Vanished Polity of the Day: the Galactic Empire

With their foreign policy in shreds in the middle east, Bush administration officials are directing attention to another frontier: the final frontier. A new, robust galactic policy will propel American cosmonauts (and strategic interests) into the void.

Critics, however, have already rung alarm bells, with The New York Times pouring icy water on Bush's 'macho' interstellar vision. Where in the past the language of international cooperation governed any discussion of space, nationalist grand strategy looms large in US statements:

In this new century, those who effectively utilize space will enjoy added prosperity and security and will hold a substantial advantage over those who do not. Freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power.

Speaking a few years ago, Bush compared the expeditions of American astronauts to the continental trek of the 19th century explorers Lewis and Clark. Their enterprising spirit of discovery, Bush insisted, remains a guiding light for American space adventurers today.

Of course, the exploration of Lewis and Clark paved the way for the boots and wheels of American Manifest Destiny, turning a fledgling coastal nation into a continental empire. Increasingly jingoistic in its tone, the American space strategy does little to dissuade images of galactic imperium.

And we all know what happens to a Galactic Empire. The combined weight of throat-gurgling space bears, midget jungle monkeys, anti-fascist republicanism and Harrison Ford was enough to take its most famous incarnation down. At its peak, the Galactic Empire was a hyper-totalitarian machine, swiftly imposing order and brutal efficiency: a far cry surely from the America of today, which already grapples with overstretch, a tenuously hollow economy and uncertain domestic politics.

Yet the Empire sprung from mundanely republican roots, a federalism gone wrong. Without Chubaka, the rise and fall of the American space project will not be nearly as epic as that of its Galactic counterpart. But it will be hairy.