The politics of outer space has in recent years been given attention from political elites and scientist due to increasing usage and reliance on space based assets, and due to increasing numbers of actors trying to utilize the benefits of space. Concerns have been raised if the increasing military usage of space will lead to a future weaponization of space, making some political leaders and scholars claiming the inevitability of space weaponization.  In this thesis I investigate why the United States of America this far has chosen not to weaponize space based on the strategical setting of outer space politics. The research question guiding this thesis reads: What strategic considerations explain the US decision not to weaponize outer space? In order to evaluate the strategic setting and US strategical considerations I apply Game Theory and Non-Formal Rational Choice Theory to highlight what is causing the greatest space faring nation not to weaponize space. I empirically base this study on official space policy documents and one report written by an official commission to asses US national security space management.  Based on the strategic setting of outer space politics and US strategical considerations it is found that the US has not commenced a process leading to the weaponization of space since such development would not increase its national security, but rather in several ways decrease it. I conclude that a process of space weaponization is not likely to be initiated by the US in the current strategical setting.

La thèse porte sur les migrations de travailleurs indonésiens vers Kuala Lumpur, en Malaysia, et Singapour, à partir d’une approche qui s’efforce de combiner les principes de l’analyse pragmatiste et la prise en charge des effets de structure, en vue de décrire la formation de transnationalismes dans la région et d’interroger la nature des espaces sociaux qui s’agrègent autour de ces parcours migratoires. En développant une approche socio-anthropologique mise en œuvre au cours de vingt mois de terrain il s’est agi de saisir la migration au plus proche des expériences vécues, sans renoncer à décrire des contextes sociaux, politiques, culturels et historiques qui permettent de les situer dans leurs spécificités mais aussi dans la perspective de dynamiques politiques et économiques globales. Alors que ces migrations se développent et s’institutionnalisent, le choix d’une ethnographie multi-site, dispersée dans les trois pays, a permis de construire un point de vue mobile et décentré, au plus près des expériences situées. Dans cette perspective, la thèse s’efforce de montrer l’émergence de transnationalismes et d’espaces transnationaux à l’intersection entre la production d’un travail globalisé et les politiques nationales, où s’inscrivent des processus de subjectivation inédits. Alors que les socialités se désenclavent sous l’effet des migrations, les espaces vécus se transnationalisent en sorte que saisir ces nouvelles dynamiques sociales, c’est désormais aussi décrire des manières d’habiter le transnational. / The thesis deals with the migration of Indonesian workers to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) and Singapore. The argument draws on a theoretical approach which attempts to blend the contribution of pragmatism with the analysis of structure effects in order to describe the formation of transnationalisms in the region and to scrutinize the nature of the social spaces which are assembled along these migration trails. By constructing a socio-antrhopological approach, operationalized during a twenty-months fieldwork, we aimed to capture migration as close as possible from lived experiences, yet without giving up the description of the broader social, political, cultural and historical contexts which allow to remain sensitive to their specificities while locating them in the context of global political and economic dynamics. While these migrations are both developing and being increasingly institutionalized, the choice of a multi-sited ethnography, distributed in the three countries, allowed to build a shifting and de-centered point of view, and to remain always as close as possible to situated experiences. In this perspective, the thesis tries to show the emergence of transnationalisms and transnational social spaces at the intersection between the production of a globalized labor and national politics – space politics -, where new subjectivation processes are being shaped. While socialities are increasingly disembbedded from local contexts, lived spaces are also increasingly transnationalized, so that capturing these new social dynamics now supposes to describe new ways of inhabiting the transnational.

Space technologies and the tools of space warfare are proliferating across Earth. The use of spacepower in conflict necessitates strategic thinking. Strategic theory can guide and improve strategic thought about outer space. Drawing on strategic theory, this thesis develops a spacepower theory in the next step of a collective theory-making effort about warfare in the Space Age. This spacepower theory is based on seven distinct, complementary, and interacting propositions that aim to shift the debate of spacepower away from space weaponisation and the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), and towards a more holistic view of the vast possibilities granted by spacepower. This spacepower theory proposes that space warfare only has meaning in so far it works towards the command of space; that the command of space is about manipulating celestial lines of communication; that spacepower in Earth orbit is a place to conduct strategic manoeuvres to influence the wider war and grand strategic goals; and that the command of space can have direct meaning for battlefield success through its dispersing effects. The theory is based on three major strategic analogies from terrestrial strategic theory and experience. First, space warfare is a continuation of terrestrial politics. Second, space is like the sea in its most basic concepts. Third, Earth orbit is like a coastal region. The contributions of this work are a theory that assists the individual’s education on warfare in the Space Age that takes emphasis away from space-based weaponry and the RMA, and a treatise that demonstrates and encourages a pedagogical method of analysis in strategic studies. This has tentative implications for wider discussions of astropolitics in International Relations (IR) as well. IR will continue in its usefulness in the cosmos, while Terran IR today must account for the realities of the Space Age.