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On January 20, 1920, the League of Nations was founded by the victorious nations of World War I to usher in an era of permanent global peace and security. However, within just 19 years, World War II began, effectively bringing the League to an end. At the conclusion of that war in 1945, the United Nations was established with the primary goal of “to maintain international peace and security,” as stated in Article 1 of the UN Charter. Now, 81 years later, the possibility of a third world war is being discussed by none other than the president of the world’s most powerful nation. It is an accepted fact that both world wars were fought to gain territory and control vital resources—land, water, and minerals. Crucially, these were all terrestrial resources rather than extra-terrestrial ones.

The Covenant adopted by the League of Nations dealt only with terrestrial issues such as national sovereignty, disarmament on Earth, the treatment of colonies, and the resolution of international disputes on the ground. There was no mention of any outer space issue that could lead to a conflict between nations. The UN Charter also did not mention outer space.

In 1962, the General Assembly of the UN adopted a “Declaration of Legal Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space,” which incorporated the following three principles:

1. The exploration and use of outer space shall be carried on for the benefit and in the interests of all mankind.
2. Outer space and celestial bodies are free for exploration and use by all States on a basis of equality and in accordance with international law.
3. Outer space and celestial bodies are not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.

The lofty ideals enshrined in such declarations notwithstanding, outer space became an arena for rivalry after the erstwhile USSR launched Sputnik in 1957, and the first human being was sent into outer space on April 12, 1961. On 3 February 1966, Luna 9, launched by the USSR, became the first spacecraft to achieve a soft moon landing. The USSR’s initial success in developing cutting-edge technology to navigate outer space rang a warning bell for the USA, the world’s most developed and richest country. Taking up the challenge, the US initiated the mission to put a human foot on the moon. President Kennedy set the ball rolling with his famous speech on May 21, 1961, urging Congress to accept that moon landing was an “urgent national need.” He said, “If we are to win the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny; if we are to win the battle for the minds of men, the dramatic achievements in space which occurred in recent weeks should have made clear to us all, as did the Sputnik in 1957.” The sentiments of the US military were quite clear about the importance of exercising hegemony over the moon to maintain US hegemony over Earth, as reflected in a speech given by decorated Brigadier General Homer A. Boushey in 1958: “Whoever controls the Moon controls the Earth. The Moon offers a retaliatory base with unparalleled advantage.”

Luna 2 was the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon, but it was designed to crash on the Moon’s surface.

The USA began its Apollo program in 1961 to land a human being on the moon, and the goal was achieved when Apollo 11’s Lunar Module landed safely with three astronauts on board on July 20, 1969. Subsequently, five Apollo spaceflights took 12 astronauts to the moon between 1970 and 1972. The Apollo program ended when Apollo 17 landed on the Moon in December 1972. After the closure of the Apollo program, expenditure on the space program declined from about 4% of the federal budget to 0.4% at the end of 2023.

In the meantime, on July 3, 1969, the Soviet Union made a second attempt to launch its moon rocket N1 and met with a devastating failure, bringing an end to its moon expedition program.

Despite the intense political rivalry of the Cold War, both the USA and Russia did not refrain from scientific cooperation, particularly in lunar missions. In the early stage of the space race (1957 to 1970), cooperation was minimal and largely symbolic. In 1972, the U.S. and USSR signed the Agreement Concerning Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes. This agreement led to the creation of joint working groups to share data on space medicine, satellite communications, and planetary exploration. This collaboration culminated in the first joint lunar mission in July 1975, when two space vehicles—NASA’s Apollo spacecraft and the Soviet Soyuz spacecraft—docked in orbit and American astronaut Thomas Stafford and Soviet cosmonaut Alexey Leonov had a symbolic handshake in space. However, this détente collapsed when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. When Ronald Reagan took over the US presidency in 1981, the Cold War between the two space giants resumed with full force.

The disintegration of the USSR in 1991 precipitated a huge economic crisis across all newly created independent republics. Transition from a state-driven planned economy to a market-driven economy was neither smooth nor immediately productive. A rapid and poorly managed privatisation process created a new class of robber barons with no history of creating wealth through innovation and productive competition. The population of the new Russia was half that of the erstwhile USSR. For Russia, keeping the race to the moon alive in the early period of its new incarnation became financially and organizationally difficult. As a result, the USA had no more compulsion to remain engaged in a one-nation race to the moon. Apollo was wound up because the political reason vanished.

However, by the end of the 1980s, the exploration of outer space had ceased to be a purely scientific endeavour and emerged as a new arena of geopolitics. The technologies underpinning space navigation are closely intertwined with advanced military capabilities and modern communication systems that have become integral to everyday life. Research in rocketry and satellite technology not only facilitated the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles but also enabled the development of global positioning systems (GPS) and worldwide communication networks. Today, financial and economic infrastructures are critically dependent on internet-based applications, and the global system would be severely disrupted if the internet were to cease functioning. Indeed, the history of human civilisation over the past 5,000 years suggests that the pursuit of power has been a primary driving force behind the quest for new technologies.

Interest in the Moon was revived following the discovery that it contains a resource crucial for establishing a permanent human presence—namely, water. Chandrayaan‑1, India’s first lunar probe, launched in October 2008, was the first mission to report the widespread presence of water molecules in the lunar regolith. Subsequent studies have identified significant permafrost deposits—frozen water—near the Moon’s south pole. This region is also characterised by abundant solar energy in the form of near‑continuous sunlight, further enhancing its suitability for sustained human activity.

In addition to water and solar energy, the Moon is believed to contain deposits of Rare Earth Elements (REEs), a group of minerals essential to several strategically important sectors of modern manufacturing. REEs are critical for the production of high‑performance permanent magnets used in communication devices, computing systems, and military surveillance technologies, among other applications. Although these elements are relatively abundant in the Earth’s crust, they are seldom found in concentrated and economically exploitable forms. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), while most lunar rocks exhibit low concentrations of REEs, a distinct category of lunar material rich in potassium (K), rare earth elements, and phosphorus (P)—collectively known as KREEP—contains comparatively high concentrations of these elements. Data obtained from orbiting lunar satellites have identified locations where substantial KREEP deposits are likely to exist.

The availability of the three above usable natural resources, particularly water, makes the Moon the nearest extraterrestrial base for future missions to Mars and other planets. This has triggered a new race to the Moon. This race is not merely for landing on the Moon, but for the long‑term occupation of those regions that are rich in the three resources mentioned above. Once countries on Earth begin using lunar land for the extraction of natural resources, a crucial question will arise: whether the Moon’s land will be demarcated into “national colonies” or remain the common property of all humankind.

Based on the 1962 UN Declaration (cited above), the Legal Subcommittee of the UN prepared the Outer Space Treaty in 1966, which came into force in October 1967. The first three principles of the Outer Space Treaty, quoted below, give clear directions about the use and ownership rights of any occupied segment of outer space:

1. The exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind.
2. Outer space shall be free for exploration and use by all States.
3. Outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.

These principles were laid down when the true, usable value of the Moon, the Earth’s only natural satellite, was unknown to the dominant powers of that period. Furthermore, the composition of power across nations has also evolved—“silently shifting into the hands of those who control data, belief, attention, and innovation. … real influence today lies in algorithms, not armies.” In other words, corporates who now control a big slice of power on Earth will also demand a similar distribution of power on the Moon. In recent years, several nations, including the United States (2015) and Japan (2021), have introduced legislation that explicitly authorises the commercial use of space resources, signalling a transition in which terrestrial corporate economic dominance will also be replicated in extra‑terrestrial environments. The integration of market‑driven entities into future human habitations is no longer a theoretical abstraction; rather, it is a tangible development reflected in contemporary U.S. space exploration paradigms. According to Sci‑Tech Today, in the year 2023, the “commercial sector accounted for 85% of all satellite launches by volume in 2023, highlighting the growing role of private enterprises.” Of all satellites launched in 2023, 94% were classified as small satellites (mass < 600 kg), largely driven by commercial constellation deployments.

Although Russia is a “nuclear‑weapons state,” it is not rich enough to engage with the US as an independent contender for a seat at the high table of the space race to the Moon. The only real contenders to join in the race to the Moon are, as of today, the USA and China. The story of China’s rise as the only contender to the USA in the race to the Moon is not just a story of a race to become hegemon of the solar system but also a race between two ideas of societal arrangement of power—one involving a continuous balancing between political power and the power of wealth, and another involving power struggle mainly within a political bureaucracy with only a supplementary involvement of wealth.

China’s goal is, in the words of President Xi Jinping, to “explore the vast cosmos, develop the space industry and build China into a space power—our eternal dream.” In January 2022, the Chinese government published its vision for the future space program. The document clearly lays out China’s ambitious space program to be on par with the USA. Building a space laboratory, keeping astronauts on long‑term assignments on the Moon, and building an international research station on the Moon were all part of this ambitious program. The relative spending on space programs shows how China is gradually becoming the only contender to the US in the race to the Moon.

Table 1: Country-wise Governmental Spending on Space Programs

Source:  https://www.statista.com/statistics/745717/global-governmental-spending-on-space-programs-leading-countries/

That China is the most important as well as the more resourceful contender to the USA has been recognised by the US itself. The Wolf Amendment of 2011 imposed legal restrictions prohibiting NASA from engaging in scientific collaboration on space projects with China without congressional approval. In its 2019 report submitted to the US Congress, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) had two chapters with the following headings: Chapter 3: China’s Ambitions in Space: Contesting the Final Frontier; Chapter 7: The Final Frontier: China’s Ambitions to Dominate Space. This report identified three areas of contention between the two powers—one already established and another emerging. These are: Military Vulnerability, Economic Displacement, and Loss of Strategic Autonomy.

Finally, it is certain that by 2035 the two contending superpowers—the US and China—will start using a permanent lunar outpost each. It is also possible that some corporations participating in either the Artemis or ILRS program will build their own outposts. The question of ownership of these outposts will be a contentious issue and will call for a solution acceptable to all. The applicability of the concept of sovereignty in space has been denied in the Outer Space Treaty (OST). Since current international jurisprudence denies any existence of “Space Nations,” the only framework that can be meaningfully applied to extra‑terrestrial bodies will be the one now applied to the high seas—no restriction for use but no ownership by any body. But the political system of the USA is not ready to accept this approach to extra‑terrestrial bodies. Without formally discarding the OST, the USA has broached the idea of “functional sovereignty.” The Artemis Accords have introduced the concept of “safety zones,” which nations outside the sphere of the accord consider a violation of Article II of the OST.

Article 7 of the Artemis Accords gives the following definition of “safety zones”:

“In order to implement their obligations under the Outer Space Treaty, the Signatories intend to provide notification of their activities and commit to coordinating with any relevant actor to avoid harmful interference. The area wherein this notification and coordination will be implemented to avoid harmful interference is referred to as a ‘safety zone’. A safety zone should be the area in which nominal operations of a relevant activity or an anomalous event could reasonably cause harmful interference.”

This definition leaves the right to declare a specific part of the Moon under its usage for some purpose as a “safety zone” to individual signatories and not to an international body. There is no mention of permissible access to the “safety zone” to view and understand the nature of the activities underway. A “safety zone,” thereby, becomes an area under a sovereign, thus…

Finally, accords like the OST and Artemis were prepared when AI was in a nascent stage of development. For example, if robots are sent to the Moon to establish a colony for REE mining, how easy or difficult will it be to create a safety zone for them? Will it be possible to imbibe a national spirit in the robots so that they cannot be manipulated to work for a rival nation? Space exploration by Homo sapiens is now at a very nascent stage—a child’s play—and its future will most probably follow a path that Carl Sagan forecasted:

“It will not be we who reach Alpha Centauri and other nearby stars. It will be a species very like us, but with more of our strengths, and fewer of our weaknesses … more confident, far‑seeing, capable and prudent.”
— Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, Carl Sagan

Neither Trump nor Xi Jinping will be able to take one small step toward this destiny of ours.

References:

China’s Space Program: A 2021 Perspective https://english.www.gov.cn/archive/whitepaper/202201/28/content_WS61f35b3dc6d09c94e48a467a.html

China’s Vision for Space: Interview with Khyle Eastin: November 21, 2023; The National Bureau of Asian Research

2019 Annual Report to Congress produced by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC). Author: U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC)

https://www.bcg.com/publications/2024/private-firms-are-helping-explore-and-develop-the-moon

https://gulfnews.com/special-reports/moon-rush-why-private-companies-race-for-lunar-dominance-1.500054984#google_vignettehttps://theconversation.com/the-race-to-mine-the-moon-is-on-and-it-urgently-needs-some-clear-international-rules-270943

NASA CLPS program: https://www.nasa.gov/commercial-lunar-payload-services/#clps-overview

Senate Commerce Committee confirmation hearing, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman 

U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission’s 2025 annual report to Congress

Eric Berger – Aug 18, 2025 : https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/08/after-recent-tests-china-appears-likely-to-beat-the-united-states-back-to-the-moon/