Category:Geopolitics

The Geopolitical Situation with respect to Luna

Military Considerations

Industry on Luna can be used to develop more industry until there is sufficient industry to build a mass driver. Such a level of industry could be converted to various military uses that it does not take a genius figure out. It could not be converted to an advantage of one nation over another because of the extreme vulnerability of lunar industry to attack if the United States, Russia, or China decided they did not like the industry. There are international agreements that prohibit using Luna for military purposes. If a nation did so anyway it would give other nations justification to interfere; by diplomatic means preferably. The only thing necessary to completely nullify the military potential of Luna for quite a great number of years is that more than one nation be aware of the nature of developments on Luna. Since the situation is well known, those nations that can keep track of lunar developments will, and no nation will try to use Luna for military purposes.

Economic Considerations

The potential for economic development on Luna is astronomical, but the time required for first return on investment is such that no person investing today will see it. The natural agent to invest in Luna is a sovereign nation. Those who handle the decisions of how to develop Luna are not strongly motivated to be efficient, because someone who succeeds them in office years from now will get the credit if things go well and those in charge now do not expect to be blamed for failure in their lifetimes. The Lunarpedia community is limited to putting forth a view of what constitutes reasonable development of Luna and perhaps influencing officials and the general public.