| Subj: | Why Are We preparing for War in Space? |
| Date: | 5/14/01 6:18:39 PM Pacific Daylight Time |
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Staff at NORAD -- the North American Aerospace
Defense
Command -- at Cheyenne Mountain, Colo.
Forward, march ... into space
Pentagon has big plans for combat in the
cosmos
By
Jonathan
Broder
MSNBC
WASHINGTON — In the foothills of the Colorado Rockies earlier
this year, a group of Air Force officers gathered at a highly secure military
base for five days of unprecedented war games. The scenario was familiar
enough — the growing
tension between the United States and a fictitious country that resembled
China. But the battlefield was out of this world: a simulated war raging
for the first time in space.
THE YEAR WAS 2017, and space was bristling with futuristic weapons. During
the exercise at Schriever Air Force Base, the United States and its adversary
deployed
microsatellites — small, highly maneuverable spacecraft that shadowed
the other side’s satellites, then neutralized them by either blocking
their view, jamming their signals or melting their circuitry with lasers.
Also prowling the extraterrestrial battlefield were infrared early-warning
satellites and space-based radar, offering tempting targets to ground stations
and aircraft that harassed them with lasers
and jamming signals.
In the 1980s, the prospect of war in space wasn’t just a high-tech exercise.
It was a national preoccupation during the Reagan administration, which pushed
hard for its Cold War Strategic Defense Initiative. Now, the prospect of
a celestial war is once again the focus of serious planning as the U.S. military
braces for new forms of high-tech combat in the 21st century.
“Space is the ultimate high ground,” Lt. Col. Donald Miles, spokesman
for Air Force Space Command in Colorado Springs, told MSNBC.com. “The
high ground
has always provided an advantage, whether it’s a hill, a balloon an
observation aircraft or air superiority. You take that to the next level,
and we’re talking about space
superiority.”
THE
ULTIMATE FRONT
This high ground has captured the imagination of the new administration.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who is more enthusiastic about space than
any of his
predecessors, is expected to make space-based military operations a priority
in his forthcoming strategic review of U.S. military capabilities, Pentagon
and Air Force officials say.
Under SDI, which was never deployed, Reagan hoped to dominate space and achieve
security by using space-based weapons to shoot down ballistic missiles. With
the Bush administration now pledging to pursue a ground-based national missile
defense system of a more limited scale, Rumsfeld also hopes to guarantee
dominance of space by eliminating threats to America’s satellites.
In a January report to Congress, a commission chaired by Rumsfeld warned
that the 600 satellites the U.S. military depends upon for photo reconnaissance,
targeting,
communications, weather forecasting, early warning and intelligence gathering
are highly vulnerable to attack from adversaries. The report says the United
States must
anticipate what Pentagon officials call a “Space Pearl Harbor”
— a crippling sneak attack against American satellites orbiting the
planet.
These satellites have become our “eyes and ears around the world,”
says Brig. Gen. Michael Hamel, the head of Space Operations and Integration
for the Air
Force. “Space gives us an advantage,” Hamel said in an interview,
adding that without proper defenses, “it’s also our Achilles
heel.”
To reduce the nation’s vulnerability, the Rumsfeld commission urges
leaders to develop “superior space capabilities,” including the
ability to “negate the hostile use
of space against U.S. interests” by using “power projection in,
from and through space.” Translated into lay terms, that means the
development and deployment of anti-satellite weapons.
BACKLASH
EXPECTED
Rumsfeld is expected to urge President Bush to declare space a national security
priority and to recommend sweeping changes in how space programs are overseen
and funded.
“We know from history that every medium — air, land and sea —
has seen conflict,” the Rumsfeld commission argues. “Reality indicates
that space will be no different.”
The report calls space warfare “a virtual certainty.”
But critics warn that if President Bush and Rumsfeld seriously try to seize
the high ground in space, the fallout will be severe. Some analysts fear
a unilateral U.S. militarization of space would only lead to a new arms race
and closer
military cooperation between China and Russia, which would join forces to
develop their own anti-satellite programs, rather than cede the high ground
to Washington.
This, in turn would hasten the demise of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
and various non-proliferation accords, these analysts say.
“You get into a real hornet’s nest when you start shooting at things
in space,” says Michael Krepon, president of the Henry L. Stimson Center,
a Washington
think tank that focuses on international security issues.
Krepon and others say the deployment of space-based anti-satellite
weapons is a double-edged sword when it comes to the missile defense
shield.
“If you try to put other countries’ satellites at risk, you know
that sure as hell they’re going to try to put yours at risk,” Krepon
said in an interview, noting that a national
missile defense system can work only if the satellites that provide early
warning of missile launches are free from threat. “In that event, you
must achieve superiority. And that means you have to have to stay ahead of
them every step of the way.”
Paul Stares, an expert on space at the Center for International Security
and Cooperation at Stanford University, adds that in any strategic scramble
for space
superiority, enemies probably would target not only U.S. military satellites
but also America’s constellation of commercial satellites — assets
worth many hundreds of
billions of dollars.
“It is currently not in the U.S. interest to develop an anti-satellite
system,” Stares says. “We have more to lose than gain from developing
such a system. So you really have to wonder at the end of the day whether
this is a path we really want to encourage others to go down.” President
Bush has not responded publicly to the January commission report on space
weapons, but he has expressed an interest
in “skipping a generation” of military technologies.
“Our goal is to move beyond marginal improvements to harness new
technologies that support a new strategy,” Bush said in February. This
is the broadest hint so far that Bush already may agree with Rumsfeld’s
argument that the United States can dominate space by deploying superior
defensive and offensive anti-satellite weapons that can nullify hostile
countermeasures.
SPACE
CADETS
Meanwhile, amid the growing concern about threats to American satellites,
the Air Force has been preparing for extraterrestrial combat, establishing
a new Space
Operations Directorate, as well as a new Space Warfare School. In addition,
two new units have been activated. The highly classified mission of the 76th
Space Control
Squadron at Paterson Air Force Base in Colorado is to test offensive and
defensive weapons systems in space. The 527th Space Aggressor Squadron at
Schriever Air Force Base plays the enemy in war exercises to highlight
vulnerabilities in space operations.
For now, Rumsfeld sees the Air Force as the primary service responsible for
space warfare, including the training of a new cadre of military space
professionals. But down the line, the defense chief and his fellow space
commissioners also envision the creation of a new and entirely separate branch
of the military — the U.S. Space
Force. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen.
But as Rumsfeld shapes the military for the new challenges ahead, it is already
clear that he aims to seize the highest strategic ground of all and hold
it.