Abstract :
Programs to deploy weapons in orbital space have important implications forinternational relations. In this paper, we analyse the constitutive logic of three modes of spaceweaponisation currently being pursued by the US – space-based missile defense, space control,and force application from orbital space. We show that these technologies of killing, whenbundled together, constitute a new form of centralised sovereign power in a context ofde-territorialised sovereignty. This is a new type of international political society, which we callempire of the future, distinct from and more ominous than the de-centralised form of Empiretheorised by Hardt and Negri and the modern expression of classical hegemony now widelydebated in discussions of putative American empire.
