January 31, 2022

Join us Thursday at Noon PST on Zoom to hear Greg Miller, Professor of Military and Security Studies at the Air Command and Staff College, talk about “Orbital Debris and the Deterrence Dilemma.”
Talk Description

Current calls to remove orbital debris come from nearly every corner, including governments, militaries, private corporations, and the scientific community. While debris poses a clear threat to space operations, and while this threat will continue to grow over time, too little consideration has been given to the second-order effects of developing the ability to remove orbital debris.

An unintended consequence of debris removal is that it would weaken one of the elements of deterrence that prevents self-interested states from engaging in more frequent kinetic anti satellite tests or taking hostile actions against orbital objects. This talk discusses the issue of orbital debris, connects the existence of debris to deterrence, and then offers some solutions to mitigate the weakening of deterrence in the event that debris removal becomes a reality.

Bio

Dr. Gregory D. Miller is Associate Professor of Military and Security Studies at the Air Command and Staff College.  Prior to joining ACSC, he was Chair of the Strategy Department at the Joint Advanced Warfighting School, in Norfolk, VA.  Dr. Miller received Bachelor’s Degrees in Political Science and History from the University of California, Los Angeles (1996), a Master’s Degree in Security Policy Studies from the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University (1998), and a Master’s Degree (2000) and Ph.D. (2004) in Political Science from The Ohio State University.  

His research focuses on a broad range of topics in the areas of international relations, terrorism, and military history.  

In 2012, Cornell University Press published his book, The Shadow of the Past: Reputation and Military Alliances before the First World War, as part of the Cornell Studies in Security Affairs series.  His articles appear in Security Studies, Terrorism & Political Violence, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Perspectives on Terrorism, Joint Forces Quarterly, Air and Space Power Journal, The Washington Quarterly, PS: Political Science and Politics, Parameters, Small Wars Journal, and The Strategy Bridge, and he contributed a chapter on the methods and ethics of teaching about terrorism to the recently published Oxford Handbook of Terrorism.  He previously held faculty positions at the College of William & Mary, the University of Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State University.  He currently serves as Editor for the book series “Political Violence in America” at the University of Oklahoma Press, and is an Associate Editor for the journal, Perspectives on Terrorism.