Space Superiority:
The United States Air Force and challenge of spaceflight, 1957-1963
Thijs Visser
10183213
Word Count: 18951 Reviewed by: Dr. Samuel Kruizinga
Content
p. 1 Cover
p. 2 Content
p. 3 – 10 Introduction
p. 10 – 18 Spaceflight and the Nature of History p. 18 – 25 The Perception of the Soviet Threat in Space p. 25 – 31 Aerospace Warfare
p. 31 – 34 Conclusion
Introduction
‘You are about to embark on a journey through time, all the way back to bygone eras of spaceflight, when spacecraft were still called rocketships and space stations would be shaped like wheels. […] You will read, both with wonder and nostalgia, accounts of the fantastical projects that were an integral, if not defining part of the dawn of the space age.’1
The American military space programs of the 1950s and 1960s have more often than not been described in these kinds of romantic terms. In books like Amazing Stories of the Space Age, the space programs of the this period serve as an exotic memory for the contemporary reader, reminding us of how foolish military thinkers must have been during the fifties and sixties. And the book’s author, Rod Pyle, is right to point out that ideas like military bases on the moon, and spaceplanes hunting down satellites, seem alien to us today. Nowadays, militaries only use space for unmanned operations, like supporting the military by providing intelligence, communication and navigation support. Space has for a large part been de-weaponized through a series of treaties, starting with the Outer Space Treaty in 1967, which prohibited stationing weapons of mass destruction in space. Because of these treaties the lack of (nuclear) weapons in space is at present usually taken for granted.2
The de-weaponized nature of space did not emerge unchallenged however.3 During the fifties and early sixties it was not yet clear whether space would be ruled by treaties or military muscle. While the Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy administrations, argued that space could be explored by both the Soviet Union and the United States, in a peaceful way, The Air Force argued that this idea of ‘space for peace’ was naïve. The Soviet Union’s expansionist foreign policy would inevitably extend into space, and the Soviet Union could not be trusted to adhere to any treaty.4 The Air Force’s leadership had become convinced that space would become a battlespace, just like the air, land and sea. From 1957 onwards, they had therefore started to call for a strategy of ‘space superiority.’5 This meant attaining the capability to deny the Soviet Union the use of space, and being able to strike the Soviet Union wherever and whenever from outside the atmosphere.6 This was necessary because, if the Soviets were to control space, they would have had a safe place from where to launch a nuclear attack on the United States, while also being in a strong position to intercept the American counter-attack.7 The Air Force argued that space was the ultimate high ground, and the United States could not maintain its freedom if control of space was ceded to the Soviet Union.8 Yet, when the United States started to achieve its own space successes from 1962 onwards, the concept of space superiority started to lose political support. And the Air Force programs based on this idea were finally cancelled by 1963. Space has remained devoid of weapons ever since.
But if the idea of space superiority seems so farfetched today, where did it come from? And why did the Air Force take it so seriously during the fifties and early sixties? Williamson Murray’s definition of military culture is helpful for answering these questions. According to Murray, military culture is the way in which a military organization, like the Air Force, perceives war, and from this perception of war, the Air Force would then formulate its strategies.9 He argues that military culture is influenced by a wide array of factors. Some of which have to do with the way in which an organization
1 Rod Pyle, Amazing Stories of the Space Age, (New York, 2017), p. 7.
2 Helen Caldicott & Craig Eisendrath, War in Heaven: The Arms Race in Outer Space, (New York, 2007), p. 4-6. 3 Sean N. Kalic, US Presidents and the Militarization of Space, 1946–1967, (Houston, 2012), p. 2-4.
4 Army Ballistic Missile Agency, Project Horizon: Volume I: Summary and Supporting Considerations, (Washington D.C., 1959), p.2-3.
5 Sometimes the term ‘space control’ was used, but this had the same meaning as ‘space superiority.’
6 Bernard A. Schriever, The Battle of “Space Superiority”, Air Force Magazine, (April, 1957). (Some articles from Air Force Magazine, that were only accessible online, did not have page numbers).
7 Lee Bowen, Threshold of space: The Air Force in the National Space Program, 1945-1959, (Washington D.C., 1960), p. 22.
8 Ibidem.
functions, such as the professional ethos and institutional culture. Others have more to do with the intellectual or ideological frames through which war is perceived in a certain period, like ideas about the nature of history, the perception of threats and experiences of recent wars.10 In much of the literature about both the Air Force’s military culture and its space program, the focus has been on the professional ethos and the institutional culture. Authors like Robert Frank Futrell and Stephen B. Johnson have described how the Air Force’s management strategies stimulated innovation, while David Spires and Paul B. Stares have written major works on the way in which the Air Force’s space strategy was shaped by the complex rivalry with other branches of the U.S. military.11 However, so far there have been no studies into the intellectual and ideological frames through which the Air Force interpreted the impact of spaceflight on warfare. And this is therefore what I have done in this thesis. Because even though existing studies are impressive, they fail to tell the full story of how and why the Air Force came up with its space strategy.
The opening of space confronted the Air Force with fundamental questions about the nature of war. Space was a blank slate. Apart from fictional stories, there was no understanding of what spaceflight would actually mean for warfare. And the Air Force’s leadership was actually keen to distance itself from these fictional representations, as they were convinced that spaceflight was a very real and serious challenge.12 Whereas theories about aerial warfare had grown over dozens of years, by trial and error, the Air Force’s strategy for space warfare was consciously constructed in a relatively short time.13 Understanding how the Air Force filled in the military void of space, can therefore tell us much about the Air Force’s military culture in the early Cold War. But it cannot be fully understood by merely studying the way in which the Air Force related to other branches of the military, or the institutional culture within the organization. By analysing the way in which the Air Force’s leadership and policymakers thought about history, the relationship with the Soviet Union, and the experiences of recent wars, in relation to space, I have been able to gain a much better understanding of how and why the Air Force came up with the strategy of space superiority. I have divided this thesis in three parts. In the first chapter I will argue that the Air Force saw space as the next stage in human history, and that not being at the forefront of this revolution, would mean that the United States would decay. In the second chapter I will contend that the way in which the Air Force perceived the threat of the of the Soviet Union forced them to move aggressively and quickly into space. In the last chapter I will finally show that experiences with aerial warfare fundamentally shaped expectations of how conflicts would be fought in outer space. These three chapters give a good sense of the intellectual and ideological frames from which the strategy of space superiority emerged. The first chapter shows the perceived inevitability of space warfare, the second one the immediate necessity of space weapons and the final chapter shows how the Air Force expected wars in space would be fought. I will further elaborate on these three points in the final paragraphs of this introduction.
Through reading secondary sources for this thesis, I have noticed that there are roughly three schools of writing on the American history of military spaceflight. Each of these schools deal with the Air Force’s military culture in a different way, but none of them provide a satisfactory explanation for the Air Force’s strategy for space. The First school deals with how the institutional culture of the Air Force shaped its military spaceflight programs. Most works that look at the Air Force’s history in this way, have been authored by political scientists and soldiers.14 Authors like Johnson, Futrell and Mark
10 Murray, ibidem, p. 28.
11 Robert Frank Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine: Basic Thinking in the United States Air Force 1907-1960, (Maxwell, 1989), p. 8-9, Stephen B. Johnson, The United States Air Force and the Culture of Innovation, (Washington D.C., 2002), p. v, David Spires, Beyond Horizons: A Half Century of Air Force Space Leadership, (Washington D.C., 1998), p. xiv-xv, & Paul B. Stares, The Militarization of Space: U.S. Policy, 1945-1984, (Ithaca, 1985), p. 13-14.
12 Thomas D. White, USAF Doctrine and National Policy, Air Force Magazine, (January 1958). 13 Ibidem.
Erickson have written about the functioning of management strategies, the struggles for funds and the professional ethos within the Air Force.15 In his foreword for Stephen B. Johnson’s 2002 book The United States Air Force and the Culture of Innovation, Air Force historian Richard P. Hallion wrote for instance:
Professor Stephen B. Johnson demonstrates in fine detail how the application of systems management by the United States Air Force to its ballistic missiles and computer programs not only produced critical new weapons, but also benefited American industry. Systems management harmonized the disparate goals of four interest groups. For the military it brought rapid technological progress; for scientists, new products; for engineers, dependability; and for managers, predictable cost.16
Even though the book is about the innovation policies of the Air Force in general, and the advantages of systems management for stimulating innovation, it also contains a useful narrative of the development of the Air Force’s space program. However, Johnson devotes little attention to the why Air Force generals believed this emphasis on innovation was needed in the first place.17 He also does not delve into why the Air Force cared so much about space. However, the reason for this is that it is simply not Johnson’s goal. Instead, he is interested in investigating what can be learned from the experiences of the development of space systems during the fifties and sixties.18 In an analysis of the historiography of military spaceflight in Stephen J. Dick’s Critical Issues in the History of Spaceflight, Johnson put it in the following way;
There would be great vale to the militaries of spacefaring nations, governmental leaders and managers, and the general public to have histories of the many areas [of the history of military spaceflight] that remain underdeveloped.19
For Johnson the main reasons for studying the early history of spaceflight, are its valuable lessons about management and innovation for today’s policymakers. And this is what most of these institutional histories are about.20 Little attention is devoted to the intellectual and ideological foundations of the Air Force’s conception of space, because this is simply not relevant to the goals of authors like Johnson.21
Related to this is a second school, that deals with another aspect of the institutional culture within the U.S. military, namely, the complex relationship between the different branches of the military, the Department of Defence, and the White House. Authors like Spires and Stares have written elaborate accounts of how and why the Air Force developed certain space systems, what the specifications of these systems were, and how they were received by the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations.22 Beyond Horizons: A Half Century of Air Force Space Leadership by Spires, and The Militarization of Space: U.S. Policy, 1945-1984 by Paul B. Stares, have been invaluable for writing this thesis. They have allowed me to get a clear overview of the flurry of space projects that sprung up between 1957 and 1963. Nevertheless, these books also lack an investigation of the deeper motivations behind the Air Force’s space strategy. They have mostly focussed on the Air Force’s political fight for legitimacy, and its struggle with the Army and the National Air and Space Administration (NASA) for space programs.23 Spires’ main objective is for instance explaining how the Air Force became the service that was responsible for military spaceflight. He does write about the Air Force’s different arguments for space superiority, but he does not delve into the reasoning behind these arguments. Instead, he treats them as moves in a complicated political game for funding
15 Mark Erickson, Into the Unknown Together The DOD, NASA, and Early Spaceflight, (Maxwell, 2005), p. 538. 16 Stephen B. Johnson, The United States Air Force and the Culture of Innovation, (Washington D.C., 2002), p. v 17 Ibidem.
18 Ibidem, p. 545-548. 19 Ibidem.
20 Ibidem. 21 Ibidem.
22 Stares, ibidem, Spires, ibidem, p. xiv-xv. 23 Spires, ibidem, p. 53.
between NASA, the Army and the Air Force.24 It is undoubtedly true that this competition played a role. But by solely focussing on this, Spires glosses over the fact that the Air Force’s leadership also genuinely believed that the future of warfare lay in space, and that the Air Force’s experiences with aerial warfare made it the only service capable of being the military’s space arm. By relating the Air Force’s conception of space to the intellectual and ideological frames through which it was perceived, I have tried to problematize this focus on the Air Force’s political struggles. I was inspired to do this by the approach to Cold War history set out by John Lewis Gaddis in The Cold War: a New History. Rather than writing another political history of the Cold War, in which the story is driven by rational political considerations, Gaddis wanted to look at how themes like fear shaped the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. He wanted to show that not all actions during the Cold War were driven by a political strategy or a plan, but that there were also genuine beliefs and feelings that informed the decision making process on both sides of the Iron Curtain. 25 In a similar vein, rather than interpreting the Air Force’s plans for space as political moves in the competition with other government branches, I will treat them as genuine expressions of the way in which the Air Force’s leadership and policymakers made sense of the challenge of spaceflight.
Another consequence of these policy and politics centred approaches to military spaceflight, is that it has remained a self-contained topic of research, divorced from external influences. Authors like Johnson and Spires have made few connections with other historical fields, like the history of the Cold War or military history, because they have not engaged with debates in these fields.26 Johnson’s book relates more to debates in policy science, than to history.27 Because of this disconnect, major works that provide a detailed overview of the history of international relations of the Cold War, like Odd Arne Westad’s The Global Cold War and the aforementioned The Cold War: A New History, or military histories like Stephen E. Ambrose’s The Cold War: A Military History, limit their treatment of spaceflight to the development of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) and the launch of Sputnik. In these narratives Sputnik serves to demonstrate American insecurities in the late fifties, while ICBMs became the foundation of the system of mutually assured destruction.28 By analysing the military culture behind space superiority, I have tried to relate the history of military spaceflight to these fields of research. Because the Air Force’s interpretation of history and its perception of the Soviet threat, reflected the intellectual trends and international developments of the early Cold War. Furthermore, studies that have dealt with the history and military culture of the Air Force, such as Warren A. Trest’s Air Force Roles and Missions: a History and Benjamin Buley’s The New American Way of War, have also not really incorporated how the Air Force responded to the opening of space.29 Buley does devote significant attention to the impact of the wars in Vietnam and Korea on the Air Force’s military culture, but he does not mention space once.30 What all of these authors have failed to grasp is that plans for space superiority in the fifties and sixties did not exist in a vacuum. Ignoring the Air Force’s ideas about space, simply because they never came true, would be reasoning from the present back to the past. To understand military history and culture of this period, it is imperative to look at the significance that was ascribed to space, especially since the Air Force’s space strategy only existed in theory. It was constructed theoretically and it is therefore a great case-study for understanding the Air Force’s military culture during the early Cold War.31
24 Ibidem.
25 John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History, (London, 2005), p. xi. 26 Dick, ibidem, p. 479-480.
27 Johnson, ibidem.
28 Stephen E. Ambrose, The Cold War: A Military History, (New York, 2005), p. 421, Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War, (Cambridge, 2005), p. 71, & Gaddis, ibidem, p. 68.
29 Benjamin Buley, The New American Way of War Military culture and the political utility of force, (New York, 2008), p. 35-36 & Warren A. Trest, Air Force Roles and Missions: a History, (Washington D.C., 1998), p. 220-224. 30 Buley, ibidem.
Finally there are also some books about the way in which the White House dealt with the military challenges of the Space Age. These studies are not about the Air Force, or even military culture. But they are still very important, because they show how the military space strategies of the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations were influenced by more than just institutional culture. In this thesis I have done something similar for the Air Force’s space strategy. In US Presidents and the militarization of space, 1946-1967 Sean N. Kalic investigates the ideological foundation of the idea of ‘space for peace,’ while Yanek Mieczkowski’s Eisenhower’s Sputnik Moment delves even deeper into how Eisenhower understood the challenge of the space age.32 Their narratives of the history of spaceflight are very different from those I have discussed above. They want to understand the reasoning behind certain policies, rather than the functioning of specific institutions. Yet the most significant book on the history of military spaceflight is The Heavens and the Earth by Walter McDougall. Unlike the works of Kalic and Mieczkowksi, this book does not really qualify as a history of military spaceflight, as the author mostly writes about NASA. But it is so massive, that it still holds some valuable insights about the military history of spaceflight, and that is why I have included it. Whereas Johnson tries to find historical lessons to improve the management of innovation today, McDougall investigates the ideology that surrounds the concept of innovation.33 He argues that;
our societies locked into irreversible technological change to the point where human institutions themselves have become “part of the Machine?” Or do people, acting through politics, retain their ability to choose which future to invent, or whether to try? If so, can we and our leaders by trusted with such responsibility? What is the relationship between man and his machines?34
His main argument is that the United States is in a sense being held hostage by a way of thinking, that requires indefinite intellectual mobilization. Whereas before the Second World War the government had a limited role in science, the perceived pressures of the Cold War forced it to become the a major force pushing for technological innovation.35 McDougall questions the assumptions on which many other works about space history are based, namely that supporting innovation should be a goal of government policy.
The relevance of this thesis goes far beyond Cold War and military history however. It will also provide a historical background from which to evaluate later and current military space efforts. The United States is currently investing significantly in improving its military space infrastructure, and is coming up with new strategic and tactical concepts on how to maximize the effectiveness of space systems.36 It could be very interesting to see how these new concepts for warfare in space relate to the ways in which space warfare was first conceived.37 Furthermore, this thesis also shows how the Air Force dealt with the emergence of a new battlespace. This is a challenge that most countries have had to deal with in the recent past, with the advent of cyber warfare. There are interesting similarities between the debate about military spaceflight during the Cold War, and cyber warfare today. In the cyber realm there is for instance a similar distrust as there had been in the early years of the space age; countries are struggling to regulate this new battlespace, as it is characterized by secrecy and plausible deniability.38 Another parallel is the role of expectations about future technological developments in cyber warfare. This is for example shown by theories like Moore’s law, which has
32 Yanek Mieczkowski, Eisenhower’s Sputnik Moment: The Race for Space and World Prestige, (Ithaca, 2013), p. 4 & Kalic, ibidem, p. 5.
33 Walter McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth (New York, 1985), p. 11. 34 Ibidem.
35 Ibidem, p. 12.
36 Heather Wilson, Why I’m Directing the Air Force to Focus on Space, DefenceOne, (16 June, 2017), < http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2017/06/why-im-directing-air-force-focus-space/138744/> [25 June, 2017].
37 Charles D. Lutes, Toward a Theory of Spacepower, (Washtington D.C., 2011), p. 99-101.
38 Oona A. Hathaway, e.a., The Law of Cyber-Attack, California Law Review, Vol. 100, No. 4, (Aug., 2012), p. 817-818.
been successful in predicting computing strength in the past.39 Actually comparing how the United States dealt with the rise of cyber warfare and the opening of space is far beyond this thesis, but it may be an interesting point of departure for future research.
To analyse the way in which the Air Force’s leadership and policymakers perceived the nature of history, international relations and experiences in recent wars, I have used at the method of intellectual history. Intellectual history is about understanding an idea, by relating it to the historical context in which it was conceived.40 Since this thesis is about analysing the idea of space superiority by relating it to Air Force’s military culture of the fifties and early sixties, this is a fitting method. I have been inspired to use intellectual history by Peter Paret’s book Clausewitz in his Time, Paret has not studied Clausewitz’s On War to discern lessons about warfare, but instead he wanted to relate it to the context in which Clausewitz wrote his work. Paret did this by close reading Clausewitz’s book. He focussed on the way in which Clausewitz structured his texts, and on what kind of words he used in which contexts. Paret for instance related On War to enlightenment philosophers, Clausewitz’s experiences during the Napoleonic wars and his youth. By connecting Clausewitz’s texts to the period in which he lived, and his personal experiences, Paret was able to get a much better understanding of how On War came to be.41 And this is also how I have analysed my sources. I have looked at the way in which certain words, or structures are used. The usage of terms like ‘space age’ and allusions to Christopher Columbus and Charles Lindbergh are for instance useful for understanding how the Air Force related the opening of space to history. Similarly, the term space superiority indicates how the Air Force’s leadership perceived the relationship between aerial and space warfare.
Recent declassifications have also allowed me to paint a more complete picture of the Air Force’s thinking than had previously been possible, since many sources have only been declassified in 2014.42 Some documents remain classified. Yet, as this is not a reconstruction of the Air Force’s space program itself, this is not a major issue. I am not interested in the details of every project. Instead, this thesis is about the intellectual frame from which these projects emerged. Furthermore, the classified sources are mostly about intelligence collection from space. And to the Air Force reconnaissance satellites were merely the first step in a far more elaborate vision for space.43 The Air Force’s more ambitious proposals have been declassified. But the reason documents about intelligence collection are still classified, is that the United States government does not want to disclose the technical capabilities of its early spy satellites.44 It is therefore safe to assume that the documents that remain off limits have not resulted from a completely different attitude towards space than those which have been declassified.
I have used two kinds of primary sources in this thesis; public articles written by Air Force’s leadership, and secret policy papers that have been compiled by the Air Force’s bureaucracy. I am not interested in the personal beliefs of Air Force researchers or leaders. Instead, I want to understand the arguments these people made, while representing the Air Force. The Air Force had an vision about space, as an organization, and this was expressed in these sources. I have therefore also not used personal correspondence as a source. The Air Force’s leadership consisted of generals like the Air Force Chief of staff Thomas D. White, and the heads of several Air Force commands, like Curtis E. Lemay, Thomas S. Power and Bernard A. Schriever. The secret documents are about specific plans for space projects, historical analyses of the Air Force’s space program or overviews of the current and
39 Mark Lundstrom, Moore's Law Forever?, Science, Vol. 299, No. 5604 (Jan., 2003), pp. 210-211.
40 Dominick LaCapra, Tropisms of Intellectual History, Rethinking History, Vol. 8, No. 4, (December, 2004), p. 499-500.
41 Peter Paret, Clausewitz in his Time: Essays in the Cultural and Intellectual History of Thinking about War, (New York, 2015), p. 5-14.
42 Jeffrey T. Richelson, Soldiers, Spies and the Moon: Secret U.S. and Soviet Plans from the 1950s and 1960s, The National Security Archive, (20 july, 2014) < http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB479/> , [9 july, 2017]. 43 Thomas D. White, Air and Space are Indivisible, Air Force Magazine, (March, 1958)
future space policy of the Air Force. These two kinds of sources complement each other. Both have advantages and disadvantages. In public articles and speeches, the Air Force’s leadership had more room to enunciate their views on warfare in general, and how space related to this, while policy papers focussed on more narrow subjects, such as specific space projects. Internal secret documents are also valuable because they were not meant for the public, and could therefore sometimes be more upfront about what was actually believed. From internal documents I have for instance seen much more frustration with Eisenhower’s peaceful vision for space, than from public articles.45
In the first chapter I shall contend that the Air Force was convinced space would become a battlespace, and that the structuralist way in which the Air Force’s leadership and policymakers interpreted history was an important reason for this conviction. This way of thinking about history was popular during the fifties and sixties. Many historians, economists and sociologists of this period believed that history was propelled by certain processes. And one of these processes was technological innovation, which was argued to be exponentially accelerating.46 Massive technological accomplishments like nuclear weapons created a sense of unlimited possibilities and made warfare in space seem inevitable. This optimistic vision on the future of technology played an important role in the Air Force’s planning for the space age, as It caused the difficulties of spaceflight to be severely underestimated. 47 In the Air Force’s Lunar Expedition (LUNEX) program from 1961 it is for example revealing to look at the proposed time frame and the proposed budget, which seem wildly optimistic to today’s reader. LUNEX called for a lunar base by 1967, for a fraction of the cost of the Apollo program!48 These overestimations of future technological advancement were expressions of what McDougall called the ‘ideology of technocracy.’ According to him there was such a firm belief in the fact that technological innovation would continue to accelerate, that there was little debate about whether this would actually happen. Instead, the debate revolved around the question of how to deal with this supposedly inevitable development.49
In the second chapter I will argue that the perceived threat of the Soviet Union created a sense of urgency among the Air Force elite. The Air Force felt it had to go into space to deter the Soviets. The Air Force saw the Soviet Union as an existential threat to the ‘Free World’.50 The end goal of the Soviet Union was thought to be world domination. It would take full advantage of every bit of leeway the Americans gave the Soviets, as had already happened in Vietnam, Korea and Greece. According to general White, the reason for the Soviet aggression in these countries was a lack of believable deterrence from the United States.51 The Air Force was also concerned about the rapid technological progress the Soviet Union had made after the Second World War. During the fifties, the surprising speed of the Soviet nuclear program and the so called ‘bomber’ and ‘missile gaps’ had alarmed the Americans. So when in the period from 1957 to 1962 the Soviets also racked up some spectacular firsts in space, and promised even more spectacular achievements in the near future, they were generally believed by the Air Force’s leadership and policymakers.52 It was also argued that it would be very hard for the United States to compete with the centralized power of the Soviet Union, and its ability to use forced labour for speeding up projects and driving down costs. The Air Force therefore believed that the United States should invest massively and quickly in space technology, to offset the institutional advantages in high-tech research, that they thought were inherent to the Soviet system.53
45 For example: Bowen, ibidem.
46 Curtis E. Lemay, Our First Priority People, Air Force Magazine, (Sept. 1961), p. 45. 47 Thomas D. White, Strategic Air Command, Air Force Magazine, (September, 1960), p. 68.
48 Space Systems Division Air Force Systems Command Headquarters, Lunar Expedition Plan: LUNEX, (May, 1962), p. 3.6.
49 McDougall, ibidem.
50 Thomas D. White, USAF Doctrine and National Policy, ibidem. 51 Ibidem.
52 Bowen, ibidem, p. 22.
In the final chapter I will argue that the Air Force’s recent experiences with aerial warfare shaped the way in which warfare in space was imagined. This is an important issue because this was a major point of contention between the Air Force and president Eisenhower, who believed space could be prevented from becoming a battlespace by international agreement. For the Air Force, air and space were indivisible.54 Its primary role, both in space and within the atmosphere, was argued to be deterring the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons, and being able to counter to Soviet systems which could deter the United States.55 This meant that space would be similar to the air as a battlespace. Theories about air warfare were directly translated to plans for spacecraft. The Air Force insisted for instance on manned and manoeuvrable spacecraft, in which an astronaut performed in a somewhat similar way as a pilot would have within the atmosphere. Like the jet fighters that would attack bombers, the Air Force needed piloted systems which could first tackle ICBMs and enemy satellites in orbit.56
By studying the intellectual and ideological foundations of the Air Force’s strategy for space, This thesis not only provides an explanation for the origins of space superiority, it also improves our understanding of the military history of the early Cold War, and the Air Force’s military culture during this period. Spaceflight was a fundamental challenge to the Air Force, as it was expected to revolutionize warfare. And the Air Force’s military culture cannot be properly understood without analysing how the Air Force dealt with this. Because space superiority was the Air Force’s priority between 1957 and 1963.57 This thesis will also show that the Air Force’s military culture was influenced by much more than just institutional factors. Instead, factors like the interpretation of history, the perception of foreign threats and the experiences in recent wars also played a very important role. Finally, few scholars have yet combined the concept of military culture with the method of intellectual history, but this study will show that this can work really well. In short, this thesis brings together many different fields and concepts that have not yet been combined, from space history to Cold War history and military culture, and it combines these with a method that has also rarely been used in conjunction with these concepts.
1. Spaceflight and the Nature of History
I look upon the Air Force’s interest and ventures into space as being as logical and as natural as when men of old sailing ships first ventured forth from the inland seas.58
- Thomas D. White, 1958. In this chapter I will argue that the way in which the leadership of the Air Force interpreted the nature history, convinced them that space would inevitably be colonized, and that this meant that it would also become a battlespace, like the sea, the air and the Earth’s surface. One reason for this was that the Air Force elite interpreted history through a structuralist lens. This meant that they argued that the past had been shaped by processes which had occurred over hundreds of years, and these processes resulted from qualities that were inherent to human nature.59 In the above quote, from Air Force Magazine, General White argued that history was moving inherently towards the exploration of space, and ever more impressive scientific and technological breakthroughs. This brought the Air Force into conflict with the Eisenhower administration, which was much more cautious in speculating about the future of humanity’s relation to space, and opposed massive investments in the risky new frontier. But the Air Force expected an unstoppable acceleration of technological innovation, which, coupled with mankind’s intrinsic desire to explore, meant that the warfare in space would be
54 Thomas D. White, Air and Space are Indivisible, ibidem. 55 Ibidem.
56 Ibidem. 57 Ibidem.
58 Thomas D. White, Space Control and National Security, Air Force Magazine, (April, 1958), p. 81. 59 Lemay, ibidem.
inevitable.60 To make this argument I shall first give a short overview of the development of the United States’ space program until 1957, to ground the rest of my argument in a more firm historical footing. Subsequently, I will explain more elaborately what I mean by a structural interpretation of history. I am then going to relate this to the place that the Air Force gave to space in their interpretation of the past, and finally I will discuss what this meant for the way in which they imagined the future of warfare in space.
Unlike in the Soviet Union, there was little interest in spaceflight in the United States before the Second World War. There were several individual rocket scientists who conducted experiments with little relation to each other, or to the federal government. 61 During the Second World War, some of these experimenters came into the service of the U.S. military, to help with the development of artillery rockets.62 But the link between rockets and spaceflight was not explicitly made until Werner von Braun entered service with the U.S. Army in 1946.63 In that same year the Research and Development (RAND) corporation published its first study about the possibilities of spaceflight, at the request of the Navy. This report deemed the offensive use of weapons in outer space unlikely, but it did contend that space could be used for reconnaissance, navigation and communication.64 The Navy subsequently started a satellite program, but cancelled it shortly thereafter, as the administration of Harry S. Truman drastically cut back military spending. There was no more room in the budget for risky experiments like constructing a satellite.65 The Army continued work on the development of rockets through Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA), under the leadership of von Braun. This organization worked without a specific allocation of funds from the federal government, and was covered by the Army’s own budget for research.66 The RAND corporation would also continue with feasibility studies for the Air Force.67 But during the Truman years, little else would be done with regards to spaceflight. From 1950 the administration became preoccupied with the Korean War, and there was little appetite for major investment in unproven technologies.68
This changed during the Eisenhower administration. Eisenhower wanted to end the Korean War, and reduce the size of the Army. Truman preferred to maintain strong conventional armed forces, to deter the Soviets from chipping away at the United States’ sphere of influence. He believed the Soviets knew that the United States would not retaliate with nuclear weapons to small land grabs.69 But Eisenhower embraced what he called the ‘New Look,’ which meant relying increasingly on nuclear weapons to deter the Soviets.70 The purpose of this strategy was to make it seem like nuclear weapons were the only way for America to strike back. This way he wanted to discourage any further Soviet aggression against American allies, without the need for American intervention. Eisenhower was deeply worried about the influence of American arms manufacturers on defence policy, and believed continuously enlarging the U.S. military would mean that the United States would lose the very freedom it was struggling so hard to defend.71 He felt that government should play as small a role as possible in people’s lives, and that meant a small government with a cheap military. Nuclear weapons provided a relatively cheap and effective means to realise this.72
60 Ibidem.
61 Steven J. Dick, e.a., Societal Impact of Spaceflight, (Washington D.C., 2007), p. 502. 62 Spires, ibidem, p. 17.
63 Ibidem, p. 16.
64 Project RAND, Preliminary Design of an Experimental World-Circling spaceship, (Santa Monica, 1946), p. 1. 65 Kalic, ibidem, p. 10.
66 James A. Walker, Lewis Bernstein & Sharon Lang, Seize the High Ground: The Army in Space and Missile Defense, (Washington D.C., 2003), p. 20 & Spires, ibidem, p. 24
67 Ibidem. 68 Kalic, ibidem.
69 John Lewis Gaddis, ibidem, p. 68. 70 Spires, ibidem, p. 36.
Though to effectively deter the Soviet Union the United States needed reliable information about the strength of the Soviet nuclear arsenal. Monitoring the Soviet Union was complicated however, because of its closed society, and its massive size.73 In 1956 the CIA therefore secretly started conducting reconnaissance flights over the Soviet Union, without the Air Force knowing.74 But Eisenhower knew this was not a durable solution, as it was in violation of international law, and the Soviets were making major strides in their development of surface to air missiles. To alleviate this problem he tried to arrange the ‘open skies agreement’ with Nikita Khrushchev. This plan would allow the Soviet Union and the United States to conduct reconnaissance flights over each other’s territory.75 However, the proposal was rebuffed by Khrushchev, and space became Eisenhower’s only option for safely surveying the Soviet Union.76 Eisenhower decided that he would first focus on launching a civilian satellite, to show that the United States was committed to the peaceful exploration of space. But his ulterior motive was to establish the principle of ‘freedom of overflight’. This meant that countries could not object to a satellites’ orbit passing over its territory.77 He argued that establishing this principle was vital for surveying the Soviet Union. If the Soviets agreed that a satellite’s orbit passing over a country did not infringe on that country’s sovereignty, satellites could replace spy planes. To show his good intentions Eisenhower successfully lobbied with Khrushchev to declare the year 1957-1958 the International Geophysics Year, during which both countries would try to launch a satellite.78
When the Soviets launched Sputnik I and II in late 1957, it put pressure on the White House. While Eisenhower had a schedule in place which would have the United States send up its own satellite in a few months, the Soviets had managed to launch two satellites, before the United States had even launched its first one.79 This caused a sense of insecurity among the American public.80 For the first time in its history, the United States was no longer protected by its oceans. The Soviet Union could now reach the United States with nuclear weapons on top of ballistic missiles, while the United States still relied on a more vulnerable strategic bomber force.81 When the Americans then rushed to launch their first satellite in December 1957, the result was a public relations disaster. Press from all over the world was present at the launch attempt, and witnessed the rocket explode on the Launchpad.82 It now seemed like the Soviet Union had overtaken the United States in the field of rocketry. But the president was not fazed by the launch of Sputnik. He congratulated the Soviet Union with its accomplishment, and argued that the military value of the satellite was limited.83 In secret, he also rejoiced about the fact that it was now the Soviet Union which had established the principle of ‘freedom of overflight’, as its satellites had passed over the United States.84 Initially he saw little reason to change the policy he had previously set out.85 But as public nervousness grew, he acquiesced.86 This fuelled speculation about complacency within the Eisenhower administration.87
72 John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy During the Cold War, (Oxford, 2005), p. 146-149.
73 Gaddis, The Cold War, p. 73. 74 Ibidem. 75 Kalic, ibidem, p. 2. 76 Stares, ibidem, p. 35-41. 77 Kalic, ibidem, p. 43-44. 78 Ibidem, p. 32. 79 Mieczkowski, ibidem, p. 178. 80 Ibidem.
81 Howard W. Canon, From the Space and National Security Symposium, Air Force Magazine, (November, 1962), p. 70.
82 Kalic, ibidem, p. 38.
83 Yanek Mieczkowski, ibidem, p. 189. 84 Ibidem.
85 Ibidem, p. 215. 86 Ibidem, p. 222. 87 Kalic, ibidem, p. 38-40.
While he publically established NASA, and significantly increased funding for civilian space projects, he also enlarged the budget for the development of reconnaissance satellites in secret.88
The Air Force vehemently disagreed with Eisenhower’s space strategy.89 General White argued that providing nuclear deterrence was the Air Force’s primary job.90 This deterrence had since the end of the Second World War been provided by the bomber fleet, but by 1958 he had become convinced that the future of nuclear deterrence lay in space.91 Maintaining the nuclear balance with the Soviet Union therefore required a military space program that could at least keep pace with the Soviet Union.92 He argued that ICBMs were an intermediate solution, until orbital bombardment systems would become available, and give the United States a flexible three way system of nuclear retaliation. But the Air Force’s argument for arming space went further than mere military utility. From the ways in which the significance of spaceflight was being described, it becomes clear that the Air Force’s leadership was also convinced that space would be the next stage in the history of warfare, and mankind in general.93 Sputnik’s launch was seen as the beginning of the ‘Space Age.’ Today this expression usually refers to a certain historical or cultural period, usually between the launch of Sputnik and the final lunar landing in 1972.94 But in 1957 it seemed like the world had entered a new era. Sputnik was seen as a watershed moment in history, as it had opened up the infinity of space to exploration by humans. And because of this connection with exploration, space was also labelled ‘the next frontier’, as general Lemay, commander of Strategic Air Command, told American scientists in 1961:
You have accelerated national consciousness of the essentiality of airpower, whether airplanes, missiles, or vehicles for the barely penetrated frontier of space. Tonight you have here some of the heroes of that restless, productive effort.95
Frontier was a powerful term in the American cultural lexicon, as it referred to the self-appointed American mission of Manifest Destiny.96 The United States was destined to conquer and civilize the Western frontier, and now that this had been accomplished, space became the next, and final frontier. Terms like space age and frontier reflected both the perceived inevitability of the colonization of space, and the massive historical impact it was believed this would have.
NASA used similar terms to emphasize the importance of space. But the difference between NASA and the Air Force lay in what the consequences of the opening of space were thought to be. While Eisenhower remained sceptical of the transformative nature of spaceflight, the Kennedy administration and NASA described space as a new beginning for mankind, where the sinful politics of power, that had typified human history within the atmosphere, could be left behind. In space all nations could work together toward a single goal of space exploration.97 When Neil Armstrong said that his one small step was a ‘giant leap for mankind,’ he meant that he had not gone to the moon for himself or his nation, but for all humankind. So while NASA and Kennedy framed space in idealistic terms, the Air Force saw it as a military challenge. General White for instance compared the Air
88 Curtis Peebles, High Frontier: The U.S. Air Force and the Military Space Program, (Washington D.C., 1997), p. 13-14.
89 Spires, ibidem, p. 52.
90 Thomas D. White, USAF Doctrine and National Policy, ibidem.
91 Air Force Ballistic Missile Division Headquarters; Air Research and Development Command, Air Force Space systems development program, p. vii-2
92 Ibidem, p. i-1.
93 Thomas D. White, Strategic Air Command, ibidem. 94 Pyle, ibidem.
95 Eugene M. Zuckert & Curtis E. LeMay, The US Air Force-Today and Tomorrow, Air Force Magazine, (November, 1961), p. 60.
96 Roger D. Launius, Heroes in a Vacuum: The Apollo Astronaut as Cultural Icon, The Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 87, No. 2, (autumn, 2008), p. 193.
Force’s space program to the Manhattan project, to underline the ground-breaking nature of space warfare;
Missile development and the probing of piloted craft into the fringes of space have been a tremendous undertaking, surpassing even the Manhattan Project in scope and goals. In the not too distant future, efficient ballistic missiles and true piloted spacecraft will enter our forces as operational weapons.98 The Manhattan project had changed war for ever, as it resulted in the first nuclear weapons, and according to White, military spacecraft had the potential to do something similar. The United States could not lag behind in a military revolution that was this significant.99
An important reason for this conviction that space would become a battlefield, was the structuralist interpretation of history, that had a major influence on the Air Force’s leadership and policymakers during the fifties and sixties.100 This way of thinking was not just popular in the military, but also in the fields of history, sociology and economics.101 According to structuralist scholars, history was being propelled by processes that were inherent to mankind. And history therefore moved in a certain direction. An interesting example of this is given by Michael E. Latham in Modernization as an Ideology. He argues that during the fifties an sixties, the theory of modernization functioned as an ideology, which blinded some American economists from any other path towards the future than that followed by the United States.102 Modernization theorists argued that the United States was in a way the end of historical development. All nations would unavoidably become modern industrial consumer economies, because all humans innately desired ‘freedom’. ‘Tradition’ was seen as transitional. It would disappear once a nation became ‘modern’ like the United States.103 To modernization theorists the process of industrialization defined history, and moved it forward. This process was marked by an inevitable path that could be slowed, for instance by the embrace of communism, but it could not be stopped.104
In both public articles and in secret documents, the opening of space was described in a similar way by the Air Force. The possibilities of spaceflight were understood by relating them to historical processes that were believed to have been going on for a long time. General LeMay wrote in an edition of Air Force Magazine from September 1961;
From the time man developed suitable sea-going vessels until Columbus made his voyage there was a span of about 2,500 years. There was an interval of thirty years between the development of the first steamboat until one crossed the Atlantic. Between the Wright brothers’ flight to the crossing of the Atlantic by the NC-4, there was fifteen years. And it took man only four years from the time a suitable rockets booster was developed until he was able to launch a man into space. Twenty-five hundred years – thirty years- fifteen years – four years. The compression continues, daily putting man closer to wonders he dreamed and pondered about for centuries.105
Two very important processes can be gleaned from Lemay’s quote. Firstly, colonization and discovery have, according to Lemay, been deciding factors in world history, and were inherent to human nature. He saw a direct connection between the first humans setting sail, and the voyages of Columbus and Lindbergh. All of their exploits were the result of the human desire to explore. Lemay saw the exploration of space as the logical successor to the exploration of the seas and the air. And by linking spaceflight to Columbus and the journeys of discovery made by Europeans during the early modern
98 White, Air and Space are Indivisible, ibidem.
99 Bernard A. Schriever, The Air Force’s Ballistic Missile Program, Air Force Magazine, (April, 1958), p. 68. 100 Nils Gilman, Mandarins of the Future: Modernization Theory in Cold War America, (Baltimore, 2003), p. 1-3. 101 Ibidem.
102 Michael E. Latham, Modernization as an Ideology, (Chapel Hill, 2000), p. 12. 103 Ibidem.
104 Gilman, ibidem, p. 14. 105 Lemay, ibidem.
age, Lemay indicated that spaceflight was an absolute necessity for the survival of the United States.106 In another article, general White argued that the European conquest of the seas gave Europe the power to dominate the world during the nineteenth century, and it was because Asian peoples did not recognise this, that they were conquered.107 By alluding to this history, he framed spaceflight as a matter of do or die. It was the key to prosperity and independence in the future, just like the seas had been during the early modern era.108
Lemay also argued that technological innovation was rapidly accelerating. The interval between the invention of a mode of transportation, and the first time it was used for something that LeMay considered revolutionary, was shrinking.109 And to Lemay, the technological improvements of the fifties made it seem like anything was possible.110 The invention of thermonuclear weapons had for instance increased the yield of nuclear devices by almost one thousand times.111 The United States and the Soviet Union could now destroy all of humanity, while twenty years earlier few people had even conceived of the possibility of a nuclear bomb.112 Yet even though past achievements had been impressive, Lemay believed the rate of technological advancement would increase exponentially in the future.113 And it was not just the Air Force that thought about technology in this way. In The Heavens and the Earth McDougall claims an ‘ideology of technocracy’, had taken hold of the United States. Maintaining the rapid pace of technological innovation had become a government responsibility. It was believed to be so important, that it had become a goal in itself in American culture.114 Latham describes something similar in Modernization as an Ideology. Modernization theorists argued that they had discovered the secrets behind economic growth, and believed their ideas could bring any nation into modernity.115 But this way of thinking had prevented them from understanding the complexities and the importance of traditional cultures.116 There was a widespread belief in the United States that the formula for endless scientific and economic progress had been cracked.117
This optimism about technological progress was critical in the Air Force’s thinking about space.118 An argument that was often used by the Air Force against Eisenhower, who argued that space warfare would be unnecessary and prohibitively expensive, was that the future was now more unknown than ever. This argument seems like a paradox, as the Air Force’s leadership also argued they were convinced space warfare would be decisive. But what they meant was that the true potential of spaceflight could not yet even be imagined.119 Many Air Force documents from this period referred to a quote from the RAND report for the Navy from 1946, that said;
In making the decision as to whether or not to undertake construction of such a [space]craft now [1946], it is not inappropriate to view our present situation as similar to that in airplanes prior to the flight of the Wright brothers. We can see no more clearly all the utility and implications of spaceships
106 Ibidem. 107 White, ibidem. 108 Ibidem. 109 Lemay, ibidem. 110 Ibidem. 111 White, ibidem.
112 Albert I. Berger, Life and Times of the Atomic Bomb: Nuclear Weapons and the Transformation of Warfare, (New York, 2016), p. 121-122. 113 Ibidem, p. 78-80. 114 McDougall, ibidem, p. 12-14. 115 Gilman, ibidem, p. 64. 116 Ibidem, p. 273-275. 117 Latham, ibidem.
118 Air Force Ballistic Missile Division Headquarters; Air Research and Development Command, ibidem, (Washington D.C., 1959), p. ii-3.
than the Wright brothers could see fleets of B-29s bombing Japan and air transports circling the globe.120
According to the RAND corporation, the potential of spaceflight was so great, that it was impossible to predict all the ways in which it could change warfare. As I have said earlier, this was a period in which technological advances were happening so quickly, that no one could quite predict how the next ten years would look. In an article for Air Force Magazine, retired Air Force general James H. Dootlittle wrote:
If I weren’t a conservative, I would say that before the end of this century two more events will take place; a permanent observation station on the moon, and interplanetary travel as a common thing. This is only the beginning. What will happen next, I cannot even conceive. I am only sure that the rate of scientific progress will continue to increase.121
But Doolittle’s confidence about the future development of technology was not just present in articles that were written for a broader audience. The Air Force was even more optimistic than Doolittle, when they proposed the LUNEX program in 1961. This was a pitch for a permanent lunar base, from where cislunar space could be surveyed, and the possibilities of lunar warfare could be researched. It may seem like a massive undertaking, but the Air Force claimed the construction of the base could begin as soon as 1967.122 And they estimated that it would cost roughly seven and a half billion Dollars to establish a base on the lunar surface. 123 These projections were based on the assumption that technological advancement would continue to accelerate, like it had in the past. But to put LUNEX into perspective; the Apollo program, which only managed to land on the moon, eventually cost twenty billion dollars.124
As American and Soviet space achievements rapidly followed each other between 1957 and 1962 the Air Force started to argue that their vision for space had been vindicated. The first Soviet probe crashing into the moon, and especially the launch of Yuri Gagarin in April 1961, seemed to confirm expectations that the Soviet space program was progressing quickly towards the weaponization of space.125 But at the same time the American space program was also moving forward rapidly. The United States was launching more satellites, that were also returning more scientific data. And NASA had also managed to launch the first astronaut into orbit in 1962.126 Even though the United States was still believed to be lagging behind the Soviet Union in space, these events did instil the Air Force with confidence that they were right about the implications of spaceflight for the future of warfare. In 1961, one of the Air Force’s resident historians, Robert L. Perry was commissioned to write a history of the Air Force’s space program between 1945 and 1959. He put two quotes on the front page;
Before long, someone will start on the construction of satellite vehicle, whether in the United States or elsewhere. History shows that the human race does not allow physical development to lag very far behind the mental realization that a step can be taken. This is particularly true of progress which has a direct bearing on man’s conquest of his environment. - J.E. Lipp127
The type of pyramidal totalitarian regime that the Communists have centred in Moscow … is not adapted for effective performance in pioneering fields, either in basic science or in involved and novel 120 Ibidem.
121 James H. Dootlittle, By the End of the Century, Air Force Magazine, (March, 1958). 122 Space Systems Division Air Force Systems Command Headquarters, ibidem. 123 Ibidem.
124 National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Apollo Program Budget Appropriations, NASA.gov, <https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_18-16_Apollo_Program_Budget_Appropriations.htm> [30-7-2017]. 125 National Security Council, US policy on Outer Space, (January, 1960), p. 20.
126 Robert A. Divine, The Sputnik Challenge Eisenhower response to the soviet satellite, (Oxford, 1993), p. xiv-xvi.
127 Robert L. Perry, Origins of the USAF Space Program: Volume V, (Space Systems Division Supplement), History of DCAS, (Washington D.C., 1961), p. iii.
applications… Hence it is likely to produce great mistakes and great abortions […] It [the ballistic missile] would never stand the test of cost analysis. If we employed it in quantity, we would be economically exhausted long before the enemy. - Vannevar Bush128
Perry’s message is clear. Lipp, who was the author of the 1946 RAND study, had been vindicated, while Bush, the former head of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), had been debunked by recent Soviet and American successes in space. The positioning of these quotes is very important. They immediately conveyed the tone of the rest of the paper. The main argument that Perry made, was that the Air Force had warned continuously from 1945 to 1957 that space was going to be an important battlespace, but that they were ignored.129 The juxtaposition of the two quotes ridicules Bush’s now seemingly naïve fantasy that space and ballistic missiles would not be important to the military. It is important to note that Perry did not explain explicitly that this is what he meant by this juxtaposition, but it becomes abundantly clear from the rest of his paper. A few pages later for instance, he writes;
From the level of the Air Force chief of staff down to project engineers, virtually everyone exposed to the potential of the space proposals became and enthusiast. What happened then, to delay for a decade the nation’s decision to enter the space age? Lack of progress between 1945 and 1955 was attributable chiefly to a sequence of circumstances stemming from the extreme conservatism of national goals. Like the “experts” who early denied that aircraft could ever play a useful military role, critics of embryonic space proposals questioned both the feasibility and the utility of a space program – and sometimes slighted the good sense of its supporters.130
Note how he used quotation marks around the word ‘experts.’ They signify that Perry clearly did not agree that the people, who thought that air power would not be important, were actually experts. And in extension, Perry infers that people who said something similar about space were no experts either. It is significant that this is never explicitly stated. Instead it is constantly inferred. The idea that space warfare would be inevitable, had become an unspoken assumption among the small readership of this secret paper. Readers of this paper immediately understood what the Bush quote and the quotation marks around the word ‘expert’ were meant to convey; there were people who doubted the importance of space, but they have been proven wrong.
So when the space age began in 1957, the Air Force’s leadership related it to its interpretation of history, and its views about the future of technology that stemmed from this vision. This had a significant influence on the Air Force’s military culture, as it convinced the Air Force’s leadership and policymakers that space would inevitably become a battlespace. History was believed to follow certain patterns, which followed from qualities that were inherent to mankind, such as the desire to explore and innovate. This sentiment was further strengthened by the massive technological advances that had been made in the years prior to the start of the space age. It seemed like anything was possible at the start of the space age. But even though the Air Force’s leadership had felt confident that the future of warfare lay in space, they started to lose the argument for space superiority in 1962. This was not because it was disputed that the exploration of space would be the destiny of mankind, but because the mainstream vision for space was becoming more idealistic. by 1962, NASA’s successes with the peaceful exploration of space, had convinced most Americans that space should not become a battlespace.131 Furthermore, the Cuban Missile Crisis had made it clear to both sides of the Atlantic, that spreading the nuclear arms race to space would be foolish. The two superpowers were now willing to give diplomacy a try. 132 the idea that mankind was destined to colonize space was still very much alive. But the way in which the Soviet threat was perceived had
128 Ibidem. 129 Ibidem, p. v. 130 Ibidem, p. x.
131 Spires, ibidem, p. 110. 132 McDougall, ibidem, p. 274.
changed, and this made space superiority seem unnecessary and counterproductive. In the next chapter I will discuss this perception of the Soviet Union further.
2. The Perception of the Soviet Threat in Space
The first task [of the Air Force] that is, the military contribution to deterrence – hinges on these generally agreed essentials:First, adequate armed force.Second, manifest determination to use that force.And last, the aggressor’s belief that the force and the determination exist.133
– Thomas D. White, 1958.
According to general White deterrence was the primary job of the Air Force, and this required three things. Firstly adequate force, by which White meant that a nation needed a sufficient number of arms, and adequate ways of delivering these, to effectively deter an enemy. Secondly determination, by which he meant the willingness of a nation to make sacrifices to achieve its goals. And finally an opponent had to believe in your strength and determination.134 In this chapter I have use this theory of deterrence to analyse the way in which the Air Force’s leadership and policymakers perceived the threat posed by the Soviet Union. The primary point of this chapter is to show how the Air Force’s evaluation of the Soviet threat, created a sense of urgency to move into space. To make this argument I will first give a short overview of the development of Soviet American relations between 1945 and 1957. Following White’s theory of deterrence, I shall then argue that the Air Force was convinced of the Soviet Union’s determination. It was perceived as an inherently bellicose state, that would use any chance it would get, to expand anywhere it could. The Soviets would take full advantage of any American hesitation to enter the space age.135 This perception of the Soviet Union also further supports the point I have made in the last chapter, that the Air Force believed that space would become a battlespace in the future. Finally this chapter looks at the way in which the Air Force evaluated the adequacy of the Soviet nuclear capabilities. The Soviets had surprised the United States with their first nuclear test in 1949, and between 1957 and 1962 the Air Force feared that the Soviets were ahead of the United States in space technology.136 To maintain the strategic balance, the United States would have to move quickly outside the atmosphere, as space could otherwise fall under Soviet control.137
In the late fifties and early sixties most Americans were convinced that the Soviet Union was an aggressive state, and this conviction can be traced back to the early years of the Cold War. Mutual fear and distrust shaped the relationship between the two superpowers long before the launch of Sputnik.138 In The Cold War: A New History Gaddis argues that the wartime alliance between the Soviet Union, the British Empire and the United States started to falter soon after the defeat of Nazi Germany. The former allies started to distrust each other, because of the way in which each party dealt with the treaties that ended the war. Joseph Stalin tried to expand his power on the fringes of the Soviet sphere of influence. He refused to retreat from Persia, blockaded Berlin and staged a coup in Prague. This convinced president Truman that the Stalin wanted to dominate all of Europe.139 By the time the Soviets acquiesced the North Korean attack on its southern neighbour in 1950, it was already seen as a deeply hostile country by the American military establishment, and American society in general.140 As a response to Stalin’s expansionism, Truman argued for a policy of containment. The Soviets would have to be countered anywhere they were trying to expand. And this meant the United States would have to be willing to go to war. The National Security Council codified
133 White, USAF Doctrine and National Policy, ibidem. 134 Ibidem.
135 Bernard A. Schriever, The Battle for “Space Superiority”, ibidem. 136 National Security Council, ibidem, p. 17.
137 Bernard A. Schriever, USAF Planning for the Space Age, Air Force Magazine, (July, 1958), p. 94. 138 Gaddis, ibidem, p. 9.
139 Ibidem.
this policy in NSC-68, which argued that it was in the nature of communism itself to be aggressive, as the Soviet Union’s stated goal was worldwide communism.141 If the United States failed to contain Soviet imperialism, communist expansion could create a domino effect that would threaten the Free World.142
When Khrushchev and Eisenhower came to power, the relationship between the two countries initially improved slightly. Both leaders believed that some of their differences could be negotiated.143 And rather than insisting on an inevitable war with capitalism, as Stalin had done, Khrushchev called for ‘peaceful coexistence.’ He was convinced that capitalism would eventually collapse anyway.144 But many Americans believed that Khrushchev’s soothing words were little more than a front, to lure the United States into a false sense of security. The Democrats and the military establishment were mortified by Eisenhower’s cutbacks on the armed forces.145 Similarly, the Air Force’s attitude towards the Soviet Union would not really change after Stalin’s death.146 A paper on the Air Force’s space program from 1959, by the Air Force’s Ballistic Missile Division, described the Soviet threat as follows;
Our greatest threat is from an opposing nation which recognizes the military value of space operations, is capable of extreme control and acceleration of development effort, and will probably not, in actuality, conform to any international agreements for “peaceful use only” of space. With this in mind, our nation must lose no time in defining and initiating a coordinated military space systems program.147 The Air Force did not have any faith in Soviet promises, as these had already been broken many times.148 This lack of faith was not surprising, as Khrushchev had a habit of contradicting himself. On the one hand he talked of ‘peaceful coexistence’ and spreading communism in a peaceful way. But on the other hand, he also used aggressive language.149 At a reception honouring Gerhman Titov, the second Soviet cosmonaut, in August 1961, Khrushchev boasted:
You [the United States] do not have 50 and 100 megaton bombs. We have bombs stronger than 100 megatons. We placed Gagarin and Titov in space, and we can replace them with other loads that can be directed at any place on earth.150
In this quote the Soviet leader explicitly argued that the same rockets that were used for launching cosmonauts, could also be used for delivering massive thermonuclear weapons. And this sort of language caused alarm in the United States for two reasons. Firstly it seemed to suggest that the Soviet Union was fully committed to developing weapons in space, while the Eisenhower administration seemed unfazed about the American disadvantage in that field.151 Secondly, to the Air Force it appeared that Khrushchev’s crude language undercut any Soviet argument for the peaceful exploration of space. With the Launch of Sputnik, the Soviet Union had tried to expand in a new direction, and the logic of containment required the United States to counter the Soviets in space. This seemed especially critical to the Air Force, which saw that the Soviet space program was a threat to the nuclear balance.152
141 White, Strategic Air Command, p. 67. 142 Westad, Ibidem, p. 134-135.
143 Kalic, ibidem, p. 70. 144 Gaddis, ibidem, p. 71-73. 145 Ibidem.
146 Air Force Ballistic Missile Division Headquarters; Air Research and Development Command, ibidem, p. i-1. 147 Ibidem.
148 White, USAF doctrine and National Policy, ibidem. 149 Gaddis, ibidem, p. 70.
150 Peter L. Hays, Struggling Towards Space Doctrine: U.S. Military Space Plans, Programs and Perspectives During the Cold War, (Washington D.C., 1994, p. 159.
151 Mieczkowksi, ibidem. 152 White, ibidem.
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