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Lambeth, Benjamin S. Mastering the Ultimate High Ground: Next Steps in the Military Uses of Space. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2003. [ 5 quotes ]

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War Games have Established U.S. Military's Dependence on Space Assets
 
In one Army-sponsored game, a scenario set in the year 2020 involving an invasion of Ukraine by 'a neighboring state' featured the early neutralization of many U.S. satellites by detonations of nuclear weapons on orbit aimed at disrupting intelligence and communications channels and at inhibiting any Western intervention. As one game participant later said of this gambit, "they took out most of our spacebased capabilities. Our military forces just ground to a halt." ( More ... )
Lambeth, Benjamin S. Mastering the Ultimate High Ground: Next Steps in the Military Uses of Space. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2003. [ 5 quotes ] [ page 100-1 ]
U.S. Vulnerability in Space Risks a "Space-Based Pearl Harbor"
 
Concern for the vulnerability of U.S. space-based assets was expressed with even greater urgency in the Space Commission’s finding of a “virtual certainty” that a material threat to vital U.S. space equities will eventually arise. That finding led the commissioners to warn that the United States “is an attractive candidate for a ‘space Pearl Harbor’” and must accordingly begin hedging now against hostile acts in and from space by developing and deploying what they called “superior space capabilities.” ( More ... )
Lambeth, Benjamin S. Mastering the Ultimate High Ground: Next Steps in the Military Uses of Space. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2003. [ 5 quotes ] [ page 101 ]
U.S. not Politically Ready to Deploy Force Projection Space Weapons
 
For the time being, the idea of placing offensive weapons in space for use against terrestrial targets remains contrary to declared national policy, and there is no indication that the nation is anywhere near the threshold of deciding to weaponize space. Any truly serious steps toward acquiring a space force application capability will involve a momentous political decision that the nation?s leadership has not yet shown itself ready to make. ( More ... )
Lambeth, Benjamin S. Mastering the Ultimate High Ground: Next Steps in the Military Uses of Space. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2003. [ 5 quotes ] [ page 119 ]
Investment in Space Assets Makes it an Economic Center of Gravity
 
The most compelling reason for moving forward with dispatch toward acquiring at least the essential elements of a serious space control capability is that the United States is now unprecedentedly invested in and dependent on on-orbit capabilities, both military and commercial. Since these equities can only be expected to grow in sunk cost and importance over time, it is fair to presume that they will eventually be challenged by potential opponents. In 1997, then- CINCSPACE General Howell M. Estes III pointed out that with more than 525 satellites then on orbit (including more than 200 U.S. satellites) and with more than $250 billion likely to be invested by 46 nations in space assets by 2000, space had indisputably become an economic center of gravity and, hence, a major vulnerability of the United States and its allies. ( More ... )
Lambeth, Benjamin S. Mastering the Ultimate High Ground: Next Steps in the Military Uses of Space. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2003. [ 5 quotes ] [ page 99 ]
U.S. Unlikely to Weaponize Space in the Near-Term, Unless a Clear Threat Emerges
 
Most would agree that space weaponization is not inevitable in the near term. Indeed, there is scant observable evidence to suggest that the military use of near-earth space will be substantially different in 2020-2025 than it is today, at least regarding the development and fielding of new technologies and systems that would broaden the use of our on-orbit assets from force enhancement to force application -- unless, of course, some unforeseen trigger event occurred to provoke it. ( More ... )
Lambeth, Benjamin S. Mastering the Ultimate High Ground: Next Steps in the Military Uses of Space. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2003. [ 5 quotes ] [ page 119 ]