Unregulated space militarization risks catastrophic conflict—urgent need for equitable global governance and demilitarized lunar governance frameworks
Original framing: “Today’s space race could turn fatal if we don’t agree on new rules” — The Conversation - Global
The 'space race' is a continuation of Cold War militarization, where the 1967 Outer Space Treaty was a Cold War compromise that deferred questions of resource rights. The 2019 U.S. Space Force and 2020 Artemis Accords signal a shift from symbolic competition to de facto weaponization of cislunar space, echoing 19th-century colonial 'terra nullius' justifications for lunar claims. Historical precedents like the 1979 Moon Agreement—vetoed by spacefaring nations—show how power structures preempt equitable governance.
The 'space race' is not a neutral technological competition but a continuation of colonial extractivism, where a handful of technocratic powers and corporations (NASA, SpaceX, CNSA) replicate terrestrial power asymmetries in cislunar space.
Indigenous cosmologies—from Māori *Rona* to Navajo *Hózhǫ́*—offer a radical alternative to the Artemis Accords’ resource nationalism, yet are systematically excluded from governance debates. Historical parallels to the 19th-century scramble for Africa and the Cold War’s militarization of space reveal a pattern: 'rules' are written by the powerful to legitimize their dominance, not to prevent catastrophe. The solution lies in a trifecta of binding UN governance, indigenous sovereignty frameworks, and demilitarization—challenging the very premise that space is a 'final frontier' rather than a shared commons. Without this, the next 'space race' will not be between nations or corporations, but between humanity and the debris fields of its own making.