History of Why we think the way we do – From Maritime to the Space Domain of War
Extract from next book, "Mene Mene Tekel."
Jay Inman – First posted as a BLOG then sent as a white paper to MS Space Enterprise Leadership. I modified for this book.
Bretton Woods
At the end of World War II, the United States stepped to a new way of thinking that reached beyond North America. Germany was defeated on land, and in the air, having never reached to invest in serious Naval capabilities. Japan simply saw their fleet as a method for transporting their Armies to targeted conquests. The British and the United States had a very different view of the oceans, but only the United States had the wealth and ability to project effects into that vision.
The concept that made the United States unique in its Maritime Domain success is its belief that Maritime is a domain of war, created by ships, in order to protect the seas as a global common through which travel the requisites of armies and the essential trade and commerce of nations. Until the end of World War II, states and non-states actively contested its sovereignty and freedom of use. By the end of World War II, most competitor navies were at the bottom of the seven seas. There are nation state competitors on the oceans today, but the United States continues its technology and total tonnage dominance across all the oceans. This might be tested in the near future if China invades Taiwan. Our Navy would have a fierce fight, but the REAL question is whether or not we have the Will to defend an ally that produces 70% of the world’s semi-conductors and computer chips.
Victory at sea in World War II was just a prelude to the most important post World War II accomplishment on the oceans that must be repeated in space. A number of historians concluded that Bretton Woods was just a nice little reset to kick start devastated markets. The reality is that dominant on the oceans after a horrific war, the United States choose to execute Geo-Political Re-Imagining of Business Value.[1] This re-imagining came into the open in 1944 at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, where representatives of the allied nations met to decide the fate of the world. Most of our European allies thought the United States would impose a ‘Pax-Americanum’ on the world with garrisons, strategic waterways fortified, and etcetera. It’s what they would have done had they been in the US’ preeminent position. At that point, Harry Dexter White of the United States and Lord John Maynard Keynes of the United Kingdom understood the sweeping nature of American dominance. America was running the allied side of the war from Sicily to Normandy to the Atlantic, and across the Pacific. It was all being done with American soldiers, marines, airplanes, tanks, artillery, logistics… and ships. In 1944, there was about to be only one Navy dominating the oceans. Imperial designs or no, the very fact that the conference was in New Hampshire, instead of outside Moscow, spoke volumes about where the non-Soviet allies’ hopes rested.
White and Keynes did not make the allies wait long. Instead of recreating the diplomatic disaster that followed World War I and brought on World War II, they presented their two-part plan with kindness and amused patience. The Americans had no intention of establishing a Pax on the world. There would be no imperial tax on incomes, property, or trade. There would be no governors-general stationed in imperial outposts, no customs, no quotas, no Clearinghouses. Instead, the Americans would open their markets. Anyone who could export their goods and production to American Markets could do so. This second tenet rolled the Europeans back on their heels. Had they been the dominant winning nations, they would have imposed a Pax. Instead, the Americans offered to use their Navy to protect ALL maritime trade no matter who was buying or selling.
This Re-Imagining of Business Value sprang from our cultural desire to protect life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. We chose to share that with the world by pressing the edge of American commerce and markets out to the world. That level of grace and open-handed approach to liberty let the war battered edges of even our former adversaries extend peacefully into American Markets. Far from imposing a Pax, which would fill American coffers with trade duties, levies, and tariffs, the Americans did the opposite, instituting a global trading system in which they provided full security for all maritime trade at their own cost… and full access to the largest consumer market in history. This in turn took the business edge exponential, pressing our primary tenets of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness into reach of most nations… And spread our missionaries throughout the world to proclaim the Creator who endowed men with these unalienable rights.
Leap forward to 2014. The United States with barely 4% of world population produced about one-quarter of global GDP, about the same as at the time of Breton Woods. For the past 150 years, the United States was the only economy that was larger at the end of each decade than it was at the beginning. At Bretton Woods, the United States controlled half the naval tonnage afloat, approximately the same, today. Consider these the blessings of liberty and proclaiming our creator as opposed to transforming into an Imperial power (though some might correctly argue that as our power increased, so did our vulnerability to tyrannical forces and mistakes.)
The fascinating conundrum, as we make comparisons to the Maritime Domain across the last 70 years, is the convergence of Space and Cyberspace, as domains of war, out to the orbital edge. It is critical to understand the historical philosophical approach of the United States and United Kingdom to the oceans, because Space and Cyberspace as domains of war have the very similar characteristic. Like the Maritime Domain, both are domains of war created by technology. Space and Cyberspace have the additions of Aerospace technology, computers, and communications. Yet, like the oceans, Space and Cyberspace are global commons through which travel the requisites of armies and the essential trade and commerce of nations. Bill Gates refers to the cyber realm as the axis that feeds the velocity of business, but the space and cyber domains of war perspective has nothing to do with profit or selling services and widgets. Like the oceans up to the end of World War II, States and non-states actively contest space and cyberspace sovereignty and freedom of use. Space in particular has technology requirements similar to Maritime: Engineers, Architects, and commanders focus their technology efforts on Propulsion, Vehicle (Hull) design, radar & radio (Wireless), aerospace engineering from lift to orbit, and the electronics sensors, weapons, and communications systems required to integrate all systems in combat for successful effects on orbital and earth-bound enemies. Converge Cyberspace into space and one can visualize how they are critical.
In the parallel Space and Cyberspace domains of War, adversaries in both domains seek to Deceive the Sky in their agendas. This concept comes from an ancient Chinese strategy used by Generals to “Deceive the Sky to cross the ocean.”[2] Deceiving the Sky is integral to masking true goals and intentions to achieve first, local hegemony, then world domination,[3] of which Space and Cyberspace domination are critical goals. Resident in Sun Tzu’s classic, 36 Stratagems, this concept perfectly describes adversaries in space and cyberspace, striving to usurp the liberty Americans had the guts to write down in the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.
Space and Cyberspace, like the oceans at the end of World War II, are bringing with them the potentials of business value re-imagining, but at the speed of light. On the other hand, like Naval forces in the Maritime Domain, Space will require massive investment to defend these capabilities as conflicts reach to the orbital Earth edge and the edge of Lunar orbit.
The thing we are losing in our current day march into Rome Phase II and Roman worldview of Paganistic Platonism is the will to fight and win for the sake of liberty and its many blessings. It is very possible that we might lose both the Maritime, space, and cyber domains in the swirl of collectivism. That possibility would be the worst of Laodicea… The triumph of the opinion of the common people collective as that opinion turns away from the Creator who endowed us with Life, Liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
[1] Zeihan, Peter, Accidental Superpower, Hatchett Book Group, pg. 3
[2] Gertz, Bill, Deceive the Sky, pg 4, Available on Amazon.
[3] Ibid