Understanding Space Frontier Areas: Strategy in Cislunar Space and Beyond
Description
Space beyond geostationary Earth orbit, particularly cislunar space, is emerging as a strategically significant domain for national security, governance, and long-term competition. This paper introduces the concept of "Space Frontier Areas" to describe regions of space, including xGEO and the Earth–Moon system, where operations remain limited in scale but increasingly consequential. It argues that current strategic thinking about these areas is overly bipolar, framing activities as either near-term security concerns or long-term economic opportunities, thereby constraining nuanced policy choices. To address this limitation, the paper proposes an analytical framework organized around four strategic purposes—prestige, governance, security, and resources—that can be weighted according to their immediacy and importance across different time horizons. Drawing on expert interviews and qualitative analysis, the framework demonstrates how reducing zero-sum thinking can improve strategic coherence. This approach enables more realistic assessments of risk, prioritization, and resource allocation as space operations expand beyond near-Earth orbit.