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Missed Days and Getting Started "Aggressively"

 


You know that thing where you start something off and then after an embarrassingly few number of days you miss a day? So you feel awful about it and you start to doubt your whole ability to keep up with things or live up to what you were trying to do in the first place?  But then you start to second guesses that and think to yourself, "Wait, what was it that I was trying to do again? Does any of this even matter?" (no? just me?)

Yeah I know....I missed a day

So the fact is that yesterday I let time and attentions slip such that I did not get anything written for an entry.  That is bad on me.  (and thus my writing this to try and make up for lost time, I'm hoping I will have something else written later on today to make up for it). 

One thing that I am still trying to figure out is the exact nature of this blog. Is it just going to be a smattering of thoughts and daily updates and thoughts on a page of what I am thinking and feeling as I go about my musings and work into space? Or am I going to attempt to make it something more substantive?  My thought at the moment is that it is going to be a little bit of both. 

What if I make this a chance for me to get kind of all of my stupid thoughts out, that way I have the opportunity to filter and preen for the stuff that matters more? Not a bad idea? Maybe?

Space "Aggression"

So yesterday I embarked on a new adventure into writing an article on the topic of trying to better understand the definition of "aggression" as it applies to military actions in outer space. A little bit of background:  the Outer Space Treaty (OST), in its preamble, clarifies that the focus and goal of that document was to be able to establish a legal regime that would allow for the use of outer space by all in a way that would not lead to war. Personally, that sounds like a fairly sound resolution to me. On a side note, I have had a number of interactions with space attorneys recently where they have been emphasizing the fact that the language "peaceful purposes" is not mentioned outside of Article IV of the OST, and then it only applies to limited circumstance, i.e. on the moon and other celestial bodies (what is a celestial body? Now that would be an interesting thing to write about/define). I am not entirely sure what the desire is for these individuals to emphasize this point as in my mind, the phrase "peaceful purposes" being in the preamble rather than in an article only strengthens the importance of the phrase, not lessens it.

Regardless though, whether you want to argue that "peaceful purposes" is a binding obligation or not, the fact is that international law holds that nations still have the inherent right to defend themselves.  And what do they have the right to defend themselves against you ask? Well, nations are able to defend themselves against "aggression," or in other words aggressive acts. Makes sense right? When a bully comes up to you on the playground and starts yelling in your face and getting too close, etc., you are allowed to defend yourself even if the bully hasn't thrown a punch yet. So far so good.

But the question that still seems fuzzy in my mind is what that means in a Space environment?  If you hadn't noticed, things don't move the same in space as they do on the Earth. So what is the measure of whether an act is "aggressive" or just par for the course of normal space activity?  My goal is to figure that out.

Getting Started

I've never honestly been the best at figuring out how to go about writing. That is part of the purpose of this blog is to figure that out. But I figured I would lay out what I am planning to do, and hey maybe it might actually work out.  Yesterday, I decided to go digging into articles that I could find on the subject of military uses of space, the law of conflict as it relates to space, or anything coming close to trying to define aggression.  My goal was to find ten such articles, read them, and then branch off to maybe five or so more depending on if I could find common ground that these articles all seemed to be citing to. One interesting thing that I have noticed in reading space academic legal articles is that around 85% of them all seem to follow the same flow of information, reviewing space treaty law and treaty history, reviewing the basics of the law of war, etc.  It makes reading through all the information a lot less difficult.

So I did just that.  I decided to narrow my search to articles that have been written since 2010 as these types of laws and interpretations about them can change rather rapidly. And I was able to find a smattering of them. Now I just need to actually read through them and get a little more educated to see if I might have anything interesting to add on the subject.

I'll keep you posted. (and hopefully on time).

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