Lesson 1: Foundations of Spacepower Theory

Start with the claim you need to be able to evaluate

"Who controls low-Earth orbit controls near-Earth space. Who controls near-Earth space dominates Terra. Who dominates Terra determines the destiny of humankind."

— Everett Dolman, Astropolitik: Classical Geopolitics in the Space Age (2002)

This is the strongest version of the high ground thesis. Whether you accept it, reject it, or qualify it, you need to be able to argue with it — because your government customers have read it, and so have the Chinese strategic theorists whose work informs PLA space doctrine.

By the end of this lesson you will be able to state what Dolman is arguing and where it comes from, define spacepower in the way the U.S. Space Force currently uses the term, identify the seven spacepower disciplines from the Space Capstone Publication, and describe the Chinese framework for analyzing space competition that produces different strategic priorities than the U.S. approach.

Defining spacepower

Before arguing about who controls what, you need a definition. The U.S. government's current working definition comes from Charles Lutes and Peter Hays:

"Spacepower is the ability in peace, crisis, and war to exert prompt and sustained influence in or from space."

Note what this definition includes and excludes.

Includes: influence in space (on-orbit effects) and from space (terrestrial effects enabled by space systems). It covers peacetime (GPS, weather satellites, ISR), crisis (surveillance and communication during escalation), and war (kinetic and non-kinetic effects). It explicitly includes prompt effects — the ability to act quickly enough to affect an unfolding situation.

Excludes: passive use of space. You can use GPS without exercising spacepower in Lutes's sense. Spacepower requires the ability to influence — which implies contested influence, meaning an adversary who can deny or degrade your ability to use space.

This distinction matters for your customers. A satellite operator buying conjunction avoidance software is using space. A U.S. Space Force unit allocating surveillance assets to track a maneuvering adversary satellite is exercising spacepower. The ML problems are related, but the framing that resonates with each customer is different.

Dolman's Astropolitik: the geopolitical argument

Dolman's argument is an application of classical geopolitics — specifically Halford Mackinder's heartland theory — to the space domain.

Mackinder argued in 1904 that whoever controlled the Eurasian heartland would control the "World Island" (Europe-Asia-Africa combined), and whoever controlled the World Island would control the world. Dolman updates this argument: LEO is the new Eurasian heartland.

The logic:

1. LEO enables surveillance of the entire Earth's surface. A constellation that owns LEO can track every surface asset on every adversary.
2. LEO enables rapid global strike. Kinetic bombardment from LEO can reach any point on Earth in minutes, faster than any terrestrial weapon system.
3. Controlling access to LEO means controlling who can place assets in orbit. A state that can deny others access to LEO degrades their ability to project power anywhere on Earth.

Dolman draws the implication directly: the first state to establish hegemony in LEO can use that position to lock out competitors, the same way naval powers used sea control to project and sustain global reach.

The counterargument: Critics note that space is not analogous to a chokepoint in the way the Straits of Hormuz or the Bosporus are. Orbital mechanics does not produce a fixed "position" that can be held the way Mackinder's heartland can be held. Satellites pass over the same ground track every 90 minutes; they are never stationary above contested territory. The sanctuary school draws on this to argue that space control is fundamentally different from sea or air control.

The synthesis used by U.S. doctrine: The 2020 Space Capstone Publication does not adopt Dolman's full thesis, but it adopts his core premise: space is not a sanctuary, it is a warfighting domain. The disagreement is about whether space control is achievable and what it would look like, not whether space is militarily contested.

The USSF Space Capstone Publication: doctrine, not theory

The Space Capstone Publication (SCP), published in August 2020, is the U.S. Space Force's foundational doctrine document. It is not a theoretical argument — it is an operational framework. But it translates the strategic debate into operational categories your customers will use.

The SCP defines seven spacepower disciplines:

1. Space Security — protecting space capabilities and preventing adversary use of space when necessary
2. Combat Power Projection — applying force from space or through space
3. Space Mobility and Logistics — moving materiel and capabilities through the space domain
4. Information Mobility — moving information through space (PNT, communications, ISR)
5. Space Domain Awareness — understanding the space environment, activities, and threats
6. Cyberspace Operations — defending and attacking through the cyber-space interface
7. Engineering and Acquisition — building, launching, and sustaining space systems

For this curriculum, Space Domain Awareness is the discipline your ML products directly support. The SCP describes SDA as "the identification, characterization, and understanding of factors associated with the space domain that could affect space operations." This maps directly to the maneuver detection, conjunction analysis, and behavioral attribution problems in Modules 0 and 9.

The SCP's definition of Space Security — "preventing adversary use of space when necessary" — is the offensive counterpart. Your capstone wargame models this exact tension: the attacker's goal is to use space (mask a maneuver), the defender's goal is space security (detect and attribute).

Ziarnick's General Theory of Space Power

Brent Ziarnick's Developing National Power in Space (2015) proposes what he calls the General Theory of Space Power: a framework that synthesizes the existing theoretical literature into three components.

Descriptive: What is spacepower, and how does it develop? Ziarnick argues that spacepower is not primarily about weapons — it is about developing productive relationships with the space environment. Nations develop spacepower by establishing commerce, presence, and governance in space, not by deploying ASATs.

Comprehensive: Spacepower theory must account for the full range of space activities — military, commercial, scientific, civil — not just the military dimension. This is Ziarnick's critique of Dolman: Astropolitik focuses almost entirely on military space power and ignores the role of commercial space in generating national power.

Prescriptive: A nation that wants to maximize spacepower should invest in the activities that generate durable advantage: launch access, on-orbit infrastructure, space commerce, and the human capital to sustain them. Military capabilities are necessary but not sufficient.

Why this matters for your products: Ziarnick's framework explains the commercial SDA market structure you are selling into. LeoLabs, Slingshot, Kayhan, and ExoAnalytic are commercial contributors to national spacepower in Ziarnick's sense — they contribute to the space economy while producing SDA intelligence that benefits both commercial operators and, indirectly, government customers. The dual-use nature of commercial SDA is not an accident; it is a feature of the spacepower landscape.

Chinese spacepower: a different framework

U.S. spacepower theory focuses primarily on military capability and deterrence. Chinese strategic thought on space uses a different organizing framework. The most accessible analysis of Chinese spacepower theory for English-speaking audiences comes from Carlson's Spacepower Ascendant, which identifies three axes on which Chinese strategists assess spacepower competition:

Geography: Physical position in space matters — not in Dolman's chokepoint sense, but as the foundation for all other capabilities. Who can access what orbits? Who has the launch infrastructure to sustain on-orbit presence? China's investment in LEO, MEO, and GEO capabilities is a deliberate effort to establish geographic presence before the United States can lock in positional advantage.

Legitimacy: Who has the recognized right to use space? China's approach to space governance emphasizes international norms, UN frameworks, and the Outer Space Treaty — not because China is committed to multilateralism on principle, but because international legitimacy constrains adversary action and expands Chinese freedom of maneuver. Chinese diplomatic investment in space governance is a legitimacy strategy.

Economy: Who generates value from space? Economic dependence on space creates political leverage. China's Belt and Road digital infrastructure, its Beidou PNT system as an alternative to GPS, and its commercial launch market participation are all economic spacepower plays.

The strategic analogy Carlson uses is instructive: China plays Go, not Chess. Chess is a direct confrontation game — you capture pieces, you occupy positions, you deliver checkmate. Go is an encirclement game — you establish presence across the board, you constrain adversary moves gradually, you win by securing influence over territory rather than by eliminating pieces. China's space strategy looks more like Go: establishing presence, building alternative infrastructure, shaping international norms, securing economic dependencies — rather than building a direct ASAT arsenal to checkmate U.S. space assets.

The implication for wargame design: A Chess-style wargame (two players, zero-sum, direct confrontation) is a reasonable model for certain kinetic counterspace scenarios. A Go-style wargame (territory control, gradual encirclement, influence rather than destruction) requires a different game structure — one closer to the orbital territory control game than the conjunction-masking capstone. Both are valid. They answer different strategic questions.

The sanctuary vs. high ground schools: where the debate stands

The sanctuary school never died — it has advocates in the arms control community, the commercial space industry, and among some military strategists who worry that weaponizing space creates instability without providing durable advantage.

The strongest contemporary version of the sanctuary argument runs as follows: Space systems are fragile, expensive, and irreplaceable on short timescales. A conflict that destroys significant orbital infrastructure creates a debris cascade that degrades space for all parties, including the attacker. The rational choice is mutual restraint — a kind of implicit arms control that maintains the commons for everyone.

The high ground school's response: Mutual restraint only holds if all parties share the interest in restraint. A state willing to accept mutual degradation of space capabilities (perhaps because its space infrastructure is less critical to military operations, or because it has a higher risk tolerance) can exploit the sanctuary norm to place an adversary in a dilemma: either tolerate the adversary's space activities or be the state that escalates to weapons in space.

Where U.S. doctrine has landed: The Space Capstone Publication explicitly rejects sanctuary. The 2020 Defense Space Strategy describes space as a "warfighting domain" and commits the Space Force to deterring and defeating aggression. For practical purposes, your government customers operate in a post-sanctuary policy environment. The sanctuary debate matters for understanding Chinese legitimacy arguments and for designing wargames that explore deterrence stability — not for deciding whether the U.S. government will treat space as contested.

Cislunar space and the extended high ground

Dolman's formulation — "who controls low-Earth orbit controls near-Earth space" — was written when LEO was the operational frontier. That frontier has moved. The Artemis program, China's Chang'e lunar campaign, and commercial lunar ventures have made cislunar space — the volume of space between Earth and the Moon, including the Earth-Moon Lagrange points — a new arena of strategic competition. The same competitive logic that governs LEO gray zone operations applies in cislunar space, at longer timescales and with an underdeveloped legal framework.

Why cislunar space matters strategically:

Earth-Moon Lagrange points as persistent surveillance positions: The five Earth-Moon Lagrange points (EML1–EML5) are locations where the gravitational forces of Earth and Moon balance, allowing an object to remain in a stable or semi-stable position with minimal station-keeping fuel. EML1 (between Earth and Moon) and EML2 (beyond the Moon) are particularly valuable for surveillance: a platform at EML1 can observe both Earth orbit and lunar approaches. These positions are difficult to reach quickly from Earth — an adversary maneuvering a satellite to a Lagrange point is weeks away from any interceptor response — making them strategic high ground in the Dolman sense. A surveillance platform at EML2 with Earth-facing sensors would have persistent coverage of a large portion of cislunar space.

Lunar south pole as a resource node: Water ice at the lunar south pole, confirmed by the LCROSS impact in 2009, can be processed into hydrogen and oxygen — rocket propellant. In-situ resource utilization (ISRU) of lunar water makes cislunar operations sustainable without resupply from Earth. Whoever establishes the first operational propellant production capability at the lunar south pole gains a durable positional advantage in all cislunar operations: lower mission cost, faster turnaround, independent logistics. From Ziarnick's perspective, this is spacepower through commerce and infrastructure at its most fundamental.

The Artemis vs. ILRS competition: The U.S. Artemis program and China's International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) — developed with Russia, Pakistan, and other partners — are directly competing for the lunar south pole. Both have explicitly targeted the south pole for water ice access. China aims to establish a permanent ILRS by the 2030s. The Artemis Accords' "safety zones" controversy is directly about this: the U.S. wants operational protection for its lunar south pole infrastructure; China argues this constitutes territorial appropriation violating the OST's non-appropriation principle. The legal dispute replicates the South China Sea dynamic exactly — both sides use legal language to assert positions whose real content is strategic.

The extended Dolman argument: Dolman's 2002 argument stopped at LEO. The logical extension: who controls cislunar space controls the Earth-Moon economic zone. The Lagrange points, the propellant resources, and the lunar surface infrastructure collectively determine who can operate sustainably in cislunar space on long timescales. The state that establishes infrastructure there first — propellant depots, communication relays, surveillance platforms at Lagrange points — can make access costs prohibitive for competitors arriving later. This is Dolman's lock-out thesis applied to a domain one order of magnitude farther from Earth.

The cislunar gray zone: The Outer Space Treaty's "peaceful purposes" framework was written when the Moon was a destination, not a base. The legal regime for resource extraction, permanent structures, and military activities in cislunar space is underdeveloped in exactly the way orbital space law was underdeveloped in 2007 when China conducted its first ASAT test. An ILRS established at the lunar south pole, with Chinese legal arguments about protecting permanent research infrastructure, follows the South China Sea island-building template to a new domain — establishing presence, encoding legal claims through infrastructure, and then arguing that any interference is destabilizing.

Connection to the curriculum's ML focus: Cislunar trajectory mechanics are fundamentally different from LEO orbit dynamics. Cislunar trajectories use weak stability boundary transfers, ballistic lunar transfers, and halo orbits around Lagrange points — none of which produce the quasi-periodic TLE signatures that the Module 9 LSTM pipeline detects. Extending behavioral detection and attribution to cislunar operations is a research agenda that follows from the thesis, not a solved problem. The strategic framework for why it matters is here; the technical framework for how to approach it is in the Module 7 partial observability and Module 9 sequence modeling content.

What you need to be able to do

After this lesson, you should be able to:

• Give the Lutes definition of spacepower and explain what it includes that passive space use does not
• Explain Dolman's Mackinder analogy: what Mackinder argued, how Dolman applies it to LEO, and what the strongest counterargument is
• Name the seven USSF spacepower disciplines and identify which ones your ML products directly support
• Describe Ziarnick's descriptive/comprehensive/prescriptive framework and explain why commercial SDA companies are spacepower actors in his sense
• Describe the Chinese geography/legitimacy/economy framework and the Go vs. Chess strategic analogy
• State the current U.S. doctrinal position on space as a warfighting domain and explain why this position matters for customer conversations
• Explain why cislunar space — particularly the Earth-Moon Lagrange points and the lunar south pole — represents the next arena of strategic competition and how the Dolman high ground argument extends there
• Describe the Artemis vs. ILRS competition for the lunar south pole and why the legal dispute about "safety zones" maps to the South China Sea template