Exacerbating the threat posed by space weapons is the Cold War-era deterrence logic that continues to dominate U.S. military planning. This logic emphasizes deterrence of threats through overwhelming force, carried out during the Cold War through the confrontational posturing of large, opposing forces on hair-trigger alert. The extension of this deterrence logic to space, as envisioned in current U.S. space plans, will turn space into a domain of overwhelming threat, against which most states have little protection. The new "pre-emptive" logic of the Bush administration's first National Security Strategy, released in September 2002, will make this situation even worse. The launching into space of an armada of space "battle stations," 1500 "Brilliant Pebbles" antimissile satellites, or "several thousand interceptors," would certainly seem to violate the important norm prohibiting the "threat of force" in relations between states.

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Tannenwald, Nina. Law Versus Power on the High Frontier: The Case for a Rule-Based Regime for Outer Space. : , Summer 2004. [ 7 quotes ] [ page 35 ]