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Do We Really Need Space Weapons?
tcd004 writes "The U.S. military is developing technology to disable, jam, and even destroy enemy satellites. But are space weapons necessary? No, says Michael Krepon, director of the Stimson Center's Space Security Project. He argues that developing space weapons is a surefire way to launch a new space weapon race.
I disagree.
Space is essentially worthless until it is militarized.
Nothing worthwhile is left unguarded.
A space race would be a good thing, in my opinion, because it focuses the much-maligned military-industrial complex on a worthy goal: human occupancy in space.
It may be more efficient to send up the sleek craft of the X-Prize and other private ventures, but heavy lift will probably only come with military ventures.
Getting to space en mass via the military will doubtless cause distress to many who feel that space should be kept pure, untouched by the dirty and unwholesome aspects of human existence.
Keep in mind that most successful ventures in space (and all the major ones) were driven by a space race with heavy military overtones. Such motivation worked once and will work again.
I think it's up to the US taxpayer to put a stop to this insanity. I have a feeling that the US is gonna laugh at the Chinese & Russian efforts to legislate this, possibly causing a cold war in space. Hell, the Cuban missile crisis is nothing compared to some serious strike capabilities in space with a far greater range than some archaic missiles on a carribean island.
Besides, who appointed the USA to be the supreme ruler of space? Surely disabling a satellite orbiting some other nation's (high) air space could be construed as an act of war similar to say, spyplanes in a foreign country's airspace?
Will wank off Linus Torvalds for fame.
except that someone eventually will develop space weapons - it would be the height of arrogance to assume that just because the u.s. backs off, everyone will - and we really don't want to get a late start in that race.
if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence / freedom of expression doesn't make it alright
The Army reading list
Keep in mind that there are people in the US government who own or consult for or are in some way related to the big business of providing military equiptment to the government. Of course they want this it's great to win a race, but it's even better to sell everyone shoes.
All you need to do is take a look at what country or countries would lose the most if space-based communication and localization functions were lost during a crisis. Actively working to increase the risk of such a scenario is self-defeating and shortsighted (I would like to use the expression "utterly stupid" but people may take offence).
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
is never a bad thing.
Whatever advantage you can give yourself could possibly turn the tide of a battle.
Imagine being able to blind an enemy in a war by knocking out its surveillance and communications capabilities. How is this a bad thing?
People make it sound like it's a bad thing by starting a space arms race, but there could be worse things- such as your enemy being able to knock out your satellites and you have no ability to do the same. If you're able to develop such technology, do it.
Who is going to keep these weapons safe? These will have to be remotely fired, and with the state of system security these days I don't trust the government to keep their satellite weapons under control.
A little bit of game theory shows why developing space weapons makes sense from the point of view of any one country.
Certainly, a "conspiracy" of ALL countries agreeing NOT to develop space weapons would be in our collective best interests. But no one works in terms of collective best interests unless it also maximizes their own best interests.
Suppose for a moment that a "conspiracy" (or to make the terminology better for this case, a treaty) existed between all nations that "prevented" the development of space weapons.
Any one country who secretly deviates from that treaty has a LOT to gain.
Thus unless the United States can trust other major powers (China, Russia, EU, Japan) NOT to develop space weapons (which it cannot), the best way to leverage its position is to develop its own space weapons first.
Am I totally opposed to space weapons? Well, not really. Krepon's arguments include:
... about $200 billion ago.)
1) North Korea and Iran don't have space programs. Space weapons would be useful against only Russia and China.
2) The US is the world's most important rule maker or rule breaker. We should set an example and develop a code of conduct.
My response to (1) is that militarily, it sucks to get leapfrogged. You don't want to get passed because of complacency. As for (2), bad actors tend not to follow rules anyway, so will the conduct of the US really shape the behavior of the rest of the world? (I would guess that many outside the US would hope not.)
That said, the opportunity cost for space weapons is *huge*. It feeds into the whole asymmetrical warfare concept -- the US can disable satellites but can't stop an insurgency that everybody saw coming except the secretary of defense.
Furthermore, even within military spending there are better places to spend the money than space weapon deployment. More unmanned systems, better infantry-level support, or faster mobilization (so that the US doesn't build up a force and then claim it's so expensive to keep them there that we have to start the war *right now* -- there were people who said we couldn't wait through a summer
But the best place to spend money, in my opinion, is accelerated research that supports reduced reliance on oil. (Yes, I'm a Thomas Friedman fan.) I wouldn't mind a grant or two to a brilliant poli sci researcher who could figure out how to sell the public on a large gas tax. (and mitigate the effects on the poor?) I think most economists would say a gas tax (or more generally, a carbon tax) is the most efficient way to spur adoption of renewable energy sources. Otherwise, you're hoping the government can pick technological winners and losers. (While reps are getting nice contributions from the farm lobby.)
Irrelevant. Whether or not developing space weapons is a surefire way to launch a new space weapons race does not answer the question as to whether or not space weapons are necessary.
Space weapons have nothing to do with security and everything to do with generating a fresh revenue stream for the military/industrial complex.
The heat from below can burn your eyes out
Sorry but the old USSR already built and deployed space base weapons. They deployed orbital ASAT systems in the early 70s and even armed one of their manned space stations.
The idea that space is weapons free is a myth. If you do not think that spy satellites are not weapons you are just nuts.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Quote from the article:
MK: Weaponizing space would be very unwise. No satellite has been the subject of a direct physical attack in the history of warfare. Whatever we do sets a precedent that others will follow. We depend so heavily on satellites to protect lives and wage war with a minimum of collateral damage. Attacks on satellites would mean that wars become a whole lot more difficult for our forces in the field and a lot more harmful to noncombatants.
So in short, you can reduce the efficiency of the US army by taking out their satellites. Since other countries are denied access to space, this would be a good tactic for such a country. They will be more dependent and more trained in a war without satellite information, and will be enabled by such a move to get the upperhand in a conflict.
I think the US better invest in protecting their own satellites since they are the softpoint.
PS Disabling satellites by large lasers might work since you could fry just a few components like a photo optic chip, the rest of the satellite is packed in a heat blanket to reflect sunlight and thus a laser will just reflect of that too (at least most of it, rendering it pretty useless, if the atmosphere didn't do that yet)
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
If there were weapons systems that had to be placed in space in order to protect space assets than I suppose there might be a good argument for space weapons. However, that is simply not the case. I cannot think of a single potential threat to military or civilian satellites that cannot be countered from the ground more effectively for orders of magnitude less money. Really, the only argument for putting weapons into space is that it seems cool and would be intimidating - I'm tired of our military spending money this way. More accurately, there are a group of people in the present administration who believe that it is important to 'unfetter' the U.S.'s hands from any treaties or taboos in the event that somewhere down the line there will be something useful with this stuff we need to do. This is not wise. The taboo is actually valuable to us, because having explosions go off in space ends up creating debris fields which threaten present assets in space (which could be disastrous in Geosynchronous orbit) - and the U.S. is the country with the most military and civilian assets in space. In short - it costs more to use space weapons, it is less effective, and it removes a taboo which is primarily protecting U.S. space assets. Until those factors change, seems pretty dumb to me.
Because we all know how well banning weapons has worked before.
The first attempt I can remember was when the Pope tried to prohibit crossbows. The most recent is the Japanese ban on firearms - which worked quite well until Admiral Perry showed up.
Clear, Dark Skies
I have a feeling that the US is gonna laugh at the Chinese & Russian efforts to legislate this, possibly causing a cold war in space.
"In space, all wars are cold."
-Michael Scovetta, Slashdot, 8/8/2005.
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
Haven't you heard? There is no USSR.
'He has stated that the treaties are too limimting and therefore aren't in the best interest of our country, a fact I wholeheartedly disagree with'
At least you admit it is a fact. Too bad you do not like it. Treaties which ban entirely-defensive efforts are certainly not in our interest.
Where were you when the voynix came?
The thing with space is that given the energy levels and distances involved, any spacecraft is a powerful weapon.
Slam a basic comm satellite into the ISS and it's done for. A nuke can be a warhead; it can also be used to propel a spacecraft (google "Orion") or mine an asteroid. A cutting laser makes a great long-distance comm device. At short ranges, some mapping radars will fry an unprotected human being.
So excuse me if I'm not too worried about "weapons in space."
Nobody has mentioned that after the first (even minor) "attack" on another satellite, there will be bits and pieces of the former satellite whizzing around in orbit. most of these bits and pieces will be too small to track by radar and so become very very dangerous for years and years.
Basically, after the first "space war", low earth orbit becomes unusable for a few years, even for the victor.
TDz.
Weapons in space is inevitable. Looking at militiary history, it's also logical.
100 years ago wars were fought as ground wars.
When planes first appeared in warfare, they were used simply for data gathering -- They would fly over the enemy position and the pilot would report his observations.
The military soon realized that if they could knock out their enemy's use of aerial surveylance they would realize a huge tactical advantage and Air combat was born.
The same thing holds true with satellites. The launch of the first communcations / spy satellite ensured that one day someone would develop the ability to neutralize enemy satellites.
We don't have to like it, but it is inevitable.
then we all should know how the concept of frontier explortation has unfolded over history. When the early European explorers found our little rock over here, the first thing they did was check it out. The next thing they did was build a military presence on it. It is only logical to assume that the human exploration of space will follow the same human pattern as before.
You are the kind of guy that would happily eat your seed potatoes if you get a bit hungry in the winter.
Today, you have to do research or your grand children will be poor farmers.
Personally, I'm not counting on NASA to feed my eventual grand-children. Call me crazy, but I don't expect much more out of them than the occasional pretty picture of Jupiter or something.
Oh, and here's a news flash kids: Space is already militarized. Those GPS toys you like playing with? Yeah, those satelites are there to guide are tanks and target our bombs. The fact that you can use them to mark nav points at your favorite fishing holes and/or WiFi hotspots is just a bonus.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
So we develop space weapons. They develop space weapons. We all develop space weapons. We decide to blow the 1,800 satellites out of the sky in some sort of stellar turf war.
What nobody has considered, is the gravity of the situation (literally, or lack thereof). Now you have billions of little pieces of satellite material flying around in all directions without any gravity to stop them.
You think some foam sticking out of the bottom of the shuttle has problems now, try plucking it out of there with billions of pieces of metal, plastic, glass, wire and other satellite debris flying around you in all directions at 16,000 miles per-hour.
Sure, some of it will orbitally degrade into the atmosphere, but much of it will not, and it will continue to fly in all directions at full-speed, until it either collides with something to slow it down, or it deflects off of something (such as the other billion pieces of debris) to change its path.
Forget going to the moon, other shuttle launches, Mars missions, all of it. Not without some major retrofit to the hull and other materials used in the manufacturing of them (i.e. adding weight, potentially).
Yes, lets all just blow ourselves out of the sky too, and keep our upper orbital atmosphere a nice fence of shrapnel traveling at thousands of miles per-hour.
Not very often. Saddam attacked Kuwait with no expectations, or claims of expectations, than Kuwait was threatening to wage war against Iraq. Hitler invaded Poland without a reason of "stopping a Polish war". Etc etc etc.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Agreed. Furthemore, his arguments (as presented in the article anyway) only seem to address space-to-space weaponry. His reasoning of "it's only useful against other spacefaring countries, and it makes too much space debris" doesn't apply to space-to-ground weaponry.
And his attempted assassination of a former U.S. president. In an age with more backbone, that alone, would have turned Iraq into a U.S. protectorate.
You can tell the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
There is really no way to avoid this. We all rely on communications for both public and military needs. The speed and in-accessibility of orbital platforms make surface based defense of orbiting satellites almost impossible. An orbiting weapons platform in space is almost untouchable except to other orbiting weapons. This means that if another nation put a weapon into orbit that could launch on another nation or take out their satellites, that nation would be helpless unless it had it's own orbiting weapon. Imagine the havoc that would be wreaked upon us if we suddenly lost satellite communications. No long distance, no TV, internet would be affected, we would effectively be rendered helpless. People would fall into mass hysteria without communication with the outside world. Think "Trigger effect" but on a national scale. I hate weapons. I hate war. But I have to be realistic about the whole thing. It's going to happen. You can either be prepared for it, or pretend it's not a problem.
In the middle ages, the Christians built cathedrals that are works of art and Muslims preserved and expanded mathematical knowledge.
Science and religion are not incompatible - unless one's religion is science.
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
Sure, NASA is FUBAR. Start another agency and give the money to them. If you stop space research for a couple of decades, China will own you.
Doesn't have to be done by NASA or any new agency. IMO the idea behind NASA was that it was (theoretically) a non-military driven space exploration agency. Give it a military agenda, and the Air Force is ready and willing to take over.
Why only space weapons? You can make the same silly argument about all kinds of weapons. We should not develop new kinds of tanks because that would lead to a weapons race in tanks. We should not develop new kinds of warplanes because that would lead to a weapons race in planes. ....
The fact is that if these new weapons will help us in war, then we should build them. If not, then we should not build them. Let's judge the weapons based on their technical merits and not on some fantasy of a NEW weapons race (there always was and always will be a weapons race).
Leaving aside the GP's (apparently) incorrect assessment of the M-I Complex's fortunes...
"People like you (Liberal Democrats) have made defense contracting a hard place to break even, much less make a profit! I suggest you go learn a little something about a field you obviously do not know a single thing about, other than the name."
And how is that a bad thing?
You seem to be implying that it's something they've done wrong, but I can't see a much more progressive step for the world than making it economically unviable to get rich by enabling the deaths or maiming of millions...
Let's be honest - the US is never (at least, not before the Big Post-Bush Economic Collapse) going to be unable to afford weapons to defend itself.
Given your country's always going to be safe and well-supplied, what's wrong with making it damn hard for people to acquire wealth and influence by profiting from human misery and suffering?
Frankly, it'd be a better world if weapons were totally unnecessary, but I'll settle for now for them being merely prohibitively expensive.
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
It does when ASAT weapons come into play. As the need to defend oneself from satellite-borne weapons increases, the likelihood of developing a weapon capable of taking them down also increases. ASATs are difficult to do, but not impossible, and the nations most likely to need defense against satellite-borne weapons are the ones that already have (US, Russia) or could develop (UK, France, India, Pakistan, Iran, Japan, North Korea) ASAT missiles.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Lakoff commented that the better the title of a given bill sounds, the more we need to hold onto our wallets. Anyone remember the "Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005"? Who, after all, could possibly be against abuse and protecting consumers? Or adding another $9 billion or so to the creditor's and lender's bottom lines?
Or the "Class Action Fairness Act"? Everyone wants to be fair, right?
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Besides the wee little fact that all of these WMDs from the time of Iraq-Iran war had shelf life of max 5 years.
Quoth Scott Ritter:
Inspection/patrols to ensure and monitor compliance were part of the cease-fire agreement after the first Gulf War.
Except that the "no fly zones" were not part of the agreement, only IAEA and UNMOVIC inspections were, under a strict set of rules, in accordance with international law.
Well, duh! Realize that there is no difference between inspection and spying. Under the cease fire agreements at the end of the first Gulf War, Saddam had no right to complain. There would have been no second "war". if he had bothered to comply.
There is a massive difference. One is a legal activity under auspicies of UN and the other an attempt to overthrow a government of one country for the personal gain of the spymaster's and installation of "friendly" regime, i.e. "regime change". You can be all pissed about Saddam but unless he was engaged in a direct action against another nation, his removal was a matter for Iraqis to accomplish. What US did was an insult to all Iraqis, all Arabs and all Muslims, a result of "daddy knows best" arrogance combined with ulterior motives. History will judge US very harshly on this one.
While you attempt to sugar-coat it, you do mention Saddam's terrorist actions to try to exterminate the Jews.
And here goes the inane crap of "poor innocent Israelis who did nothing ever wrong" and "the evil Palestinians who are born with the desire to push all Jews into the sea" etc. This does not even deserve a reply. Familiarize yourself with words such as "supermacist" and "bigot" and then return to the discussion.
one of the arguments used in support of Saddam Hussein and his aggression have any validity.
You should get it into your head that noone is "supporting" Saddam. People are supporting the rule of international law and sovereignty of nations. People are opposing "unilateral", "pre-emptive", "might is right" and "who's gonna stop us!" crap which reaks of 1930s Germany. People are opposing hubris motivated stupididty like "exporting democracy" at a point of a gun to the Middle East while ignoring every last bit of cultural and historical data about the region. That is what is going on. Saddam and his impotent antics are secondary.
One can argue that UN is ineffective or in need of reforms. I am myself of a similar opinion. But the UN's ineffectiveness in many areas stems from the activities of its "security council" members, the US prominently on many occasions.
Before one nation or a group of nations can claim "high moral ground" high enough to justify a barbarous and last resort thing such as a war, they have to fulfill a lot of requirements, establishing clear concensus amongst nations being one of them. And then there is a long list of ulterior motives and idiotic six-shooter "diplomacy" to get into.
Lacking both clarity of purpose and concesus, in addition to the complexities of the region, is what should have prevented the US from employing that particular set of measures.
Look, I dont argue that Saddam should not have been removed, but there were many, many ways for it to be acomplished, most involving supporting an internal Iraqi action, which should all have been explored, as being far less bloody then a full scale war. Then there is the cost-benefit calculation, which a lot of knowledgeable people made before the attack, which now looks utterly miserable.
Simply put, the attack was unjustified from many angles, international law and common sense being just but a few.
I see this attitude of yours a lot, whereby one claims that the US should go around removing tyrants because they "harm their own people". I will skip for the moment the question of the previous support for the same tyrants, when it was expedient, and go to this: the US, on its own, lacking a concensus, has no authority to arbitrarily decide which nations are in need of "liberating" and "re-organizing". The fact that the US "intelligence" and its media are so easilly duped should have been a dire warning of a fallacy which such a policy is. Godwin notwithstanding, most Germans in 1939 thought that Poland was the aggressor and that Adolph was fulfilling a long standing German "destiny" to right "wrongs" against Germany and while doing so, he was bestowing the "blessing" of German culture on the hethen Slavs.
A position which is frighteningly remniscent of what some people here on Slashdot espouse.
Thank you! It amazes me how often I point that out. A belief that everything done by our government is done for our benefit is part of a certain mindset. People really believe we are the best, most righteous nation on earth, that everything we do is good and just, that our Republican leaders are all good and just and righteous God fearing Christians with the country's best interest at heart.
To question any part of this belief system induces a state of acute anxiety in these people. They have based their whole ego structure around a belief that they are good people who are part of a good country. To call that into question is to call their very concept of self into question. This explains the ferocity with which they defend their beliefs, and the difficulty in comprehending something even so simple as the idea that our leaders may be acting selfishly in regard to oil.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
You call someone a troll and an anti semite. I say that when you act a certain way, you look like an idiot. You are quiet obviously engaged in name calling, while I am trying to provide constructive criticism. You like most people probably don't want to look stupid in front of large numbers of people, and like most people are probably unaware when you do. I'm merely trying to help, so that in the future you can come across as intelligent rather than a dundering chowderhead, which is how you come across now. No insult intended. I'm not saying you ARE a blithering idiot, merely how you LOOK to others. I will even provide some tips on how you can appear less like someone of impaired intelligence. Provide sources and actual quotes to back up your suppositions. This lets people corroborate your facts and see that you are telling the truth, not just spouting made up bullshit.
Hope that helps!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The US has said it is acceptable policy to target foreign leaders.
So it must be okay for other countries to target US leaders.
What goes around, comes around.
They (Saddam's terrorists) already had attacked, and were attacking still. Your claim makes no sense. The "attacks" you mention were retaliation for attacks against Americans which had already occured.
Prior to the invasion, when did "Saddam's terrorists" attack the US? If you're going to say 9/11, your so dellusional, but it wouldn't be your fault. You would have just been taken by a orchestrated, and immediately discredited, lie.
How many lies must be told to defend Saddam? There is nothing true about this. Iraq refused to document such destruction of the weapons. They were still blocking inspections up until the US large-scale retaliation. If they were eager to end the embargo, they would have welcomed inspections. [...] There would have been no second "war". if he had bothered to comply.
The irony of course is that in the end he did in fact comply.
I attended a forum with UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter. He said that Saddam's regime was a bunch of liars, but even a liar can eventually tell the truth. He told of the story about the search for some sort of proscribed ballistic missles, which he said was typical of his dealings with Iraq.
The inspectors would first ask the Iraqis to prove they were in compliance. The Iraqis would say they were, and then drive the inspectors out into the desert to show them the destroyed missles. The inspectors would then take an inventory of all the identifyable parts and take notes of the part and serial numbers. These parts would then me matched to specific shipments.
This investigation would show that these parts came in lots of 100, but there were only enough parts at the site for 10 missles. The Iraqis would then be confronted with this. After some stalling, the Iraqis would eventually state that they "honestly thought" they destroyed all the missles, but were mistaken, but have since destroyed the remaining 90 missles. The inspectors would go out to the desert, examine the remains, and positively 85 missles. There would be a pile of parts that could make 5 missles, but they couldn't be positively identified with any particular missle. He said that if the Iraqis weren't lying so much, the inspectors would have listed these parts as 5 missles, and sign off. But the Iraqis were liars. They lied all the time. Given their track record, they could have been lying then. So the inspectors wouldn't sign off. And so begins one of the many tragedies in the lead up to the invasion. The intellegence services believed that the Iraqis had 5 missles, but they actually didn't, and there was no way the Iraqis to prove otherwise.
While you attempt to sugar-coat it, you do mention Saddam's terrorist actions to try to exterminate the Jews.
First, he didn't "try to exterminate the Jews." He was thug, dictator, and a murder, but didn't do that. There's plenty of attrocities to attribute to him, without make some up.
In keeping with "tell any lie in order to prop up Saddam and make Bush look bad", [...]This is quite typical. None of the arguments used in support of Saddam Hussein and his aggression have any validity.
Listen jackass. No one supports/supported Saddam Hussein. Many, and now a majority, believe it was the wrong war, at the wrong time, against the wrong people, executed without a plan, and on slim-to-no rationale.
Try and wrap your mind around this: Someone can say, "That guy is a son-of-a-bitch, but he's not the son-of-a-bitch we're looking for. Remember what you said before? We want to get him! We are at war, but not with guy! You let the most wanted men in the world escape not just once but