Abstract

Drawing from newly declassified documents, Assistant Professor Aaron Bateman will discuss how the United States has leveraged allies since the Cold War to secure access to vital real estate abroad that enables it to project power through space. In analyses of space competition, scholars and policy experts have focused on activities in orbit and neglected the global terrestrial infrastructure necessary for military and civilian space operations. Access to overseas territories for basing space infrastructure has long been a source of comparative US advantage and has important implications for US – China competition today.

About the Speaker

Aaron Bateman is an assistant professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University. He studies how technology shapes US foreign policy, alliance dynamics, defense strategy, and superpower competition. He is the author of Weapons in Space: Technology, Politics, and the Rise and Fall of the Strategic Defense Initiative (MIT Press, 2024). He is currently writing a second book provisionally entitled Wiring an Empire: Information Networks and the Rise of the United States as a Global Superpower. His peer-reviewed work has been published, or is forthcoming, in International Security, the Journal of Strategic Studies, International History Review, Diplomacy & Statecraft, Intelligence and National Security, and Science & Diplomacy (among others). His policy commentary has been published in Foreign Affairs, Engelsberg Ideas, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Physics Today, and War on the Rocks. He received his PhD in history of science from Johns Hopkins University. Prior to his doctoral studies, he served as a U.S. Air Force intelligence officer.