The Suez Crisis and The Permanent Crewing of the International Space Station (ISS)

Beginning of Operation Musketeer, The Suez Crisis

The Suez Crisis was an event that occurred in the middle of the 20th Century, not so long after the Second World War. While its importance is understated in school and amongst the general public, this event had significant geopolitical consequences in the Cold War, indicating that the once far-reaching influence of the Anglo-French world powers were now merely a relic of history, being replaced by the sheer might of the United States and the Soviet Union, the two emergent rival superpowers of the era following the Second World War.

The Suez Crisis began when Egypt’s nationalist leader at the time, Gamal Abdel Nasser, made the decision to nationalise (to bring something under the ownership of the Govt.) the Suez Canal, a passage through Egypt that connected the Arabian Sea with the Mediterranean, the maritime jugular for sea-based trade routes between Europe and Asia. This was done in order to fund infrastructure projects within Egypt and facilitate its industrialisation, as a toll was collected from those who did trade via the Suez, a key example being the Aswan Dam which was for a period of time, the largest embankment dam in the world.

Until this point in time the Suez Canal was controlled by Britain and France, of whom financially benefitted from, albeit the Canal was in an entirely different continent. Not only that, Nasser planned to ban Israeli vessels from crossing the Canal, which was a move that was indicative of ongoing hostility between Israel and Egypt in that period. There were attempts made to pursue diplomatic negotiations between the four nations, but ultimately proved to be fruitless.

Israel, France and Britain decided to take military action against Egypt in total defiance against the instruction of the US President Dwight D. Eisenhower. After the Israeli-led ground invasion of the Sinai Peninsula, Operation Musketeer began on the 31st of October, which begun with the bombing of Egyptian territory by French and British forces, and soon the landing of paratroopers on Egyptian soil followed. The invasion effort proved to be successful as the Egyptian Military were defeated and Anglo-French-Israeli military objectives had been achieved, but the Canal remained closed.

It later transpired to the world stage, that there was clear collusion between Israel, France and Britain regarding their action in the Suez Canal. This sparked global outrage, especially from the United States and the Soviet Union, with the former threatening to sell Sterling Bonds possessed by the Govt, in turn crashing the value of the Pound as well as threatening to kick both parties out of NATO and with the latter outright threatening France and Britain with Nuclear annihilation. This led to the withdrawal of Israeli and Anglo-French Forces from the Sinai Peninsula and by extension the Suez Canal, and the subsequent humiliation of Britain and France on the world stage, indicating to the world that their independence in pursuing geopolitical ambitions had been greatly diminished.

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The Permanent Crewing of the International Space Station

Everyone on Earth is aware of the existence of the engineering marvel that is the International Space Station, that orbits the Earth, but few however understand its true significance as well as the part-time extra-terrestrials that crew and conduct operations within this vessel. I would argue that it is an important historical landmark of the period of time that followed the Cold War, signifying the beginning of an era of international cooperation (albeit with a few exceptions).

Its conception had been a shock to many, as merely 10 years before the beginning of its construction, the idea of a joint space station being built by the United States and Russia (two countries who have threatened each other with the collapse of civilisation for the past few decades) together in cooperation would have been ridiculed to no end. Yet only a few years after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and by extension the end of the Cold War, precisely that would happen.

This iconic space endeavour was undertaken by 5 participating space agencies; NASA (USA), Roscosmos (RU – Successor to the Soviet Space Program), JAXA (JP), ESA (EUR) and the CSA (CA) and was the first of its kind to feature such vast collaboration among nation states when historically space missions like these were accomplished by one single entity (the exception being the ESA, being comprised of multiple European nations). Not only that, the structure itself is a feat of engineering and economic might, being built and assembled in modular increments over a period of 13 years. At a total cost of $150 billion, the ISS is the single most expensive item ever built (although only a meagre 0.063 War on Terrors), easily exceeding the GDP of some entire sovereign nations. The ISS due to its sheer size, could not be sent into space outright, so it was in fact assembled in space, starting in 1998 with the introduction of the Russian-built, US operated module Zarya, which was continuously crewed on Halloween from the 31st of October of 2000, followed by the addition of 15 other modules, with main construction being completed in 2011 after the addition of the European module, Columbus.

The ISS is still in operation to this day with funding lasting until 2025, and is used to conduct scientific research outside the Earth in Low Earth Orbit. Due to the ISS not being in Geostationary Orbit, rocket boosters are used to prevent the vessel re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. Transit to and from the ISS is handled by the four main modes of transport, the Soyuz and Proton Rocket, both of which are launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the NASA Space Shuttle (which was phased out in 2011) and in recent years, SpaceX’s Falcon 9. Not only has the project achieved its intended outcomes, it had shown the world (at least superficially even) that international cooperation was the way forward.