1/11/2024 0 Comments Space warfare lagrange point![]() Just like the establishment of naval bases on earth to facilitate control of maritime trade, Dolman advocates the creation of space bases for stock-piling of fuel and life-support supplies for further exploration and commercial exploitation of space. remain as crucial today to maritime powers as they were in Mahan’s time.ĭrawing upon Mahan’s analogy, Dolman also characterised space as “offering orbits, regions and launch points of geo-strategic significance”, suggest- ing that similar space choke- points or traffic corridors will develop in space due to the efficiency costs of rocket propulsion to earth orbits leveraging the gravity of the earth. ![]() The 19th century American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan’s concept of “oceanic chokepoints” which are crucial to the maritime trade routes are examples of such features ~ and such chokepoints like Gibraltar, Malacca, Bab-el-Mandeb, Suez etc. Throughout history, certain specific geographical features of the world have been arenas for intense competition between rival states because of their inherent commercial, military and political advantages. Dolman believes that “the state that dominates space is specifically chosen by the rigours of competition as the politically and morally superior nation, culture, and economy”, obviously meaning the USA. While cooperation between states is unlikely, an alliance or coalition between states is a possibility which in turn may trigger the formation of counter-alliances in order to balance the power of other entities in the system. Realism, one of the oldest theories of international relations, believes that in the international system, states aim to increase their own power, especially in military terms, in relation to their rivals.Īccording to the modern version of realism, or neorealism, the international system is anarchical, implying that there is no central authority. Dolman’s version was that whoever controls LEO controls the near-Earth space whoever controls the near-Earth space controls the Terra and whoever “dominates Terra determines the destiny of mankind.” Mackinder postulated that whoever controls East Europe controls the Heartland and whoever controls the Heartland controls the world. In Mackinder’s Theory, Heartland was a region around the then Russian Empire. Space, according to him, is not featureless but “a rich vista of gravitational mountains and valleys, oceans and rivers of resources and energy.”ĭolman divided space into four territories: (1) Terra, sur- rounding the earth and up to the limit where a spacecraft can orbit without being powered, (2) Earth Space, up to the GEO, (3) Lunar Space, up to the lunar orbit and (4) the unlimited Solar Space, beyond the lunar orbit. In “Astropolitik: Classical Geopolitics in the Space Age” (Routledge, 2001), Professor Everett Carl Dolman from the US Air Force’s Air Command and Staff College applied Halford Mackinder’s famous Heartland Theory of 1904 to space.
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