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Military and Conflict Always Follow Trade Into New Areas

 

In opening new high-risk frontier areas, a general pattern of military and governmentled exploration efforts is inevitably followed by commercial exploitation activities. The same pattern seems to be holding for space. Governments opened the way; commercial operations are following. Although telecommunication has been the predominant commercial space activity, the areas of remote sensing and other products that are expected to be unveiled are now emerging as new areas of commercial space endeavor. Many of the planned commercial ventures are multi-national in composition; a number of ventures are also headquartered in countries other than the United States. The increase in multi-national space activity undoubtedly will trigger a plethora of international disputes similar to those of past centuries that accompanied the development of international norms for controlling the use of the high seas.

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R. Tanks, David. Future Challenges to U.S. Space Systems. Washington, D.C.: Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, June 1998. [ 1 reference ] [ page 3 ]

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