The Space Policy Show
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The Space Policy Show
Ep. 173: Space – Strategy – Sci-Fi
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Science-fiction as a genre has come to define the modern human experience and our vision of the future. Strategically thinking about conflict in space can be informed by some of the most beloved modern and historic sci-fi stories. Hosted by Colleen Stover, this episode features Dr. Namrata Goswami talking about her novel approach to seeing space strategically through the lens of Dune (1965), The Expanse (TV, 2015), Ender’s Game (1985), Forever War (1974), and Basilisk Station (1993). Future human activities in space will still involve conflict and competition for resources, logistical advantage, superior decision-making, and advanced technology.
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The Space Policy Show is produced by The Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Space Policy and Strategy. It is a virtual series covering a broad set of topics that span across the space enterprise. CSPS brings together experts from within Aerospace, the government, academia, business, nonprofits, and the national labs. The show and their podcasts are an opportunity to learn about and to stay engaged with the larger space policy community.
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So I'm talking about that is very important. Several books that I actually have studied and the movies and of course at the end design as a collective books and uh fantastic work on the torrents and uh warfare and uh actually enables you to think about what is probably going to play out, right, in terms of this warfare, not in the Earth orbit, cylinder space and beyond.
SPEAKER_00Hello everyone, welcome to the Space Policy Show. I'm Colleen Strover with the Center for Space Policy and Strategy. I'm here with Dr. Namrana Gaswamy. Very excited about having her as a guest today. We're going to be talking about science fiction and the future of space war. So, Dr. Gaswamy, you are a professor at space security with the U.S. Um Space Force's Shrever and West Space Scholars Program at Johns Hopkins. Um you're also an author of Scramble for the Skies, and that's about resource competition and outer space. So I think this really is fitting that you're talking to us today about science fiction because the future of space is kind of about resources. Yeah. Yeah. So I wanted to just um today's show is about you know science fiction, the space strategy, the future of war. Um, all of our shows are at csps.arospace.org slash space policy show or on YouTube, all the podcasts. But I wanted to start off today with a question to you about science fiction. Why is that important in understanding the future possibilities?
SPEAKER_01Sure. First of all, thank you for having me on your show. It's a real honor. So uh when you think about science fiction in the context of space strategy and the future of war, uh one thing that space warfare in particular does not have is an experience of war in space. Unlike other domains, say air, land, sea, cyber, you have several attacks, but in space it's a very novel activity. We've used space for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, missile tracking, uh, navigation. But now most nations, including the US, China, France, are starting to think about space as a warfighting domain. So what science fiction does is very interesting. Several books that I actually have studied and the movies and a course that I'm designing as an elective, what I've learned is that several of the books and this fantastic works on deterrence and warfare and decision making actually enables you to think about what is probably going to play out, right, in terms of space warfare, especially Earth orbit, Sisilin air space, and beyond. The second thing that science fiction helps you to do is not predict how space warfare will play out, but at least help you to orient. So one of the very interesting uh fighter pilots and uh strategists that I really admire is uh John Boyd. And one of the most famous biography on him is by Frank Osinga. And what Boyd talked about is the uh, you know, you you have the observe, orient, decide, the Uda loop, right? But uh the most important thing in terms of the Uda loop is uh orient. So assumptions you make about the future of warfare or maneuver. And I think science fiction offers you that in regard to space.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so the it's the it's about the assumptions, but things that may or may not actually come to fruition. Absolutely. Imagining the future.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and imagining. So a lot of that imagination is also very strategic. So most people, when they hear the word science fiction, they would think that, oh, this is fantasy, right? That this is something that you don't really need to take uh seriously. But actually, a lot of the concepts we have today, for example, space resource extraction, uh, in-orbit refueling, all this has been actually imagined in science fiction, presence. Where do you actually need to be present in space, right?
SPEAKER_00And so, yeah. So you're talking about the imagination, but from my understanding, um science fiction can also be very um in inspirational, right? In terms of how people think about the future of space.
SPEAKER_01Yes, absolutely. So uh, I mean, the most the biggest inspiration I got when I was a kid was watching Star Trek, right? The original series. The original, oh your original, okay. So, I mean, they they discovered uh basically different planets, the ability to contact those planets, also the ability to work together as a different species from different areas. So, yeah, science fiction can actually tell you a little bit about, for example, when you think about the establishment of the United Nations, right? The UN Charter, the preamble, there's a huge inspiration as to how do you work together. So, yeah, science fiction series can actually lead to that kind of inspiration.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And I I think you have a wonderful, um, I read somewhere uh a quote from one of your writings the idea that science fiction can inform the possible futures.
SPEAKER_01Yes, right. Yes, it can inform the possible futures, uh both ways, right? It can inform the uh cooperative future that we think about, where uh a lot of space enthusiasts think about space from an inspirational perspective. Like how can we work together in on areas we're not able to do on Earth, for example. Space is harsh, so because of the harsh environment of space, the assumption is that we might collaborate and we might need to, even if we don't want to. But then it also is able to uh perceive futures where it might not be that. It might be competition, it might be uh geopolitically divided. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, even even Star Trek had wars in the future. They had just overcome them to a to a uh a new um kind of period of peace, I guess.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but even then. Yeah, and then don't forget uh the USS Enterprise had weapons on them, right? They had the yeah, they had laser capability, yeah, torpedoes, so yeah.
SPEAKER_00So if humans can imagine things like that so many decades ago and nowadays they're coming to fruition, it's kind of interesting. The idea of the how the technology is catching up with the imagination.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, and because the imagination itself was based on science and physics. So most of the authors, Arthur C. Clarke and others, who wrote the books uh 2001, a Space Odyssey, where you remember Hull, right, who went rogue because it was programmed that way. So uh I think one thing that I always like to talk about when I talk about science fiction is that the authors actually were sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes very cognizant of the physics of how orbital mechanics works and the fact that uh orbitology and the way uh the space environment is is very different, say, from the ocean or Earth as a planet, right?
SPEAKER_00So yeah. So well that feeds into my my next question about um the idea of you know uh terrain decides war. Yeah. This is something that you also mentioned. And so how have how have wars uh traditionally been fought on these other terrains, terrestrial in and maritime, and how do you what are the things that um kind of beget war in your grand strategy research?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, sure. So uh the way wars have been fought in the past and even today is this concept of the strategic high ground, right? So when you think about the Battle of Gettysburg, for instance, uh the way the Union Army was able to get the advantage is because they were able to seize the strategic high ground and actually see the Confederate Army. So basically, what I mean by strategic high ground is the ability to have the visual capability to map the battlefield, right? Now, when you think about the oceans, one of the most famous theorists, Alfred Mahan, talked about command of the sea, and by that he meant not the entire ocean. But basically, when you're fighting over, say, a choke point, right, near a port, you have to have command of that area, but that also means you have to have the ability to see where your adversary is going and what kind of capability, right? And so, in very similar context, air, you know, you need to understand where the other platforms are, you've got to see where what your scan of horizon is. So, when you think about space, uh space is actually the ultimate strategic high ground today, right? So and I think 1991 changed all that. So when during the Gulf War, uh the whole world watched how the US military was able to respond to Iraqi military formations even better because of uh satellite capability, right? And so, in some sense, uh what is so interesting is that some of the books we'll talk about later actually predicted that in terms of how technology can enable you to visualize the battlefield. So, yeah, so that's how when I talk about the strategic high ground, that's uh what I mean. And what is so interesting in my research, since you asked about my research on grand strategy, I just don't do uh grand strategy at the level of the state. I also do a lot of work on non-state actors, including guerrilla warfare. And one of the biggest insights I got from my research on guerrilla warfare from the ground, doing field work, was that even guerrilla armies would want to seize the strategic high ground and they would occupy a hill where they can see the formation of the Indian military or the military they are fighting. Viet Cong is a great example of this in Viet Minh, right? So, yeah, so that's how I would see it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's interesting. Um I know we're gonna talk a little bit more about it, but also um the idea of how technology is changing war, not just from the Gulf War in '91, but now war um between Ukraine and Russia, how drone warfare is that technology is really going forward.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and it's uh I'm glad you asked that because uh the kind of uh drone swarms uh we are thinking about, and that's actually the reality today, right? So this was envisioned 15 years ago by those futurists who actually were talking about the inclusion of drone in warfare, right? Uh there is of course a famous YouTube video, Slaughterbock. I uh have you seen it?
SPEAKER_00No, I'm sure somebody in our audience has seen it, though.
SPEAKER_01Yes, so it's it's a scary video. So if your audience haven't seen it, I would urge them to see it. I show it to my students. But just to uh talk about drone warfare, right? So about 15 years ago, I was at the NATO Defense College in Rome, and uh when I was there, I had a particular participant talk about how we need to be very careful about drones being used in warfare. And absolutely what was stunning to me was that most people wouldn't think that's possible. You know? And so today, I mean, look at all the nations, Iran, Russia, right, uh, Ukraine. They're using drones for warfare, including most dangerously, uh, non-state armed groups. For example, ISIS, uh, Islamic State basically uh a few years ago uh put out a video saying that they don't need humans for suicide bombing anymore. They might use drones, right? And attack someone uh you know in a predictable way because they can use or collaborate with imagery that is built into the drone.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So and and I don't know, I mean who knows how it's gonna change um the the kind of strategy on the battlefields and stuff.
SPEAKER_01It will change the strategy because uh you will then have to not only be able to know where the drones are going, but predict their path, right? And so you would need even better collaboration in terms of not satellite data, but uh an integration of satellite data, human, but also ground intelligence, right? So uh in a in some sense you can see that play out in Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine was better at using drones, but then Russia adapted. Yeah. So and very quickly got Iranian and North Korean drones, right? So uh, you know, yeah.
SPEAKER_00It still depends on that high ground though, in terms of the kind of communication and the data that they have, yes, and always getting fed the data from GPS or from other or sensors that the drones have by themselves.
SPEAKER_01So, yeah, but integration would create even more lethality.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, yeah. Um, okay, so the whole reason that I have you on today is for the science fiction. And drones are no longer science fiction. Yeah, they're once there.
SPEAKER_01They're once where I think that's a great segue to the science fiction section because that proves our point, right? Right. Or my point that uh technology we thought was impossible actually is now playing out, and now everybody wants to talk about it, right? But 15 years ago, there were a lot of people who said, Oh, this is not possible, including thinkers who were working on warfare. So, yeah, it's a great segue. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so moving back back um into our our line of questioning here, you've you in your research, I I have picked out five of the um science fiction pieces that you wrote about, and they really kind of showcase um uh in order the the resources, competition, um, the logistical kind of superiority, the command and control at speed um and institution building, and then the durability. And so I wanted to kind of walk through each of those stories. So um if if anyone in our audience hasn't seen all of these, I'm sorry, there might be spoiler alerts. Um Dune. Um great book. Um I really enjoyed the movie as well. Um, but there in Dune, it's about uh spice, the resources becoming indispensable. Um so explain how resources being indispensable um terrestrially on Earth as well. How does that move into space?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. So uh I'm glad you read the book too, because uh the movie is wonderful, especially the two recent versions of that. Yes, because it was also made earlier in the I think in the 1980s. So I watched the older versions too. So I think the uh the newer movies do a great job of building the story together, but the books are fantastic. So Frank Harvard did a great job of uh using uh Bedouin culture, for example, and Lawrence of Arabia, the Seven Pillars of Wisdom. So there's a lot of uh actual strategic books that have influenced Dune. So what does Dune do, which uh I really enjoy? So, uh, in terms of science fiction, what Dune envision uh envision is a world where a strategic resource becomes the source of competition, right? And so there is this one company, Chom's company, which the movie doesn't showcase much, but the book talks a lot about. So almost all the great houses are members of that particular company. What they're vying for is the ability, as you said, to determine spice. Spice is the strategic goal or platinum be fighting, right? Yeah of whichever house is able to uh control it. So uh what Harvard does is fascinating. So one at the Great Power competition, you have the different houses fighting each other over the spice and membership of that particular company, and then you have the freemen who is a little bit like the insurgencies, right? But they are the ones who understand Arrakis, the desert uh place, right? Where is which is where the spice is. And so um, which is fascinating, and I'll come to how it relates to resources in space, for example. So, in if so, one of the things you realize is that if any of the houses are not able to collaborate with the free man, they actually will not be able to understand the conditions of the desert, right? So, in some sense, if you're not if you don't have good understanding of local area, you cannot do good warfare. You might do something from the gr from the air, you might be able to do something uh a little further away, but you don't get control over that particular area.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01So the desert will eat you up, right? And then of course, Dune also does fascinating levels of analysis. Right? One you have great power competition, but the other is about identity. So uh the the free men and their identity, their connection to a particular uh the concept of the mehadith, the great coming of the great wise leader, right? So Paul Atridus by the Ben, so there is a whole idea of propaganda where the Beni Jesseret basically creates that, right? So, how does it relate to my work on grand strategy? So uh so the book that you mentioned, uh Scramble for the Skies, the great power of competition to control the resources of outer space. I co-authored it with Peter Gerrittson. So in that book, what we realized based on our fieldwork in the US, China, India, was that there was a growing competition about the resources say on the moon. And by the resources, what I mean is lunar water, yeah, right? And helium-3, of course, yeah, uh, nations have been talking about it for very long. Uh the Clementine mission basically confirmed that water exists on the moon, and then India's Chandrayan 2. And so uh Chandrayan 1, sorry, confirmed the presence of water ice on the moon. Uh it was a NASA mineralogy mapper that was located. So, in connection to Dune, what is fascinating is that very similar to that kind of world where you're having this uh scramble for uh the great houses to dominate a spice because of the fact that it helps you in logistics, it helps you in building uh all the manufacturing capability you talk about, it gives you that extra decisive advantage that you need in warfare. I would argue that a similar situation is playing out in Sasuner space today. And the uh and so you see, science fiction imagined this in the 1970s. This book was written in 1974, if I remember right. So, yeah. And my book, our book was uh published in 2020. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I didn't oh okay. I didn't realize the book had been out that long. So yeah, you've been watching it all kind of your scramble for the skies, you've been watching it all, like, yep, we said that. We said that. Maybe it's the okay, so uh the next the next book that that or the next um science fiction piece that I would like to us to talk about is the expanse. Now, this was one of my favorite um modern science fiction, and there you mention how regarding the expanse, you mention how logistics kind of underwrites that that tactical superiority. Um and you know, we think we know what logistics means on the ground, right? We all have seen you know movies about war or or read books about it, but is it the same for in-space that logistics piece?
SPEAKER_01It is very much the same. So when you think about extending warfare in the oceans, right? So uh the fact that the British Navy was so powerful was not because they were they were able to move for very long distances, but because they had picture points, so they had islands they could go to, countries they could refuel, right? And they could act they could get those resources from those areas, and of course they saw India as a jewel in the crown, right? But then they had Dago Garcia and other areas. So, very similarly in space, if you're thinking about the resource question that Doy basically brought about, what the expanse tells you is that you have Earth, you have as you and you you we all love that particular the expanse, right? Because the one thing about the expense is that they had a lot of people consulting in terms of getting the physics right. So I was in a conference where the team of the expense was present, and they gave you this fantastic presentation on how they actually build the series, and the actors were there too. So and I was I was doing a presentation on China in space, and they loved it, so it was kind of surreal for me, right? So, but anyway, so uh what the expense tells you is that delta V, that is refueling, so delta V is the ability to go from one point in space to the other. Now, orbital mechanics as such, or the inability of uh the current reality of warfare in space is that we do not have the ability to refuel. We don't have it as yet. China has just demonstrated as yet, right? We're trying, we're trying to get there. On-orbit servicing, right? And then on-orbit uh fuel hubs. We don't have that, we're trying to build that. We can think about that, say, like uh international space station, but it's a fuel depot. That a satellite can or uh or a drone, uh refueling drone can get to a satellite and refuel it, which means the constraints of moving is not there, right? So think a little bit about your fighter planes, right? That if without refueling, they couldn't have flown that far. So we're and that was the Nair refueling, and that changed the game. And not every nation has it, you know. So US ability to do that really changed the ability to go long distance, right? So, in some sense, what expanse teaches you, and that's why the book by James Corey is fantastic, too, it tells you that Earth, Mars, and the belters are vital, right? So Mars and Earth have the ability to go long distances, the Rosinante, for example, can fly long, but then they also needed to be refueled where the belters, the outer planetary alliance, mattered a lot, right? And then the second thing it taught you is that that nation that had the ability to refuel and do in-orbit servicing and manufacturing had the advantage, and Earth was always worried that Mars somehow would crack that by getting the proto-molecule, right? The whole expense is about that, right? And so, in some sense, when you think about warfare today, one of the biggest uh desire of the United States Space Force is to be able to do in-orbit refueling and maneuver without regret. You hear this a lot. What does that mean, right? Many people think, okay, maneuvering warfare, what does it mean in space, right? What it means basically, and General Shaw was the first one to come up with this concept called dynamic space operation.
SPEAKER_00General Shaw has been on our show before. So he just did a recent um a kind of evolution of dynamic space operations. So check it out. Oh, I love that.
SPEAKER_01I'll check it out too because I really enjoy his thinking. So, what it means is that And that show must have you must have touched on this concept, but just connecting it to do, right? So what it means is that uh you are able to move your spacecraft without worrying about the fuel constraints, which we don't have today, right? But expense envisioned that and showed you that warfare can become extremely different when you can move with that kind of capability, right? And interestingly, the physics allows it. It's just that we have not been able to crack the engineering code yet. And one of my uh research shows you that China just demonstrated uh in-space refueling between two of their satellites, uh the SIJAN 21 and 25, and they're trying to scale it up to cis lunar space. So, yeah, so there you go. Expanse envisioned this and told you how important it is for warfare, and now you have nations like China and the US and India trying to do it. So, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Are there other elements of um the logistics going from kind of terrestrial to space besides the refueling piece?
SPEAKER_01Oh, so much uh positions, right? So, for example, one thing that the expanse tells you is also territory matters. Like, for example, the belters occupy a particular asteroid, right? And that asteroid has resources. So, very similarly, when you think about how the moon is being viewed today, right? So, one of the interesting uh thinkers from China called Wu Wearing, he's the designer of their lunar space program, he points out that well, uh China is not thinking about the moon about sending another human back. That does not what is the purpose of that, right? The real purpose is if you're able to build a base on the moon and extract the resources on the moon, what does it create? Logistics hub. And so when you listen to China's uh thinkers on space, they talk a lot about space from an infrastructure perspective and logistics perspective. The other area that they talk about is connecting it to lower orbit as well, where they are building platforms. So, as you know, they have the Tiangong space station, right? Yeah, uh, along with the International Space Station. Uh the ISS is, I think, de-orbiting by 2030, unless it gets now 2030. And the de-orbit vehicle is already being contracted to SpaceX. So but the Tiangong is continuing. And what is interesting is that the Tiangong is talking a lot like the expanse trying to test uh radiation, what that does to human life, trying to test refueling, uh, trying to test space-based solar power, the ability to collect sunlight in space and beam it down. But they're thinking about beaming it, say, to a spacecraft or a base that they will build, right? So very much what the expanse tells you.
SPEAKER_00So and so that idea of um kind of the moon being um uh a logistics hub or a DG High ground, the strategic high ground, and then the delta V coming, you know, trying to get off of Earth, if you can be going and coming from the moon, you don't have that fuel constrained to break out of uh orbit.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, in fact, uh if I remember the logistic or the uh statistical analysis that I use for my research, what it showed you is that if you launch, I'm glad you brought that up, because if you launch from the moon, you actually use 22 times less energy, which means a rocket for your audience, if this is a rocket, this is the fuel, right? If you launch from Earth and this is the payload. Now, if you launch from the moon, probably fuel will be here and this will be your payload. Can you imagine the advantage? Also, militarily, you can put so much up there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um, okay, so the next one then, uh, the Enders game. Yeah. Um, this one, this one you mentioned um how you kind of dug into how it uh looks at command and control with speed, but also uncertainty, or within an uncertain environment. Um so so why is this kind of decision-making speed and under certain constraints of certainty? Um, why is it so important? And then I'll ask you to go a little further. Um, why is it so important within kind of the future of space war, command and control, but then also um how does AI change the equation, perhaps? Oh, yeah. So kind of going back to Ender's Game, but command and control, how is that demonstrated?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. So uh Ender's Game is a very deeply moving book, and uh Orson Scott did a great job. And the movie is nice, but the book is deeper, I would say. And so uh so basically what Ender's Game uh visualizes is uh, as you said, especially command decisions. So it's a lot about warfare. How command decisions are made and what could give you the advantage, right? So almost all warfare and almost all strategic texts, be it uh Kotilias Arthasastra from India, uh be it Sanzu, be it uh Mao's revolutionary warfare, be it Clausewich, be it Zomini, uh they all, or Fuller, for example, they all talk about the importance of timing and decision, how that changes the game in warfare. So for example, uh if you get a particular intelligence faster about a particular battlefield than, for example, me, right? You have a decision advantage. Yeah. You know, you can then create a strategy and your tactic. So Anders game is a lot about that. It's about getting data, integrating the data, most importantly, as Sunzun said, and that's why I find Anders very deep. Ander, you know, was a child, right? And he was taken there to play this video game, to create data integration, but also understand the adversary, the alien adversary that you're actually countering. Ender understood them really well and actually loved them. He had this deep empathy for his adversary. He didn't see them as an adversary. He thought he was playing a video game, right? But then that's the question about AI comes in. So because of the integration of fast decision making, collaborated with artificial intelligence, he finally ended up playing the game in such a manner and so well, because he understood the adversaries so well, understood their morph, their cultural capability, that he ended up uh killing them. And he didn't realize it because he thought he was playing a game. It was only later it broke his heart, right? But to come to your question, there you go. He was able to do decision making faster because he had faster data, he was able to integrate it faster because he had AI that helped, or artificial intelligence that he was able to integrate. And finally, it's also about ethics of decision making, right? How does it affect you? And almost every piece of uh science fiction, especially when it comes to command decision, deals with that as well. And Anders is a book that I um so in my course that's going to be a core book where because I teach uh military uh I do I do professional military education, and I think it's one of the deepest books on uh decision making. So yeah. Right. And and the element of of ethics in that. Oh, very much. Because Anders, yeah, it's it's a deception. There's deception too in the book because the endor didn't know that the game he was playing was actually not a game.
SPEAKER_00Right, right. And so, yeah, the uh you have this great quote that I read of yours, the the ethical burden of technologically mediated war.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because if you don't realize what your technology is doing or understand, or it ris ends in a result that you did not want, that can haunt you. You know, and Anders was definitely haunted. So beautifully done.
SPEAKER_00And as far as we know, AI does not have feelings yet.
SPEAKER_01We don't know. It might get sentient, right? If you have watched Ex Makina, uh the AI uh gets sentient, you know? Yeah. And deep, deeply moving movie. That's a science fiction. I don't know that one. It would be moving. It's called Ex Makina. It's beautiful.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's very well done. Um okay, so for our next one is the Forever War. Yeah. Now this one um you point out how how technology can move faster than institutions. And when I first read that, I'm thinking, you know, kind of rule of law, you know, institutions. What what do you mean by institutions when you're talking about um them not keeping up with technology?
SPEAKER_01Oh, absolutely. So I just finished reading the book. It's a wonderful book. Joe Helderman, he was a Viet uh Vietnam War veteran and uh he saw the he saw war at a deeply personal level. You know, what happened when uh technology goes beyond politics and beyond institutions? Because in Vietnam, the US of course had the superior technology, right? But then uh and anyway, so the book, uh so uh what what Halderman tried to do in the book through the character of William Mandela, uh so this is a thousand years' war. And because he was posted in different areas of space, he aged much, much uh slower than people back on Earth. Okay, right? So that's number one. And so that's something we need to think about when we think about warfare in space as well, time and space. Yeah, yeah. But the more important thing is one of the biggest decisions of the military uh education in the Forever War is that even if you have technological capability and you possess the most uh div destructive capability, if your institutions do not keep up, your training do not keep up, you do not understand economics, you do not understand politics, or you do not understand your adversary and your system, it doesn't matter. And the and the book is all about that. It's about Mandela starting as a private and then being, he was uh, I think he became major. And because he had this thousand-year experience, and so biggest lesson for me, I teach PME, right? So uh the the professional military education in the Forever War, very much focused on technology, which we do, very much focused on maneuver, for example, of a satellite. But what is it for? What is the politics? What is the purpose of this maneuver? What is the warfare of fighting? Is it conventional? Is it irregular? Because if you do not understand the warfare of fighting, your technology will not help you. And that's the biggest lesson of forever war. And the character of William Mandela does it beautifully. He is struggling because here he has destructive capability to destroy the alien civilization or fight them at this outpost, foreign space. And yet, because of the training that did not help him understand what kind of warfare it was, was it protractorate? Was it limited? So, you know, so that's the biggest lesson of the work book. I think it comes from his ex the author's experience in Vietnam. Interesting, yeah. Because Vietnam was a protractorate war.
SPEAKER_00So right, and a lot of people at the time and even now questioned why we were at war in Vietnam. Yeah, so think yeah, exactly. The why behind it.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And think about space warfare, right? So we talk about uh Chinese maneuvering in, say, geosynchronous orbit. We talk a lot about their satellites being able to dock or to be able to refuel or to be able to move. Okay, but what kind of warfare will China fight in space? Will it be a quick exit like it did with India? So there is a big misunderstanding about China's way of warfare. And most uh analysts have heard and read argue that it would be protractorate, that China would continue a long war. But actually, China's engagement with India in the border war was a very short war. It it ended in a few days because it defeated the Indian military, and then it said we are not about occupying India, we just wanted to teach India a lesson, and they moved back, right? Their war in uh Korea, North Korea was short. And so so that's the thing. What kind of warfare are they planning for? With the youth, for example, in space, right? Uh so we have to understand, and that's the insight from Forever War.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Well, so you you've really leaned into that kind of education piece with your the military education piece and just I think about that a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, well, strategy, right? I mean, we look forward to look to understand, or we look backward to understand what's ahead. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because if I want to think about uh say an escalation of conflict in space in real in the real world, right? Uh with with our adversary. Uh if I don't understand the adversary, I might be building the best amazing technology. But if I don't understand them and their strategy and their politics and my own politics and economics, I might not actually get to the goal I want to get to, right? Despite having amazing technology. So uh Helderman in his book, uh oh, he does such a good job of explaining that.
SPEAKER_00Interesting, interesting. So I um the last one here on our list is uh Basilisk Station. Now I did not read Forever War and I have not read Basilisk Station. Um so that I'll just admit that now. Um, but this one you you talk about um the persistence pre the persistent presence over distance. Yes. Um and how um that that kind of durability piece in terms of how that uh influences um the way wars are fought, but also who comes out on top. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Um so so how is that how is that reached that that persistent present? What is needed for that? Um maybe either terrestrially or how that would look in space eventually.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so uh it's the so basilic station is written by David Weber. It's uh it's the Honor Harrington series. So she's the protagonist. And so this particular station is out in space, it's not the most sought after, it's like a backwater, it's not good. And uh most people don't want to go there. She was punished because she had had a problem with her senior officer, and so she was sent there, right? So uh what so historically uh it's a little bit like uh when uh United Kingdom send uh people to Australia, right? And and people didn't see it favorably historically. Right. So I lived in Australia for some time and that was a big part of their history, right? Yeah, yeah. And then they turned that around good, didn't they? Yeah, they turned very well, right? And so that's the point. So uh Besselic Station is a backwater, but it's now it to answer your question, but it's amazing in terms of territorial significance and presence because that's the point in space where you can actually then access the work drive and you can get to space to any place in space faster. So whoever dominates that area and that station has an advantage in war because you can remember our decision making, how fast we can look. So it's all about logistics, it's about presence, right? And the book uh, through the character of Honor Harrington, she's very colorful and lively, and what an amazing female character with such tenacity, right? And so uh what I learned from that, and so this is why I like this particular book. So coming back to Earth, since you asked the question about terrestrial, the book is a lot about naval strategy, so and Mahan's concept, right? So, what naval warfare and historically, and China learned a big lesson from this, that the nation that builds that kind of presence in backwaters, because they recognize the strategic significance, like the United Kingdom did uh in the uh 18th and 19th century, uh, they came out on the top. And China turned its back on such building of presence and capability in backwater. They had the Ming ships, the famous uh Zhanghei treasure ships, beautifully built, and they said we're not gonna build this. And they lost out. And they think this is a big century of humiliation concept, right? So to come back to Earth when I went to China and did film work, and I asked them the question of, okay, what lesson do you think you've learned in space from your history? So they said, Okay, let's take you to the Museum of Naval Warfare, a maritime museum that we have about 40 kilometers out of Shanghai. So I went there, I had no idea what it was about. So the moment I enter the museum, there's this beautiful treasure ship that has been rebuilt, and there is a big statement there: never forget humiliation and never forget that you turn back on logistics, presence, and infrastructure. Do not repeat that mistake in space, is what my colleague told me. Right? So you there you go, right? Basilix station tells you that if you want to extend your power and your reach, you cannot be just technology, cannot be just a spacecraft. You need to have control over certain zones in space. So, for example, on the moon, it would be Lagrange Point Earth Moon 2, right? Because it's a stable place, you can put your relay satellites there. And China has one.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for our audience, you could just kind of hang out there without using much fuel.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, because Earth and uh Moon's gravity stabilizes it.
SPEAKER_00It gives you an insight into deeper space and yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you can see the backside of the moon, which you cannot see now.
SPEAKER_00So, yeah. That's interesting. So, I mean, I suppose that the Chinese Belt and Road um initiatives are a part of that in terms of um uh going out and kind of controlling logistical uh hot spots.
SPEAKER_01Hotspots and also learning from history, their own history, that they didn't do it, and that's why they're where they are. They were the Middle Kingdom, the historical context, right? And then I'm glad you asked it because in uh Belt and Road was established in 2013 by President Xi Jinping, and then in 2018 they included space in it.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01And space infrastructure.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, right, yes, right. Um, well, this has been fascinating. I think one of the things that I take away is um is there are uh uh out of all of yours, um the the five here, that the idea of alliances, building alliances, or understanding your adversary play into that. And so it's not just about technology, but it's about that human element as well, like whether it's um you know understanding your friends or understanding your enemies.
SPEAKER_01Very much. So technology is good if you have it and you're capable, but if you're able to build uh almost all the books, right? For for example, Dune, they built alliances with the Freeman, the House of Atreides did that, right? And uh in Eracus, uh which was the planet. And then the, for example, in the expanse, you know, if you do not collaborate, it's very hard for you to respond to uh, say, an adversary. Uh Basilic Station has a lot about how do you collaborate with how planets can collaborate. We haven't talked about foundation, you know, foundation has a lot of that. So yeah, it really matters. So think about a real situation on Earth, right? So Japan currently, so Japan is an ally for your audience of the United States. Uh we have a treaty with Japan, for example. But interestingly, in space, Japan has done something very interesting. So they have established their own uh space uh squadron unit, which is the Space Force, to collaborate with the United States, that's their goal, so that they're institutionally able to bring interoperability. And then the second thing in terms of warfare. So just a few months ago, I was surprised to see it. Japan announced the MOD, Ministry of Defense, announced that they're going to build something called ground-based moving target indicator. So uh ground moving target indicator and air moving target indicator based on space support. So uh what what do I mean by a ground moving target indicator? So today, when you think about the US ability to locate, say, a moving ship on the ocean, we do not have real-time capability. It is a there is a lag of a second or a millimeter of a second. Which means if you're gonna target it, it's moving. Right, right. So what what we are hoping for, and the US has been working on this for a very long time, is the ability to get satellite support that can give you real-time uh ability to uh locate a target. So if I'm walking now, you see I'm walking now, right? You don't see me after a lag. So uh we are near there, we are not there yet. So Japan recently announced that they're going to, because of the advanced electronic electronics and space capability, they're going to build that capability. So it's fascinating in terms of when you think about current warfare, if you get that capability, my God, that ability to have that decisive ability, even for a second, really matters, you know. And so almost all the books we talked about talks about that kind of decisive advantage in terms of uh not just intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, but tracking.
SPEAKER_00Right, right, yeah. No, that's um so that's interesting about Japan making um that announcement. Yeah. That you would you would think if um if they if that technology was easy to build, we would have done it already. So they're really leaning into something like that, and then we're happy that they're our ally as well.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes. So to your point about alliances and so we have it happening as we speak.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Um, okay, so I wanted to move on. We've got about um five minutes left or so, so I wanted to squeeze in some other things here. Um we talked about um technology development and how it can be kind of a limiting a limiting factor that we haven't uh been able to realize certain capabilities like the moving target indication, um the on orbit refueling, the way that um the way that it's kind of uh factored into future cislunar and beyond operations. Um, what are some other kind of limitations besides technology that you would see? We talked about institutions.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think in Trump soft limitation. It's uh not just technology, right? It's also vision politics. It's about can you actually put your money in terms of what you are trying to build? Right? Because space is such that if you want to invest in a particular capability, it needs long-term investment. It cannot happen in a day. So if you see China landing on the far side of the moon in 2019, they've been building that capability since 2004. It's a long time because it's autonomous landing, and no other nation has landed on the far side, right? They're the first one to do it. So it's very hard, and then the communication with the relay satellite. So that's a limitation that sometimes the investment climate is such that to have that kind of patience could be a limitation. There is also this very quick denial and negation that something might happen. So when China had announced in about 2004 that they're going to send their lunar missions to, first of all, uh study if the moon has resources, and if they do, if the moon does have resources, then to extract it and to build the capability, right? So uh the limitation of, especially in the US, was this uh quick uh negation that they will do that, that they have the ability or that they have the innovative capability because nobody's done that before. The assumption was that China always steals from others, right? So they cannot innovate. But then when they did it, there was astonishment and surprise, right? So that's a limitation. And then I would say that the final limitation is the discussion we had on orientation and assumptions that science fiction, that's why science fiction is brilliant. Because if you actually study the books of science fiction, they anticipate the adversary or a competitor or someone you collaborate with, building capability that you could not have imagined. Right. Right? Or AI capability, or the ability to do refueling, the ability to say, if possible, build the uh technology to move fast, right? And then I'll finally end by saying that uh I think there is a cognitive limitation. So uh several state nations have their own science fiction. So China has the dark forest on the three-body problem, very serious science fiction. Um the author Li Uh Li Sheng Shu actually advises the China National Space Administration on astronomy and radio astronomy. Oh yeah, he's very he's very deeply involved in the science of it, right? And so the dark forest, in the from the Chinese perspective, tells you that it's better not to connect with her alien civilization because of the fact that they might turn out to be adversarial. So even if you have contact, it's best to keep quiet, not to respond unless you're sure, right? So that gives you a lot of insight to their thinking on warfare.
SPEAKER_00Oh, interesting. Yeah, yeah. This is your expertise in Chinese history.
SPEAKER_01Uh, it's very much uh very, very study your adversary, do not make yourself known until you know what the adversary is up to. And then for India, there is the Mahabharat, which is not a book of science fiction, but in the book, which is a with my name of the book again. It's called Mahabharat. Okay. Yeah, so uh it's a it's a very old mythology. We all grew up with that story. So this is two kingdoms fighting each other, they are related, but they couldn't get along. But in the book, they envision space uh weapons. But more importantly, these weapons are devastating, like ICBM, intercontinental ballistic missile, but most importantly, the ethics of it. Only few people can be trained and have the knowledge ethically to use them. So you cannot have disproportionate use. Look at that, right? Yeah, amazing lesson for that written, this mythology.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god, it is uh it's old. It's not even BC, it's it's it's very old. Wow, yeah, very interesting. So, yeah, this um I mean the kind of military strategy has is found in many different um avenues, right? From things that old to things writing about um thousand years into the future.
SPEAKER_01Especially in space, because when you think about space policy and strategy, space policy is the institutions we talked about. For example, educational institutions or policy-making institutions. All nations are different in terms of how they build it, right? But space strategy, there is similarity. It's the connection of means and ends, right? Means are your technology, or the kind of technology science fiction talked about and now we see coming, like drone warfare, refueling in space, maneuver. But the end is the political purpose. What are you building this warfare capabilities for? Is it to, as I said, you know, and so strategy and the kind of work I do on grand strategy actually is fascinating. It draws from classical texts, it draws from objective reality to the extent possible, right? With the data you collect. But then I'm noticing that a lot of the work also has a lot of uh location and strategic uh context in science fiction.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, yeah. This has been a fascinating, fascinating conversation. Um, I want to, I the audience, I hope that you um are taking notes. I'll try to put in the um the page notes some of these titles so that people can can see them and maybe look them up. Yeah, yeah, yes.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you for having me. You can see that I enjoy this topic, yeah, and so it was a great uh pleasure and honor to be on your show.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Yeah, I think I think it's a special. We um I I didn't want to do the uh for people who cannot attend your classes. This is a good introduction. Absolutely. Oh, they can come to my listing. Um, so thank you everybody for joining us. You can follow us on social media, you can subscribe to get notified at csps.aerospace.org. Um, and there you can also see the center's deeper research papers. And thank you again, Dr. Gaswamy, to our audience. We'll see you next time.