Insofar as we have no experience in space warfare, no cases exist to justify what is in essence a theoretically derived conclusion -- that space combat must be destabilizing. We do know, however, that the causes of war are rarely so uncomplicated. Small events, by themselves, seldom ever explain large-scale events. When ardent Israeli nationalist Ariel Sharon visited this past fall the holy site around the Al Aksa Mosque at Jerusalem's Temple Mount, his arrival fired up a series of riots among impassioned Palestinians and so widened the scale of violence that it kicked up the embers of regional war yet again. Yet the visit itself would have been inconsequential were it not for the inveterate hostility underlying Israeli-Palestinian relations.

Likewise, World War I may have symbolically begun with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Yet a serious student of history would note that the alliances, the national goals and military plans, and the political, diplomatic, and military decisions of the major European powers during the preceding years and months were the true causes of the erosion in global strategic stability. By extension, if decisions to go to war are set on a hair-trigger, the reasons for the precarious circumstances extend far beyond whether a communications or imaging platform is destroyed in space rather than on earth.

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Lambakis, Steven. "Space Weapons: Refuting the Critics." Policy Review. (February 2001). [ 11 quotes ]