Bush's order, the first revision of our space policy in almost ten years, wasn't publicly announced, but unclassified details are posted on a government Web site. It clears the way for the development or deployment of weapons in space. This is the most aggressive, hostile and pugnacious administration in our nation's history, and as we've seen in the last six years, it has led to other nations developing their own weapons systems as a defense against American aggression.
The Washington Post reports:
President Bush has signed a new National Space Policy that rejects future arms-control agreements that might limit U.S. flexibility in space and asserts a right to deny access to space to anyone "hostile to U.S. interests."
The document, the first full revision of overall space policy in 10 years, emphasizes security issues, encourages private enterprise in space, and characterizes the role of U.S. space diplomacy largely in terms of persuading other nations to support U.S. policy.
"Freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power," the policy asserts in its introduction.
National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones said in written comments that an update was needed to "reflect the fact that space has become an even more important component of U.S. economic, national and homeland security." The military has become increasingly dependent on satellite communication and navigation, as have providers of cellphones, personal navigation devices and even ATMs.
The administration said the policy revisions are not a prelude to introducing weapons systems into Earth orbit. "This policy is not about developing or deploying weapons in space. Period," said a senior administration official who was not authorized to speak on the record.
Nevertheless, Michael Krepon, co-founder of the Henry L. Stimson Center, a nonpartisan think tank that follows the space-weaponry issue, said the policy changes will reinforce international suspicions that the United States may seek to develop, test and deploy space weapons. The concerns are amplified, he said, by the administration's refusal to enter negotiations or even less formal discussions on the subject.
"The Clinton policy opened the door to developing space weapons, but that administration never did anything about it," Krepon said. "The Bush policy now goes further."
Theresa Hitchens, director of the nonpartisan Center for Defense Information in Washington, said that the new policy "kicks the door a little more open to a space-war fighting strategy" and has a "very unilateral tone to it."
The administration official strongly disagreed with that characterization, saying the policy encourages international diplomacy and cooperation. But he said the document also makes clear the U.S. position: that no new arms-control agreements are needed because there is no space arms race.
The official also said the administration has briefed members of Congress as well as a number of governments, including Russia, on the new policy. The public, however, has not learned much about it: The policy was released at 5 p.m. on the Friday before Columbus Day, with no public announcement.
The National Space Policy follows other administration statements that appeared to advocate greater military use of space.
In 2004, the Air Force published a Counterspace Operations Doctrine that called for a more active military posture in space and said that protecting U.S. satellites and spacecraft may require "deception, disruption, denial, degradation and destruction." Four years earlier, a congressionally chartered panel led by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld recommended developing space weapons to protect military and civilian satellites.
Because of the political sensitivities, several analysts said, the Pentagon probably will not move forward quickly with space weapons but rather will work on dual-use technology that can serve military and civilian interests. But because many space initiatives are classified, Krepon and others said, it is difficult to know what is being developed and deployed.
Some of the potential space weapons most frequently discussed are lasers that can "blind" or shut down adversary satellites and small, maneuverable satellites that could ram another satellite.
The new Bush policy calls on the defense secretary to provide "space capabilities" to support missile-warning systems as well as "multi-layered and integrated missile defenses," an apparent nod toward placing some components of the system in space.
The new document grew out of Bush's 2002 order to the National Security Council, with support from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, to assess the nation's military and civilian space policies. The review has already led to a major shift in emphasis at NASA, away from research and unmanned exploration to returning Americans to the moon and then sending them on to Mars.
Some sections of the 1996 Clinton policy and the Bush revision are classified. There are many similarities in the unclassified portions, and the NSC and the Defense Department emphasized that continuity. But there is a significant divergence apparent in the first two goals of each document.
Bush's top goals are to "strengthen the nation's space leadership and ensure that space capabilities are available in time to further U.S. national security, homeland security, and foreign policy objectives" and to "enable unhindered U.S. operations in and through space to defend our interests there."
Clinton's top goals were to "enhance knowledge of the Earth, the solar system and the universe through human and robotic exploration" and to "strengthen and maintain the national security of the United States."
The Clinton policy also said that the United States would develop and operate "space control capabilities to ensure freedom of action in space" only when such steps would be "consistent with treaty obligations." The Bush policy accepts current international agreements but states: "The United States will oppose the development of new legal regimes or other restrictions that seek to prohibit or limit U.S. access to or use of space."
A number of nations have pushed for talks to ban space weapons, and the United States has long been one of a handful of nations opposed to the idea. Although it had abstained in the past when proposals to ban space weapons came up in the United Nations, last October the United States voted for the first time against a call for negotiations -- the only "no" against 160 "yes" votes.
The U.S. position flows in part from the fact that so many key weapons systems are now dependent on information and communications from orbiting satellites, analysts said. The U.S. military has developed and deployed far more space-based technology than any other nation, giving it great strategic advantages. But with the superior technology has come a perceived vulnerability to attacks on essential satellites.
The new policy was applauded by defense analyst Baker Spring of the conservative Heritage Foundation. He said that he supported the policy's rejection of international agreements or treaties, as well as its emphasis on protecting military assets and placing missile defense components in space. He also said that he liked the policy's promotion of commercial enterprises in space and its apparent recognition that private satellites will need military protection as well.
The issue of possible hostilities in space became more real last month when National Reconnaissance Office Director Donald M. Kerr told reporters that a U.S. satellite had recently been "painted," or illuminated, by a laser in China. Gen. James E. Cartwright, the top U.S. military officer in charge of operations in space, told the newsletter Inside the Pentagon last week that it remained unclear whether China had tried to disrupt the satellite.
The Bush administration's assertions that it has no intentions of weaponing space fall flat.
Last year, when the review of U.S. space policy that led to this order began, the Union of Concerned Scientists raised red flags on this subject and White House spokesman, Scott McClelland told reporters that "the policy review was not considering the weaponization of space." But he said new threats to U.S. satellites have emerged in the years since the U.S. space doctrine was last reviewed in 1996, and those satellites must be protected."
"There are changes that have occurred over the last eight or nine years, and there are countries that have taken an interest in space, McClellan said. "And they have looked at things that could -- or technologies that could -- threaten our space systems. And so you obviously need to take that into account when you're updating the policy.''
The Bush administration has also included some money in the budget for space-based weapons programs to defend satellites, strike ground targets and defend against missile attacks, said Laura Grego, a scientist with the union.
Any complete weapons system in space would be very expensive, running into the many billions of dollars. Developing a shield to defend against a single missile attack would require deploying 1,000 space-based interceptors and cost anywhere between $20 billion and $100 billion, said David Wright, a union scientists and co-author of a recent report on the feasibility of space weapons.
And such a system would require a huge expansion of U.S. launching capability. The United States currently launches between 10-12 large rockets a year, while with space interceptors, it would need to launch many times more that each year.
Wright argued that space-based ground attack systems were not yet practical either. One, dubbed "Rods from God'' -- which would fire rods of tungsten from space -- would cost 50-100 times as much as a similar attack from the ground.
"The fact that it's still being considered I think suggests that there's some sort of emotional attachment to it for putting weapons in space rather than a hard-nosed analysis,'' Wright said.
Any such move would also likely draw swift international condemnation. In 2002, after the United States withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, China and Russia submitted a proposal for a new international treaty to ban weapons in outer space.
But the United States has said it sees no need for any new space arms control agreements. It is party to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits stationing weapons of mass destruction in space.
This new Bush order states clearly that the U.S. won't be party to any treaties or agreements that limits our domination of space in any way.
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