The Militarization of Space
by John Lawrence, August 14, 2018
The Trump administration has a brave new idea: the militarization of space. Along side of that idea is the enemification of Russia. I just made that word up. It means making Russia the enemy. What happened to the International Space Station where Russians and Americans worked side by side in peaceful cooperation to further human knowledge? Well, the Trumpsters are having none of that. As VP Pence said, we don't just want to have a presence in space, we want to dominate space. I guess NASA would be "just a presence in space."
Well, if Trump is going to modernize the branches of the military, may I suggest that in addition to the Space Force and the Air Force, he should also change the archaic names for the other military branches. The Army should become the Land Force. The Navy should become the Sea Force, and the Coast Guard should become the Shore Force. Then Trump and Pence would have all their ducks in a row. Maybe we should also have a Border Force which would serve to militarize the border. The Border Force would have a budget comparable to the other branches of the military and would make sure that no one came across the border illegally.
Peaceful cooperation with other countries is so twentieth century. In the 21st century America seeks to dominate the world and space. Domination becomes the guiding principle. As Nixon would say, "the lift of a driving dream." The last guy who had that driving dream was Adolf Hitler. It didn't work out so well for him, but maybe the US can pull it off. With the world's largest economy and the world's reserve currency, the US is almost at the point of achieving total domination. It can punish other nations militarily and it can punish other nations economically. After all, it says in the Bible that man should dominate nature not cooperate with it. Just as the German philosopher, Nietzsche said, the higher order beings should dominate the lower order beings with the family being the smallest unit of domination. Just as in the military, the higher officers have rank over and dominate the lower officers. At the bottom are the plebians and grunts. So it works also in civilian life. The rich dominate the poor and run the political and financial institutions. The man dominates the woman and the woman dominates the children. That's what a perfect society would look like. Total militarization and dominance. Everyone would know his or her place. What place does love have in this society? A smidgen maybe.
So what the US has achieved is Pax Americana, a peaceful world predicated on the use of force to keep state and individual actors in their respective places. The only problem is that this vision of society and international relations is doomed to failure. There are enough people in the world that won't accept this state of affairs. There will be blowback and pushback. Some people have a vision of peaceful cooperation among the peoples of the earth. Some even want to protect the environment so the earth doesn't burn up and flood out in a final Gotterdammerung.
