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Space and Defense

Fall 2025

Editor's Note

This issue follows on the heels of our special release (Summer 2025) focused on Arctic Security. It continues our recent trend of building a strong foundation in space policy and strategy while exploring problems of deterrence in other emerging domains, which of course are all linked in the pursuit of sound national security policy.

Prolific author Wendy Whitman Cobb of the U.S. Air Force School of Advanced Air and Space Studies (SAASS) at Air University probes the conditions under which transparent signaling of U.S. space capabilities could deter offensive operations and the outbreak of war in orbit. Professors Andrea Cabello and Michele Melo of the University of Brasilia note varying public support over time for the strongest space program in South America. In hopes of explaining this variation Cabello and Melo first seek to measure it using behavior on the Internet as a proxy for far more expensive and less practical public polling. U.S. Space Force (USSF) officer Lt. Alex Kleitz provides an academic reflection on the intensifying space weaponization debate. He argues that ultimately, the best defense of U.S. space assets may rely on certain credible offensive capabilities in orbit. Rounding out this issue’s collection of peer-reviewed feature articles, Col. Joe Brown, Ph.D. offers an academic analysis of incentives for treaty ally South Korea to alter its longstanding policy, eschew the U.S. commitment to extended deterrence, and launch its own effort to acquire an independent nuclear arsenal.

In this issue, the senior leader transcripts return to questions of grand strategy in space and the best course of space weaponization. General Stephen Whiting, Commander has generously provided his closing remarks from the annual USSPACECOM Legal Conference held at the U.S. Air Force Academy at a pivotal moment, just as the second Donald Trump administration was taking office. Former assistant secretary of state for Arms Control, Deterrence, and Stability Mallory Stewart from the same symposium discusses prospects for diplomacy as competing great powers mount increasing threats to U.S. and commercial space assets.

Two student voice essays make their own contributions to understanding the future of deterrence in emerging domains. One Air Force Academy cadet turns to customary law as a means to reduce the risk of Kessler Syndrome, the elimination of space operations through proliferation of man-made debris in low earth orbit. A second entry comes from cadets who participated in the Dean of Faculty’s Cadet Summer Research Program (CSRP). Two cadets who interned at Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) call for staff reforms there to help deter numerical expansion of China’s nuclear forces dedicated to intimidating targets in the Indo-Pacific.

Vol. 16, No. 2 concludes with two book reviews to honor the academic career of Dr. Paul Viotti that spanned half a century—from junior faculty at the U.S. Air Force Academy to professor emeritus at the University of Denver. As an active duty then retired officer from the U.S. Air Force, Viotti taught and wrote tirelessly and valiantly, serving the discipline of Political Science through leadership in several associations and supporting civil society, including as president of the Denver Council on Foreign Relations (1993-2003).

As a sample from Professor Viotti’s corpus of work, the regional president of the International Studies Association–West, Richard Crespo (Grossmont College, San Diego), reviews The Dollar and National Security (Stanford University Press, 2014). The book just reached its tenth anniversary but has not declined in relevance. It stands as an exemplar of how International Relations theory can light the way for policy makers taking on difficult national security decisions years, even decades, after the explanation was originally applied.

As the lead editor for this issue and a junior colleague following in Professor Viotti’s footsteps at the U.S. Air Force Academy, I join Crespo with a review of Viotti’s latest book, Kenneth Waltz: An Intellectual Biography, an admiring and caring portrait of Viotti’s senior mentor at U.C. Berkeley and a colossal figure in the field of International Relations. The two single-authored works—Dollar (2014) and Waltz (2023)—span the last decade of Professor Viotti’s faculty service before his official retirement in 2024 as this issue was coming together. They demonstrate an inspiring legacy for rising scholars at the Air Force Academy and other participating institutions in ISA-West.

The written tribute to Paul Viotti (University of Denver, U.S. Air Force Academy) comes as the Air Force Academy Department of Political Science and this journal of Space & Defense mourn the passing of Sky Foerster, a USAFA graduate who served in the U.S. Air Force over twenty-six years, earning his doctorate at Oxford University and among other duties advising the U.S. Ambassador to NATO as well as the lead negotiator for the 1990 Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty that helped end the Cold War. Sky also enjoyed a fruitful second career of public service in military retirement, including visiting professorships at Colorado College and Masaryk University, Czech Republic as well as presidencies of World Affairs Councils in Pittsburgh, PA and Colorado Springs, CO.

Sky was honored to serve with General Brent Scowcroft’s personal endorsement as the first Brent Scowcroft Professor of National Security Studies in the Department of Political Science at the U.S. Air Force Academy, during which time he contributed and volunteered to serve on the editorial board of Space & Defense. Sky’s inimitable style and penetrating intellect shine through in a book review he published in these pages from 2015. An influential biography titled The Strategist had just come out on his hero and sponsor at the Academy—General Scowcroft. After paying respects to several prominent scholarly reviews that preceded his, Sky blazed his own brilliant trail.

The purpose of this review, therefore, will not be to shed new light on the biography but to focus on what this reviewer believes is the more enduring message of the narrative, and, indeed, the life of Brent Scowcroft. Brent Scowcroft’s life has been—and remains— one of commitment, hard work, and service to the nation above personality, political party, or personal preference…Scowcroft is not, as Sparrow and other reviewers have noted, without error or misjudgment, but he nonetheless sets a standard for dedication to higher purposes, which Sparrow’s biography celebrates (Space & Defense Vol. 8, No. 1 [Spring 2015], p. 69).

Sky, on behalf of everyone at this journal, the Eisenhower Center, and the Department, you embodied similar hard work and dedication to higher purposes. Any pearls of wisdom or compelling insights readers may find in this issue are dedicated to you in gratitude and celebration of a life well-lived.

Damon Coletta, USAFA

September 2025