Independent Space Forces in Western and Central Europe. We can’t, but maybe we should.

BY FEDERICO MAIOZZI

Compared with countries such as China, India, Russia or the United States, the nations of Western and Central Europe have limited space capabilities, even considering intergovernmental organizations as ESA is. This is true not because or not only because of the number of carriers, but also for investments which affect the future of the sector and in the author’s opinion also for public attention paid to space exploration.

   This situation is not surprising, but in a certain sense it should be worrying. The main European countries, with the exception perhaps of the United Kingdom and the Russian Federation, are losing influence in more and more geographical areas around the world, with a further consequent loss of control over the supply chains of raw materials on which we depend but which we do not possess in our territories. Of course, by analyzing the data in a passive and non-critical way one could object that in the industrial  creation of a product the expense item on raw materials has little influence, but the writer believes that natural resources cost little only when controlling them, de iure or not.

  In this situation, which involves general suffering, an expensive and complex sector such as the space sector cannot hope to enjoy a good general state of health and to reverse the trend, assuming it could be reversed, it would take years . Likewise, one cannot blame the European non-space worker who does not get excited reading about the successes of this or that carrier while his standard of living slowly but steadily worsens.

  Considering these conditions, the path taken by the political decision-makers of most European countries, except Russia, seems the most prudent and the most reasonable; namely, to not create independent Space Forces; define national strategies for space within a framework of international collaborations; assign the leadership of the military space sector to an existing armed force that already has expertise of that type within it (almost always the Air Force).

  It must be reiterated that on a purely material level this line of conduct is certainly preferrable. Without many assets, resources and with general opinion generally indifferent to the issue, embarking on overly ambitious military space programs – such as that of autonomous space armed forces – would risk creating self-referential bureaucratic bodies that are essentially useless both for combat and scientific research. Even more so since today, at least according to what is in the public domain, the spatial dimension is crucial in contemporary conflicts but as a support for operations on land or at sea, not as a battlefield in itself.

  At the same time, this line of conduct could lead to inconveniences, which will be briefly illustrated, without claiming to be exhaustive, in the following paragraph.

A mentality of space with the people, for the people.

First of all, the fact that space is not a battlefield today does not mean that it cannot become one tomorrow, similarly to what happened whenever the war dimension encountered a new physical space in which to expand. 

Even in more prosaic terms, the prudent approach to the military space dimension directly implies that the country that adopts it is small, poorly defended and therefore must depend on someone else. Let’s not even talk about being able to pose a threat to a third actor. Of course, if everyone in the world were at the same level there would be no problems, but alas this is not the case. There would be no problems even if there were clear programs on the horizon for strengthening in this sense, but even in this case little or nothing is visible.

This situation is not the fault of a single decision-maker, it is well known that many European states culturally and materially cannot nor want (wanted?) to reserve primary importance for the military sector due to the past of the 20th century (and maybe the will of bigger allies), but the fact remains that while we remain still or almost the world is moving and a large part of this moving world was once a colony, a protectorate or a European satellite, and therefore it will certainly not be saddened by the weakness of the old masters. So the prudent approach is acceptable, but as long as it is a temporary compromise solution.

Beyond these considerations on a macroscopic level, the failure to create a Space Force also brings with it another issue, perhaps more subtle but no less important. The three “classic” armed forces (Army, Navy, Air Force) are not three interchangeable bodies that are distinguished only by the color of the uniforms or the vehicles supplied, but on the contrary they are three very distinct cultural and operational traditions, requiring increasingly more specific training and not always interchangeable. Certainly a good soldier from one of the three forces could profitably join or redeploy into another, but this is not an automatic process, much less a predictable one. Equally certainly the three armed components must collaborate, exchange experiences and work together, but this does not mean that everyone knows, can or wants to be able to do everything. Given this, entrusting the leadership of a country’s military space component to an existing armed force risks compromising the creation of a cultural and technical identity of a future Space Force component. To be more clear; for example, by creating an Air Force with delegation to the space component, we risk creating an Expanded Air Force, not a Space and Air Force, in which the space component will necessarily be a minority, or in any case one of many. It’s not just, in fact, a folklore problem at all. Given the unique nature of the spatial dimension, even a person without great technical skills like the author understands well that space cannot be treated as a sub-atmospheric space that ends a little further away or as an upside down sea. Given that the sector is unique, the procedures and skills, both technical and organizational, should be unique and specialized. Naturally this would not mean precluding the importation of materials and virtuous practices from what already exists, on the contrary, it is the author’s opinion that the civil sector should also participate in the creation of an armed component of space, as indeed also happened in part for the creation of the great oceanic navies of the contemporary age, in particular in the British case. Just think of how the knowledge, means and organizational and combat procedures of the large semi-state commercial companies during the 19th century all converged within the Royal Navy in a very harsh legal confrontation – and not only – that lasted decades.

Last but not least, as stated several times, an orderly military space policy, with small targeted and prudent objectives would certainly deserve praise if we were dealing with a company, but this is not the case. The “corporate” vision applied to the soldiers implies that the armed forces must remain a small nucleus of ultra-specialized professionals, contemporary samurais who are undoubtedly brilliant but who do not hesitate to entrust the less pleasant tasks when the average citizen wants, sure, to use the sophisticated medical equipment in his/her/they country’s hospitals, but at the same time he doesn’t want to know where the material resources to produce those same equipment come from.

Here we are not proposing a return to the conscription era, at least not with the alienating and depersonalising Cold War style model, but it would be certainly desirable for a broad involvement, also numerically, of the skills present in the civilian world also in the military space component, which would require, especially in the case of Western and Central Europe, certainly of STEM scientists, but also of social scientists such as historians, geographers and anthropologists (to respond seriously and not with slogans to purely secondary questions as: why do I fight? What impact do my activities have on my fellow citizens? And on foreigners? And other amenities of this kind.) of doctors, economists, accountants, jurists and one could go on and on.

In this sense, it could be interesting to study the overcoming of military-civil dualism as is happening in the People’s Republic of China, obviously free of those components that are culturally not transposable in the EU. This overcoming could certainly prove functional in the active inclusion of every citizen in the democratic life, potentially also enhancing their individuality, as well as obviously representing a stronger and more widespread defense for the country concerned. But that’s the topic for a future article.

Closing Credits

Of course, in order to write this article I did not rely only on bibliography or on my previous studies, but also on the opinion of authoritative experts in the sector, whose advice has greatly improved the quality of this short writing of mine.In alphabetical order by surname, my best thanks go to the generals: Apurba Kumar Bardalai, Lucio Bianchi, Maurizio Boni.