US Ready to put Weapons in Space

An anonymous reader writes "The Guardian reports "America has begun preparing its next military objective - space. Documents reveal that the US Air Force has for the first time adopted a doctrine to establish 'space superiority'." If this goes ahead, it will be in violation of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty which forbids the militarization of space."

Comments

Treaties

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't there treaties banning weapons in space? I thought everyone agreed to only use space for peaceful exploration. Simmilar to what many countries are practicing in the Antarctic.

forbid what?

[Tanktalus]

Forbidding weapons in space is sorta like forbidding criminals from owning/using guns. Without an overwhelming force (*) to dissuade rogue nations from contravening the treaty, it's useless.

(*) The US as a rogue nation for doing this - and no one is likely to have overwhelming physical force to prevent it. But, "force" can just as easily be peer pressure as physical force. I doubt Bush will listen to that, either.

Also, I doubt other rogue nations which probably have not signed this treaty, would not be eyeing militarisation of space given that the class bully is already watching it closely.

Finally, and IANAL, one of the signatories to the treaty doesn't exist anymore. Does the treaty also therefore not exist, and thus bringing it up is merely blowing smoke by the anti-use-of-military-for-pretty-much-any-reason crowd?

Re:Oh, we've violating at treaty! Heavens!

[mwlewis]

I wish the US hadn't done such stupid things to get people so angry at us that they feel their only recourse is to blow up buildings. Do you honestly believe the US never kills "innocents"? Do you buy the whole "War on Terror" rhetoric, as if we can wage war on a word?

Which stupid things are you referring to? Do you honestly believe that the US has, as one of its main goals, "kill innocents?"

Counterterrorism efforts are certainly worthwhile, but to imagine that our best response to terrorist attacks was to launch a $6.7 billion a month war in a country that had nothing to do with any terrorist attacks is insanity. I'd rather have seen such funds thrown at rebuilding the WTC towers as an illustration that the terror tactics didn't work.

I can only assume that you mean Iraq. But if nothing else, how does giving $25K to suicide bombers' families have nothing to do with terrorists? Or giving sanctuary to Abu Nidal? If you'd said, "...that isn't even the biggest supporter of terrorists," I might have agreed.

You do realize that by having a fearful -- nay, terrified -- reaction to these kinds of attacks, we are contributing to their success?

How has their success increased? We haven't gotten rid of all of them, but a bunch of the guys locked up in Cuba are most likely Al Qaida (No, those people are not protected by the Geneva Convention.) There hasn't been a major attack in the US since 2001. We've arrested or killed lots of Al Qaida members. Please explain why this helps them more than us.

Re:Run! The UN Is Coming!!

[DaveAtFraud]

You have no idea how right you are. Just ask the folks in Darfur, the Bosnians, etc. I can think of no other cry that would so remove any hope of survival.

They will need to rename to "Vaccuum Force"

[NerdMachine]

Since there's no "air" in space, the air force has no juristiction there.