- Confirming the existence of a pot that has been boiling
for some time, the New York Times reported this week that the US Air Force
is seeking approval from President Bush for a weapons program for space.
The Times notes that in 2001, even before he was confirmed as Secretary
of defense, a commission led by Donald Rumsfeld was saying the President
should "have the option to deploy weapons in space." In effect,
even before 9-11, the stage was being set, not only for the invasion of
Iraq, but for the weaponized invasion of space. No doubt responsive to
this sort of recommendation, Bush took the United States out of the Antiballistic
Missile Treaty and has pushed a so far unsuccessful missile defense system.
However, the scariest point in the Times report is the way Air Force Space
Command General Lance Lord characterizes Air Force doctrine: Calling space
superiority "the American way of fighting", he reportedly told
Congress that the doctrine for entry into space warfare is "freedom
to attack as well as freedom from attack".
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- That all sounds properly gung-ho for a service whose
classic fight song begins "Off we go into the wild blue yonder,"
but Americans, as well as everybody else on the planet should be asking
just what is going on here. Who is the enemy? What is the threat? What
technology do we and others have? What do we need to do to succeed? What
would that cost? Who will pay for it? Is there any definable rate of return
for this investment? What are the downsides to this scheme? Where would
this step take us? The way the Bush team has been handling such matters
up to now, the chances are we will not get the answers to such questions,
and even worse, the discussion will not even be shared with us.
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- Who is the enemy?
-
- The best single characterization of "the enemy"
has to be a postulated mirror image of the United States. This rationale
goes as follows: If we can build a tool for a space mission, then so can
others. We know several governments-Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan,
China, India, Brazil, Israel, and of course Russia--that either can now
or soon may be able to build space vehicles. Through cooperating with us,
running intelligence operations against us and each other, bootlegging
essential equipment, or all three, one or more of those governments is
a potential enemy whose motives, known or unknown, could represent a space
borne threat to the United States. We, so the argument goes, have to anticipate
that and build our space defense/offense before they do. We have to capture
a commanding lead in space technology before any of them launch anything.
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- What is the threat?
-
- The threat is that any or all of the above-mentioned
countries, or some not yet on the list, will build a space weapon deployment
and launch capability. They may do that, so Air Force logic appears to
go, because the basic technologies are generally known, and they are prepared
to spend billions of dollars worth of their time, energy, money and industrial
capability on building their own space offense/defense-just in case. For
other countries, however, the threat model is more concrete: The US Air
Force has said it wants to build and deploy such systems. In fact, it wants
the United States to take over and control space. Unless the other countries
want to be intimidated or actively threatened by US space weaponry, others
will have to create counter capabilities. The Air Force threat logic, therefore,
is perfectly circular.
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- What technology now exists?
-
- Based on what is in the public domain, the United States,
or for that matter anyone else, has a long way to go. Granted, President
Bush trashed the Antiballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, and the United States
began to build a missile defense. So far, however, that system has not
been successful. The United States has the space shuttle, which of course
could deliver a sizeable space vehicle or weapons system into near space.
However, loss of the last shuttle that flew, plus recent technical delays
in reinitiating launches of the shuttle, does not put this system high
on a list of capabilities for a hair-trigger space weapons response system
that starting to arm space will make essential. In any case, the Russian
Soyuz, as far as it goes, looks like a successful competitive system.
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- The US, along with several others, has satellite launch
systems which, unfortunately, are one way devices, even though they have
been used with great success to put up communications, weather and spy
systems. The United States, Russia and a few others have ICBM capabilities.
That is presently earth launch and delivery capability, but presumably
could be configured for launch from a space platform. That capability,
adapted for space use by any of the potential enemies who now have it,
is probably the scariest risk that now exists. But as outlined in the Times
report, a panoply of systems and strategies appear to be on the drawing
boards.
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- What do we need to succeed?
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- Another way to phrase this is: What sort of a task is
space defense? Air Force doctrine in principle embraces the entire envelope
of planet earth. How far out is a function of what can go there, and what
threat that represents. The task, however, is daunting.
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- The United States, including Alaska and Hawaii, covers
about 7.7 million square miles of land. It has about 12,383 miles of coastline
and 7,458 miles of land borders with Mexico and Canada. In recent decades,
we have had one significant domestic terrorist attack in this space-the
Oklahoma City bombing, and two international attacks on the World Trade
Centers, first in 1993, and then, devastatingly, in 2001. All three of
these attacks came in, as it were, under the radar, and our forces, nearly
as large then as now, were powerless to stop them. During his tenure as
Secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge admitted candidly that it would
be virtually impossible to stop every terrorist attack. That was land space,
with the territories and boundaries as he defined it.
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- Space, as potentially defined for Air Force doctrine,
is another matter. There is no way that could mean, as the classic saying
goes, "from the center of the earth to the top of the sky." What
if it meant only the space over US territory out to the range of synchronous
orbital satellites, roughly 23,000 miles? Then the space needing to be
surveilled or patrolled and defended would amount to roughly 175 billion
cubic miles. If we adopt a center of the earth/top of the sky configuration
of US airspace, or a line of sight field of view from all angles from 23,000
miles out to US territory, then the amount of space to cover would be many
billions of cubic miles larger.
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- What would a system cost?
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- Let's say the Air Force were to have a thousand space
vehicles capable of surveillance, defense and attack missions, all on station
in space above the United States, keyholing somewhere in orbit at a distance
of 23,000 miles, and/or patrolling on lower orbital passes. Then each of
these vehicles would be responsible for covering 175,000,000 cubic miles
of space. Let's say that those vehicles cost a modest 100 million dollars
each to make, equip-including laser and other weapons--and deploy. Then
the cost is one followed by twelve zeros, a trillion dollars. But putting
costs aside, against the kinds of attacks, including airborne, ground-based,
and ballistic missiles, which are now eminently possible, the system would
simply be full of holes; our country would still be virtually defenseless.
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- Who would pay for it?
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- As noted above, one estimate of the costs of a space-based
system would be a trillion dollars. Others have reached a similar cost
range, but there would be large operation and upkeep costs as well. How
would the United States pay for such a system when the country is running
close, as the International Monetary Fund has warned, to the outer limit
on external debt? A space weapons program could run well above the initial
purchasing/deployment costs. To build the system, the US would have to
borrow, either at home or abroad, to do it. Because other countries have
a vested interest in seeing that the US system stays afloat, they may well
finance further US borrowing, but that hardly means that adding debt to
build this system would be practical.
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- What would be the rate of return?
-
- In purely defensive terms, it would seem that Americans
would not get much for their money. However, this kind of program would
be a boon to several high tech industries, including everything from aircraft
building to weapons systems, communications, information systems, surveillance
gear, national security consulting, and et cetera. If the United States
also kept up the War on Terrorism, buying the high end weaponry and delivery
systems that are now being bought, the defense industries sectors of the
US economy would prosper for decades. Since the money spent on the War
on Terrorism would be going down a rat hole, and the elaborate space system
would be going into the ether, we might all have jobs and income, but nothing
to show for these large defensive investments. The chance of the next successful
attack on the United States would still stand well above zero.
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- What are the downsides?
-
- Quite aside from the fact that we would be wasting our
money as well as wasting essential materials to no good purpose, the downsides
are compelling. Start with the probability that US action on a space warfare
system will have frightened everybody else who can into creating space
weapons systems. In short, everybody will be indulging in colossal waste.
The worst single downsides, however, are the eternal provocation and maintenance
of suspicion and animosity. Those, in turn, will drive further creation
and maintenance of earth-bound weapons systems, including nuclear weapons.
The way the US is now dealing with nuclear weapons-creating new ones, modernizing
old ones, and using depleted uranium weapons intensively--they are very
likely to end up on space platforms. Others will assume that is the case
and do the same if they can. The ultimate downside is that everybody, everywhere
will be under a space borne blanket of fear, and the risks of a nuclear
accident will have been magnified many times over.
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- Where would this step take us?
-
- The gravest concern about weaponizing space is where
it will take our country and the rest of human society. A careful look
at the past few centuries of warfare will show that no weapons technology
has ever been discarded except on demonstration of a better system. That
means that newer weapons are proven to have one or more of greater killing
power, better defensive attributes, ease of use, better battlefield management,
durable-that is hard to change-investments in technology, basically institutionalized
patterns of doctrinal and strategic support, and, of course, training.
All of that is implicit in General Lord's phrase, "the American way
of fighting". It is also consistent with a philosophy of shock and
awe bombing that causes many more "collateral' deaths than military
ones.
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- The best example of this problem is post World War II
experience with nuclear weapons. The first country to develop them, and
the first country to use them, was the United States. Those uses, on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, were grim demonstrations of utility that were not lost on
anyone thereafter. Then there was one nuclear power; now there are eight,
and the urge to join this club has been impossible to suppress, not least
because the nuclear club members-the United States, Russia, Britain, France,
and China-have been joined by three renegades-Israel, India, and Pakistan.
Against a promise to disarm under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,
some weapons have been taken out of active service, but few have been destroyed.
Efforts to prevent additional countries from going nuclear are contentious
generators of wars and diplomatic conflict.
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- Once they are launched, the earth is unlikely ever again
to be free of space weapons. This choice, therefore, should be dropped
and forcefully resisted anytime it may arise.
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- What can we do?
-
- The problem really remains on the ground. That is where
any actual or potential enemy is likely to be, and where such an enemy
can be most constructively engaged. The first requirement is that the United
States should stop trying to intimidate the rest of humanity. A military
posture that is generally threatening to everybody and specifically threatening
to identified and targeted countries is bound to produce a major accident.
Open development of new nuclear weapons and plans to use them, e.g., to
destroy bunkered military or nuclear capabilities of others, and probably
to position them is space, virtually will destroy any prospect of a nuclear
free planet. Since it is increasingly apparent to all others that the nuclear
club states are not disarming, non-proliferation efforts-led by nuclear
club members who won't disarm-have little chance of succeeding.
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- What we can do, in a phrase, is stop it. Live up to our
treaty obligations. Work diligently with all other governments to obviate
any need for weapons in space. Reinstate the ABM treaty Bush abandoned,
and forego any US plan to weaponize space. Stop threatening others by making
such proposals as the Air Force space warfare scheme. Start cooperating
with other countries on genuine plans to improve the human condition for
all the people here. We have met the enemy, and it may not be apparent
in Washington, but the enemy is apparent to everybody else.
-
- **********
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- The author is a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer
of the Department of State, a graduate and former Chairman of the Department
of International Studies of the National War College, and a former Deputy
Director of the State Department Office of Counterterrorism. He is a regular
columnist on rense.com. He will welcome comments at wecanstopit@charter.net
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