1. The US Religion of Technology in the Weaponization of Outer Space ? A Case for Technological Atheism and Resisting Space War.
- Author
-
Grondin, David
- Subjects
- *
ASTRONAUTICS , *MILITARY weapons , *AIR defenses , *TECHNOLOGY & religion , *RESEARCH & development , *MILITARY science - Abstract
The US relationship with technology has a religious undertone. Greatly influenced by the epitomizing and mythic frontier experience, American statesmen, bureaucrats, and military leaders have traditionally relied upon a blind faith on technology, especially with respect to warfare technology. This blind faith has led them to steer the R & D of destructive weaponry without fully acknowledging the consequences, and where the technology was not fully grown, to believe that it would eventually catch up to fulfill the role ascribed to it in the first place. It has not been different with the Space technologies and nuclear strategy of the Cold War. The decision to develop ballistic missile defense systems and the fear of a "Space Pearl Harbor" follow the same preventive logic: outer Space is seen as being free from warfare technology and the US prepares itself not to be caught unprepared should one entity choose to develop Space weaponry and deploy warfare technology that would undermine its sovereignty and Space leadership. In reading US military Space power discourses featuring Space weaponization as an integral part of a US grand strategy of global dominance, this paper wishes to reflect on the "US religion of technology". Long-rooted in US governmental thinking in its national historical experience, now that it is applied to Outer Space, it leads astropolitical strategists to believe that what is today impossible will eventually be technologically possible. This paper therefore addresses the US relationship with technology and pushes for a theoretical/political activism and advocacy that question the US astropolitical discourse of Space weaponization and the technological determinism that sees technology as inevitable and where society must follow the path drawn by the technology. Assuming that Space weaponization is not inevitable, it puts forth the idea that a certain technological atheism à la Virilio could and should be promoted by scholars/practitioners of international security in rebuttal of Space warriors' nightmarish vision. In any case, it believes that a ban on Space weaponization could still very much be put on the agenda and reveal an efficient path to "peace" in Outer Space. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2007