oil Production Company.54 Estimates indicate that within the next few decades China will obtain 40 percent of its oil and gas supplies from Africa.55 Trade and investment in Africa have also been on the rise; trade has grown more than 10 percent annually in the past decade. Between 2002 and 2004, African exports to China doubled, ranking it third behind the United States and France in trade with the continent. Chinese investment is also growing; more than 700 Chinese business operations across Africa total over $1 billion. Aid and direct economic assistance are increasing as well, and China has forgiven the debt of some 31 African nations.56 Africa is thus a vital foreign interest for the Chinese and must be for the United States; access to its mineral and petroleum wealth is crucial to the survival of each.57 Although the US and Chinese economies are tightly interconnected, the nonrenewable nature of these assets means competition will remain a zero-sum game. Nearly all African states have been independent entities for less than 50 years; consolidating robust domestic state institutions and stable governments remains problematic.58 Studies have shown that weak governments are often prime targets for civil conflicts that prove costly to control.59 Many African nations possess both strategic resources and weak regimes, making them vulnerable to internal conflict and thus valuable candidates for assistance from China or the United States to help settle their domestic grievances. With access to African resources of vital strategic interest to each side, competition could likely occur by proxy via diplomatic, economic, or military assistance to one (or both) of the parties involved.Realist claims that focusing on third-world issues is misplaced are thus fallacious; war in a future US-China bipolar system remains as costly as it was during the Cold War. Because of the fragile nature of many African regimes, domestic grievances are more prone to result in conflict; US and Chinese strategic interests will dictate an intrusive foreign policy to be both prudent and vital. US-Sino proxy conflicts over control of African resources will likely become necessary if these great powers are to sustain their national security postures, especially in terms of strategic defense.60 AC – Plan Plan – states ought to ban the appropriation of outer space for mining activities by private entities.Normal means is ratification of the Moon TreatyMallick and Rajagopalan 19 [(Senjuti Mallick, graduated from ILS Law College, Pune, in 2016. She was a Law Researcher at the High Court of Delhi from 2016 to 2018 and is currently pursuing LL.M in International Law at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, USA. She has been doing research on Outer Space Law since she was a student at ILS. Presently, she is working on different aspects of Space Law, in particular, Space debris mitigation and removal, and the law of the commons. She has published articles on Space Law in the All India Reporter Law Journal and The Hindu.)( Dr Rajeswari (Raji) Pillai Rajagopalan is the Director of the Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology (CSST) at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi.? Dr Rajagopalan was the Technical Advisor to the United Nations Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on Prevention of Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) (July 2018-July 2019).? She was also a Non-Resident Indo-Pacific Fellow at the Perth USAsia Centre from April-December 2020.? As a senior Asia defence writer for?The Diplomat, she writes a weekly column on Asian strategic issues.) “If space is ‘the province of mankind’, who owns its resources?” Occasional Papers, January 24, 2019, ] TDI A third possible option is to get a larger global endorsement of the Moon Treaty, which highlights the common heritage of mankind. The Moon Treaty is important as it addresses a “loophole” of the OST “by banning any ownership of any extraterrestrial property by any organization or private person, unless that organization is international and governmental.”[lxiv]?But the fact that it has been endorsed only by a handful of countries makes it a “failure” from the international law perspective.[lxv]?Nevertheless, efforts must be made to strengthen the support base for the Moon Agreement given the potential pitfalls of resource extraction and space mining activities in outer space. Signatories to the Moon Treaty can take the lead within multilateral platforms such as the UN to debate the usefulness of the treaty in the changed context of technological advancements and new geopolitical dynamics, and potentially find compromises where there are disagreements.Aff – AT: US REM PIC1AR – US REM PICMining isn’t needed – efficient usage and alternatives checkDodd 18 [(Jan, Wind Power Monthly magazine journalist) “Rethinking the use of rare-earth elements,” Wind Power Monthly, November 30, 2018, ] TDITechnological innovationAnother response to rising prices is to use less. In the wake of 2011, as well as moving away from offering PSMGs onshore, turbine manufacturers also started improving material efficiency.The main target has been to reduce the dysprosium content. The metal, which allows the permanent magnets to operate at high temperatures, is used in relatively small quantities, but is significantly more costly than neodymium.SGRE, for example, has worked with its suppliers to reduce the amount of dysprosium to "significantly below 1%", the company says. Improvements were made not only in the composition of the magnet, but also in the generators’ cooling systems.Goldwind too has been upgrading its direct-drive PMSG turbines. "Some of the permanent magnets used in Goldwind wind turbines now contain no dysprosium, while others contain less than 1%," Cao states.The high-temperature superconductor (HTS) generators currently under development also require very small amounts of REEs.The HTS being developed under the EU-funded EcoSwing research project uses "much less than 1kg of REEs" — largely Yttrium — per megawatt, says Jürgen Kellers, managing partner of engineering firm ECO5. The world’s first superconducting generator was installed in an Envision turbine in Denmark this autumn (below).Others are aiming to eliminate rare earths altogether. UK-based GreenSpur Renewables is developing a multi- megawatt direct-drive generator using cheap and plentiful ferrite magnets.These are about one third the strength of neodymium-iron-boron magnets, but GreenSpur’s unique axial design means the overall weight of the generator is approximately the same, says Alex Freeman, the company’s operations director.RecyclingIndustry and research bodies have also been looking at recycling permanent magnets. Goldwind is already doing so, smelting old magnets to make new ones, Cao says."Due to their large size and standardised model, the permanent magnets used in wind turbines can be recycled more easily than those used in other rare-earth permanent magnet products," he notes.Decline and Chinese LIO inevitable – the US either ushers in multipolarity or breaks into Sino-US war Layne 18 [(Christopher, Robert M. Gates Chair in Intelligence and National Security at the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University) “The US–Chinese power shift and the end of the Pax Americana.” International Affairs Vol 94, 2018, ] The fate of international orders is closely linked to power transition dynamics. Throughout modern international history the prevailing international order has reflected the balance of power that existed at the time of its creation. When that balance changes sufficiently, the old order will be replaced by a new one. Viewed from this perspective, what are the Pax Americana’s prospects? How will China’s rise, and America’s decline, affect the international order in the years ahead? The surprising answer given by top US security studies scholars is: ‘Not much.’ The United States, so the argument goes, can ‘lock in’ the Pax Americana’s essential features, including its rules, norms and institutions.65 John Ikenberry, Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth are the leading proponents of the lock-in thesis. Ikenberry was the first to set out the concept, arguing in After victory that a hegemon, by building an institutionalized, rules-based international order, ‘can lock-in favorable arrangements that continue beyond the zenith of its power’.66 In other words, the international order can remain intact even after the hegemonic power that created it has lost its pre-eminent position in the international political system. On this point, Ikenberry echoes Robert Keohane’s argument in After hegemony that, once a liberal international order has been established by a hegemonic power, if the hegemon declines it is possible for a small group of Great Powers to take the place of the former hegemon and collectively manage the international system.67 That is, under certain conditions ‘hegemonic stability’ can exist even if there is no hegemonic power. In Liberal Leviathan, Ikenberry built on this logic to argue that, even if the Pax Americana were to wither completely, the LRBIO would nevertheless survive. As Ikenberry put it: ‘America’s position in the global system may decline but the international order it leads can remain the dominating logic of the twenty-first century.’68 Ikenberry’s view seems to have evolved, however. In jointly authored articles in International Security and Foreign Affairs, Brooks, Ikenberry and Wohlforth embrace hegemonic stability theory.69 That is, they contend that, like all international orders, the post-1945 international order does, in fact, require a hegemonic power to maintain it—and not just any hegemon, but the United States. The logic of their argument is that the LRBIO and the Pax Americana are one and the same, and that US pre-eminence is a necessary condition for the LRBIO. According to them, the United States must exercise ‘global leadership’—the US foreign policy establishment’s code phrase for hegemony—by acting as a security provider and geopolitical stabilizer; by maintaining an open, liberal international economy; and by promoting global cooperation through upholding and revising the post-1945 liberal order—which is both ‘institutional and normative’—created by the Pax Americana.70 They also claim that the post-1945 Pax Americana ‘allows the United States to … wrap its hegemonic rule in a rules-based order’.71 This helps to conceal the actual motives of self-interest and realpolitik that underlie American hegemony. Read together, the International Security and Foreign Affairs articles by Brooks, Ikenberry and Wohlforth make clear the authors’ view that the post-1945 LRBIO is inextricably linked to US hegemony; that is, to the Pax Americana. This is in keeping with the common understanding of hegemonic stability theory. As they see it, the post-1945 international order based on American pre-eminence ‘has served the US well for the past six decades and there is no reason to give it up now’.72 The argument has special force given that, according to the— correct—logic of their argument (and of hegemonic stability theory), if American hegemony goes, the LRBIO goes with it. In their preference for maintaining the post-1945 hegemonic American international order, Brooks, Ikenberry and Wohlforth echo the renowned late nineteenthcentury British statesman Lord Salisbury. Presiding over a hegemonic Britain that was already perceptibly declining, he famously said: ‘Whatever happens will be for the worse. Therefore, it is in our interest that as little should happen as possible.’ The post-1945 international order is (or was) a concrete manifestation of America’s hegemonic status. So, of course, the US foreign policy establishment wants as little change as possible in international politics. Why would it wish otherwise, when change would inevitably be both the cause and effect of diminishing American power and influence? The United States has every incentive for wanting to prolong the post-1945 international order. After all, for most of the last 70 years or so, the US has occupied the geopolitical penthouse (‘when America ruled the world’). From that lofty height, however, the only direction it can go is down. The lock-in strategy is seductive because it holds out (or appears to hold out) the possibility that the United States can preserve the status quo—the post-1945 international order—even as the geopolitical status quo of American hegemony is changing. Lock-in is attractive—superficially—because it assumes that China’s rise will not effect a major change in the international system. Specifically, lock-in holds that China’s rise can be managed by integrating it into the post-1945 international order, and ensuring that the exercise of Chinese power takes place within that order’s rules and institutions.73 By doing so, it is claimed, the United States can offset its declining power and ‘ensure the international order it leads can remain the dominating logic of the twenty-first century’.74 Lock-in assumes that China has no interest in overturning—or significantly modifying—the post-1945 international order in which it rose and became wealthy. Certainly, China did rise within the Pax Americana’s LRBIO. However, China did not rise to preserve that American-dominated order. For some three decades (beginning with Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms) China took a low profile in international politics, and avoided confrontation both with the United States and with its regional neighbours. Integration into the open international economy spurred China’s rapid growth. China’s self-described ‘peaceful rise’ followed the script written by Deng Xiaoping: ‘Lie low. Hide your capabilities. Bide your time.’ However, the fact that China bandwagoned with the United States in joining the international economic order did not mean that its longer-term intention was—or is—to preserve the post-1945 international order. In joining the liberal economic order, Beijing’s goal was not simply to get rich; by integrating itself into the post-1945 international order, China was able to avoid conflict with the United States until it became wealthy enough to acquire the military capabilities necessary to compete with America for regional hegemony in east Asia.75 Judging from Xi Jinping’s policy pronouncements, China’s days of biding its time and hiding its capabilities are over. Lock-in proponents argue that even as the Sino-American military and economic balance continues to tilt increasingly in Beijing’s favour, the post-1945 international order’s rules, institutions and norms will offset America’s loss of hard power. There is historical evidence that suggests this is wishful thinking. Take the case of Britain after the Second World War. Despite the dramatic weakening of Britain’s economic and financial clout caused by its efforts in the two world wars, after 1945 British leaders believed that the United Kingdom could remain one of three major world powers. In pursuit of this goal, they formulated their own version of lock-in. As the historian John Darwin puts it, officials in London thought that by transforming the Commonwealth, Britain could transition ‘from an empire of rule to an empire of influence’.76 Specifically, they believed that ‘free from the authoritarian, acquisitive and exploitative traditions of the old version of empire’, the reconfigured Commonwealth ‘would make the British connection voluntary, democratic, and mutually beneficial’.77 The reformed Commonwealth therefore would serve as the institutional instrument of continuing British world power, within which shared values and norms would bind Britain’s former colonies and dominions to London’s leadership.78 The reasons why British policy makers bought into this vision sound an awful lot like the reasons why the presentday American proponents of lock-in think it will preserve the United States’ global leadership even as its hard power erodes. Lock-in did not work for Britain following the Second World War, and there is scant reason to think it will work for the United States in the coming years of the twenty-first century. The lock-in strategy also assumes that if the Pax Americana’s institutions are reformed, Beijing (and other non-western emerging powers) will find it more attractive to remain in the post-1945 international order than to overturn it. That assumption, however, is logically flawed: achieving lock-in by reforming the existing international order presumes that the United States can have its cake (preserving the Pax Americana) and eat it too (reforming the current international system’s legacy institutions). But, as we all know, when the cake is eaten, it’s gone. Reform—at least, any kind of reform that would appeal to China—would mean the United States yielding significant power in international institutions to accommodate Beijing. However, doing so would reduce US ability to shape outcomes, diminish Washington’s voice in international institutions, and impose constraints on US autonomy in foreign and domestic policy.79 As University of Birmingham lecturer Sevasti-Eleni Vezirgiannidou observes with respect to institutional reform: ‘It is questionable whether this will really preserve US influence or rather, on the contrary, diminish it, as the United States will have to share power in a reformed order and thus will be restricted in its ability to act unilaterally.’80 The US foreign policy establishment may talk the talk of reforming the international order (and the institutions that underpin it), but it is doubtful it will walk the walk with respect to reform, because that would mean accepting a downsized American role in international politics. On the contrary, Washington’s opposition to the AIIB indicates that the United States is not prepared to see its influence in the international order diminished. And, with respect to reforming the post-1945 international order to accommodate the reality of a risen China, this is the nub of the problem: instead of preserving the Pax Americana, reform would lead to changes in the international order that would undermine it. Of course, regardless of whether there is institutional reform, the coming decades are likely to witness major changes in the international order irrespective of America’s preferences. What will happen to the international order as China continues to rise, and America’s relative power continues to decline? As Yogi Berra, the greatest of all American philosophers (immortalized in baseball’s Hall of Fame), said: ‘Making predictions is hard. Especially about the future.’ However, one thing seems pretty certain: China is not on the verge of either of ruling the world, or becoming a global hegemon comparable to the United States after the Second World War; not yet, anyway. Thus, for the next several decades (at least) it will be neither China’s world nor America’s: international leadership will be contested.81 During this period, China can be expected to act pretty much as one would expect any Great Power to act while making the shift from rising to risen: it will use its newfound power to seek a much greater voice in managing—and shaping—the international order, and its underlying norms. For example, China will want others to acknowledge its ‘core interests’, including respect for its territorial integrity and its sovereignty. Beijing has expanded the geographic scope of its core interests beyond Tibet and Taiwan to include the South and East China Seas and Xinjiang. And, reflecting its insistence that states should refrain from intervening in others’ internal affairs, preservation of its political, economic and social systems also has been defined as a core interest.82 During the period of contested international leadership there is unlikely to be wholesale abandonment of the post-1945 international institutions. For example, as one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Beijing is an acknowledged part of the Great Power club. Similarly, we should not expect to see a dramatic overhaul of the international economic system. As the world’s top-ranking exporter and trading state, China benefits hugely from economic openness. However, the state plays a much greater role in China’s economy than it does in the United States and Europe. Beijing will want rules that protect its semimercantilist economic policies and also ensure that its state-owned industries are not disadvantaged. Beijing will continue pressing for an even greater voice, both for itself and for the developing world, in institutions such as the IMF and World Bank (unless or until they are superseded by new ‘made in China’ institutions). In this respect, China will position itself as the developing world’s champion—a role for which it is well suited. Like many nations in the developing world— but unlike the United States—China has been a victim of western Great Power policies of imperialism and colonialism. As such, China has a claim to prominence in constructing a new international order that reflects the values of the developing world rather than those of the United States and the West.83 Even though the international economy will remain (more or less) open, in other respects the international system is likely to become much less liberal politically. The Chinese Communist Party’s 19th Congress demonstrated that China is not converging with the West: it is not going to become a democracy any time soon—if ever. Consequently, as China’s role in shaping the international agenda increases, democracy and human rights will become less salient. China will almost certainly try to change the norms that favour democracy promotion, ‘humani tarian’ intervention, human rights and the Responsibility to Protect. Beijing will resist norms that divide states into two camps, ranging democratic ‘good guys’ against non-democratic ‘bad guys’.84 Instead, it will offer its policy of ‘market authoritarianism’ to developing states as a better model of political, social and economic development than the US model based on the Washington Consensus. As its power continues to increase, China will seek to recast the world order in a way that not only advances its interests but also acknowledges both its enhanced power and its claims to status and prestige equal to those of the declining hegemon.85 For now, Beijing is (mostly) ‘working within the system’ to revise the post-1945 international order while simultaneously laying the groundwork for an alternative international order that eventually could displace the Pax Americana. As a 2007 report by the Center for a New American Security concluded: Rather than seeking to weaken or confront the United States directly, Chinese leaders are pursuing a subtle, multifaceted, long-term grand strategy that aims to derive as many benefits as possible from the existing international system while accumulating the economic wherewithal, military strength, and soft power resources to reinforce China’s emerging position as at least a regional great power.86 Even as it stays within the post-1945 international order, Beijing is not doing so to preserve it. In this sense, as Martin Jacques has observed, China is playing a double game. It is operating ‘both within and outside the existing international system while at the same time, in effect, sponsoring a new China-centric international system which will exist alongside the present system and probably slowly begin to usurp it’.87 The creation of the AIIB, which Beijing intends should ultimately eclipse the IMF and World Bank, is a good example of this strategy. American scholars and policy-makers believe that a lock-in strategy can be employed to head off any Chinese attempt to create a new international order, or to create a parallel order. They believe this because they have imbued the concept of a ‘rules-based, institutionalized, liberal international order’ with a talismanic quality. In so doing they have air-brushed Great Power politics out of the picture. As they see it, rules and institutions are politically neutral and, ipso facto, beneficial for all. Hence, they can be an effective substitute for declining hard power. However, rather than existing separately from the balance of power, rules, norms and institutions reflect it. Hence the world is no more likely to continue upholding the Pax Americana once US power declines than Britain’s dominions and former colonies were inclined to perpetuate the empire after the Second World War. The fate of the Pax Americana, and that of the international order, will be determined by the outcome of the Sino-American rivalry As the British scholar E. H. Carr observed, a rules-based international order ‘cannot be understood independently of the political foundation on which it rests and the political interests which it serves’.88 The post-Second World War international order is an American order that privileges US interests.89 Even the discourse of ‘liberal order’ cannot disguise this fact. Today, the ground is shifting beneath the Pax Americana’s foundations. Those who believe that lock-in can work view international politics as being, in essence, geopolitically antiseptic. For them, Great Power competition and conflict are transcended by international institutions, rules and norms. This is not how the real world works, however.90 Great Power politics is about power. Rules and institutions do not exist in a vacuum, hermetically sealed off from Great Power politics. Nor are they neutral. Rather, they reflect the distribution of power in the international system. In international politics, who rules makes the rules. In his classic study of international relations between the world wars, The Twenty years’ crisis, Carr analysed the political crisis of the 1930s caused by the breakdown of the post-First World War order symbolized by the Versailles Treaty.91 The Versailles system cracked, Carr argued, because of the widening gap between the order it represented and the actual distribution of power in Europe. Carr used the events of the 1930s to make a larger geopolitical point. International orders reflect the balance of power that exists at time of their creation. Over time, however, the relative power of states changes, and eventually the international order no longer reflects the actual distribution of power between or among the leading Great Powers. When that happens, the legitimacy of the prevailing order is called into question, and it will be challenged by the rising power(s). When the balance of power swings—or is perceived to swing—in its direction, a rising power becomes increasingly dissatisfied with the international order, and seeks to revise it. The challenger wants to change the rules embodied in the existing international order—rules written, of course, by the once dominant but now declining Great Power that created it. It also wants the allocation of prestige and status changed to reflect its newly acquired power. The incumbent hegemon, of course, wants to preserve the existing international order as is—an order that it midwifed to advance, and consolidate, its own interests. The E. H. Carr Moment presents the incumbent hegemon with a choice. It can dig in its heels and try to preserve the prevailing order—and its privileged position therein; or it can accede to the rising challenger’s demands for revision. If it chooses the former course of action, it runs the risk of war with the dissatisfied challenger. If it chooses the latter, it must come to terms with the reality of its decline, and the end of its hegemonic position. The E. H. Carr Moment is where the geopolitical rubber meets the road: the status quo power(s) must choose between accommodating or opposing the revisionist demands of the rising power(s). Liberal internationalists such as John Ikenberry argue that China will not challenge the current international order, even as the distribution of power continues to shift in its favour. This is a doubtful proposition. The geopolitical question—the E. H. Carr Moment—of our time is whether the declining hegemon in east Asia, the United States, will try to preserve a status quo that is becoming increasingly out of sync with the shifting distribution of power, or whether it can reconcile itself to a rising China’s revisionist demands that the international order in east Asia be realigned to reflect the emerging power realities. Unless the United States can adjust gracefully to this tectonic geopolitical shift, the chances of a Sino-American war are high—as they always are during power transitions.92 However, whether change comes peacefully or violently, the Pax Americana’s days are numbered.Neg – Off Case1NC – US REM PICCP Text: States, except the United States, should ban the appropriation of outer space for asteroid mining by private entities. The United States should fund the appropriation of outer space for the mining of rare earth metals from asteroids by private entities.The PIC is key to beat China and protect against Chinese REM gatekeepingStavridis 21 [(James, retired US Navy admiral, chief international diplomacy and national security analyst for NBC News, senior fellow at JHU Applied Physics Library, PhD in Law and Diplomacy from Tufts) “U.S. Needs a Strong Defense Against China’s Rare-Earth Weapon,” Bloomberg Opinion, March 4, 2021, ] TDIYou could be forgiven if you are confused about what’s going on with rare-earth elements. On the one hand, news reports indicate that China may increase production quotas of the minerals this quarter as a?goodwill gesture?to the Joe Biden administration. But other sources say that China may ultimately ban the export of the rare earths altogether on “security concerns.” What’s really going on here?There are 17 elements considered?rare earths?— lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, lutetium, scandium and yttrium — and while many aren’t actually rare in terms of global deposits, extracting them is difficult and expensive. They are used across high-tech manufacturing, including smartphones, fighter aircraft and components in virtually all advanced electronics. Of particular note, they are essential to many of the clean-energy technologies expected to come online in this decade.I began to focus on rare-earth elements when I commanded the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s presence in Afghanistan, known as the International Security Assistance Force. While Afghans live in an extremely poor country,?studies?have assessed that they sit atop $1 trillion to $3 trillion in a wide variety of minerals, including rare earths. Some?estimates?put the rare-earth levels alone at 1.4 million metric tons.But every time I tried to visit a mining facility, the answer I got from my security team was, “It’s too dangerous right now, admiral.” Unfortunately, despite a great deal of effort by the U.S. and NATO, those security challenges remain, deterring the large foreign-capital investments necessary to harvest the lodes. Which brings us back to Beijing.China controls roughly 80% of the rare-earths market, between what it mines itself and processes in raw material from elsewhere. If it decided to wield the weapon of restricting the supply — something it has repeatedly?threatened?to do — it would create a significant challenge for manufacturers and a geopolitical predicament for the industrialized world.It could happen. In 2010, Beijing threatened to cut off exports to Japan over the disputed Senkaku Islands. Two years ago, Beijing was reportedly considering restrictions on exports to the U.S. generally, as well as against specific companies (such as defense giant Lockheed Martin Corp.) that it deemed in violation of its policies against selling advanced weapons to Taiwan.?President Donald Trump’s administration issued an executive order to spur the production of rare earths domestically, and created an?Energy Resource Governance Initiative?to promote international mining. The European Union and Japan, among others, are also aggressively seeking newer sources of rare earths.Given this tension, it was superficially surprising that China announced it would boost its mining quotas in the first quarter of 2021 by nearly 30%, reflecting a continuation in strong (and rising) demand. But the increase occurs under a shadow of uncertainty, as the Chinese Communist Party is undertaking a “review” of its policies concerning future sales of rare earths. In all probability, the tactics of the increase are temporary, and fit within a larger strategy.China will go to great lengths to maintain overall control of the global rare-earths supply. This fits neatly within the geo-economic approach of the?One Belt, One Road?initiative, which seeks to use a variety of carrots and sticks — economic, trade, diplomatic and security — to create zones of influence globally. In terms of rare earths, the strategy seems to be allowing carefully calibrated access to the elements at a level that makes it economically less attractive for competitors to undertake costly exploration and mining operations. This is similar to the oil-market strategy used by Russia and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries for decades.Some free-market advocates believe that China will not take aggressive action choking off supply because that could?precipitate retaliation?or accelerate the search for alternate sources in global markets. What seems more likely is a series of targeted shutdowns directed against specific entities such as U.S. defense companies, Japanese consumer electronics makers, or European industrial concerns that have offended?Beijing.The path to rare-earth independence for the U.S. must include: Ensuring supply chains of rare earths necessary for national security; promoting the exploitation of the elements domestically (and removing barriers to responsibly doing so); mandating that defense contractors and other critical-infrastructure entities wean themselves off Chinese rare earths; sponsoring research and development to find alternative materials, especially for clean energy technology; and creating a substantial stockpile of the elements in case of a Chinese boycott.This is a bipartisan agenda. The Trump administration’s?strategic assessment?of what needs to be done (which goes beyond just 17 rare earths to include a total of 35 critical minerals) is thoughtful, and should serve as a basis for the Biden administration and Congress.REM access key to military primacy and tech advancement – alternatives failTrigaux 12 (David, University Honors Program University of South Florida St. Petersburg) “The US, China and Rare Earth Metals: The Future Of Green Technology, Military Tech, and a Potential Achilles? Heel to American Hegemony,” USF St. Petersberg, May 2, 2012, ] TDIThe implications of a rare earth shortage aren’t strictly related to the environment, and energy dependence, but have distinct military implications as well that could threaten the position of the United States world’s strongest military. The United States place in the world was assured by powerful and decisive deployments in World War One and World War Two. Our military expansion was built upon a large, powerful industrial base that created more, better weapons of war for our soldiers. During the World Wars, a well-organized draft that sent millions of men into battle in a short amount of time proved decisive, but as the war ended, and soldiers drafted into service returned to civilian life, the U.S. technological superiority over its opponents provided it with sustained dominance over its enemies, even as the numerical size of the army declined. New technologies, such as the use of the airplane in combat, rocket launched missiles, radar systems, and later, GPS, precision guided missiles, missile defense systems, high tech tanks, lasers, and other technologies now make the difference between victory and defeat. The United States military now serves many important functions, deterring threats across the world. The United States projects its power internationally, through a network of bases and allied nations. Thus, the United States is a powerful player in all regions of the world, and often serves as a buffer against conflict in these regions. US military presence serves as a buffer against Chinese military modernization in Eastern Asia, against an increasingly nationalist Russia in Europe, and smaller regional actors, such as Venezuela in South America and Iran in the Middle East. The U.S. Navy is deployed all over the world, as the guarantor of international maritime trade routes. The US Navy leads action against challenges to its maritime sovereignty on the other side of the globe, such as current action against Somali piracy. Presence in regions across the world prevents escalation of potential crisis. These could result in either a larger power fighting a smaller nation or nations (Russia and Georgia, Taiwan and China), religious opponents (Israel and Iran), or traditional foes (Ethiopia and Eretria, Venezuela and Colombia, India and Pakistan). US projection is also key deterring emerging threats such as terrorism and nuclear proliferation. While not direct challenges to US primacy, both terrorism and nuclear proliferation can kill thousands. The US Air Force has a commanding lead over the rest of the world, in terms of both numbers and capabilities. American ground forces have few peers, and are unmatched in their ability to deploy to anywhere in the world at an equally unmatched pace.The only perceived challenge to the United States militarily comes from the People’s Republic of China.76 While the United States outspends all other nations in the world put together in terms of military spending, China follows as a close second, and has begun an extensive modernization program to boot.77 The Chinese military however, is several decades behind the United States in air power and nuclear capabilities.78 To compensate, China has begun the construction of access-denial technology, preventing the US from exercising its dominance in China’s sphere of influence.79 Chinese modernization efforts have a serious long-term advantage over the United States; access to rare earth metals, and a large concentration of rare earth chemists doing research.80 This advantage, coupled with the U.S. losing access to rare earth metals, will even the odds much quicker than policymakers had previously anticipated. 81The largest example is US airpower. With every successive generation of military aircraft, the U.S. Air Force becomes more and more dependent on Rare Earth Metals.82 As planes get faster and faster, they have to get lighter and lighter, while adding weight from extra computers and other features on board.83 To lighten the weight of the plane, scandium is used to produce lightweight aluminum alloys for the body of the plane. Rare Earth metals are also useful in fighter jet engines, and fuel cells.84 For example, rare earths are required to producing miniaturized fins, and samarium is required to build the motors for the F-35 fighter jet.85 F-35 jets are the next generation fighter jet that works together to form the dual plane combination that cements U.S. dominance in air power over the Russian PAK FA.86Rare earth shortages don’t just affect air power, also compromising the navigation system of Abrams Tanks, which need samarium cobalt magnets. The Abrams Tank is the primary offensive mechanized vehicle in the U.S. arsenal. The Aegis Spy 1 Radar also uses samarium.87 Many naval ships require neodymium. Hell Fire missiles, satellites, night vision goggles, avionics, and precision guided munitions all require rare earth metals. 88American military superiority is based on technological advancement that outstrips the rest of the world. Command and control technology allows the U.S. to fight multiple wars at once and maintain readiness for other issues, as well as have overwhelming force against rising challengers. This technology helps the U.S. know who, where, and what is going to attack them, and respond effectively, regardless of the source of the threat.Rare Earth Elements make this technological superiority possible.To make matters worse, the defense industrial base is often a single market industry, dependent on government contracts for its business. If China tightens the export quotas further, major US defense contractors will be in trouble.89 Every sector of the defense industrial base is dependent on rare earth metals. Without rare earths, these contractors can’t build anything, which collapses the industry.90 Rare Earth shortages are actually already affecting our military, with shortages of lanthanum, cerium, europium and gadolinium happening in the status quo. This prevents us not only from building the next generation of high tech weaponry, but also from constructing more of the weapons and munitions that are needed in the status quo. As current weapon systems age and they can’t be replaced, the US primacy will be undermined. Of special concern is that U.S. domestic mining doesn’t produce “heavy” rare earth metals that are needed for many advanced components of military technologies. Given the nature of many military applications, substitutions aren’t possible. 91Primacy and allied commitments solve arms races and great power war – unipolarity is sustainable, and prevents power vacuums and global escalationBrands 18 [(Hal, Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments) "American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump," Page 129-133] Since World War II, the United States has had a military second to none. Since the Cold War, America has committed to having overwhelming military primacy. The idea, as George?W. Bush declared in 2002, that America must possess “strengths beyond challenge” has featured in every major U.S. strategy document for a quarter century; it has also been reflected in concrete terms.6 From the early 1990s, for example, the United States consistently accounted for around 35 to 45?percent of world defense spending and maintained peerless global power-projection capabilities.7 Perhaps more important, U.S. primacy was also unrivaled in key overseas strategic regions—Europe, East Asia, the Middle East. From thrashing Saddam Hussein’s million-man Iraqi military during Operation Desert Storm, to deploying—with impunity—two carrier strike groups off Taiwan during the China-Taiwan crisis of 1995– 96, Washington has been able to project military power superior to anything a regional rival could employ even on its own geopolitical doorstep.This military dominance has constituted the hard-power backbone of an ambitious global strategy. After the Cold War, U.S. policymakers committed to averting a return to the unstable multipolarity of earlier eras, and to perpetuating the more favorable unipolar order. They committed to building on the successes of the postwar era by further advancing liberal political values and an open international economy, and to suppressing international scourges such as rogue states, nuclear proliferation, and catastrophic terrorism. And because they recognized that military force remained the ultima ratio regum, they understood the centrality of military preponderance. Washington would need the military power necessary to underwrite worldwide alliance commitments. It would have to preserve substantial overmatch versus any potential great-power rival. It must be able to answer the sharpest challenges to the international system, such as Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 or jihadist extremism after 9/11. Finally, because prevailing global norms generally reflect hard-power realities, America would need the superiority to assure that its own values remained ascendant. It was impolitic to say that U.S. strategy and the international order required “strengths beyond challenge,” but it was not at all inaccurate.American primacy, moreover, was eminently affordable. At the height of the Cold War, the United States spent over 12?percent of GDP on defense. Since the mid-1990s, the number has usually been between 3 and 4?percent.8 In a historically favorable international environment, Washington could enjoy primacy—and its geopolitical fruits—on the cheap. Yet?U.S. strategy also heeded, at least until recently, the fact that there was a limit to how cheaply that primacy could be had. The American military did shrink significantly during the 1990s, but U.S. officials understood that if Washington cut back too far, its primacy would erode to a point where it ceased to deliver its geopolitical benefits. Alliances would lose credibility; the stability of key regions would be eroded; rivals would be emboldened; international crises would go unaddressed. American primacy was thus like a reasonably priced insurance policy. It required nontrivial expenditures, but protected against far costlier outcomes.9 Washington paid its insurance premiums for two decades after the Cold War. But more recently American primacy and strategic solvency have been imperiled.THE DARKENING HORIZON For most of the post–Cold War era, the international system was— by historical standards—remarkably benign. Dangers existed, and as the terrorist attacks of September?11, 2001, demonstrated, they could manifest with horrific effect. But for two decades after the Soviet collapse, the world was characterized by remarkably low levels of great-power competition, high levels of security in key theaters such as Europe and East Asia, and the comparative weakness of those “rogue” actors—Iran, Iraq, North Korea, al-Qaeda—who most aggressively challenged American power. During the 1990s, some observers even spoke of a “strategic pause,” the idea being that the end of the Cold War had afforded the United States a respite from normal levels of geopolitical danger and competition. Now, however, the strategic horizon is darkening, due to four factors.First, great-power military competition is back. The world’s two leading authoritarian powers—China and Russia—are seeking regional hegemony, contesting global norms such as nonaggression and freedom of navigation, and developing the military punch to underwrite these ambitions. Notwithstanding severe economic and demographic problems, Russia has conducted a major military modernization emphasizing nuclear weapons, high-end conventional capabilities, and rapid-deployment and special operations forces— and utilized many of these capabilities in conflicts in Ukraine and Syria.10 China, meanwhile, has carried out a buildup of historic proportions, with constant-dollar defense outlays rising from US$26 billion in 1995 to US$226 billion in 2016.11 Ominously, these expenditures have funded development of power-projection and antiaccess/area denial (A2/AD) tools necessary to threaten China’s neighbors and complicate U.S. intervention on their behalf. Washington has grown accustomed to having a generational military lead; Russian and Chinese modernization efforts are now creating a far more competitive environment. Counterplan solves scenario 1 – climate solutions rely on REMsArrobas et al 17 [(Daniele La Porta Arrobas is a senior mining specialist with the World Bank based in Washington DC and has degrees in Geoscience and Environmental Management, Kirsten Hund is a senior mining specialist with the Energy and Extractives Global Practice of the World Bank and holds a Master’s in IR from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, Michael Stephen McCormick, Jagabanta Ningthoujam has an MA in international economics and international development from JHU and a BS in MechE from Natl University of Singapore, John Drexhage also works at the Intl Institute for Sustainable Development) “The Growing Role of Minerals and Metals for a Low Carbon Future,” World Bank, June 30, 2017, ] TDIFull report - and greenhouse gas (GHG) scenarios have typically paid scant attention to the metal implications necessary to realize a low/zero carbon future. The 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change indicates a global resolve to embark on development patterns that would significantly be less GHG intensive. One might assume that nonrenewable resource development and use will also need to decline in a carbon-constrained future. This report tests that assumption, identifies those commodities implicated in such a scenario and explores ramifications for relevant resource-rich developing countries. Using wind, solar, and energy storage batteries as proxies, the study examines which metals will likely rise in demand to be able to deliver on a carbon-constrained future. Metals which could see a growing market include aluminum (including its key constituent, bauxite), cobalt, copper, iron ore, lead, lithium, nickel, manganese, the platinum group of metals, rare earth metals including cadmium, molybdenum, neodymium, and indium—silver, steel, titanium and zinc. The report then maps production and reserve levels of relevant metals globally, focusing on implications for resource-rich developing countries. It concludes by identifying critical research gaps and suggestions for future work.Neg – Case Answers 1NC – AT: Debris Advantage Alt cause – broad space privatization and existing debris. Muelhapt et al 19 [(Theodore J., Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies, Center for Space Policy and Strategy, The Aerospace Corporation, 30 year Space Systems Analyst and Operator, Marlon E. Sorge, Jamie Morin, Robert S. Wilson), “Space traffic management in the new space era,” Journal of Space Safety Engineering, 6/18/19, ] TDIThe last decade has seen rapid growth and change in the space industry, and an explosion of commercial and private activity. Terms like NewSpace or democratized space are often used to describe this global trend to develop faster and cheaper access to space, distinct from more traditional government-driven activities focused on security, political, or scientific activities. The easier access to space has opened participation to many more participants than was historically possible. This new activity could profoundly worsen the space debris environment, particularly in low Earth orbit (LEO), but there are also signs of progress and the outlook is encouraging. Many NewSpace operators are actively working to mitigate their impact. Nevertheless, NewSpace represents a significant break with past experience and business as usual will not work in this changed environment. New standards, space policy, and licensing approaches are powerful levers that can shape the future of operations and the debris environment.2. Characterizing NewSpace: a step change in the space environmentIn just the last few years, commercial companies have proposed, funded, and in a few cases begun deployment of very large constellations of small to medium-sized satellites. These constellations will add much more complexity to space operations. Table 1 shows some of the constellations that have been announced for launch in the next decade. Two dozen companies, when taken together, have proposed placing well over 20,000 [twenty thousand] satellites in orbit in the next 10 [10]years. For perspective, fewer than 8100[eight thousand one hundred] payloads have been placed in Earth orbit in the entire history of the space age, only 4800 [1] remain in orbit and approximately 1950 [2] of those are still active. And it isn't simply numbers – the mass in orbit will increase substantially, and long-term debris generation is strongly correlated with mass.[Table 1 Omitted]This table is in constant flux. It is based largely on U.S. filings with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and various press releases, but many of the companies here have already altered or abandoned their original plans, and new systems are no doubt in work. Although many of these large constellations may never be launched as listed, the traffic created if just half are successful would be more than double the number of payloads launched in the last 60 years and more than 6 times the number of currently active satellites.Current space safety, space surveillance, collision avoidance (COLA) and debris mitigation processes have been designed for and have evolved with the current population profile, launch rates and density of LEO space.By almost any metric used to measure activity in space, whether it is payloads in orbit, the size of constellations, the rate of launches, the economic stakes, the potential for debris creation, the number of conjunctions, NewSpace represents a fundamental change.3. Compounding effects of better SSA, more satellites, and new operational conceptsThe changes in the space environment can be seen on this figurative map of low Earth orbit. Fig. 1 shows the LEO environment as a function of altitude. The number of objects found in each 10?km “bin” is plotted on the horizontal axis, while the altitude is plotted vertically. Objects in elliptical orbits are distributed between bins as partial objects proportional to the time spent in each bin. Some notable resident systems are indicated in blue text on the right to provide an altitude reference. The (dotted) red line shows the number of objects in the current catalog tracked by the U.S. Space Surveillance Network (SSN). All the COLA alerts and actions that must be taken by the residents are due to their neighbors in the nearby bins, so the currently visible risk is proportional to the red line.The red line of the current catalog does not represent the complete risk; it indicates the risk we can track and perhaps avoid. A rule of thumb is that the current SSN LEO catalog contains objects about 10?cm or larger. It is generally accepted that an impact in LEO with an object 1?cm or larger will cause damage likely to be fatal to a satellite's mission. Therefore, there is a large latent risk from unobserved debris. While we cannot currently track and catalog much smaller than 10?cm, experiments have been performed to detect and sample much smaller objects and statistically model the population at this size [3]. The (solid) blue line represents the model of the 1?cm and larger debris that is likely mission-ending, usually called lethal but not trackable. If LEO operators avoid collisions with all the objects in the red line, they are nonetheless inherently accepting the risk from the blue line. This risk is already present.The (dashed) orange line is an estimate of the population at 5?cm and larger and is thus an estimate of what the catalog might conservatively be a few years after the Space Fence, a new radar system being built by the Air Force, comes on line (currently planned for 2019) [4]. Commercial companies offering space surveillance services, such as LeoLabs, ExoAnalytics, Analytic Graphics Inc., Lockheed, and Boeing, might also add to the number of objects currently tracked. Space Policy Directive 3 (SPD-3) [13] specifically seeks to expand the use of commercial SSA services.Existing operators can expect a sharp increase in the number of warnings and alerts they will receive because of the increase in the cataloged population. Almost all the increase will come from newly detected debris [5].The pace of safety operations for each satellite on orbit will significantly change because of the increase in the catalog from the Space Fence. This effect is compounded because the NewSpace constellations described in Table 1 will drastically change the profile of satellites in LEO. The green bars in Fig. 1 represent the number of objects that will be added to the catalog (red or orange lines) from only the NewSpace large LEO constellations at their operational altitudes. This does not include the rocket stages that launch them, or satellites in the process of being phased into or removed from the operational orbits. Neighbors of one of these new constellations may face a radically different operations environment than their current practices were designed to address.Satellites in these large LEO constellations typically have planned operational lifetimes of 5–10 years. Some companies have proposed to dispose of their satellites using low thrust electric propulsion systems, which would spiral satellites down over a period of months or years from operating altitudes as high as 1500?km through lower orbits where the Hubble Space Telescope, the International Space Station, and other critical LEO satellites operate [6]. Similar propulsive techniques would raise replacement satellites from lower launch injection orbits to higher operational orbits. These disposal and replenishment activities will add thousands of satellites each year transiting through lower altitudes and posing a risk to all resident satellites in those lower orbits. More importantly, failures will occur both among transiting satellites and operational constellations, potentially leaving hundreds more stranded along the transit path.Probability – 0.1% chance of a collision. Salter 16 [(Alexander William, Economics Professor at Texas Tech) “SPACE DEBRIS: A LAW AND ECONOMICS ANALYSIS OF THE ORBITAL COMMONS” 19 STAN. TECH. L. REV. 221 *numbers replaced with English words] TDI The probability of a collision is currently low. Bradley and Wein estimate that the maximum probability in LEO of a collision over the lifetime of a spacecraft remains below one in one thousand, conditional on continued compliance with NASA’s deorbiting guidelines.3 However, the possibility of a future “snowballing” effect, whereby debris collides with other objects, further congesting orbit space, remains a significant concern.4 Levin and Carroll estimate the average immediate destruction of wealth created by a collision to be approximately $30 million, with an additional $200 million in damages to all currently existing space assets from the debris created by the initial collision.5 The expected value of destroyed wealth because of collisions, currently small because of the low probability of a collision, can quickly become significant if future collisions result in runaway debris growth.Time frame – Kessler effect 200 years awayStubbe 17 [(Peter, PhD in law @ Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt) “State Accountability for Space Debris: A Legal Study of Responsibility for Polluting the Space Environment and Liability for Damage Caused by Space Debris,” Koninklijke Brill Publishing, ISBN 978-90-04-31407-8, p. 27-31] TDIThe prediction of possible scenarios of the future evolution of the debris p o p ulation involves many uncertainties. Long-term forecasting means the prediction of the evolution of the future debris environment in time periods of decades or even centuries. Predictions are based on models84 that work with certain assumptions, and altering these parameters significantly influences the outcomes of the predictions. Assumptions on the future space traffic and on the initial object environment are particularly critical to the results of modeling efforts.85 A well-known pattern for the evolution of the debris population is the so-called Kessler effect’, which assumes that there is a certain collision probability among space objects because many satellites operate in similar orbital regions. These collisions create fragments, and thus additional objects in the respective orbits, which in turn enhances the risk of further collisions. Consequently, the num ber of objects and collisions increases exponentially and eventually results in the formation of a self-sustaining debris belt aroundthe Earth. While it has long been assumed that such a process of collisional cascading is likely to occur only in a very long-term perspective (meaning a time 1 n of several hundred years),87 a consensus has evolved in recent years that an uncontrolled growth of the debris population in certain altitudes could become reality much sooner.88 In fact, a recent cooperative study undertaken by various space agencies in the scope of i a d c shows that the current l e o debris population is unstable, even if current mitigation measures are applied. The study concludes:Even with a 90% implementation of the commonly-adopted mitigation measures [...] the l e o debris population is expected to increase by an average of 30% in the next 200 years. The population growth is primarily driven by catastrophic collisions between 700 and 1000 km altitudes and such collisions are likely to occur every 5 to 9 years.89No ‘space war’ – Insurmountable barriers and everyone has an interest in keeping space peacefulDobos 19 [(Bohumil Dobo?, scholar at the Institute of Political Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, and a coordinator of the Geopolitical Studies Research Centre) “Geopolitics of the Outer Space, Chapter 3: Outer Space as a Military-Diplomatic Field,” Pgs. 48-49] TDIDespite the theorized potential for the achievement of the terrestrial dominance throughout the utilization of the ultimate high ground and the ease of destruction of space-based assets by the potential space weaponry, the utilization of space weapons is with current technology and no effective means to protect them far from fulfilling this potential (Steinberg 2012, p. 255). In current global international political and technological setting, the utility of space weapons is very limited, even if we accept that the ultimate high ground presents the potential to get a decisive tangible military advantage (which is unclear). This stands among the reasons for the lack of their utilization so far. Last but not the least, it must be pointed out that the states also develop passive defense systems designed to protect the satellites on orbit or critical capabilities they provide. These further decrease the utility of space weapons. These systems include larger maneuvering capacities, launching of decoys, preparation of spare satellites that are ready for launch in case of ASAT attack on its twin on orbit, or attempts to decrease the visibility of satellites using paint or materials less visible from radars (Moltz 2014, p. 31). Finally, we must look at the main obstacles of connection of the outer space and warfare. The first set of barriers is comprised of physical obstructions. As has been presented in the previous chapter, the outer space is very challenging domain to operate in. Environmental factors still present the largest threat to any space military capabilities if compared to any man-made threats (Rendleman 2013, p. 79). A following issue that hinders military operations in the outer space is the predictability of orbital movement. If the reconnaissance satellite's orbit is known, the terrestrial actor might attempt to hide some critical capabilities-an option that is countered by new surveillance techniques (spectrometers, etc.) (Norris 2010, p. 196)-but the hide-and-seek game is on. This same principle is, however, in place for any other space asset-any nation with basic tracking capabilities may quickly detect whether the military asset or weapon is located above its territory or on the other side of the planet and thus mitigate the possible strategic impact of space weapons not aiming at mass destruction. Another possibility is to attempt to destroy the weapon in orbit. Given the level of development for the ASAT technology, it seems that they will prevail over any possible weapon system for the time to come. Next issue, directly connected to the first one, is the utilization of weak physical protection of space objects that need to be as light as possible to reach the orbit and to be able to withstand harsh conditions of the domain. This means that their protection against ASAT weapons is very limited, and, whereas some avoidance techniques are being discussed, they are of limited use in case of ASAT attack. We can thus add to the issue of predictability also the issue of easy destructibility of space weapons and other military hardware (Dolman 2005, p. 40; Anantatmula 2013, p. 137; Steinberg 2012, p. 255). Even if the high ground was effectively achieved and other nations could not attack the space assets directly, there is still a need for communication with those assets from Earth. There are also ground facilities that support and control such weapons located on the surface. Electromagnetic communication with satellites might be jammed or hacked and the ground facilities infiltrated or destroyed thus rendering the possible space weapons useless (Klein 2006, p. 105; Rendleman 2013, p. 81). This issue might be overcome by the establishment of a base controlling these assets outside the Earth-on Moon or lunar orbit, at lunar L-points, etc.-but this perspective remains, for now, unrealistic. Furthermore, no contemporary actor will risk full space weaponization in the face of possible competition and the possibility of rendering the outer space useless. No actor is dominant enough to prevent others to challenge any possible attempts to dominate the domain by military means. To quote 2016 Stratfor analysis, "(a) war in space would be devastating to all, and preventing it, rather than finding ways to fight it, will likely remain the goal" (Larnrani 20 16). This stands true unless some space actor finds a utility in disrupting the arena for others.Public sector mining thumpsNASA 19 [“NASA Invests in Tech Concepts Aimed at Exploring Lunar Craters, Mining Asteroids,” NASA, June 11, 2019, ] TDINASA Invests in Tech Concepts Aimed at Exploring Lunar Craters, Mining AsteroidsRobotically surveying lunar craters in record time and mining resources in space could help NASA establish a sustained human presence at the Moon – part of the agency’s broader?Moon to Mars exploration?approach. Two mission concepts to explore these capabilities have been selected as the first-ever Phase III studies within the?NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts?(NIAC) program.“We are pursuing new technologies across our development portfolio that could help make deep space exploration more Earth-independent by utilizing resources on the Moon and beyond,” said Jim Reuter, associate administrator of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. “These NIAC Phase III selections are a component of that forward-looking research and we hope new insights will help us achieve more firsts in space.”The Phase III proposals outline an aerospace architecture, including a mission concept, that is innovative and could change what’s possible in space. Each selection will receive as much as $2 million. Over the course of two years, researchers will refine the concept design and explore aspects of implementing the new technology. The inaugural Phase III selections are:Robotic Technologies Enabling the Exploration of Lunar PitsWilliam Whittaker, Carnegie Mellon University, PittsburghThis mission concept, called Skylight, proposes technologies to rapidly survey and model lunar craters. This mission would use high-resolution images to create 3D model of craters. The data would be used to determine whether a crater can be explored by human or robotic missions. The information could also be used to characterize ice on the Moon, a crucial capability for the sustained surface operations of NASA’s Artemis program. On Earth, the technology could be used to autonomously monitor mines and quarries.Mini Bee Prototype to Demonstrate the Apis Mission Architecture and Optical Mining TechnologyJoel Sercel, TransAstra Corporation,?Lake View Terrace, California?This flight demonstration mission concept proposes a method of asteroid resource harvesting called optical mining. Optical mining is an approach for excavating an asteroid and extracting water and other volatiles into an inflatable bag. Called Mini Bee, the mission concept aims to prove optical mining, in conjunction with other innovative spacecraft systems, can be used to obtain propellant in space. The proposed architecture includes resource prospecting, extraction and delivery.Asteroid mining failsFickling 20 [(David, Bloomberg opinion columnist, previously at Guardian and Financial Times, MA in Eng Lit from Cambridge) “We’re Never Going to Mine the Asteroid Belt,” Bloomberg Opinion, December 21, 2020, ] TDIIt’s wonderful that people are shooting?for the stars —?but those who declined to fund the expansive plans of the nascent space mining industry were right about the fundamentals. Space mining won’t get off the ground in any foreseeable future —?and you only have to look at the history of civilization to see why.One factor rules out most space mining at the outset: gravity. On one hand, it guarantees that most of the solar system’s best mineral resources are to be found under our feet. Earth is the largest rocky planet orbiting the sun. As a result, the cornucopia of minerals the globe attracted as it coalesced?is as rich as will be found this side of Alpha Centauri.Gravity poses a more technical problem, too. Escaping Earth’s gravitational field?makes transporting the volumes of material needed in a mining operation hugely expensive. On Falcon Heavy, the large rocket being developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, transporting a payload to the orbit of Mars comes to as little as?$5,357 per kilogram?—?a drastic reduction in normal launch costs. Still, at those prices just lofting a single half-ton drilling rig to the asteroid belt would use up the annual exploration budget of a small mining company.Power is another issue.?The international space station, with 35,000 square feet of solar arrays, generates up to 120 kilowatts of electricity. That drill would need a?similar-sized power plant?—?and most mining companies operate multiple rigs at a time. Power demands rise drastically once you move from exploration drilling to mining and processing. Bringing material back to Earth would raise the costs even more. Japan’s?Hayabusa2 satellite spent six years?and 16.4 billion yen ($157?million) recovering?a single gram?of material from the asteroid Ryugu and returning it to Earth earlier this month.Extinction from warming requires 12 degrees and intervening actors will solve before then Farquhar 17 [(Sebastian, leads the Global Priorities Project (GPP) at the Centre for Effective Altruism) “Existential Risk: Diplomacy and Governance,” 2017, ] TDIThe most likely levels of global warming are very unlikely to cause human extinction.15 The existential risks of climate change instead stem from tail risk climate change – the low probability of extreme levels of warming – and interaction with other sources of risk. It is impossible to say with confidence at what point global warming would become severe enough to pose an existential threat. Research has suggested that warming of 11-12°C would render most of the planet uninhabitable,16 and would completely devastate agriculture.17 This would pose an extreme threat to human civilisation as we know it.18 Warming of around 7°C or more could potentially produce conflict and instability on such a scale that the indirect effects could be an existential risk, although it is extremely uncertain how likely such scenarios are.19 Moreover, the timescales over which such changes might happen could mean that humanity is able to adapt enough to avoid extinction in even very extreme scenarios. The probability of these levels of warming depends on eventual greenhouse gas concentrations. According to some experts, unless strong action is taken soon by major emitters, it is likely that we will pursue a medium-high emissions pathway.20 If we do, the chance of extreme warming is highly uncertain but appears non-negligible. Current concentrations of greenhouse gases are higher than they have been for hundreds of thousands of years,21 which means that there are significant unknown unknowns about how the climate system will respond. Particularly concerning is the risk of positive feedback loops, such as the release of vast amounts of methane from melting of the arctic permafrost, which would cause rapid and disastrous warming.22 The economists Gernot Wagner and Martin Weitzman have used IPCC figures (which do not include modelling of feedback loops such as those from melting permafrost) to estimate that if we continue to pursue a medium-high emissions pathway, the probability of eventual warming of 6°C is around 10%,23 and of 10°C is around 3%.24 These estimates are of course highly uncertain. It is likely that the world will take action against climate change once it begins to impose large costs on human society, long before there is warming of 10°C. Unfortunately, there is significant inertia in the climate system: there is a 25 to 50 year lag between CO2 emissions and eventual warming,25 and it is expected that 40% of the peak concentration of CO2 will remain in the atmosphere 1,000 years after the peak is reached.26 Consequently, it is impossible to reduce temperatures quickly by reducing CO2 emissions. If the world does start to face costly warming, the international community will therefore face strong incentives to find other ways to reduce global temperatures. Non UQ – squo debris thumpsOrwig 16 [(Jessica, MS in science and tech journalism from Texas A&M, BS in astronomy and physics from Ohio State) “Russia says a growing problem in space could be enough to spark a war,” Insider,’ January 26, 2016, ] TDINASA has already?warned that?the large amount of space junk around our planet is growing beyond our control, but now a team of Russian scientists has cited another potentially unforeseen consequence of that debris: War.Scientists estimate that anywhere from 500,000 to 600,000 pieces of human-made space debris between 0.4 and 4 inches in size are currently orbiting the Earth and traveling at speeds over?17,000 miles per hour.If one of those pieces smashed into a military satellite it "may provoke political or even armed conflict between space-faring nations," Vitaly Adushkin, a researcher for the Institute of Geosphere Dynamics at the Russian Academy of Sciences, reported in a paper set to be published in the peer-reviewed journal?Acta Astronautica, which is sponsored by the International Academy of Astronautics.Space debris creates existential deterrence and a taboo Bowen 18 [(Bleddyn, lecturer in International Relations at the University of Leicester) “The Art of Space Deterrence,” European Leadership Network, February 20, 2018, ] TDIFourth, the ubiquity of space infrastructure and the fragility of the space environment may create a degree of existential deterrence.?As space is so useful to modern economies and military forces, a large-scale disruption of space infrastructure may be so intuitively escalatory to decision-makers that there may be a natural caution against a wholesale assault on a state’s entire space capabilities because the consequences of doing so approach the mentalities of total war, or nuclear responses if a society begins tearing itself apart because of the collapse of optimised energy grids and just-in-time supply chains. In addition, the problem of space debris and the?political-legal hurdles to conducting debris clean-up?operations mean that even a handful of explosive events in space can render a region of Earth orbit unusable for?everyone. This could caution a country like China from excessive kinetic intercept missions because its own military and economy is increasingly reliant on outer space, but perhaps not a country like North Korea which does not rely on space. The usefulness, sensitivity, and fragility of space may have some existential deterrent effect.?China’s catastrophic anti-satellite weapons test in 2007?is a valuable lesson for all on the potentially devastating effect of kinetic warfare in orbit.Alliances check miscalc – too costlyMacDonald 13 [(Bruce, teaches at the United States Institute of Peace on strategic posture and space/cyber security issues, leads a study on China and Crisis Stability in Space, and is adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies) “Deterrence and Crisis Stability in Space and Cyberspace,” in Anti-satellite Weapons, Deterrence and Sino-American Space Relations, September 2013, ] TDIThe US alliance structure can promote deterrence and crisis stability in space, as with nuclear deterrence. China has no such alliance system. If China were to engage in large-scale offensive counter-space operations, it would face not only the United States, but also NATO, Japan, South Korea and other highly aggrieved parties. Given Beijing’s major export dependence on these markets, and its dependence upon them for key raw material and high technology imports, China would be as devastated economically if it initiated strategic attacks in space. In contrast to America’s nuclear umbrella and extended deterrence, US allies make a tangible and concrete contribution to extended space deterrence through their multilateral participation in and dependence upon space assets. Attacks on these space assets would directly damage allied interests as well as those of the United States, further strengthening deterrent effects.Rigorous climate simulations prove hydrophilic black carbon would cause atmospheric precipitation – results in a rainout effect that reverses nuclear coolingReisner et al. 18 ([Jon Reisner – Climate and atmospheric scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Gennaro D’Angelo – Climate scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Research scientist at the SETI institute, Associate specialist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at the NASA Ames Research Center, UKAFF Fellow at the University of Exeter. Eunmo Koo - Scientist at Applied Terrestrial, Energy, and Atmospheric Modeling (ATEAM) Team, in Computational Earth Science Group (EES-16) in Earth and Environmental Sciences Division and Co-Lead of Parallel Computing Summer Research Internship (PCSRI) program at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, former Staff research associate at UC Berkeley. Wesley Even - Computational scientist in the Computational Physics and Methods Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Matthew Hecht – Atmospheric scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Elizabeth Hunke - Lead developer for the Los Alamos Sea Ice Model (CICE) at the Los Alamos National Laboratory responsible for development and incorporation of new parameterizations, model testing and validation, computational performance, documentation, and consultation with external model users on all aspects of sea ice modeling, including interfacing with global climate and earth system models. Darin Comeau – Climate scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Randy Bos - Project leader at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, former Weapons Effects program manager at Tech-Source. James Cooley – Computational scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory specializing in weapons physics, emergency response, and computational physics.) “Climate impact of a regional nuclear weapons exchange:An improved assessment based on detailed source calculations,” March 16, 2018, ] *BC = Black CarbonThe no-rubble simulation produces a significantly more intense fire, with more fire spread, and consequently a significantly stronger plume with larger amounts of BC reaching into the upper atmosphere than the simulation with rubble, illustrated in Figure 5. While the no-rubble simulation represents the worst-case scenario involving vigorous fire activity, only a relatively small amount of carbon makes its way into the stratosphere during the course of the simulation. But while small compared to the surface BC mass, stratospheric BC amounts from the current simulations are significantly higher than what would be expected from burning vegetation such as trees (Heilman et al., 2014), e.g., the higher energy density of the building fuels and the initial fluence from the weapon produce an intense response within HIGRAD with initial updrafts of order 100 m/s in the lower troposphere. Or, in comparison to a mass fire, wildfires will burn only a small amount of fuel in the corresponding time period (roughly 10 minutes) that a nuclear weapon fluence can effectively ignite a large area of fuel producing an impressive atmospheric response. Figure 6 shows vertical profiles of BC multiplied by 100 (number of cities involved in the exchange) from the two simulations. The total amount of BC produced is in line with previous estimates (about 3.69 Tg from no-rubble simulation); however, the majority of BC resides below the stratosphere (3.46 Tg below 12 km) and can be readily impacted by scavenging from precipitation either via pyro-cumulonimbus produced by the fire itself (not modeled) or other synoptic weather systems. While the impact on climate of these more realistic profiles will be explored in the next section, it should be mentioned that these estimates are still at the high end, considering the inherent simplifications in the combustion model that lead to overestimating BC production. 3.3 Climate Results Long-term climatic effects critically depend on the initial injection height of the soot, with larger quantities reaching the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere inducing a greater cooling impact because of longer residence times (Robock et al., 2007a). Absorption of solar radiation by the BC aerosol and its subsequent radiative cooling tends to heat the surrounding air, driving an initial upward diffusion of the soot plumes, an effect that depends on the initial aerosol concentrations. Mixing and sedimentation tend to reduce this process, and low altitude emissions are also significantly impacted by precipitation if aging of the BC aerosol occurs on sufficiently rapid timescales. But once at stratospheric altitudes, aerosol dilution via coagulation is hindered by low particulate concentrations (e.g., Robock et al., 2007a) and lofting to much higher altitudes is inhibited by gravitational settling in the low-density air (Stenke et al., 2013), resulting in more stable BC concentrations over long times. Of the initial BC mass released in the atmosphere, most of which is emitted below 9 km, 70% rains out within the first month and 78%, or about 2.9 Tg, is removed within the first two months (Figure 7, solid line), with the remainder (about 0.8 Tg, dashed line) being transported above about 12 km (200 hPa) within the first week. This outcome differs from the findings of, e.g., Stenke et al. (2013, their high BC-load cases) and Mills et al. (2014), who found that most of the BC mass (between 60 and 70%) is lifted in the stratosphere within the first couple of weeks. This can also be seen in Figure 8 (red lines) and in Figure 9, which include results from our calculation with the initial BC distribution from Mills et al. (2014). In that case, only 30% of the initial BC mass rains out in the troposphere during the first two weeks after the exchange, with the remainder rising to the stratosphere. In the study of Mills et al. (2008) this percentage is somewhat smaller, about 20%, and smaller still in the experiments of Robock et al. (2007a) in which the soot is initially emitted in the upper troposphere or higher. In Figure 7, the e-folding timescale for the removal of tropospheric soot, here interpreted as the time required for an initial drop of a factor e, is about one week. This result compares favorably with the “LT” experiment of Robock et al. (2007a), considering 5 Tg of BC released in the lower troposphere, in which 50% of the aerosols are removed within two weeks. By contrast, the initial e-folding timescale for the removal of stratospheric soot in Figure 8 is about 4.2 years (blue solid line), compared to about 8.4 years for the calculation using Mills et al. (2014) initial BC emission (red solid line). The removal timescale from our forced ensemble simulations is close to those obtained by Mills et al. (2008) in their 1 Tg experiment, by Robock et al. (2007a) in their experiment “UT 1 Tg”, and ? 2018 American Geophysical Union. All rights reserved. by Stenke et al. (2013) in their experiment “Exp1”, in all of which 1 Tg of soot was emitted in the atmosphere in the aftermath of the exchange. Notably, the e-folding timescale for the decline of the BC mass in Figure 8 (blue solid line) is also close to the value of about 4 years quoted by Pausata et al. (2016) for their long-term “intermediate” scenario. In that scenario, which is also based on 5 Tg of soot initially distributed as in Mills et al. (2014), the factor-of2 shorter residence time of the aerosols is caused by particle growth via coagulation of BC with organic carbon. Figure 9 shows the BC mass-mixing ratio, horizontally averaged over the globe, as a function of atmospheric pressure (height) and time. The BC distributions used in our simulations imply that the upward transport of particles is substantially less efficient compared to the case in which 5 Tg of BC is directly injected into the upper troposphere. The semiannual cycle of lofting and sinking of the aerosols is associated with atmospheric heating and cooling during the solstice in each hemisphere (Robock et al., 2007a). During the first year, the oscillation amplitude in our forced ensemble simulations is particularly large during the summer solstice, compared to that during the winter solstice (see bottom panel of Figure 9), because of the higher soot concentrations in the Northern Hemisphere, as can be seen in Figure 11 (see also left panel of Figure 12). Comparing the top and bottom panels of Figure 9, the BC reaches the highest altitudes during the first year in both cases, but the concentrations at 0.1 hPa in the top panel can be 200 times as large. Qualitatively, the difference can be understood in terms of the air temperature increase caused by BC radiation emission, which is several tens of kelvin degrees in the simulations of Robock et al. (2007a, see their Figure 4), Mills et al. (2008, see their Figure 5), Stenke et al. (2013, see high-load cases in their Figure 4), Mills et al. (2014, see their Figure 7), and Pausata et al. (2016, see one-day emission cases in their Figure 1), due to high BC concentrations, but it amounts to only about 10 K in our forced ensemble simulations, as illustrated in Figure 10. Results similar to those presented in Figure 10 were obtained from the experiment “Exp1” performed by Stenke et al. (2013, see their Figure 4). In that scenario as well, somewhat less that 1 Tg of BC remained in the atmosphere after the initial rainout. As mentioned before, the BC aerosol that remains in the atmosphere, lifted to stratospheric heights by the rising soot plumes, undergoes sedimentation over a timescale of several years (Figures 8 and 9). This mass represents the effective amount of BC that can force climatic changes over multi-year timescales. In the forced ensemble simulations, it is about 0.8 Tg after the initial rainout, whereas it is about 3.4 Tg in the simulation with an initial soot distribution as in Mills et al. (2014). Our more realistic source simulation involves the worstcase assumption of no-rubble (along with other assumptions) and hence serves as an upper bound for the impact on climate. As mentioned above and further discussed below, our scenario induces perturbations on the climate system similar to those found in previous studies in which the climatic response was driven by roughly 1 Tg of soot rising to stratospheric heights following the exchange. Figure 11 illustrates the vertically integrated mass-mixing ratio of BC over the globe, at various times after the exchange for the simulation using the initial BC distribution of Mills et al. (2014, upper panels) and as an average from the forced ensemble members (lower panels). All simulations predict enhanced concentrations at high latitudes during the first year after the exchange. In the cases shown in the top panels, however, these high concentrations persist for several years (see also Figure 1 of Mills et al., 2014), whereas the forced ensemble simulations indicate that the BC concentration starts to decline after the first year. In fact, in the simulation represented in the top panels, mass-mixing ratios larger than about 1 kg of BC ? 2018 American Geophysical Union. All rights reserved. per Tg of air persist for well over 10 years after the exchange, whereas they only last for 3 years in our forced simulations (compare top and middle panels of Figure 9). After the first year, values drop below 3 kg BC/Tg air, whereas it takes about 8 years to reach these values in the simulation in the top panels (see also Robock et al., 2007a). Over crop-producing, midlatitude regions in the Northern Hemisphere, the BC loading is reduced from more than 0.8 kg BC/Tg air in the simulation in the top panels to 0.2-0.4 kg BC/Tg air in our forced simulations (see middle and right panels). The more rapid clearing of the atmosphere in the forced ensemble is also signaled by the soot optical depth in the visible radiation spectrum, which drops below values of 0.03 toward the second half of the first year at mid latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, and everywhere on the globe after about 2.5 years (without never attaining this value in the Southern Hemisphere). In contrast, the soot optical depth in the calculation shown in the top panels of Figure 11 becomes smaller than 0.03 everywhere only after about 10 years. The two cases show a similar tendency, in that the BC optical depth is typically lower between latitudes 30? S-30? N than it is at other latitudes. This behavior is associated to the persistence of stratospheric soot toward high-latitudes and the Arctic/Antarctic regions, as illustrated by the zonally-averaged, column-integrated mass-mixing ratio of the BC in Figure 12 for both the forced ensemble simulations (left panel) and the simulation with an initial 5 Tg BC emission in the upper troposphere (right panel). The spread in the globally averaged (near) surface temperature of the atmosphere, from the control (left panel) and forced (right panel) ensembles, is displayed in Figure 13. For each month, the plots show the largest variations (i.e., maximum and minimum values), within each ensemble of values obtained for that month, relative to the mean value of that month. The plot also shows yearly-averaged data (thinner lines). The spread is comparable in the control and forced ensembles, with average values calculated over the 33-years run length of 0.4-0.5 K. This spread is also similar to the internal variability of the globally averaged surface temperature quoted for the NCAR Large Ensemble Community Project (Kay et al., 2015). These results imply that surface air temperature differences, between forced and control simulations, which lie within the spread may not be distinguished from effects due to internal variability of the two simulation ensembles. Figure 14 shows the difference in the globally averaged surface temperature of the atmosphere (top panel), net solar radiation flux at surface (middle panel), and precipitation rate (bottom panel), computed as the (forced minus control) difference in ensemble mean values. The sum of standard deviations from each ensemble is shaded. Differences are qualitatively significant over the first few years, when the anomalies lie near or outside the total standard deviation. Inside the shaded region, differences may not be distinguished from those arising from the internal variability of one or both ensembles. The surface solar flux (middle panel) is the quantity that appears most affected by the BC emission, with qualitatively significant differences persisting for about 5 years. The precipitation rate (bottom panel) is instead affected only at the very beginning of the simulations. The red lines in all panels show the results from the simulation applying the initial BC distribution of Mills et al. (2014), where the period of significant impact is much longer owing to the higher altitude of the initial soot distribution that results in longer residence times of the BC aerosol in the atmosphere. When yearly averages of the same quantities are performed over the IndiaPakistan region, the differences in ensemble mean values lie within the total standard deviations of the two ensembles. The results in Figure 14 can also be compared to the outcomes of other previous studies. In their experiment “UT 1 Tg”, Robock et al. (2007a) found that, when only 1 Tg of soot ? 2018 American Geophysical Union. All rights reserved. remains in the atmosphere after the initial rainout, temperature and precipitation anomalies are about 20% of those obtained from their standard 5 Tg BC emission case. Therefore, the largest differences they observed, during the first few years after the exchange, were about - 0.3 K and -0.06 mm/day, respectively, comparable to the anomalies in the top and bottom panels of Figure 14. Their standard 5 Tg emission case resulted in a solar radiation flux anomaly at surface of -12 W/m2 after the second year (see their Figure 3), between 5 and 6 time as large as the corresponding anomalies from our ensembles shown in the middle panel. In their experiment “Exp1”, Stenke et al. (2013) reported global mean surface temperature anomalies not exceeding about 0.3 K in magnitude and precipitation anomalies hovering around -0.07 mm/day during the first few years, again consistent with the results of Figure 14. In a recent study, Pausata et al. (2016) considered the effects of an admixture of BC and organic carbon aerosols, both of which would be emitted in the atmosphere in the aftermath of a nuclear exchange. In particular, they concentrated on the effects of coagulation of these aerosol species and examined their climatic impacts. The initial BC distribution was as in Mills et al. (2014), although the soot burden was released in the atmosphere over time periods of various lengths. Most relevant to our and other previous work are their one-day emission scenarios. They found that, during the first year, the largest values of the atmospheric surface temperature anomalies ranged between about -0.5 and -1.3 K, those of the sea surface temperature anomalies ranged between -0.2 and -0.55 K, and those of the precipitation anomalies varied between -0.15 and -0.2 mm/day. All these ranges are compatible with our results shown in Figure 14 as red lines and with those of Mills et al. (2014, see their Figures 3 and 6). As already mentioned in Section 2.3, the net solar flux anomalies at surface are also consistent. This overall agreement suggests that the inclusion of organic carbon aerosols, and ensuing coagulation with BC, should not dramatically alter the climatic effects resulting from our forced ensemble simulations. Moreover, aerosol growth would likely shorten the residence time of the BC particulate in the atmosphere (Pausata et al., 2016), possibly reducing the duration of these effects.No credible scenario for extinction—outdated fringe science and well-meaning threat inflationScouras 19 [(James Scouras, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, formerly served on the congressionally established Comission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack) “Nuclear War as a Global Catastrophic Risk,” footnotes 2 and 4 included, Cambridge Core, September 2, 2019, ] TDIIt might be thought that we know enough about the risk of nuclear war to appropriately manage that risk. The consequences of unconstrained nuclear attacks, and the counterattacks that would occur until the major nuclear powers exhaust their arsenals, would far exceed any cataclysm humanity has suffered in all of recorded history. The likelihood of such a war must, therefore, be reduced as much as possible. But this rather simplistic logic raises many questions and does not withstand close scrutiny. Regarding consequences, does unconstrained nuclear war pose an existential risk to humanity? The consequences of existential risks are truly incalculable, including the lives not only of all human beings currently living but also of all those yet to come; involving not only Homo sapiens but all species that may descend from it. At the opposite end of the spectrum of consequences lies the domain of “limited” nuclear wars. Are these also properly considered global catastrophes? After all, while the only nuclear war that has ever occurred devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was also instrumental in bringing about the end of the Pacific War, thereby saving lives that would have been lost in the planned invasion of Japan. Indeed, some scholars similarly argue that many lives have been saved over the nearly threefourths of a century since the advent of nuclear weapons because those weapons have prevented the large conventional wars that otherwise would likely have occurred between the major powers. This is perhaps the most significant consequence of the attacks that devastated the two Japanese cities. Regarding likelihood, how do we know what the likelihood of nuclear war is and the degree to which our national policies affect that likelihood, for better or worse? How much confidence should we place in any assessment of likelihood? What levels of likelihood for the broad spectrum of possible consequences pose unacceptable levels of risk? Even a very low (nondecreasing) annual likelihood of the risk of nuclear war would result in near certainty of catastrophe over the course of enough years. Most fundamentally and counterintuitively, are we really sure we want to reduce the risk of nuclear war? The successful operation of deterrence, which has been credited – perhaps too generously – with preventing nuclear war during the Cold War and its aftermath, depends on the risk that any nuclear use might escalate to a nuclear holocaust. Many proposals for reducing risk focus on reducing nuclear weapon arsenals and, therefore, the possible consequences of the most extreme nuclear war. Yet, if we reduce the consequences of nuclear war, might we also inadvertently increase its likelihood? It’s not at all clear that would be a desirable trade-off. This is all to argue that the simplistic logic described above is inadequate, even dangerous. A more nuanced understanding of the risk of nuclear war is imperative. This paper thus attempts to establish a basis for more rigorously addressing the risk of nuclear war. Rather than trying to assess the risk, a daunting objective, its more modest goals include increasing the awareness of the complexities involved in addressing this topic and evaluating alternative measures proposed for managing nuclear risk. I begin with a clarification of why nuclear war is a global catastrophic risk but not an existential risk. Turning to the issue of risk assessment, I then present a variety of assessments by academics and statesmen of the likelihood component of the risk of nuclear war, followed by an overview of what we do and do not know about the consequences of nuclear war, emphasizing uncertainty in both factors. Then, I discuss the difficulties in determining the effects of risk mitigation policies, focusing on nuclear arms reduction. Finally, I address the question of whether nuclear weapons have indeed saved lives. I conclude with recommendations for national security policy and multidisciplinary research. 2 Why is nuclear war a global catastrophic risk? One needs to only view the pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki shown in figure 1 and imagine such devastation visited on thousands of cities across warring nations in both hemispheres to recognize that nuclear war is truly a global catastrophic risk. Moreover, many of today’s nuclear weapons are an order of magnitude more destructive than Little Boy and Fat Man, and there are many other significant consequences – prompt radiation, fallout, etc. – not visible in such photographs. Yet, it is also true that not all nuclear wars would be so catastrophic; some, perhaps involving electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attacks 2 Many mistakenly believe that the congressionally established Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack concluded that an EMP attack would, indeed, be catastrophic to electronic systems and consequently to people and societies that vitally depend on those systems. However, the conclusion of the commission, on whose staff I served, was only that such a catastrophe could, not would, result from an EMP attack. Its executive report states, for example, that “the damage level could be sufficient to be catastrophic to the Nation.” See for publicly available reports from the EMP Commission. See also Frankel et al., (2015).2 using only a few high-altitude detonations or demonstration strikes of various kinds, could result in few casualties. Others, such as a war between Israel and one of its potential future nuclear neighbors, might be regionally devastating but have limited global impact, at least if we limit our consideration to direct and immediate physical consequences. Nevertheless, smaller nuclear wars need to be included in any analysis of nuclear war as a global catastrophic risk because they increase the likelihood of larger nuclear wars. This is precisely why the nuclear taboo is so precious and crossing the nuclear threshold into uncharted territory is so dangerous (Schelling, 2005; see also Tannenwald, 2007). While it is clear that nuclear war is a global catastrophic risk, it is also clear that it is not an existential risk. Yet over the course of the nuclear age, a series of mechanisms have been proposed that, it has been erroneously argued, could lead to human extinction. The first concern3 arose among physicists on the Manhattan Project during a 1942 seminar at Berkeley some three years before the first test of an atomic weapon. Chaired by Robert Oppenheimer, it was attended by Edward Teller, Hans Bethe, Emil Konopinski, and other theoretical physicists (Rhodes, 1995). They considered the possibility that detonation of an atomic bomb could ignite a self-sustaining nitrogen fusion reaction that might propagate through earth’s atmosphere, thereby extinguishing all air-breathing life on earth. Konopinski, Cloyd Margin, and Teller eventually published the calculations that led to the conclusion that the nitrogen-nitrogen reaction was virtually impossible from atomic bomb explosions – calculations that had previously been used to justify going forward with Trinity, the first atomic bomb test (Konopinski et al., 1946). Of course, the Trinity test was conducted, as well as over 1000 subsequent atomic and thermonuclear tests, and we are fortunately still here. After the bomb was used, extinction fear focused on invisible and deadly fallout, unanticipated as a significant consequence of the bombings of Japan that would spread by global air currents to poison the entire planet. Public dread was reinforced by the depressing, but influential, 1957 novel On the Beach by Nevil Shute (1957) and the subsequent 1959 movie version (Kramer, 1959). The story describes survivors in Melbourne, Australia, one of a few remaining human outposts in the Southern Hemisphere, as fallout clouds approached to bring the final blow to humanity. In the 1970s, after fallout was better understood to be limited in space, time, and magnitude, depletion of the ozone layer, which would cause increased ultraviolet radiation to fry all humans who dared to venture outside, became the extinction mechanism of concern. Again, one popular book, The Fate of the Earth by Jonathan Schell (1982), which described the nuclear destruction of the ozone layer leaving the earth “a republic of insects and grass,” promoted this fear. Schell did at times try to cover all bases, however: “To say that human extinction is a certainty would, of course, be a misrepresentation – just as it would be a misrepresentation to say that extinction can be ruled out” (Schell, 1982). Finally, the current mechanism of concern for extinction is nuclear winter, the phenomenon by which dust and soot created primarily by the burning of cities would rise to the stratosphere and attenuate sunlight such that surface temperatures would decline dramatically, agriculture would fail, and humans and other animals would perish from famine. The public first learned of the possibility of nuclear winter in a Parade article by Sagan (1983), published a month or so before its scientific counterpart by Turco et al. (1983). While some nuclear disarmament advocates promote the idea that nuclear winter is an extinction threat, and the general public is probably confused to the extent it is not disinterested, few scientists seem to consider it an extinction threat. It is understandable that some of these extinction fears were created by ignorance or uncertainty and treated seriously by worst-case thinking, as seems appropriate for threats of extinction. But nuclear doom mongering also seems to be at play for some of these episodes. For some reason, portions of the public active in nuclear issues, as well as some scientists, appear to think that arguments for nuclear arms reductions or elimination will be more persuasive if nuclear war is believed to threaten extinction, rather than merely the horrific cataclysm that it would be in reality (Martin, 1982). 4 As summarized by Martin, “The idea that global nuclear war could kill most or all of the world’s population is critically examined and found to have little or no scientific basis.” Martin also critiques possible reasons for beliefs or professed beliefs about nuclear extinction, including exaggeration to stimulate action.4 To summarize, nuclear war is a global catastrophic risk. Such wars may cause billions of deaths and unfathomable suffering, as well set civilization back centuries. Smaller nuclear wars pose regional catastrophic risks and also national risks in that the continued functioning of, for example, the United States as a constitutional republic is highly dubious after even a relatively limited nuclear attack. But what nuclear war is not is an existential risk to the human race. There is simply no credible scenario in which humans do not survive to repopulate the earth.1NC – AT: Africa Advantage Asteroid mining not profitable enough to tradeoff with terrestrial miningElvis 17 [(Martin, X-Ray Astronomy PhD @Leicester University, A. Stark, B. Stalder, and C. Desira) “Astronomical Prospecting of Asteroid Resources,” European Planetary Science Congress, 2017] TDI Asteroids number in the millions and the total mass of industrially useful raw materials they contain is far vaster than the accessible materials in the Earth’s crust [6]. This abundance has drawn great attention lately with a number of commercial companies developing ways to prospect for the most promising asteroids.The mining industry term for commercially profitable concentrations of materials is ore-bearing. A rich vein of the desired material is not enough. A profit is essential. Ore-bearing is a technology dependent term. Improved methods can change material into being ore-bearing. It is also economics dependent, as a drop in price can render material non-ore-bearing, and vice versa.There are a series of physical factors that reduce the number of asteroids that could be profitable to mine with current technology [3]. In total there remain many potentially ore-bearing asteroids, but as a fraction of the total among known NEAs they are quite rare, roughly 1 in 660, or 1 in 66 if low delta-v asteroids are preselected.This fraction could rise if a thermal infrared survey of NEAs were undertaken, as the optically dark carbonaceous asteroids may well be far more common in such a survey [7]. Until at least the mid2020s though we have only NEAs selected by their reflected optical light.If a low delta-v NEA is selected at random some 100 must be visited to find one ore-bearing asteroid. Instead, if a rough classification into one of the 3 main type: stony (S), carbonaceous (C) or uncertain, and possibly metallic (X), then this number can be reduced to about 10 [4]. Cutting the number of spacecraft probes by an order-of-magnitude may be enabling for the closing of the business case.Unfortunately, current investigations of NEAs, while highly successful at discovery, fall behind on the information gathering needed for prospecting [1]. Of the 2000 or so NEAs being discovered each year, almost half have ill-determined orbits in the sense that they will be almost impossible to re-acquire at their next close approach (“apparition”). An even greater fraction, ~90%, have no spectral information, and so have undetermined types.Space resources aren’t used terrestrially Whittington 17 [(Mark, writes frequently on space, politics, and popular culture. He has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, USA Today, and the Hill. He is the author of, most recently, Why is it So Hard to Go Back to the Moon? and The Man from Mars: The Asteroid Mining Caper. as well as Dark Crusade: A Vampire Gabriella Adventure) “Why mining asteroids and the moon will not destroy the world's economy,” Blasting News, 1/17/17, ] TDIThe idea that asteroid mining is going to destroy the world economy exhibits a misunderstanding about how the new industry will work. The market for most Space materials, whether from the asteroids or the moon, will not be on Earth, for the most part, but in space. Water from the moon would be used to make rocket fuel and to support a lunar colony. Metals from worlds like 16 Psyche would be used to build things in space, not brought back to Earth as a building material. That arrangement would eliminate the need to ship everything from Earth.No escalationBarrett 05 [(Robert Barrett, PhD Conflict & Post Doctoral Fellow, Conflict Analysis - University of Calgary & Principal and Senior Partner De Novo Group LLC) “Understanding the Challenges of African Democratization through Conflict Analysis,” IACM 18th Annual Conference, June 1, 2005] Westerners eager to promote democracy must be wary of African politicians who promise democratic reform without sincere commitment to the process. Offering money to corrupt leaders in exchange for their taking small steps away from autocracy may in fact be a way of pushing countries into anocracy. As such, world financial lenders and interventionists who wield leverage and influence must take responsibility in considering the ramifications of African nations who adopt democracy in order to maintain elite political privileges. The obvious reason for this, aside from the potential costs in human life should conflict arise from hastily constructed democratic reforms, is the fact that Western donors, in the face of intrastate war would then be faced with channeling funds and resources away from democratization efforts and toward conflict intervention based on issues of human security. This is a problem, as Western nations may be increasingly wary of intervening in Africa hotspots after experiencing firsthand the unpredictable and unforgiving nature of societal warfare in both Somalia and Rwanda. On a costbenefit basis, the West continues to be somewhat reluctant to get to get involved in Africa’s dirty wars, evidenced by its political hesitation when discussing ongoing sanguinary grassroots conflicts in Africa. Even as the world apologizes for bearing witness to the Rwandan genocide without having intervened, the United States, recently using the label ‘genocide’ in the context of the Sudanese conflict (in September of 2004), has only proclaimed sanctions against Sudan, while dismissing any suggestions at actual intervention (Giry, 2005). Part of the problem is that traditional military and diplomatic approaches at separating combatants and enforcing ceasefires have yielded little in Africa. No powerful nations want to get embroiled in conflicts they cannot win – especially those conflicts in which the intervening nation has very little interest. It would be a false statement for me to say that there has never been a better time to incorporate the holistic insights of conflict analysis. The most opportune time has likely come and gone. Yet, Africa remains at a crossroads – set amidst the greatest proliferation of democratic regimes in history. It still has a chance. Yet, it is not only up to the West, but also Africans themselves, to stand against corruption, to participate in civil society and to ultimately take the initiative in uncovering and acknowledging the deep underlying issues perpetuating African conflict in order to open the door to democratic advancement and global interaction. Analysis will be the key that unlocks that door. Aff/Neg – BogotaAff – Bogota Convention AC – InherencyContention one: Inherency Space access is privatizing – concentrated profits of outer space will literally universalize inequalityShammas and Holen 19 [(Victor L Shammas, Oslo Metropolitan University, Work Research Institute (AFI), Oslo, Norway and Thomas B Holen, Independent scholar, Oslo, Norway) “One giant leap for capitalistkind: private enterprise in outer space,” Palgrave Communications, 2019] TDIOuter space is becoming a space for capitalism. We are entering a new era of the commercialization of space, geared towards generating profits from satellite launches, space tourism, asteroid mining, and related ventures. This era, driven by private corporations such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origins, has been labeled by industry insiders as ‘NewSpace'—in contrast to ‘Old Space', a Cold War-era mode of space relations when (allegedly) slow-moving, sluggish states dominated outer space. NewSpace marks the arrival of capitalism in space. While challenging the libertarian rhetoric of its proponents—space enterprises remain enmeshed in the state, relying on funding, physical infrastructure, technology transfers, regulatory frameworks, and symbolic support—NewSpace nevertheless heralds a novel form of human activity in space. Despite its humanistic, universalizing pretensions, however, NewSpace does not benefit humankind as such but rather a specific set of wealthy entrepreneurs, many of them originating in Silicon Valley, who strategically deploy humanist tropes to engender enthusiasm for their activities. We describe this complex as ‘capitalistkind'. Moreover, the arrival of capitalism in space is fueled by the expansionary logic of capital accumulation. Outer space serves as a spatial fix, allowing capital to transcend its inherent terrestrial limitations. In this way, the ultimate spatial fix is perhaps (outer) space itself.On 6 February 2018, the California-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp., also known as SpaceX, launched its first Falcon Heavy rocket, a powerful, partially reusable launch vehicle, into space from Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 39 in Florida. With its significant thrust and payload capacity, the Falcon Heavy had the ‘ability to lift into orbit nearly 64 metric tons…a mass greater than a 737 jetliner loaded with passengers, crew, luggage and fuel' (SpaceX, 2018). Multiple reusable parts, including first-stage boosters (and, in later versions, composite payload fairing)Footnote1 provided a lift capacity nearly twice that of the next-most powerful rocket in operation, the United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Delta IV Heavy, and at nearly one-third the cost. With this first Falcon Heavy test flight, which produced widespread public enthusiasm and outpourings of support from both politicians and industry observers,Footnote2 SpaceX demonstrated that private corporations were busy redefining the domain of space exploration. SpaceX seemed to usher in an era differing markedly from that other period of astronautical excitement, the Cold War-era space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. Additionally, visions once restricted to the domain of science fiction now seemed increasingly attainable, freed from the (alleged) impediments of slow-moving nation-states: with the ascendancy of private corporations like SpaceX, satellite launches, space tourism, asteroid mining, and even the colonization of Mars seemed increasingly achievable (Cohen, 2017; Dickens and Ormrod, 2007a, 2007b; Klinger, 2017; Lewis, 1996).In this sense, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy also carried a crucial ideological payload: the very idea of private enterprise and capitalist relations overtaking outer space.Footnote3 The Falcon Heavy conveyed this idea quite concretely. Onboard the rocket was an electric car, a Tesla Roadster (said to be Elon Musk’s personal vehicle), which functioned as the rocket’s ‘dummy load', playing David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity' and ‘Life on Mars?' on repeat on the car’s stereo system. An enticing marketing stunt viewed by millions online through SpaceX’s YouTube live stream—with 2.3 million concurrent views, it was the second biggest live stream in YouTube history (Singleton, 2018)—the Falcon Heavy test flight embraced the logic of ‘cool capitalism' (Schleusener, 2014), with in-jokes referencing Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, while heralding the arrival of a commercialized space age, dubbed by industry insiders as the age of ‘NewSpace'.Footnote4But how are we to understand NewSpace? In some ways, NewSpace signals the emergence of capitalism in space. The production of carrier rockets, placement of satellites into orbit around Earth, and the exploration, exploitation, or colonization of outer space (including planets, asteroids, and other celestial objects), will not be the work of humankind as such, a pure species-being (Gattungswesen), but of particular capitalist entrepreneurs who stand in for and represent humanity. Crucially, they will do so in ways modulated by the exigencies of capital accumulation. These enterprising capitalists are forging a new political-economic regime in space, a post-Fordism in space aimed at profit maximization and the apparent minimization of government interference. A new breed of charismatic, starry-eyed entrepreneurs, including Musk’s SpaceX, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, and Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, to name but a selection, aim at becoming ‘capitalists in space' (Parker, 2009) or space capitalists. Neil Armstrong’s famous statement will have to be reformulated: space will not be the site of ‘one giant leap for mankind', but rather one giant leap for capitalistkind.Footnote5 With the ascendancy of NewSpace, humanity’s future in space will not be ‘ours', benefiting humanity tout court, but will rather be the result of particular capitalists, or capitalistkind,Footnote6 toiling to recuperate space and bring its vast domain into the fold of capital accumulation: NewSpace sees outer space as the domain of private enterprise, set to become the ‘first-trillion dollar industry', according to some estimates, and likely to produce the world’s first trillionaires (see, e.g., Honan, 2018)—as opposed to Old Space, a derisive moniker coined by enthusiastic proponents of capitalism-in-space, widely seen to have been the sole preserve of the state and a handful of giant aerospace corporations, including Boeing and Lockheed Martin, in Cold War-era Space Age.Under Donald Trump’s presidency, the adherents of NewSpace have found a ready political partner. The commercialization of outer space was already well under way with Obama’s 2010 National Space Policy, which emphasized ‘promoting and supporting a competitive U. S. commercial space sector', which was ‘considered vital to…continued progress in space' (Tronchetti, 2013, p. 67–68). But the Trump administration has aggressively pursued the deregulation of outer space in the service of profit margins. Wilbur Ross, President Trump’s Secretary of Commerce, has eagerly supported the private space industry by pushing the dismantling of regulatory frameworks. As Ross emphatically stated, ‘The rate of regulatory change must accelerate until it can match the rate of technological change!' (Foust, 2018a). Trump has proposed privatizing the provision of supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) while re-establishing the Cold War-era National Space Council, which includes members from Lockheed Martin, Boeing, ULA, and a series of NewSpace actors, such as SpaceX and Blue Origin. Ross was visibly enthusiastic about SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy launch in February 2018 and seemed to embrace Musk’s marketing ploy. ‘It was really quite an amazing thing', Ross said. ‘At the end of it, you have that little red Tesla hurdling [sic] off to an orbit around the sun and the moon' (Bryan, 2018). That same month, Ross spoke before the National Space Council, commenting appreciatively that ‘space is already a $330 billion industry' that was set to become a ‘multitrillion-dollar one in coming decades'. He noted that private corporations needed ‘all the help we can give them' and said it was ‘time to unshackle business activity in space' (Department of Commerce, 2018).Privatization of outer space occurs on a first come first serve basisSupancana 10 [(Supancana, I. B. R, Chairman and Founder of the Center for Regulatory Research) "GUARANTEEING ACCESS OF DEVELOPING COUNTRIES TO OUTER SPACE," 2010] TDI 4.1 Access of Developing Countries to the Taking of Benefits from Natural Resources in Outer Space, including the Moon and other Celestial Bodies With the rapid growth of comer-cialization and privatization of space activities in the era of global market economy, the issue of access of developing countries to space is relevant and therefore, should be seriously considered. Especially when it deals with fulfillment of their basic needs of which space science and technology may contribute at an affordable price. This makes sense as developing nations are in general lacks of financial and technical capabilities (In addition, they also lack of scientific infrastructure; lack of data and information; lack of sufficient scientific infrastructure etc. For detail analysis, see I.B.R Supancana, The Commercialization of Space Activities, Challenges an, Opportunities for Developing Countries" paper presented at UN/Indonesia Regional Conference on Space Science and Technology for Sustainable Development, Bandung Indonesia, 17-21 May 1993. See also I.B.I Supancana, "Commercial Utilization o Outer Space and Its Legal Formulation Developing Countries' Perspectives", Bra ceedines of the DM Thirty-Fourth Collomuium rm the Law of (Inter Spar. Montreal Canada, 1991, pp 348 - 356). In recent years, we can observe the increasing utilization of natural resource in outer space, especially earth-orbits spectrum resource (GEO, HEO, MEO/ICO, LEO) for certain activities. As it is generally recognized, that earth-orbits spectrum resources are limited natural resources, there must be an evaluation to the existing law whether it i able to accommodate the interest of both developed and developing countries in fair, just and equitable manner. Previously regulations concerning access to earth-orbits spectrum resources. are mainly based on "first come, first serve principle which are more favorable it accommodating the interest of developed countries. However, consistent efforts on the part of developing countries to get a fair and just access to this limited natural resource have shown substantial progress This can be seen in the outcome of Work Administrative Radio Conferences of th. ITU at their 1985 and 1988 sessions. The. concept of "apriori planning' and "simplifier improved procedures" provides guarantee. for access, particularly those of develop* countries. Furthermore, the concepts an elaborated in the amendment of the ITC Convention as appears in ITU Constitution of 1992. In the practical management o: earth-orbits' utilization some new rules hay. been applied such as ...administrative du. diligence' and 'financial due diligence' ti prevent the abuse of rights in the ITU ' registration process like: "paper satellites' "excessive and un-proportional" application. AC – Inequality Contention two: Inequality The current “first come first serve” in international law denies the global south their rights to geostationary orbit – pollution from the global north will crowd out orbital accessViikari 7 [(Lotta, PhD in Faculty of Law @ International Institute of Air and Space Law, Leiden University) “The Environmental Element in Space Law, ” 2007, ISBN 978-90-04-16744-5, Koninklijke Brill, p 21-23.] TDIAt the beginning of the space era, not many other states possessed any capacity to engage in space activities. Nevertheless, the UN space treaties constantly use phrases such as “province of all mankind”, “for the benefit and in the interests of all countries”, or “common heritage of mankind” when referring to outer space and the activities relating thereto. Accordingly, one would imagine that this ‘mankind’ (or humankind) plays a prominent role in the governance of space activities. In the same vein, speaking about outer space and its resources in terms of ‘global commons’67 suggests that it is the global community that is in charge of the management of these areas which fall outside the scope of national jurisdictions. This global community has been, first and foremost, the community of states, which has concluded international conventions for managing outer space relatively early in the history of human space activities. In practice, the language of the space treaties promises much more for the humankind as a whole than what space utilization actually provides it with. The benefits do not accrue evenly among humanity (or even the state community) in accordance with some common regime. Instead, the space sector largely follows the far less noble principles of the modern industrial economy.Furthermore, states are increasingly not the unitary rational actors of the traditional assumptions. Neither are they autonomous but embedded in a framework of interactions among numerous entities in the international system. Despite the fact that space activities continue to be extremely hazardous and costly, there exist today a variety of different actors who are willing to invest in this sector. This is obviously due to the significant potential benefits which the use of outer space entails. The universe contains a myriad of natural resources, varying from solar power to minerals in celestial bodies. Also outer space as a whole has been depicted as a resource: one need only consider, for instance, the possibilities that the mere existence of Earth orbits provides for satellite activities. Now that technological development has enabled the utilization of space also for those capable of lesser investments, states comprise only a part of the global network of entities active in the space sector. In such a setting, the management of space activities by states alone is proving increasingly complicated and inefficient.Indeed, states are facing serious legitimacy problems in the space sector. In order to retain their focal position, states need to demonstrate that they are relevant agents also as regards the new challenges confronted in this area. They have not succeeded very well here, however. The international legal instruments thus far adopted for the regulation of space activities have mostly proven far too vague, and the state community has failed to reach agreement on new instruments (other than legally non-binding declarations and the like) for some decades already. Moreover, considering that states have faced major difficulties in achieving substantial improvements in any natural conditions of global magnitude, their possibilities in the environmental management of outer space seem less than promising.Nevertheless, in the formation of the international law of outer space, the focal organ still is the United Nations. It was originally founded for very different purposes than solving today’s global crises, which center around environmental and development issues rather than questions of world peace.68 As an organization of states, the UN also directly reflects the problems related to states and their role in the international system. One is the fact that there are many kinds of states. For instance, although sovereign states formally are all equal, some of them are in reality far more influential and active in the space sector and, accordingly, have much greater practical interests in the international regulation of this area. In addition to being ‘big business’ economically, space activities play a major role politically. This was particularly evident during the Cold War in the ‘space race’ between the US and the Soviet Union, but the political and strategic relevance of space by no means vanished at the end of the Cold War.69The space sector also needs to cope with the global differences in development. Despite the global commons rhetoric, the relationship between more and less developed areas (‘the North’ and ‘the South’) is most often depicted in terms of conflict. Outer space as an environment and a resource is typically perceived as some sort of a limited ‘pie’ of rights, to which all states aspire. However, such rights often appear in practice as something very close to a right to destroy and pollute the environment if needed (in the name of utilization). Conflicts will unavoidably arise, as more or less all states today share the same basic ideology of industrial development, for the purposes of which outer space is seen as a mere resource available for exploitation by all who have the necessary means. This is only likely to intensify the competition for the limited possibilities.In such a situation, it is no surprise that the North, which has the means to conduct space activities, is eager to perceive outer space and its resources as common property, available on the basis of the ‘first come, first served’ principle. The South, on the other hand, is concerned about being guaranteed adequate possibilities for equal benefits either now or in the future. Southern states expect technical assistance to enable them to utilize outer space, the reservation of ‘their share’ for possible future use, or financial compensation for allowing the exploitation of ‘their’ resources by others.70 Typically, those states have also been in favor of the inclusion of liability regimes in international environmental agreements whereas the North has more often resisted provisions to that end.71 Environmental degradation is making the picture increasingly complicated: if space activities need to be limited already in the name of environmental protection, the prospects for the current non-spacefaring nations to realize their ‘reserved’ rights in the future do not look too bright. As a matter of fact, increased environmental standards could generate even more benefits for the technologically most developed nations and thereby widen the gap between the North and the South. If, for instance, technical standards or pollution reductions are made mandatory, this will give a competitive advantage to the countries which can afford the technology needed to comply with such norms. Moreover, such requirements would necessitate further development of technology, which is likely to create still further competitive advantage. Hence, it seems inevitable that tensions between the environment and development cannot be averted in the space sector, nor can a setting be avoided where many of the key issues pit developed against developing countriesThe G77 vision for space property rights prevents inter-galactic inequality – refusing to integrate outer space into leftist political-economic critique cedes the cosmos to corporate capitalismLevine 15 [(Nick LEVINE, MPhil Candidate Philosophy of Science @ Cambridge) “Space Industry Extraction,” 2015, ] As Below, So AboveLeft critics of space proposals make the same mistakes as the most techno-utopian starry-eyed industrialists. From the point of view of the latter, celestial development will provide ultimate salvation to the human race by making us a multi-planetary species; the former see outer space as an infinite void essentially antagonistic to human life, interest in which is only orchestrated for cynical political ends. Each side misconceives extraterrestrial pursuits as qualitatively different from economic activities on Earth.Venturing into space may be a greater technical challenge; it may cost more, be more dangerous, or be a mistaken use of resources. But to understand these prospects in existential terms rather than as a new episode in the familiar history of industrial development and resource extraction — with all the political-strategic dangers and organizing opportunities that come with them — is to be blinded by the space romanticism that is a peculiar vestige of Cold War geopolitics.Whether and how we should go to space are not profound philosophical questions, at least not primarily. What’s at stake is not just the “stature of man,” as Hannah Arendt put it, but a political-economic struggle over the future of the celestial commons, which could result in a dramatic intensification of inequality — or a small step for humankind toward a more egalitarian state of affairs on our current planet.Undoubtedly, there are good reasons to be skeptical about going to space. Some have argued that it shifts attention away from solving the difficult problems of economic and environmental justice on Earth — think of Gil Scott-Heron’s spoken-word poem “Whitey on the Moon,” which juxtaposes the deprivation of the American underclass with the vast resources diverted to space.Scott-Heron’s critique is powerful, but it’s important to remember that he was denouncing an unjust economic system. He wasn’t issuing a timeless condemnation of space pursuits as such. Whether the aims of providing for all and developing outer space are mutually exclusive depends on the political forces on the ground.We might also question whether mining asteroids would be detrimental to our current planet’s environment in the medium term. If we don’t find a renewable way to blast off into outer space, the exploitation of these resources could lead to an intensification of, not a move away from, the fossil-fuel economy.If the environmental impact of space mining turns out to be large, it would be analogous to fracking — a technological development that gives us access to new resources, but with devastating ecological side effects — and ought to be opposed on similar grounds. On the other hand, some speculate that mining the Moon’s Helium-3 reserves, for example, could provide an abundant source of clean energy. The terrestrial environmental impact of space activity remains an open question that must be explored before we stake our hopes on the economic development of outer space.Philosophers have suggested that we might have ethical duties to preserve the “natural” states of celestial bodies. Others fear that our activities might unknowingly wipe out alien microbial life. We should remain sensitive to the aesthetic and cultural value of outer space, as well as the potential for extinction and the exhaustion of resources misleadingly proclaimed to be limitless.But if the Left rejects space on these grounds we abandon its fate to the will of private interests. These concerns shouldn’t cause us to write off space altogether — rather, they should motivate us even more to fight for the careful, democratic use of celestial resources for the benefit of all.There is also reason to be cautiously optimistic about extending economic activity to outer space. For one, the resources there — whether platinum-group metals useful in electronics, or fuels that could be central to the semi-independent functioning of an outer space economy — have the potential to raise our standards of living. Imagine, a superabundance of asteroid metals that are scarce on Earth, like platinum, driving the sort of automation that could expand output and reduce the need to work.Of course, there’s nothing inevitable about the benefits of productivity gains being distributed widely, as we’ve seen in the United States over the past forty years. This is a problem not limited to space, and the myth of the “final frontier” must not distract us from the already existing problems of wealth and income distribution on Earth.While the industrialization of the solar system isn’t a panacea for all economic ills, it does offer a significant organizing opportunity, since it will force a confrontation over the future of the vast celestial commons.The democratic possibilities of such a struggle have been recognized before: one conservative American citizens’ group in the 1970s called a progressive UN space treaty a “vital component of Third World demands for massive redistribution of wealth so as ultimately to equate the economic positions of the two hemispheres.” Many in the 1970s identified the egalitarian potential in the development of outer space, and the Left must not overlook it today.Back to the FutureOne of the Group of 77’s major goals was to apply some of the redistributive functions of the welfare state on a global scale. In 1974, that coalition issued a “Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order,” which called for a fairer system of global trade and resource distribution, one that could alleviate historical inequality. One of the battlegrounds for the Group of 77 was the negotiation over extraterrestrial property rights.The Outer Space Treaty of 1967, signed by over ninety countries in the heat of the first sprint to the moon, rejected the notion that celestial bodies fell under the legal principle of res nullius — meaning that outer space was empty territory that could be claimed for a nation through occupation. It forbade the “national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means” of outer space.But the treaty was not just restrictive. It also had a positive requirement for extraterrestrial conduct: “The exploration and use of outer space,” it declared, “shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development, and shall be the province of all mankind.” However, nobody knew what this would mean in practice: was it a call for egalitarian economics, or an empty proclamation of liberal benevolence?Complicating matters, it was unclear whether the extraction and sale of natural resources from outer space fell under the category of “appropriation,” which had been forbidden. And what exactly was this benefit to all countries that our outer space pursuits were supposed to bring? How would its distribution be enforced? Which interpretation would win out was more a question of political power than of esoteric legal maneuvers.The Group of 77 took an activist approach to these issues, proposing amendments to the Outer Space Treaty regime that would spread the economic benefits of the celestial commons to less developed countries that did not have the resources to get to space, let alone mine it.Thus in 1970, the Argentine delegate to the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space proposed to legally designate outer space and its resources “the common heritage of mankind.” First applied in negotiations over maritime law a few years earlier, the “common heritage” concept was intended to give legal grounding to the peaceful international governance of the commons.As an alternative to the laissez-faire approach advocated by many private interests, the “common heritage” principle also provided a legal framework for the democratic distribution of revenues derived from the international commons. In 1973, the Indian delegation to the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space tried to put this idea into celestial practice, proposing an amendment to the Outer Space Treaty that called for equitable sharing of space benefits, particularly with developing countries.The Brazilian delegate to the committee summarized the group’s position: “It does not seem justifiable . . . that space activities . . . should evolve in a climate of total laissez-faire, which would conceal under the cloak of rationality new ways for an abusive exercise of power by those who exert control over technology.” Despite opposition from both the Soviet Union and the United States, the final draft of this new outer space agreement included a version of the “common heritage of mankind” doctrine.When the finalized treaty was brought to the US in 1979 for ratification, business groups balked. The vision of egalitarian galactic democracy suggested by the document was rightly seen as contrary to narrow American interests.The United Technologies Corp?oration, a designer and manufacturer of aircrafts and other heavy machinery (including the Black Hawk helicopter) took out a large advertisement in the Washington Post and a number of other newspapers, warning that the treaty would establish an “OPEC-like monopoly, require mandatory transfer of technology, and impose high international taxes on profits as a way of shifting wealth from the developed to the less developed countries.”The president of the corporation, Alexander Haig, also testified against the treaty in Congress in 1979, warning that “the common heritage concept expressed in the treaty underlies Third World efforts directed at a fundamental redistribution of global wealth.” Haig was hired as Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state in 1981, and political opposition to the bill forced NASA’s chief counsel to abandon defense of the treaty.In the end, the Moon Treaty, as the 1979 document came to be known, failed to gain more than a few signatories, leaving open the question of how the benefits of outer space were to be shared. In 1988, a different coalition of developing countries added the question of space benefits to the UN outer space committee’s agenda. But they failed to gain traction, and by 1993 they had to concede, as two long-time delegates to the outer space committee put it, that “their attempt [at] a redistributive revolution in international space cooperation had failed.”The conversation had shifted from the distribution of economic benefits to a narrower emphasis on international scientific coordination and development aid. This retreat culminated in a 1996 declaration that limited the interpretation of the “benefit” clause of the Outer Space Treaty to vague promises to help less developed countries improve their space technologies.The ultimate failure of the Moon Treaty was representative of broader developments in international politics, as the influence of the Group of 77 declined. The fact that the structural adjustment policies of the Washington Consensus won out over the Third World’s redistributive goals was the result of contingent factors — the oil shock’s exacerbation of debt crises, for instance — but it also indicated the limits of the power the Group of 77 had wielded in the first place.In October 2014, the UN outer space committee issued a press release summarizing its most recent session. Its headline: “Outer Space Benefits Must Not Be Allowed to Widen Global Gap between Economic, Social Inequality, Fourth Committee Told.” Despite paying lip service to its past concerns, the outer space committee now emphasizes equal access, voluntary technology transfers, and modest development aid over the direct redistributive approach it took in the 1970s.This shift from struggling for equality of outcome to equality of opportunity, with no accountability mechanism in place to ensure even the latter, represents a striking regression. The egalitarian dreams of the “revolution of the colonized” in the UN, as it was called at the time, have been forgotten.Space democratization holds the potential to decelerates and ultimately reduce global inequality – consider outer space as immediately relevant to terrestrial affairs because it coproduces terrestrial political economyKlinger 18 [(Julie Michelle, Professor of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University) “A Brief History of Outer Space Cooperation Between Latin America and China,” Journal of Latin American Geography, Volume 17, Number 2, 2018] TDIAs envisioned during the Cold War in a series of conferences among newly or nearly independent states3, South-South cooperation would consist of mutual support and solidarity among Third World, developing, or nonaligned states. By sharing technology, expertise, and capital, delegates from these countries envisioned a world in which formerly subjugated nations would build modern and prosperous societies (Tsing, 2005; Prashad, 2007; Mielniczuk, 2013). Many have critiqued China’s twenty-first century “South-South” and “win-win” rhetoric toward Latin American countries as a ploy to advance asymmetrical, pro-China agendas that reinforce Latin America’s subordinate position in the global division of labor ( Jenkins, 2012; Barbosa, 2010; Moreira, 2007). Although the picture is demonstrably more complex (Mora, 1999; Oliveira, 2004; Klinger, 2015; Narins, 2017; Oliveira, 2017), these critiques arise from legitimate environmental, economic, and geopolitical concerns (Queiroz, 2009; Escudé, 2011; Ray et al., 2017; Ray, 2017; Pirzkall, 2017). However, it is noteworthy that in keeping with the mid-twentieth-century ideals of South-South cooperation, in the outer space sector the exchange of scientific and technological expertise has actually occurred, with several African, Asian, and Latin American countries supporting the advancement of one another’s space programs (Wood & Weigel, 2012; Sarli et al., 2015; Peter, 2006; Nagendra, 2016).This is not to suggest that outer space cooperation is benign or apolitical. Existing inequalities and political struggles on Earth are manifest in outer space development (e.g. Committee, 2009; Jasentuliyana, 1994). A growing body of geographical literature analyzes outer space as a key area in which Earthly politics are expressed and an increasingly important arena with which Earthly political economies are coproduced (Beery, 2011; Messeri, 2016). The manner in which outer space is imagined and represented is dialectically related to ongoing practices of resource use, technological development, and scientific research on Earth (Geppert, 2007; Beery, 2016; Klinger, 2017). Human engagement with outer space reflects unequal power relations on Earth, while also holding the potential to either mitigate or exacerbate structural injustices. In an important recognition of the capacity for human society to engage in outer space for better or for worse, the international community enshrined outer space as the “province of all mankind [sic],” and mandated that it be used only for peaceful purposes in the 1967 Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and other Celestial Bodies (hereafter Outer Space Treaty, or OST) (UN, 1967).Because the services provided by spacebased technologies are so crucial to economic, political, and cultural globalization, access to outer space and use of space-based data is important to culture, scientific progress, development, and geopolitical competition (Penley, 1997; Parks & Schwoch, 2012; Harrison, 2013). Therefore, contemporary society cannot be understood without considering “the ever-increasing dependence of mankind [sic] on space-based services,” (Al-Rodhan, 2016, p. 124). This includes the importance of outer space to capital accumulation (Dickens, 2007; Klinger, 2017), military strategy (Dolman, 2002; Sage, 2008), and the maintenance of heteropatriarchy (Pesterfield, 2016; Weitekamp, 2004). The accumulating significance of outer space-based technologies compels us to rethink those areas of outer space in which human activity is concentrated as immediately relevant to Earthly affairs at all levels, rather than as being beyond the global. This requires social scientists to rescale our inquiries to account for a defining feature of our age: the behavior of markets, states, social movements, and scientists is mediated through outer space-based technologies. These technologies link local, national, and international actors and institutions to their enabling infrastructures in outer space. Practically speaking, this means that orbital space is another critical scale of inquiry in social science in general, and in Latin America-China relations in particular.Regional space assets are key to development goals – status quo foreign aid competition fractures regional alliancesLiao 15 [(Xavier L.W., PhD in Political Science at Ghent University) “The Growing Space Regionalization of the Global Space Regime Complex” The Aviation & Space Journal, January/March 2015, No 1.] TDIDynamics of regional astropoliticsRegional spacefaring countries often seek to demonstrate their regional leadership, or to ensure the regional power - balance equilibrium by creating a regional space - related regime under their cooperative supremacy. In order to counter their political adver-saries and strategic competitors in the same geographical region, these regional space regimes provide technological facilities and space applications incentives to involve neighbouring allies into the interdependency of a regional space system. These region-al space regimes determine what would be the centralities for the cooperation net-works. They set up norms, rules or practical arrangements for security, safety, com-mercial and ecological cooperation. When one regional space power starts up a space regionalism process, the other regional powers will duplicate the same action to counter it. Quite often, space regionalism of this kind might not aim to enhance substan-tial regional space cooperation, but aims to counter other space regionalization initia-tives led by other spacefaring countries in the same region. In practice, these regional regimes offer cooperation incentives that are similar to what their counterpart organi-zations offers in order not to loose the overlapping member states that are affiliated with the competing regional space regimes. But, these regional space regimes normal-ly only provide vital exclusive cooperation projects to satisfy the loyal allies who stand historically, ideologically or culturally on the same side of the leading space power. The regional space leaders cautiously release any critical technology or know - how if they are unsure about the possible fair return from or possible leaks lamed by their protégés.An example, which demonstrates that the dynamics of regional astropolitics sparked duplicate space regionalization processes led by adversary or competitive regional spacefaring states occurred in the 1970s among the Arab League states. In principle, it would be perfect if a unique Arab regional satellite system regulatory and cooperation mechanism can be established in order to efficiently coordinate national satellite communication frequency attribution, avoid transnational radio signal interference, and to disseminate a pooled satellite TV and radio broadcasting program gathered from different Arabic - speaking states for the benefits of the entire Arab League states. But the reality was, when Saudi Arabia was arising during the 1970s oil boom and Egypt endured the subsequent expulsion from the Arab League following its 1979 peace treaty with Israel, the competing space regionalism between Egypt and Saudi Arabia has led to the consequence that the Cairo - led Arab States Broadcasting Union (ASBU) created in the 1960s was heavily challenged by the Riyadh - led Arab Satellite Communication Organization (ARABSAT) founded in 1970s. The two regional satellite related operations organizations, which shared the overlapping membership of the Arab League states, could hardly work together. Further to the ASBU - ARABSAT com-petitive regionalization story in the 1970s, it occurred recently that competition be-tween the Japan - led APRSAF and the China - led APSCO, and perhaps soon the neces-sary addition of an India - led SAARC satellite network, are vying for leading a regional-ism of their own in the Asia - Pacific region. The different regional space regimes with overlapping objectives and membership are created based on the competition be-tween the leading regional spacefaring states. Since the functioning of these regional regimes is highly connected to the regional astropolitics, the regional member states will choose their affiliation by pragmatism to fulfil their own short - term interests, noted as ‘ regime shopping ’. In the case of APRSAF vs. APSCO, the overlapping member states are mostly from the ASEAN countries. These countries take part in both regional space regimes but only pick the issue - relevant cooperation, which fits their respective national interest instead of being fully engaged into any regional astropolitical strate-gic interdependency.The quest for regional space capacity - buildingThe collective quest for developing common regional space capacity or a specific or exclusive regional space system ( e.g. for satellite TV and radio broadcasting, disaster mitigation, navigation safety, and Earth Observation) can also stimulate and nourish space regionalisation. The regionalisation is therefore undertaken with actors ’ func-tional or cost - benefit logic. By knowing the fact that developing space capacity and upholding it is an expensive and highly risky business, there is no country, even not the US that can handle it alone. Pooling different material or immaterial resources to de-velop regional space capacity doubtlessly becomes the optimal and legitimate strate-gy for collective and individual prosperity and benefits. Since the space ‘ democratization ’ after the Cold War, emergent industrial countries and developing continents have various ways to continue or to start up their own space capacity. Hence, they are all keen to enjoy the utilities of space technology applications for military, civil or dual - use.The path of the European space regionalization in pursuit of its collective prosperity and common benefits was a well - known example. Europe started its space regionaliza-tion from the early 1960s by having established two different space agencies. The Eu-ropean Launch Development Organisation (ELDO) to develop a European launcher sys-tem with six member states and one associate member. The other, the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO) with 10 members was created to develop Europe-an spacecraft. Soon after, the ELDO and the ESRO were merged to become the Euro-pean Space Agency (ESA) in 1964. It was only in 1975 the ESA formally and operation-ally replaced the two organisations. One of the reasons for that the European states explored a regional space institutional centrality, such as the ELDO, ESRO and ESA, were based on the aforementioned strategic and functional logics for their respective national interests. These regional space institutions gradually created a interdepend-ent space network which gathered the crucial space capability elements among the intra - regional partners and facilitate the member states to exchange resources, rein-force their own national space capability, share financial burdens and reduce the risks of marketing failure. Additionally, the space regionalization has strengthened European regional political and economic position to on the one hand, reduce the dependen-cy on the US space capacity. It offered the leverage to allow Europe to explore possi-ble space cooperation with the Soviet Union. Until now, the European space regionali-zation is subsequently viewed as the most inspiring model and was duplicated by other regional spacefaring countries that also try to create their respective space regionali-zation. Another case was the ARABSAT, the ARABSAT established in 1976 was dedicated to answers the regional request for providing satellite services in order to facilitate tele-communication, promote common culture and education programs in the light of the commitments of the Arab League Charter member states. The ARABSAT became the major regional space mechanism for the Arab League member states to coordinate satellite industries and services operators. Similarly, the enthusiast initiatives and debates about a start - up of an expected Latin - American Space Agency (LASA) (Monroy 2010) 10 and the recent kick - off of the 1 st Latin American Satellite Communication and Broadcasting Summit ( Space Mart 2014) 11 , an ASEAN Space Organization (ASO) (Noichim) 12 , or an African Space Agency (ASA) (Martinez 2012 13 ; Aganaba - Jeanty 2013 14 ) took place constantly. These space regionalism initiatives mostly stress indigenous regional space capacity building. Yet, due to a lack of a strong spacefaring nation to continuously lead and carry on these space regionalization initiatives, concrete start - up hardly takes off. In these cases, extra - regional assistance is expected to bring suit-able technology and sufficient means, but this causes worries of triggering an unex-pected regional astropolitics reshuffle that can destabilize the equilibrium of the en-tire regional homo astro ecosystem.In the Asia - Pacific region, the Japan - led APRSAF and the China - led APSCO are both committed to establish a regional space technology cooperative regime for their over-overlapping Asia - Pacific member states. The APRSAF, claimed as a voluntary regional space agency cooperation mechanism, aims to lead a long - term and mid - term space capacity building regionalization throughout space science and technology coopera-tion activities though the Japanese Space Basic Law, approved by the two Parlia-ments in 2005, explicitly states that ‘ space diplomacy ’ is one of the objectives that Japan shall integrate into its future national space policy. The APSCO, particularly after the launch of the Chinese Beidou (COMPASS) Satellite Navigation System, pro-motes APSCO regional partners e.g. Thailand, Pakistan (and it is expected other ASEAN states) to share the benefits of China ’ s satellite navigation system by hosting the ground network facilities in their territories. Until now, the question whether these two regional space regimes could respond to the quest for regional space ca-pacity needs further observation, particularly since the India - led South Asian Associa-tion of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) ( The Times of India 2014) 15 seems also enthusi-astic to gain the regional space leadership by exploring the similar method with a South Asian approach for proposing a tentative SAARC Satellite Service project.Necessity of regional space governanceNowadays, it occurs that the neighbouring states develop their own space systems for national satellite telecommunication, weather monitoring, TV and radio broadcast-ing, and navigation services for military or civil utilities. Subsequently, these systems are not compatible due to the blockage based on the national security concerns or simply caused by technical incompatibility. Throughout the regionalisation process, states negotiate common measures, such as regulations, standards, tariffs, and inter-ference avoidance rules for heterogeneous national space systems within a given geo-graphical region. Especially nowadays, the growing commercialization of space tech-nology for its design, manufacture, launch and operations and its application for tele-communication, TV and radio broadcasting, remote sensing and navigation are in-creasingly taking more ground, the quest of establishing regional common conduct rules and operational standards become more and more important. The necessity for institutionalise such regional space governance architecture is doubtless uncontested. These space regimes are created to respond to these specific needs. Yet, whether the design as well as the perfection path for building any regional space regimes de-pends on whether the desired regime meets its member states ’ strategic calculation and functional concerns. This often made the managerial manoeuvre of a given space regionalisation more complicate and complex.The aforementioned Arab Satellite Communications Organization (ARABSAT since 1976) that established an Arab Space Communication network, the Asia - Pacific Broad-casting Union (ABU since 1964) - a regional platform for national TV and radio broad-casters (which are mostly state - owned at least from their staring period) the Asia Pacific regional – set up the ABU Emergency Warning Broadcasting Systems (EWBS) to disseminate information to alert people of neighbouring countries before a disaster occurs. Together with ARABSAT and ABU the Regional African Satellite Communica-tions Organization (RASCOM) were all created for the reason of regional space gov-ernance in Africa, and are examples of the space regionalization for improving re-gional space governance. To enable this space governance regionalization, the parties of a regional group seemingly need to posses similar space capacities and the willing-ness to share a common development strategy. Nowadays, as the commercialization of all development steps of satellite technology (production, launch and operations) and all utilities of satellite technology applications (communication, broadcasting, remote sensing and navigation) are growingly taking more ground, which increasingly the quests of coordinating common regional conduct rules and operational standards may become more important but will also become more complex.Extra - regional inputsApart from the intra - regional inputs, the inputs from the extra - regional dimension also offer sounding influences in sparking and to fuelling the rise of space regionalisa-tion. These extra - regional inputs can be perceived from three dimensions of the glob-al space regime complex: (1) the stimuli from extra - regional space powers, (2) the inspiration other regionalisation from other regionalisation ( mirror effect ), and (3) the endorsement from global space related regimes. It is important to state that never a single one of these inputs but always a mix of them results in the activation and the growth of these space regionalisation processes in different regions.Space powers ’ stimulationThe stimuli from extra - regional space powers, namely from the US, Russia and nowa-days China, India or others, are centripetal forces that congregate various new regional space centralities. These space powers, with their crucial technology know - how and financial supports, push to institutionalise a regional space centrality is either to en-hance their ties with the extent allies, make new friends or attract new followers from non - spacefaring countries in a given region. This outreach toward the regional level is supposed to increase the respective space power ’ s political and strategic in-fluences on both regional and global astropolitics. It is also commercially interesting for the space powers to conquer foreign regional markets more efficiently. As for the choice where to do such space power stretch exercises, it depends on every space power ’ s geopolitical concerns and strategic interests. Furthermore, while sponsoring a given space regionalisation, the space powers do not provide full space capacity assis-tance and do not offer it for free neither. The attractive incentives for the accommodating countries for having and keeping the deals are often accompanied with strict conditions. The U.S. has supported most of their allies in the Western European and Asia - Pacific regions by sharing American space technologies, know - how , as well providing finan-cial aid to the regional leading states for building their space capacities, though often through bilateral cooperation channel. This bilateral cooperation has indirectly facili-tated the foundation of space regionalization. While building these strategic space interdependencies, Washington usually requires the beneficiary states of American space system and products to behave strictly under the US International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). The ITAR has unilateral power to decide whether a piece of technology can be sold to the US allies or interested states or companies, but it can also sanction the contractor if contracted project is leaked to a third party. Conse-quently, European states were somehow pushed to seek their independency or at least non - dependency from the US, and therefore wanted to create their own regional space cluster. The Soviet Union was doing the same during the Cold War by forcing the Eastern European socialist states into a closer regional space community. Finally, whether a targeted region has political desires and adequate capacity to host and develop a given space regionalisation sponsored by extra - regional space powers has no co - relationship to the efforts provided by the space powers. The former Soviet Union has incorporated the Eastern European socialist states into a closer regional space community. These days, Russia is doing it again with the Eurasia states via the space related regional cooperation, such as the Russia - Kazakhstan - Belarus formed Eurasia Economic Union (EEU). Russia also claimed to study Armenia ’ s capacity of using space for peaceful purposes under the Russia - Armenia cooperation framework in scientific, technical and industrial areas. However, after the Russia - Ukraine stand-off, Russia cessed the longstanding space cooperation with Ukraine ( Space News 2015) 16 . With a strong geopolitical mind - set, Africa, Latin America, ASEAN and Central Asia became nowadays the new power playground for the US, Russia and China to bid for allies or followers. In this circumstance, non - spacefaring states from a given re-gions often undertake the practice of ‘ regime shopping ’ (Keohane & Victor 2011) by opting the most advantageous regimes in accordance to their functional interests and preferences to gain beneficial issue linkages. The stimuli from the space powers are valuable to help the space regionalization. Yet, it can hardly be the only factor to lead such processes to its final goal.Regional cooperation is crucial to effective data integration and reducing interoperability costsGottschalk 8 [(Gottschalk, Political Studies Department, University of the Western Cape) “The Roles of Africa’s Institutions in Ensuring Africa’s Active Participation in the Space Enterprise: The Case for an African Space Agency (ASA),” African Skies/Cieux Africains, No. 12, 2008] TDIBy contrast, the underdeveloped, poorer countries of our continent only managed to re-engineer the ineffective OAU into the African Union in 2002 — and have not yet pooled their resources to form an African space agency. Let us spell out explicitly the case for continental coordination.First is the efficient and effective use of our scarce resources. Africa is a capital-scarce continent. The allocation of resources to the extreme cost of access to space requires solid justification. The space enterprise also demands an allocation of scarce high-level human resources, plus costly hi-tech peripherals. Even combined as a whole continent, Africa will command less space resources than an individual member of ESA such as France. Consequently, the space enterprise in Africa needs such coordination far more than Europe does.Second is the argument from spherical geometry. The geosynchronous orbit footprint of a satellite is continental, and of all the continents Africa more than any other has the equator at its centre, optimal for geo-stationary orbit-keeping. Medium-Earth Orbit satellites have a footprint which covers the whole of a Regional Economic Community, such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the East African Community (EAC), or the Southern African Development Community (SADC).One after another, Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa are now launching national constellations of micro sats whose image swathes run through each other’s countries — but we download data from less than 1% of each orbit of our satellites. It is logical to download data continuously during the transect of every satellite’s orbit over the whole of Africa, and to centrally archive and process such data. South Africa is discussing co-ordinated satellite programmes with African countries.1 As a continent we will be able to negotiate better offers for satellite construction, space launches, technology transfer, and share data, scarce facilities and infrastructure, than as individual small countries alone. Security issues, such as images of a specific location, or of a specific resolution, can be easily resolved by inter-governmental agreement. The African Resource Management Constellation will be best operated by a continental space agency.Space assets provide information communication technology and telemedicine – only common but differentiated responsibilities can solveFerreira-Snyman 13 [(Anél, B Juris (PUCHE); LLB (PUCHE); LLM (PUCHE); LLD (UJ). Professor: Department of Jurisprudence, at University of South Africa) “The environmental responsibility of states for space debris and the implications for developing countries in Africa” The Comparative and International Law Journal of Southern Africa, Vol. 46, No. 1, 44-49, 2013] TDI As was pointed out at the onset, the involvement of states in space activities is no longer a mere luxury, but is increasingly becoming a necessity. Although it may be argued that African states are already struggling merely to meet the UN Millennium Development Goals and cannot, therefore, be expected to engage in space activities, space technology can be used in a number of beneficial ways,152 and involvement in space activities is especially important for their development and human security.153 This will also answer the objectives of NEPAD, which has identified the development of science and technology on the African continent as one of its sectoral priorities.154 In terms of section 13 of the Constitutive Act of the Africa Union,155 the Executive Council of the Union shall coordinate and take decisions on policies in certain areas of common interest to member states, including science and technology.156 Specifically, the use of satellite technology has the potential to promote a state's development and assist in transforming the socio-economic needs of its citizens.157 Communication satellites can provide developing states with the opportunity to communicate freely and to access in imperative for their economic, social, and technical development.158 Satellites are used for disaster management through remote sensing in order to promote human safety in the instance of disasters such as, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, and wildfires.159 Space telecommunication systems can also play an important role in promoting education on the African continent by, for example, providing for distance education via satellite, and by giving advice to farmers on the planting of their crops.160 In the health sector, too, space technology has a significant role to play in areas of tele-medicine (where specialists assist health care workers in remote areas by providing diagnostic and curative assistance), preventative health care, and infant mortality.16 These socio-economic benefits have made the development of space programmes attractive to a number of developing states.162 Several African states have also realised the importance of space technology in achieving their national development goals, as well as the Millennium Development Goals.163 Modest space programmes have, therefore, been launched which are mainly focused on earth observation for the purpose of environmental and agricultural monitoring in order to serve social and development goals. The main actors in this field are Nigeria, South Africa and Algeria. Nigeria has already launched a number of satellites on foreign launchers.164 After launching a government-owned earth observation satellite in 2009, South Africa established a national space agency165 in 2010 to implement South Africa's space policy166 which is focused on capacity-building, the development of space applications, and international space cooperation. South Africa has also created the South African National Space, Science and Technology Strategy. Algeria has a national space agency, and has constructed a centre for the development of satellites.167 Other states in North Africa, including Tunisia, Morocco, and Egypt (the fourth state to launch a satellite in Africa) also have space agencies or space application centres.168 Angola has shown an interest in space technology and concluded a contract for a communications satellite with Russia in 2009.169 A number of African states, including South Africa, have also enacted their own domestic space legislation. On a regional level, the African Leadership Conference on Space Science and Technology for Sustainable Development was established by South Africa, Algeria, Kenya, and Nigeria to discuss space-related issues. Between 2005 and 2011, four conferences have been held and their recommendations have been shared with non-African member states of the UNCOPUOS.171 A declaration of intent on the African Management and Environmental Constellation was signed by South Africa, Nigeria, and Algeria in 2008. The data accumulated by earth observation satellites in the lower earth orbit will be shared by these three states.172 On an international level, South Africa has shown that it has a role to play in the international space arena. It served as co-chair of the Group on Earth Observations in 2005, and it chaired the Committee of Earth Observation Satellites in 2008. In 2009, the European Union-South Africa Space Dialogue was established. In May 2012, an independent advisory committee decided that the world's largest and most advanced radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will be constructed on sites in South Africa (with the majority of transmitters being sited here), Australia, and New Zealand. The telescope will be used to explore deep space in order to study the origins of the universe and detect weak signals indicating possible extraterritorial life.173 These opportunities for international cooperation have the potential of increasing the space capacity of developing states in Africa. As African states realise the socio-economic and human security benefits of space applications and thus become increasingly involved in space activities, the issue of space debris will inevitably also become a greater concern for these states. The consequences of damage as a result of satellites being involved in accidents with space debris will be especially serious for the developing states which have limited resources.175 There is also a possibility of environmental damage on the territories of the developing states as a result of falling space debris. It is, therefore, imperative that more African states (including states not involved in space activities) become parties to and comply with the space treaties. They should further increase their representation in the UNCOPUOS in order to have stronger bargaining power and influence in this Committee, by presenting a united African position on space issues One of the issues that will need to be negotiated between developing and developed states, is the responsibility for current and future levels of space debris. As the current levels of space debris are proportionate to the number of space launches to date, a greater responsibility for the maintenance of the environment should be assigned to the space powers that have carried out these launches.177 This is in accordance with the environmental law principle of ' common but differentiated responsibilities ' that is enunciated in a number of international environmental law instruments.178 In terms of this principle, which is based on the idea of international equity, environmental degradation has its origin mainly in industrialised countries and they should, therefore, be primarily responsible for eradicating environmental pollution. These countries usually also have greater capacity to respond to environmental problems and they should, therefore, assist developing countries in accessing relevant resources and technologies to achieve sustainable development.179 As a result of the difference in the social, economic, and ecological circumstances of states, the environmental standards applied to industrialised and developing countries cannot be the same, hence the need for a differentiated approach. In the context of outer space, non-space-faring nations insist that the space faring nations (thus mainly industrialised countries) that have caused (and continue to cause) the current levels of space pollution, should bear the main responsibility to improve the situation, so as to guarantee the possibility of future space activity (including that of developing states). Space-faring nations are obviously in a better position to take the necessary action in this regard.181Lack of African ICT infrastructure makes telemedicine implementation impossible Bisu et al 18 [(Anas A., Department of Engineering, Durham University)(Andrew Gallant, Hongjian Sun, Katharine Brigham, and Alan Purvis) “Telemedicine via Satellite: Improving Access to Healthcare for Remote Rural Communities in Africa” IEEE Region 10 Humanitarian Technology Conference, 2018] TDII. INTRODUCTIONThe population of Africa is increasing rapidly with projected growth from 1.288 billion to 2.528 billion people by 2050 [1]–[3], yet Sub-saharan Africa (SSA) has lowest health workforce capacity of 3% and healthcare expenditure of 1% globally, which has contributed to the region’s highest burden of communicable diseases (25% of global) such as malaria, HIV/AIDS tuberculosis [5]. Today, about 58% of African population live in remotely isolated rural areas [3], mostly sparsely populated with little or no access to medical care due to the lack of medical facilities and professionals at a time when 55% of the world population lives in urban areas with 53% of the world digitally connected and having advanced healthcare [4, 6]. Moreover, 3.4 billion of the world population live in rural areas and this figure is expected to rise before its decline in 2050 due to urbanisation. Africa and Asia contribute about 90% of the global rural population [4].Although sustainable urbanisation has been identified as key to successful development as the world continues to urbanise, sustainable development largely depends on successful management of urban growth, particularly in low-income and lower-middle-income countries like Africa [4]. However, policies to improve the lives in both urban and rural areas are required to ensure access to infrastructure and services such as healthcare for all [4]. Telemedicine is becoming vital to the healthcare system as it has the potential to help deliver quality medical care to isolated rural areas and, when implemented correctly, it can be a cost-effective way of expanding access to excellent medical care. However, because it is a relatively new and quickly changing field, some challenges need to be addressed.Telemedicine, which is the use of telecommunications and information technology also known as the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to extend access to quality medical care and to provide improved health care using remote diagnosis, treatment and health information to underserved isolated rural areas by removing distance and cost barriers [5, 7].The Telemedicine Task Force (TTF) set up in Brussels in January 2006 during a workshop sponsored by European Space Agency (ESA) and European Commission (EC) is tasked with the mandate to develop a comprehensive picture of telemedicine opportunities in Africa on recognition of the potential of Satellite Communications (SatComs) technology to strengthen health systems in Africa and significantly extend the reach of communication to remote and isolated areas of the continent, given the limited reach of terrestrial communication networks. Africa remains the most disenfranchised region in the world with regards to Internet access, with only 34% internet users as of 2018 [6]. The TTF is convinced that by complementing terrestrial infrastructure with SatComs, complete coverage of the African region can be achieved thereby enabling effective and sustainable telemedical services in the region [5].Telemedicine substantially reduces Africa’s disease burden Mbarika and Okoli 2 [(Victor W. A. Mbarika, Department of Information Systems and Decision Sciences)(Chitu Okoli, Department of Information Systems and Decision Sciences)“Telemedicine in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Proposed Delphi Study,” Proceedings of the 36th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, IEEE, 2002] TDI1.2. Telemedicine in Sub-Saharan AfricaNumerous studies documenting the spread of the Internet in various parts of the world have highlighted the fact that Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)— part of the world’s second largest continent—is the region with the lowest level of economic, technological, and Internet development in the world [15, 16]. The delivery of healthcare is unarguably one of the most fundamental needs for SSA, considering the region’s medical nightmare of growing medical problems with an acute shortage of medical facilities and personnel. Both academic and practitioner literature report on the many medical problems of SSA. The World Health Organization reported that by the end of 2001, an estimated 40 million people worldwide—2.7 million of them younger than 15 years—were living with HIV/AIDS. More than 70 percent of these people (28.1 million) live in SSA; another 15 percent (6.1 million) live in South and Southeast Asia [26]. Furthermore, malaria kills more than a million children each year—2,800 per day—in Africa alone. This represents as many as half the deaths of African children under the age of five. In regions of intense transmission, 40% of toddlers may die of acute malaria, even though there would be a good chance of survival with timely medical attention. Other diseases that kill millions of Africans each year include dysentery, cholera, typhoid, yellow fever, and diarrhea; there are many others. Another major problem faced by Sub-Saharan countries is the shortage of medical personnel. Many developing countries have an acute shortage of doctors, particularly specialists. SSA has fewer than 10 doctors per 100,000 people, and 14 countries do not have a single radiologist. The few specialists and services available are concentrated in cities. Rural health workers, who serve most of the population, are isolated from specialist support and up to date information by poor roads, scarce and expensive telephones, and a lack of library facilities [5].Telemedicine overcomes the barriers of physical distribution of medical resources by bringing medical personnel and expertise virtually to those who need them in SSA. In a bid to find a solution to the growing medical problems of SSA, many governmental, non-governmental, and international developmental organizations have engaged in an endless effort to implement telemedicine. For example, during the period 1996-2000 the International Telecommunications Union organized several missions of telemedicine experts to selected African countries. These missions tried to identify Africa’s needs and priorities for the introduction of telemedicine services taking into account the state-ofthe-art of the local telecommunications networks and their evolution [9].However, most of SSA’s telecommunications networks are very poorly developed [12]. Another obstacle is that few African countries have experience in the application of telemedicine, even in urban areas equipped with telecommunications infrastructure. Furthermore, African countries cannot afford the very sophisticated telemedicine solutions involving ATM, virtual reality, etc. Notwithstanding these obstacles, among many others, telemedicine adoption is still important and feasible for most, if not all, Sub-Saharan countries (Table 1).Given that telemedicine is important and feasible for SSA, this study first presents some cases of successful telemedicine projects in the region (Mbarika, Forthcoming). We focus on SSA because countries within the region share a different socioeconomic structure compared to the richer northern and southern African countries. In the next major section, we present a Delphi study to identify critical success factors for telemedicine implementation in Sub-Saharan Africa. We conclude with a discussion of further research.1.2.1. Importance of telemedicine adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa? There is an overwhelming need for the provision of medical and health care services, especially in areas outside the cities;? Telemedicine links between hospitals and other medical institutions could bring overall improvement of health-care services by centralization and coordination of resources (specialists, hardware and software packages).? The modernization of internal communication in the hospitals could considerably improve the efficiency of health-care delivery. It will be the basis for the introduction of telemedicine services.? The maternity units in any region could be connected by a telemedicine link to the maternity service in a large regional hospital or to the referral hospital. This will allow remote monitoring of the health of pregnant women, especially those with pathological problems [9].? Tourists would be encouraged to visit the country and visit remote areas if there is a facility for telemedicine. From all medical emergencies, good and qualified medical attention may be provided with the backup of telemedicine service.AND Data integration provides malaria mapping that reduce’s disease incidence. Ceccato 5 [(P. Ceccato1,1International Research Institute for Climate Prediction, The Earth Institute, Columbia University, S.J. Connor1, I. Jeanne2, M.C. Thomson) “Application of Geographical Information Systems and Remote Sensing technologies for assessing and monitoring malaria risk,” 2005, Parassitologia 47: 81-96] TDIOperational use of remotely sensed images has taken a long time to be implemented in technologically developing regions because image and processing software costs were prohibitive. This problem is now diminishing since: (i) computer processing and data storage facilities are now accessible at lower cost, (ii) satellite images at high spatial resolution have become accessible free of charge (MODIS data) via the Internet and (iii) processing tools such as Healthmapper (GIS tool), Windisp (image display tool), and ADDAPIX (image analysis tool) are being made available to the user community at no cost by organizations such as the World Health Organization and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).The recent availability of free images and processing tools has enabled the rapid development of applications using RS and GIS for operational purposes. In the case of Desert Locust monitoring using RS, GIS and data collection tools including GPS and palmtop computers shows that technology can be made operational in Africa under harsh conditions and at low cost. This successful operational early warning system for Desert Locust monitoring developed by FAO could also be applied for Malaria Early Warning System. The major challenge would be to harmonize data collection and tools in the Malaria community in order to enable data dissemination and analyses. This harmonization for the African continent should be made by an organization such as the UN which has the ability to develop standards and negotiate processes to reach consensus on methodologies and best practices between countries. Thanks to the availability of free image data at high spatial resolution (MODIS images), a new generation of applications can be now implemented to help decisionmakers in the field. The image (Fig. 5) shows the area between Niger-Mali and Burkina Faso where a project is currently underway (NOMADE project). The following image (Fig. 6) shows the presence of vegetation and water bodies with sufficient spatial resolution to allow analyses of where and when (i) vector can develop and (ii) where nomad herds can congregate for food and water and therefore be at risk of malaria. The NOMADE project will allow direct access of information to the user community by using MODIS images which are free of charge via the Internet. The use of MODIS images is also operational in the desert locust monitoring systems implemented in 20 countries where the Department of Plant Protection (DPP) of the Ministry of Agriculture has access via a FTP site at FAO to the MODIS images processed locally in Rome. Each DPP downloads the images and integrates them into a customized GIS developed specifically to monitor desert locust. The desert locust Officer is then able to analyze where and when to send survey teams in the desert to scout for desert locust. Once found, information can be provided to the control team on the area to be treated (Ceccato, in press). This approach can also be adapted for the malaria control community. The launch of initiatives to reduce malaria such as the Roll Back Malaria (RBM), the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) can also provide a platform to help the transfer of these new technologies toward the most affected countries. Data and good intentions alone, however, are not sufficient. Developing countries will also need assistance in the process of technology transfer, and in structuring their national information systems and decision-making processes, if they are to derive full benefit from this exceedingly powerful technology.Integration GIS-RS-Models to produce Malaria Early Warning SystemThe ready availability of frequently updated data on environmental variables pertinent to malaria transmission over large and remote regions makes RS a useful source of information for epidemic early warning systems. The concept of an early warning system for the prediction of malaria epidemics predates satellite technology by many decades. In fact an early warning system in response to the massive epidemics that occurred periodically in pre-independence India was operated routinely in the Pubjab from the early 1920s until the early 1950s (Najera, 1999). Christophers (1911) observed that between 1868-1908 severe and explosive ‘fever’ epidemics of two-three month duration (AugustOctober) were common in the region. In particular he noted that the worst of the epidemics, which had a periodicity of 7-8 years, coincided with high grain prices and famine. Christophers saw this ‘human factor’ as an ‘essential requirement’ which undermined the population and resulted in high death rates as a result of the epidemics (Christophers, 1911). Christophers’ suggestions for an early warning system were taken up by Gill (1923) who developed a system based on a set of risk indicators: epidemiological assessment of previous infection, economic assessment of grain prices; the JulyAugust rainfall levels; and occurrence of an epidemicwithin the last 5 years (Gill, 1923). Gill tested the system in 1921 and it went into routine operation in 1923. Retrospective reviews of the system outlined the statistical significance and its operational value in epidemic early warning (Yacob and Swaroop, 1944; Swaroop, 1949) but also identified the potential significance of May rainfall, offering a lead warning time of three months (Connor et al., 1999). Despite this example, much of the interest in early warning systems for malaria epidemics was lost during the Global Malaria Control/Eradication Era (Najera, 1998). It was not until the 1990s when a number of epidemics were reported from the East African highlands and a regional epidemic in Southern Africa stimulated renewed interest. At its launch in 1998 the Roll Back Malaria partnership identified Early Detection and Control of Epidemics as one of its four key elements (RBM, 1998). RBM established a Technical Resource Network on Epidemic Prevention and Control which held its first meeting in Geneva in 1998. Among the recommendations of the meeting was the development of a research framework to establish Malaria Early Warning Systems (MEWS) in sub-Saharan Africa and the identification of indicators and thresholds which could be used for early detection of epidemics by epidemiological surveillance systems. The MEWS framework was developed and published in 2001 (WHO, 2001). It set out a series of activities which together form the basis of an integrated monitoring process to identify changes in epidemic potential and increased risk of transmission in areas prone to epidemics (Fig. 7). A pre-requisite to MEWS is the mapping of areas prone to epidemics, either through historical analysis, or in combination with climatic suitability and environmental suitability for malaria transmission. Epidemic risk mapping should be dynamic and updated frequently to reflect changes in vulnerability factors. Clearly an epidemic response plan and the capacity to respond in the vulnerable areas are also essential. The first of the MEWS monitoring processes involves consideration of the dynamic factors which may make populations more vulnerable to severe epidemic outcome. As with the Punjab model, drought, inadequate food security and nutritional/economic status may be important. Increasing levels of drug or insecticide resistance, reduction in health service provision or a high burden of other diseases, such a HIV/AIDS, may also compromise any immunity and increase vulnerability to epidemics. While these factors are unlikely to give an indication of when an epidemic might occur, they do provide some warning of the severity that can be expected if one does occur and is not prevented. The second MEWS monitoring process considers the forthcoming season’s climate. Will it be a drier, normal, or wetter season? What does this mean for epidemic risk considering the recent history? A number of years of drought may disrupt populations, may lower immunity and make populations more susceptible when higher, or even normal, rainfall levels occur. In recent years there have been a number of regular regional meetings (Regional Climate Outlook Fora) where available climate forecasts for the forthcoming seasons are discussed, and considered by the various sectors, such as agriculture, water resources and, increasingly, health. In September 2004, the first Southern African Regional Epidemic Outlook Forum was held in Harare, Zimbabwe. The forthcoming seasons’ climate was presented and discussed to develop action plans for epidemic preparedness and response in the countries that are part of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) (). The third MEWS process is monitoring the weather as it occurs. Are temperatures unusual for this time of year? Is the rainfall higher than would normally be expected? The latter is now freely monitored through meteorological satellites and these are often more readily and frequently available than rain station data through the local meteorological services, who often have to charge for their data. Considering where high rainfall, following two or three years of drought occurs on a vulnerable population in a desert-fringe area which has had epidemics in the past may be one of the most realistic early warning systems available in many African countries. However, the interplay of temperature with rainfall are crucially important in highland-fringe epidemic settings, where the impact of high rainfall may increase epidemic risk or cool the environment to levels which lower transmission potential. Current work is investigating the development and implementation of near-real-time temperature information along with rainfall as a routinely available environmental monitoring product for use in the highland-fringe epidemic settings (Fig. 8) The fourth monitoring process is epidemiological surveillance. Entomological surveillance may offer valuable insights into the vector- parasite-host dynamics and provide warning of changes in epidemic risk. This is generally beyond the scope of most African health services. However, the example of Desert Locust monitoring at Ministry of Agriculture level in 15 countries in Africa, Middle East and South-West Asia showed that surveillance is possible using simple GIS tools (Ceccato, in press). It may be possible to establish sentinel sites in particular locations, known to be epidemic prone and where rapid detection and reporting is possible, and a number of studies are attempting this. While the detection of an epidemic through a rapid increase in the number of cases would be the most reliable, it is unfortunate that routine case reporting systems in sub-Saharan African countries are, at present, unable to detect epidemics in sufficient time to enable an effective response. Due to the complexity of the variables to be considered and the remoteness of the areas affected, RS is an ideal source on which to base an early warning system for malaria epidemics. The research framework established by the RBM partnership provides a useful structure on which to base the required system. Specifically, a comprehensive system must take into account 1) population vulnerability, 2) the forthcoming season’s climate, 3) current weather conditions and 4) vector/parasite/host dynamics. Ideally a country will monitor all of these processes in an integrated framework, which when taken together act as a series of compounding indicators which give control services sufficient confidence to prepare and act early (in accordance with their pre-formulated epidemic response plan) to prevent the rapid rise in cases before they occur.ConclusionsMalaria is a deadly but preventable and curable disease. Although the environmental drivers that determine the life cycles of both the vector, host and the Plasmodium parasite are complex, they can be monitored and analyzed using newly available technologies such as RS and GIS. Research has shown that the technological building blocks are available to create an operational early warning system which could prevent epidemics and limit the scale of outbreaks until such time as the disease can be eradicated, as it has in Europe and the USA.A holistic early warning system must consider all of the factors that influence the development of malaria as well as their interactions. Rainfall, temperature, humidity, vegetation and seasonality in weather and climate can all have an effect on the vector, the parasite and susceptibility of the human to the disease. Over the years, many tools have been developed to monitor these factors which are currently available. Rainfall Estimates and Malaria Risk Analyses are available on the ADDS FEWS web page. The vectorial capacity model was developed to express malaria transmission risk and has since been extended to enable temperature and rainfall to drive the model. Information on climate forecast and climate anomalies is becoming more reliable with recent scientific advances and is made available through the IRI Data Library mining factor. Effective control systems should: 1) have access to forecast information on diseases outbreaks and 2) have the means and the organization required to implement control measures. A good early warning system should take into account the effect of any strengths or weaknesses in these areas.Malaria, tuberculosis, and AIDS are all preventable, but kill 5 million annually – “acceptable losses” frame cements inequalityMurphy 6 [(Sean C., MD, Assistant Professor, Laboratory Medicine at the University of Washington) “Malaria and Global Infectious Diseases: Why Should We Care?,” Virtual Mentor, 2006;8(4):245-250] TDIThe morning after Ronald Ross confirmed that mosquitoes formed a critical link in the lifecycle of the malaria parasite, he wrote in his notebook:…I have found thy secret deedsOh million-murdering Death.I know that this little thingA million men will save [1].In the US and Europe, Ross’s prediction has come true. Although 1 million malaria cases occurred annually in the US throughout the 1930s, today the disease is virtually nonexistent. The story of malaria eradication in the US recounts the development of our health care infrastructure and the success of public health programs. However, in the developing world where such advances are absent, malaria rages as one of the worst infectious killers. And yet malaria is by no means the only one. Infectious diseases are the leading cause of global morbidity and mortality [2]. The “big 3” pathogens—HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria—cause hundreds of millions of infections annually and collectively kill more than 5 million people each year, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. The great travesty of these statistics is that all 3 “perpetual” epidemics are preventable and largely treatable. Why do preventable, treatable diseases continue to weigh heavily on the poor? What are the ethical implications for the medical profession and society when drastic health disparities are perpetuated? What arguments can be made for changing the status quo? Since the history of malaria encapsulates our failure to combat global health threats, it is worth exploring the above issues as they relate to malaria in particular and all “forgotten epidemics” in general.Poverty and HealthBacterial, viral, and parasitic diseases cause approximately 163 000 deaths in the developed world annually (mostly among the elderly and those with compromised immune systems) compared to 9.2 million deaths (mostly among children) in the developing world [3]. Communicable diseases cause 56 percent of deaths in the poorest fifth of the world compared to only 8 percent in the richest fifth [4]. Infectious diseases are the world’s leading killers of children and young adults [5]. By every measurable health statistic, the developing world is at an extreme disadvantage in matters of infectious disease.In addition to morbidity and mortality, infectious diseases are bidirectionally linked to poverty. Malaria has micro- and macroeconomic consequences for affected regions: decreased income, tourism, and foreign investment and increased health expenditures [6]. In contrast, areas that control malaria realize higher life expectancies and economic gains. Malarious countries face far more than the parasite itself; they must also grapple with limited access to essential medicines or health care, poor hygiene and sanitation, low subsistence incomes, limited education, and scant health information.Unfortunately, the developed world has not committed to addressing these problems. Ninety percent of health care dollars treat a mere 10 percent of the world’s population. This skew is reflected in pharmaceutical portfolios; only 13 of 1233 drugs licensed from 1975 to 1997 were approved for tropical diseases, despite the overwhelming burden imposed by these diseases [7]. Current antimalarial drugs are being rendered ineffective by parasite resistance. Without colonial interests to mandate tropical disease research, and with these diseases virtually eliminated from developed countries, governments have refocused their attention on health problems at home. Meanwhile, as “acceptable losses,” millions continue to die from malaria and other infections, leaving us with intensifying disease burdens among the poor, limited interest among the rich, and a dangerous and ever-widening gap between these spheres. According to public health expert Paul Farmer, the world’s double standard for health is the leading bioethical problem of our time [8].AC – Plan Plan – states ought to ratify the Bogota convention. Bogota convention ratification provides a near monopoly over the finite resource of geostationary orbits to equatorial nations – the resultant monopoly power allows high rent charges and leverage for the g77 to negotiate a new international economic orderStuart 14 [(Jill, PhD @ LSE), “Exploring the Relationship Between Outer Space and World Politics: English School and Regime Theory Perspectives,” a thesis submitted to the Department of International Relations of the London School of Economics and Political Science for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in International Relations, ProQuest LLC] TDIYet the broader context must be considered by asking why it was that LDCs perceived their access to GSO to be threatened in the first place—that is, what were the conditions (as actors representing LDCs understood them) in which actors were calculating their interests, and in which they came to understand GSO to be a scarce resource? From a strictly geophysical perspective it is logical to conceive of GSO as finite. It can be calculated that, were it laid out flat, GSO would be 17,000 miles long (Macauley 1998, 742), and satellites naturally “inhabit” a part of that orbit, including room to drift slightly back and forth.66 The number of satellites that the orbit can carry is also, in theory, limited because of signal interference. However the usability of the radio spectrum is also affected by technical developments that potentially expand the intensive and extensive margins of the spectrum (Levin 1971, 15), and developments in satellite technology change the amount of safe distance needed between objects in orbit. Thus the amount of space needed between satellites to avoid signal interference also changes with technological developments and based on complicated engineering calculations (Vogler 2000, 112; Levin 1971, 15).67Therefore the actual carrying capacity and scarcity of the GSO resource is subject to technological developments, and the significance of those developments is subject to interpretation. In 1972 there were five GEOSATs in orbit, and in 1977 there were twenty (Peterson 2006, 177)— however the significance attributed to those numbers is controversial and ultimately related to individual actors’ interpretation of technical factors. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s there was limited intersubjective agreement amongst actors as to how limited the orbit-spectrum resource actually was. There was genuine concern amongst LDCs about future access to GSO, but the complicated nature of understanding GSO scarcity meant that interests and interpretations regarding scarcity were also potentially influenced by wider international politics; at times a perceived understanding of scarcity was preceded by actors’ other political agendas. In the 1960s and 1970s LDCs were posing challenges to other areas of international law and expressing concerns over permanent ownership of resources such as the sea bed. Challenging outer space law fit into the discourse of those wider challenges (Bull and Watson 1984, 234). The ITU’s system of a priori planning fit into the wider agenda of LDCs of demanding greater equality within the Cold War system.The LDC challenges to GSO governance were initially coordinated under the Group of 77, which had been formed in 1964 with the purpose of providing, “the means for the developing world to articulate and promote its collective economic interests and enhance its joint negotiating capacity on all major international economic issues in the United Nations system, and promote economic and technical cooperation among developing countries” (Group of Seventy Seven 2007). LDCs proposed the New International Economic Order (NIEO) in 1973, and the New World Information and Communications Order (NWICO) was announced within the NIEO context shortly thereafter (Savage 1989, 5). While the NIEO sought to address the imbalance of international economic progress and wealth, the NWICO sought to reaffirm the sovereign rights of states to control the dissemination of information to its citizenry (Savage 1989, 5 and 44). This related to deeper concerns amongst LDCs that not only were they not able to exploit telecommunications technology, but that widespread broadcasting made possible by satellites meant that the developing world was able to propagate its own information and culture (Savage 1989, 44). Therefore issues of access to GSO governance tied in to * concerns not only of how international society and the international system were organized, but also how it was spread, controlled, and recreated.Therefore the GSO issue-area must be considered with relation to the international social context in which actors were embedded, and how that context generated understandings about various transnational resources. Given the LDCs’ broader agenda of challenging international law, GSO was a reasonable extension of that challenge because the ITU rules and decision-making procedures give each member of the organization one vote. Therefore (unlike the UN) less developed countries could coordinate their position within the ITU with regard to GSO and be more effective as a voting block.In seeking to understand the politics of GSO, it is useful to consider how actors’ perceived identities created the context in which actors determined their interests with regards to the issue-area. Less developed countries had hugely variable interests, ideologies, and resources, yet formed a perceived shared identity as “non-aligned” and “developing.” The structure of the international system, in which certain countries were less developed, helped to shape the actors’ identity and subsequently their interests.68 Actors also understood their circumstances in accordance to their acceptance of Westphalian statehood. The institution of sovereignty can be understood as preestablishing mutual understandings amongst actors (in conjunction with state-centric international law) that it would be states who were the main actors in space, and hence that states would be responsible for registering signal-usage and for claiming liability for their satellites. The international society institution of equality of peoples can also be seen as an influence on (and also reconstitutive of) the GSO issue area—albeit through the dominant institution of sovereignty. The institution of equality of peoples can be understood as present because of the discourse LDCs constructed around the GSO issuearea and the NWICO (with regards to equitable access as a right to all communities). Equality of peoples also influenced the wider Group of 77 agenda, and hence the language used by LDCs with regards to equality of peoples was mutually reinforcing across multiple-issue areas. The institution can be seen as rising and being both an influence on, and reconstituted by, the GSO issue-area. However the institution of equality of peoples was at play with that of sovereignty in that equality was to be guaranteed through greater equality for individuals via states. Therefore the interhuman domain, which could be associated with the equality of peoples institution, was not a significant influence on negotiations.The balance of power can also be seen as rising, as LDCs sought to redress the balance in the bipolar system by asserting their collective influence—both in the case of GSO and also through the wider Group of 77 agenda. As such the international society reflected in the GSO case at this point was coexistent international society—as actors sought to establish governance that would allow coordination but not cooperation in geosynchronous orbit. This reflected wider Cold War pluralism in international society in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. However the GSO issue-area also had the potential to challenge basic coexistence in international society by leading to cooperation and the integration of issues such as equality of peoples. As such the GSO case reflected wider international Cold War society, but also embodied dynamics that could challenge that pluralism. Bogota DeclarationBy the mid-1960s discussions regarding orbital and frequency allocation were underway within the ITU, and the Group of 77 had consolidated their position on GSO governance (i.e. demanding a priori allocations). In 1976 a sub-group of less developed countries launched a separate challenge to GSO governance, which specifically targeted the lack of a definition for “outer space” and proposed a radically different definition of GSO. The resultant document was the Bogota Declaration, signed on 3 December 1976 by eight equatorial countries: Brazil, Colombia, Congo, Ecuador, Kenya, Uganda, and Zaire (hereafter the “Bogota group”) .69 The Bogota Declaration (“the Declaration,” Appendix F) asserted that GSO should not be considered part of outer space (and hence not neutral territory), and contingent on this fact should fall within the jurisdiction (sovereignty) of the nation-states that are geostationary “beneath” it (Section 1, Paragraph 3).70 The Declaration quoted the UN General Assembly Resolution which says states have sovereignty over their natural resources.71 The final section detailed the implications of the claim: (Section 3, a) that there will be tangible benefits for the equatorial states, “to their respective people and for the universal community,” as opposed to only the most developed countries; (b) that orbits above the high seas will still be considered the common heritage of mankind;72 (c) that other orbits and satellites are not implicated in the claim; (d) that GEOSATs “shall require previous and expressed authorization on the part of the concerned state, and the operation of the device should conform with the national law of that territorial country over which it is placed,” as separate from the ITU’s regulations; (e) and that current GEOSATs are in violation of the Declaration. Why did the Bogota group choose to draft a separate challenge to ITU governance, distinct from the wider LDC challenges to GSO governance? On explanation is that if the Bogota Declaration was adopted, it would give financial benefits to the relevant equatorial countries. According to the Declaration, states placing objects in GSO above equatorial states’ territory would need “authorization” for dong so— a process which would likely carry a fee payable to the equatorial country. The Bogota states would also gain power and prestige by having control over the sections of GSO above their respective territories. Brazil had also come to see itself as a leader in the non-aligned movement and saw its participation in the Bogota Declaration as a bargaining chip in its wider policy of the NIEO (Peterson 2005, 74). As such, for Brazil the GSO issue-area was connected to its sense of identity as an LDC leader—GSO was not a primary issue but rather part of wider preference formulations on broader geopolitical concerns about power and economics within the international system. For Colombia, the issue was more intimately related to issues of domestic politics in that the country’s constitution made mention of geostationary orbit and the electromagnetic spectrum as part of its territory (Gorove 1991, 4 1).73 Indonesia’s reasons were largely practical in that, as a geographically large territory with some remote reaches, satellite communications were particularly important for providing the population of the country with communications (Peterson 2005, 181-182).74 For all Bogota group countries pooling efforts with other equatorial countries increased the strength and legitimacy of their challenge.Thus strategic calculations and perceived identity influenced the actions of various Bogota group actors. The Bogota group decide to formulate its challenge in the way that they did? Considering the language of the Declaration shows how international society institutions also created the context in which the Bogota actors formulated their interests and identities. As above, the Bogota Declaration was embedded in the language of territorial Westphalian sovereignty and hence indicated the internalization of the institution of sovereignty. Outer space was deemed “neutral territory,” the very concept of which could inherently challenge the institution of sovereignty and lend itself to arguments against great powers assuming the right to maintain ownership over satellites in space, and to maintain de facto ownership of orbital slots (through satellite occupation). Despite additional references to the category of “mankind” and ‘‘universal society,” the Bogota group appealed for their legitimacy through the institution of sovereignty over resources and territory to establish the legitimacy of their claim. The Bogota Declaration was contrary to recognized principles of outer space neutrality, yet stated in the terms of those principles (by arguing that GSO was not part of outer space), which attests to the internalization of sovereignty and its influence on constructing the context in which actors calculated their interests.The international community follows on Durrani 19 [(Haris Durrani, JD/PhD candidate at Columbia Law School and Princeton University (History of Science), and winner of the Sacknoff Prize for Space History), “Is Spaceflight Colonialism?” 7/19/19, ] TDIIn 1975, Indalecio Liévano Aguirre, the Colombian Minister of Foreign Affairs, declared to the UN General Assembly in New York City that the UN must pursue a new and more satisfactory balance between the affluent and the impoverished worlds, between the rich peoples and the vast pauperized masses of the planet, on whose discontent one cannot build a lasting international order. Let us hope that no one will yield to the temptation of thinking that power and force constitute effective instruments for the perpetuation of old policies of privilege.These words concluded a speech in which Liévano made legal claims over geostationary orbit. Arthur C. Clarke had famously proposed the concept of geostationary satellites in 1945: If a satellite were placed above the equator at an altitude of about 35,786 km, it would orbit at the same rate as Earth’s rotation, such that the satellite hovered above a specific point on the ground. Because of this convenient physics, segments in this orbit were more valuable than others for remote sensing and, most importantly, for the nascent telecommunications satellite industry.Based on this physics, Liévano argued that international law must divide sovereignty in geostationary orbit according to the equatorial territory below. In other words, equatorial countries’ sovereignty included geostationary orbital segments above their territories.A year later, Liévano’s country gathered leaders from seven other equatorial nations—Congo, Ecuador, Indonesia, Kenya, Uganda, and Zaire, with Brazil as observer—to sign the Bogotá Declaration of 1976. These countries not only claimed sovereignty over geostationary orbital segments above their territories but argued that segments hovering above the “high seas” were the “common heritage of mankind” and ought therefore to be collectively governed by all nations. Access to those segments would have to be distributed equitably among the “universal community” by keeping in mind developing countries’ interests.The signatories also proclaimed that American and Soviet dominance of space amounted to de facto claims of sovereignty—a “technological partition” of orbit. Today, the Colombian Constitution still contains a provision claiming sovereignty over the orbital segment above the country’s territory.The Bogotà Declaration is one piece of a bigger story. Historically, Third World lawyers and diplomats have long sought to reshape international law to equitably reorder barriers to access in extraterritorial or transnational domains like space, the sea, and the electromagnetic spectrum (for telecommunications). They articulated these claims by portraying US and Soviet or Russian extraterritorial activity as a unique form of empire. They saw global inequality as a perpetuation of older, more formal colonial orders, and they argued that the “Great Powers” exploited such inequality as they shaped the laws that governed extraterritorial domains.It is often forgotten that the Outer Space Treaty of 1967—the first and, to this day, most influential treaty governing spaceflight—arrived on the heels of decolonization. Article II of the Space Treaty, which famously proscribes “national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means” in space, is frequently interpreted by US, Soviet, and European lawyers as an artifact of a Cold War compromise between the United States and USSR. But during its drafting, developing countries had recently declared independence or were continuously staving off foreign intervention. In light of this historical context, the treaty’s ban on claims of sovereignty has probably meant something different to the majority of the 107 state parties to the treaty which might be considered developing countries. Meanwhile, the treaty came to ban only weapons of mass destruction in space, not militarization as a whole.While the treaty, like the moon landing’s “one giant leap for mankind,” famously opened by declaring space “the province of mankind,” lawyers disagreed about what that principle meant. When the Brazilian delegation added language to this phrase clarifying that spaceflight must benefit all countries “irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development,” the US and Soviet delegations ensured that this would not amount to strong collective property rights. Instead, US lawyers argued that this much-lauded provision was not, legally speaking, a strong one. It was a general statement of the “spirit” of the text, not a formal, legal demand for equitable distribution of resources and access to space, particularly for developing countries.These claims were part of a broader mid-20th century movement to decolonize international law. From the 1950s to ’70s, Third World leaders initiated transnational projects like the Non-Aligned Movement and the New International Economic Order, aiming to redistribute markets and natural resources to repay developing countries for their economic strife in the aftermath of imperialism. In international laws on the sea, space, and intellectual property, Non-Aligned countries proposed concepts like “common interest” or the “common heritage of mankind.” By these theories, all states would collectively govern extraterritorial domains, such that property rights over scientific information in those domains, technologies used to access them, and economic benefits derived from them would be equitably shared with developing countries. These countries were concerned that American and Soviet technology, made possible with postcolonial violence and inequitable accumulations of capital and expertise, would deplete valuable extraterrestrial resources before the rest of the world could “catch up.”Anti-imperial notions of collective sovereignty were preceded by Latin American and Caribbean lawyers’ positions on space law. Even before the Space Treaty of 1967, lawyers in the Inter-American Bar Association signed the “Magna Carta of Space” at Bogotá in 1961 and at San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1965. In part, the document aimed to establish space as res communis—in other words, collectively owned by the international community.Decades later, in the Moon Agreement of 1984, several developing countries declared lunar resources to be the common heritage of mankind, attempting to establish a system for equitably distributing property rights for lunar mining.But subsequent efforts to get the international community to consider spaceflight itself as a resource that ought to be redistributed—and, in the process, restructure global inequality—mostly failed. Spacefaring countries have refused anti-imperial legal moves via explicit official statements or simply through technological practice. If outer space is a “global commons” or res communis at all—those terms’ legal meanings are controversially ambiguous—it is only insofar as space provides a domain not for collective sovereignty or property ownership but, rather, the free and uninhibited exercise of commercial and military might.Aff – AT: Adv CP/Heg DA1AR – Advantage CP The international community says no, the fund will get depleted AND it fails to internalize costs because its impossible to calculate expected not actual debris productionPlantz 12 [(Meghan R., J.D., University of Georgia),“ORBITAL DEBRIS: OUT OF SPACE” GA. J. INT’L & COMP. L. Vol. 40:585, 2012] TDISome commentators suggest further reforming the liability convention by also proposing a damage compensation fund.224 Under this proposed regime, all space users would be required to pay into a fund; the fee would be based on the estimated amount of debris the proposed mission would create.225 Proceeds would be used to compensate actors whose spacecraft sustained damage caused by unidentified debris and who therefore cannot pursue a claim because they cannot identify the culpable party.226 Presumably, actors would then take affirmative steps, such as safer spacecraft design or the eventual removal of debris, to reduce their liability or payment into the fund. This regime, however, is flawed in many ways. First, not all damage to spacecraft can be attributed to artificial man-made orbital debris. Some of it occurs from natural satellites, such as meteors.227 Second, determining how much debris a mission will create is not an accurate formula, therefore, some states may not fully feel the effects of their contribution to the debris problem.228 Third, if a major or multiple collisions occurred that were caused by unidentified debris, the fund may be depleted.229 Another variation on this concept is the idea that “past polluters pay” in proportion to the amount of debris they are responsible for in the space environment.230 The two biggest past polluters are the U.S. and U.S.S.R.231 It is likely that the U.S. and Russia will be unwilling to adopt this regime because it is not in their best interest.232 If the U.S. and Russia, who have notable influence among the space-faring nations, do not support this change, it is highly unlikely that the international community would be able to adopt this regime. Say no, depletion and fraud all occurTaylor 7 [(Major Michael W., USAF, B.A., Berry College; J.D., University of Georgia; LL.M. (Air and Space Law), McGill University, is the Chief of the Space and International Law Division at Headquarters United States Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado), "Trashing the Solar System One Planet at a Time: Earth's Orbital Debris Problem," Georgetown International Environmental Law Review 20, no. 1, 2007] TDIEssentially, these proposals all attempt to correlate the amount of money a State will have to pay into the fund with the amount of debris created.438 Suggestions for how to infuse cash into the compensation fund include basing a State’s contributions on the debriscreating potential of the satellite,439 a set amount per launch,440 or a set percentage of the launch cost.441 In order to quickly fill the coffers of the proposed fund, States that were active in space in the past (the US and USSR primarily) might have to make catch-up payments based on older orbital debris.442Such a fund would be punitive in the sense that it would discourage the creation of new orbital debris through a fine or a tax. Once created, the fund would be insurance for satellites against damage caused by unidentified debris. Space-faring states would likely be unwilling to enter into such an arrangement because few states would see it as being in their best interest to create their own system of insurance, especially given the availability of private insurance. Another problem is maintaining the funding at an adequate level to pay out claims. At least the market-share system would only require states to pay as damage actually occurs. Finally, this proposal has the potential to permit fraud. A dishonest state could place a self-destruct device on a satellite. Near the end of the satellite's useful life, the State could destroy it and claim reimbursement from the fundThe tax will be set too low due to lack of knowledge and incentives for profiterringSalter 16 [(Aexander William Salter, Economics Professor at Texas Tech), “SPACE DEBRIS: A LAW AND ECONOMICS ANALYSIS OF THE ORBITAL COMMONS” 19 STAN. TECH. L. REV. 221, 2016] TDIAlthough attractive in theory, Pigouvian taxes encounter two serious problems. First is the knowledge problem: it is difficult to believe that the public sector has the knowledge necessary to implement an optimally sized tax. Such knowledge would require heroic assumptions about the ability of regulators to ascertain the state of currently existing markets relative to their perfectly efficient state. The second is the incentive problem: even if regulators do have the knowledge necessary to solve the externality problem, fixing the issue may not be in their interest. Like market actors, public-sector actors are not angels. They have their own sets of beliefs and goals, and those values will only imperfectly align with promoting economic efficiency. Market actors promote efficiency because of the discipline imposed by the market profit-andloss system; public-sector actors face much less rigorous constraints.No one says yes to faxes/finesTaylor 6 [(Michael, LLM @ McGill University Institute of Air and Space Law), “Orbital Debris: Technical and Legal Issues and Solutions,” August 2006, ] TDIThe desire by some commentators to “punish” States for creating orbital debris through taxes or fines is understandable. However, for such a system to have a chance at being accepted by the international community, the revenue created through such a system would have to be put to some other use, such as orbital debris research or funding an international orbital debris tracking organization.443 Even then, international acceptance of this idea is unlikely.Collapses developing economies by causing dutch diseaseHamdi-Cherif et al 11 [(Meriem, CIRED, Chaire Paris-Tech ? Modélisation Prospective au service du Développement Durable ?. 2. Céline Guivarch, CIRED, Ecole des Ponts Paris-Tech.Philippe Quirion. 3. CIRED, CNRS and LMD-IPSL, Sectoral Targets for Developing Countries: Combining ”Common but differentiated Responsibilities with meaningful Participation”. Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis, 11 (1), pp.731-751. ff10.3763/cpol.2009.0070ff. ffhalshs-00692486f] TDIFourthly, some analysts (e.g. Strand, 2009) underline the “revenue management” issues in the case of a large transfer of emissions allowances, including the so-called “Dutch disease”, i.e. the transfer of emission allowances causes real exchange rate appreciation, which in turn entails a decrease in industry competitiveness. For these reasons, the prospect of a global cap-and-trade system is extremely unlikely at least in the short run. Indeed, one might worry that developing countries participation in a global climate agreement – in the event of such an agreement – will be very weak. In most proposals put forward by the parties (WRI, 2009a), this participation takes the form of a list of heterogeneous mitigation actions whose additionality would be difficult or even impossible to assess, and which would be far from cost efficient.1AR – Heg DA Democratization makes space dominance unsustainableEvanoff 19 [(Kyle L, Research Associate, International Institutions and Global Governance at Council on Foreign Relations, B.A. Phi Beta Kappa, Political Economy @ UC Berkeley, "Big Bangs, Red Herrings, and the Dilemmas of Space Security," Council on Foreign Relations, 7/27/19, ] TDIOn March 27, India used a Prithvi Defense Vehicle Mark-II to destroy the 740-kilogram Microsat-R some three hundred miles above the Earth’s surface. The completion of Mission Shakti, an anti-satellite (ASAT) missile test conducted from Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Island in the northwestern Bay of Bengal, thrust the country into the international spotlight. With the operation, India joined China, Russia, and the United States as the fourth member of the club of nations to have destroyed a satellite with a kinetic ASAT weapon. Global GovernanceAnalysts pointed to Mission Shakti as a vivid example of growing contestation in the outer space domain. Traditional U.S. dominance in space has eroded as a litany of foreign actors (collaborator and competitor alike) have increased their spacefaring prowess, including through the development and use of ASAT weapons and dual-use uncrewed orbiters capable of space rendezvous and proximity operations [PDF]. Pundits fear that such space technologies could alter the calculus of deterrence to inauspicious effect or, worse, become instruments in an adversary’s enactment of a “space Pearl Harbor.” These fears are valid in some senses, overblown and misleading in others. Developments in space pose significant challenges for strategic stability. Obsessive concern with the remote contingency of kinetic warfare in orbit, however, detracts from efforts to address more pressing space security issues and makes catastrophic outcomes more, not less, probable.Missiles and Lasers and Viruses, Oh MyRecent years have witnessed burgeoning democratization in the outer space domain as plummeting costs—both for manufacturing satellites and placing them in orbit—and proliferating technologies have enabled new spacefaring actors to deploy assets in Earth orbit. The number of active satellites has ballooned to more than two thousand, and their integration into military operations and civil life has deepened in tandem. Recognition of the indispensability of these orbital assets to numerous areas of strategic competition, and defense planners’ emphasis on offensive capabilities as a deterrence measure, has led states to invest large sums in the development of ASAT weapons of various stripes.In their April Space Threat Assessment 2019 [PDF] report, Todd Harrison, Kaitlyn Johnson, and Thomas G. Roberts of the Center for Strategic and International Studies outline four categories of counterspace operations: kinetic physical attacks, non-kinetic physical attacks, electronic attacks, and cyberattacks. This litany of potential threats, which vary in their severity, reversibility, ease of attribution, and other aspects, makes U.S. policymakers uneasy. After over half a century of spacefaring pre-eminence, the United States has come to depend on the remote-sensing, telecommunications, and positioning, navigation, and timing capabilities that satellites provide. The resounding defeat of the Iraqi military by American and coalition forces during the Gulf War of the early 1990s underscored the substantial battlefield advantages that orbital capabilities confer, and numerous subsequent conflicts have affirmed the U.S. military’s tactical and strategic reliance on space assets. Proliferating counterspace systems heighten the potential for adversaries to disrupt American command, control, and communications networks, as well as surveillance and reconnaissance operations. In attacking these critical space systems, U.S. adversaries could compromise large segments of the national defense enterprise.Indeed, an insecure orbital environment poses significant challenges for broader strategic stability. Actors in possession of counterspace capabilities can threaten or attack vital elements of ballistic missile launch detection architectures and other systems integral to national and international security, which opens new avenues for intentional, inadvertent, or accidental dispute or conflict escalation. In this sense, novel satellite vulnerabilities add layers of technical and psychological complexity to already labyrinthine deterrence calculations. The effect compounds in light of the deep integration of satellites into information and communications networks: cyber intrusions into space systems are a tantalizing option for state and nonstate actors, and such operations carry their own elaborate deterrence considerations, not least the difficulty of attribution. The net result is a convoluted deterrence landscape, rife with uncertainty and in constant motion thanks to the rapid clip and often competitive character of technological innovation. Vulnerabilities and economic costs – it’s impossible to guard the whole earthKeller 18 [(Chad M., , PhD candidate) The Crumbling Sanctuary: Why America Must Restore Space Security )] TDIWhile space may be the literal high-ground, enabling unprecedented military capabilities, it is not the strategic high-ground from which weapons can dominate the Earth, as some strategists have suggested.5 In fact, the weaponization of space would destroy its sanctuary status while providing systems that would be less effective and more costly than Earth-based capabilities. 6 Since there are no rules for conflict in space – or understanding of how just war standards would apply to space – there is no way of knowing the impact space weapons would have on the system.7 Due to the unique operational environment of space, borrowing doctrine and theories of war from other domains can lead to dangerous assumptions, resulting in counterproductive strategies that ultimately jeopardize U.S. national security interests. If space strategists better understood the true nature of conflict in space, they would understand that weapons in space are unable to achieve space control or win wars as they can in other domains.8 The primary threat of a conflict in space is the generation of debris, which would uncontrollably expand over millions of square miles. 9 This debris could destroy the assets of all spacefaring nations – including those of the attacker and defender – in all impacted orbits.10 Debris from conventional conflicts at sea, in the air, or on land does not pose a lingering hazard to the future use of water, air, or territory.11 Even if the United States spent billions developing non-debris causing weapons, it should anticipate that adversaries would develop asymmetrical responses to space-based weapons. 12 For example, an adversary could simply rig its satellites with a self-defense system that would detonate if the satellite were tampered with by a co-orbital antisatellite (ASAT) or attacked by laser, electromagnetic pulse, or other “clean” ASAT systems. Such a self-destruction system would be a cheap and effective way of creating a debris field, that could ultimately destroy U.S. systems as well. An assumption of some strategists is that space weapons would be able to provide for U.S. space dominance.13 Unfortunately, space weapons are more fragile and unstable than Earth-based systems, making them unsuitable for such a task. Objects in space are constantly at risk from natural occurrences because the normal operating environment of space is inherently hostile.14 In other domains, equipment can be repaired, replaced, enhanced, and moved to defensive positions to counter the evolving strategy of the enemy. However, in space there is no position that would allow for such defenses and the costs of constant resupplying, repairing, reconfiguring, and maneuvering are more than would be feasible.15 Given the vulnerabilities of spacebased systems and the physics of space, asymmetric tactics present would-be adversaries with cost-effective ways to gain an advantage over the United States.16 For example, a marble-sized piece of debris carries the force of a one-ton safe falling five stories, making it capable of causing significant damage to other objects in space.17 Therefore, a $1 bag of marbles projected into space could destroy a $1 billion satellite.18 If America were to deploy space-based weapons, it would spend billions of dollars on equipment that China or another country would be able to cheaply and permanently destroy. 19 If these space weapon systems are damaged – either from the harsh environment or from attack – there is no way to repair them, increasing the risk of relying on them. Until space systems can be self-sustaining, be repaired cheaply, and be refueled cost effectively, they are not able to do what Earth-based systems can do. Additionally, space-based weapon systems require proper cyber defense, protection of the electromagnetic spectrum to prevent jamming, and defense of ground sites.20 Satellites are not able to attack points on the Earth as efficiently or as costeffectively as land-based systems. For example, a constellation of 50 satellites would be required in order to attack any point on Earth within 45 minutes, which can be achieved by a single ballistic missile.21 Assuming a country had a fleet of expensive co-orbital repair satellites, space-based systems could still only receive minimal repairs and maintenance after launch. Similarly, it would be cost prohibitive to have enough satellites in order to deny an adversary access to space or to create space-based systems capable of intercepting Earth-launched ASATs. 22 It would be more cost effective to develop redundant systems than to deploy space-based weapons.23 The United States must be careful not to engage in a strategy that provides it with a perceived short-term military gain, but ultimately sacrifices its long-term national security interests.24 As the famous strategist B.H. Liddell Hart wrote, “a State which expends its strength to the point of exhaustion bankrupts its own policy, and future.”25 (3-5)Space dominance causes Russian counterspace preemptionJohnson-Freese 17 [(Joan, Professor and chair of space science and technology @ Naval War College) Space Warfare in the 21st Century, Routledge, 2017, ISBN 978131552917] TDILike China, Russia became determined not be left vulnerable by some unbreachable space technology gap after observing the advantages the US military has gained from space since Kosovo. Three space-enabled capabilities are highlighted in Russia’s 2014 military doctrine as main external threats to the Russian Federation: “global strike,” the “intention to station weapons in space,” and “strategic non-nuclear precision weapons.”86 Clearly Russia feels compelled to be able to respond to each.The Russians see the future of warfare as driven by information and have focused on development of information-strike operations. “An information-strike operation consists of coordinated ‘information-strike battles, information-weapon engagements and information strikes, which are being conducted with the goal of disrupting the enemy troop command and control and weapon control systems and the destruction of his information resource.’”87 Those goals require Russia to maintain access to space, which is why it, like China, refuses to be denied such. Like China, Russia sees its nuclear deterrence as the main guarantee of its national security; hence, Moscow’s continued and bellicose objections to US missile defense on its perimeters— objections that can be more politically based than technically cogent.88 Whereas the United States has consistently argued that deployment of missile defense capabilities into Europe is not aimed at Russia (but, rather, Iran), Russia believes otherwise, or at least claims to. In 2013, to reassure Russia, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Frank Rose restated a declaration of missile defense intents previously made at the Chicago NATO summit in 2012.“The NATO missile defense in Europe will not undermine strategic stability. NATO missile defense is not directed at Russia and will not undermine Russia’s strategic deterrence capabilities.” Through transparency and cooperation with the United States and NATO, Russia would see firsthand that this system is designed for ballistic missile threats from outside the Euro– Atlantic area, and that NATO missile defense systems can neither negate nor undermine Russia’s strategic deterrent capabilities.89Nevertheless, in Russia’s 2014 military doctrine, missile defense was ranked fourth in its prioritization of threats, and Russia has threatened a range of countermeasures in response to missile defense deployment.90 As with many other issues, Putin’s defiant, aggressive, even provocative anti-Western (particularly anti-US) attitude serves him well with domestic audiences and distracts them from Russia’s economic woes. Congested, contested, and competitive 45Russian needling doesn’t seem to have terrestrial limits. In 2015, after some curious maneuvers, Russia parked one of its military satellites between two Intelsat satellites. The US military uses some Intelsat satellites for operations, including drone missions and communications, so the Russian satellite drew angst from the Pentagon. The Russians, however, shrugged off US concern, saying that “in no way can it [the Russian satellite] be an ‘aggressor’”91 and that the chances of a collision were small. This was not the only Russian activity in space that drew US attention though. Russian launches in 2013 and 2014 carried declared communications satellites and also small undeclared objects that conducted maneuvers around the declared payload, maneuvers watched and questioned by analysts regarding whether Russia was testing ASAT capabilities.92Russia currently has advantages and disadvantages if it wants to reach, and potentially surpass, the United States in military space capabilities. Because many Russian military space systems were allowed to become moribund after the Soviet collapse, Russia is not as reliant on space systems as is the United States. Therefore, Russian satellites are not the attractive targets that US satellites might be; this is especially important to a country like Russia where favoring offense, even preemption, has been traditional military doctrine.93 Whether by choice or necessity, Russia has historically opted for numerous less complex satellites which do not last long but which they are able to rapidly replace. They have a resilience capability that the US military must envy. But Russia also has a steep upward curve to climb in terms of matching space aspirations to capabilities, including both development of across-the-board capabilities and integration of those capabilities into operations. It is also, politically, offering use of what capabilities it has, such as its navigation and positioning system GLONASS, to other countries toward drawing users away from GPS and US influence. Russia is not alone in its use of deliberately provocative tactics to draw US and international ire.On February 7, 2016, when North Korea successfully launched the country’s second satellite—an Earth observation satellite called Kwangmyongsong-4— Pyongyang celebrated with fireworks and a government spokesman referenced international efforts to block the launch as nothing more than a “puppy barking at the moon.”94 Grandiosity, provocation, and defiance clearly remain the key elements of North Korean foreign policy. While claiming the satellite launch a peaceful use of outer space in accordance with international norms, the international community has viewed North Korean actions differently.No revisionism – neg research is bought off Johnson-Freese 17 [(Joan, Professor and chair of space science and technology @ Naval War College) Space Warfare in the 21st Century, Routledge, 2017, ISBN 978131552917] TDIThe industrial side of the military–industrial complex is comprised of corporations with common interests and distinguishable characteristics from other sectors of transnational capital. They are overwhelmingly dependent on military sales as a percentage of total sales revenue. As of 2012, arms sales accounted for over half of the total sales of Lockheed Martin (76 percent), BAE Systems (95 percent), Raytheon (92 percent), General Dynamics (66 percent), and Northrop Grumman (77 percent). Their products are not easily transferrable to consumer uses and so they are dependent on government contracts. At least 9 of the 25 largest US defense firms have a significant aerospace focus: CACI International, ManTech, Rockwell Collins, Exelis, Computer Science Corporation, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin.6 The political implications of this are stark. These companies inherently have a vested interest in maintaining and expanding systems, including weapons systems, which absent clear and direct external threats, may have limited political justification. Additionally, government counterparts to these for-profit companies have concurrently grown—some might even say, “become bloated”—and in many cases, a codependent relationship has developed between them. Since the United States began maintaining a large standing military after World War II, the general attributes of US foreign policymaking have both expanded and intensified the influence of the military–industrial complex. Foreign policy decision-making is supported by a complex array of institutions whose very existence is predicated on and justified by the presence of a broad spectrum of threats from individual terrorists to be hunted down on the ground and with drones to near-peer competitors which must be countered with overwhelming air, naval, and space power. The government agencies and offices with a role in national security have expanded from inner circle policymakers to entire bureaucracies. The National Security Council staff has grown consistently since the Carter Administration from a small secretariat of less than 20 individuals to over 400 people during the Obama Administration. Post 9/11, the military created a Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) in 2002 to defend the homeland and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was stood up “to ensure a homeland that is safe, secure, and resilient against terrorism and other hazards”; these other hazards have come to include the safety hazards of deep-frying turkey and assuring that souvenir shirts sold at the Super Bowl are not Chinese knockoffs.7 DHS is now the third-largest government bureaucracy, employing more than 240,000 people. There are 17 different intelligence agencies occupying 33 building complexes, the equivalent of almost 3 Pentagons or 22 Capitol Buildings, and the intelligence community continues to expand.8 The Pentagon, with its some 23,000 military and civilian personnel, is only the hub of a Roman Empire-like division of the world into geographic military commands, the United States being the only country in the world brazen enough to create such commands. The sheer numbers of individuals, institutions, organizations, bureaucracies, and companies with a vested interest in preserving the self-licking ice cream cone9 that the ever-expanding military–industrial complex has become continues to expand. Government offices like the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security hire private military contractors from such companies as DynCorp International, Tigerswan, Triple Canopy, and Blackwater to protect diplomats and perform security functions. Employees of these companies are often retired Special Forces operators. Companies like Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), formerly a subsidiary of Haliburton and where former Vice President Dick Cheney was once CEO and Chairman, is an engineering, procurement, and construction company doing everything from building embassies to supplying military bases. Think tanks, consulting firms, and lobbying firms focused on defense and security issues have proliferated as well in terms of both quantity and investments. Members of Congress, traditionally elected largely according to the number of jobs they can bring home to their districts—and the campaign contributions they can raise—are part of the witches brew as well as they are largely supportive of defense contracts and the jobs those contracts bring. “Job loss” is among the first claims made by defense contractors in their appeals to Members of Congress when defense budget cuts or sequestration are threatened. Further, retired Members and their staffs are not immune to the lure of high-paying lobbying jobs. Defining Threats There is a wide breadth of individuals and institutions with a vested interest in maintaining threats to the United States that justify a significant defense budget. During the transition to the post-Cold War period, the US military was faced with potentially substantial cuts to military spending: the “peace dividend.” Consequently, the military suddenly found itself talking about taking on military operations other than war (MOOTWA), an acronym and job description that warriors found distasteful at best. Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and other former Defense Department officials suggested that defense spending could safely be cut in half. Policy planning organizations with close ties to the military or military contractors—think tanks like RAND and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)—were put to work to counter this claim and minimize budget cuts. They focused on the development of a new defense doctrine that would involve the retention of large-scale systems and big-ticket platforms like aircraft carriers, not just after the demise of the Soviet Union, but regardless of the short-term security environment. Contractors play an increasingly large part in the military–industrial complex as well. Political economist Ronald Cox explains the role of defense contractors in shaping that doctrine and defining threats—how the fox guards the henhouse in terms of threat identification: Military producers have a sustained relationship with key US foreign policy bureaucracies, especially the Defense Department. … The extent to which military contractors are embedded within the decision-making framework of identifiable bureaucracies within the US federal government makes their profit-making margins a function of the political process by which those departments and agencies identify long-term strategic threats.10 Thus, as considered in Chapter 1, defense strategies reflect needs but not necessarily national needs. Bureaucratic and corporate needs also play into definition of threats. Writing about the impetus to acquire nuclear weapons, Scott Sagan said, “bureaucratic actors are not … passive recipients of top-down political decisions; instead, they create the conditions that favor weapons acquisition.”11 Bruce DeBlois later applied that premise to space weapons, suggesting that “with an absence of clear top-down policy guidance on space weapons … military doctrine can build an inertia of its own, and impact – or even become – the default policy.”12 Also playing into the definition of long-term threats to US national security are think tanks—organizations often largely supported by the corporations themselves. Think tanks come in all varieties and sizes, some focused, some broad, some partisan, some not. The Heritage Foundation, for example, hosted a nine-city Defund Obamacare Town Hall Tour in 2013, headlined by Tea Party movement leader Jim DeMint, thereby clearly evidencing a partisan position. “Some [think] tanks on the left and the right of the ideological spectrum have grown so political that, to avoid losing their tax status as charitable organizations, they have established separate operations dedicated to lobbying and other advocacy work.”13 Some organizations, however, strive to be honest brokers of information in their areas of focus. The Secure World Foundation (SWF), for example, states its mission as “to work with governments, industry, international organizations, and civil society to develop and promote ideas and actions to achieve the secure, sustainable, and peaceful uses of outer space benefiting Earth and all its peoples.”14 Much of SWF’s ability to be nonpartisan and beyond the reach of corporate influence stems from it being privately funded. That is not the case with many organizations though. William Hartung and David Gibbs have written about the role of the largest defense contractors in the financing of conservative and neoconservative think tanks that have come to prominence in defense policy debates and discussions since the 1990s, and especially since 9/11; The Project for the New American Century (PNAC), the National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP), and the Center for Security Policy (CSP), for example.15 The Center for Security Policy receives onesixth of its funding from defense industries. CSP states on its website: The process the Center has repeatedly demonstrated is the unique ability that makes the Center the “Special Forces in the War of Ideas”: forging teams to get things done that would otherwise be for a small and relatively low-budget organization. In this way, we are able to offer maximum “bang for the buck” for the donors who make our work possible.16 While most think tanks declare their “intellectual independence,” the reality is that, even if they do not specifically declare an offer of “maximum bang for the buck” to their donors, they largely rely on corporate donations for their existence. Donors rarely support organizations advocating opposition views or producing information counter to their best interests. Relatively new on the block—and billing itself as “Bold. Innovative. Bipartisan.”17—is the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), founded by Dr. Kurt Campbell and Michele Flournoy in 2007. Both Campbell and Flournoy formerly served as heavy-hitters in the Obama Administration, Campbell in the State Department and Flournoy in the Defense Department. CNAS lists Boeing, the Carnegie Corporation, the Government of Japan, Northrup Grumman Aerospace Systems, and the Smith Richardson Foundation on its “honor roll” of those who have contributed more than $250,0000.18 Campbell and Flournoy are among the many former government employees who have gone on to create or work at think tanks. A strong overlapping relationship between the boards of directors of defense contractors, policy think tanks funded by these contractors, personnel in the Defense Department, and high-level cabinet executives is not uncommon.19 Reports and analyses prepared by these think tanks can weigh heavily in government policy decisions. The shaping of the post-Cold War defense posture, specifically in identifying new enemies, exemplifies the role of the expanded military–industrial complex to include influential corporations, think tanks, the Pentagon, and Members of Congress. Any doubt about the need for an identifiable enemy was firmly put to rest in March 1990 by Senator Sam Nunn, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and an acknowledged ally of the military establishment. In a blistering attack on the Soviet-oriented military posture still officially embraced by Defense Secretary Cheney, Nunn charged that the Pentagon’s proposed spending plans were rendered worthless by a glaring “threat blank”—an unrealistic and unconvincing analysis of future adversaries.20 A 1988 CSIS report had warned against “maverick regimes,” a warning that was resurrected and amplified in response to Nunn’s charge. Reaching back to the Reagan Administration, these “maverick,” soon to be renamed “rogue,” regimes initially included Iran, Libya, North Korea, Cuba, and Nicaragua. Subsequently, the Rogue Doctrine was laid out in White House Fact Sheet in March 1990; it posited that the United States would continue to face considerable post-Cold War security threats, namely from states in the developing world that possessed or potentially would posses weapons of mass destruction and the capability to threaten vital US geostrategic interests in key regions.21 Iraq was added to the list later in the 1990s. Still, regardless of how dangerous they were, rogue states did not justify aircraft carriers and other big-ticket items. Large-scale Cold War weapons programs consequently declined by 17 percent under George H. W. Bush and by 12 percent during the first term of the Clinton Administration.22 That problem had to be addressed. Again, Sam Nunn led the charge to identify at least one worthy new opponent of the United States—one that could justify the retention of a large military structure, platforms, and expensive weapons systems. Concurrent to development of the Rogue Doctrine, Nunn had begun working toward that end with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell in 1988. Eventually, a new class of states called “emerging regional powers” was identified to include Argentina, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Pakistan, South Africa, Syria, Taiwan, Turkey, and the two Koreas. Each had different national interests and philosophical underpinnings that, for one reason or another, had justified large growth in their military structures and/or the development of weapons of mass destruction.23 Some countries eventually became US allies and/or recipients of large amounts of US military aid. Others came to be considered as potential threats—more specifically near-peer competitors, particularly China—that the United States might at some point have to confront on the battlefield. Consequently, the United States moved almost seamlessly from the Cold War Containment Strategy to the Rogue Doctrine and identifying potential near-peer competitors. The Plethora of Players Defense and aerospace contractors responded to post-Cold War reduced business opportunities through a mixture of economic and political strategies. Economically, corporate restructuring, layoffs, division sell-offs, and mergers and acquisitions of other firms were among the strategies used, with the Defense Department helping to arrange financing for those mergers and acquisitions from as early as 1993. Those tactics, in combination with the wider economic trends of the 1990s, “contributed to a defense sector whose top four firms were receiving a higher share of DOD contracts than had been true for most of the post-World War II period,”24 even after the Cold War. Politically, however, a new enemy worthy of the United States, a near-peer competitor, still had to be identified. In his 2011 book Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the MilitaryIndustrial Complex, William D. Hartung considered the impact Lockheed Martin had on defense policy and the benefits the company and individual company leaders reaped from maintaining a high threat profile.25 During the post-Cold War transition from containment strategy to the Rogue Doctrine and emerging regional powers focus, then Martin Marietta CEO Norman Augustine led the charge to build what he called a “super-company.” While some companies tried to absorb defense spending “peace dividend” cuts by diversifying their base business, Augustine rejected that approach. He felt it was his patriotic duty to keep producing weapons for America and frequently referred to the weapons industry as “the fourth armed service.”26 Beyond acquiring a number of small companies, including the military division of General Electric, Martin Marietta and Lockheed merged in 1995. Martin was clearly the dominant partner as evidenced by Augustine being the new CEO, top management positions being filled by Martin employees, and the new headquarters being based at Martin’s Bethesda, Maryland headquarters. Augustine’s political connections were unmatched. While still running the world’s largest defense contractor, Augustine also served on the Defense Policy Advisory Committee on Trade (DPACT), a group advising the Secretary of Defense on arms export policies; was on the Defense Science Board (DSB), an advisory panel with the power to push forward or scrap emerging weapons programs based on performance; and was President of the Association of the United States Army, a politically robust interest group of retired military personnel and army contractors. Those political connections paid high returns during the transition. Augustine played a central role in convincing the Newt Gingrich-led, Republican-controlled Congress to allocate or add billions in funding to Lockheed Martin projects from the F-22 combat fighter to the “Star Wars” missile defense program. Perhaps his greatest coup, however, was persuading Congress to bankroll the major arms industry mergers that were occurring with taxpayer money for “restructuring costs,” a policy that yielded hundreds of millions of dollars in government support to the creation of Lockheed Martin. As a result of an obscure policy change contained in a one-page memo from John Deutsch, then the Undersecretary of Defense (and a former Augustine business associate), the Pentagon authorized federal funding for closing plants, relocating equipment, paying severance to laid-off workers, and providing “golden parachutes” to board members and executives affected by the merger.27 The policy was not published in the Federal Register, the standard repository of virtually every important government action, and it was enacted without notification to Congress. The benefits that accrued from that policy were both organizational and personal. Lockheed Martin, for example, benefited by almost $1.8 billion. Personally, Augustine was promoted from being CEO of Martin Marietta to being CEO of Lockheed Martin. However, because he “left” Martin as a result of a consolidation merger, he was compensated in the amount of $8.2 million, approximately $2.9 million of that coming from taxpayer dollars.28 The incestuous link between the Pentagon, Congress, and defense companies is sold as being good for America based on the number one concern of voters. Jobs. No one is more sensitive to “jobs” arguments than Members of Congress, with those arguments often presented by lobbyists. In 2015, corporations reported more than $2 billion in congressional lobbying expenditures. K Street in Washington, DC, where many lobbyists’ offices are located, is sometimes known as the “road to riches” for retired Members of Congress, congressional staffers, and military officers who largely populate their ranks. Today, the biggest companies have upwards of 100 lobbyists representing them, allowing them to be everywhere, all the time. For every dollar spent on lobbying by labor unions and public-interest groups together, large corporations and their associations now spend $34. Of the 100 organizations that spend the most on lobbying, 95 consistently represent business.29 More often than not, the job of the lobbyist is to convince Members of Congress that cutting whatever program they are lobbying for will result in job losses in the Members’ district. Unemployed voters aren’t happy voters. In 2011, the aerospace industry put out a report saying that chopping the defense budget would put over a million Americans out of work. Cuts that could total up to a trillion dollars over ten years would “devastate the economy and the defense industrial base and undermine the national security of our country,” said Marion Blakeley, president of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), which sponsored and paid for the report.30 While companies like Lockheed Martin and Boeing claim that the number of defense firm employees has dropped to about 10 percent from a peak of 14 percent in 2008, some of those job losses, as in the case of Boeing, have come through moving employees to the commercial side of the business. In other cases, jobs have been lost through divestitures such as Northrop’s spin-off of Huntington Ingalls. Based on executive salaries though, job losses do not seem to come because companies are financially strapped. In 2010, Boeing’s CEO Jim McNerney made $19.7 million while Lockheed Martin’s CEO Robert Stevens took home $19.1 million.31 Stevens made $25.3 million in compensation in 2011, which was more than all but two Wall Street CEOs.32 The revolving door doesn’t just go between industry and the Pentagon, but includes Congress as well. In his 2014 book This Town,33 chief national correspondent for the New York Times Magazine Mark Leibovich explains a lot about influence peddling with a simple statistic: In 1974, just 3 percent of retiring members of Congress became lobbyists; now, 50 percent of retiring Senators and 42 percent of retiring House members stay in DC and become lobbyists.34 Websites like , affiliated with the Center for Responsive Government, publish the names of former members and who they now lobby for, or become “senior advisors” to, which is basically the same thing.35 Trent Lott, Dick Armey, Tom Daschle, Tom Foley, and Scott Brown are among the bipartisan former Members on their list. President George W. Bush signed the Honest Leadership and Fair Government Act in 2007, intended to limit former Members’ and staffers’ immediate ability to cash in on their insider information in lobbying positions. President Barack Obama called it “the most sweeping ethics reform since Watergate.”36 A key provision required ex-Senators and administration executives to wait two years and representatives to wait one year as a “cooling off period” before becoming lobbyists. But loopholes seem to create more of a sieve than a barrier, and according to a 2015 report by the Center for Responsive Government and the Sunlight Foundation, encourage a culture of “shadow lobbying.”37 Of the 104 former congressional members and staffers whose “cooling off” period ends during the first session of the 114th Congress, which opens today, 29 are already in government relations, “public affairs,” or serve as counsel at a firm that lobbies. And 13 of those are even registered as lobbyists, working to shape policy in Congress or the executive branch on behalf of paying clients.38 The door doesn’t just swing only from government to the private sector. It swings both ways. In 2011, Ann Sauer left her position as a Lockheed vice president and lobbyist with a compensation package of $1.6 million. Senator John McCain hired her as the key Republican staffer on the Senate Armed Services committee in February 2012.39 Industry associations also advocate policy positions benefiting their large and continually growing memberships. For example, the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) is an organization with 9,000 corporate affiliates, 26,000 individual members, and no foreign membership. “The Association maintains close coordination with the DOD functioning though 56 chapters and 34 committees, each with direct access and a working relationship with the DOD. Divided up among these contractors is the largest single slice of the federal government’s budget.”40 There are also a multitude of industry organizations and associations specifically related to aerospace. The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) with “more than 30,000 individual members from 88 countries, and 95 corporate members … is the world’s largest technical society dedicated to the global aerospace profession.”41 The Satellite Industry Association (SIA) bills itself as a unified voice on satellite industry policy, regulatory, and legislative issues. As a trade association representing the leading global satellite operators, service providers, manufacturers, launch service providers, and ground equipment suppliers … [SIA] actively promotes the benefits and uses of commercial satellite technology and its role in national security, homeland security, disaster relief and recovery, and the global information infrastructure and economy.42 There is an association or organization for every interest, oftentimes more than one. Many of the individuals staffing and connecting this multitude of organizations are retired military officers, many of them three- or four-star generals and admirals. Their rank provides them with substantive knowledge of the defense field and a career’s worth of Rolodex connections. For those seeking post-retirement consulting careers, that means access. According to retired Air Force General Gregory “Speedy” Martin, the practice of flag and general officers moving immediately to private sector jobs is both ethical and beneficial for American defense because it links private sector expertise with important Pentagon missions. “Access sounds sleazy, but it brings a value,” says Martin. “I am interested in doing things that I think the Air Force or [Department of Defense] might benefit from.”43 There is validity in what Gen. Martin says. Most Members of Congress and their staff have never served in the military and have little knowledge of, or even interest in, national security issues and needs unless it directly affects their district. While some staff and Members are or become very knowledge about national security and military issues, first-hand expertise from practitioners can be key to their education. Pentagon officials with broad portfolios of responsibility can also benefit from practitioner input on specific areas, especially technical areas like aerospace. The practice of exporting expertise from the military to the private sector is not inherently nefarious and, indeed, can serve the country. But the lines between education, advising, and persuasion are fine. That can be especially true when former flag officers, turned industry executives, visit the Pentagon. Their rank carries with it a sense of respect, indeed awe, from former subordinates who they are now courting for contracts. “When a general-turned-businessman arrives at the Pentagon, he is often treated with extraordinary deference—as if still in uniform—which can greatly increase his effectiveness as a rainmaker for industry. The military even has a name for it – the ‘bobblehead effect.’”44 Retired generals and admirals with a practiced command voice understand the persuasive effect their authoritative presence can have on former employees. The sheer number of these retired flag officers working as defense consultants or executives—sometimes referenced as “rent-a-general” practice—tells a story, with a significant increase shown during the fat budget years of the Gulf War. Between 2004 and 2008, 80 percent of three- and four-star officers joined defense firms upon retirement, up from less than 50 percent who followed that career path from 1994 to 1998. In some individual years, the move from senior military positions to the defense industry is a virtual clean sweep. In his 2010 investigative report for the Boston Globe, Bryan Bender found that 34 out of 39 three- and four-star generals and admirals who retired in 2007 went to work for defense firms—nearly 90 percent.45 In some specialized commands, this feeder system of military officers into lucrative defense jobs is so powerful that the same companies have hired successive generations of flag officers. Bender reported, for example, that the last seven generals and admirals responsible for controlling international arms sales at the Pentagon went to work post retirement as contractors selling weapons and defense technologies overseas. The rules governing post-retirement employment are part of federal statute 18 USC, section 207(c), that statute being known as the “revolving door” restriction. The Air Force explains this restriction in its post-retirement separation rules as follows: ? This means that for one year after their service terminates, senior employees may not knowingly make, with the intent to influence, any communication or appearance before an employee of the agency in which they served in the year prior to their leaving, if the communication or appearance is made on behalf of any other person and official action by the agency is sought. ? The purpose of this “cooling off” period is to allow for a period of adjustment for the former senior employee and personnel at the agency served and to diminish any appearance that government decisions are being improperly influenced by the former senior employee. ? This restriction does not apply to “behind-the-scenes” assistance. However, it does not require that the former senior employee was “personally and substantially” involved in the matter that is the subject of the communication or appearance. ? Instead, it applies to any representation back for the purpose of influencing employees at the agency that the employee just left.46 For two years after retirement, the Pentagon prohibits military officers from participating in “particular matters,” meaning ongoing contracts greater than $10 million that were under their command. But due to another convenient loophole, “new editions of older weapons systems are not considered ‘particular matters.’”47 Beyond loopholes, potential conflict of interest issues arise since these flag officers are often recruited for private sector employment well before they retire, raising questions about their independence in threat assessments, force planning, and general considerations of national interest versus the potential for postretirement gain. Further, the revolving door—perhaps more a blender than a door—is actually promoted and facilitated by the government with taxpayer money. Taxpayer-funded career seminars on how to network into private industry are held, for example, for Navy and Air Force flag officers on Coronado Island near San Diego, sometimes two full years before their retirement.48 Other retirees have been more peripherally involved with linking Pentagon needs to industry desires to fill those needs, acting as what was called Pentagon “Senior Mentors.” The Office of the Secretary of Defense defined a Senior Mentor as a retired flag, general or other military officer or senior retired military official who provides expert experienced-based mentoring, teaching, training, advice, and recommendations to senior military officers, staffs and students, as they participate in war games, warfighting courses, operational panning, operational exercises, and decision-making exercises.49 The Pentagon has stated that it increasingly needs and relies on these retired officer “mentors” to run war games and advise active duty commanders. But a series of media reports in 2010 raised issues about the program, specifically in terms of financial gains and conflicts of interest. In some cases, for example, if payment was made to a retired military officer through a defense company rather than directly, the military services didn’t even have to reveal the identity of the retiree. These were individuals who, in some instances, were making up to $440 an hour as mentors while drawing pensions as high as $220,000 per year and working full-time executive positions with defense companies.50 USA Today reported that of the 158 Senior Mentors they identified, 80 percent had financial ties to defense contractors, including 29 being full-time executives of defense companies. The Senate Armed Services committee took an interest in the Senior Mentors program, and soon thereafter, the Pentagon ordered a program overhaul.51 Consequently, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced sweeping changes to the program in April 2010. Mentors were to be converted to Highly Qualified Expert (HQE) positions and, consequently, were held responsible for complying with all applicable federal personnel ethics laws and regulations. Those regulations included financial disclosure statements and imposed a salary cap. The financial disclosure part included revealing employers, earnings, and stocks. The salary cap meant that a HQE could only be paid up to a specific authorized amount, an amount equivalent to the salary authorized for a four-star general officer on active duty—the most they could have made before moving to the private sector. Further, mentors became subject to federal rules designed to prevent conflicts of interest, such as prohibiting mentors from divulging nonpublic information to defense contractors or taking actions that have “a direct and predictable”52 effect on their private interests. In October 2011, the DoD Inspector General reported on compliance with the new policy, focusing on the Navy, Marine Corps, Joint Forces Command, Special Forces Command, and Strategic Command. The Army and Air Force were omitted as they were conducting their own compliance studies.53 Subsequent to the new rules being put into place, 98 percent of the retired officers from the Navy, the Marines, and three combatant commands left the Senior Mentor program. “It appears that, for at least some of the former military officers who dropped out the program, it’s clear which choice they made when it came to patriotism or money.”54 The kind of conflict of interest issue that had bothered the press and the Senate came up again in November 2011. Senator John McCain sent a letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta expressing concern about retired Air Force General turned Boeing executive Charles Robinson’s participation in a 2008 war game called Global Mobility “for a $51 billion aerial tanker contract Boeing was competing to win.”55 Boeing was later awarded the contract. McCain further criticized the Pentagon for taking two years to fulfill a FOIA request related to the subject. It is not just the Pentagon and defense firms who are keen to hire retired general officers. According to retired Army General Wesley K. Clark, private equity firms and Wall Street investors are also increasingly interested in enlisting retired flag officers as consequence of a broader phenomenon: the increasing importance of the military to America’s industrial base. “It’s the militarization of the economy,”56 Clark said; and he would know. Since leaving his position as NATO Supreme Allied Commander in 2000 and running for President from 2002 to 2004, Clark has worked for, often simultaneously, his own firm, Wesley K. Clark and Associates; the lobbying firm James Lee Witt Associates as Vice President and Senior Advisor; Rodman & Renshaw, eleventh largest investment bank in the United States, as former Chairman; Growth Energy, an alternative energy advocacy firm, as Co-Chairman; Geooptics LCC, an environmental data company, on the Board of Advisors; and the Blackstone Group, a private equity firm, as Senior Advisor. Clark is not alone in being sought after in the private equity, finance, and energy sectors. Retired Army General and former CIA Director David Petraeus was hired in 2013 by Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts (KKR), a private equity firm specializing in leveraged buyouts, to head its KKR Global Institute. The role of the media—specifically, paying former military members to act as advisors for the media and spokespersons for Pentagon policy—must also be considered as part of the supporting cast of the military–industrial complex. Retired General Jack Keane, for example, appeared on Fox News nine times over a two-month period in 2014 to advocate for air strikes and special forces to defeat ISIS, declaring that a bolder strategy was required. He made similar calls for more military action before Congress. What was left unsaid by the media, though, (and in congressional witness disclosure forms) was that Keane had a very personal interest in seeing military activity ramped up. Keane is a special adviser to Academi, the contractor formerly known as Blackwater; a board member to tank and aircraft manufacturer General Dynamics where he was paid over $245,000 in 2013; a “venture partner” to SCP Partners, an investment firm that partners with defense contractors, including XVionics, an “operations management decision support system” company used in Air Force drone training; and president of his own consulting firm, GSI LLC.57 When the US military is involved in global conflicts, the firms that Keane is associated with benefit. Dean Ed Wasserman of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism was quoted in The Nation as saying, “I think an inclination to use military action a lot is something the defense industry subscribes to because it helps to perpetuate an overall climate of permissiveness towards military spending.”58 Those who profit from conflict certainly weren’t going to argue against it. The Pentagon has a track record of using the media for its own purposes as well. In 2002, during the run-up to the Iraq War, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Victoria Clarke launched a program to recruit “key influentials” (retired military officers) to help sell the war to the public. More than 75 individuals were eventually signed up to appear on television and radio shows as military analysts and/or to pen newspaper op–ed columns. Many of these analysts were also lobbyists for defense contractors. The Pentagon held weekly meetings with the analysts, providing them “street credibility.” The analysts benefited as the meetings indicated to their clients that they had personal access to the Pentagon, and they benefited the Pentagon by discouraging the analysts from questioning or criticizing Pentagon assertions. The arrangement worked well until New York Times reporter David Barstow reported on the program in 2008.59 As part of the investigation leading up to Barstow’s report, the newspaper sued the Defense Department and eventually gained access to 8,000 pages of e-mail messages, transcripts, and records describing years of private briefings, trips to Iraq and Guantánamo for the analysts, and an extensive Pentagon talking points operation. Barstow later won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting. While issues regarding the military–industrial complex are evidenced across the board in defense policy and program decision-making, those that are space-related can be particularly noteworthy given their cost, endurance, and technical fatuity. When all the wheels are turning in the right direction, a program can become one of those highly lucrative self-licking ice cream cones. Missile defense provides an illustrative example of what that looks like. Within that strategic program, there are multiple smaller, related programs. Many endure for years before collapsing. The $5 billion Airborne Laser, the $1.7 billion Kinetic Energy Interceptor, and the 700 million Multiple Kill Vehicle were all canceled after no, or failed, testing.60 But yet the missile defense program lives on and is a testament to the persistence of its supporters.Neg – Advantage CP 1NC – Mechanism CP The United States federal government should propose to the Russian Federation and People’s Republic of China the establishment of:- an international “debris credits” trading system that distributes tradeable quotas for debris production and rewards members of the international agreement with additional credits if they implement mitigation protocols.-an international fund collected via a fee upon launch starting at 5% and moving upwards pending international agreement that functions as a partial rebate and victims restitution fund by providing partial compensation to countries who create “debris free” launches and implement post-mission disposal mechanisms as well as providing full compensation to countries in the events of collisions with orbital debris. Debris credits solve the case without having to share SSA data.Prasad and Lochan 7 [(M.Y.S. Prasad, Space Applications Centre, Indian Space Research Organisation, Ahmedabad, India, and Rajeev Lochan Indian Space Research Organisation, Bangalore, India,) “COMMON BUT DIFFERENTIATED RESPONSIBILITY - A PRINCIPLE TO MAINTAIN SPACE ENVIRONMENT WITH RESPECT TO SPACE DEBRIS” ISBN: 9781563479625, Proceedings of the Fiftieth colloquium on the Law of outer space : 24-28 September 2007, Hyderabad, India] TDISpace debris will be a concern for future for all the countries. Especially the developing countries which have limited Space assets will face serious consequences if any of their satellites is involved with incidents / accidents with Space debris. The manned missions of advanced countries requires absolutely high level of crew safety, and hence Space debris is a serious concern to them also. Even a close approach of the debris to the operational satellites may pose problems if the cloud of debris occupies larger volume. From these considerations, it is definitely essential to evolve strategies to limit the growth of Space debris, and also to evolve debris mitigation measures.However the analysis of the Space debris presented in section 4 clearly brought out that the debris population is proportional to the number of launches carried out by each country in the past. Hence larger responsibility lies with the countries which carried out a number of launches in the past. So the maintenance of Space environment from the Space debris point of view is a case well suited for “Common but differentiated responsibility” . In this context this principle means that all countries capable of taking actions are responsible to maintain the Space environment relatively clean with respect to Space debris. Also the countries, which are responsible for the present level of the debris population, should take higher responsibility in respect of limiting the future growth of Space debris, and also in providing knowledge and technology in the areas of Space debris monitoring and mitigation to all countries.In this context various measures can be contemplated for future. One of them had been achieved when UN-COPUOS adopted Space debris mitigation guidelines to be implemented by all countries on voluntary basis through national mechanisms.Different countries have evolved their own national Space debris mitigation standards and regulations to be implemented by the companies involved in aerospace activities in their countries. Still many countries feel that an appropriate legal regime at a global level is essential to tackle the Space debris issue. This is where the models evolved in the Kyoto Protocol can be considered to be tailored and used with appropriate modifications for Space debris legal regime.Some of the new mechanisms which can be derived from the principles of Kyoto Protocol are:? To limit the future Space debris generation, launch quota caps for each Space-faring country can be evolved linked to their past generation of the Space debris.? The countries can be rewarded with “debris credits” in case they implement Space debris mitigation measures in their missions.? Some advanced Space-faring nations may have pressing commitments to carry out larger number of launches. They can be enabled to carry out such missions through purchase of “debris credits” from the other countries, who have earned “debris credits” through application of Space debris mitigation measures.? The countries which do not have any Space activity for the present, but who have plans to develop either Space transportation or deploy satellites in orbit can be given fixed quota of “debris credits”. These credits can lapse after a certain period if they do not realize their Space missions. These countries can also be enabled to market their “debris credits” to the other countries, and benefit by acquiring Space technologies.? A Trust Fund can be created to compensate the victims involved in the accidents with Space debris, to which the contributions can be linked to the debris generated in the past by different countries. This can be a part of larger aspect of Space debris damage liability regime.? Special treatment can be considered for the countries willing to share their knowledge and technology in the area of Space debris with other countries, to take up the research and development to a higher level. Such cooperative ventures can be given special treatment as Joint Implementation Mechanisms to earn “Debris credits”.These are some of the ideas which are derived from the Kyoto Protocol with application to Space debris area. They are not exhaustive but only indicative for friture legal experts to examine while developing Space debris legal regime.6. CONCLUSIONSThis paper describes various multi-lateral initiatives in the area of analysis, and mitigation of Space debris. The specific features related to type of debris and the level of launches and other activities of Space-faring nations are detailed. The innovative mechanisms evolved in the Kyoto Protocol of UN FCCC are described and their applicability for Space debris case is argued. Possible measures which can be fashioned after the Kyoto Protocol are suggested to deal with the Space debris and maintenance of Outer Space environment. All the analysis is based on the conviction that ‘Common but Differentiated Responsibility’ is very well suited for the present Space debris scenario.Global trust fund solves the aff and encourages companies to stay in countries party to the agreementPelton 13 [(Dr. Joseph N., Director of the Space and Advanced Communications Research Institute (SACRI) at George Washington University), Space debris and other threats from outer space. New York: Springer. 27-28, 2013] TDIThe missing element in many of these discussions is how to create the economic wherewithal to address the debris problem and how to create financial incentives to correct the problem. In this section the analysis is directed toward the merits of establishing national, regional and in time perhaps universal agreements to establish economic funds—as well as incentives or penalties—to mitigate the problem. The purpose of such funds would be several fold: (i) to create a rebate system to reward “clean and debris free” launches; (ii) to award a further rebate to reward clean disposal of satellites at the end-of life. Under this approach there would now be clear incentives to get rid of space debris as opposed to the current disincentives and potential liabilities associated with bringing debris and satellites down or into graveyard orbits. The creation of a fund—or perhaps several funds that could grow into a global fund—would create incentives to develop the best technology rather than a single approach that might ultimately prove to be suboptimal. The 20-year sunset for the fund(s) would create a specific goal to complete the mission, and if success is achieved there would not be the additional issue of having to disband an international agency. The fund (or collection of national/regional funds) could be established over time in an “organic manner” with countries forming such a fund on a national basis, or perhaps Europe could form such a fund on a regional basis. This type of national, regional, and in time ultimately universal fund would be formed by space actors for the specific purpose of addressing the space debris issue. This approach would thus become a pro-active “forward looking” approach to financing a solution to the problem rather than seeking a “backwards-looking” approach to addressing space debris with no financing mechanism in place and nations being “coerced” into doing the “right thing”. The money to capitalize this type of space debris fund would be collected prior to all launches and would equivalent to perhaps 3-5 % of the total cost of various space-related missions. Under this approach LEO/polar orbit missions might be required to pay in 5 % of mission costs. MEO and GEO orbit and deep space missions might be asked to pay in a lower amount. This fund would be collected for a period of perhaps 20 years but would have a sunset provision on the premise that migitation of orbital debris could be successfully accomplished over this length of time. Thus there would need to be an active agreement to extend the fund or it would otherwise elapse.Such a fund (or network of funds) would be formed by means of a specific assessment paid into a designated bank account (or space insurance company) prior to launch. This fund would apply to all those deploying spacecraft into Earth orbit, or, if on a national or regional basis, would apply to all launches from that country or region. Organizations launching satellites beyond Earth orbit would also pay into the fund but a lower amount. After each launch there would be a partial rebate, assuming it was a certified as a clean “debris-free” launch as independently verified. When a spacecraft was de-orbited at end of life or successfully placed in a graveyard orbit there would be a further rebate. The size of the “clean launch” and “successful disposal” rebates would be specified at the time the fund(s) were established. Approximately half of the payments into the fund, however, would always be retained to compensate those entities involved in removing “officially designated” debris from orbit or moving defunct space objects to a graveyard orbit.The prime purpose of the national, regional or hopefully, global space debris fund would be to compensate those entities “licensed under an appropriate regulatory framework” to remove debris from Earth orbit or those that develop and operate systems to avoid collisions. This licensing process for entities designated to undertake orbit debris removal or collision avoidance activities might, for example, be formally assigned to the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs or in time spelled out in a new international space convention. Other entities might also be “licensed” by the U. N. Office of Outer Space Affairs to undertake activities associated with the prevention of space debris or space debris mediation or collision avoidance activities separate from the active removal of space debris from orbit. Such activities, however, would be limited to no more than a set percentage of the available funds.Payment into this fund would “seem and feel” to satellite operators and governmental space agencies conducting space operations very much like buying launch insurance for a spacecraft mission. Indeed the fund could possibly be administered by launch insurance companies. These payments would be different in that it would only represent about a third of the cost associated with purchasing launch insurance, and rebates would eventually return half of the money paid into the fund. Further, the projected end date for the fund would establish a very real goal for accomplishing “a largely space debris-free world”. The creation of this fund and the rebate payments would reverse the current incentives that actually “encourage” the increase of orbital debris. Under current space law the owners and operators of space objects not only lack an incentive to remove their space debris from orbit; they actually face substantial financial penalties if the removal process somehow adversely affects another space object and creates liabilities which they are compelled to pay. The payments into the fund are actually modest when compared to the damages that will ensue once we reach the Kessler syndrome stage and debris continues to cascade out of control on an exponentially increasing basis. Indeed payments for launch insurance operations over the last three decades have varied from a low of about 6 % of total mission costs to as much as 20 % of total costs. Today typically 15 % of mission costs is for launch insurance. If one considers this wide range of payments for launch insurance and the importance of the long term sustainability of space and safe space access one should consider a 5 % orbital debris fund as not being at all excessive or unreasonable, especially if half of the money is ultimately rebated in the advent of a “clean” launch with upper stage rocket motors and launcher fairings being removed from orbit and the satellite eventually disposed of as well. There would appear to be merit to a flexible “economic fund” approach as opposed to seeking to create a single international agency charged with space debris remediation that would likely focus on a preferred technology and a single approach to debris removal. Licensed international entities, under the fund approach, would not be restricted to a single country. Each country or region that acted first to create orbital debris funds could also give research grants to entities embarked on developing new technology to remove debris from orbit with the latest technology.In short it is believed that there would be “economic and political efficiency” in having a number of licensed commercial entities capable of developing a diversity of innovative technologies to carry out space debris removal. Overall it is believed that the “economic fund” mechanism could help to create all the right incentives: (a) to reward entities for a clean launch of the satellite and removal of upper stage rockets and protective fairing covers from orbit; (b) to reward operators for removing debris properly at end of life; (c) using the “sunset provision” to establish a specific goal to get the job done; (d) using the “fund approach” (or alternatively even a prize approach) that would allow the competitive development of the best and most cost efficient technology and (e) there would be no need to “dismantle” an international agency at the end of the process.2NR – AT: Fund runs out Collisions extremely unlikely – fund won’t depleteSalter 16 [(Alexander William, Economics Professor at Texas Tech), “SPACE DEBRIS: A LAW AND ECONOMICS ANALYSIS OF THE ORBITAL COMMONS” 2016, 19 STAN. TECH. L. REV. 221] TDIThe probability of a collision is currently low. Bradley and Wein estimate that the maximum probability in LEO of a collision over the lifetime of a spacecraft remains below one in one thousand, conditional on continued compliance with NASA’s deorbiting guidelines.3 However, the possibility of a future “snowballing” effect, whereby debris collides with other objects, further congesting orbit space, remains a significant concern.4 Levin and Carroll estimate the average immediate destruction of wealth created by a collision to be approximately $30 million, with an additional $200 million in damages to all currently existing space assets from the debris created by the initial collision.5 The expected value of destroyed wealth because of collisions, currently small because of the low probability of a collision, can quickly become significant if future collisions result in runaway debris growth.2NR – AT: “Can’t Estimate Pigouvian Tax”/Fund depletionSpace Fee CP feasible and can be estimatedPlantz 12 [(Meghan R., J.D., University of Georgia, 2012; B.A., Ohio University, 2007) “ORBITAL DEBRIS: OUT OF SPACE” GA. J. INT’L & COMP. L. Vol. 40:585, 2012] TDIThe demographics of the space community are unique and inherently lend certain actors market power, which is the most effective way to implement a regime change. Most actors rely on other actors for access to space. Out of the sixty actors who utilize space, only ten have independent orbital launch capability: Russia, the United States, China, France, the U.K., India, Japan, Israel, Iran, and the ESA.250 Furthermore, only a few of these states are active in the commercial launch sector.251 “For a launch to be considered commercial, at least one of the payload’s launch contracts must be subject to international competition; thus, in principle, a launch opportunity is available to any capable launch services provider.”252 Russia, Europe, and the U.S. dominate in the commercial launch industry; Russia launches the most satellites annually, commercial or otherwise.253 Recently, India and China have launched satellites for other countries with more frequency.254 A few private commercial companies also have independent launch capabilities.255 For instance, Arianespace, a European corporation, and the first commercial satellite launch company, is responsible for placing half of the commercial satellites in orbit that are currently in service.256 For purposes of this Note, private companies will be grouped under the respective state from which they launch, and any reference to a specific state will refer to those private companies as well. The effects of the multilateral agreement, i.e., the launch fee, will pertain to private companies because under the Outer Space Treaty, states have responsibility for any object launched from their jurisdiction; private commercial launch companies are governed and regulated by their respective states.257 For example, the Department of Transportation regulates commercial space launch activities in the U.S.258 Therefore, a company will be bound by their country’s national legislation, such as a multilateral agreement. Based on the makeup of the space community and the reliance on a few actors for access to space, the five actors that dominate the space launch industry have market power. “The capability to launch is a rare commodity and provides those who possess it with interesting leverage.”259 Russia, the ESA, and the U.S. have significant control and power over the space community since they provide most of the community’s access to space. Market power enables them to impose a system that forces players in the space community to abide by a regime or system they impose in order to gain access to space. It is imperative that Russia, the U.S., and the ESA be involved in the multilateral agreement, because they are the most prominent states in the space launch sector. However, it would also be prudent to include India and China due to their most recent launches of foreign state satellites and their recent announcements to take a more vital role in the space launch sector.260 While these fees will be collected based on the number of launches that occur in each the jurisdiction, each actor can individually decide how they will structure their collection of money from other actors to pay for this fee. In essence, the actual government will not have to bear the entirety of every fee because it can pass the cost down to the private company who actually conducted the launch or to another state if they are contracting out their launch capabilities. However, some actors will pay more due to the fact that they launch more objects into space. Furthermore, the fees will have to be balanced so that it is a reasonable amount, but also enough to find a solution. The agreement should not set a fixed fee; it should be flexible so it can change with time if need be. After a technique is developed the fees can be adjusted to cover the cost of using that technique to clean up the space environment and then regular missions thereafter to remove future debris. The five actors with market power can decide on how best to use these funds. One option is to create a committee that evaluates and funds various scientific teams working on remediation techniques. Another more ideal option is to create a new entity or organization that not only manages the fund, but also conducts the scientific research. This Note will not address all of the nuances and problems that would arise with the creation of a new entity resulting from this multilateral agreement, however some general thoughts and ideas are suggested. It would be optimal if scientists currently working on remediation teams in their home states went to one central location and worked together, thus further promoting international cooperation, a main goal in space exploration and also within the U.N. The agreement can either require each party to provide a given number of scientists, allow it to be voluntary, or allow for scientists from other states not in the agreement to join the team. Having scientists on site would undoubtedly put the brightest minds together, leading to faster results. Having one entity conduct research would also eliminate the possibility that some research is being duplicated, is a likely scenario today since most states are individually pursuing a solution. Additionally, if this one entity solely focused on finding a solution, individual states would no longer need to pursue their own research, which would allow states to divert funding from those research teams to pay the launch fees without any added cost. The use of these funds will also have to be carefully drafted in the multilateral agreement so as to incentivize these five actors to agree. For example, each actor will probably want a share of control over the entity to ensure that progress is being made. While in the past states used advances in space exploration to tout their power and were inclined to find a solution on their own for recognitions sake, this approach must be curbed because the dangers of orbital debris are too pressing and international cooperation is needed to find a solution in the near future. International cooperation is possible however, as evidenced by the creation and launch of the International Space Station. Working together to build and maintain the ISS created good will among nations, a potential outcome for the creation of an international remediation agreement as well.261This proposal is necessary because the space community will not be able to reach a consensus on implementing an effective solution within a short time period. Today’s space community has many actors with diverse interests, which makes it difficult to reach a consensus decision within the legal community. Advanced actors, such as the U.S., Russia, and the ESA, with developed space programs are starting to shift from state run programs to privatized commercialization.262 They are focused on making the utilization of space economically feasible for private actors; with this in mind, remediation of the space environment is vital to keep costs low enough to promote the use of space by private actors. On the other hand, emerging actors in the space community, which tend to have less developed programs, may not view damage to the space environment with the same level of concern as developed space-faring nations.263 Access to space, and having an equal claim to geostationary slots, are the main concerns of these countries.264 These polarized interests make it difficult for the international community to move forward in addressing the problem of orbital debris. Having five actors implement a regime with their market power is more logistically feasible than a general consensus among all actors in the space community. This proposal is superior to the suggested regime changes mentioned above for many reasons. First, a multilateral approach could be implemented in less time than the suggested proposals, especially a new international treaty or the development of customary international law. It would also be unlike a new international treaty or the development of customary international law because it would not be watered down and would allow for an effective and specific solution. It is unlike proposals to reform the liability convention, to create a compensation fund, and the adoption of a market share plan, in that this proposal specifically addresses remediation rather than attempting to incentivize actors to remediate the space environment. Incentives do not ensure hard and fast results. Some actors might be disincentivized to spend money on remediation techniques if they have to spend billions of dollars on damages under a market-share liability plan. Furthermore, a fee per launch regime is forward looking, instead of based on past transgressions, which is important considering states did not know the harm in producing orbital debris.The remediation of space will benefit all space-faring states by making the space environment less dangerous, and will subsequently lower the risk of collisions. A multilateral agreement to impose a fee on all launches spreads the cost of remediation to all actors in the community currently seeking access to space. Russia, the U.S., and China are responsible for a majority of the debris located in space.265 Since many states believe that past polluters should pay,266 it is in the best interest of Russia, the U.S., and China to choose a regime that benefits them by spreading the cost of remediation to all actors in the community. Furthermore, these countries, especially the U.S. and Russia, have led the way in regards to space exploration and should once again take such an important and prominent role and lead the way with remediation.A multilateral agreement between the five states that have market power is the sole means of control in the space community. This fee system will provide the fastest and most efficient way to clean up the space environment. States that do not have independent launch capability will be forced to either pay the tax or acquire launch capability; since, the cost of developing launch technology is extremely expensive and launch programs take many years to become successful,267 most states will probably chose to pay the necessary fee. Thus, if actors with launch capabilities, which are not included in the multilateral agreement begin to commercially launch other actors’ spacecraft, then the five actors in the agreement can use various forms of political pressure to convince them to sign onto the agreement. A safe space environment is important because “[t]he world has become increasingly reliant on the benefits derived from space-based technologies.”268 Remediation of the space environment is the only way to fix the orbital debris problem and in the long run, all states will benefit from a multilateral agreement among the leaders in the commercial launch industry to collect a fee for every launch that occurs in their jurisdiction. Neg – Heg DA 1NC – Heg DA The US is locked in a race for space dominance against Russia and China. Revisionist powers take advantage of fissures in the international economic order. Lambakis 18 [(Lambakis, PhD, Director of Space Studies at the National Institute for Public Policy, Editor-in-Chief of Comparative Strategy, author of several books and articles on space policy), Foreign space capabilities: Implications for U.S. national security, Comparative Strategy, Volume 37, No. 2, 87-154)] TDIAddressing U.S. vulnerabilities: Arms controlOther nations may use diplomacy to manipulate arms developments in other countries, as Russia and China are currently attempting to do with the United States. The danger of declaring or negotiating agreements for peacetime moratoriums on direct-ascent ASATs, for example, is that it would limit the development, testing, and potentially the operation of ballistic missile defenses, especially the more capable regional Standard Missile-3 interceptors deployed by Aegis BMD ships and Aegis Ashore sites in Europe. As noted, the United States used a modified Standard Missile-3 to reach into low earth orbit to destroy an errant and toxic U.S. government satellite in 2008. This was a unique and unanticipated use of a weapon system in an emergency situation. Moreover, there are very serious definitional and verification problems associated with an ASAT agreement. ASAT weapons can be tested without the target vehicle actually being in orbit.Russia and China continue to push treaties to constrict the deployment of U.S. defenses to protect its space activities. Both nations have long promoted the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space Treaty (PPWT), which the United States continues to argue is unverifiable and does not deal with the threats posed by terrestrially-based anti-satellite weapons (electronic jammers and direct-ascent ASATs)—weapon systems currently under development by Russia and China. Russia is also promoting a “No first placement of weapons in outer space” initiative, which the United States argues will not reduce mishaps, misunderstandings, and miscalculations.277 The United States has consistently avoided such legally binding commitments while arguing for voluntary commitments to agreed-upon transparency and confidence-building measures, such as the 2013 United Nations Group of Government Experts on Transparency and Confidence-Building Measures in Outer Space Activities.The PPWT has been pushed by Russia and China and opposed by the Obama and, presumably, Trump Administrations. This is the right position as the treaty in question is designed to unduly constrain U.S. actions to defend itself in space and could affect its current and future missile defense plans. The compromise agreement by the European Union, Code of Conduct, has since been replaced by the International Code of Conduct (ICoC) for Outer Space Activities. As with any arms control arrangement or code of conduct, they are only as good as their participants—the United States lives up to the letter and spirit of its international agreements; but the same cannot be said of other key participants, particularly Russia.Also, to what extent will adherence to the ICoC hinder steps that the United States must take to protect its space assets and deploy defenses? It is important to ask what the real benefits of signing such an accord will reap—what does the ICoC provide that the United States does not already practice in space? Commercial satellite operations already abide by norms to avoid collisions and spectrum interference. Ultimately, however, U.S. leaders must ask themselves whether they believe the ICoC will constrain these countries of greatest concern.In response to the relative strategic restraint demonstrated by the United States, both Russia and China continue to build up and modernize their ballistic missile and counter-space capabilities. Iran and North Korea, in defiance of international sanctions, have developed ballistic missiles and have leveraged their respective space programs to improve missile programs. North Korea, also in defiance of several UN Security Council resolutions and the international community, to date has conducted five underground nuclear tests. These activities not only demonstrate the desire by these states to modernize and improve weapon systems to exploit U.S. and allied vulnerabilities, but also highlight the limited nature, if not futility, of arms control as it has often been practiced. U.S. officials should not get locked into the illusion that the United States can cause or prevent an “arms race” in space. As we have witnessed over the past decade, the United States does not have to be involved in an arms race in space for other nations to focus their investment into the development of counter-space weapon technologies.There are, of course, numerous documented pitfalls to arms control—verification difficulties and noncompliance are chief among them. Russia has a history of violating key arms agreements, to include the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty.278 There was the supreme failure of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which held the United States back from developing technologies and systems to defend the country against Soviet missile threats, while doing nothing to prevent the expansion of the growing Soviet missile force—with the consequent increase in the vulnerability of U.S. deterrent forces to Russian nuclear forces. There is also overwhelming evidence of the failure of the New START treaty to lead Russia to join the United States in lowering the salience and numbers of nuclear forces. Unverifiable arms control agreements on space would likely be as subject to violation by Russia (and perhaps China) as the numerous other arms control agreements with which it is in noncompliance. Though history is replete with examples of nations that develop weapons to counter the weapons of other nations to depict the cause of arms development as an “action-reaction” cycle instigated by the United States is often overly simplistic and factually mistaken. Strategic national aims drive weapons development for all nations. The development of a Space Based Interceptor, for example, might fulfill an urgent need to provide effective defenses against ballistic missiles and direct-ascent ASATs, so much so that it justifies the United States being the first to deploy space-based weapons. The deployment of SBI would not necessarily drive other states to deploy such a system if they were not otherwise going to do so, simply because they may not have the technical expertise, capabilities, or the money to do so, or may not have the same requirement to defend against ballistic missile attack or defend space systems. Indeed, it should not surprise us that other nations deploy defenses, potentially including space-based defenses; other states will deploy weapons that are tailored to their strategic aims whether or not we move in a similar manner before or after.The United States has a significant stake in promoting a space environment that is secure and free to operate in since it deploys significant space assets to support national security, but this does not mean that by refraining from steps to defend its interests through force that space will not somehow become more armed. Other nations will follow their security interests regardless of what the United States does (China and Russia seem to understand there may be a significant strategic payoff in having capabilities to deny other nations the use of space). The United States, as a powerful actor in that environment, does not have the only voice. Idealism must be balanced by the practical. We might have a vision for space that is completely free of conflict and weapons deployments, but we should not be deceived into believing that our vision will not be overcome by the visions of others.The plan’s treaty ratification cedes governance of the commons to China – political positioning proves Weeden 19 [(Dr. Brian, Director of Program Planning for Secure World Foundation and has nearly two decades of professional experience in space operations and policy, PhD Science and Technology Policy @ GWU, “Testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission” 4/25/19, USCC Testimony] TDIChinese statements in COPUOS on sovereignty and utilization of space resources have generally been in line with the G77 voting bloc of developing countries. Specific statements were made by the G77 since 2017 emphasize equitable access and space as the province of all humankind and reinforce the need for an international coordinated framework for governance of space resource utilization to avoid gaps or contradictions from domestic regimes.25,26,27 Thus, China has positioned itself firmly in the camp of most developing countries who are concerned about “rich” States being able to access space resources to the exclusion of less advanced states.China supports Bogota declaration’s claim of rightful access to highly sought after orbits Schneider and Faulkender 18 [(Stephan, Figueroa-Conteras Law Group, B.A. Polisci @ FAU, and Garett Faulkender, FAU) “The Final Frontier: Evolution of Space Law in a Global Society,” FAU Law Journal, Spring 2018] TDIClaimed ownership of the Geosynchynous orbit has been a point of contention since the Space Treaty. The orbit is extremely desirable due to its location around the Earth’s equator, as it is the ideal location for telecommunications satellites to maintain a constant link with their contact point on Earth.198 As an essential component of intelligence-gathering, communications, entertainment, and enterprise, a spot on this orbit is in high demand. Recognizing its importance, some nations have fought for the territorial claim over the geosynchronous orbit by classifying it as airspace. Most notable is the Bogotá 8. Created and led by Colombia in 1976, eight equatorial countries sought to secure the rights to the geostationary orbits directly above their territories.199 They argued that they could do this by extending their sovereignty to Outer Space.200 These nations attempted to do this with the 1976 Bogotá Declaration. 201 With this declaration, the Bogotá 8 argued that the GSO arises directly from the Earth’s gravity, thus implying that everything that lies in Earth’s gravitational field is airspace.202 This would allow the GSO to fall under air law instead of space law.203 They requested a special exemption for the GSO so that they could claim sovereignty without conflicting with the Outer Space Treaty and breaking international law under the established legal regime.204 They further claimed that the current system and solutions used and created by the International Telecommunications Union was “at present impracticable and unfair and would considerably increase the exploitation costs of this resource especially for developing countries that do not have equal technological and financial resources as compared to industrialized countries, who enjoy an apparent monopoly in the exploitation and use of its geostationary synchronous orbit.”205 In the end, the representative of the Soviet Union overwhelmingly rebutted the Bogotá 8’s argument.206 The subcommittee agreed that claims of sovereignty over the GSO or any other part of outer space are incompatible with the spirit of the Outer Space Treaty and should be dismissed.207 On top of this, none of the Bogotá 8 were space-capable.208 This is significant because their actions could have potentially led to another space-capable nation to do the same and claim the GSO over their territory.209Even though the Bogotá 8 was defeated, the battle over the GSO still continued. Colombia, who signed the Outer Space Treaty but did not ratify it, went so far as to claim sovereignty over the GSO directly over their land in the 1991 Colombian Constitution. Article 101, Paragraph 4 states: Also part of Colombia is the subsoil, the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the continental shelf, the exclusive economic zone, the airspace, the segment of the geostationary orbit, the electromagnetic spectrum and the space in which it operates, in accordance with international law or the laws of Colombia in the absence of international regulations. 210Article 102, Paragraph 1 then follows up by saying, “The territory with the public resources that are part of it, belong to the nation.”211 Colombia’s actions, even though it can be argued that they are in direct violation of international law, shows that it still believes it can lay claim over the GSO directly above it and that it believes that the current legal regime is unfair to developing nations.212 Colombia is not alone in this conflict. China has also played around with the idea of claiming sovereignty in outer space. They are doing this by exploring the differences between res nullius, (areas which may be appropriated as national territory), and res extra commercium (areas which may not be appropriated as national territory).213 As the common heritage and global commons adds another dimension to these legal principles,214 countries like China are realizing that the status-quo has been altered in a way that could lead to a change in the international legal structure in regard to space. The enactment of domestic Space law (e.g.; the U.S. Space Act) combined with the emergence of non-state Spacefaring actors will likely create Westphalian boundary disputes and property right conflicts with nations whose laws clash. Affording United States citizens with the right to claim Space resources will be seen as a direct blow to customary international law making. This has already encouraged Luxembourg to enact its own domestic Space law and is likely to influence other Spacefaring nations to create similar legislation that benefits their own citizens. It is expected that not all nations would have the same values and beliefs. Without international discussion, this inevitable free-for-all of domestic law making will most likely produce laws that oppose each other. If this domino effect creates opposing laws then there will be conflict in Space, which consequently creates conflict on Earth. China and Russia will likely be the next candidates to implement domestic policy for space, which could lead to major legal and political issues.Space dominance solves nuclear war. Hegemony de-escalates all conflict scenarios. Yoo 18 [(Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, and a visiting scholar at AEI since 2003. He served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of the Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice from 2001 to 2003, where he worked on constitutional and national security matters, as General Counsel of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary from 1995-96, and as a law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court (John, Winning the Space Race, October 15th, )] *edited for offensive languagePresident Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy set a new course by focusing on rebuilding the domestic economy as central to national security and aiming at “rival powers, Russia and China, that seek to challenge American influence, values, and wealth.” Critics observed that the White House seemed to reverse past presidents’ emphasis on advancing democracy and liberal values and elevating American sovereignty over international cooperation.1Less noticed but perhaps equally revisionist, the Trump administration reversed its predecessor’s course on outer space. Even as American military and civilian networks increased their dependence on satellites, the Obama White House had deferred to European efforts to develop a space “Code of Conduct.” The Trump administration instead relies on unilateralism: “any harmful interference with or an attack upon critical components of our space architecture that directly affects this vital US interest will be met with a deliberate response at a time, place, manner, and domain of our choosing.” On June 18, 2018, President Trump announced a new branch of the military: the United States Space Force.Control of space already underlies the United States’ predominance in nuclear and conventional warfare. Intercontinental and submarine launched ballistic missiles, the heart of the US nuclear deterrent, pass through space to reach their targets. Reconnaissance satellites monitor rival nations for missile launches, strategic deployments, and major troop movements. Communications satellites provide the high-speed data transfer that stitches the US Armed Forces together, from generals issuing commands to pilots controlling drones. With economic rivals such as China and India, and rogue states like Iran and North Korea developing space programs that pursue similar missions, the importance of space technology to US interests and international peace will only increase.Space not only enhances military operations, but also exposes new vulnerabilities. Anti-satellite missiles can make an opponent’s space-based communication networks easier to disable than purely ground-based systems. Losing reconnaissance satellites could blind gut the US’s strategic monitoring and disabling the GPS system would degrade its operational and tactical abilities. Space invites asymmetric warfare because anti-satellite attacks could even the technological odds against western powers that have become dependent on information-enhanced operations. As the nation most dependent on space-based networks, the United States may have the most to lose.Strategists divide competition in this emerging arena into four categories. First is space support, which refers to the launching and management of satellites in orbit. The second is force enhancement, which seeks to improve the effectiveness of terrestrial military operations. The importance of these basic missions is well-established. Indeed, the very first satellites performed a critical surveillance role in the strategic competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. Spy satellites replaced dangerous aerial reconnaissance flights in providing intelligence on rival nuclear missile arsenals. Later space-based systems provided the superpowers with early warnings of ballistic missile launches. These programs bolstered stability and aided progress in nuclear arms reduction talks. Satellites created “national technical means” of verification: the capability to detect compliance with arms control treaties without the need to intrude on territorial sovereignty. They reduced the chances of human miscalculation by increasing the information available to decision makers about the intentions of other nations.The US has made the most progress in the second mission, force enhancement, by using space to boost conventional military abilities. GPS enables the exact deployment of units, the synchronization of combat maneuvers, clearer identification of friend and foe, and precision targeting. In its recent wars, the US has used satellite information to find the enemy, even to the level of individual leaders, deploy on-station air or ground forces, and fire precision-guided munitions to destroy targets with decreased risk of collateral damage. American military leaders have argued that continued integration of space and conventional strike capabilities will allow the US to handle the twenty-first century threats—terrorism, rogue nations, asymmetric warfare, and regional challengers—more effectively with less resources.The third and fourth space missions focus on space itself. Space control involves freely using space to one’s benefit while denying access to opponents. Conceptually akin to air superiority, space control begins with defense: hardening command, control, communications and reconnaissance facilities to prevent enemy interference. It includes shielding satellite components, giving them the ability to avoid collisions, disguising their location, and arming satellites to destroy attackers.2Such forms of active defense can blend into the fourth mission: space force. Space force envisions weapons systems based in orbit that can strike targets on the ground, in the air, or in space. In an important respect, space control and force application demand a greater exercise of power than air or naval superiority. While air and naval superiority can be achieved through rapid deployment of assets for the duration of a conflict, dominance in space requires a broader geographic scope and longer-term duration—a constellation of space weapons would circle the globe for years.3It is in this realm that new weapons technologies are emerging, prompting questions of whether space-faring nations like the United States should treat space as another area for great power competition. “The reality of confrontation in space politics pervades the reality of the ideal of true cooperation and political unity in space, which has never been genuine, and in the near term seems unlikely,” argues Everett Dolman.4 The US certainly has taken such concerns to heart. In the decade ending in 2008, for example, the US increased its space budget from $33.7 billion to $43 billion in constant dollars. The entirety of this spending increase went to the Defense Department.These weapons systems take several forms. Already operational, the US national missile defense system relies upon satellites to track ballistic missile launches and help guide ground-launched kill vehicles. Space-based lasers, like those in development by the US today, remain the only viable method to destroy ballistic missiles in their initial boost phase, when they are easiest to destroy.American reliance on space-based intelligence and communication for its startling conventional military advantages has made its satellites a target of potential rivals. In 2007, for example, China tested a ground-launched missile to destroy a weather satellite in low earth orbit—the same region inhabited by commercial satellites. “For countries that can never win a war with the United States by using the methods of tanks and planes, attacking an American space system may be an irresistible and most tempting choice,” Chinese analyst Wang Hucheng has written, in a much-noticed comment.5Though the 2007 ASAT (Anti-satellite weapon) test sparked international controversy, China had only followed the footsteps of the superpowers. The United States had carried out a primitive anti-satellite weapon test as early as 1959. During the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations, the US continued to test anti-ballistic missile systems in an anti-satellite role. The Soviet Union followed suit. The superpowers temporarily dropped these programs with the signing of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, only to restart them in the 1990s. As rivals and rogue nations begin to mimic American development of force enhancement and space control abilities, the US will naturally develop anti-satellite weapons to restore its advantage and deter attacks. Such anti-satellite weapons may become even more common due to the vulnerability of satellites and the spread of ballistic missile technology.Critics question whether the benefits of space weapons are worth the possibility of strategic instability. They argue that only arms control agreements and international institutions can head off a disastrous military race in space. But space will become an arena for pre-emptive deterrence. Every environment—land, air, water, and now space—has become an arena for combat. The US could deter destabilizing space threats from rivals by advancing its defensive capabilities. Some realist strategists argue not just in favor of protecting US space assets, but seeking US space supremacy. Because great power competition has already spread to space, the United States should capitalize on its early lead to control the ultimate high ground, that of outer space.Criticisms of space weapons overlook the place of force in international politics. Advances in space technology can have greater humanitarian outcomes that outweigh concerns with space weapons themselves. Rather than increase the likelihood of war, space-based systems reduce the probability of destructive conflicts and limit both combatant and civilian casualties. Reconnaissance satellites reduce the chances that war will break out due to misunderstanding of a rival’s deployments or misperception of another nation’s intentions. Space-based communications support the location of targets for smart weapons on the battlefield, which lower harm to combatants and civilians. Space-based weapons may bring unparalleled speed and precision to the strategic use of force that could reduce the need for more harmful, less discriminate conventional weapons that spread greater destruction across a broader area. New weapons might bring war to a timely conclusion or even help nations avoid armed conflict in the first place. We do not argue that one nation’s overwhelming superiority in arms will prevent war from breaking out, though deterrence can have this effect. At the very least, space weapons, like other advanced military technologies, could help nations settle their disputes without resort to wider armed conflict, and hence bolster, rather than undermine, international security.2NR – XT – Impact China and Russia are revanchist space powersLambakis 18 [(PhD, Director of Space Studies at the National Institute for Public Policy, Editor-in-Chief of Comparative Strategy, author of several books and articles on space policy (Steven, Foreign space capabilities: Implications for U.S. national security, Comparative Strategy, Volume 37, No. 2, 87-154)] TDIExecutive summary Space utilities support the way of life in the United States in peacetime and provide critical warfighting capabilities. Capabilities for attacking space systems before and during conventional conflicts are spreading to other nations along with the proliferation of capabilities to exploit information derived from or processed by satellites. This report considers the current and emerging national security realities in space, examines the implications for U.S. defense policy, and offers policy recommendations for mitigating the threat. More than 170 countries have access to space capabilities and 11 countries have indigenous space launch infrastructure and capabilities. Satellites accomplish critical communications, positioning and navigation, timing, early warning, space object tracking, earth surveillance, earth reconnaissance, and intelligence-gathering functions. Space usage has gradually evolved to take on critical military force enhancement functions in the armed forces of a growing number of countries. The proliferation of space technologies offers foreign governments and non-state entities unparalleled opportunities to enhance military effectiveness over the United States and, over time, will enable them to strike with strategic effect. Russia and China continue to improve the capabilities of their military and intelligence satellites and grow more sophisticated in the integration of these capabilities into their military operations. Today’s combatant commanders must now anticipate that adversaries will be watching or tracking the activities of U.S. armed forces, to include watching U.S. force movements and communicating with their own forces with very high levels of efficiency and accuracy. In addition to increasing investments in their own space systems and capabilities and increasingly integrating them into their warfighting operations, foreign nations are also acquiring counter-space capabilities, which is of even greater concern to the United States given its reliance on space assets for its economy and national security. Yet the risk to U.S. space activities is growing faster than the U.S. ability or effort to mitigate it. The collection and distribution of information derived from space or processed in space may be denied, disrupted or degraded using tactics such as jamming of radio transmitters or blinding of satellite sensors using lasers. Satellite functions also could be denied or degraded through physical attack using an anti-satellite weapon (ASAT), which in effect takes out an element of a node in the information network, which, depending on the resilience of the network, may or may not have a catastrophic effect. With their development of counter-space weapons and practice with counter-space operations, potential adversaries of the United States have indicated that their leaders believe that space is an extension of the battlefield on Earth. Both China and Russia are on record stating that they are developing counterspace capabilities, to include capabilities for jamming GPS signals and satellite communications, dazzling satellite sensors with ground-based lasers, and developing ground-based guided missiles and orbital systems to destroy satellites. Experts say that with as little as two dozen anti-satellite missiles, Russia or China could do significant damage to U.S. intelligence, navigation, and communications capabilities. North Korea and Iran are regional powers, but because we are dealing with the space and cyber domains, the counter-space threats they may pose could quickly become global in nature. The space activities of all four countries are addressed in this report in greater detail. This report also takes a brief look at the growing risk to U.S. space systems posed by cyber intrusions and nuclear-generated electro-magnetic pulse. 2NR – XT – LinkSpace democratization is crucial to end space dominance and a hierarchy guided by American militarizationBurzykowska 9 [(Anna, Graduate Trainee, European Space Agency Space Policy) “Smaller states and the new balance of power in space,” 2009] TDIThroughout the 1990s and the 2000s we have witnessed an unprecedented increase in the number of spacefaring nations (more than 50 % over the past decade; the projection is that the number of satellite operators as well as launching states may roughly double over the next 10e20 years) [1]. This intensification has largely been stimulated by the emerging commercial and national space programmes in regions like the Middle East, North Africa, Far East and the Indian subcontinent [2]. The success of new technology partnerships and the availability of commercial off-the-shelf equipment has already proved that the cold war habit of attempting to deny cooperation which is, frankly speaking, attainable solely because of the openness of the economic system, may be elusive, if not counterproductive [3].This article argues that going to space in an egalitarian fashion relates to certain aspects of the military uses of outer space and the global balance of power at large. If one considers ‘‘launchers and small satellites as a tool for coercive behavior or even their potential value as anti-satellite systems,’’ [4] the newcomers to the space domain, who do not aspire to the status of space powers and often turn out to be countries of smaller size and/or smaller economy, face new dispositions in international relations. They are becoming ‘‘empowered beyond their original reach,’’ capable of challenging the hierarchical situation in international relations where more powerful states dominate and less powerful comply [5]. Their power is measured here through the lenses of their ability to deconstruct the existing (traditional) balance of power in space, characterized by the ‘prisoner’s dilemma’, confidence in alliance politics, status quo in terms of weaponization of outer space, and bilateral arms control negotiations.Aff/Neg – Innovation DA Aff – AT: Innovation DA1AR – Innovation DAFlags of convenience are unlikely to occur – states wont forum shop von der Dunk 12 [(Frans G., Othmer Professor of Space Law, University of NebraskaLincoln, College of Law, LL.M. Programme in Space, Cyber and Telecommunications Law) "Towards 'Flags of Convenience' in Space?" Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program Faculty Publications. 76. ] TDIThe above analyses have demonstrated that the dozen or so existing national space laws handling private involvement in space activities, notably their liability- and insurancerelated consequences, have so far done so in varying fashion. To start with in theory, that might lead to certain (prospective) operators making a rather judicious choice regarding which regime they might wish to be licensed under, as presenting them with the leastcostly set of obligations, requirements and standards – in other words, seeking a ‘flag of convenience’ to operate under.This would assume of course, that such operators would not even prefer to operate from jurisdictions – including in terms of registration and headquartering, read nationality, of the actually operating company – where as of yet no licensing system has been developed specifically for private space activities, and hence no dedicated reimbursement or insurance obligations exist. Whilst, however, prima facie that might seem to be an attractive option, any operator following such route should realise that, if causing damage covered by the Liability Convention and their government being consequently responsible and/or liable at the international level, such a government would in view of the specifics of the space sector and the likely enormous damages involved try to use every legal tool (such as general tort law, due diligence or wrongful act concepts) at its disposal to have international claims reimbursed after all – without any of the legal transparency and clarity that a license would have provided.Of course, from the mere fact that national laws and licensing regimes are different it can not automatically be concluded that there is a risk in practice for ‘flags of convenience’ in outer space to become a real problem, so as to require or justify substantial efforts to deal with it for example at the UN level. DIB decline inevitable – most recent studies – demand side does not offsetHallman 20 [(Wesley Hallman, regulatory policy associate at NDIA, 1/21/2020 “Vital Signs 2020: Defense Industrial Base’s Report Card Reveals ‘C’ Grade,” National Defense. ] TDIThis year’s mediocre “C” grade reflects a business environment characterized by highly contrasting areas of concern and confidence. Deteriorating conditions in 2020 for industrial security and for the availability and cost of skilled labor and materials emerge from this analysis as areas of clear concern. Favorable conditions for competition in the defense contracting market, and rising demand for defense goods and services reflect recent year-over-year growth in the defense budget. This first of an expected annual study contributes to the debate about national defense acquisition strategy by offering a common set of indicators — vital signs — of what some have called America’s “sixth service,” the industrial partners providing our warfighters their capability advantages. To do this assessment, we conducted a months-long study of data from eight different dimensions shaping the performance capabilities of defense contractors including: market competition; demand for defense goods and services; cost and availability of skilled labor and critical materials; investment and productivity in the U.S. national innovation system; threats to industrial security; supply chain performance; industrial surge capacity; and political and regulatory activity. We analyzed over 40 longitudinal statistical indicators, converting each into an index score on a scale of 0 (bad) to 100 (excellent). We did this over a three-year running average to control for data spikes such as last year’s government shutdown. Last, we aggregated the individual indicatorscores into scores for each dimension, and into an overall composite score for the defense industrial base with 2020 scoring at 77, a passing C grade but with a worrying downward trend. INCLUDEPICTURE "" \* MERGEFORMATINET The analysis reveals a stressed defense industrial base, trending negative. Composite scores for four of eight dimensions eroded in 2019. And, six dimensions earned composite scores lower than 80, C or worse, and two dimensions earned scores below 70, failing grades. For a sector facing “unprecedented” challenges, these scores suggest a defense industrial base increasingly struggling to meet them. Industrial security scored 64 for 2019, the lowest among the eight dimensions. Industrial security has gained prominence as massive data breaches and brazen acts of economic espionage by state and non-state actors plagued defense contractors in recent years. To assess industrial security conditions, we analyzed indicators of threats to information security and threats to intellectual property rights. The indicators of global information security threats were already failing in 2017 and went even lower in 2019. This score incorporates the rising annual average number of new cyber vulnerabilities documented by MITRE Corp., which almost doubled between 2016 and 2018 when compared to 2014-2016. The score also incorporates MITRE’s annual average of the threat severity of new cyber vulnerabilities, which improved slightly for 2016-2018, but remains high. In contrast, intellectual property rights threats scored 100 out of 100 for 2019, the result of new FBI investigations into IP rights violations, which have been steadily declining since peaking in 2011. Defense industry production inputs also scored poorly in 2019, down from a barely passing 70 in 2017. Major production inputs include skilled labor, intermediate goods and services, and raw materials used to manufacture or develop end-products and services for Defense Department consumption. Relatively low 2019 index scores for defense industry workforce size helped drive the low score for this dimension. The estimate of the size of the defense industry workforce, currently about 1.1 million, falls substantially below its mid-1980s peak size of 3.2 million. Security clearance process indicators also contributed to the low overall composite score for production inputs as backlogs shrink but persist. Onboarding new personnel in the defense industry often requires navigating the security clearance process. Contractors face a security clearance management process that worsened between 2017 and 2019. The index scores for the annual average number of pending security clearance investigations declined for 2019 with much of that decrease due to issues with initial top-secret clearances.COVID thumpsGould and Insinna 20 [(Joe Gould, Valerie Insinna, writers for Defense News, 3-9-2020, “Coronavirus shaking up America’s defense industry,” Defense News, ] TDIWASHINGTON ― The U.S. aerospace and defense sector is feeling the impact of the coronavirus, with companies limiting travel, defense trade events scuttled and contingency planning underway. As stocks fell sharply Monday on a combination of coronavirus fears and plunging oil prices, defense firms were girding for the worst and looking to the White House for guidance. The comments came days after spread of the coronavirus forced the weeklong closure of two F-35 related facilities in Italy and Japan―a sign the outbreak had begun to impact operations within the American defense industrial base. “The normal ways of doing business are definitely going to change,” said Aerospace Industries Association CEO Eric Fanning. “We’re trying to get to the place where we’re not reacting on a day-to-day basis to what’s happening and getting in front of some of these things and maybe making some proactive decisions. But everyone is kind of looking to everyone else to take the lead on how to address this.” Lockheed, Raytheon and Honeywell were among dozens of companies that pulled out of last month’s Singapore Air Show, which is typically the largest defense trade show in Asia―and SXSW, a show AIA participates in, was cancelled. The two offer a glimpse into how fears of corona virus could impact other defense trade shows and conferences. “It felt like a ghost town. It definitely was a strange experience,” Fanning said about the Singapore conference. While it’s easy to overstate the importance of trade shows in cementing major deals, the deals announced at the shows are often worked out in advance, Fanning said. Still, the shows are still valuable for face-to-face networking between international defense officials and industry. As of Monday, the National Defense Industrial Association still planned to hold its Special Operations Forces Industry Conference in Tampa, Fla., this May. Its 2020 Pacific Operational Science and Technology Conference in Honolulu was ongoing this week, with more than 700 attendees, a spokeswoman said. At least one major defense firm, Boeing, has limited its employees to “business-essential” travel, and it has been rescheduling some events, reducing face-to-face meetings in favor of virtual meetings, enabling telecommuting when possible. “These measures are temporary and aimed to prevent the spread of the virus, shorten its impact and ensure the health and safety of our employees as well as the general public,” a Boeing spokesman said. Vice President Mike Pence, right, along with Florida Sen. Rick Scott, left, and Gov. Ron DeSantis, center, speaks to the media after a meeting with cruise line company leaders to discuss the efforts to fight the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, at Port Everglades, Saturday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (Gaston De Cardenas/AP) The virus has infected more than 110,000 people worldwide, and Italy on Sunday followed China’s lead in quarantining a big swath of its country in hopes of corralling the spread. That sparked more fears in the financial markets that quarantines would snarl supply chains for companies even more than they already have. While COVID-19’s long term impacts on the defense aerospace industry may take time to manifest, they could be complicated by the uncertainty of the financial market and ongoing trade wars with China, according to Fanning and others. “Supply chains are global, they’re inter-related, they’re incredibly complex. Having real good situational awareness into them is difficult to begin with, then you add any instability on top of it, it gets harder. And this definitely is added to that,” Fanning said. The new coronavirus is now spreading on every continent except Antarctica and hurting consumer spending, industrial production, and travel. As COVID-19 spreads around the world, many investors feel helpless in trying to estimate how much it will hurt the economy and corporate profits, and the easiest response to such uncertainty may be to get out. After initially taking an optimistic view on the virus — hoping that it would remain mostly in China and cause just a short-term disruption — investors are realizing they likely woefully underestimated it. On Monday, the Dow Jones U.S. Aerospace & Defense Index was down 26 percent over the last month, lagging the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which was down 18 percent.DIB can’t prevent great power conflictGreenwalt 19 [(William, Senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Brent Scowcroft Center for International Security, former staff member on the Senate Arms Services Committee) LEVERAGING THE NATIONAL TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRIAL BASE TO ADDRESS GREAT-POWER COMPETITION: The Imperative to Integrate Industrial Capabilities of Close Allies, 2019, ] TDIThe difficulty with this problem set is that the current, dedicated US defense-industrial base and the US acquisition system are not prepared for a great-power war, nor the innovation necessary to compete in all five things the United States must do to meet its national security needs. Nor has it geared up to deliver the significant innovation in capability and doctrinal development to deliver a sufficient deterrent effect to prevent that war in the first place For the last seventeen years, the United States has been equipped to conduct current operations against insurgencies and terrorism in the arc of instability running through Central Asia to Northern Africa. Because of the constant threat of budget sequestration, wars have been fought on the cheap and readiness levels have fallen. Modernization is being conducted at non-economic order-of-production levels. Disruptive innovation has been practically nonexistent, as research funding has historically stopped at the 6.3, or advanced-technology, development level, leaving most innovations stuck in the so-called “valley of death.” Prototyping, or 6.4, funding has been difficult, if not impossible, to obtain. Science and technology (S&T) communities are addicted to the existing peacetime way of doing research by doling out funds in single million-dollar increments, and the budget reflects that. Business reform is further constrained by the inability to address the costs of socioeconomic requirements placed on the Pentagon by Congress and past administrations. Large-scale technological and business-process disruption will be needed to meet the great-power threat. While Congress took the first step in passing new-acquisition reforms in 2015 and 2016, much more needs to be done to implement these reforms and reform other business practices. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, since the end of the Cold War the United States and its allies seem to have subconsciously forgotten the requirements of deterrence, as there was no great-power rival to deter. With the resurrection of great-power challenges, the atrophy of US and allied capabilities during that period now appears to be a huge vulnerability. Neg – Innovation DA 1NC – DIB The US commercial space industry is booming – private space companies are driving innovation Lindzon 2/23 [(Jared Lindzon, A FREELANCE JOURNALIST AND PUBLIC SPEAKER BORN, RAISED AND BASED IN TORONTO, CANADA. LINDZON'S WRITING FOCUSES ON THE FUTURE OF WORK AND TALENT AS IT RELATES TO TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION) "How Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are ushering in a new era of space startups," Fast Company, 2/23/21, ] TDIIn early February, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and one of the planet’s wealthiest entrepreneurs, dropped the bombshell announcement that he would be stepping down as CEO to free up more time for his other passions. Though Bezos listed a few targets for his creativity and energy—The Washington Post and philanthropy through the Bezos Earth Fund and Bezos Day One Fund—one of the highest-potential areas is his renewed commitment and focus on his suborbital spaceflight project, Blue Origin.Before space became a frontier for innovation and development for privately held companies, opportunities were limited to nation states and the private defense contractors who supported them. In recent years, however, billionaires such as Bezos, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson have lowered the barrier to entry. Since the launch of its first rocket, Falcon 1, in September of 2008, Musk’s commercial space transportation company SpaceX has gradually but significantly reduced the cost and complexity of innovation beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. With Bezos’s announcement, many in the space sector are excited by the prospect of those barriers being lowered even further, creating a new wave of innovation in its wake.“What I want to achieve with Blue Origin is to build the heavy-lifting infrastructure that allows for the kind of dynamic, entrepreneurial explosion of thousands of companies in space that I have witnessed over the last 21 years on the internet,” Bezos said during the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit in 2016.During the event, Bezos explained how the creation of Amazon was only possible thanks to the billions of dollars spent on critical infrastructure—such as the postal service, electronic payment systems, and the internet itself—in the decades prior.“On the internet today, two kids in their dorm room can reinvent an industry, because the heavy-lifting infrastructure is in place for that,” he continued. “Two kids in their dorm room can’t do anything interesting in space. . . . I’m using my Amazon winnings to do a new piece of heavy-lifting infrastructure, which is low-cost access to space.”In the less than 20 years since the launch of SpaceX’s first rocket, space has gone from a domain reserved for nation states and the world’s wealthiest individuals to everyday innovators and entrepreneurs. Today, building a space startup isn’t rocket science.THE NEXT FRONTIER FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIPAccording to the latest Space Investment Quarterly report published by Space Capital, the fourth quarter of 2020 saw a record $5.7 billion invested into 80 space-related companies, bringing the year’s total capital investments in space innovation to more than $25 billion. Overall, more than $177 billion of equity investments have been made in 1,343 individual companies in the space economy over the past 10 years.“It’s kind of crazy how quickly things have picked up; 10 years ago when SpaceX launched their first customer they removed the barriers to entry, and we’ve seen all this innovation and capital flood in,” says Chad Anderson, the managing partner of Space Capital. “We’re on an exponential curve here. Every week that goes by we’re picking up the pace.”The plan creates a restriction that encourages companies to move their operations to states with lower standards Albert 14 [(Caley Albert, J.D. Loyola Marymount University) “Liability in International Law and the Ramifications on Commercial Space Launches and Space Tourism,” Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review, 11/1/14, ] TDIA parallel can be drawn here between the commercial space industry and the maritime law concept of the Flag of Convenience. The term has evolved over time, but in this day and age, it is commonly used to mean the owner of a vessel does not want to create an obligation with a country with stricter standards for registry; hence, the owner will register strictly for economic reasons with a country that has a more convenient registry.133 By flying a Flag of Convenience, ship owners are able to avoid taxation on earnings of ships registered under these flags, and in some cases, they can also receive relief from stricter crew standards and corresponding operating costs.134 A Flag of Convenience is flown by a vessel that is registered in one state, which the vessel has little if any connection to, when in reality the vessel is owned and operated from another state.135 This way the vessel avoids any unfavorable economic requirements from its true home state.136 In this sense, “flag shopping” is similar to “launch forum shopping,” similar in that Flags of Convenience are utilized for economic reasons, such as to avoid high taxes and compliance with certain restrictive international conventions, commercial space companies will forum shop when choosing which country to launch from. As of today, there has yet to be a catastrophic commercial launch incident, so for now commercial space companies do not have an incentive to forum shop, but if there is, the indemnification policies described above may lead companies to seek out countries that provide more coverage so they pay less in the event something goes wrong. This comparison to Flags of Convenience brings up two separate yet equally important issues. First, launch companies may try to follow the Flags of Convenience model and soon catch on to the wisdom of their maritime predecessors by “registering” in countries with more favorable conditions. Of course, in this case the concern is not with registration so much as launching. If launch companies follow the Flags of Convenience model, they will seek out the most convenient state for launch, most likely the state that provides the most liability coverage and has the least safety precautions. Launching from states with low safety standards increases the potential for catastrophic launch events. This, in turn, will place states that are potentially incapable of paying for damages from launch disasters in a position they would not normally assume if these commercial companies had not been drawn to their shores with the promise of more favorable regulations. Second, launch customers may also seek out companies located in states with lower cost liability regimes (lower insurance policy limits) since those companies will presumably charge less to launch their payloads. In this scenario, instead of the launch companies seeking out states with lower liability caps and softer regulations, the launch customers themselves will seek companies located in states with lowcost liability regimes. Here, the effect will be the same as above. Under the Liability Convention, the launching state will be liable for any damage caused by a vehicle launched from within its borders; hence, if customers start engaging in “launch forum shopping,” states will be incentivized to put in place low-cost liability regimes, which in turn will increase the states’ potential payout in the event of a catastrophic launch incident. Looking at the indemnification program the United States has in place in comparison to other countries, it is possible to see how either launch companies or launch customers could engage in “launch forum shopping” when a catastrophic launch incident ever occur. It is also important to keep in mind that various factors go into where a company or customer decides to launch from. A state’s indemnification program is just one factor in this decision. With this in mind, it is clear that if a launch incident did occur in the United States, the commercial launch company would be liable for much more than it would in another country. For instance, why would a commercial space company launch in the United States, where it would be liable up to $500 million and the additional costs that the government would not cover? The argument can be made that a catastrophic space incident has yet to occur, and even if it did, it is unlikely to cost above the $2.7 billion covered by the United States government. Other states like Russia or France, which has the two-tier liability system, would simply cover all claims above the initial insurance, which is much lower than the $500 million mark required by the United States. In that case, the commercial company would never have to pay more than the initial liability insurance. If there ever is a catastrophic commercial space incident in the future, it is easy to see why commercial companies or launch customers might be drawn to “launch forum shop” outside the United States. Maintaining US space dominance requires a homegrown commercial space industry – private companies offshoring gives China the advantage they needCahan and Sadat 1/6 [(Bruce Cahan, J.D) (Dr. Mir Sadat, ) "US Space Policies for the New Space Age: Competing on the Final Economic Frontier," based on Proceedings from State of the Space Industrial Base 2020 Sponsored by United States Space Force, Defense Innovation Unit, United States Air Force Research Laboratory, 1/6/21, ] TDIToday, China’s commercial space sector is in its infancy but is set to grow with continued national and provincial support, which have been rapidly increasing over the past three years.64 Since 2004, the United States and China accounted for 74% of the $135.2 billion venture capital (VC) invested in commercial space. 65 The early 2020s are pivotal, as it would be far cheaper for China and Chinese commercial space firms to acquire space technologies from the United States or allied nation companies seeking revenues or facing cashflow constraints, than to build the companies and their teams and technologies from scratch in China. The tight coupling of Chinese military goals and an economy organized to achieve those goals magnifies the economic threats and market disruptions that the United States must immediately address, in order for DoD and national security operations to rely on US commercial space capabilities.3. ISSUES AND CHALLENGESPeaceful Uses of Space and Space Exploration Space has been primarily a shared, not a warfighting, domain.67 With each passing second of Planck time,68 space enables a modern way of life, provides instantaneous global imagery, assures telecommunications, and captures humanity’s imagination for civil space exploration. As a result, space is a burgeoning marketplace and territory for commercial ventures and investors. Strengthening the US commercial space industrial base is vital to and beyond US national security. Civil space activities are a source of US “soft power” in global commerce, cooperation, and investment. 69 The civil space sector, led by NASA, is fundamental to America’s national security. 70 NASA is on an ambitious critical path to return to the Moon by 2024,71 along with developing the capabilities and infrastructure for a sustained lunar presence. NASA’s lunar plans provide a lunar staging area for missions to Mars and beyond. They offer a strategic and economic presence for the United States on the Moon. Congress, the White House, DoD, and NASA must recognize that economic and strategic dominance in service of national security requires catalyzing and accelerating growth of a vibrant, private US industrial and cultural expansion into the Solar System. Human visitation and eventual settlement beyond the Earth require sustaining visionary leaders, aided by, and aiding, US national security. A recurring theme in US policy is “maintaining and advancing United States dominance and strategic leadership in space” because US global competitors and adversaries are competent and capable of outpacing American space capabilities. 72 The stakes are high: At this historic moment, there is a real race for dominance over cislunar access and resources. Regulations Should Foster US Commercial Space as a National Asset Leveraging the reimagination and disruption of terrestrial industries, the US commercial space industry is pushing the frontiers of the United States and global space economics and capabilities. A pre-COVID19 assessment by the US Chamber of Commerce projected that the US space market will increase from approximately $385 billion in 2020, to at least $1.5 trillion by 2040. 73 This projection represents a seven percent (7%) annual compound average growth rate (CAGR), driven largely by expanded business opportunities in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Total addressable market (TAM) for US commercial space companies could be far larger were they to have federal and financial support for initiating cislunar space operations and opportunities. Recent advancements in commercial space technologies and business models have driven down costs and unlocked new areas of economic growth and space capabilities that outpace and de-risk acquiring capabilities through traditional US government economic development, research and development (R&D), procurement and regulatory policies and processes. US regulations must ensure that US companies lead in commercial space. In specific, technological advances that lower access costs and expand space mission capabilities, content, continuity, and redundancies must be fully supported by or incorporated into US government programs, budgets, requirements, and acquisition processes. Until commercial space offerings are fully incorporated, and federal acquisition policies and personnel commit to innovation, US government fiscal buying power, intelligence and program support will lag and remain inadequate in comparison to US private sector companies and the nation’s global competitors and adversaries in space.Addressing COVID-19’s Impact on US Commercial Space The COVID-19 pandemic damaged and still challenges the US space industrial base. US domestic investors’ funding of space R&D remains inconsistent across the lifecycle of New Space companies and the spectrum of technologies necessary to grow the space economy. To date, public R&D, government procurements and visionary space entrepreneurs have played a major role in establishing and funding the New Space industrial base. In the last five years, $11 billion of private capital has been invested.74 Traditional private investors may become reluctant to fund space technologies due to perceptions of higher risk over longer time horizons before receiving profitable returns on their capital. Institutional and long-horizon investors who manage patient capital have an appetite for illiquid, but higher yielding, terrestrial alternative asset investments such as commodities, private equity limited partnerships and real estate.75 The COVID-19 pandemic has created economic uncertainties making the New Space’s funding model unreliable. COVID-19 significantly impacted venture capital (VC)-backed companies: the pace of VC space investments fell 85% between April - June, as compared to January – March, in 2020. 76 Pre-COVID-19, the New Space industrial base confronted multiple challenges in raising later stages of venture capital such as (1) the lag between having an early-stage startup with an idea and commercializing a viable revenue-generating product, (2) the lack of market liquidity for founder and private equity space investments to attract and retain talented teams, and (3) the lack of a market to re-sell contracts for space goods and services when customers buy more capacity than needed. Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, federal financing of US R&D was at a historically minor level, as compared to businesses and universities.77 US government support for basic research has steadily declined as a percent of GDP. The federal government will experience near- to medium-term budget constraints.78 The vibrant venture community in the United States has taken up a portion of this slack by increasing R&D investment in later-stage and applied research. However, founding teams and VC financing rely on government to fund earlier R&D for basic science and engineering. Therefore, government must resume the sustainable and impactful past levels of support for basic research, an essential role in the space economy’s public-private partnership that ensures US leadership in space.Space as Existential Terrain for National SecurityIn this Digital Era, space integrates and drives all elements of US national security. The Cold War may be over, but since the early 2010s, a renewed era of great power competition has emerged across terrestrial land, air, sea, and cyber domains. This competition extends into space, where a great game ensues.79 Space is no longer an uncontested or sanctuary domain. Competent and capable global competitors and peer adversaries are challenging US military, commercial, and civil space interests. The United States, along with its allies and partners, has had to accept and anticipate that space may be a warfighting domain, as suggested primarily by Russian and Chinese counter-space capabilities, military operations, and declarative statements. On December 20, 2019, the bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 202080 authorized the creation of the US Space Force, under the Department of the Air Force, to secure US national interests in an increasingly contested domain.81 Back in October 1775, the Continental Congress established the US Navy to ensure that commercial and government fleets could freely navigate the Atlantic coastline - today, that includes the South China Sea. Likewise, the USSF’s mission is to ensure unfettered access to and the freedom to operate in space. The 2017 National Security Strategy considers space to be a “priority domain.”82 Freedom of navigation is a sovereign right that nations have fought to achieve and defend. 83 The USSF’s main role is to organize, train and equip, as well as to protecting US space interests and supporting terrestrial and joint warfighters (e.g., US Space Command). Thus, USSF must secure US national interests in space, whether military, commercial, scientific, civil, or enhancing US competitiveness for cislunar leadership.US space dominance prevents global warZubrin 15 [(Robert Zubrin, president of Pioneer Energy, a senior fellow with the Center for Security Policy) “US Space Supremacy is Now Critical,” Space News, 1/22/15, ] TDIThe United States needs a new national security policy. For the first time in more than 60 years, we face the real possibility of a large-scale conventional war, and we are woefully unprepared. Eastern and Central Europe is now so weakly defended as to virtually invite invasion. The United States is not about to go to nuclear war to defend any foreign country. So deterrence is dead, and, with the German army cut from 12 divisions to three, the British gone from the continent, and American forces down to a 30,000-troop tankless remnant, the only serious and committed ground force that stands between Russia and the Rhine is the Polish army. It’s not enough. Meanwhile, in Asia, the powerful growth of the Chinese economy promises that nation eventual overwhelming numerical force superiority in the region. How can we restore the balance, creating a sufficiently powerful conventional force to deter aggression? It won’t be by matching potential adversaries tank for tank, division for division, replacement for replacement. Rather, the United States must seek to totally outgun them by obtaining a radical technological advantage. This can be done by achieving space supremacy. To grasp the importance of space power, some historical perspective is required. Wars are fought for control of territory. Yet for thousands of years, victory on land has frequently been determined by dominance at sea. In the 20th century, victory on both land and sea almost invariably went to the power that controlled the air. In the 21st century, victory on land, sea or in the air will go to the power that controls space. The critical military importance of space has been obscured by the fact that in the period since the United States has had space assets, all of our wars have been fought against minor powers that we could have defeated without them. Desert Storm has been called the first space war, because the allied forces made extensive use of GPS navigation satellites. However, if they had no such technology at their disposal, the end result would have been just the same. This has given some the impression that space forces are just a frill to real military power — a useful and convenient frill perhaps, but a frill nevertheless. But consider how history might have changed had the Axis of World War II possessed reconnaissance satellites — merely one of many of today’s space-based assets — without the Allies having a matching capability. In that case, the Battle of the Atlantic would have gone to the U-boats, as they would have had infallible intelligence on the location of every convoy. Cut off from oil and other supplies, Britain would have fallen. On the Eastern front, every Soviet tank concentration would have been spotted in advance and wiped out by German air power, as would any surviving British ships or tanks in the Mediterranean and North Africa. In the Pacific, the battle of Midway would have gone very much the other way, as the Japanese would not have wasted their first deadly airstrike on the unsinkable island, but sunk the American carriers instead. With these gone, the remaining cruisers and destroyers in Adm. Frank Jack Fletcher’s fleet would have lacked air cover, and every one of them would have been hunted down and sunk by unopposed and omniscient Japanese air power. With the same certain fate awaiting any American ships that dared venture forth from the West Coast, Hawaii, Australia and New Zealand would then have fallen, and eventually China and India as well. With a monopoly of just one element of space power, the Axis would have won the war. But modern space power involves far more than just reconnaissance satellites. The use of space-based GPS can endow munitions with 100 times greater accuracy, while space-based communications provide an unmatched capability of command and control of forces. Knock out the enemy’s reconnaissance satellites and he is effectively blind. Knock out his comsats and he is deaf. Knock out his navsats and he loses his aim. In any serious future conventional conflict, even between opponents as mismatched as Japan was against the United States — or Poland (with 1,000 tanks) is currently against Russia (with 12,000) — it is space power that will prove decisive. Not only Europe, but the defense of the entire free world hangs upon this matter. For the past 70 years, U.S. Navy carrier task forces have controlled the world’s oceans, first making and then keeping the Pax Americana, which has done so much to secure and advance the human condition over the postwar period. But should there ever be another major conflict, an adversary possessing the ability to locate and target those carriers from space would be able to wipe them out with the push of a button. For this reason, it is imperative that the United States possess space capabilities that are so robust as to not only assure our own ability to operate in and through space, but also be able to comprehensively deny it to others. Space superiority means having better space assets than an opponent. Space supremacy means being able to assert a complete monopoly of such capabilities. The latter is what we must have. If the United States can gain space supremacy, then the capability of any American ally can be multiplied by orders of magnitude, and with the support of the similarly multiplied striking power of our own land- and sea-based air and missile forces be made so formidable as to render any conventional attack unthinkable. On the other hand, should we fail to do so, we will remain so vulnerable as to increasingly invite aggression by ever-more-emboldened revanchist powers. This battle for space supremacy is one we can win. Neither Russia nor China, nor any other potential adversary, can match us in this area if we put our minds to it. We can and must develop ever-more-advanced satellite systems, anti-satellite systems and truly robust space launch and logistics capabilities. Then the next time an aggressor commits an act of war against the United States or a country we are pledged to defend, instead of impotently threatening to limit his tourist visas, we can respond by taking out his satellites, effectively informing him in advance the certainty of defeat should he persist. If we desire peace on Earth, we need to prepare for war in space.2NR – Ext – Innovation KeyWe’ll remain in power as long as we keep innovatingCooley 19 [(Dr. Thomas, Air Force Research Laboratory Colonel Eric Felt, Air Force Research Laboratory and Colonel Steven J Butow, Defense Innovation Unit, 5/30/19, “State of the Space Industrial Base: Threats, Challenges and Actions” ] TDIInternally, the challenge is developing an industrial base that outpaces our international adversaries and competitors in speed and innovation in developing new space capabilities and in continually upgrading existing ones. This requires? upgrade of our own methodologies such as shared, trusted supply chains and interoperable technology standards that accelerate viable commercialization of the space economy;? the development of more flexible, U.S.-led markets for space capabilities that spread the risk, increase the pool of investors and establishes our Nation’s leadership role in setting the international rules for space products and services;? changes in U.S. government procurement and licensing processes and other regulations to eliminate unnecessary delays and micromanagement of the space industrial base’s ability to deliver next generation space capabilities and to enable early U.S. investment in emerging capabilities.For the United States to be a dominant force in the future space economy during peacetime and to monitor and engage decisively in space when national security is threatened, we require a unified and comprehensive national strategy that builds and continually refreshes a strong space industrial base. The group recommends urgent attention to the development of this strategy as detailed in the Conclusions and Recommendations section of this white paper.2NR – Ext – Space Industrial Base Key Offshoring risks supply chain logistics failures that devastate space superiority. Cooley 19 [(Dr. Thomas, Air Force Research Laboratory Colonel Eric Felt, Air Force Research Laboratory and Colonel Steven J Butow, Defense Innovation Unit) “State of the Space Industrial Base: Threats, Challenges and Actions,” 5/30/19, ] TDIThe Growing Role of Space to National PowerCommercial, civil and military uses of space are rapidly expanding to deliver capabilities and advantages uniquely available from and in space. In the near term, these space capabilities center on information gathering; precision position, navigation and timing (PNT); and broadband communications to include the internet.For information gathering, no other domain provides equivalent global access. National, commercial, civil and military information dominance is increasingly dependent on space systems’ capabilities to observe globally from above, using a rapidly expanding range of sensors refreshed at an ever-increasing time rate, pixel resolution and sensitivity. In an ever more interconnected world, there will be a commensurate or even greater expansion of information flows across the terrestrial, maritime, air and cyber domains. However, in these domains the sources will be localized and prone to greater and easier control, interdiction and corruption by adversaries. Space-based sensors will continue to provide platforms for global observation that are more difficult to disrupt, degrade, and deny than similar sensors in other domains. Space will remain the dominant medium for providing precision PNT driven by its global coverage and simplicity of source and applications. The criticality of precision PNT to national infrastructure is evidenced by the continuing proliferation of such space-based systems sponsored by Europe, China, Russia, India, US, Japan, South Korea, and others for civilian, commercial, military and intelligence purposes.Space communication systems provide global and local capabilities that minimizes supporting ground infrastructure and the need to transmit information on the ground or through the air across the territories of rivals or potential adversaries or areas where the rivals or adversaries could interdict or break the communication path. The recent concern regarding Chinese control of the limited number of fiber cable connections is a case in point. In addition, space communication systems can achieve higher latency than ground-based, global, fiber systems and equivalent bandwidth to existing ground communication networks through laser cross-, up- and down-links.The unique advantages of space-based capabilities will continue to create a growing commercial, civil and military, space-ecosystem from low Earth orbit (LEO) to geosynchronous orbit (GEO). The satellite architectures within this ecosystem will depart radically from the historic large-satellite-can-do-it-all approach. This ecosystem will be populated with a vastly increased number of assets supporting commercial, civil and military applications across a wide range of satellite sizes, constellations sizes and orbits. The capabilities of these space system architectures will be tailored around power, aperture, bandwidth, interoperability and other functional specifications to maximize network redundancy, efficiency, and value creation. Within this ecosystem, space broadband communications and internet capabilities will move from a small number of large GEO satellites to a mixed architecture of large GEO satellites and proliferated constellations of large numbers of small satellites at lower orbits. We can also expect first sub-orbital, and orbital space tourism to become a part of this ecosystem.As in other domains, the commercial space industrial base will need to provide end-toend delivery of a significant portion of critical civil and military capabilities, such as communication bandwidth, imagery, launch, debris removal and other commoditized services. There will be an increasingly symbiotic relationship between the economic development of LEO and GEO space and increased military, civil, commercial and intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance of actors and their activities in LEO and GEO space with commercial systems both being assets to be monitored and sources for monitoring information, when appropriate.In the mid- to long-term (5 years and beyond), the development and deployment of systems and capabilities beyond the LEO and GEO ecosystem, will have two drivers: first, by the military’s need to expand the locations and operations of critical assets into cislunar space to limit adversaries’ abilities to detect and attack these assets and to enhance ours and our adversaries’ ability to apply force through, from and in space; and second, it will be driven by the need to establish the required infrastructure and capabilities to return and then establish a permanent U.S. presence on the Moon and beyond.The resulting technology, infrastructure and capabilities will establish the foundations (including supply chain logistics) for the extension throughout the cislunar domain of military power and for the economic exploitation through space manufacturing, space power and resource extraction. The foundation for a sustainable space economy, such as cislunar infrastructure, strategically depends on close collaboration with national commercial capabilities and the maintenance of a strong space industrial base. Such an approach maximizes the U.S. position to lead in the economic exploitation of space. ................
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