Nayef R. F. Al-Rodhan

Information and Communications Technology (ICT)

In the first ever issue of PC Magazine published in January 1982, Bill Gates predicted that computers and related technologies would change the way people worked. Twenty-five years later in the same publication, Gates reflected that this technology had indeed changed the way we worked but, more importantly, it was changing how we lived.1

Global Trends and Their Impact on Space

This article addresses global trends and their impact on outer space issues from three main perspectives: (1) current and future challenges in outer Space, (2) developments in the international system over the past two decades, and (3) how these changes in the international system reflect on space issues, policies, challenges and opportunities.

Space Power: An Introduction

This volume is an attempt to shed new light on the current debate about the highly complex and fast-changing geopolitics of space. Unlike many existing works examining current space technologies and national space policies, this book goes beyond traditional international relations approaches to space by applying the comprehensive framework of meta-geopolitics to space. One of the most distinctive traits of the meta-geopolitics framework is its all-encompassing view of power, security and geopolitical actors. The meta-geopolitics approach does not undermine traditional, geography-related factors in the current geopolitical analysis of space but it adds new dimensions of power and thus broadens its definition. The meta-geopolitics framework highlights seven capacities through which the power of a state or a non-state actor can be assessed: (a) social and health parameters; (b) domestic politics; (c) economics; (d) the environment; (e) science and human potential; (f) military and security factors; and (g) international diplomacy. As is set out in my previously published work, Neo-Statecraft and Meta-Geopolitics: Reconciliation of Power, Interests, and Justice in the 21st Century, Meta-geopolitics differs from traditional concepts of geopolitics, as it proposes a multidimensional view of power. It includes all of the soft- and hard-power tools that states can employ to project power. Moreover, it assesses the relative strengths and weaknesses of each capacity. The meta-geopolitical approach also allows us to make predictions about the ability of a state to continue to project its power in the future. It takes into account variables like projected population growth, demographic make-up, public health and human and scientific potential. These factors help us gauge whether a country will retain, increase or lose its current geopolitical status.1

Space Power and Applied Meta-Geopolitics

This chapter assesses the space power capacities of contemporary leading space-faring nations. The space policies of the United Sates, the European Union (EU), Russia and China are tested against the seven capacities of the meta-geopolitics framework, and their respective strengths and weaknesses are highlighted and discussed. This multidimensional analysis also includes a section on non-state actors and assesses the space power capacities of two selected commercial companies — EADS-Astrium and Boeing. A clear picture of geopolitical space dynamics emerges and serves as a basis for assessing space power imperatives, drawing conclusions, identifying governance paradigms and making policy recommendations.

Space Technology and Meta-Geopolitics

The multipolar and less predictable world that emerged after the Cold War, shaped by globalization and events like 9/11 and its consequences, has seen space capabilities gain importance and become a core element of a state’s strategic thinking.1 Strategic, here, refers to means that a state needs to reach its goals, objectives and desired outcomes in each of the seven areas of power defined by meta-geopolitics. As applied to space, it means that domestic politics, the economic situation, demographic trends, health and social conditions, access to natural resources, vulnerability to natural disasters, the availability of a highly skilled workforce and technological know-how, national military and security considerations, as well as diplomatic leverage will together determine the importance a state gives to a national space programme. It will decide how large it will be, the strategic priorities it will have and whether it will take a confrontational approach to the other actors in space. A wealthy country which considers its military power to be an important part of its national security may be more likely to allocate resources for the establishment of a space launch capacity than a less developed country that believes in neutrality. Similarly, an actor that is frequently threatened by environmental disasters such as hurricanes would be more likely to invest in environmental monitoring satellites.

Space Governance and Meta -Geopolitics

Space opens up fascinating avenues and opportunities, but increased human activity in space entails new risks and presents important challenges for global security. Although the international community has repeatedly stated that cooperation and robust regulation are indispensable to ensuring the safety and sustainability of space, it also agrees that the existing legal architecture is not sufficient to address the new global challenges. In this chapter, I review existing institutions and legal instruments dealing with space governance. I also highlight the progress made since the beginning of the space age and identify gaps that need to be addressed. I also advocate two paradigms that are appropriate for space governance in our interdependent, globalized world and congested, contested and competitive outer space environment. I conclude by suggesting concrete measures that need to be taken by national policymakers, academics, international organizations, scientists, business, civil society and any other group engaged in the space sector in order to improve the safety of space activities and ensure the sustainability of outer space.

Space Security and Meta -Geopolitics

In examining the strategic application of space technology by states through the prism of meta-geopolitics, I argued that space technology has the potential to strengthen each of the seven capacities of a state’s space power and thereby increase its weight in the balance of international power relations. Many actors have acknowledged the benefits that derive from space and decided to take advantage of them, as the United Stated and the Soviet Union did from the start of the space age. Given the heavy financial burden of space programmes coupled with recent budget restrictions, the private sector has emerged as a new key player in the space adventure. As a result, space has become more crowded and competitive while states have become increasingly reliant on technologies placed there for most of their military and civilian activities. These recent developments raise new concerns about security in space. Today’s main challenges to space security include a broad range of intentional and unintentional threats, ranging from congestion to debris to potential attacks. Increased reliance on space technology brings with it vulnerability to disruption of space services, while the emergence of new actors in space poses challenges in terms of coordination of orbits, collisions and even potential attack by another state.

Space Power and Meta -Geopolitics

Globalization means that the strategic dynamics of the world we live in are changing rapidly.1 As suggested previously, ‘[g]eopolitics is not and never will be a static science. An important part of geopolitical thinking is the study of international dynamics and new developments that might affect the power of states and power relationships between them’.2 Recent technological progress in transport infrastructures, information and communication tools and, of course, space technologies, has opened new doors but also created additional threats for the international community, thereby altering its existing geopolitical structures.

Implications for a Potential Seventh Critical Turning Point — 2011–15

This concluding chapter has two tasks. First, we survey the range of potential factors that are likely to create the conditions for a potential seventh critical turning point in the Middle East. These range from fragile and failing state implosion; violent extremism and the continued export of strategic dysfunctionality; and Palestinian-Israeli generated tensions. Second, we reflect on the nature of current approaches to managing change in the region — noting four different and competing approaches, each of which is supported by a narrative that purports to identify and address underlying structural and systemic causation in the region. The Sixth Crisis: Iran, Israel and the Rumours of War by Dana H. Allin and Steve Simons constitutes a recent attempt by imaginative scholars to outline the parameters of the next major crisis — identified as the juncture created by Iran’s nuclear programme, the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate and the state of US-Israeli relations.1 We argue that to be able to speculate on the catastrophic event or series of crises which might constitute such a future critical turning point has little utility for policymakers, if we draw the wrong conclusions as to its causes. Under such circumstances policy responses will be driven by existing narratives that misidentify a set of underlying tensions and cleavages that the responses then attempt to address. As a result the policy responses will have limited utility, and, worse, will likely sow the seeds for yet another critical turning point.

A New Strategic Context in the Middle East

The next turning point started in the late 1980s and matured at the turn of the 1990s. Contrary to previous experience, a cluster of systemic shocks — some quite tragic — occurring between 1987 and 1991 gave rise to the perception of the next turning point, a turning point which had the potential to bring about some measure of positive change in the region. These crucial events included the first Intifada in the Palestinian territories that began in 1987, the end of the Iraq-Iran war in 1988, the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, the First Gulf War subsequent to the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in 1990 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.