Fessler Edward A. A juridical analysis of directed-energy weapons in the earth-space arena

Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA, 1978. — 215 p.An intense arms competition between the two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States, has been the preeminent challenge to the maintenance of minimum public order since the close of World War II. Through both bilateral arms control negotiations between the superpowers and a variety of related multilateral agreements involving additional state participants, the minimum public order system may recently have been strengthened. Premised upon the assumption that minimum public order is enhanced if strategically significant instruments of coercion are controlled, these initiatives have sought to prohibit or limit arms through restraints upon the size, type, use and even areas of deployment of major weapons systems. These initiatives have assumed that such restraints serve the minimum public order by reducing incentives to compete in research, development and production of advanced weapons of mass destruction. While these efforts have provided at least a minimal restraint on the existing instruments of mass destruction, they have not served particularly well to discourage overall arms competition between major participant states. Evidence is mounting that the specter of a terrifying new mode of warfare designed to function in an expanded earth-space arena has arisen on the technological horizon.