British strategy and outer space: A missing link?
| Author | Bleddyn E Bowen |
| DOI | 10.1177/1369148118758238 |
| Published date | 01 May 2018 |
| Date | 01 May 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148118758238
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2018, Vol. 20(2) 323 –340
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1369148118758238
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British strategy and outer
space: A missing link?
Bleddyn E Bowen
Abstract
Britain sees itself as a significant power which upholds global norms and deploys expeditionary
military force around the world. But no matter what role Britain wants for itself, it cannot do so
without spacepower and considering its freedom of action in the common of outer space. This
reality of international relations in the 21st century is a missing link in British strategic thought.
This article provides context for a discussion of Britain in space and on whether it should acquire
an Earth observation capability, as it is an essential pillar of critical infrastructure and military
capabilities that enables what freedom of action is purchased by new aircraft carriers and 5th
generation aircraft. The United Kingdom is assess as a secondary space power relative to other
major space powers, and considers the risks posed to it by its military integration with America
and commercial and space industrial integration with Europe.
Keywords
British defence policy, British space policy, British strategy, European space policy, space power,
space security, transatlantic security, United States
Introduction
Since the dawn of the Space Age over 60 years ago, more than 70 states and a range of
non-state actors have deployed over 1400 satellites in orbit (Union of Concerned Scientists,
2017). However, the study of spacepower—the use of outer space’s military and economic
advantages for strategic ends—remains a small subfield within strategic studies (Dolman,
2002; Gray, 1996; Harding, 2013; Klein, 2006; Lutes et al., 2011; Sheehan, 2007; Smith,
2002). A ‘space power’ is an entity that uses outer space for its political objectives; while
‘spacepower’ is ‘the ability in peace, crisis, and war to exert prompt and sustained influ-
ence in or from space’ (Sheldon, 2010: 28). Rarer still is the study of the strategic aspects
of British space activities (Hill, 2011; Quintana, 2017; Sheldon, 2010). The context of
rising powers in the international system adds to the difficult choices facing British grand
strategy, yet Britain is often absent in the largely American but increasingly globalising
spacepower scholarship. America, the European Union (EU), Russia, and Asian states
Defence Studies Department, King’s College London, UK
Corresponding author:
Bleddyn E Bowen, Defence Studies Department, King’s College London, UK.
Email: bb215@leicester.ac.uk
758238BPI0010.1177/1369148118758238The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsBowen
research-article2018
Original Article
324 The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 20(2)
draw the bulk of analysis in the field of spacepower (Harding, 2013; Sheehan, 2007; Wang,
2013; Frances and Pilch, 2009). This article begins to address this gap by arguing that the
discussion and study of British security strategy is missing the enabling link of space-
power. British freedom of action on Earth, and its critical infrastructure, is influenced by
its dependencies on others in space. This article also presents a brief contextual analysis of
the major space powers as assessing British spacepower is a relative and contextual task.
Space technology and services, which are integral parts of grand strategy, modern defence
industries and critical infrastructures, enable the full spectrum of British military capabili-
ties and its high-technology economy.
This article proceeds by first categorising Britain as a secondary space power in the
international context and identifying strengths and dependencies in British space capa-
bilities. Spacepower also assists in the development of a state’s security, economy, and
infrastructure in a subtler yet more pervasive grand strategic sense. Space technology is
used for precision agriculture as well as precision bombing. Satellites in orbit ensure a
web of connectivity around the Earth and gather all manner of information about human
and natural behaviour and systems on Earth. Second, it examines the increasing institu-
tional recognition of space in Whitehall set against the context of austerity-led strategy-
making (Chalmers, 2016; Cornish and Dorman, 2015; Edmunds, 2014; Ritchie, 2011).
Greater institutional recognition of the capability and importance of British spacepower
is apparent in the release of space policies, industrial growth plans, and military doctrines
since 2010. Third, it explores British spacepower in the context of the transatlantic divide
between Europe and America, as well as considering space procurement options for
Britain. Transatlantic security generates significant debate (Blagden, 2015; Dobson and
Marsh, 2014; Dunne, 2004; Epstein, 2015), but its consequences for spacepower remain
unexamined. While it waxes and wanes, the institutionalised US–UK relationship is argu-
ably extremely durable owing to its Lazarus-like quality (Marsh and Baylis, 2006; Xu,
2016). However, like the relationship as a whole, an overwhelming British dependency
on the United States in space may not always provide strategic returns for the United
Kingdom (Dumbrell, 2009: 77). British security risks being fundamentally altered by
Brexit (Dunn and Webber, 2016; Oliver and Williams, 2016; Pannier, 2016; Uttley and
Wilkinson, 2016a), and in particular by the United Kingdom’s potential exclusion from
the EU’s space industrial policy.
With the possible rise of a multipolar world order (Zala, 2015: 12–13), its reflections
are cast in space. The United States, Russia, China, India, and the EU are potential poles
of such a world order as well as the actors that can independently access outer space (see
Table 1). Britain’s story of relative and quantitative decline at sea, on land, and in the air,
are familiar to most and has become an animating analytical concept (English and Kenny,
2001: 259–283; Strachan, 2011: 1282–1283). After Empire, Britain is arguably yet to find
its role or identity between its stature as a former Great Power caught between Europe
and America (Childs, 2016; Gaskarth, 2014; McCourt, 2014; Morris, 2011). Yet Britain’s
recent successes and risks as a secondary space power have gone unnoticed in the inter-
national relations (IR) and security studies communities.
Britain as a secondary space power
Space is not tainted by a past of British dominance and decline; yet its secondary status in
space has not informed the independent or autonomous roles scholars have ascribed to the
United Kingdom on Earth since space technology became essential to the battlefield in
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