Abstract
Abstract
Planetary defense (PD) falls into the field of security studies in international relations because its principal problem is a threat to our security. When any threat cannot be realistically placed on a reasonable scale showing its importance, then a securitization process known from the critical security studies in international relations is an approach to analyze it. Analysis of the securitization process is usually used to unveil real intentions behind legitimization of exceptional politics, but it can also be used to justify its credibility. In other words, the way we talk, argue, and discuss the threat constructs our perception of its severity, magnitude, and relevance. PD has one significant advantage: It deals with easily scientifically confirmable threats that can help to justify the securitization move. Despite the hard science behind PD, additional interests of the involved actors may contribute toward related policy decisions: national prestige, commercial boost multiplier, advancement of scientific research, or simply the demand for a more responsible global governance. I introduce the reader into the realm of securitization theory and assess the special case of PD in its light. Later, I argue why a cosmopolitan mindset rather than a cosmopolitan actor is the key on how to reach PD readiness without global security concerns. This mindset can be enabled by global commercial actors as they can play a significant and a good role in our realm of nation states that usually share consensus over a need of good global governance. In the final part, this article provides a brief policy architecture based on a cosmopolitan mindset, including a roadmap for reaching it. The resulting commercial infrastructure with a PD capability can serve commerce, science, and national prestige at once while representing a giant leap to space and an unprecedented advance to human collective behavior.
Introduction
This article is a theoretical debate and an academic defense within the discipline of international relations that is focused on wider efforts that can be found within the planetary defense (PD) community. My objective is also to give this community an insight into our discipline and what serious, and I believe also valid, arguments it can have against assumedly good intentions behind PD efforts. Engineers and scientists tend to perceive the political world as a mess of never-ending debates that can be avoided by application of scientific positivist methods (decisions should be made on scientific evidence rather than on opinions) or scientific rationalism (what is doable and what is not or what is rational based on scientific evidence) to confirm or refute a hypothesis; in our case, the possibility and seriousness of an asteroid or other Near-Earth object (NEO) impact.
In a different theoretical realm, critical security studies in international relations tend toward exactly the opposite way of thinking. They study how such discursive performances form the threat itself in the so-called social construction of reality, in particular how the securitization process constructs deemed insecurity. 1
My position here is to unite both camps and to show that even a policy recommendation focused on securitization of a threat that is not threatening us imminently can be based on objectively confirmable values and, thus, become an objective threat with good implications on society, something that a pure critical scholar would deny because each discursive performance is believed to be based on personal or collective opinion rather than scientific facts. This article tries to reconcile both camps and to merge their arguments into maybe a hardly achievable but certainly more ethically plausible policy of PD in comparison to ideas such as reportedly inevitable deflection solution in nuclear explosive devices (NEDs). A good point here would be that these NEDs are called weapons of mass destruction by security scholars. The usage of a different term for an apparently same technology (only altered for a different purpose) would not help the PD community to avoid criticism, and it will only deepen it.
PD is a bit tricky case study because one asteroid detection can mean jeopardy of a global extinction event and we may not have enough time to divert the situation, but we still have not detected one such asteroid. Under these consequences supported by scientific rational facts, we inherently live in the realm of possible social construction of our insecurity because the threat might be, but still is not, there; however, the PD community already talks about NEDs as the critically needed last-resort solution. This is a very stimulative topic and it is a delicate quest for policy makers and food for thought for political scientists. On the one hand, we talk about extinction events. On the other hand, others talk about extremely low probability events. This article is not about the assessment of the threat level but about leveraging the debate on how to make human species multi-planetary, avoiding the political quagmire while elevating PD as a global political and security issue.
In this article, I argue that the ethical and most plausible way can be space commercialization that is rationalized through the general moral necessity of PD as a side effect rather than an inherent necessity of PD technology deployment based on an assumed possibility of impact. The latter way would be a target for critical security scholars and might not achieve the intended results of working PD infrastructure.
If both sides are united, we will face a much more interesting situation: a moment in which the unification of security studies and passion of space engineers and scientists can develop stepping stones for further space activity, commercial exploitation, and scientific exploration. I am using this interdisciplinary insight to propose a perspective that even pure securitization of (still) hypothetical threats can have significantly positive implications on global society, peace, and humankind evolution.
This argument that some security issues can be diverted to humankind's flourishing has been recently put into the fore by Nyman 2 on a theoretical level; however, it has not yet been applied to the asteroid in the context of being the particular fundamental security threat to humanity. PD efforts are special in this way. Engineers, planetary scientists, and astronomers are convinced that they do good to our species; whereas critical security scholars would study their efforts with their natural skepticism and would use the close-to-zero imminence of asteroid impact as a convincing argument to criticize the sincerity of their efforts. However, the imminence of asteroid impact might not be the case if the whole efforts have other than mere security implications. One would argue that critical security studies need to react if the threat is simply objectively measurable. They do, and the principal argument is that a mere absence of threat is simply not enough if we cause hardly legitimate implications. There must be a justifiable solution that causes the absence of threat and will not cause insecurity elsewhere.
The recent contribution to the theory of international relations regarding the attempt for just securitization theory by Floyd 3 is given particular attention here. This is especially because the securitization of objective threat does not necessarily bring good and, thus, does not need to be fully justifiable. The PD community needs to admit this dilemma and work creatively with this inherently important argument or their PD efforts driven by scientific rationalism will put its legitimacy under risk and that is not our shared desired outcome.
Securitization and Just Securitization in Critical Security Studies
Securitization * is a term coined by scholars who are commonly known as the Copenhagen School. 1 In the process of securitization, an issue that is not related to security has been securitized by a state actor and thus after the process is understood as an issue of national security. The outcome of securitization usually legitimizes exceptional political moves of nation states. Some argue that nonmilitary issues become military ones and that space is not excluded. 4 The whole purpose of securitization theory has been to unveil the real intentions of securitization actors (usually states, but generally the ones who do securitization moves, in our case all who talk about the asteroid threat) to desecuritize the threat because (according to the co-author of securitization theory) that is the only ethically acceptable result aiming at preservation of peace between nation states. 5 The political environment of nation states threatening each other has been profoundly important in the development, acceptance, and application of securitization theory.
The Copenhagen School has caused an explosion of publications since 1998 and has seriously transformed the whole international relations discipline. However, Barry Buzan, a Copenhagen School member and co-author of the initial publication of the theory, mentioned several times that an asteroid impact may be one of the successful securitization topics because asteroids fall into a category of systemic threats (threats to us all); they do not fall into middle-level threats that usually represent threats to national security. Systemic threats can be successful because they can be justifiable and do not represent isolated interest groups represented by nation states. I think that securitization theory left its domain of national security by this argumentation.
In that perspective, even the fathers of this wave of critical security studies understand the securitization of global threats as inevitable and a possibly achievable process; however, they do not talk about the desirability or justifiability of the securitization process of the systemic threats.
Six thousand years of relatively stable climate does not necessarily mean we are going to live in the same environment forever and as Buzan argues, asteroid impact can significantly change the global climate 6 if it does not destroy the whole world as the K-Pg event abruptly did 67 million years before. If we compare climate change and asteroid threat, the asteroid has one advantage: We do fully understand what is the desirable, and ethically good, outcome—the avoidance of an asteroid on collision course. In the case of climate change, the perfect state of climate will be difficult to formulate on a purely scientific basis, and, thus, the requirement for objective threat here can be more easily applicable to the asteroid threat. But even in the case of asteroids, we may ask ourselves as to whether the securitization of an expected but still not confirmed threat is justifiable and that is exactly where Rita Floyd went in her theorization.
In her article in Security Dialogue, Rita Floyd came up with a clear argument as to when the securitization of a threat is justifiable. 3 According to Rita Floyd, there have to be 3 criteria fulfilled to securitize a threat in a justifiable way: First, the threat must be objective; second, the referent object must be morally legitimate; and third, the security response must be appropriate in relation to the aggressor and to the sincere intentions of the securitizing actor.
The Objective Threat
The objective threat is a threat to our survival regardless of our awareness. 3 Without being aware of the threat, we will not be able to react. We become aware of the asteroid impact inevitability because we understand orbital mechanics and then decide to work on the threat confirmation by using various technical means. When we confirm the threat, it will become a matter of our security—a security threat. Here, a very special characteristic of PD emerges: The threat is certainly inevitable, but we do not know whether it is also imminent; however, we can develop that knowledge. Asteroid impact is an objective threat without doubt, but the case is whether it is also a threat to our security to justify the response proposed in the securitization move.
PD provides a profound opportunity to develop and deploy technologies to monitor the whole Solar System to develop our awareness regarding an asteroid threat by enlarging the infrastructure and deepening data analysis. It requires purely scientific means and not a conviction that a terrorist has an intention to attack just today and not tomorrow. Moreover, orbital mechanics is predictable.
Humanity possesses various detection technologies, but understandably not all are dedicated to NEO detection. Most telescopes provide time to various projects, into which NEO falls as one and not as the most important one. However, we do have dedicated systems and whole programs to detect asteroids.
Under the title of Minor Planet Center conducted by the U.S. Smithsonian Institute, humanity collects data from various detection systems or telescopes. More data should be centralized in the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN), which has been established by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs and is reporting the current status of NEO observation to the community. Another body under the United Nations is the Space Mission Planning Advisory Group (SMPAG), whose role is to design and propose a mitigation mission of the asteroid. The international cooperation is not perfectly organized, and sharing data is much more based on the interest of astronomers; however, the past years have shown that institutionalization can significantly improve the cooperation. We will not be able to assess the threat enough without appropriate technology infrastructure deployed worldwide. Such a scientific cooperative effort visibly implies international cooperation, a cosmopolitan mindset, and not national security concerns because it aims at confirming whether the objective threat is also a threat to humankind's security. Asteroid threat is a cosmopolitan problem by nature, and it is a systemic threat.
Developing knowledge that reflects our solar system awareness is critical to securely assess the threat and to claim the threat as an objective threat to our security. The threat is objective regardless of our awareness, but we must convince ourselves in a certain way that the answer to the threat is necessary right now or confirm when it will be. This is the profound problem in PD. Serious asteroid impact will probably not happen in our lifetime, so why should we react to an almost hypothetical threat to our security?
The threat posed by asteroids is (in general terms), without doubt, a threat to us all. The referent object to the securitization is the whole world, and, thus, it is hard to identify a middle-level referent object that can be threatened by the global efforts to the asteroid threat detection. However, the way we react to the objective threat before it becomes an imminent threat to our security can threaten others right now.
The Moral Legitimacy of the Referent Object
The referent object of security must be morally legitimate; in other words, it has to benefit humans' well-being, according to Rita Floyd in her attempt toward just securitization theory. 3 We can argue that survival of the biosphere, including human civilization, fulfills this criterion sufficiently but others think that mere survival is not enough and that the potential for human flourishing is above the survival. 2 However, I would add more argumentation to the concept of well-being and Rita Floyd gave us some interesting hints. The biosphere survival (rather than our survival) requirement brings more legitimacy, but it does not necessarily bring about the ultimate motivation to act as the threat can become a security threat merely on a longer timescale (the date of the next impact being unknown); whereas the hazard to national security of such a project could be arguably considered severe and imminent. Our survival, as the argument about the PD efforts legitimacy, can be challenged by legitimization of deflection technologies such as nuclear weapons called NEDs. Threatening ourselves by de-stigmatization of nuclear weapons for the sake of the inevitable but still undetected asteroid is certainly not morally legitimate, especially if there are other ways to proceed that would not threaten people on Earth.
I would argue that global threats have to be solved on a cosmopolitan basis, and, thus, national security is not relevant in this case. Global threats are common threats to all nations. If one nation has a right of veto whereas almost 200 nations are willing to act, we need to find a way on how to develop a legitimate cosmopolitan actor that would not replace nation states, will be able to deal with asteroids, but will not threaten the national security of any nation state. I need to place emphasis here as I do not propose a cosmopolitan super-state. Nevertheless, if any citizen of the world had had veto power, we would have lived in a completely frozen political environment; it would be clumsy to make any decision. The question as to why one nation should have legitimacy to veto such an endeavor seems clumsy from a cosmopolitan perspective. However, that clumsiness is what keeps argumentation living between various democracies; it preserves the democratic debate, because otherwise we may find ourselves in a totalitarian world state. 7 However, we can achieve the desired outcome without centralizing power over extremely powerful technologies if we can master maneuvering asteroids for commercial purposes.
Human well-being should be objective and not subjective; it should not be well-being to one nation, but to us all without distinction; it is about the pure humanistic principle that “the explanation and justification of the goodness or badness of anything derives ultimately from its contribution, actual or possible, to human life and its quality.” 8 (p194) As Rita Floyd writes elsewhere, for her, the point is the capability of humanity to flourish. 3 (p431) She goes further, but for our argumentation here, it is enough to say that humans should be able to make autonomous decisions that can be made only within liberal democracy and with respect for human rights. The former means that we should possess basic individual rights such as free speech, being secure if somebody disagrees with us, have a right to vote, publish, etc. 9 The latter means that each of us can live a life that does not infringe the life of others or is not infringed by others or by anything else. 10
If we take a more cosmopolitan perspective, globalization has been an ongoing process for centuries and the ability to make decisions on the more cosmopolitan level only increases and becomes more successful. 11 Global business has already become a purely cosmopolitan issue. I argue that thinking in a cosmopolitan fashion has become a norm in the commercial sphere and that an appropriate securitization of the asteroid impact with an emphasis on its solution through commercialization of space can bring a new global agenda to the public sphere.
Commercial infrastructure in space is the key for a legitimate PD infrastructure because it does not bring fear but prosperity.
The Appropriate Response and Sincere Intentions
The security response has to be appropriate to the threat and the intentions of a securitizing actor must be sincere, according to Rita Floyd. 3 I argue that the usage of a commercial robotic mining chain and later a Moon base is not questionable as it does not threaten other actors on Earth and, thus, can hardly be questioned as being a result of nonsincere intentions. If the argument about the timescale of asteroid impact arises, the appropriateness can be balanced by designing the Moon base as a multipurpose base. If there is an argument that the securitizing actor has more business intentions than intentions to save the biosphere, the multipurpose functionality of the base should serve as a mitigation of such an argument. In fact, dealing with comets will require the direct energy method because kinetic impactors will not be sufficient and the nuclear deflection method can disintegrate it. In this light, I would argue that the multipurpose Moon base is sooner or later an inevitable project because no one will ever build huge lasers on Earth with satellites (owned by nation states) in orbit.
Whether the intentions are sincere or not is analyzed according to Rita Floyd as an assessment between a securitizing move and the appropriateness of the response. This can be done in the realm of PD in a combination of a multipurpose base with some difficulty. The multipurpose functionality moves the response to a state in which it differs from the securitizing move; however, I would argue that the intentions are sincere if the securitizing actor actively promotes the multipurpose functionality as a balance to the funding. The same, in fact, applies on the robotic mining chain. The argument of Rita Floyd is here much more oriented to situations, in which a securitizing actor secures inappropriate power to deal with the threat, whereas the result does not balance the threat but threatens others. That is exactly what NEDs would do if deployed for PD purposes. This would not be the case with a robotic mining chain or later with a base on the far side of the Moon that faces natural phenomena and contributes economically and scientifically to human well-being.
The interesting part of Rita Floyd's just securitization theory application on PD is the nonexistence of the aggressor as a cultural entity; it is natural. We face a natural phenomenon, and, thus, assessment of its intentions is not relevant. Intentions are orbital mechanics. That completely eliminates the question of changing cultural background and contingency of the human mind to reach consensus over the objectivity of the threat and its perseverance and finally, it gives us the opportunity to react appropriately with surgical preciseness. Arguing with NEDs for the last resort can be defended only until we develop an efficient observation program that will give us a window to the future positions of (all) asteroids in the Solar System. This objective can be reached much more easily with commercial funding rather than through classical securitization to legitimize public spending.
Justifiable Securitization of Asteroid as a Commercial Effort
The vacuum between the threat in asteroids as objects that simply fell, fall, and will fall on Earth and the detected extinction event class asteroid on a collision course is critical to assess whether the securitization is justifiable—an objective threat has become a threat to our security. The objectivity based on its inevitability sometime in the future is simply not enough to deploy NEDs and cause global security concerns. We do not live in a cosmopolitan state, and other states will simply react. Rita Floyd very providently argues that the elevated need about Iraq's invasion in 2003 based on deemed weapons of mass destruction is the case in point. 3
Objective threat means that we must additionally know the real intentions of the aggressor and whether the aggressor has means to destroy us. Both questions can be easily answered by the appropriate observation program as an asteroid simply does not have any cultural background or contingent mindset, as is the case with humans on Earth. However, that means we reach the level of justifiable securitization by the confirmation of the asteroid on a collision trajectory. Here, we have fulfilled the requirement for the objective threat as being a threat to our security.
Mitigation technologies can obviously threaten Earth as they are easily interchangeable with space weapons. Deployment of nuclear warheads as the only one effective solution during the current vacuum (the space between conviction about the inevitability of the threat and its detection) is, according to the earlier analysis, certainly not a justifiable decision because they are not a morally legitimate solution to the objective threat that has not become a threat to our security.
One of the best places to solve this problem of where to deploy highly powerful deflection technology before the threat is confirmed is the far side of the Moon from which no one can harm Earth; however, this can be done only with direct energy systems. The far side of the Moon is probably not a compelling site from the rational engineering or scientific perspective because it would cause various, especially, engineering obstacles; however, it is the politically most plausible site in our vicinity of where to deploy super powerful direct energy systems. I personally believe that the engineering challenges should be solved for the sake of political stability on Earth and that this stability should work as a solid moral barrier against the development of rockets with nuclear warheads that are aimed on asteroids called euphemistically NEDs.
One way of how to deal with this problem is to involve commercial actors; however, it is not a quest to motivate them but rather a quest to regulate them. The commercial asteroid exploitation regime that will, indeed, emerge soon can help a lot here to avoid unjustifiable implications to a successful asteroid securitization.
Plenty of imaginations have driven national security policies into a construction of unreal threats; however, in this case, we will certainly have enough data to confirm that the objective threat has become a threat to our security by objectively measurable variables based on predictable orbital mechanics. If the PD capability emerges in a working regime of commercial exploitation based on rational reasons to deepen knowledge about asteroids, we will not find ourselves in a political quagmire, we will have PD infrastructure, and we will be 1 step toward a bigger and more capable space infrastructure. This way, we will also avoid classical security tensions between nation states, which PD can trigger easily.
Even objectively observable threats can have contingent implications by human minds arguing for legitimization of delicate technologies before the threat becomes a threat to our security. This can be overcome by commercial infrastructure working in a well-established legal regime of commercial exploitation with the capability to maneuver with asteroids. This regime is critical to avoid unintended political implications that are caused by impetuous decisions of delicate technology deployment.
In the summary of this section, asteroids are apparently seen as an objective threat but will not be a justifiable threat to our security until we detect one on a collision trajectory. However, we need to admit that we may not have enough time to react and should be better safe than sorry. We should choose commercialization of space to build an infrastructure that is capable of exploiting and, thus, move asteroids toward reaching a desirable level of security. Deployment of NEDs is not an appropriate response and will rather deepen our insecurity.
The question as to whether asteroid impact is a justifiable threat for securitization cannot be answered without inclusion of the mitigation technology as a response to the threat. Commercial infrastructure that is capable of maneuvering with asteroids is a justifiable solution.
Analyzing Interests of Involved Actors
In the previous section, I introduced the main arguments of the just securitization theory proposed by Rita Floyd and interpreted it briefly to some general characteristics of PD. The next section explores the relationship between PD and the just securitization theory in light of 4 different interests that may lie behind the whole PD endeavor and are driven by various actors. Any discussions of PD are clearly a part of a wider securitization process; however, it is one that may result in significantly positive outcomes to human well-being and is not limited to our survival. The 4 different interests are national prestige, commercial boost multiplier, advancement of scientific research, and the demand for a more responsible global governance.
National Prestige
Actions of any sovereign state on the international level are not motivated by mere foreign policy interests of that state, but they can be understood as a 2-level game where the domestic motivations precede the foreign policy intentions. 12 However, states are pushed to start thinking in wider terms and the Paris talks regarding climate change showed how the international community can make a decision and force other nations toward higher objectives, which is in contrast to their mere domestic or national interests reflected in their foreign policy. The method is name and shame, 13 a clear move that political scholars inclining toward social constructivism would celebrate as proof of their decades-long clash with realists that politics of appropriateness is higher than politics of national security interests.
I argue that PD falls into the same category as the question of climate change. They both fall into the category of global threats that might create a third level of politics. We might start engaging in a 3-level game here: domestic, foreign, and global as we stand clearly in front of global challenges such as asteroid impact, but also the environmental issues that do not respect nation state borders. Cosmopolitanism should not be approached here as a proposal of a global radical change of the current political regime of liberal institutionalism, but as an additional layer to a mindset of a responsible politician who will be able to sell national participation on global-level politics as national prestige.
There have been 2 tremendously different massive space projects in history. The Apollo program was clearly a piece of wider foreign policy and national security strategy aimed against the Soviet Union, 14 whereas the International Space Station (ISS) served as an example of how scientific cooperation can seriously glue nations together in unprecedented cooperation. 15 However, both projects contributed to a feeling of national prestige. The multiple denied pleas of China to participate on ISS would serve as proof of this political dynamic; not to mention the recent China statement to be on Mars as the first nation, currently without international cooperation. Motivation to act in the name of national prestige does not emanate from empty space but sticks on proposals. National prestige can build itself on cooperation rather than competition. Commercial exploitation can become national prestige as companies need to launch from nation states' territories because states need to allow companies to launch the rocket according to international law. States have been proud for achievements of their companies for ages.
National prestige still plays a significant role in space exploration; it would be good to play with this card in the following years, but more in a similar model to ISS.
Commercial Boost Multiplier
PD is seriously debated in the scientific community, and only one state has a national strategy against asteroids. 16 Telescopes are expensive, and deflection technology might never be funded by a nation state exactly for the reason of not being an imminent threat.
If such an endeavor of Solar System observation is combined with business interests, we may easily find ourselves in a situation where businesses proactively invest and participate in data collection regarding Solar System Situational Awareness. 17 This is especially with a focus on small pieces of rocks that are not targeted by national space agencies as these rocks do not threaten Earth seriously but can be more easily retrieved and returned to the Earth's orbit for mining purposes.
Moreover, built commercial infrastructure can provide us with a ready-to-use PD infrastructure if it is designed as a chain of robotic spacecrafts similarly to the proposed mining systems of the company Planetary Resources. It can be easily altered to a chain of kinetic impactors that will not require readiness of nuclear deflection technology on Earth. † The Moon base can be kept for future commercial visions. Such a solution would not have debatable impacts and will not cause political quagmire.
This way of triggering the observation of the Solar System as a business can be sparked by governments. The financial model can be exactly the same as we experience in the group of states participating in projects of the European Space Agency. The state that contributes the most receives the most for its national business development and, thus, supports the national businesses toward asteroid mining. Current Luxembourg efforts would be taken seriously in this perspective, 18 and the biggest national space agencies should react and think forward as they will have to solve the problem of shared responsibility.
Building a Moon base, especially on its far side, will be a tremendously expensive mission but one that at least European Space Agency plans to pursue soon. One would argue that all space missions are tremendously expensive. However, if a project has a potential to generate profit, even in the long term, the rationalization of its construction strengthens. If a Moon base is built as a scientific hub, one needs only an access to electric power to deploy small direct energy systems to manipulate with tiny asteroids. Such a system can be scaled up by private investment because the infrastructural basis will be provided by the governments. Mining companies can quickly move from robotic mining bots to a centralized venture investing in direct energy. Without visions, nobody would build anything.
In his book The Digital Galactic Complex, Brown argued 19 that governments should invest in the first moves of his proposed Space Joint Stock Company. He puts forth the argument not only of the inevitability of a solution to space debris but also of a possible in-orbit solar power plant infrastructure that can significantly change the market with electricity on the ground, generate new jobs, and finally earn money for the company's expansion of general infrastructure that is usable for various scientific applications in the process of Solar System expansion. 19
Despite the fact that Trevor Brown works with the security-related topic of Space Debris at the beginning, in his book he omits the PD as a security topic. I argue that Floyd's just securitization theory of the asteroid impact is that move that has the potential to bring the first governmental financial injections. The idea that commercial infrastructure can hide answers to global security concerns of asteroids while protecting global stability is a policy approach, in which commerce plays a pivotal role in fulfilling even national security concerns by becoming a cosmopolitan actor with global security implications. We should take into consideration how the securitization process has been extremely successful in cyber space, even in cases such as Y2K that never became fulfilled, 20 and their extreme securitization actors lately apologized for not being sincere. 21 In the end, Y2K costs were around $400bn. As seen, well-aimed securitization can help to build even commercial ventures.
It is hard to rationalize the enormous investment in developing basic PD infrastructure in space in the light of ISS expenditures and it is possibly unimaginable that governments will easily build a Moon base, on its far side, with a single purpose—PD. However, if commercial actors make profit on robotic chains to asteroids, building a base with lasers that are capable of deflecting even comets as proposed by Lubin and colleagues 22 becomes a feasible plan.
The commercial multiplier should be understood as a multiplier of the Moon base functionality and an enabler of its feasibility. The further mining opportunities of the mining companies should serve as the additional function. These companies currently tend to send probes to asteroids and bring them manually back. They have these ideas as it is challenging enough for any company to do that; however, the conceptual design looks like from the Steam Age in comparison to a huge laser, or array of lasers, on the far side of the Moon that consistently fires toward asteroids and moves them continuously to the Earth's orbit without a need of their complicated grasp and manual return. If governments were to announce such intentions, companies would focus on the supply chains and more rational concepts of mining asteroids. Their current technologies can be used on the Earth's orbit, grabbing a chain of asteroids on the way rather than going to deep space for them.
It also makes much more sense to invest money in a multipurpose base that will need a power infrastructure above. Lasers can be also used for energy transportation and, thus, transport power to the ground of celestial bodies. They can be much more efficient 23 and certainly more secure than nuclear armed spacecrafts over which we can easily lose control, as we did in the simulation at the Planetary Defense Conference in Tokyo in 2017.
Private driven construction of an in-orbit solar power plant, as proposed by Trevor Brown, can make sense to investors when the need for the Moon base arrives from governments. Businesses will see their opportunity to use governmental money for a Moon base supply by using mirroring installations from the Earth to the far side of the Moon, but finally to supply the Earth from the Earth's orbit. One investment and more clients, the division of risk is critical and the technology of kilometers-long unwrapping extra-light and super-efficient solar panels has been available for a long time. 24
Nevertheless, lasers in space will require deep confidence between nation states. This confidence can be reached if a comparable infrastructure is already in operation.
Advancement of Scientific Research
It is clearly visible on every single historical challenging scientific program that the resulting spin-off technologies tremendously contributed to human well-being. The Apollo program was the first of such a scale in space, but the current liberal democracies lack serious interest in more challenging projects of space exploration. A laser array of ∼100 m wide side length can be used for interstellar exploration by nanosatellites, 25 but when situated on the far side of the Moon it cannot be used to deal with space debris on the Earth's orbit. The confidence mentioned earlier will be required to use them for the Earth's orbital debris. However, such a huge laser array can be used as a propulsion system for any inner Solar System exploration or remote battery recharge station for all probes in our system. The range of its utilization for scientific exploration is almost infinite.
I would like to argue here that despite the argument in favor of a necessary cosmopolitan mindset above national prestige, it is urgent for liberal democratic countries to undertake such challenging projects before the less democratic states do so. The success of our efforts will deepen the credibility of our liberal democratic regime in the eyes of its citizens. Democracy is not granted, but a project of continuous efforts as Dahl argued. 9 Its legitimacy comes from its achievements, like the peace after World War II, but that seems to fade away in recent debates. We need new significant successes; space exploration and Solar System colonization provides them. Scientific interests in space can enable its commercialization. Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program is the first clear example; supply chain for the Moon has the potential to be the next, but the capability to defend our planet can emerge as a combination of commercial efforts enabled by initial scientific interests.
Scientific advancement has been a driver of every society over the ages. If we proceed toward a scientific project on such a global scale driven by commercial interests of global ventures in asteroid mining, we might find ourselves at the beginning of a real cosmopolitan era. Scientific achievements can easily contribute to the development of cosmopolitan identity as the collaborative project of the Moon base as a gateway for further Solar System exploration becomes a project of humanity, a subproject after successful rationalization of PD as an undisputable contributor to the prosperity of humankind.
This is a purely political move, and it is up to the politicians as to whether we are going to talk about the imaginary threat of immigration (whether in the United States or the European Union [EU]) or possible near future scientific achievements of all of us without distinction. It is critically important to fill public political debates with meaningful objectives of humanity. The bubble of public political topics is finite and cannot hold all the topics. It is the discourse we can intentionally develop; finally, the discourse that can become the basis of unification, the discourse that provides the order 26 in which such challenging projects can commence as the discourse is what will in our minds finally create the necessity of scientific development and the PD endeavor based on commercial mining infrastructure either as a robotic mining chain or as a lunar Moon base.
Responsible Global Governance
Since the Fourteen Points of President Woodrow Wilson that coined the idealist principle of modern liberal society, which were delivered on January 8, 1918, we have experienced another World War, but then we have built a system of international institutions that have been able to deliver unprecedented peace to the world. Peace is hardly permanent, but the institutions have helped nation states to conduct diplomacy in a more transparent and effective way.
The next step would be to support efforts toward more responsible global governance; a question that has enjoyed significant interest by political scholars in recent years, especially when it comes to the question of climate change. One may argue that a more authoritarian solution would be more effective in delivering important decisions to aim society toward challenging objectives that do not need to reflect the needs of individual interests, but this argument has been destroyed by other scholars. 27
The counter-argument clearly says that liberal democracies are giving better access to a wide variety of information due to individual rights and fewer restrictions, open free media, and transparent decision making. Democracies support the advance of science and technology, and the development of knowledge is critical to appropriately assess the question of climate change. 28 However, that does not mean that scientific knowledge will be also appropriately translated into the appropriate political decision making as has been studied in the whole social scientific discipline of Science and Technology Studies. 29 The same problems meet PD.
The cosmopolitan perspective I was talking about several times earlier does not need to be limited to the questionable establishment of a cosmopolitan world state. 30 It is more about admitting that some particular threats need to be solved for all without distinction. It is the mindset that is well established in the minds of people behind the hard science of PD and that needs to be injected even in political minds of decision makers over it. Both the conclusion at the Paris conference COP21 that binds other states to act on an ethical basis and the reaction of various actors proposing to even pay the contribution from private funds within the United States after Donald Trump's announcement to withdraw from the agreement would serve as great examples of how the cosmopolitan mindset can be developed above the national interests. The EU, despite the current criticism it faces, caused people to hold EU flags at post-Brexit demonstrations in Great Britain. Cosmopolitan thinking means that states stop accusing each other as a practice of realist politics without trust and predictable political moves, because in case of the failure of the PD project, there is no winner.
Thinking in a cosmopolitan way means even what Michel Foucault 1 day said about people's judgment: “It's amazing how people like judging. Judgment is being passed everywhere, all the time. Perhaps it is one of the simplest things mankind has been given to do. And you know very well that the last man, when radiation has finally reduced his last enemy to ashes, will sit down behind some rickety table and begin the trial of the individual responsible. I can't help but dream about a kind of criticism that would not try to judge but to bring an oeuvre, a book, a sentence, an idea to life; it would light fires, watch the grass grow, listen to the wind, and catch the sea-foam in the breeze and scatter it.” 31
We need to take a more global perspective or an orbital perspective as astronauts like to say, 32 or cause overview effect 33 here on Earth that has been experienced by astronauts, to develop a more cosmopolitan mindset, and to start doing politics at 3 levels: domestic, international, and global.
Policy Architecture
We elaborated on this topic elsewhere in detail, 34 and more arguments were also added into the model recently. 35 However, the model provides several key important recommendations that should be mentioned here.
First, the United Nations should be able to discuss a new norm that we call Responsibility to Defend Earth, which is based on our practice with Responsibility to Protect. However, it does not give the international community the right to intervene in cases of state failure. Our norm promotes a motivation toward a cooperative approach for shared threats in the same way as the COP21 conference did: name and shame.
Second, the whole project should be divided into several phases, as shown in Figure 1. We first proposed this approach in a slightly different form in the Space Studies Program Planetary Defense team project in 201517 followed by a conference paper. 36 The core idea of the proposed policy architecture is based on the conviction that the least contentious moves should be done first and the development of more contentious technologies should be conducted later, when the trust between actors deepens. Thus, we call for Transparency and Confidence Building Measures (TCBMs) that help nation states cooperate their activities that might have security-related issues pertaining to national security.
The proposed actions and causes of the planetary defense project development shown according to its phases. IAWN, International Asteroid Warning Network; SMPAG, Space Mission Planning Advisory Group.
One of the critical aspects of TCBMs is the involvement of other than security components. The scientific one, further solar system exploration and prevalently the business component, can help to avoid thinking in realist fashion. We are not going to explore the Solar System in a serious way without dropping this way of thinking. As Wendt argued: “anarchy is what states make of it” 37 ; hence, dropping of that thinking is a question of our intentions, and it is not a systemic trap of international relations. It is up to us to develop confidence measures that will enable humanity to become a multiplanetary species. The commercial outer space exploitation regime is what can keep delusional ideas of national security grounded.
The proposed policy architecture should put nation states in a path-dependency situation that will not let them think once again that other powerful nation states do not have sincere intentions. One centralized body within the United Nations might serve these cosmopolitan needs of PD. The efforts are ongoing in the SMPAG. This group from recent reports at the United Nations meetings shows that the coordination of different space agencies is ongoing. They still understandably keep 2 scenarios on the table: short- and long-term warning. It is understandable that rockets on Earth and maybe even NEDs are currently the only meaningful solution. However, I argued throughout the article that using NEDs is not the desirable solution and that elevating the importance of commercial infrastructure can help regarding the theoretical perspective I used. However, one of the most recent reports on deflection methods shows that the emphasis is placed on kinetic impactors. 38 This is a deflection method that is usually considered the most across the PD community.
However, more efforts are needed and the particular super-project with the multipurpose base on the far side of the Moon should be the next step after successful commercialization of space mining through robotic chains. It is an opportunity for governments to support responsible global governance or Solar System governance, including other celestial bodies. It is only up to them as to whether we transfer our inter-national security wiggles to outer space or whether current governments will plant the good policy for our future flourishing.
Conclusions
This article analyzed the PD endeavor from a just securitization theory and proposed briefly a policy recommendation on how such securitization should proceed. My core intention in this article was to defend securitization of the asteroid impact as a just pursuit but at the same time to draw attention to several efforts that can hamper it. Scholars of critical political studies would disagree; however, I used the just securitization theory of Rita Floyd to argue why her 3 components can be fulfilled in the case of PD securitization. It does focus on an objective threat, it does contribute to human well-being, and it does propose an appropriate response that can have sincere intentions.
I proposed a brief roadmap on how to achieve such a result of political consensus that can lead to a Moon base on the far side by working in phases. The first phase of observation apparently creates the least contentious situations as it does collect and share data about asteroids only. The following phases develop and deploy technologies that can be understood as dual-use technologies; however, I proposed to open a debate at the United Nations related to a new norm Responsibility to Defend Earth that would motivate nation states to cooperate within the framework of Transparency and Confidence Building Measures. Such cooperation would subsequently lead to a deeper trust between the actors to continue on the project. In the end, the operation of the Moon base should be given to a centralized body within the United Nations. All these objectives can be fulfilled through middle steps of outer space commercialization by, for example, robotic mining chains. My central argument was that commercialization of outer space and subsequent deployment of the commercial outer space exploitation regime can serve as an enabler for PD infrastructure that does not cause national or global security concerns.
In addition, the article explored 4 intentions behind PD that should not be understood as conflictual: national prestige, commercial boost multiplier, advancement of scientific research, and the demand for a more responsible global governance. All 4 possible intentions were studied as inseparable components of the whole endeavor. Governments should responsibly address a global threat while giving an unprecedented opportunity to asteroid mining business. Even power supply to the Moon base can be used as a business opportunity that can have multiple business implications, including an in-orbit power plant or space debris mitigation. The science community can use the infrastructure for sending probes to other stars. We need to think big and develop multipurpose scalable infrastructure rather than securitize asteroids to deploy nuclear warheads as “peace bringing” NEDs.
It would be a deep mistake to think that the most ready technological solution to deflect asteroid is the most desirable one. This scientific rationalism is exactly what I am trying to challenge here and what social sciences can contribute to such a unique case of PD.
I argued that governments need to think more in a cosmopolitan way while preserving the current international regime of liberal institutionalism to fulfill the most important objectives of liberal democracy: the well-being of humankind and its long-term survival.
Footnotes
Acknowledgment
This study was supported by the Charles University Research Programme “Progres” Q18—Social Sciences: From Multidisciplinarity to Interdisciplinarity.
Author Disclosure Statement
No competing financial interests exist.
*
Securitization theory in the critical security studies falling under the discipline of international relations.
†
Based on a personal discussion with Lindley Johnson, the director of Planetary Defense Coordination Office, on the Planetary Defense Conference in Tokyo, 2017.