After the Gulf War

<p>Early military applications of space-based assets bore little resemblance to their successful use in the first information war. The US developed most of its early space systems to serve the Cold War nuclear deterrence strategy. The need to protect space sources and methods resulted ina high degree of secrecy and organizational compartmentalization. As a result when Desert Shield began the highly fragmented leadership of the space community lacked coherent doctrine operated with an inherited top-down technology push for system requirements and had little spacepower experience. Spacepower was simply unprepared to support the theater Commander-in-Chief in other than the Cold War strategic role.The experiences of the Persian Gulf War confirmed these characteristics--the majority of the documented lessons concerned a lack of doctrine or a lack of space literacy/experience. In the development of spacepower doctrine and experience have evolved much more slowly than the pace of technology. In the interim have the US participants redressed the imbalance that existed in the development of spacepower as witnessed in Operation Desert Shield/Storm? At issue for space policy makers is the question of whether or not reforms in technology experience or doctrine will move the US Military Space Program toward a more robust warfighting capability.</p><p>This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore you will see the original copyright references library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world) and other notations in the work.</p><p>This work is in the public domain in the United States of America and possibly other nations. Within the United States you may freely copy and distribute this work as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.</p><p>As a reproduction of a historical artifact this work may contain missing or blurred pages poor pictures errant marks etc. Scholars believe and we concur that this work is important enough to be preserved reproduced and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.</p><br>