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CSIS Issues Critical Questions Q&A Entitled 'What Is Space Superiority?'
WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following Critical Questions Q&A on Oct. 5, 2026, involving Alexei Hoffman, research associate with the Aerospace Security Project:
* * *
What Is Space Superiority?
This piece is part of a commentary series called "The Foundations of Space Superiority" that analyzes the strategic, economic, and scientific drivers of securing a lasting U.S. advantage in space.
-
At the end of March 2026, a month into Operation Epic Fury, Admiral Brad Cooper, the commander of U.S. Central Command, announced that the Space Force ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following Critical Questions Q&A on Oct. 5, 2026, involving Alexei Hoffman, research associate with the Aerospace Security Project: * * * What Is Space Superiority? This piece is part of a commentary series called "The Foundations of Space Superiority" that analyzes the strategic, economic, and scientific drivers of securing a lasting U.S. advantage in space. - At the end of March 2026, a month into Operation Epic Fury, Admiral Brad Cooper, the commander of U.S. Central Command, announced that the Space Forcehad delivered "space superiority" over Iran. The assertion prompted a question: What does space superiority mean? The first recorded use of the phrase was in 1957, during a speech by Major General Bernard A. Schriever, but its origins trace back to concepts long applied to the maritime and air domains. Though it is now officially defined in U.S. Space Force doctrine, the realities of operations in space, and the role of space-based capabilities in supporting joint operations on Earth complicate what the term means in practice.
Q1: Where does the military's concept of "domain superiority" come from?
A1: In his best-known work, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783, published in 1890, Alfred Thayer Mahan described the importance of command of the sea, which was essentially another way to talk about maritime supremacy. In 1921, Giulio Douhet, an Italian military officer, prophesized about the future role of military air power and the need to secure command of the air. Throughout the 1920s, Brigadier General William "Billy" Mitchell of the U.S. Army, who is often referred to as the father of the U.S. Air Force, emphasized the criticality of establishing control of the skies to win a military campaign.
During World War II, U.S. military doctrine began to codify concepts around air dominance. Responding to the need for independent tactical airpower during the North Africa campaign, the U.S. military issued a new field manual, called Command and Employment of Air Power, in 1943, declaring land power and air power "co-equal" and naming air superiority as "the requirement for the success of any major land operation." The following June provided proof: on D-Day, the Allies flew 14,674 sorties against the Luftwaffe's 319. Touring the beachhead, General Eisenhower remarked, "If I didn't have air supremacy, I wouldn't be here."
Modern Air Force doctrine sorts control of the air into three categories: parity, where neither combatant controls the air; superiority, where friendly forces may operate without "prohibitive interference"; and supremacy, in which the enemy is "incapable of effective interference." What qualifies as "prohibitive" is not explained in doctrine--the threshold is the commander's judgment. Doctrine cautions that domain control should not be considered a fixed state; it may be local or even mission-specific and may change as the momentum of a conflict swings in favor of one combatant or the other.
As Air Force Major General Stephen Miller, former commander of Air Force doctrine development and education put it in 2008, air superiority "is not normally an end unto itself," but rather exists to maximize the joint force's ability to carry out its missions while minimizing its vulnerability to enemy attack. In other words, domain superiority, while always desirable, serves as an enabling condition for carrying out other operations; commanders typically seek only the minimum level of control the mission requires. Sea control follows the same logic: joint doctrine from 2008, Command and Control for Joint Maritime Operations, defines "maritime superiority" in nearly identical terms.
Q2: How has the military defined space superiority?
A2: The Air Force named space defense and support among the missions it foresaw in the 1979 Air Force manual Military Space Doctrine. Joint doctrine adopted the definition in Space Operations, stating that space superiority is dominance in space sufficient for a force to operate "at a given time and place without prohibitive interference by the opposing force." This is the same as the joint forces' air superiority definition, but with "in the air battle" replaced by "in space." This definition focuses on operating in space rather than on the use of space.
The Space Force itself, diverging from joint doctrine, defines space superiority as control that lets forces operate without prohibitive interference "while also denying the same to an adversary." The service's "Competitive Endurance" white paper goes further, explaining that, in the Space Force's view, if both sides can operate without prohibitive interference, "then neither side has space superiority."
The Space Force's definition therefore adds an explicit denial requirement to the joint definition's emphasis on friendly freedom of action. This does not require eliminating every adversary space capability, just as air superiority does not require grounding the enemy's entire air force. The service's Space Warfighting framework explains this requirement's purpose: protecting friendly forces across all domains from space-enabled attacks. It identifies communications, targeting, and post-attack assessment as ways space capabilities can support adversary operations against joint forces.
Under the joint definition, a commander announcing space superiority asserts that friendly forces can operate without prohibitive interference. Under the Space Force's definition, the declaration also asserts that the adversary has been denied comparable freedom of action. This is an assessment of both the adversary's ability to use space and the effectiveness of U.S. capabilities employed to constrain that use.
Q3: What did U.S. Central Command's declaration of space superiority over Iran mean?
A3: Admiral Cooper, in his initial March 11 declaration of space superiority, asserted two things: (1) U.S. forces had "struck Iran's equivalent of Space Command" and (2) the Space Force was degrading Iranian capability while protecting U.S. forces. For its part, U.S. Space Command described how its operations were supporting the joint force: precision strike support, missile warning and tracking, secure communications, and "overwatch for terrestrial forces in harm's way."
That the United States had an asymmetric advantage in space is not in dispute; reporting in April 2026 identified 13 operational satellites in total. Iran nevertheless reportedly continued receiving space-based intelligence from third parties, even as U.S. officials maintained that this did not negate U.S. space superiority. Its access to outside support means that its own satellite inventory does not capture the full denial challenge.
Continued access to that intelligence does not by itself contradict space superiority. As with air and maritime superiority, the required degree of control depends on the operation. The Space Force's capstone doctrine explicitly allows superiority to be bounded by function, time, and place. The relevant question is how effectively Iran could use the space support still available to it and whether U.S. operations sufficiently constrained that support for the campaign's objectives.
The more consequential issue is whether U.S. forces have the capabilities to achieve and sustain the denial a campaign requires. Those capabilities need not be space-based: the framework includes operations against ground systems and communications links as well as spacecraft, drawing on capabilities across the joint force. Experience against Iran does not by itself establish that those capabilities are sufficient against a peer such as China. The challenge in a peer conflict would be to preserve friendly use of space while disrupting adversary space support at a much greater scale and for as long as the campaign requires.
* * *
Alexei Hoffman is a research associate with the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/what-space-superiority
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
What Is Space Superiority?
This piece is part of a commentary series called "The Foundations of Space Superiority" that analyzes the strategic, economic, and scientific drivers of securing a lasting U.S. advantage in space.
-
At the end of March 2026, a month into Operation Epic Fury, Admiral Brad Cooper, the commander of U.S. Central Command, announced that the Space Force ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following Critical Questions Q&A on Oct. 5, 2026, involving Alexei Hoffman, research associate with the Aerospace Security Project: * * * What Is Space Superiority? This piece is part of a commentary series called "The Foundations of Space Superiority" that analyzes the strategic, economic, and scientific drivers of securing a lasting U.S. advantage in space. - At the end of March 2026, a month into Operation Epic Fury, Admiral Brad Cooper, the commander of U.S. Central Command, announced that the Space Forcehad delivered "space superiority" over Iran. The assertion prompted a question: What does space superiority mean? The first recorded use of the phrase was in 1957, during a speech by Major General Bernard A. Schriever, but its origins trace back to concepts long applied to the maritime and air domains. Though it is now officially defined in U.S. Space Force doctrine, the realities of operations in space, and the role of space-based capabilities in supporting joint operations on Earth complicate what the term means in practice.
Q1: Where does the military's concept of "domain superiority" come from?
A1: In his best-known work, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783, published in 1890, Alfred Thayer Mahan described the importance of command of the sea, which was essentially another way to talk about maritime supremacy. In 1921, Giulio Douhet, an Italian military officer, prophesized about the future role of military air power and the need to secure command of the air. Throughout the 1920s, Brigadier General William "Billy" Mitchell of the U.S. Army, who is often referred to as the father of the U.S. Air Force, emphasized the criticality of establishing control of the skies to win a military campaign.
During World War II, U.S. military doctrine began to codify concepts around air dominance. Responding to the need for independent tactical airpower during the North Africa campaign, the U.S. military issued a new field manual, called Command and Employment of Air Power, in 1943, declaring land power and air power "co-equal" and naming air superiority as "the requirement for the success of any major land operation." The following June provided proof: on D-Day, the Allies flew 14,674 sorties against the Luftwaffe's 319. Touring the beachhead, General Eisenhower remarked, "If I didn't have air supremacy, I wouldn't be here."
Modern Air Force doctrine sorts control of the air into three categories: parity, where neither combatant controls the air; superiority, where friendly forces may operate without "prohibitive interference"; and supremacy, in which the enemy is "incapable of effective interference." What qualifies as "prohibitive" is not explained in doctrine--the threshold is the commander's judgment. Doctrine cautions that domain control should not be considered a fixed state; it may be local or even mission-specific and may change as the momentum of a conflict swings in favor of one combatant or the other.
As Air Force Major General Stephen Miller, former commander of Air Force doctrine development and education put it in 2008, air superiority "is not normally an end unto itself," but rather exists to maximize the joint force's ability to carry out its missions while minimizing its vulnerability to enemy attack. In other words, domain superiority, while always desirable, serves as an enabling condition for carrying out other operations; commanders typically seek only the minimum level of control the mission requires. Sea control follows the same logic: joint doctrine from 2008, Command and Control for Joint Maritime Operations, defines "maritime superiority" in nearly identical terms.
Q2: How has the military defined space superiority?
A2: The Air Force named space defense and support among the missions it foresaw in the 1979 Air Force manual Military Space Doctrine. Joint doctrine adopted the definition in Space Operations, stating that space superiority is dominance in space sufficient for a force to operate "at a given time and place without prohibitive interference by the opposing force." This is the same as the joint forces' air superiority definition, but with "in the air battle" replaced by "in space." This definition focuses on operating in space rather than on the use of space.
The Space Force itself, diverging from joint doctrine, defines space superiority as control that lets forces operate without prohibitive interference "while also denying the same to an adversary." The service's "Competitive Endurance" white paper goes further, explaining that, in the Space Force's view, if both sides can operate without prohibitive interference, "then neither side has space superiority."
The Space Force's definition therefore adds an explicit denial requirement to the joint definition's emphasis on friendly freedom of action. This does not require eliminating every adversary space capability, just as air superiority does not require grounding the enemy's entire air force. The service's Space Warfighting framework explains this requirement's purpose: protecting friendly forces across all domains from space-enabled attacks. It identifies communications, targeting, and post-attack assessment as ways space capabilities can support adversary operations against joint forces.
Under the joint definition, a commander announcing space superiority asserts that friendly forces can operate without prohibitive interference. Under the Space Force's definition, the declaration also asserts that the adversary has been denied comparable freedom of action. This is an assessment of both the adversary's ability to use space and the effectiveness of U.S. capabilities employed to constrain that use.
Q3: What did U.S. Central Command's declaration of space superiority over Iran mean?
A3: Admiral Cooper, in his initial March 11 declaration of space superiority, asserted two things: (1) U.S. forces had "struck Iran's equivalent of Space Command" and (2) the Space Force was degrading Iranian capability while protecting U.S. forces. For its part, U.S. Space Command described how its operations were supporting the joint force: precision strike support, missile warning and tracking, secure communications, and "overwatch for terrestrial forces in harm's way."
That the United States had an asymmetric advantage in space is not in dispute; reporting in April 2026 identified 13 operational satellites in total. Iran nevertheless reportedly continued receiving space-based intelligence from third parties, even as U.S. officials maintained that this did not negate U.S. space superiority. Its access to outside support means that its own satellite inventory does not capture the full denial challenge.
Continued access to that intelligence does not by itself contradict space superiority. As with air and maritime superiority, the required degree of control depends on the operation. The Space Force's capstone doctrine explicitly allows superiority to be bounded by function, time, and place. The relevant question is how effectively Iran could use the space support still available to it and whether U.S. operations sufficiently constrained that support for the campaign's objectives.
The more consequential issue is whether U.S. forces have the capabilities to achieve and sustain the denial a campaign requires. Those capabilities need not be space-based: the framework includes operations against ground systems and communications links as well as spacecraft, drawing on capabilities across the joint force. Experience against Iran does not by itself establish that those capabilities are sufficient against a peer such as China. The challenge in a peer conflict would be to preserve friendly use of space while disrupting adversary space support at a much greater scale and for as long as the campaign requires.
* * *
Alexei Hoffman is a research associate with the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/what-space-superiority
[Category: ThinkTank]
CSIS Issues Commentary: Trump's Space Superiority Executive Order - The Stressors That Will Shape Deep Space Development
WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary:
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Trump's Space Superiority Executive Order: The Stressors That Will Shape Deep Space Development
Commentary by Courtney Stadd
October 5, 2026
This piece is part of a commentary series called "The Foundations of Space Superiority" that analyzes the strategic, economic, and scientific drivers of securing a lasting U.S. advantage in space.
-
On December 18, 2025, an executive order--Ensuring American Space Superiority--was quietly released. Largely unnoticed outside the space community, ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary: * * * Trump's Space Superiority Executive Order: The Stressors That Will Shape Deep Space Development Commentary by Courtney Stadd October 5, 2026 This piece is part of a commentary series called "The Foundations of Space Superiority" that analyzes the strategic, economic, and scientific drivers of securing a lasting U.S. advantage in space. - On December 18, 2025, an executive order--Ensuring American Space Superiority--was quietly released. Largely unnoticed outside the space community,the directive has potentially far-reaching consequences for the United States' future beyond Earth.
The order--hereafter referred to as Space Superiority--signals one of the most assertive space policy postures in recent decades. It sets an ambitious deadline to return U.S. astronauts to the Moon by 2028 and to establish the early elements of a sustained lunar presence by 2030. The directive also calls for expanded integration of commercial capabilities, regulatory reform, and the alignment of civil, economic, and national security objectives.
At its core, the order reflects a strategic judgment: Space is no longer a purely scientific domain. It is an arena where technological leadership, economic competitiveness, and national security are now inseparable. Supporters view the directive as a necessary response to intensifying global competition, particularly from China. Critics warn that an overtly dominance-oriented posture risks heightening geopolitical tensions and straining international norms.
Yet the more consequential debate is not about tone or intent. It's about a question the order assumes rather than answers: Will real end-user demand--sovereign and commercial alike--ever materialize at a scale sufficient to sustain what Space Superiority envisions?
Right now, the honest answer is that demand is thin. What's actually driving activity is national pride, layered over an underlying anxiety about security--the sense that whatever country establishes itself on and around the Moon first will help set the terms for everyone who follows. China's own lunar program, pursued with evident urgency toward a crewed landing and a permanent research presence, has done more than any policy paper to force these questions into the open. These include who will write the economic framework the lunar economy will run on, and who will adjudicate property rights when competing interests inevitably collide.
National pride and security anxiety can fund a flags-and-footprints program. They are a much thinner foundation for what Space Superiority actually requires: capital committed across multiple presidential terms, against a payoff horizon measured in decades, inside a domain where the underlying legal and economic architecture doesn't yet exist. The order sets deadlines, but it doesn't answer the harder question of what ongoing strategic imperative will persist after this administration leaves office, once the novelty of a lunar return fades and someone has to justify the next budget line.
Assume, for the moment, that question eventually gets answered. Even then, the greatest risk to Space Superiority's timeline won't come solely from the failure of any single program or vehicle. It will come from the interaction of multiple technological trend lines already underway in launch capability, power generation, autonomy, resource extraction, and human spaceflight--trajectories the order assumes but does not itself shape or resolve.
Dr. Bhavya Lal--a former senior NASA official, now a professor at the RAND School of Public Policy and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University--made this point well at a late 2025 forum hosted by the George Washington University's Space Policy Institute: 50 years out, the question is never which vehicle will fly or which reactor diameter we will choose. History shows public policy analysts are almost always wrong on the specifics. What they are often good at is spotting the technical trends that create stress points--and those are the projections worth watching.
Five such trajectories are already visible--and each is a stress point that will have to be addressed as lunar activity grows. In some cases, power and property rights chief among them, the stress point will have to be addressed to enable that growth in the first place, not merely to manage it after the fact. None of these dynamics is confined to some distant, hypothetical future: Each is already emerging in cislunar space today, and each will intensify as activity extends farther out. But every one of them shares a dependency: A stress point only bites when there is enough volume of activity flowing through it to create friction. Absent real demand, these trajectories stay mostly latent--background conditions rather than active constraints. That is what makes the demand question the master stress point: It decides whether the other five trajectories ever arrive at all.
1. Access and Transportation: Launch systems are evolving along familiar curves: higher cadence, greater reliability, and steadily declining costs. Reusable vehicles, orbital refueling, and advanced propulsion will expand where and how missions can operate. But greater access does not eliminate constraints; it redistributes them. Lunar polar regions offer limited safe landing zones. High-energy trajectories remain technically demanding. As more actors converge on the same operational corridors, new choke points will emerge.
Traffic management is not a challenge unique to deep space--it is already straining operations in low Earth orbit (LEO), where congestion and conjunction risk are mounting. Farther out, "access" becomes as much about traffic management as transportation. And congestion, by definition, is a problem of success: It shows up only once enough missions are competing for the same handful of viable corridors.
2. Power: A profound shift is underway in space power systems. Surface energy generation is moving from experimental to infrastructure-scale capability, enabled by fission reactors, advanced solar arrays, and potentially beamed power architectures. Energy availability will determine which locations become viable hubs for science, industry, and logistics. Reliable power enables mobility, communications, resource processing, and sustained human presence.
Without reliable, at-scale power, little else on this list can scale either--no processing, no sustained crew rotation, no industrial footprint. Power is not only a stress point that intensifies as the market grows; it is closer to a precondition for that growth happening at all.
3. Autonomy and Robotics: Autonomous systems are advancing rapidly across navigation, rendezvous, construction, and distributed sensing. Over time, robotic systems will perform a growing share of operational and industrial functions. But despite the enthusiasm for full automation, robots alone won't keep this infrastructure running. The equivalent of blue-collar space workers--technicians, welders, plumbers, miners, and electricians--will remain essential wherever a space-based community is located. Robots can take over many of their functions, but robots also break down and malfunction, and something will have to repair them. The open question is not whether humans are still needed; it is what ratio of humans to robotic systems--AI tools notwithstanding--this work will require.
This shift also introduces a subtle but critical challenge: attribution. When autonomous systems interact--or conflict--reconstructing intent and responsibility will require robust telemetry, monitoring standards, and shared protocols. Transparency becomes an engineering requirement, not merely a governance preference. Like congestion, this is a problem that scales with headcount and machine count alike; it stays manageable only until the volume of interactions outpaces the protocols built to track them.
4. Resources: Early resource utilization will likely focus on oxygen, water, and regolith-based materials. Investment in that utilization is likely to come from a mix of government, military, commercial, and international actors, each with different risk tolerances, timelines, and objectives. This mix will shape which resources get developed first and where. None of this is yet proven at operational scale: Extracting and processing lunar materials remains technically promising but unproven, an assumption rather than a demonstrated capability. Even on optimistic timelines, these activities will concentrate in geographically constrained areas, particularly near polar volatiles and sunlit ridges.
As multiple actors operate in close proximity, safety zones and operational buffers will function, in practice, as proto-territorial arrangements. The stress point is not ownership in the strict legal sense--the Outer Space Treaty still bars national territorial claims--but proximity management: who gets priority of access, who bears liability when operations interfere with one another, and how competing interests in mineral rights, leases, and use rights get resolved in the absence of settled law.
This is where the demand question turns concrete. Absent clarity on who defines the rules of ownership, access priority, and liability, commercial capital has every reason to wait on the sidelines--and without that capital, and the activity it would fund, there is no volume of operations to force the issue. Property rights are not simply a consequence of a maturing lunar economy; they are one of the preconditions for that economy reaching maturity at all.
5. Human Presence Beyond LEO: Extended human operations beyond LEO introduce environmental conditions that cannot be fully replicated on Earth. Partial gravity, chronic radiation exposure, and long-duration life support will generate biomedical uncertainties. These realities will translate into governance challenges, such as medical standards, duty-of-care obligations, emergency response frameworks, and liability regimes.
Human expansion beyond cislunar space--into deep space, here meaning the Moon, Mars, and the operating environments beyond--is as much an institutional design problem as a technological one. That design problem extends well beyond medical protocols. Property rights, contracts, patents, leases, taxation, royalties, and licensing regimes all evolved on Earth over centuries, backed by settled sovereignty and enforceable courts. Deep space offers neither. Deciding which of these frameworks apply in space, and who has standing to enforce them, is itself a stress point that Space Superiority does not resolve.
Where Transformation Actually Occurs
None of these trajectories is individually surprising; their significance lies in convergence. The insight worth holding onto is that convergence does not simply add capability, but rather creates a different kind of problem. A constraint on launch cadence, a constraint on where power can be sited, and a constraint on assigning responsibility when autonomous systems interact or fail--arriving at the same time, in the same handful of locations--do not stack. They compound into something none of these trajectories produces on its own: a qualitatively new set of constraints on how deep space can be used, by whom, and under what rules.
But convergence itself presupposes volume: These trajectories interact only where enough simultaneous activity exists to force them together. That, again, returns to the question of what generates the volume in the first place--because national pride and security anxiety, on their own, rarely fund multidecade capital commitments.
Deep-space environments will not be defined by any single system, treaty, or first-mover claim. They will be defined by how the capabilities brought to bear function together--or fail to. Just as reusable launch, miniaturization, and digital communications reshaped Earth's orbit, commerce, security, and infrastructure, deep-space transformation will arise from interacting capabilities. Cheap access combined with surface power, autonomous construction, and resource extraction will create environments far more complex than traditional mission planning assumptions anticipate. Operational friction--not technological scarcity--will become the defining constraint, assuming enough activity ever materializes to generate that friction in the first place.
The Politics of Forecasting
Expectations about the future are rarely neutral. Different stakeholders naturally emphasize futures aligned with their institutional strengths--infrastructure, science, security, or commerce. But regardless of perspective, one question now precedes all the others: whether real end-user demand--sovereign, commercial, or both--will ever reach a volume sufficient to make access, power, autonomy, resources, and human presence matter in practice as constraints to be managed, rather than merely trends to be tracked. National pride and security anxiety can pay for a demonstration, but they are unlikely, on their own, to pay for a market.
That is also why Space Superiority, whatever its framers intended, is unlikely to deliver what they hope. The order sets dates and reorganizes agencies, but it does not, and on its own cannot, manufacture demand, settle who writes the lunar economy's rules, or resolve who adjudicates property rights once interests collide. Those are the conditions under which the order's other ambitions would even become relevant. Absent them, Space Superiority risks becoming an impressive technical achievement in 2028 or 2030, followed by the same question that has ended every previous lunar push: What happens after the flag is planted, and who pays for act two?
This is the defining policy challenge of Space Superiority's execution--and its framers, however well intentioned, do not appear to have reckoned with it.
* * *
Courtney Stadd is a former NASA Chief of Staff, founding Board member of Orbital Progress, president of the Washington Space Business Roundtable, and executive vice president of the Beyond Earth Institute.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/trumps-space-superiority-executive-order-stressors-will-shape-deep-space-development
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
Trump's Space Superiority Executive Order: The Stressors That Will Shape Deep Space Development
Commentary by Courtney Stadd
October 5, 2026
This piece is part of a commentary series called "The Foundations of Space Superiority" that analyzes the strategic, economic, and scientific drivers of securing a lasting U.S. advantage in space.
-
On December 18, 2025, an executive order--Ensuring American Space Superiority--was quietly released. Largely unnoticed outside the space community, ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary: * * * Trump's Space Superiority Executive Order: The Stressors That Will Shape Deep Space Development Commentary by Courtney Stadd October 5, 2026 This piece is part of a commentary series called "The Foundations of Space Superiority" that analyzes the strategic, economic, and scientific drivers of securing a lasting U.S. advantage in space. - On December 18, 2025, an executive order--Ensuring American Space Superiority--was quietly released. Largely unnoticed outside the space community,the directive has potentially far-reaching consequences for the United States' future beyond Earth.
The order--hereafter referred to as Space Superiority--signals one of the most assertive space policy postures in recent decades. It sets an ambitious deadline to return U.S. astronauts to the Moon by 2028 and to establish the early elements of a sustained lunar presence by 2030. The directive also calls for expanded integration of commercial capabilities, regulatory reform, and the alignment of civil, economic, and national security objectives.
At its core, the order reflects a strategic judgment: Space is no longer a purely scientific domain. It is an arena where technological leadership, economic competitiveness, and national security are now inseparable. Supporters view the directive as a necessary response to intensifying global competition, particularly from China. Critics warn that an overtly dominance-oriented posture risks heightening geopolitical tensions and straining international norms.
Yet the more consequential debate is not about tone or intent. It's about a question the order assumes rather than answers: Will real end-user demand--sovereign and commercial alike--ever materialize at a scale sufficient to sustain what Space Superiority envisions?
Right now, the honest answer is that demand is thin. What's actually driving activity is national pride, layered over an underlying anxiety about security--the sense that whatever country establishes itself on and around the Moon first will help set the terms for everyone who follows. China's own lunar program, pursued with evident urgency toward a crewed landing and a permanent research presence, has done more than any policy paper to force these questions into the open. These include who will write the economic framework the lunar economy will run on, and who will adjudicate property rights when competing interests inevitably collide.
National pride and security anxiety can fund a flags-and-footprints program. They are a much thinner foundation for what Space Superiority actually requires: capital committed across multiple presidential terms, against a payoff horizon measured in decades, inside a domain where the underlying legal and economic architecture doesn't yet exist. The order sets deadlines, but it doesn't answer the harder question of what ongoing strategic imperative will persist after this administration leaves office, once the novelty of a lunar return fades and someone has to justify the next budget line.
Assume, for the moment, that question eventually gets answered. Even then, the greatest risk to Space Superiority's timeline won't come solely from the failure of any single program or vehicle. It will come from the interaction of multiple technological trend lines already underway in launch capability, power generation, autonomy, resource extraction, and human spaceflight--trajectories the order assumes but does not itself shape or resolve.
Dr. Bhavya Lal--a former senior NASA official, now a professor at the RAND School of Public Policy and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University--made this point well at a late 2025 forum hosted by the George Washington University's Space Policy Institute: 50 years out, the question is never which vehicle will fly or which reactor diameter we will choose. History shows public policy analysts are almost always wrong on the specifics. What they are often good at is spotting the technical trends that create stress points--and those are the projections worth watching.
Five such trajectories are already visible--and each is a stress point that will have to be addressed as lunar activity grows. In some cases, power and property rights chief among them, the stress point will have to be addressed to enable that growth in the first place, not merely to manage it after the fact. None of these dynamics is confined to some distant, hypothetical future: Each is already emerging in cislunar space today, and each will intensify as activity extends farther out. But every one of them shares a dependency: A stress point only bites when there is enough volume of activity flowing through it to create friction. Absent real demand, these trajectories stay mostly latent--background conditions rather than active constraints. That is what makes the demand question the master stress point: It decides whether the other five trajectories ever arrive at all.
1. Access and Transportation: Launch systems are evolving along familiar curves: higher cadence, greater reliability, and steadily declining costs. Reusable vehicles, orbital refueling, and advanced propulsion will expand where and how missions can operate. But greater access does not eliminate constraints; it redistributes them. Lunar polar regions offer limited safe landing zones. High-energy trajectories remain technically demanding. As more actors converge on the same operational corridors, new choke points will emerge.
Traffic management is not a challenge unique to deep space--it is already straining operations in low Earth orbit (LEO), where congestion and conjunction risk are mounting. Farther out, "access" becomes as much about traffic management as transportation. And congestion, by definition, is a problem of success: It shows up only once enough missions are competing for the same handful of viable corridors.
2. Power: A profound shift is underway in space power systems. Surface energy generation is moving from experimental to infrastructure-scale capability, enabled by fission reactors, advanced solar arrays, and potentially beamed power architectures. Energy availability will determine which locations become viable hubs for science, industry, and logistics. Reliable power enables mobility, communications, resource processing, and sustained human presence.
Without reliable, at-scale power, little else on this list can scale either--no processing, no sustained crew rotation, no industrial footprint. Power is not only a stress point that intensifies as the market grows; it is closer to a precondition for that growth happening at all.
3. Autonomy and Robotics: Autonomous systems are advancing rapidly across navigation, rendezvous, construction, and distributed sensing. Over time, robotic systems will perform a growing share of operational and industrial functions. But despite the enthusiasm for full automation, robots alone won't keep this infrastructure running. The equivalent of blue-collar space workers--technicians, welders, plumbers, miners, and electricians--will remain essential wherever a space-based community is located. Robots can take over many of their functions, but robots also break down and malfunction, and something will have to repair them. The open question is not whether humans are still needed; it is what ratio of humans to robotic systems--AI tools notwithstanding--this work will require.
This shift also introduces a subtle but critical challenge: attribution. When autonomous systems interact--or conflict--reconstructing intent and responsibility will require robust telemetry, monitoring standards, and shared protocols. Transparency becomes an engineering requirement, not merely a governance preference. Like congestion, this is a problem that scales with headcount and machine count alike; it stays manageable only until the volume of interactions outpaces the protocols built to track them.
4. Resources: Early resource utilization will likely focus on oxygen, water, and regolith-based materials. Investment in that utilization is likely to come from a mix of government, military, commercial, and international actors, each with different risk tolerances, timelines, and objectives. This mix will shape which resources get developed first and where. None of this is yet proven at operational scale: Extracting and processing lunar materials remains technically promising but unproven, an assumption rather than a demonstrated capability. Even on optimistic timelines, these activities will concentrate in geographically constrained areas, particularly near polar volatiles and sunlit ridges.
As multiple actors operate in close proximity, safety zones and operational buffers will function, in practice, as proto-territorial arrangements. The stress point is not ownership in the strict legal sense--the Outer Space Treaty still bars national territorial claims--but proximity management: who gets priority of access, who bears liability when operations interfere with one another, and how competing interests in mineral rights, leases, and use rights get resolved in the absence of settled law.
This is where the demand question turns concrete. Absent clarity on who defines the rules of ownership, access priority, and liability, commercial capital has every reason to wait on the sidelines--and without that capital, and the activity it would fund, there is no volume of operations to force the issue. Property rights are not simply a consequence of a maturing lunar economy; they are one of the preconditions for that economy reaching maturity at all.
5. Human Presence Beyond LEO: Extended human operations beyond LEO introduce environmental conditions that cannot be fully replicated on Earth. Partial gravity, chronic radiation exposure, and long-duration life support will generate biomedical uncertainties. These realities will translate into governance challenges, such as medical standards, duty-of-care obligations, emergency response frameworks, and liability regimes.
Human expansion beyond cislunar space--into deep space, here meaning the Moon, Mars, and the operating environments beyond--is as much an institutional design problem as a technological one. That design problem extends well beyond medical protocols. Property rights, contracts, patents, leases, taxation, royalties, and licensing regimes all evolved on Earth over centuries, backed by settled sovereignty and enforceable courts. Deep space offers neither. Deciding which of these frameworks apply in space, and who has standing to enforce them, is itself a stress point that Space Superiority does not resolve.
Where Transformation Actually Occurs
None of these trajectories is individually surprising; their significance lies in convergence. The insight worth holding onto is that convergence does not simply add capability, but rather creates a different kind of problem. A constraint on launch cadence, a constraint on where power can be sited, and a constraint on assigning responsibility when autonomous systems interact or fail--arriving at the same time, in the same handful of locations--do not stack. They compound into something none of these trajectories produces on its own: a qualitatively new set of constraints on how deep space can be used, by whom, and under what rules.
But convergence itself presupposes volume: These trajectories interact only where enough simultaneous activity exists to force them together. That, again, returns to the question of what generates the volume in the first place--because national pride and security anxiety, on their own, rarely fund multidecade capital commitments.
Deep-space environments will not be defined by any single system, treaty, or first-mover claim. They will be defined by how the capabilities brought to bear function together--or fail to. Just as reusable launch, miniaturization, and digital communications reshaped Earth's orbit, commerce, security, and infrastructure, deep-space transformation will arise from interacting capabilities. Cheap access combined with surface power, autonomous construction, and resource extraction will create environments far more complex than traditional mission planning assumptions anticipate. Operational friction--not technological scarcity--will become the defining constraint, assuming enough activity ever materializes to generate that friction in the first place.
The Politics of Forecasting
Expectations about the future are rarely neutral. Different stakeholders naturally emphasize futures aligned with their institutional strengths--infrastructure, science, security, or commerce. But regardless of perspective, one question now precedes all the others: whether real end-user demand--sovereign, commercial, or both--will ever reach a volume sufficient to make access, power, autonomy, resources, and human presence matter in practice as constraints to be managed, rather than merely trends to be tracked. National pride and security anxiety can pay for a demonstration, but they are unlikely, on their own, to pay for a market.
That is also why Space Superiority, whatever its framers intended, is unlikely to deliver what they hope. The order sets dates and reorganizes agencies, but it does not, and on its own cannot, manufacture demand, settle who writes the lunar economy's rules, or resolve who adjudicates property rights once interests collide. Those are the conditions under which the order's other ambitions would even become relevant. Absent them, Space Superiority risks becoming an impressive technical achievement in 2028 or 2030, followed by the same question that has ended every previous lunar push: What happens after the flag is planted, and who pays for act two?
This is the defining policy challenge of Space Superiority's execution--and its framers, however well intentioned, do not appear to have reckoned with it.
* * *
Courtney Stadd is a former NASA Chief of Staff, founding Board member of Orbital Progress, president of the Washington Space Business Roundtable, and executive vice president of the Beyond Earth Institute.
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Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/trumps-space-superiority-executive-order-stressors-will-shape-deep-space-development
[Category: ThinkTank]
CSIS Issues Commentary: Space Intelligence - Foundation of Space Superiority
WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary:
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Space Intelligence: The Foundation of Space Superiority
Commentary by John F. Huth
October 5, 2026
This piece is part of a commentary series called "The Foundations of Space Superiority" that analyzes the strategic, economic, and scientific drivers of securing a lasting U.S. advantage in space.
-
Sun Tzu observed that "if you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat." That principle has held for all domains humans have entered: land, ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary: * * * Space Intelligence: The Foundation of Space Superiority Commentary by John F. Huth October 5, 2026 This piece is part of a commentary series called "The Foundations of Space Superiority" that analyzes the strategic, economic, and scientific drivers of securing a lasting U.S. advantage in space. - Sun Tzu observed that "if you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat." That principle has held for all domains humans have entered: land,sea, air, and now space. Survival and advantage have always depended on a comprehensive understanding of environment and adversary together, not either in isolation.
The stakes of getting this wrong in space are recognized and codified at the national level. Executive Order 14369, Section 2(b)(ii), directs that U.S. space policy will focus on "ensuring the ability to detect, characterize, and counter threats to United States space interests from very low-Earth orbit and through cislunar space, including any placement of nuclear weapons in space." That is a mandate to know the environment and know the adversary across an enormously expanded battle space, one where surprise is costly and awareness is the precondition for everything else.
Space intelligence is that comprehensive understanding of the environment, and it includes both battlespace awareness and space domain awareness (SDA). Space intelligence is the modern expression of the same instinct that allowed humans to expand across every prior domain. As with land, sea, and air, moving into the non-native domain of space reveals unfamiliar types and sources of information to suddenly be essential for understanding what is out there, how it behaves, and who intends what with it. China's continued growth in space capabilities, and the continued development of counterspace capabilities by both China and Russia, highlight the need for comprehensive space intelligence capabilities for the United States and its allies.
The U.S. Space Force Future Operating Environment 2040 study frames having the right intelligence capabilities, or battlespace awareness in a degraded environment, as the top challenge to enabling space superiority. Without the intelligence sources to provide that awareness, space superiority--the freedom to operate in space while denying the same to an adversary--has no foundation for the conduct of operations. Effective implementation of the executive order through its space security strategy will also be highly dependent on intelligence.
Intelligence informs and provides decision advantage for executives in policy, acquisition, and operations. For example, to support negotiations between the executive branch and Congress in early 2019, the Defense Intelligence Agency produced Challenges to Security in Space. This unclassified report was used to highlight the growing threats to space from our adversaries, mainly China and Russia. This document supplemented classified discussions at an unclassified level, making foreign space threat information available to a broader body of decisionmakers in Congress who would be central to approval of the National Defense Authorization Act that stood up the Space Force. The report likewise informed our allies and the public. Additionally, in recent years, commercial SDA capabilities have proven to provide valuable insight on space activities. These have been used by government leaders to monitor adversary activities and call out bad behavior on orbit. Last December at Spacepower 2025, Chief Master Sergeant Ron Lerch, senior enlisted advisor to the deputy chief of space operations for intelligence, highlighted the value of commercial SDA capabilities for monitoring capabilities and activities, including the recent launch of Chinese Shiyan-24 satellites and Russian Mozhayets into a medium Earth orbit.
Intelligence is also essential for acquisition executives who are developing space capabilities that will ensure that the United States maintains its space superiority and can persevere through multiple phases of conflict. Understanding adversary capabilities, vulnerabilities, and employment doctrine is foundational to developing resilient U.S. capabilities. This intelligence is not limited to capabilities the United States develops for space but also extends to those capabilities that rely on space, such as GPS.
Operationally, intelligence informs all phases of the targeting cycle, from initial target development and intelligence preparation of the environment, to informing weaponeering options and engagement, to post-operation battle damage assessment. Characterizing a space object's capabilities, developing their patterns of life, and understanding adversary order of battle are essential intelligence functions that inform the entire targeting cycle. Having a comprehensive intelligence baseline is also necessary for detecting meaningful changes in adversary activities that may be indications of impending actions in space or other domains. These intelligence capabilities will be as important for space superiority as they are for all other domains of warfare.
In many ways, the space domain resembles other domains of warfare, but it also has unique qualities, including the sheer volume of the battle space and the speed of space objects. The recent proliferation of space objects by U.S. adversaries and demonstrations of their ability to maneuver rapidly in space--for example, China's 2022 SJ-21 movement of BeiDou-2--are challenges to the United States' ability to maintain awareness of the space domain. Persistence and speed of collection, along with the ability to make sense of multiple data sources to provide rapid response options, will be essential to space superiority. Data security and shared data standards across the U.S. government, industry, and international partners are equally necessary, particularly as machine-to-machine exchange and AI-enabled processing become the norm.
Maintaining a comprehensive, dynamically updated intelligence baseline is essential to move from a reactive to responsive to predictive posture, which will be a necessity to keep up with the speed of mission in the space domain. The goal is not just detecting threats after the fact but anticipating them before they materialize. This will mean leveraging all sources of data that impact the domain, not only data collected from space. That information could include nontraditional sources, such as indications of radio frequency or cyber interference from industry owner-operators, as well as financial and economic data indicating where adversaries are investing in technologies now and in the future.
Speaking at the Satellite 2020 conference, shortly after the Space Force was established, General DT Thompson, then the service's first vice chief of space operations, argued that the Space Force fundamentally requires a focused, robust space intelligence pipeline to function as a true war fighting domain. Intelligence is not a supporting function to space superiority. It is the "know the enemy" Sun Tzu described, applied to the newest domain. It is a top challenge to enabling space superiority and the precondition Executive Order 14369 assumes when it directs detection and characterization across the full extent of near-Earth through cislunar space.
* * *
John F. Huth is a career intelligence officer with over four decades of military, civil service, and industry experience in space and intelligence collection and analysis.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/space-intelligence-foundation-space-superiority
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
Space Intelligence: The Foundation of Space Superiority
Commentary by John F. Huth
October 5, 2026
This piece is part of a commentary series called "The Foundations of Space Superiority" that analyzes the strategic, economic, and scientific drivers of securing a lasting U.S. advantage in space.
-
Sun Tzu observed that "if you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat." That principle has held for all domains humans have entered: land, ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary: * * * Space Intelligence: The Foundation of Space Superiority Commentary by John F. Huth October 5, 2026 This piece is part of a commentary series called "The Foundations of Space Superiority" that analyzes the strategic, economic, and scientific drivers of securing a lasting U.S. advantage in space. - Sun Tzu observed that "if you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat." That principle has held for all domains humans have entered: land,sea, air, and now space. Survival and advantage have always depended on a comprehensive understanding of environment and adversary together, not either in isolation.
The stakes of getting this wrong in space are recognized and codified at the national level. Executive Order 14369, Section 2(b)(ii), directs that U.S. space policy will focus on "ensuring the ability to detect, characterize, and counter threats to United States space interests from very low-Earth orbit and through cislunar space, including any placement of nuclear weapons in space." That is a mandate to know the environment and know the adversary across an enormously expanded battle space, one where surprise is costly and awareness is the precondition for everything else.
Space intelligence is that comprehensive understanding of the environment, and it includes both battlespace awareness and space domain awareness (SDA). Space intelligence is the modern expression of the same instinct that allowed humans to expand across every prior domain. As with land, sea, and air, moving into the non-native domain of space reveals unfamiliar types and sources of information to suddenly be essential for understanding what is out there, how it behaves, and who intends what with it. China's continued growth in space capabilities, and the continued development of counterspace capabilities by both China and Russia, highlight the need for comprehensive space intelligence capabilities for the United States and its allies.
The U.S. Space Force Future Operating Environment 2040 study frames having the right intelligence capabilities, or battlespace awareness in a degraded environment, as the top challenge to enabling space superiority. Without the intelligence sources to provide that awareness, space superiority--the freedom to operate in space while denying the same to an adversary--has no foundation for the conduct of operations. Effective implementation of the executive order through its space security strategy will also be highly dependent on intelligence.
Intelligence informs and provides decision advantage for executives in policy, acquisition, and operations. For example, to support negotiations between the executive branch and Congress in early 2019, the Defense Intelligence Agency produced Challenges to Security in Space. This unclassified report was used to highlight the growing threats to space from our adversaries, mainly China and Russia. This document supplemented classified discussions at an unclassified level, making foreign space threat information available to a broader body of decisionmakers in Congress who would be central to approval of the National Defense Authorization Act that stood up the Space Force. The report likewise informed our allies and the public. Additionally, in recent years, commercial SDA capabilities have proven to provide valuable insight on space activities. These have been used by government leaders to monitor adversary activities and call out bad behavior on orbit. Last December at Spacepower 2025, Chief Master Sergeant Ron Lerch, senior enlisted advisor to the deputy chief of space operations for intelligence, highlighted the value of commercial SDA capabilities for monitoring capabilities and activities, including the recent launch of Chinese Shiyan-24 satellites and Russian Mozhayets into a medium Earth orbit.
Intelligence is also essential for acquisition executives who are developing space capabilities that will ensure that the United States maintains its space superiority and can persevere through multiple phases of conflict. Understanding adversary capabilities, vulnerabilities, and employment doctrine is foundational to developing resilient U.S. capabilities. This intelligence is not limited to capabilities the United States develops for space but also extends to those capabilities that rely on space, such as GPS.
Operationally, intelligence informs all phases of the targeting cycle, from initial target development and intelligence preparation of the environment, to informing weaponeering options and engagement, to post-operation battle damage assessment. Characterizing a space object's capabilities, developing their patterns of life, and understanding adversary order of battle are essential intelligence functions that inform the entire targeting cycle. Having a comprehensive intelligence baseline is also necessary for detecting meaningful changes in adversary activities that may be indications of impending actions in space or other domains. These intelligence capabilities will be as important for space superiority as they are for all other domains of warfare.
In many ways, the space domain resembles other domains of warfare, but it also has unique qualities, including the sheer volume of the battle space and the speed of space objects. The recent proliferation of space objects by U.S. adversaries and demonstrations of their ability to maneuver rapidly in space--for example, China's 2022 SJ-21 movement of BeiDou-2--are challenges to the United States' ability to maintain awareness of the space domain. Persistence and speed of collection, along with the ability to make sense of multiple data sources to provide rapid response options, will be essential to space superiority. Data security and shared data standards across the U.S. government, industry, and international partners are equally necessary, particularly as machine-to-machine exchange and AI-enabled processing become the norm.
Maintaining a comprehensive, dynamically updated intelligence baseline is essential to move from a reactive to responsive to predictive posture, which will be a necessity to keep up with the speed of mission in the space domain. The goal is not just detecting threats after the fact but anticipating them before they materialize. This will mean leveraging all sources of data that impact the domain, not only data collected from space. That information could include nontraditional sources, such as indications of radio frequency or cyber interference from industry owner-operators, as well as financial and economic data indicating where adversaries are investing in technologies now and in the future.
Speaking at the Satellite 2020 conference, shortly after the Space Force was established, General DT Thompson, then the service's first vice chief of space operations, argued that the Space Force fundamentally requires a focused, robust space intelligence pipeline to function as a true war fighting domain. Intelligence is not a supporting function to space superiority. It is the "know the enemy" Sun Tzu described, applied to the newest domain. It is a top challenge to enabling space superiority and the precondition Executive Order 14369 assumes when it directs detection and characterization across the full extent of near-Earth through cislunar space.
* * *
John F. Huth is a career intelligence officer with over four decades of military, civil service, and industry experience in space and intelligence collection and analysis.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/space-intelligence-foundation-space-superiority
[Category: ThinkTank]
CSIS Issues Commentary: Importance and Role of Private Venture Capital in Maintaining U.S. Space Superiority
WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary:
* * *
The Importance and Role of Private Venture Capital in Maintaining U.S. Space Superiority
Commentary by Omar Pimentel
October 5, 2026
This piece is part of a commentary series called "The Foundations of Space Superiority" that analyzes the strategic, economic, and scientific drivers of securing a lasting U.S. advantage in space.
-
When the Space Force published its Space Warfighting: A Framework for Planners in April 2025, it defined space superiority as the condition that "allows ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary: * * * The Importance and Role of Private Venture Capital in Maintaining U.S. Space Superiority Commentary by Omar Pimentel October 5, 2026 This piece is part of a commentary series called "The Foundations of Space Superiority" that analyzes the strategic, economic, and scientific drivers of securing a lasting U.S. advantage in space. - When the Space Force published its Space Warfighting: A Framework for Planners in April 2025, it defined space superiority as the condition that "allowsmilitary forces in every domain to operate at a time and place of their choosing without prohibitive interference from space or counterspace threats, while denying the same to an adversary." What is notable on a second reading is how much the definition leaves unspecified. It commits to an outcome without committing to the satellites, orbits, or constellation designs that will produce it, which is an accurate reflection of a contested domain in which the adversary's counterspace choices continually redefine what a survivable architecture looks like. Superiority in that environment is partly a discovery problem.
Since the 1950s, U.S. technological leadership has been financed by a form of capital that most of the government's acquisition system still treats as exotic: private capital. In 1957, a young investment banker named Arthur Rock helped eight engineers leave William Shockley's laboratory and found Fairchild Semiconductor, after some 30 prospective backers had declined, on terms that left the founders holding equity in their own company. Within a few years, Fairchild's engineers had developed the planar process and the first practical integrated circuit, and the earliest customers at scale were the Minuteman missile program and the Apollo Guidance Computer. The government had not commissioned the technology. Private money financed it, a defense and space customer bought it in volume, and that demand drove the cost down until commercial markets could sustain it on their own. The same sequence produced SpaceX, which developed the Falcon 9 on private capital and NASA milestone payments before the Space Force became one of its largest customers, and Palantir, which built its platform on venture money and an In-Q-Tel seed years before the U.S. Army adopted it at scale. Each company rests on an investing logic in which most bets fail and a few return enough to justify all of them, which is why private capital will finance attempts that a program office cannot.
Defense acquisition was designed on the opposite principle. A program of record selects an architecture early, defends it across a decade of budget cycles, and treats failure as an anomaly to be investigated, which is a sensible way to buy a carrier strike group and a poor way to build capabilities nobody has fully specified yet. Space superiority over the coming decade will turn on which nation can put private capital to work on the capabilities its acquisition system has not yet learned to ask for.
The case for venture capital rests on a structural change in how the United States finances innovation, and the Space Race is the wrong mental model for it. In 1964, the year federal research and development (R&D) peaked as a share of the U.S. economy, federal funding accounted for 1.86 percent of GDP and 67 percent of all domestic R&D. By 2022, federally funded R&D was 0.63 percent of GDP and 18 percent of domestic R&D. Business funded 31 percent of domestic R&D in 1964 and 75 percent in 2022. Apollo was built inside an innovation system in which Washington controlled two-thirds of the research dollars; the Space Force operates inside one in which the private sector controls three-quarters, and in which business accounts for the largest shares of applied R&D, the stage at which space hardware is actually engineered and flown. A strategy that finances the space industrial base primarily through appropriations draws on the smaller and shrinking pool of national R&D capital while leaving the larger pool unaddressed. Venture capital is the aggregation mechanism for that larger pool--the intermediary through which pension funds, endowments, and sovereign wealth become concentrated, milestone-driven bets on specific companies--and therefore the channel through which the dominant share of U.S. R&D capacity can be pointed at national security space at all.
The Space Force's own budget shows the distance between commercial rhetoric and commercial spend. For fiscal year 2027, the administration is requesting $71 billion in baseline and reconciliation funding for the Space Force. $1.4 billion of the Space Force budget is clearly earmarked for commercial services, with over $1.3 billion of that amount intended for space launch. The budget line that funds the Tactical Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Tracking Program and other nonlaunch commercial services is only $23.7 million, a rounding error against the request, and even the service's broader claim of more than $2.5 billion in commercial capabilities and services across a number of programs amounts to roughly 3.5 percent. A demand signal that the service cannot measure is one an investor cannot underwrite, either.
Apple's supply chain shows how completely private capital now dwarfs public industrial policy. Patrick McGee's reporting from internal company documents found that Apple's investments in China reached $55 billion per year by 2015, and in 2016, Apple CEO Tim Cook pledged $275 billion over five years. The CHIPS and Science Act, which senior administration officials described as a once-in-a-generation investment, provides $52 billion over four years. One company's annual capital deployment into a strategic competitor's manufacturing base exceeded the entire multiyear federal program designed to counter that competitor. The relevant competition in space is with foreign commercial entities whose state sponsors combine subsidy with market signals, and a U.S. posture that leaves private capital on the sidelines concedes the larger pool by default.
Venture capital contributes several things to space superiority that appropriations, prime contractors, public markets, and bank debt structurally cannot. It absorbs technical failure on private balance sheets, which is what allows a proliferated architecture to be built through trial. It finances capability ahead of a validated requirement, so that reusable launch, commercial synthetic aperture radar, and proliferated low Earth orbit communications each reached maturity on private money before the Pentagon had articulated a formal demand, and reconstitution after attack requires exactly that kind of pre-positioned commercial inventory. Equity incentives produce iteration cycles measured in months, and an architecture that refreshes every 18 months is a harder targeting problem than one frozen at contract award. Investors searching for the company that will unseat an incumbent produce the second and third sources that offset the current concentration in U.S. launch. And cheap launch is valuable only if someone builds what it makes possible, which is why the sensing, servicing, and manufacturing businesses that now deliver a growing share of the government's space domain awareness were financed privately on the expectation of mixed commercial and government revenue.
The government's role in this system is catalytic. A targeted federal contract validates a technology against a real operational need, establishes the government as a customer investors can model, and retires enough technical risk that institutional funds will underwrite the next round at scale, so that a few million dollars in prototype awards can crowd in hundreds of millions in private capital. The instruments exist. Defense Innovation Unit awards under other transaction authority function as a due diligence signal to the venture market. SpaceWERX and AFWERX's Strategic Funding Increase and Tactical Funding Increase awards condition government funding on private investor participation. National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 1 gave emerging providers a credible path to government revenue. Responsive space architecture, mesh-network constellations, and rapid launch infrastructure all depend on companies maintaining inventory, cadence, and capital expenditure in anticipation of demand, and only predictable demand makes that underwritable. A $100 million services contract with a five-year horizon crowds in more private capital than a $500 million single-year award.
Reliance on venture capital also imports its vulnerabilities. The valley of death between a working prototype and a production contract runs several years in space, and when the venture market contracts, as it did after 2021, companies in that interval face a down round, a distressed sale, or a foreign investor willing to pay a premium for access. Minority positions structured through intermediaries remain difficult for the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to police, and a cash-constrained company can transfer know-how through licensing or offshore manufacturing without any equity changing hands. Most funds carry a 10-year life, and a satellite production line may take longer than that to justify an exit, which pressures general partners to sell early--sometimes to a prime that removes the second source the government wanted. China has meanwhile stood up a commercial space industry by directive, and whether a state can sustain the failure rate that makes the venture model work is a question the United States should not wait to answer.
Aligning venture timelines with long-term space dominance requires the Pentagon to treat the venture cycle as a variable it can influence. Multiyear service contracts with option years and Small Business Innovation Research Phase III authority convert demand into underwritable revenue. The Office of Strategic Capital's loan authority can bridge the gap between a fund's life and a long-duration asset's maturity. A trusted capital marketplace and streamlined approval for acquisitions by cleared domestic buyers give investors an exit that is not foreign money. Extending outbound investment rules and CFIUS review to minority positions in designated space technologies, with pre-clearance for known trusted investors, closes the adversarial-capital gap. Each of these shifts timing risk to the government while leaving technical and market risk with investors, which is the right division of labor between the party with the longest horizon and the party best equipped to choose the bets.
David Gauthier's contribution to this series examines the commercial ecosystem, and John Huth's examines the intelligence problem. Venture capital sits between them as the mechanism that converts an ecosystem into fielded hardware. Its deepest contribution to space superiority may be one the framework implies without stating. An adversary planning a counterspace campaign against a single program of record can study that program for a decade and design against it. An adversary facing a portfolio of privately financed architectures, several of them unannounced and most of them changing, confronts a target that cannot be fully characterized. Unpredictability is a defensive property in its own right, and a nation whose space capabilities are produced by many competing investors is, by construction, harder to plan against than one whose capabilities are produced by a budget alone.
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Omar Pimentel is director of frontier strategy at Type One Ventures.
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Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/importance-and-role-private-venture-capital-maintaining-us-space-superiority
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
The Importance and Role of Private Venture Capital in Maintaining U.S. Space Superiority
Commentary by Omar Pimentel
October 5, 2026
This piece is part of a commentary series called "The Foundations of Space Superiority" that analyzes the strategic, economic, and scientific drivers of securing a lasting U.S. advantage in space.
-
When the Space Force published its Space Warfighting: A Framework for Planners in April 2025, it defined space superiority as the condition that "allows ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary: * * * The Importance and Role of Private Venture Capital in Maintaining U.S. Space Superiority Commentary by Omar Pimentel October 5, 2026 This piece is part of a commentary series called "The Foundations of Space Superiority" that analyzes the strategic, economic, and scientific drivers of securing a lasting U.S. advantage in space. - When the Space Force published its Space Warfighting: A Framework for Planners in April 2025, it defined space superiority as the condition that "allowsmilitary forces in every domain to operate at a time and place of their choosing without prohibitive interference from space or counterspace threats, while denying the same to an adversary." What is notable on a second reading is how much the definition leaves unspecified. It commits to an outcome without committing to the satellites, orbits, or constellation designs that will produce it, which is an accurate reflection of a contested domain in which the adversary's counterspace choices continually redefine what a survivable architecture looks like. Superiority in that environment is partly a discovery problem.
Since the 1950s, U.S. technological leadership has been financed by a form of capital that most of the government's acquisition system still treats as exotic: private capital. In 1957, a young investment banker named Arthur Rock helped eight engineers leave William Shockley's laboratory and found Fairchild Semiconductor, after some 30 prospective backers had declined, on terms that left the founders holding equity in their own company. Within a few years, Fairchild's engineers had developed the planar process and the first practical integrated circuit, and the earliest customers at scale were the Minuteman missile program and the Apollo Guidance Computer. The government had not commissioned the technology. Private money financed it, a defense and space customer bought it in volume, and that demand drove the cost down until commercial markets could sustain it on their own. The same sequence produced SpaceX, which developed the Falcon 9 on private capital and NASA milestone payments before the Space Force became one of its largest customers, and Palantir, which built its platform on venture money and an In-Q-Tel seed years before the U.S. Army adopted it at scale. Each company rests on an investing logic in which most bets fail and a few return enough to justify all of them, which is why private capital will finance attempts that a program office cannot.
Defense acquisition was designed on the opposite principle. A program of record selects an architecture early, defends it across a decade of budget cycles, and treats failure as an anomaly to be investigated, which is a sensible way to buy a carrier strike group and a poor way to build capabilities nobody has fully specified yet. Space superiority over the coming decade will turn on which nation can put private capital to work on the capabilities its acquisition system has not yet learned to ask for.
The case for venture capital rests on a structural change in how the United States finances innovation, and the Space Race is the wrong mental model for it. In 1964, the year federal research and development (R&D) peaked as a share of the U.S. economy, federal funding accounted for 1.86 percent of GDP and 67 percent of all domestic R&D. By 2022, federally funded R&D was 0.63 percent of GDP and 18 percent of domestic R&D. Business funded 31 percent of domestic R&D in 1964 and 75 percent in 2022. Apollo was built inside an innovation system in which Washington controlled two-thirds of the research dollars; the Space Force operates inside one in which the private sector controls three-quarters, and in which business accounts for the largest shares of applied R&D, the stage at which space hardware is actually engineered and flown. A strategy that finances the space industrial base primarily through appropriations draws on the smaller and shrinking pool of national R&D capital while leaving the larger pool unaddressed. Venture capital is the aggregation mechanism for that larger pool--the intermediary through which pension funds, endowments, and sovereign wealth become concentrated, milestone-driven bets on specific companies--and therefore the channel through which the dominant share of U.S. R&D capacity can be pointed at national security space at all.
The Space Force's own budget shows the distance between commercial rhetoric and commercial spend. For fiscal year 2027, the administration is requesting $71 billion in baseline and reconciliation funding for the Space Force. $1.4 billion of the Space Force budget is clearly earmarked for commercial services, with over $1.3 billion of that amount intended for space launch. The budget line that funds the Tactical Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Tracking Program and other nonlaunch commercial services is only $23.7 million, a rounding error against the request, and even the service's broader claim of more than $2.5 billion in commercial capabilities and services across a number of programs amounts to roughly 3.5 percent. A demand signal that the service cannot measure is one an investor cannot underwrite, either.
Apple's supply chain shows how completely private capital now dwarfs public industrial policy. Patrick McGee's reporting from internal company documents found that Apple's investments in China reached $55 billion per year by 2015, and in 2016, Apple CEO Tim Cook pledged $275 billion over five years. The CHIPS and Science Act, which senior administration officials described as a once-in-a-generation investment, provides $52 billion over four years. One company's annual capital deployment into a strategic competitor's manufacturing base exceeded the entire multiyear federal program designed to counter that competitor. The relevant competition in space is with foreign commercial entities whose state sponsors combine subsidy with market signals, and a U.S. posture that leaves private capital on the sidelines concedes the larger pool by default.
Venture capital contributes several things to space superiority that appropriations, prime contractors, public markets, and bank debt structurally cannot. It absorbs technical failure on private balance sheets, which is what allows a proliferated architecture to be built through trial. It finances capability ahead of a validated requirement, so that reusable launch, commercial synthetic aperture radar, and proliferated low Earth orbit communications each reached maturity on private money before the Pentagon had articulated a formal demand, and reconstitution after attack requires exactly that kind of pre-positioned commercial inventory. Equity incentives produce iteration cycles measured in months, and an architecture that refreshes every 18 months is a harder targeting problem than one frozen at contract award. Investors searching for the company that will unseat an incumbent produce the second and third sources that offset the current concentration in U.S. launch. And cheap launch is valuable only if someone builds what it makes possible, which is why the sensing, servicing, and manufacturing businesses that now deliver a growing share of the government's space domain awareness were financed privately on the expectation of mixed commercial and government revenue.
The government's role in this system is catalytic. A targeted federal contract validates a technology against a real operational need, establishes the government as a customer investors can model, and retires enough technical risk that institutional funds will underwrite the next round at scale, so that a few million dollars in prototype awards can crowd in hundreds of millions in private capital. The instruments exist. Defense Innovation Unit awards under other transaction authority function as a due diligence signal to the venture market. SpaceWERX and AFWERX's Strategic Funding Increase and Tactical Funding Increase awards condition government funding on private investor participation. National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 1 gave emerging providers a credible path to government revenue. Responsive space architecture, mesh-network constellations, and rapid launch infrastructure all depend on companies maintaining inventory, cadence, and capital expenditure in anticipation of demand, and only predictable demand makes that underwritable. A $100 million services contract with a five-year horizon crowds in more private capital than a $500 million single-year award.
Reliance on venture capital also imports its vulnerabilities. The valley of death between a working prototype and a production contract runs several years in space, and when the venture market contracts, as it did after 2021, companies in that interval face a down round, a distressed sale, or a foreign investor willing to pay a premium for access. Minority positions structured through intermediaries remain difficult for the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to police, and a cash-constrained company can transfer know-how through licensing or offshore manufacturing without any equity changing hands. Most funds carry a 10-year life, and a satellite production line may take longer than that to justify an exit, which pressures general partners to sell early--sometimes to a prime that removes the second source the government wanted. China has meanwhile stood up a commercial space industry by directive, and whether a state can sustain the failure rate that makes the venture model work is a question the United States should not wait to answer.
Aligning venture timelines with long-term space dominance requires the Pentagon to treat the venture cycle as a variable it can influence. Multiyear service contracts with option years and Small Business Innovation Research Phase III authority convert demand into underwritable revenue. The Office of Strategic Capital's loan authority can bridge the gap between a fund's life and a long-duration asset's maturity. A trusted capital marketplace and streamlined approval for acquisitions by cleared domestic buyers give investors an exit that is not foreign money. Extending outbound investment rules and CFIUS review to minority positions in designated space technologies, with pre-clearance for known trusted investors, closes the adversarial-capital gap. Each of these shifts timing risk to the government while leaving technical and market risk with investors, which is the right division of labor between the party with the longest horizon and the party best equipped to choose the bets.
David Gauthier's contribution to this series examines the commercial ecosystem, and John Huth's examines the intelligence problem. Venture capital sits between them as the mechanism that converts an ecosystem into fielded hardware. Its deepest contribution to space superiority may be one the framework implies without stating. An adversary planning a counterspace campaign against a single program of record can study that program for a decade and design against it. An adversary facing a portfolio of privately financed architectures, several of them unannounced and most of them changing, confronts a target that cannot be fully characterized. Unpredictability is a defensive property in its own right, and a nation whose space capabilities are produced by many competing investors is, by construction, harder to plan against than one whose capabilities are produced by a budget alone.
* * *
Omar Pimentel is director of frontier strategy at Type One Ventures.
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Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/importance-and-role-private-venture-capital-maintaining-us-space-superiority
[Category: ThinkTank]
CSIS Issues Commentary: Economic Engine of Enduring Space Power
WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary:
* * *
The Economic Engine of Enduring Space Power
Commentary by Clayton Swope
October 5, 2026
This piece is part of a commentary series called "The Foundations of Space Superiority" that analyzes the strategic, economic, and scientific drivers of securing a lasting U.S. advantage in space.
-
In his best-known work, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783, published in 1890, Alfred Thayer Mahan asserted that peacetime international commerce served as the bedrock on which maritime ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary: * * * The Economic Engine of Enduring Space Power Commentary by Clayton Swope October 5, 2026 This piece is part of a commentary series called "The Foundations of Space Superiority" that analyzes the strategic, economic, and scientific drivers of securing a lasting U.S. advantage in space. - In his best-known work, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783, published in 1890, Alfred Thayer Mahan asserted that peacetime international commerce served as the bedrock on which maritimesuperiority was built. Similarly, today, national space power should be based on a solid foundation of international commerce and trade. Increased domestic spending on space and developing military space power are important, but not enough to secure lasting space superiority. In the same way Mahan believed that countries that neglected to develop their international maritime commerce could never sustain long-term support for their high seas fleets, building military space power unmoored from commercial interests will produce, at best, ephemeral rather than lasting space superiority. To establish and maintain enduring space superiority, the United States will need to ensure its space companies are best positioned to capitalize on broader global space markets and dominate nongovernment and international spaceborne commerce.
Few U.S. policymakers would disagree with the idea that maintaining great power status over the next century requires a nation to gain space superiority. In fact, the Trump administration has issued an executive order focused on achieving that goal. Like the sea, space provides a physical connective tissue between nations, and is an enabler for connectivity and information technology services worldwide. The intrinsic strategic value of the space domain derives primarily from its economic potential connecting global markets rather than from an a priori military requirement. Like global trade in goods during the nineteenth century, digital commerce and AI-enabled services are the economic engine of tomorrow and are expected to comprise nearly 20 percent of global GDP by 2028. Space also provides unique manufacturing opportunities in microgravity that will lead to the development of significant physical manufacturing and reentry infrastructure in orbit. Attaining sea and space superiority requires an international market and the means (i.e., merchant fleet or space infrastructure) to profit from that market.
While there is no shortage of public discourse on the need to grow the commercial space economy, often lost is the fact that the main customer for many U.S. space companies today is the U.S. government. Government-dominated markets have different incentives around efficiencies and price dynamics and behave differently than standard commercial markets. A Mahanian concept of space superiority is not compatible with an oligopsony--with the U.S. government as the dominant buyer--but rather requires customer diversity and market depth. The good news is that not all parts of the space economy depend on governments as their main end customer. In recent years, the majority of U.S. space launches placed commercial satellites into orbit. But launch services are an upstream input--what matters is the end customer for the services provided by those commercial satellites. Of the markets for services provided by satellites today, only one--satellite communications--is dominated by nongovernment, commercial customers (e.g., consumers and other businesses).
It is probable that the end customers for several other emerging space businesses--on-orbit computing, manufacturing, and resource extraction--may be mainly private sector customers. In some cases, the outputs of these businesses may be upstream inputs or parts of a supply chain for end products whose main customers are government agencies. Without minimizing the possible utility of space mining, echoing Mahan's warning about how focusing on mineral wealth kept Spain and Portugal from attaining lasting maritime power, developing space resources without a concurrent development in other space-based commerce and trade would not produce sustainable space superiority. If terrestrial data center trends are a reliable guide, the majority of customers for their on-orbit cousins will come from the private sector. Given that semiconductors and pharmaceutical products seem to be the most promising use cases for on-orbit manufacturing, space-based manufacturing appears to be headed on a similar trajectory, serving a predominantly nongovernment customer base.
Like a merchant marine fleet, space-based digital infrastructure, such as communications--and possibly computing, in the future--generates national wealth through two complementary actions. First, companies sell information and communication technology services to customers around the globe. Then, as a result, other firms providing digital products gain access and can sell to new markets worldwide. In addition to digital services, space infrastructure is poised to create more value-added products, specifically through the manufacture of goods in space that are returned to and sold on Earth. Companies are already operating spacecraft designed to take advantage of the unique properties of a microgravity environment to manufacture products with characteristics superior to their cousins manufactured on Earth. Space infrastructure designed to facilitate the manufacture and transportation of such commercial goods will also generate national wealth, playing an increasingly important role in a truly commercial space economy.
Although Mahan recognized that government policies could not by themselves secure maritime supremacy for any nation, he argued they played an important role, particularly to create fertile ground for the success of entrepreneurs and business innovators. To help bridge companies to commercial viability, government leaders have a number of policy tools, including but not limited to procurement and contracting choices, tax incentives, export controls, decisions related to the use of spectrum resources, and government-backed investments, grants, and loans. Of all these governmental tools for influencing the space economy, tax policy is the least discussed. But tax policies designed to encourage certain activities, such as investments in research and development, can have enormous impacts not just on Earth, but also in space.
The issue is that the U.S. tax code is often unclear on whether activities in space qualify for incentives because the rules are usually written with terrestrial geography in mind. For example, whether U.S. property in orbit qualifies as "in" or "outside" the United States for the bonus depreciation provision of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is not clear. Whether research and development costs for activities conducted by a U.S. company in orbit qualify as domestic or foreign costs also remains unclear. If the goal is to increase U.S. innovation, clarity is needed to ensure activities conducted by U.S. companies in space qualify for tax incentives tied to geography on Earth. Broadly speaking, the question is whether a commercial U.S. activity in space is treated the same as a terrestrial one by the tax code. This is an issue some policymakers are already trying to address. For example, legislation under consideration in Congress aims to fix this ambiguity and ensure that space-based semiconductor manufacturing would qualify for existing federal tax incentives authorized under the CHIPS and Science Act. Beyond semiconductors, encouraging the development of U.S. commercial infrastructure in orbit also helps support other microgravity manufacturing use cases, such as biotech and pharmaceuticals--other product categories with strong nongovernment commercial appeal.
Similar to tax rules, spectrum use rules play an outsized role in encouraging economic growth in space. In its decisionmaking, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has focused on giving U.S. satellite connectivity operators an edge and increasing their global competitiveness. Specifically, the FCC created a framework for direct-to-device satellite services, modernized rules that placed strict power limits on low Earth orbit broadband systems, updated its overall space licensing process in 2026, and is considering opening up unlicensed spectrum for use by certain satellites. At an upcoming international meeting--the World Radio Conference in 2027--the U.S. government will advocate that other countries adopt similarly meaningful changes. In another move that will further develop the economic foundations required for sustained U.S. space superiority, the U.S. government decided that space-based internet options should be considered equally alongside fiber- and cable-based options for Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program funding.
For enduring space superiority, the United States should focus policies on building a commercial space economy led by U.S. companies producing and offering space products that, in addition to serving domestic customers, can capitalize on international trade and commerce. Space superiority cannot be entirely based on military space power, and it cannot be established through a government decree. Policies also cannot create markets, but they can shape the battlespace and help create the right conditions for U.S. companies to capitalize on market trends and grow their global market share; policymakers can help create the right conditions that allow for U.S. entrepreneurs and innovators to do the rest. Like Mahan's vision of command of the seas, with the right policies in place, space superiority becomes a dynamic, economically self-sustaining flywheel that is powered by U.S. businesses and also underpins and justifies U.S. military power in space.
* * *
Clayton Swope is deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project and senior fellow in the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/economic-engine-enduring-space-power
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
The Economic Engine of Enduring Space Power
Commentary by Clayton Swope
October 5, 2026
This piece is part of a commentary series called "The Foundations of Space Superiority" that analyzes the strategic, economic, and scientific drivers of securing a lasting U.S. advantage in space.
-
In his best-known work, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783, published in 1890, Alfred Thayer Mahan asserted that peacetime international commerce served as the bedrock on which maritime ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary: * * * The Economic Engine of Enduring Space Power Commentary by Clayton Swope October 5, 2026 This piece is part of a commentary series called "The Foundations of Space Superiority" that analyzes the strategic, economic, and scientific drivers of securing a lasting U.S. advantage in space. - In his best-known work, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783, published in 1890, Alfred Thayer Mahan asserted that peacetime international commerce served as the bedrock on which maritimesuperiority was built. Similarly, today, national space power should be based on a solid foundation of international commerce and trade. Increased domestic spending on space and developing military space power are important, but not enough to secure lasting space superiority. In the same way Mahan believed that countries that neglected to develop their international maritime commerce could never sustain long-term support for their high seas fleets, building military space power unmoored from commercial interests will produce, at best, ephemeral rather than lasting space superiority. To establish and maintain enduring space superiority, the United States will need to ensure its space companies are best positioned to capitalize on broader global space markets and dominate nongovernment and international spaceborne commerce.
Few U.S. policymakers would disagree with the idea that maintaining great power status over the next century requires a nation to gain space superiority. In fact, the Trump administration has issued an executive order focused on achieving that goal. Like the sea, space provides a physical connective tissue between nations, and is an enabler for connectivity and information technology services worldwide. The intrinsic strategic value of the space domain derives primarily from its economic potential connecting global markets rather than from an a priori military requirement. Like global trade in goods during the nineteenth century, digital commerce and AI-enabled services are the economic engine of tomorrow and are expected to comprise nearly 20 percent of global GDP by 2028. Space also provides unique manufacturing opportunities in microgravity that will lead to the development of significant physical manufacturing and reentry infrastructure in orbit. Attaining sea and space superiority requires an international market and the means (i.e., merchant fleet or space infrastructure) to profit from that market.
While there is no shortage of public discourse on the need to grow the commercial space economy, often lost is the fact that the main customer for many U.S. space companies today is the U.S. government. Government-dominated markets have different incentives around efficiencies and price dynamics and behave differently than standard commercial markets. A Mahanian concept of space superiority is not compatible with an oligopsony--with the U.S. government as the dominant buyer--but rather requires customer diversity and market depth. The good news is that not all parts of the space economy depend on governments as their main end customer. In recent years, the majority of U.S. space launches placed commercial satellites into orbit. But launch services are an upstream input--what matters is the end customer for the services provided by those commercial satellites. Of the markets for services provided by satellites today, only one--satellite communications--is dominated by nongovernment, commercial customers (e.g., consumers and other businesses).
It is probable that the end customers for several other emerging space businesses--on-orbit computing, manufacturing, and resource extraction--may be mainly private sector customers. In some cases, the outputs of these businesses may be upstream inputs or parts of a supply chain for end products whose main customers are government agencies. Without minimizing the possible utility of space mining, echoing Mahan's warning about how focusing on mineral wealth kept Spain and Portugal from attaining lasting maritime power, developing space resources without a concurrent development in other space-based commerce and trade would not produce sustainable space superiority. If terrestrial data center trends are a reliable guide, the majority of customers for their on-orbit cousins will come from the private sector. Given that semiconductors and pharmaceutical products seem to be the most promising use cases for on-orbit manufacturing, space-based manufacturing appears to be headed on a similar trajectory, serving a predominantly nongovernment customer base.
Like a merchant marine fleet, space-based digital infrastructure, such as communications--and possibly computing, in the future--generates national wealth through two complementary actions. First, companies sell information and communication technology services to customers around the globe. Then, as a result, other firms providing digital products gain access and can sell to new markets worldwide. In addition to digital services, space infrastructure is poised to create more value-added products, specifically through the manufacture of goods in space that are returned to and sold on Earth. Companies are already operating spacecraft designed to take advantage of the unique properties of a microgravity environment to manufacture products with characteristics superior to their cousins manufactured on Earth. Space infrastructure designed to facilitate the manufacture and transportation of such commercial goods will also generate national wealth, playing an increasingly important role in a truly commercial space economy.
Although Mahan recognized that government policies could not by themselves secure maritime supremacy for any nation, he argued they played an important role, particularly to create fertile ground for the success of entrepreneurs and business innovators. To help bridge companies to commercial viability, government leaders have a number of policy tools, including but not limited to procurement and contracting choices, tax incentives, export controls, decisions related to the use of spectrum resources, and government-backed investments, grants, and loans. Of all these governmental tools for influencing the space economy, tax policy is the least discussed. But tax policies designed to encourage certain activities, such as investments in research and development, can have enormous impacts not just on Earth, but also in space.
The issue is that the U.S. tax code is often unclear on whether activities in space qualify for incentives because the rules are usually written with terrestrial geography in mind. For example, whether U.S. property in orbit qualifies as "in" or "outside" the United States for the bonus depreciation provision of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is not clear. Whether research and development costs for activities conducted by a U.S. company in orbit qualify as domestic or foreign costs also remains unclear. If the goal is to increase U.S. innovation, clarity is needed to ensure activities conducted by U.S. companies in space qualify for tax incentives tied to geography on Earth. Broadly speaking, the question is whether a commercial U.S. activity in space is treated the same as a terrestrial one by the tax code. This is an issue some policymakers are already trying to address. For example, legislation under consideration in Congress aims to fix this ambiguity and ensure that space-based semiconductor manufacturing would qualify for existing federal tax incentives authorized under the CHIPS and Science Act. Beyond semiconductors, encouraging the development of U.S. commercial infrastructure in orbit also helps support other microgravity manufacturing use cases, such as biotech and pharmaceuticals--other product categories with strong nongovernment commercial appeal.
Similar to tax rules, spectrum use rules play an outsized role in encouraging economic growth in space. In its decisionmaking, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has focused on giving U.S. satellite connectivity operators an edge and increasing their global competitiveness. Specifically, the FCC created a framework for direct-to-device satellite services, modernized rules that placed strict power limits on low Earth orbit broadband systems, updated its overall space licensing process in 2026, and is considering opening up unlicensed spectrum for use by certain satellites. At an upcoming international meeting--the World Radio Conference in 2027--the U.S. government will advocate that other countries adopt similarly meaningful changes. In another move that will further develop the economic foundations required for sustained U.S. space superiority, the U.S. government decided that space-based internet options should be considered equally alongside fiber- and cable-based options for Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program funding.
For enduring space superiority, the United States should focus policies on building a commercial space economy led by U.S. companies producing and offering space products that, in addition to serving domestic customers, can capitalize on international trade and commerce. Space superiority cannot be entirely based on military space power, and it cannot be established through a government decree. Policies also cannot create markets, but they can shape the battlespace and help create the right conditions for U.S. companies to capitalize on market trends and grow their global market share; policymakers can help create the right conditions that allow for U.S. entrepreneurs and innovators to do the rest. Like Mahan's vision of command of the seas, with the right policies in place, space superiority becomes a dynamic, economically self-sustaining flywheel that is powered by U.S. businesses and also underpins and justifies U.S. military power in space.
* * *
Clayton Swope is deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project and senior fellow in the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/economic-engine-enduring-space-power
[Category: ThinkTank]
Jamestown Foundation Issues Commentary Entitled 'Overseas Support for Unification Builds'
WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 -- The Jamestown Foundation issued the following commentary on Oct. 4, 2026, in the foundation's China Brief:
* * *
Overseas Support for Unification Builds
Arran Hope
Executive Summary:
* Support for annexing Taiwan is gaining prominence in the Party's united front work, according to analysis of speeches, events, and commentary surrounding the celebrations of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC).
* At recent events in the United Kingdom and France, the Party's chosen representatives of overseas Chinese communities made pledges to support unification and ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 -- The Jamestown Foundation issued the following commentary on Oct. 4, 2026, in the foundation's China Brief: * * * Overseas Support for Unification Builds Arran Hope Executive Summary: * Support for annexing Taiwan is gaining prominence in the Party's united front work, according to analysis of speeches, events, and commentary surrounding the celebrations of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC). * At recent events in the United Kingdom and France, the Party's chosen representatives of overseas Chinese communities made pledges to support unification andaffirmed loyalty to the Party above and beyond their home governments.
* The PRC sought to use the recent summit meeting between General Secretary Xi Jinping and U.S. president Donald Trump to press for concessions on the U.S. understanding of both World War II history and PRC claims over Taiwan.
-
The anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) is an opportunity for the Party faithful to renew their vows of allegiance. It also serves as a reminder of what that allegiance entails. For overseas Chinese, the demands from the center are rising. Recent statements made by the leadership in Beijing, its emissaries around the world, and commentators in official publications all make clear that the Party is doubling down on its overseas united front work in order to enlist support for both its economic and political objectives, including support for the annexation of Taiwan.
One of the more articulate expositions of how the Party thinks about how to leverage overseas Chinese comes in an article for the September issue of the magazine China's United Fron, which is published by the United Front Work Department (Zhang Xiaoxin, September 2026). [1] In the new era, the author writes, overseas Chinese have been given an "unprecedented historical mission" and are an "indispensable and important component serving national strategies". A separate piece, penned by an academic based in Suzhou, talks of "handling the relationship between enemies and friends" and calls for "striving to fulfill the original aspiration of the republic by building and improving both the domestic united front and the international united front". Using the same phrase, he described these two united fronts as "indispensable" for national rejuvenation (Aisixiang, September 25).
Pressure Builds to Support Unification
As General Secretary Xi Jinping has frequently made clear, the annexation of Taiwan is a necessary condition for the achievement of national rejuvenation. In his speech to celebrate the 77th anniversary of the PRC's founding, he told those listening to "resolutely crack downon 'Taiwan independence' separatist forces ... [and] advance the great cause of national unification (People's Daily, October 1). [2] Politburo member Wang Huning, who hosted a separate national day celebration for the Party's main united front organizations, echoed these remarks. He also said that he would thoroughly implement the Party's "overall strategy for resolving the Taiwan issue in the new era" and its "policies on overseas Chinese affairs ... [to] promote national unification". These include consolidating and developing "the broadest patriotic united front" (People's Daily, September 29). [3] The same day, United Front Work Department director Li Ganjie also told the leadership of the China Overseas Friendship Association to vigorously safeguard and promote national unification (People's Daily, September 29).
These remarks are standard formulations, especially at this time of year; but early evidence suggests that, following two important united front-related conferences over the summer, the Party is making discourse on unification even more central to its external messaging. According to some coverage of one of those meetings, the National Conference on Overseas Chinese Affairs, a key outcome was the declaration of "three new requirements for the times", also referred to as a clarification of the "three benefits" principle, one of which is for overseas Chinese to play a greater role promoting unification (Americas Chinese TV, September 21; Zhang Xiaoxin, September 2026).
Senior officials have also cranked up pressure during diplomatic outreach to Taiwan's key partners. In a meeting with the chairman of the Japan Association for the Promotion of International Trade, for example--a local organization in Japan that engages with united front and other PRC political warfare organizations--Foreign Minister Wang Yi took issue with the Tokyo's stance on Taiwan. He warned that if the country continued down the path of rebuilding its military, it "will hardly have a future at all" (China Brief, June 26, 2019; People's Daily, September 29).
The PRC also tried to co-opt the United States to its revisionist view of history during the recent summit between Xi and President Donald Trump. In an interview following the meeting, PRC ambassador to the United States Xie Feng implied that Trump agreed to respect Beijing's claims over Taiwan. First, Xie noted that Trump and Xi "agreed to jointly safeguard the victorious outcomes of the [second world] war." In recent months, Beijing has pushed a narrative that the "enemy state clauses" of the United Nations Charter permits it to engage in military action should Japan move toward rebuilding its armed forces (Global Times, September 29). Although a 1995 UN General Assembly resolution recognized that those clauses had become obsolete, they are yet to be removed from the charter. In this way, Ambassador Xie suggested that Xi had successfully extracted assurances from Trump that the United States opposes Japan's rearmament. He also implied that Trump is amenable to Beijing's view on Taiwan, stating that the two leaders agreed that the "constructive China-U.S. relationship of strategic stability" now entails "respecting each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity," which, for the PRC, means respecting its claims over Taiwan (Newsweek, October 1). This interpretation is a plausible reading of the summit's outcomes, though it does go beyond the official outcomes published by the two sides (The White House, September 25; Xinhua, September 26).
PRC diplomats have also presided over events to elicit support from overseas Chinese communities for these same objectives. In France, for instance, Ambassador Deng Li said that overseas Chinese in France will "always firmly support the path of national development and consciously safeguard the core interests of the country. Those present committed to "upholding their patriotic aspirations ... and joining hands with their motherland to embark on a new journey of national rejuvenation" (Europe Times, September 27).
A similar event was held in the United Kingdom and attended by Ambassador Zheng Zeguang. One of the hosts, Wu Lili, delivered a speech declaring that "all overseas Chinese in the United Kingdom have always upheld the original aspiration of 'living in Britain but with hearts connected to China'". The event's other organizers, Lin Qing, Zhong Xiaoping, and Lin Xinxian, went further, affirming that all overseas Chinese "will always remain loyal to the Party". What this loyalty means in practice, as Ambassador Zheng noted in his remarks, is that overseas Chinese cultivate a deep sense of patriotism and, among other things, become "promoters of the great cause of China's unification" (Europe Times, September 23).
These statements effectively constitute loyalty oaths to the Party. They are a compact to put the Party's interests first, over and above those of their home governments. Though rarely reported on, such statements are likely to become increasingly standard. As the article in China's United Front observes, "in the long run, the importance of overseas Chinese affairs related to Taiwan within the overall framework of overseas Chinese affairs work will undoubtedly become increasingly prominent". This is because the Party sees overseas Chinese as "a vital force in opposing separatism and promoting unification, ultimately contributing to the complete unification of the motherland" (Zhang Xiaoxin, September 2026).
Conclusion
The Party sees annexing Taiwan as the core of its core interests, and Xi Jinping has signaled that he intends to make meaningful progress toward achieving that end while he remains in power. The work of overseas Chinese is a crucial part of its all-domain efforts in pursuit of this goal. At present, too little is known about the pledges and agreements made by overseas individuals and organizations with ties to the Party, and how they are working to provide practical support for an agenda that contravenes the interests--and sometimes the policies--of their home governments. As all signals point to the Party ramping up this work in the months and years ahead, this lack of knowledge will only become more of an issue.
* * *
Arran Hope is the editor of China Brief at The Jamestown Foundation, where he also has responsibility for additional China-related publications and programming. His writings analyzing political developments in the People's Republic of China have informed U.S. government reports and appear on university course syllabi.
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Original text here: https://jamestown.org/overseas-support-for-unification-builds/
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
Overseas Support for Unification Builds
Arran Hope
Executive Summary:
* Support for annexing Taiwan is gaining prominence in the Party's united front work, according to analysis of speeches, events, and commentary surrounding the celebrations of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC).
* At recent events in the United Kingdom and France, the Party's chosen representatives of overseas Chinese communities made pledges to support unification and ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 -- The Jamestown Foundation issued the following commentary on Oct. 4, 2026, in the foundation's China Brief: * * * Overseas Support for Unification Builds Arran Hope Executive Summary: * Support for annexing Taiwan is gaining prominence in the Party's united front work, according to analysis of speeches, events, and commentary surrounding the celebrations of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC). * At recent events in the United Kingdom and France, the Party's chosen representatives of overseas Chinese communities made pledges to support unification andaffirmed loyalty to the Party above and beyond their home governments.
* The PRC sought to use the recent summit meeting between General Secretary Xi Jinping and U.S. president Donald Trump to press for concessions on the U.S. understanding of both World War II history and PRC claims over Taiwan.
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The anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) is an opportunity for the Party faithful to renew their vows of allegiance. It also serves as a reminder of what that allegiance entails. For overseas Chinese, the demands from the center are rising. Recent statements made by the leadership in Beijing, its emissaries around the world, and commentators in official publications all make clear that the Party is doubling down on its overseas united front work in order to enlist support for both its economic and political objectives, including support for the annexation of Taiwan.
One of the more articulate expositions of how the Party thinks about how to leverage overseas Chinese comes in an article for the September issue of the magazine China's United Fron, which is published by the United Front Work Department (Zhang Xiaoxin, September 2026). [1] In the new era, the author writes, overseas Chinese have been given an "unprecedented historical mission" and are an "indispensable and important component serving national strategies". A separate piece, penned by an academic based in Suzhou, talks of "handling the relationship between enemies and friends" and calls for "striving to fulfill the original aspiration of the republic by building and improving both the domestic united front and the international united front". Using the same phrase, he described these two united fronts as "indispensable" for national rejuvenation (Aisixiang, September 25).
Pressure Builds to Support Unification
As General Secretary Xi Jinping has frequently made clear, the annexation of Taiwan is a necessary condition for the achievement of national rejuvenation. In his speech to celebrate the 77th anniversary of the PRC's founding, he told those listening to "resolutely crack downon 'Taiwan independence' separatist forces ... [and] advance the great cause of national unification (People's Daily, October 1). [2] Politburo member Wang Huning, who hosted a separate national day celebration for the Party's main united front organizations, echoed these remarks. He also said that he would thoroughly implement the Party's "overall strategy for resolving the Taiwan issue in the new era" and its "policies on overseas Chinese affairs ... [to] promote national unification". These include consolidating and developing "the broadest patriotic united front" (People's Daily, September 29). [3] The same day, United Front Work Department director Li Ganjie also told the leadership of the China Overseas Friendship Association to vigorously safeguard and promote national unification (People's Daily, September 29).
These remarks are standard formulations, especially at this time of year; but early evidence suggests that, following two important united front-related conferences over the summer, the Party is making discourse on unification even more central to its external messaging. According to some coverage of one of those meetings, the National Conference on Overseas Chinese Affairs, a key outcome was the declaration of "three new requirements for the times", also referred to as a clarification of the "three benefits" principle, one of which is for overseas Chinese to play a greater role promoting unification (Americas Chinese TV, September 21; Zhang Xiaoxin, September 2026).
Senior officials have also cranked up pressure during diplomatic outreach to Taiwan's key partners. In a meeting with the chairman of the Japan Association for the Promotion of International Trade, for example--a local organization in Japan that engages with united front and other PRC political warfare organizations--Foreign Minister Wang Yi took issue with the Tokyo's stance on Taiwan. He warned that if the country continued down the path of rebuilding its military, it "will hardly have a future at all" (China Brief, June 26, 2019; People's Daily, September 29).
The PRC also tried to co-opt the United States to its revisionist view of history during the recent summit between Xi and President Donald Trump. In an interview following the meeting, PRC ambassador to the United States Xie Feng implied that Trump agreed to respect Beijing's claims over Taiwan. First, Xie noted that Trump and Xi "agreed to jointly safeguard the victorious outcomes of the [second world] war." In recent months, Beijing has pushed a narrative that the "enemy state clauses" of the United Nations Charter permits it to engage in military action should Japan move toward rebuilding its armed forces (Global Times, September 29). Although a 1995 UN General Assembly resolution recognized that those clauses had become obsolete, they are yet to be removed from the charter. In this way, Ambassador Xie suggested that Xi had successfully extracted assurances from Trump that the United States opposes Japan's rearmament. He also implied that Trump is amenable to Beijing's view on Taiwan, stating that the two leaders agreed that the "constructive China-U.S. relationship of strategic stability" now entails "respecting each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity," which, for the PRC, means respecting its claims over Taiwan (Newsweek, October 1). This interpretation is a plausible reading of the summit's outcomes, though it does go beyond the official outcomes published by the two sides (The White House, September 25; Xinhua, September 26).
PRC diplomats have also presided over events to elicit support from overseas Chinese communities for these same objectives. In France, for instance, Ambassador Deng Li said that overseas Chinese in France will "always firmly support the path of national development and consciously safeguard the core interests of the country. Those present committed to "upholding their patriotic aspirations ... and joining hands with their motherland to embark on a new journey of national rejuvenation" (Europe Times, September 27).
A similar event was held in the United Kingdom and attended by Ambassador Zheng Zeguang. One of the hosts, Wu Lili, delivered a speech declaring that "all overseas Chinese in the United Kingdom have always upheld the original aspiration of 'living in Britain but with hearts connected to China'". The event's other organizers, Lin Qing, Zhong Xiaoping, and Lin Xinxian, went further, affirming that all overseas Chinese "will always remain loyal to the Party". What this loyalty means in practice, as Ambassador Zheng noted in his remarks, is that overseas Chinese cultivate a deep sense of patriotism and, among other things, become "promoters of the great cause of China's unification" (Europe Times, September 23).
These statements effectively constitute loyalty oaths to the Party. They are a compact to put the Party's interests first, over and above those of their home governments. Though rarely reported on, such statements are likely to become increasingly standard. As the article in China's United Front observes, "in the long run, the importance of overseas Chinese affairs related to Taiwan within the overall framework of overseas Chinese affairs work will undoubtedly become increasingly prominent". This is because the Party sees overseas Chinese as "a vital force in opposing separatism and promoting unification, ultimately contributing to the complete unification of the motherland" (Zhang Xiaoxin, September 2026).
Conclusion
The Party sees annexing Taiwan as the core of its core interests, and Xi Jinping has signaled that he intends to make meaningful progress toward achieving that end while he remains in power. The work of overseas Chinese is a crucial part of its all-domain efforts in pursuit of this goal. At present, too little is known about the pledges and agreements made by overseas individuals and organizations with ties to the Party, and how they are working to provide practical support for an agenda that contravenes the interests--and sometimes the policies--of their home governments. As all signals point to the Party ramping up this work in the months and years ahead, this lack of knowledge will only become more of an issue.
* * *
Arran Hope is the editor of China Brief at The Jamestown Foundation, where he also has responsibility for additional China-related publications and programming. His writings analyzing political developments in the People's Republic of China have informed U.S. government reports and appear on university course syllabi.
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Original text here: https://jamestown.org/overseas-support-for-unification-builds/
[Category: ThinkTank]
American Action Forum Issues Insight: SCOTUS Begins Major Climate Case - Potential Outcomes and Policy Implications
WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 -- The American Action Forum issued the following insight:
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October 6, 2026
SCOTUS Begins Major Climate Case: Potential Outcomes and Policy Implications
Shuting Pomerleau, Misha Mazalevskyi
Executive Summary
* On October 5, 2026, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a major climate change case--Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, in which the city and county of Boulder seek to hold energy producers Suncor and ExxonMobil financially liable for localized climate adaptation costs and alleged deceptive marketing practices.
* With ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 -- The American Action Forum issued the following insight: * * * October 6, 2026 SCOTUS Begins Major Climate Case: Potential Outcomes and Policy Implications Shuting Pomerleau, Misha Mazalevskyi Executive Summary * On October 5, 2026, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a major climate change case--Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, in which the city and county of Boulder seek to hold energy producers Suncor and ExxonMobil financially liable for localized climate adaptation costs and alleged deceptive marketing practices. * WithJustice Samuel Alito recused, the 8-justice Court evaluated the questions of 1) whether the Court has statutory authority to weigh in on the case which has a pending decision from Colorado State Court; and 2) whether the federal Clean Air Act and federal common law preempt state tort claims involving global greenhouse gas emissions.
* The case has high stakes as the Court's ruling would affect dozens of other similar lawsuits pending around the country and determine whether state and local governments have the authority to sue fossil fuel companies on the ground of climate change damage; this insight provides an overview of the case and discusses five potential rulings and their policy implications for federal, state, and local governments, oil and gas companies, and the broader U.S. energy industry.
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Introduction
On October 5, 2026, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, in which the city and county of Boulder seek to hold energy producers Suncor and ExxonMobil financially liable for localized climate adaptation costs and alleged deceptive marketing practices.
The central disputes of the case are whether federal law preempts state law in addressing climate change, and whether states have the authority to seek compensation from alleged damage caused from climate change under the tort law.
The case has received tremendous interest from Congress and government agencies, with almost 200 congressional members and more than 40 states signed on to amicus briefs siding with either Suncor and ExxonMobil or Boulder. The Court's ruling would affect dozens of other similar lawsuits pending around the country and determine whether state and local governments have the authority to sue fossil fuel companies on the ground of climate change damage.
With Justice Samuel Alito recused, the eight-justice Court evaluated the questions of 1) whether the Court has statutory authority to weigh in on the case which has a pending decision from Colorado State Court; and 2) whether the federal Clean Air Act (CAA) and federal common law preempt state tort claims involving global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
This insight provides an overview of the case and the arguments on both sides, highlights the key points during the oral argument, and discusses five potential rulings and their policy implications for federal, state, and local governments, oil and gas companies, and the broader U.S. energy industry.
Overview of the Case
Summary of Suncor v. Boulder
In 2018, the City and County of Boulder filed a lawsuit in Colorado state court against Suncor Energy (a Canadian oil producer that operates the only two refineries in Colorado) and ExxonMobil (the largest U.S. energy company). The municipalities sought financial compensation for local climate adaptation costs under the state tort law, alleging two wrongdoings by the defendants: 1) Suncor's and ExxonMobil's fossil fuel products contributed to climate change; 2) the companies engaged in deceptive marketing regarding the effects of GHGs.
Procedural history
From the very start, the companies tried to move Boulder's claims from state to federal court. They argued that since the case involved climate change--a global issue caused by GHG emissions crossing state and national borders--a federal court should hear it instead. The companies' efforts eventually failed--the federal court said that state climate lawsuits belonged in state courts.
The companies then asked the state trial court to dismiss the case, arguing federal laws such as the CAA and the Constitution preempt Boulder's claims. The state court also refused the request.
The oil companies then turned to the Colorado Supreme Court, which agreed to consider whether Boulder's state law claims were preempted by federal law. In May 2025, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that federal law did not block the state law climate lawsuit, allowing it to proceed further in the Colorado state court.
In response, Suncor and ExxonMobil turned to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Court granted review of the case in February 2026.
Arguments on both sides
Suncor's main arguments:
* The Clean Air Act makes the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the main regulator of GHG emissions and limits states' authority over emission regulations to within their own borders, so the CAA preempts state lawsuits over climate change.
* Colorado has no constitutional authority to seek liability compensation under the state tort law regarding the conduct (fossil fuel production) beyond its borders, which would violate the horizontal federalism, equal sovereignty, and extraterritoriality principles.
* The application of Colorado law to worldwide fossil fuel production could interfere with the U.S. federal government's constitutional authority over foreign affairs.
Boulder's main arguments:
* The lawsuit does not attempt to limit GHG emissions through regulations. Instead, Boulder seeks compensation for local harm under traditional state tort law.
* The Clean Air Act covers emissions from specific sources, but it does not include any provisions about regulating deceptive marketing and consumer protection concepts.
* Colorado Supreme Court's ruling was not a final decision, so the U.S. Supreme Court does not yet have the authority to hear the case.
Highlights of the Oral Arguments
The 8-justice bench dynamics
One week before the hearing, the Court announced without explanation that Justice Samuel Alito would no longer participate in the case. Some commentators suggested that the recusal was driven by Justice Alito's ownership of individual stocks in oil and gas companies, which would lead to a conflict of interest in his involvement in the case.
With the absence of Justice Alito--perceived as a likely conservative vote siding with Suncor--the 8-justice bench could reach a 4-4 deadlock, leaving in place the Colorado Supreme Court decision that Boulder's claims against Suncor and ExxonMobil are not preempted by federal law.
Highlights of the Justices' Questions
* Procedural exit seems less likely: The justices did not spend much time evaluating whether the Court has the judicial authority to weigh in on the case. The Court appeared unlikely to drop the appeal without issuing a ruling, based on the questions posed by the justices.
* Federal preemption question was the center of the discussion: The justices spent a significant amount of time questioning the issue of federal preemption--specific legal principles including extraterritoriality and equal sovereignty were discussed at length; several justices, including Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Gorsuch, Justice Kavanaugh, and Justice Barrett questioned Suncor's attorney about whether Boulder's state tort law claim regarding harm from climate change should be preempted by the federal common law, the Constitution, or the Clean Air Act. They further questioned whether the federal preemption question at hand was limited to air and water, or any other exterritorial phenomena, with Justice Gorsuch remarking "It's a little complicated" during the discussion.
* Practical implications were discussed: Several justices, including Justice Thomas, Chief Justice Roberts, and Justice Gorsuch raised practicality issues with Boulder County's attorney about a hypothetical ruling that would allow Boulder to prevail, and the practical outlook of an immediate proliferation of state and local litigation cases against companies in the energy industry or other sectors.
Possible Rulings and Implications
Based on the dynamics during the hearing, there are five likely ways the Court could rule on the case in several months, likely by the spring or summer of 2027.
Scenario A, Procedural Exit: The Court Drops the Appeal Without Preemption Ruling (A less likely outcome based on the oral arguments)
Description of the ruling
The Court could determine that it does not have the judicial authority to weigh in on the case, as the decision from the Colorado Supreme Court is not final. This ruling would leave the state court's decision intact, and allow Boulder's claims to proceed.
Policy implication
The Court would likely have to take up another climate case in the future with a similar dispute in federal preemption. In the meantime, dozens of other similar climate lawsuits in other states would continue in their own preemption fights without nationwide precedent set by the Court.
Scenario B, Sweeping Federal Preemption: Banning Climate Lawsuits in State Courts
Description of the ruling
The Court could issue a broad ruling, stating that the CAA preempts state tort law claims seeking damages for interstate and international greenhouse gas emissions. Such a ruling would reverse the Colorado Supreme Court's decision and effectively order the dismissal of Boulder's lawsuit. Notably, this would establish nationwide precedent, ruling out dozens of pending state and local climate lawsuits across the country. It would also establish a strict threshold against claims using state tort law to seek compensation for inherently diffuse, interstate environmental harms that fall under federal statutory authority.
Policy implication
A sweeping preemption ruling would significantly reduce liability risks for fossil fuel producers at the state and local level. It would also prevent a patchwork of state and local climate regulations imposed by judicial rulings. This would mean that the Court affirms that climate lawsuits cannot be adjudicated case by case across state courts and redirects climate policymaking back to the federal government.
A sweeping preemption ruling would create an immediate conflict with the Trump Administration's deregulatory agenda. The administration argues that the EPA lacks statutory authority under the CAA to regulate GHG emissions and uses this argument to justify its actions to repeal the 2009 Endangerment Finding and power plant emissions regulations. (See American Action Forum's insights here and here.) This legal conflict could inadvertently bolster challenges brought by environmental groups seeking to block the administration's regulatory rollbacks, and even encourage further litigation against the EPA. This would certainly lead to a prolonged judicial battle and introduce even higher policy and regulatory uncertainty for companies looking to make long-term investment decisions in the U.S. energy sector.
Scenario C, A Split Ruling: Emissions Claims Tossed, Deceptive Marketing Claims Survive
Description of the ruling
The Court could rule that Boulder's claim based on climate damage does not hold, which would be a narrow federal preemption compared to a sweeping one. The deceptive marketing claims would survive, and Boulder could move the case forward based on this claim.
Policy implication
A narrow preemption ruling would do little to shield fossil fuel producers from state and local liability. Instead, municipal and state litigators would pivot aggressively toward deceptive marketing and consumer protection claims under state tort law. With various consumer protection standards across multiple state courts, oil and gas companies would face a fragmented legal landscape and prolonged exposure to pending trials.
At the same time, since this outcome confirms that federal law preempts climate emissions-based tort laws, it reinforces the principle that GHG emissions fall squarely under federal statutory authority. This would inadvertently strengthen environmental groups' legal challenges against federal deregulatory rollbacks and lead to compounding uncertainty for energy investors
Scenario D, Rejection of Preemption: Greenlighting Climate Lawsuits in State Courts
Description of the ruling
A majority of the Court could hold that federal law does not preempt state tort law claims, concluding that Boulder's claims can fully move forward under Colorado State Court. This decision would reaffirm states' legal authority to seek compensation for costs incurred under climate adaptation and deceptive marketing practices.
Policy implication
The rejection of the preemption ruling would be a de facto greenlighting of climate lawsuits filed by state and local governments. This decision would trigger a proliferation of climate lawsuits at the state and local level, creating substantial legal and regulatory uncertainty for oil and gas companies, and potentially a highly fragmented court-imposed state climate policy landscape consisting of various emission regulations and standards across jurisdictions.
Scenario E, A 4-4 Tie: Boulder Advances, but No National Rule Is Set
Description of the ruling
The 8-justice Court could reach a 4-4 divide regarding the federal preemption question. The Court would issue a brief order affirming the Colorado Supreme Court's decision, sending the case back to the Colorado state court for discovery.
Policy implication
Boulder would score a local victory on the case regarding the preemption question. Since no nationwide precedent is set in this scenario, the Court would likely have to take up another climate case in the future with a similar dispute in federal preemption. In the meantime, energy companies would continue to defend federal preemption in dozens of other similar climate lawsuits in other states, leaving the legal and regulatory landscape fragmented.
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Shuting Pomerleau is the Director of Energy and Environmental Policy at the American Action Forum
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Original text here: https://www.americanactionforum.org/insight/scotus-begins-major-climate-case-potential-outcomes-and-policy-implications/
[Category: Think Tank]
* * *
October 6, 2026
SCOTUS Begins Major Climate Case: Potential Outcomes and Policy Implications
Shuting Pomerleau, Misha Mazalevskyi
Executive Summary
* On October 5, 2026, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a major climate change case--Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, in which the city and county of Boulder seek to hold energy producers Suncor and ExxonMobil financially liable for localized climate adaptation costs and alleged deceptive marketing practices.
* With ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 -- The American Action Forum issued the following insight: * * * October 6, 2026 SCOTUS Begins Major Climate Case: Potential Outcomes and Policy Implications Shuting Pomerleau, Misha Mazalevskyi Executive Summary * On October 5, 2026, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a major climate change case--Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, in which the city and county of Boulder seek to hold energy producers Suncor and ExxonMobil financially liable for localized climate adaptation costs and alleged deceptive marketing practices. * WithJustice Samuel Alito recused, the 8-justice Court evaluated the questions of 1) whether the Court has statutory authority to weigh in on the case which has a pending decision from Colorado State Court; and 2) whether the federal Clean Air Act and federal common law preempt state tort claims involving global greenhouse gas emissions.
* The case has high stakes as the Court's ruling would affect dozens of other similar lawsuits pending around the country and determine whether state and local governments have the authority to sue fossil fuel companies on the ground of climate change damage; this insight provides an overview of the case and discusses five potential rulings and their policy implications for federal, state, and local governments, oil and gas companies, and the broader U.S. energy industry.
-
Introduction
On October 5, 2026, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, in which the city and county of Boulder seek to hold energy producers Suncor and ExxonMobil financially liable for localized climate adaptation costs and alleged deceptive marketing practices.
The central disputes of the case are whether federal law preempts state law in addressing climate change, and whether states have the authority to seek compensation from alleged damage caused from climate change under the tort law.
The case has received tremendous interest from Congress and government agencies, with almost 200 congressional members and more than 40 states signed on to amicus briefs siding with either Suncor and ExxonMobil or Boulder. The Court's ruling would affect dozens of other similar lawsuits pending around the country and determine whether state and local governments have the authority to sue fossil fuel companies on the ground of climate change damage.
With Justice Samuel Alito recused, the eight-justice Court evaluated the questions of 1) whether the Court has statutory authority to weigh in on the case which has a pending decision from Colorado State Court; and 2) whether the federal Clean Air Act (CAA) and federal common law preempt state tort claims involving global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
This insight provides an overview of the case and the arguments on both sides, highlights the key points during the oral argument, and discusses five potential rulings and their policy implications for federal, state, and local governments, oil and gas companies, and the broader U.S. energy industry.
Overview of the Case
Summary of Suncor v. Boulder
In 2018, the City and County of Boulder filed a lawsuit in Colorado state court against Suncor Energy (a Canadian oil producer that operates the only two refineries in Colorado) and ExxonMobil (the largest U.S. energy company). The municipalities sought financial compensation for local climate adaptation costs under the state tort law, alleging two wrongdoings by the defendants: 1) Suncor's and ExxonMobil's fossil fuel products contributed to climate change; 2) the companies engaged in deceptive marketing regarding the effects of GHGs.
Procedural history
From the very start, the companies tried to move Boulder's claims from state to federal court. They argued that since the case involved climate change--a global issue caused by GHG emissions crossing state and national borders--a federal court should hear it instead. The companies' efforts eventually failed--the federal court said that state climate lawsuits belonged in state courts.
The companies then asked the state trial court to dismiss the case, arguing federal laws such as the CAA and the Constitution preempt Boulder's claims. The state court also refused the request.
The oil companies then turned to the Colorado Supreme Court, which agreed to consider whether Boulder's state law claims were preempted by federal law. In May 2025, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that federal law did not block the state law climate lawsuit, allowing it to proceed further in the Colorado state court.
In response, Suncor and ExxonMobil turned to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Court granted review of the case in February 2026.
Arguments on both sides
Suncor's main arguments:
* The Clean Air Act makes the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the main regulator of GHG emissions and limits states' authority over emission regulations to within their own borders, so the CAA preempts state lawsuits over climate change.
* Colorado has no constitutional authority to seek liability compensation under the state tort law regarding the conduct (fossil fuel production) beyond its borders, which would violate the horizontal federalism, equal sovereignty, and extraterritoriality principles.
* The application of Colorado law to worldwide fossil fuel production could interfere with the U.S. federal government's constitutional authority over foreign affairs.
Boulder's main arguments:
* The lawsuit does not attempt to limit GHG emissions through regulations. Instead, Boulder seeks compensation for local harm under traditional state tort law.
* The Clean Air Act covers emissions from specific sources, but it does not include any provisions about regulating deceptive marketing and consumer protection concepts.
* Colorado Supreme Court's ruling was not a final decision, so the U.S. Supreme Court does not yet have the authority to hear the case.
Highlights of the Oral Arguments
The 8-justice bench dynamics
One week before the hearing, the Court announced without explanation that Justice Samuel Alito would no longer participate in the case. Some commentators suggested that the recusal was driven by Justice Alito's ownership of individual stocks in oil and gas companies, which would lead to a conflict of interest in his involvement in the case.
With the absence of Justice Alito--perceived as a likely conservative vote siding with Suncor--the 8-justice bench could reach a 4-4 deadlock, leaving in place the Colorado Supreme Court decision that Boulder's claims against Suncor and ExxonMobil are not preempted by federal law.
Highlights of the Justices' Questions
* Procedural exit seems less likely: The justices did not spend much time evaluating whether the Court has the judicial authority to weigh in on the case. The Court appeared unlikely to drop the appeal without issuing a ruling, based on the questions posed by the justices.
* Federal preemption question was the center of the discussion: The justices spent a significant amount of time questioning the issue of federal preemption--specific legal principles including extraterritoriality and equal sovereignty were discussed at length; several justices, including Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Gorsuch, Justice Kavanaugh, and Justice Barrett questioned Suncor's attorney about whether Boulder's state tort law claim regarding harm from climate change should be preempted by the federal common law, the Constitution, or the Clean Air Act. They further questioned whether the federal preemption question at hand was limited to air and water, or any other exterritorial phenomena, with Justice Gorsuch remarking "It's a little complicated" during the discussion.
* Practical implications were discussed: Several justices, including Justice Thomas, Chief Justice Roberts, and Justice Gorsuch raised practicality issues with Boulder County's attorney about a hypothetical ruling that would allow Boulder to prevail, and the practical outlook of an immediate proliferation of state and local litigation cases against companies in the energy industry or other sectors.
Possible Rulings and Implications
Based on the dynamics during the hearing, there are five likely ways the Court could rule on the case in several months, likely by the spring or summer of 2027.
Scenario A, Procedural Exit: The Court Drops the Appeal Without Preemption Ruling (A less likely outcome based on the oral arguments)
Description of the ruling
The Court could determine that it does not have the judicial authority to weigh in on the case, as the decision from the Colorado Supreme Court is not final. This ruling would leave the state court's decision intact, and allow Boulder's claims to proceed.
Policy implication
The Court would likely have to take up another climate case in the future with a similar dispute in federal preemption. In the meantime, dozens of other similar climate lawsuits in other states would continue in their own preemption fights without nationwide precedent set by the Court.
Scenario B, Sweeping Federal Preemption: Banning Climate Lawsuits in State Courts
Description of the ruling
The Court could issue a broad ruling, stating that the CAA preempts state tort law claims seeking damages for interstate and international greenhouse gas emissions. Such a ruling would reverse the Colorado Supreme Court's decision and effectively order the dismissal of Boulder's lawsuit. Notably, this would establish nationwide precedent, ruling out dozens of pending state and local climate lawsuits across the country. It would also establish a strict threshold against claims using state tort law to seek compensation for inherently diffuse, interstate environmental harms that fall under federal statutory authority.
Policy implication
A sweeping preemption ruling would significantly reduce liability risks for fossil fuel producers at the state and local level. It would also prevent a patchwork of state and local climate regulations imposed by judicial rulings. This would mean that the Court affirms that climate lawsuits cannot be adjudicated case by case across state courts and redirects climate policymaking back to the federal government.
A sweeping preemption ruling would create an immediate conflict with the Trump Administration's deregulatory agenda. The administration argues that the EPA lacks statutory authority under the CAA to regulate GHG emissions and uses this argument to justify its actions to repeal the 2009 Endangerment Finding and power plant emissions regulations. (See American Action Forum's insights here and here.) This legal conflict could inadvertently bolster challenges brought by environmental groups seeking to block the administration's regulatory rollbacks, and even encourage further litigation against the EPA. This would certainly lead to a prolonged judicial battle and introduce even higher policy and regulatory uncertainty for companies looking to make long-term investment decisions in the U.S. energy sector.
Scenario C, A Split Ruling: Emissions Claims Tossed, Deceptive Marketing Claims Survive
Description of the ruling
The Court could rule that Boulder's claim based on climate damage does not hold, which would be a narrow federal preemption compared to a sweeping one. The deceptive marketing claims would survive, and Boulder could move the case forward based on this claim.
Policy implication
A narrow preemption ruling would do little to shield fossil fuel producers from state and local liability. Instead, municipal and state litigators would pivot aggressively toward deceptive marketing and consumer protection claims under state tort law. With various consumer protection standards across multiple state courts, oil and gas companies would face a fragmented legal landscape and prolonged exposure to pending trials.
At the same time, since this outcome confirms that federal law preempts climate emissions-based tort laws, it reinforces the principle that GHG emissions fall squarely under federal statutory authority. This would inadvertently strengthen environmental groups' legal challenges against federal deregulatory rollbacks and lead to compounding uncertainty for energy investors
Scenario D, Rejection of Preemption: Greenlighting Climate Lawsuits in State Courts
Description of the ruling
A majority of the Court could hold that federal law does not preempt state tort law claims, concluding that Boulder's claims can fully move forward under Colorado State Court. This decision would reaffirm states' legal authority to seek compensation for costs incurred under climate adaptation and deceptive marketing practices.
Policy implication
The rejection of the preemption ruling would be a de facto greenlighting of climate lawsuits filed by state and local governments. This decision would trigger a proliferation of climate lawsuits at the state and local level, creating substantial legal and regulatory uncertainty for oil and gas companies, and potentially a highly fragmented court-imposed state climate policy landscape consisting of various emission regulations and standards across jurisdictions.
Scenario E, A 4-4 Tie: Boulder Advances, but No National Rule Is Set
Description of the ruling
The 8-justice Court could reach a 4-4 divide regarding the federal preemption question. The Court would issue a brief order affirming the Colorado Supreme Court's decision, sending the case back to the Colorado state court for discovery.
Policy implication
Boulder would score a local victory on the case regarding the preemption question. Since no nationwide precedent is set in this scenario, the Court would likely have to take up another climate case in the future with a similar dispute in federal preemption. In the meantime, energy companies would continue to defend federal preemption in dozens of other similar climate lawsuits in other states, leaving the legal and regulatory landscape fragmented.
* * *
Shuting Pomerleau is the Director of Energy and Environmental Policy at the American Action Forum
* * *
Original text here: https://www.americanactionforum.org/insight/scotus-begins-major-climate-case-potential-outcomes-and-policy-implications/
[Category: Think Tank]