THE SECURITY IMPACT OF THE MILITARIZATION OF OUTER SPACE

Authors

  • Alba Iulia Catrinel POPESCU Membru afiliat al Comitetului Român pentru Istoria și Filosofia Științei și Tehnicii (CRIFST) din cadrul Academiei Române https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7354-213X

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.53477/2284-9378-22-56

Keywords:

space militarization, Star Wars Program;, reconnaissance satellites

Abstract

The competition for the military conquest of outer space dominated the public agenda during the Cold War. It was the spatial side of the geopolitical competition between the capitalist West and the communist East. It started with the researches for the development of strategic armaments and it ended with the military space programs launched by the great powers of the post-war era, which transformed the outer space into a real theater of operations. Theater currently relieved, by the Cosmic Space Treaty, of weapons of mass destruction. However, the unregulated military action in outer space, and especially the problems of defining the boundary between outer space and atmospheric space, can become explosive at any time. This article aims to present the main space powers, the space military programs they run and the potential security impact of the militarization of outer space.

 

Author Biography

Alba Iulia Catrinel POPESCU, Membru afiliat al Comitetului Român pentru Istoria și Filosofia Științei și Tehnicii (CRIFST) din cadrul Academiei Române

Alba Iulia Catrinel Popescu is Associate Professor at the National College of Defense Bucharest and "Carol I" National Defense University, Visiting Professor at University of Business and Enterprise in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski - Poland and University of Bucharest, Romania. She is also member of the Romanian Committee of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology of the Romanian Academy, member of the "Ion Conea" Romanian Association for Geopolitics and member of the international advisory board of the Research Institute for European and American Studies, Greece. She already published five books - “What hides behind Boko Haram” (a monographic study about one of the bloodiest terrorist organization), “The Shadow Player” (an extensive and integrate analysis about Sub-Saharan Africa’s pivot zone character), “Geopolitical Kaleidoscope” (a collection of analyses in geopolitics and geostrategy), "Uncomfortable Analysis" (a collection of studies in geopolitics), "Geopolitics and pandemics" (a study regarding the geopolitical impact of the current pandemics), the first two volumes of the "Treaty of Geopolitics" (The Geopolitics of the Maritime Power and The Geopolitics of the Continental Power), other studies in security and demography as well as numerous articles regarding strategic analysis and geopolitics.

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2022-04-19

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POPESCU, A. I. C. (2022). THE SECURITY IMPACT OF THE MILITARIZATION OF OUTER SPACE. BULLETIN OF "CAROL I" NATIONAL DEFENCE UNIVERSITY, 11(1), 16–31. https://doi.org/10.53477/2284-9378-22-56

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