It is pretty clear that any country that has their own access to space is stronger than a country that does not. It provides a strategic advantage if you can freely put satellites up, it provides a military advantage if you can freely put people and satellites up. If you are competing with someone who can freely access earth orbit, then you can only have the upper hand if you can freely access the moon. Stations on the moon can take out anything in earth orbit, and they can take out places on the Earth by just throwing large rocks at them. A lunar rock attack can be as devastating to a city as a nuclear attack, with no fallout and no long term radiation risk. And you have a nearly infinite supply of rocks on the Moon.<p>Thus any nation that can establish and maintain a permanent presence on the Moon, and build the facilities for throwing chunks of the moon at any particular point on Earth, Will have overwhelming military superiority over any nation that cannot do that. Up to this point, the US has been the only country with the economic strength and technology to pull that off. That we did not do that, reflected more on the fact that we did not need to, rather than we could not.<p>If you are a foreign policy wonk, China getting a permanent moon base with manufacturing capability makes Iran developing a nuclear weapon seem insignificant. There are many nations in the 'nuclear' club, there are none in the 'moon' club.