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A Conversation with General Anthony Zinni (Ret.) on Leaders and Strategic Thinking

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By Mie Augier and Major Sean F. X. Barrett

This is the first of what we hope will be several conversations with General Anthony Zinni, USMC (ret.) about leadership, strategy, learning, and the art and science of warfighting. General Anthony Zinni served 39 years as a U.S. Marine and retired as Commander–in–Chief, U.S. Central Command, in 2000.

In this installment, General Zinni discusses themes in his “Combat Concepts” lecture, his recently completed doctoral dissertation, his time at the CNO’s Strategic Studies Group, and the state of strategic thinking.

Were you influenced by any particular interests, books, or mentors?

Zinni: First, on people, General Al Gray was probably the biggest influence on me. I’ve known him since I was a captain. He had a set of people. He mentored us and sought us out all the time. He was unusual to us junior officers. He was willing to talk about things we were interested in—tactics, leadership, and those kinds of things. It was hard to find senior officers who really had that kind of connection. Plus, his personality was such that he drew people to him. He seemed to understand what we were going through, what we were thinking. You must remember we had come back from a couple of tours in Vietnam, so our first decade in the Marine Corps was formed by Vietnam. Of course, he was there, too—more senior, but he really understood what we saw and our reaction it.

Lieutenant General Mick Trainor was my battalion commander. He had a reputation in the Marine Corps for being a highly intelligent officer, and he was someone who really understood warfare, especially in Vietnam. He was another mentor—I have had several, most of them later made general officer—so I was a pretty good chooser of mentors [laughs].

Anthony Zinni, 1967. Personal Photo

In terms of books, I read a lot, but I don’t have a particular way of listing them. I talk with Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper about this a lot. He really focuses on specific books, and I don’t. I read a lot of books. I always get taken aback when junior officers ask me, “Can you give me a reading list or a list of recommended books?” I say, “You should read all the books you can get ahold of, and then sort out what you think are the important books.” Usually, they get onto doing that. But it’s also a lazy way of saying, ‘I don’t always remember what I’ve read in all these books’—I gather it in and hopefully integrate it.

One of the big themes in your well-known “Combat Concepts” talk is the need to extend maneuver thinking beyond warfighting concepts to application. For you, General Gray, and others, it seems this wasn’t a contrast. Maneuver warfare was a way of thinking and a practice at the same time.

Zinni: Yes, I would say it’s a way of thinking. It is more a way of how you form concepts about operational art. However, what I felt was lacking in some discussions was going to the next step—to application, to practice. People who didn’t want to take that step bothered me. Execution is just as hard as conceptualizing. John Boyd talked about that. He took the concepts and talked about applications. He was the maneuverist who tried to bring in some form of application. Of course, General Gray was that way, too. He was always interested in application. He asked us all the time, “How would you translate that into action, or into application?” He always wanted to take it to the next step, but it was rare to find people who thought conceptually like that—and then extra rare to find people who tried to translate it into application.

Regarding your experience in Vietnam, it seems like, for you and your peers, it was a very formative part of your career. It became critical for what drove you and others to embrace education, self-study, learning, and some more maverick ways of thinking since it was obvious the things we were doing needed to change. How can we foster that kind of maverick thinking in our organizations today? How well do you think we are doing?

Zinni: Well, from my experience, it must start at the top. You need license to be a maverick. That is how most effective change comes about. In my dissertation, I looked at our senior military leadership during World War II. If you look at George Marshall, Earnest King, or Hap Arnold, they were not necessarily mavericks, but they believed in the freedom to innovate. They believed in cultivating thinkers and mavericks that acted and thought differently. They protected the Nimitzs, the MacArthurs, and the Stillwells—all the guys in the Pacific at that time that I looked at. These were majorly flawed people. Nimitz ran a ship aground when he was a young officer! MacArthur had a checkered past, was not very well liked in the Army, and his actions in the Philippines were disastrous. Stillwell was a character nobody liked to be around. But Marshall and King saw in them what was needed for that war. They had rebel spirits. Marshall and King recognized the war would be different, so they sought out the innovators, the thinkers, and that sort of cascaded down.

The top leadership out in the theater began to move the traditionalist thinkers aside. They did not take an axe to, or fire, everyone. Rather, they moved them into positions where they couldn’t influence or affect the process of change. The first fleet commander at the Guadalcanal landing was an old school guy who didn’t get it, so Nimitz moved him out and brought in Halsey to lead the fleet. That basically saved the day at Guadalcanal.

You can go down this concept of innovate, test, adapt, and adopt. This goes all the way down the ranks to squadron officers figuring out new formations, new patterns to fly. It gets diffused in the organization where it breaks down resistance. It is not kept as something separate, which is a problem we have today and what causes most organizations to fail. Your whole organization must feel part of the team and involved in change. Isolating a special section of super innovators in an organization fails 95 percent of the time in the corporate world. Everybody resents them.

In your dissertation, you mention the importance of seeing things in a strategic or visionary way. Why has there been a decline in national-level strategy and strategic thinking?

Zinni: Well, I think there were flashes of strategic thinking of some quality, maybe with George Washington, but that was more operational. Then, I think the next time you see it is Grant as a commander. Lincoln knew he needed a strategy but didn’t know how to develop one until he found Grant. But that was a moment. The next time you see it is with Roosevelt because as soon as Pearl Harbor was attacked, he called in Marshall and said, “We need a strategy.” He started to give the principles of a strategy: we will become the arsenal of democracy. What that meant is we will go to our strengths, which was our industrial base, and we will out-produce the enemy. We were producing more tanks in a month than the Germans could produce in a year at the height of their industrial capability. In 3.5 years, we built 90 carriers. He also said we must get our act together with our allies. He went to the UK, formed the Combined Chiefs of Staff, and said it is Europe first. These are strategic principles.

Marshall, who thought and acted strategically, started putting these things together. On the Navy side, they were thinking strategically in terms of the Pacific, but in the Atlantic, it was more of a support role. Certainly, Hap Arnold and strategic bombing was also being thought about. You see strategy in wartime. The greatest time of U.S. strategic thinking came from 1944 to 1950. Truman was President; Marshall was Secretary of State and then Defense. You have people like Vandenberg who worked with them across political differences. If you look at that period, we were stabilizing the world economy, we created NATO, we passed the 1947 National Security Act. All these things were happening, and we were developing the ideas of deterrence. That carried us through the Cold War. There were moments when it lessened, like during the Vietnam War, where we had no strategy, and Korea was not much better. But the overall grand strategy was solid in terms of how we were dealing with the peer threat.

You began to see it wane, and when the Cold War ended, it totally ended our strategic thinking. When George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev talked about a peace dividend and a new world order, every reporter asked them, “What does that mean? How do you build a new world order? What is this peace dividend?” They never provided an answer. Bush got so frustrated he said, “Oh, you mean the vision thing”—the vision being a key element to strategic thinking. One needs a vision, but he couldn’t be bothered by it. Subsequent presidents also dismissed it. Obama, for example, said something like, “I don’t need any Kennans,” when he got pressed by a reporter.

What the heck is your strategy if you don’t have a vision? We totally lost the ability at the senior leadership level in America to provide, at the very least, strategic principles and underpinnings. Instead, we went off and launched conflicts in places like Afghanistan and Iraq with no idea of what we were trying to do. I blame the uniformed military for a lot of this because it is their job to ask those questions. I had retired, and I was asked by a subsequent commander at CENTCOM to come to his headquarters and talk. I talked to him at length. He was frustrated. He said, “You know what, I don’t know what I am supposed to do. I have no idea what I am supposed to do.” He had a war going on in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he has no idea what the political objectives are, what the desired end state is, how it ends.

If a lack of national-level strategy makes it difficult for our organizations to do anything strategic, how do we get better at it again?

Zinni: That’s a key question, but it is hard to answer because we change administrations every four years. Even if a President gets eight years, his cabinet turns over at least once during his time, so there is no consistency. No one who comes into these offices goes through a strategy course before becoming Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense, or the National Security Advisor. What strategic education or training do they have? The problem is that in the military we build this tremendous planning and thinking construct, and the whole thing—as magnificent as it is—ultimately relies on plugging it into a strategy, a vision, an end state.

The only time I personally saw a moment of strategy was in the 1980s when we had fixed the military, if you will, with the all-volunteer force, and we began to test operational skills. That became a critical point to be promoted and be successful. The military decided to take on at least some of the upper end of operational art and strategy. You had the Maritime Strategy, AirLand Battle, Deep Battle—these at least were high-end, conceptual ways of doing business. I always told people I was at the bottom end of strategy as a combatant commander. I had to have a theater strategy, but I had no delusions that I was preparing grand strategy or anything like that. I was where strategy touched operational art.

I had to have a theater strategy, and I had to have a matching set of applications to go with it. I had no real guidance. I was basically on my own. I read everything that said “strategy” on the cover. My staff piled it up on tables in my office: content from all the other combatant commanders, the National Security Strategy, every country plan in my area of responsibility. I read all the DoD and State Department stuff. It was not very useful. First, very little of it said anything. Then, when you looked at it, even the terminology for the same things was different. Everybody made up his own, and there were so many inconsistencies in what was going on. There were no driving principles, no driving strategic goals and objectives. Nothing drove or directed our processes.

You know, Goldwater-Nichols, most people miss the part that says the President will provide a strategy within the first 150 days of his or her presidency. Then, every year it is to be updated, with the budget, and sent to Congress. I think Goldwater and Nichols tried to elevate the debate about how the resources being provided had to be based on strategic understanding and coherence between the providers in Congress and the executors in the Executive Branch. It never happens that way.

You were involved with the Navy Strategic Studies Group (SSG). How did you get involved with it, and would that be something we could reinvigorate to help nurture and educate strategic thinkers?

Zinni: You know, it started out that way, as a forum to do just that. My group may have been the last one that was truly doing a strategic study. The SSG was originally formed by the Chief of Naval Operations to take a strategic issue and spend a year studying it. Then, come back and answer the question the CNO wanted studied. This later deteriorated, maybe during the group after me, into doing studies on recruiting, manpower, things like that.

We had an interesting one. The Maritime Strategy had been on the street for a while, and the CNO wanted to know if it was getting any reaction from the Soviets. We spent the first half of the year delving into intelligence to see if the Soviet commanders responded to the Maritime Strategy. We spent the second half of the year determining whether they responded in a way that necessitated an update to the Maritime Strategy either to counter their reactions or take advantage of their reactions.

What was eye opening to me was interviewing a defector who was with the GRU. I was going over things we did operationally to see how the Soviets responded to it. He put up with this for an hour or two before he finally started laughing. I asked, “What’s so funny?” He said, “You are going about this the wrong way. Do you understand that you feed the Soviet Army?” Reagan had approved grain sales to Russia after their five-year plan failed and they had big food shortages. This was very controversial in the United States, but Reagan saw this as a benefit to our farmers. He got enough support in Congress to do this, but this guy was telling me, without that, the Soviet Army doesn’t eat! That made us think we might be going about this the wrong way. We were thinking in terms of kinetic exchange, battlefield stuff.

What if we cut off outside resources? How dependent is the Soviet Union on outside resources? We looked at dependencies—this was one, but also other dependencies on raw materials and food stuffs. Then we looked at a broader maritime strategy. We could blockade the Pacific ports of the Soviets. Cutting off supply and resupply of critical elements was of greater strategic advantage than what we were thinking about doing kinetically on their maritime flanks. These were the kinds of issues we were thinking of in the SSG.

We are just not very good at strategy anymore. Back when we had a decent approach to it, during Desert Storm/Desert Shield, we at least had some idea strategically. We did not want to make Iraq the 51st state; we didn’t want to own it. We wanted to stamp out Saddam, then go to containment, and do it in a way that we didn’t end up with a broken Iraq on our back. Brent Scowcroft understood the limits of the military there. He was an Air Force two-star, and you had James Baker as the Secretary of State, who was a former Marine officer, and also a decent strategic thinker. And, of course, you had Colin Powell as the Chairman, who had a lot of influence within the administration, above just being the Chairman.

They crafted the strategy to not go to Baghdad, and then the containment strategy after that, which we were able to define and refine down to just 23,000 troops, on any given day, containing Iraq. Less than the number reporting to the Pentagon every day. The effort was to avoid making those 23,000 waste their time, so we created live fire ranges out in Kuwait so they could get trained. We tried to create an environment with our allies for joint training that made the containment more than sitting around somewhere.

There was a flickering of some strategic thinking in there, but again, what you saw was a 4-star general, General Powell, who had a lot of influence in the government, and a National Security Adviser who was a retired Air Force general. They understood what the limitations were. But it was controversial. There were many politicians who thought we should have gone to Baghdad even though we would have been handed a mess, but at least back then, we had overwhelming force, which was a tenant of what Powell advocated. By overwhelming force, Powell didn’t just mean military force. He meant bringing in allies, making sure the international community is behind you, getting that UN resolution, because you want to have the overwhelming moral force, not just the military force. But they, and that kind of strategic thinking, got discarded and pushed aside.

Regarding the 1980s Maritime Strategy, what can we do now to get back to that kind of approach?

Zinni: I really think it is time to think about a Maritime Strategy, much the way we framed it back in the 80s. In the 80s, there were several motivations for doing it. We weren’t that far out from Vietnam. The concentration in the 70s was on rehabilitating the services from the effects of Vietnam, building the all-volunteer military, and creating more education opportunities in the military. When we hit the 80s, it opened up for the next step, which was sort of a renaissance, and we began looking at operational art.

You saw maneuver warfare, AirLand Battle, and the Maritime Strategy in the 80s. The Navy and Marine Corps came together and thought about a lot of questions pertaining to possible conflict with the Soviet Union, and people wanted to become more creative about how we would engage in such an operation. The Navy and Marine Corps said, “OK, how do we play in that? We are not central front forces. Is there a role on the flanks?” This opened and challenged thinking. Traditional thinking, for example, is you never take a carrier close into the shore. Well, we ended up proposing that carriers go into the fjords in Norway. We looked at seizing areas in the Mediterranean and the Baltic and then pressuring the flanks of any Soviet effort in the central region.  

What we looked at in the SSG was very insightful because those were things we hadn’t thought about at the strategic level. The SSG, unfortunately, fell off. Its high-water mark was in the 80s. By the time the 90s came around, the SSG wasn’t doing anything strategic. They became an administrative analysis group, rather than a strategic thinking group. It lost its strategic nature, and with the collapse of the Soviet Union, we went into a pause in our strategic thinking overall.

How do we make sure we develop people who are asking the right questions and not falling victim to biases and projecting what we want to believe, or what we want to believe is happening in other countries?

Zinni: It’s a great question, and I go back to people like George Marshall, who had the same question. What Marshall did—and General Gray was like this, too—Marshall wanted to know who his senior leaders, mid-range leaders, and maybe even some of his junior leaders were. Marshall spent a lot of time talking with his leadership, trying to understand who they were. There were always rumors about Marshall having a little black book about the leaders he thought were the best or had something. People later realized he never really had a black book, but he had a black book in his mind.

When World War II started, he immediately knew who he had to move out and who he wanted to move in. The people he identified early on as promising were put in at the division, corps, and field Army levels, and they were remarkably good. He then started to form these groups where he encouraged them to come together afterhours to discuss the art of war, operational art, and the profession of arms. He wanted this dialogue to continue amongst these groups that he established. General Gray and Lieutenant General Trainor did the same thing. Within these groups, they could begin to see who the thinkers were.

You must not only go after the thinkers, however, but also those who can lead, execute, and apply. You must marry the two together. There is a place for people who can only do the conceptual, but you are really looking for the future leaders who can tie the conceptual to the application. Our senior leadership needs to do what Marshall did and try to personally discover these people and identify them, and not just believe the system can do it on its own.

Read Part Two here.

General Anthony Zinni served 39 years as a U.S. Marine and retired as Commander–in–Chief, U.S. Central Command, a position he held from August 1997 to September 2000. After retiring, General Zinni served as U.S. special envoy to Israel and the Palestinian Authority (2001-2003) and U.S. special envoy to Qatar (2017-2019). General Zinni has held numerous academic positions, including the Stanley Chair in Ethics at the Virginia Military Institute, the Nimitz Chair at the University of California, Berkeley, the Hofheimer Chair at the Joint Forces Staff College, the Sanford Distinguished Lecturer in Residence at Duke University, and the Harriman Professorship of Government at the Reves Center for International Studies at the College of William and Mary. General Zinni is the author of several books, including Before the First Shots Are Fired, Leading the Charge, The Battle for Peace, and Battle Ready. He has also had a distinguished business career, serving as Chairman of the Board at BAE Systems Inc., a member of the board and later executive vice president at DynCorp International, and President of International Operations for M.I.C. Industries, Inc.

Dr. Mie Augier is Professor in the Graduate School of Defense Management, and Defense Analysis Department, at NPS. She is a founding member of NWSI and is interested in strategy, organizations, leadership, innovation, and how to educate strategic thinkers and learning leaders.

Major Sean F. X. Barrett, PhD is a Marine intelligence officer currently serving as the Operations Officer for 1st Radio Battalion.

Featured Image: Sgt. William J. Puckett, an assault amphibious crew chief with Alpha Company, 2nd Assault Amphibian Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, watches from the turret of his AAV as Marines with his unit conduct a Gator Square after disembarking from the USS Whidbey Island off the coast of Camp Lejeune, N.C., Sept. 10, 2014. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Justin Updegraff / Released)

Announcements

Vote Now: CFAR 2021 Finalist Voting Now Open

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By Jimmy Drennan

We need your help deciding which authors and topics will be featured at this year’s CIMSEC Forum for Authors and Readers—CFAR 2021!

Your nominations have yielded an outstanding slate of authors and articles for consideration. In this final round of voting, the authors of the top vote-getting articles will be invited to speak at our fall event on the article topic. Consider the topics and articles you would like updates on, or what author you’d like to pose questions to. Voting will close at the end of September 9. 

All CIMSEC members are eligible to vote for four nominated authors at the bottom of this page. If you’re not a CIMSEC member yet, it’s free and easy to sign up here. 

As always, thank you to CNA and our contributors for their generous support and for helping us bring you this event. And special congratulations to the author nominees, who are listed below in no particular order.

“Evolution of the Fleet: A Closer Look at the Chinese Fishing Vessels off the Galapagos,” by Dr. Tabitha Mallory and Dr. Ian Ralby
“Don’t Overlook the Medical Fleet in Distributed Maritime Operations,” by Misty Wilkins
“Crippled Capacity: How Weak Maritime Enforcement Emboldened Ansar Al-Sunna,” by Kelly Moss
“Lifting the Veil on the Lightly Manned Surface Combatant,” by Ben DiDonato
“Intel Owns Red: How Red Teaming Can Prepare the Fleet for the Fight Ahead,” by Lieutenant Commander Christopher Blake and Lieutenant Grace Jones
“No Ordinary Boats: Cracking the Code on China’s Spratly Maritime Militias,” by Ryan Martinson
“The Navy Should Stop Talking About the Future and Start Building It,” by Frank Goertner
“Winning the War on Distraction: Military Leaders Need Quiet Minds in the Digital Age,” by Bill Bray
“Leviathan Wakes: China’s Growing Fleet of Autonomous Undersea Vehicles,” by Ryan Fedasiuk
“The U.S. Needs an Official Sixth Fleet History, and the Europeans Do Too,” by Sebastian Bruns
“The Glutted Mariner Shortfall,” by LCDR Adena Grundy

Vote Now

Jimmy Drennan is the President of CIMSEC. Contact him at [email protected].

Emerging Tech Week

Use Virtual Reality to Prepare Maritime Crews For Terrorist and Piracy Attacks

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Emerging Technologies Topic Week

By Selina Robinson and Dr. Amy Meenaghan

Sea blindness (the tendency toward ignorance of the role and importance of the maritime domain by uninvolved persons) must be carefully considered when planning and implementing measures designed to prevent maritime terrorism and piracy. Governments and security apparatus across the world have dedicated billions to fight against perpetrators of violence, terrorism, and destabilization efforts, collectively known as violent non-state actors (VNSA) on land.1 However, the maritime domain has been relatively overlooked. Efforts to mitigate risk at sea and plan responses are largely limited to the threat posed by piracy within discrete geographical locales. A key factor influencing this is the fact that it is exceptionally difficult to manage the physical space of the maritime domain. There is also the additional struggle to allocate limited resources, such as coastguards or police, especially for states with minimal assets in the maritime domain.2 As a result, VNSAs have exploited sea blindness to their strategic advantage and have been left largely unchallenged by law enforcement agencies.3

Despite the pandemic, 2021 has seen the Gulf of Guinea remain a hotspot for piracy, including a new trend where violence against crew members onboard ships have increased in comparison to previous years. It is becoming increasingly clear that technological advantages in communication and movement by sea may pose a considerable threat to various subcategories of vessels, particularly as the capacity for VNSAs to take advantage of existing shipping channels to their advantage grows. While maritime piracy tends to pose a threat to large cargo ships, terrorism presents a risk to a range of ‘soft’ targets, such as cruise ships, ferries, and yachts, which collectively form the bulk of the leisure industry in the maritime domain. The scale of media attention possible in response to attacks on the leisure industry demonstrates the potential for significant political gain. This, combined with the potential to disrupt the essential logistical work conducted at sea, highlights the need for consistent, reliable, and evidence-based policy and training.

The leisure industry should exploit new training technologies, in particular virtual reality (VR), to prepare maritime crews for terrorist and piracy attacks. Simulated environments have been demonstrated to be effective in facilitating the development of intuitive, implicit, and functional knowledge. The use of VR allows for a flexible learning environment that is not limited by time, cost, and practical constraints. Gamification can be utilized in formative and summative assessment with positive effects on learner satisfaction and outcomes. In the current research a simulated environment, designed in Unity Pro, will be developed to reflect training needs identified by maritime security experts.  The simulation will undergo rigorous testing to inform further refinement to produce a training package that reflects the specific and current requirements of the industry. A flexible design will allow for adaptation according to vessel type, anticipated area of risk, and the fluidity of offence type.

The State of Training 

Existing training and guidance aimed at enabling crew members to mount a quick and effective response is arguably inconsistent and limited. Indeed, there may be a lack of agreement regarding the nature of any mitigation efforts or response planning, particularly as there is no one singular means of attack. Drone attack, attempted boarding, threat from radicalized passengers and crew, environmental damage, IEDs, remote weapon assault, and cyber-attack are just some of the diverse areas of concern.4 Already, the frequency of such attacks is worryingly high: in the first three months of 2021, the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre (PRC) reported 38 piracy incidents: 33 vessels boarded, two attempted attacks, two vessels fired upon, and one vessel hijacked.5 Recent incidents demonstrate that areas of risk extend beyond those traditionally known for piracy, prompting calls for comprehensive training in hostile takeover situations for all maritime crew members, not just those navigating the traditional ‘high-risk’ areas such as Somalia.6 7 In 2020, for example, events following the discovery of a group of Nigerian stowaways on board the Nave Andromeda, an oil tanker off the coast of the Isle of Wight in the UK, escalated to a point where the lives of the crew were deemed to be at considerable risk.

Current training in pirate and terrorist response by maritime crew is largely guided by the Best Management Practices for Protection (BMP5) manual; however, the specific procedures and guidance vary widely according to the location and management/flag status of the vessel. Managing the physical space of the maritime domain, securing, and preventing terrorist attacks, and navigating a tangle of dated legal clutter (including the laws of the flag state, international law, exclusive economic zones, and domestic law) is fraught with complications.8

Additional and updated training would be invaluable in reducing the impact of any attempted strike, but the capacity for, and commitment to, such an initiative by cruise and ferry companies may be hampered by the ongoing impact of COVID-19. The global pandemic has hit the tourism industry hard, and the priority of organizations that rely on maritime travel is understandably to get ships back in the water. As such, changes to policy alongside innovative approaches to training are needed to ensure the required buy-in. The use of VR presents a cost- and time-efficient approach to instruction, while also providing the opportunity for interactive learning.9 Standardized, evidence-based training programs would provide a valuable step forward in protecting maritime vessels and their crew from unpredictable events, including terrorist attacks.10

Make it Virtual

Simulated environments have been utilized for teaching and learning in a range of domains, most notably aviation, medicine, and the military, with undeniably positive results. The scope for the use of VR in andragogy is boundless. Skills and knowledge can be modelled and repeatedly practiced, hard-to-reach situations can be replicated, and a wider range of scenarios can be presented. A simulated environment allows for learning objectives to be demonstrated and practiced with ongoing feedback, enabling learners to experience high risk situations in a safe and replicable virtual space.11 Technological advances, including not only virtual reality, but also augmented reality and 360 immersive videos show considerable promise for facilitating the development of intuitive, implicit, and functional knowledge. The immersive nature of the experience increases learner engagement, improving the transfer of knowledge to the real world.12 With the technology to host VR capabilities becoming more affordable, this is an opportunity to take formidable steps forward to strengthen security and risk management capabilities for an under-developed discipline across the maritime leisure industry.

For cruise ship crew and security staff, pilot work is currently underway in the development and testing of an evidence-based training program. This program has been informed by an in-depth evaluation of existing protocols and discussions with experts in maritime security, training, and industry. Initial feedback and research-based findings show great promise for the development of this approach to tackling real and current threats in the VNSA domain. Nonetheless, to provide a comprehensive response to terrorism, piracy, and the related security issues associated with trafficking, illegal trade, and thievery, this must be located within robust policy development and increased awareness of the national dependence on the accomplished and essential work of the wider maritime industry.

Conclusion

The future of VR has a rightful place in maritime security. Already, the use of VR has been implemented by armies around the world who are able to train in battlefield scenarios and normalize high stress situations, whilst improving a range of fundamental skills from effective communications to critical combat techniques. In the maritime industry, the unexpected and ongoing attacks at sea require a different way of thinking and a different point of view on safety and procedures. Already, maritime simulators have become one of the most advance forms of education across the world. Even the most experienced professionals are regularly trained in such simulators on emergency operations, demonstrating a renewed emphasis on operator training. VR-training software is an efficient and easy alternative to face-to-face training. It increases learner attention, promotes flexibility and accessibility, and results in higher levels of information retention. It also enables measurable training progress indexes. VR presents an invaluable, evidence-based approach to promoting the efficient and effective decision-making required to respond to and minimize the impact of an attempted attack on a maritime target at sea.

Selina Robinson is a Teaching Fellow in Forensic Investigations at the University of Portsmouth. Her areas of research lie with maritime security in cruise ships and the use of XR simulations in education and training. Previous work experience involves counter terrorism and crime scene investigation.

Dr. Amy Meenaghan is a lecturer in Psychology in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice Studies at the University of Portsmouth. Her background is in the use of virtual reality to understand offender decision making. She is currently working on various VR projects within the field of Criminal Justice, with a focus on optimizing such technologies to benefit education, training and crime prevention initiatives.

References

[1] Violence at Sea: How Terrorists, Insurgents, and Other Extremists Exploit the Maritime Domain. (2020, August 11). Stable Seas. https://stableseas.org/publications/violence-sea-terrorist-insurgents

[2] Ahmad, M. (2020). Maritime piracy operations: Some legal issues. Journal of International Maritime Safety, Environmental Affairs, and Shipping, 0(0), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1080/25725084.2020.1788200

[3] Lehr, P. (2006). Violence at sea: piracy in the age of global terrorism. Routledge.

[4] Barnett, R. W. (1983). The U.S. Navy’s role in countering maritime terrorism. Terrorism, 6(3), 469–480. https://doi.org/10.1080/10576108308435543

[5] IMB Piracy & Armed Robbery Against Ships — Report for the Period, 2021.

[6] Onuoha, F. C. (2009). Violence at sea: the ramifications of maritime piracy in Nigerian and Somali waters for human security in Africa. Institute of African Studies Research Review, 25(2), 21-44.

[7] Pérouse de Montclos, M. A. (2012). Maritime piracy in Nigeria: Old wine in new bottles?. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 35(7-8), 531-541.

[8] Bell, P., & Webster, J. (2010). Teaching and Learning in Maritime Security: A Literature Review. Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism, 5(2), 23–39. https://doi.org/10.1080/18335300.2010.9686947

[9] Markopoulos, E., Lauronen, J., Luimula, M., Lehto, P., & Laukkanen, S. (2019, October). Maritime safety education with VR technology (MarSEVR). In 2019 10th IEEE International Conference on Cognitive Infocommunications (CogInfoCom) (pp. 283-288). IEEE.

[10] de Armas, C., Tori, R., & Netto, A. V. (2020). Use of virtual reality simulators for training programs in the areas of security and defense: a systematic review. Multimedia Tools and Applications, 79(5), 3495-3515.

[11] Gibson, D. & Baek, Y. K. (2009). Digital simulations for improving education: Learning through artificial teaching environments. Hershey PA.

[12] Berki, B. (2020). Experiencing the sense of presence within an educational desktop virtual reality. Acta Polytechnica Hungarica, 17(2), 255-265.

Featured Image: An advertisement for VR training applications for the fire, oil and gas, and aviation sectors. (Credit: https://structurus.com/en/vrx)

Space

The Influence of Naval Strategy on the Future of Spacepower

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By Dylan “Joose” Phillips-Levine and Trevor Phillips-Levine

Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic. The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute. Hoping to resolve the matter with a blockade of deadly battleships, the greedy Trade Federation has stopped all shipping to the small planet of Naboo, rich in raw materials vital to the economic health of the Republic.1

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… Trade Federation officers must have read Alfred Thayer Mahan’s naval classic, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History. In true Mahanian fashion, the Trade Federation massed their capital battleships to blockade Naboo.2 The Trade Federation pays homage to the East India Company that once controlled the trade routes and paved the way for Britain to become a world power.3,4 In The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, Mahan believed that sea control could be gained in part by blockades – an observation borne out by Great Britain’s ascent as an economic and military powerhouse.5 Renowned navalist Milan Vego offers further guidance of how to ensure sea control in his canonical book, Maritime Strategy and Sea Control: Theory and Practice.6 In it, Vego demonstrates through historical examples that sea control can be achieved by strategically positioning forces in straits and chokepoints. Mahan’s focus on blockades combined with Vego’s theory for sea control in straits and chokepoints can guide United States interplanetary grand strategy as the United States, China, India, Russia, the European Union, and countless others shift their sights towards the final frontier.

Straits and Chokepoints

Vego asserts that sea control, in its simplest form, is the ability for a nation to use a given part of the sea and associated air (and space) across the spectrum of conflict to deny the same to the enemy.7 Applying Vego’s definition of sea control and its application to specific geographic regions, the importance of straits becomes evident. Straits or “chokepoints” are a textbook case of sea control limited to a specific region and have remained of great importance throughout history. Nations that control these chokepoints can asphyxiate the enemy by halting commerce causing major economic impacts or denying freedom of maneuver in wartime. During the Napoleonic War, the British had a vested interested in ensuring a neutral Denmark and thus neutral Danish Straits. The plains to the north provided timber for the British and French Navy and were also critical for transporting grain amongst other vital commerce. A century later, Germany’s de facto control of the Danish Straits prevented Britain from reinforcing its Russian ally during the First World War. During the Second World War, the occupation of Denmark allowed Germany to leverage the full economic resources of Scandinavian countries while denying the Royal Navy access to the Baltics.8 Even in a galaxy far, far away the Trade Federation realized the importance of blockading Naboo by placing their battleships in key locations with the goal to leverage the full economic resources of the planet.

Admiral John Fisher, the First Sea Lord of the Royal Navy and founding father of the Dreadnought battleship, identified the strategic importance of Straits when positing this rhetorical question, “Do you know that there are five keys to the world? The Strait of Dover, the Straits of Gibraltar, the Suez Canal, the Straits of Malacca, the Cape of Good Hope. And every one of these keys we hold.”9,10 Although oversimplified, his aphorism still rings true today. In March of 2021, the M/V Ever Given became lodged in the Suez Canal disrupting commerce and causing an estimated 9.6 billion dollars of economic damage per day.11 Ships once waiting in line to transit the Suez Canal extended their voyage and incurred additional fuel and crew costs by sailing around the Cape of Good Hope to their destinations.12,13

Fig. 1. Ships sailing around the Cape of Good while the Suez Canal was blocked in March incurring extra fuel, time, and crew costs. (BBC graphic)

Lagrange Points and Halo Orbits

The same analogy holds true for space travel. Despite the incomprehensible distance, times, and vastness required for interplanetary travel, the chokepoints of sea control can also be distilled down to Lagrange points for space control.14 Lagrange points are specific points (orbits) between any two orbiting celestial bodies where gravitational and centrifugal force negate each other, resulting in orbits that can be maintained with little to no propulsion.15 In simpler terms, only five Lagrange points (labeled L1 through L5) exist between planets and their respective moons or the Sun and its planets.16 Due to the gravity-stable properties and low fuel requirements of Lagrange points, they are ideal for satellites and are understandably well known by space agencies. In 2017, the Director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, Dr. Jim Green, proposed the radical idea of placing a magnetic dipole shield at Lagrange point L1 in the Sun-Mars system to create an artificial magnetosphere, shielding Mars from solar winds and radiation. This shield would allow the volcanic activity on Mars to continually build up the atmosphere until a point of self-sustainment.17 If a state or non-state actor saturates or even blockades critical Lagrange chokepoints, the ramifications could range from economic depression and collapse of critical space infrastructure to the loss of interplanetary colonies that may eventually inhabit the cosmos.18

Closer to home, satellites from both NASA and the European Space Agency have already made home in earth-system Lagrange points. Lagrange points, specifically L1, L2, and L3, can also host an ecosystem of satellites through halo orbits.19 Although halo orbits are dynamically unstable and require more fuel than the stable Lagrange points at L4 and L5, satellites in halo orbits at L2 can serve as communication relays from the dark side of the moon, Mars, and other celestial bodies. In May of 2018, China placed the first-ever lunar relay satellite, Queqiao, into a halo orbit at the Earth-Moon L2. The following year, China landed their Chang’e 4 rover on the far side of the moon using Queqiao as a communication relay.20 In addition to China, NASA and the European Space Agency have already placed satellites in Lagrange point L2 while countries such as Russia, India, and Japan have their own Lagrangian aspirations.21 Because Lagrange points and associated halo orbits can only host a limited number of spacecraft, the contest for this limited real estate by spacefaring nations can have terrestrial consequences.22,23 These important areas in space are not treatise to international norms and measures yet will be essential for lunar and interplanetary space lines of communication.24

Fig. 2. The Five Lagrange points, L1 through L5. M1 represents the larger celestial body and M2 represents any celestial body whose orbit is anchored to it. If M1 represents the sun, M2 represents the planets. If M1 represents the planets, M2 represents its moons. Source: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Mechanics/lagpt.html

Access to Resources

The Trade Federation blockaded Naboo in an attempt to leverage the rare economic resources found in the planet. Similar to here on Earth, access to resources is necessary to lift countries and their populations’ standard of living. It is unlikely that much of the world will sacrifice their consumerism to live in harmony with each other and Mother Nature, leaving the limited resources on Earth to support an ever-growing consumer economy. Governments in the future are likely to look to space to solve their growth problems, much as European colonization looked to supplement sapped domestic resources in the 17th and 18th centuries. Beyond Lagrange chokepoints serving as potential flashpoints for real-estate between countries launching satellites, Martian trojan asteroids make home in the gravity-stable environment at Lagrange points L4 and L5 in the Mars-Sun system.25 The imperative of space lines of communication is not necessarily scientific exploration or protection of desirable orbits, but the ability to leverage the vast resources that abound in space. One asteroid floating between Mars and Jupiter is assessed to contain over 10 quintillion dollars of precious metals, more than 10,000 times larger than the 2019 global economy, far more wealth than Han Solo could have ever imagined.26,27

Interplanetary Transport Network and Space lines of Communication

Alfred Thayer Mahan’s unmistakable first lines in the Influence of History Upon Sea Power state:

“The first and most obvious light in which the sea presents itself from the political and social point of view is that of a great highway; or better, perhaps, of a wide common, over which men may pass in all directions, but on which some well-worn paths show that controlling reasons have led them to choose certain lines of travel rather than others. These lines of travel are called trade routes; and the reasons which have determined them are to be sought in the history of the world.”28

While the great highway, wide common, and well-worn paths refer to the sea, his quote can be analogous to Star Wars as well. The hyperspace routes in Star Wars, or trade routes, link the major worlds in the galaxy like an intergalactic superhighway. The routes are safe and account for traveling without colliding into celestial bodies including their gravitational pull. Han Solo couldn’t just punch it when blockade running from Imperial Cruisers. As the Imperial Cruisers closed on him, he quipped to a young Luke Skywalker that, “Traveling through hyperspace ain’t like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova and that’d end your trip real quick, wouldn’t it?”29

Fig. 3. Punch it! Still from “Star Wars: Episode V”. Copyright Lucasfilm Limited. Used under the terms of Fair Use per 17 U.S. Code § 107.

Although hyperspace only remains a reality in the Star Wars Universe, a great highway through our solar system already exists. Lagrange points serve as interplanetary straits, connecting celestial bodies in our solar system through the Interplanetary Transport Network (ITN).30 The halo orbits around Lagrange points can be used to alter spacecraft and satellite trajectories to arrive at any point in the solar system with minimal energy, although reaching Mars could take a millennium using the ITN – far longer than the record breaking 12 parsec Kessel Run flown by Han Solo in the Millennium Falcon.31,32 However, the slowness of ITN trajectories can be modified with external speed injections. In 2003, Cal-Teach professors introduced a Multi-Moon Orbiter concept.33 The concept proposed that a spacecraft could use Lagrange points to modify its trajectory to survey the moons of Jupiter with a final touch down on Europa where NASA speculates both water and life could exist.34 Lagrange points will serve as the keys to unlock the universe that could transform mankind into a multi-planetary species.

Fig. 4. Artist’s depiction of the ITN that connects our solar system. Abrupt changes in trajectory are due to Lagrange points. Image credit: NASA/JPL

The Line between Prescient and Far-fetched

While critics may point to the astronomical costs and technological gaps that make interplanetary travel an impossibility, the critique is confined to now. In 1945, some mainstream scientists felt that satellites and intercontinental ballistic missiles were fool hardy errands that would be too technologically complex and cost prohibitive to develop.35 Less than twelve years later, Sputnik orbited the planet and within fifteen years, intercontinental missiles rested in silos. The once lone small metal ball named Sputnik launched by the Russians in 1957 has given way to a world that depends on complex networks of satellites. While GPS has become a household name in a few short decades, Russia’s GLONASS, China’s Beidou, and Europe’s Galileo systems offer competing location services with global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) receivers. The recent out-of-control Chinese rocket shows that China’s Communist Party is serious about becoming a space-based power and willing to pursue this capability at all costs without due regard for safety.36 Even more recently, the Chinese landed their Zhurong rover on Mars where President Xi Jinping proudly praised all involved by saying, “You were brave enough for the challenge, pursued excellence and placed our country in the advanced ranks of planetary exploration.”37 On July 11th, 2021, Richard Branson along with five other crewmates flew to space aboard the VSS Unity proving the viability of space tourism.38,39 The following week, Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin followed suit in achieving spaceflight in the New Shephard.40

The rapid pace of artificial intelligence (AI) advancement and Space X’s Falcon 9 rockets, Starhopper, and now Starship all show that a manned mission to Mars is a matter of when, not if, and might occur as soon as 2024. SpaceX has plans to colonize Mars with one million people by 2050.41,42

To sustain and develop a Martian colony and more, established and secure space lines of communication will be of critical importance. Interplanetary pursuits are being pursued at a break-neck pace by both allies and adversaries, including China, Russia, India, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and European Union.43 As each country pursues its own interests among the solar system, the United States must develop a grand strategy in the solar system to protect US interests against both state and non-state actors. The reflection of this reality came to fruition on June 7th, 2021, when Congressman Ted Lieu introduced the Space Infrastructure Act which will “issue guidance with respect to designating space systems, services, and technology as critical infrastructure.”44

Fig. 5. The success of Martian colonies will require an intelligent space strategy. Artist’s illustration of SpaceX Starships on Mars. Image credit: SpaceX.

Conclusion

The blockade of Naboo never happened, but it does have historical precedents and very real implications for space exploration and exploitation. As countries vie to expand their resources, they not only gaze across the vast oceans but upwards towards the final frontier. The increased focus on Mars and beyond demands a robust US interplanetary strategy to protect the United States’ interests in the cosmos. While the United States is rightly focused on earth-based priorities, Milan Vego’s canonical book Maritime Strategy and Sea Control: Theory and Practice, can provide guidance for interplanetary strategy in ensuring a “a free and open [solar system] in which all nations, large and small, are secure in their sovereignty and able to pursue economic growth consistent with accepted international rules, norms, and principles of fair competition.”45 If the United States neglects interplanetary strategy, the United States will be left behind as other countries not only develop but execute their interplanetary strategies.46 If Admiral Fisher was alive today, he would ask, “Do you know that there are five keys to the solar system?” We need to ask ourselves, who will control these keys?

Lieutenant Commander Dylan “Joose” Phillips-Levine is a naval aviator and serves with TACRON-12.  His Twitter handle is @JooseBoludo.

Lieutenant Commander Trevor Phillips-Levine is a naval aviator and serves as a department head in Strike Fighter Squadron Two. His Twitter handle is @TPLevine85.

Endnotes

1. George Lucas, 1999, ¨Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace”, Lucasfilm Limited.

2. “Databank Naboo,” Star Wars, https://www.starwars.com/databank/naboo.

3. Tim Veekhoven, “The Trade Federation And Neimoidians: A History,” Star Wars (14 October 2014), https://www.starwars.com/news/the-trade-federation-and-neimoidians-a-history.

4. Erin Blakemore, “How the East India Company became the world’s most powerful business,” National Geographic, (6 September 2019) https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/british-east-india-trading-company-most-powerful-business.

5. Dr. Milan Vego, “Naval Classical Thinkers And Operational Art” Naval War College (2009) 3 Naval War College https://web.archive.org/web/20170131144505/https:/www.usnwc.edu/getattachment/85c80b3a-5665-42cd-9b1e-72c40d6d3153/NWC-1005-NAVAL-CLASSICAL-THINKERS-AND-OPERATIONAL-.aspx.

6. Dr. Milan Vego, Maritime Strategy and Sea Control: Theory and Practice, Routledge; 1st edition, (14 April 2016), 189 https://www.amazon.com/Maritime-Strategy-Sea-Control-Practice-ebook/dp/B019H40ST2

7. Ibid, 24

8. Ibid 188

9. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, “John Arbuthnot Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher,” Encyclopaedia Britannica https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Arbuthnot-Fisher-1st-Baron-Fisher.

10. Dr. Milan Vego, Maritime Strategy and Sea Control: Theory and Practice, Routledge; 1st edition, (14 April 2016), 188 https://www.amazon.com/Maritime-Strategy-Sea-Control-Practice-ebook/dp/B019H40ST2

11. Kshitij Bhargava, “Single ship stuck causing Suez Canal ‘traffic jam’ may cost $9.6 billion per day,” Financial Express (26 March 2021) https://www.financialexpress.com/economy/single-ship-stuck-causing-suez-canal-traffic-jam-may-cost-9-6-billion-per-day/2220575/.

12. Daniel Stone, “The Suez Canal blockage detoured ships through an area notorious for shipwrecks,” National Geographic (29 March 2021) https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/suez-blockage-detoured-ships-through-cape-good-hope-notorious-shipwrecks.

13. Peter S. Goodman and Stanley Reed, “With Suez Canal Blocked, Shippers Begin End Run Around a Trade Artery,” New York Times (26 March 2021, Update 29 March 2021) https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/26/business/suez-canal-blocked-ship.html.

14. Lead Authors: Clementine G. Starling, Mark J. Massa, Lt Col Christopher P. Mulder, and Julia T. Siegel With a Foreword by Co-Chairs General James E. Cartwright, USMC (ret.) and Secretary Deborah Lee James in collaboration with: Raphael Piliero, Brett M. Williamson, Dor W. Brown IV, Ross Lott, Christopher J. MacArthur, Alexander Powell Hays, Christian Trotti, Olivia Popp, “The Future of Security in Space: A Thirty-Year US Strategy” Atlantic Council (April 2021) 35 https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/TheFutureofSecurityinSpace.pdf.

15. NASA/WMAP Science Team, “What is a Lagrange Point?,” NASA (27 March 2018) https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/754/what-is-a-lagrange-point/.

16. Shane D. Ross, “The Interplanetary Transport Network,” American Scientist, Volume 94 (April 2006) 234 http://www.dept.aoe.vt.edu/~sdross/papers/AmericanScientist2006.pdf.

17.Matt Williams, “NASA proposes a magnetic shield to protect Mars’ atmosphere,” Universe Today (3 March 2017) https://phys.org/news/2017-03-nasa-magnetic-shield-mars-atmosphere.html.

18. Lead Authors: Clementine G. Starling, Mark J. Massa, Lt Col Christopher P. Mulder, and Julia T. Siegel with a Foreword by Co-Chairs General James E. Cartwright, USMC (ret.) and Secretary Deborah Lee James in collaboration with: Raphael Piliero, Brett M. Williamson, Dor W. Brown IV, Ross Lott, Christopher J. MacArthur, Alexander Powell Hays, Christian Trotti, Olivia Popp, “The Future of Security in Space: A Thirty-Year US Strategy” Atlantic Council (April 2021) 35 https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/TheFutureofSecurityinSpace.pdf.

19. Ibid 70.

20. Luyuan Xu, “How China’s lunar relay satellite arrived in its final orbit,” Planetary (15 June 2018) https://www.planetary.org/articles/20180615-queqiao-orbit-explainer

21. Lead Authors: Clementine G. Starling, Mark J. Massa, Lt Col Christopher P. Mulder, and Julia T. Siegel with a Foreword by Co-Chairs General James E. Cartwright, USMC (ret.) and Secretary Deborah Lee James in collaboration with: Raphael Piliero, Brett M. Williamson, Dor W. Brown IV, Ross Lott, Christopher J. MacArthur, Alexander Powell Hays, Christian Trotti, Olivia Popp, “The Future of Security in Space: A Thirty-Year US Strategy” Atlantic Council (April 2021) 35 https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/TheFutureofSecurityinSpace.pdf.

22. Ibid 70.

23. Ibid 10.

24. Ibid 72.

25. Jesse Emspak, Are Mars’ Trojan Asteroids Pieces of the Red Planet?,” Space (July 24, 2017) https://www.space.com/37565-mars-trojan-asteroids-pieces-of-the-planet.html.

26. Adam Smith, “Asteroid Worth $10 Quintillion Could Be Only One of Its Kind,” Independent (29 October 2020) https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/asteroid-10-quintillion-psyche-19-iron-nickel-b1419635.html.

27. “Star Wars IV: A New Hope Quotes,” Movie Quote Database, https://www.moviequotedb.com/movies/star-wars-episode-iv-a-new-hope/quote_29904.html.

28. Alfred Thayer Mahan, “The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783,” Dover Publications; Revised ed. edition (November 1, 1987) https://www.amazon.com/Influence-History-1660-1783-Military-Weapons/dp/0486255093.

29. “Star Wars IV: A New Hope Quotes,” Movie Quote Database, https://www.moviequotedb.com/movies/star-wars-episode-iv-a-new-hope/quote_29894.html.

30. Shane D. Ross, “The Interplanetary Transport Network,” American Scientist, Volume 94 (April 2006) 230 http://www.dept.aoe.vt.edu/~sdross/papers/AmericanScientist2006.pdf.

31. Ibid 236.

32. Kyle Hill, “How the Star Wars Kessel Run Turns Han Solo into a Time-Traveler,” Wired (12 February 2013) https://www.wired.com/2013/02/kessel-run-12-parsecs/.

33. Ross, S. D. and Koon, W. S. and Lo, M. W. and Marsden, J. E. “Design of a Multi-Moon Orbiter,” Spaceflight Mechanics 2003. Advances in the Astronautical Sciences. No. 114. American Astronautical Society, 1. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20101007-131136558

34.“ Ingredients for Life?,” NASA https://europa.nasa.gov/why-europa/ingredients-for-life/

35. John. A. Olsen, “A History of Air Warfare,” Potomac Books Incorporated (2010), audiobook. Part 5 Chapter 16, time: 16:42.

36. Alison Rourke, “‘Out-of-control’ Chinese rocket falling to Earth could partially survive re-entry,” The Guardian (4 May 2021) https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/may/04/out-of-control-chinese-rocket-tumbling-to-earth.

37. Jonathan Amos, “China lands its Zhurong rover on Mars,” BBC (15 May 2021) https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57122914.

38. Chelsea Gohd, “Virgin Galactic launches Richard Branson to space in 1st fully crewed flight of VSS Unity,” 12 July 2021) SPACE.COM https://www.space.com/virgin-galactic-unity-22-branson-flight-success

39. Mike Wall, “ Virgin Galactic Unveils New SpaceShipTwo Unity for Space Tourists,” Scientific American (23 February 2016) SPACE.COM https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/virgin-galactic-unveils-new-spaceshiptwo-unity-for-space-tourists/.

40. Paul Rincon, “Jeff Bezos launches to space aboard New Shepard rocket ship,” BBC (20 July 2021), BBC https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57849364

41. Hanneke Weitering, “Elon Musk says SpaceX’s 1st Starship trip to Mars could fly in 4 years,” Space (16 October 2020) https://www.space.com/spacex-starship-first-mars-trip-2024.

42. Morgan McFall-Johnsen and Dave Mosher “Elon Musk says he plans to send 1 million people to Mars by 2050 by launching 3 Starship rockets every day and creating ‘a lot of jobs’ on the red planet,” Business Insider (17 January 2020) https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-plans-1-million-people-to-mars-by-2050-2020-1.

43. “Once a two-country race, Mars missions now on radar of multiple nations,” Times of India (18 February 2021) https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/once-a-two-country-race-mars-missions-now-on-radar-of-multiple-nations/articleshow/81096583.cms.

44. Mr. Lieu, “Space Infrastructure Act,” House of Representatives (17 May 2021) https://lieu.house.gov/sites/lieu.house.gov/files/LIEU_172_xml.pdf.

45. The Deparment Of Defense, “Indo-Pacific Strategy Report” Department of Defense (1 June 2019) https://media.defense.gov/2019/Jul/01/2002152311/-1/-1/1/DEPARTMENT-OF-DEFENSE-INDO-PACIFIC-STRATEGY-REPORT-2019.PDF.

46. Brien Flewelling, “Securing cislunar space: A vision for U.S. leadership,” Space News (9 November 2020) https://spacenews.com/op-ed-securing-cislunar-space-a-vision-for-u-s-leadership/.

Feature Image: Still from “Star Wars: Episode I” depicting the blockade of Naboo. Copyright Lucasfilm Limited. Used under the terms of Fair Use per 17 U.S. Code § 107.