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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.
There will be no need to worry about weapons based in space...someone will just send a ship up and steal the whole satellite.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
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.
The Army reading list
This is why we need the snooping powers provided by the USA-PATRIOT act. All we need do to foil the plots of satellite-stealing villains is track the purchases of large numbers of silver jumpsuits and miniskirts. An ounce of prevention...
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Two of the biggest drives behind innovation are:
1) The military
2) Sex
The sooner we get both of those going into space, the sooner we'll get some decent progress in spaceflight technology.
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.)
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.
We must develope this basselope-based weapons system. Rumors are that the russians have a basselope of their own. Do you know what that means, boy? A BASSELOPE GAP!!!
Do we need to defend ourselves to the best degree possible in times of war? Certainly, we do.
Do we need war at all? Certainly, we don't.
Is war inevitable, space weapons or not? 3,000 years of history says it is.
Which is more practical, pretending that war won't happen or accepting that it will? With the latter being more realistic, we may then follow through with the most effective defense and proceed with developing space weapons.
We've always been in some weapons race, though not necessarily at the pace of the Cold War. Space weapons won't initiate any Cold War-esque weapons race as much as any of our other weapons have. They're not holocaust devices like nukes or any NBC weaponry. Without anti-satellite weapons, we're back at traditional warfare. With those weapons, we only take it outside of earth.
Space weaponry if anything will reduce war to a battle of communications and intelligence, where space coverage matters more than occupying ground. With troops and conventional weapons reduced in importance, satellites will be the main casualties, as long as they directly affect the ground war below.
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
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
spells it out nicely. Members/contributors of the PNAC include Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush, Karl Rove, David Wurmer, and Scooter Libby.
The above document spells out the blueprint for world dominance, starting with seizing the oil in Iraq. It goes on and pushes for space warfare. Ugly document written by ugly people.
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I think it's up to the US taxpayer to put a stop to this insanity.
Gotta be honest, as a U.S. tax payer I this. The ability to take out other satellites helps us in the event of a major military conflicts with other technologically advanced nations. Since I personally feel that a hostile take over of Taiwan by China is inevitable, I look at this as something that could help us to protect Taiwan. No one ever thinks a strong military is worth keeping around until they're on the receiving end of an invasion. Then everyone stands around wondering why their military didn't do anything to prevent it. There's a lot to be said for having a military powerful enough to deter attack.
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.
Maybe someone else on here can contribute more but the last I checked missile range is not a big issue anymore, atleast not for Russia or the United States. What this adds is another area of launching attacks from. Hell, it might even add another dimension to efficiency. wouldn't take much for something falling from that height to reach a pretty extreme speed I'd imagine. Besides, who appointed the USA to be the supreme ruler of space?
Beg your pardon but who said we were? Creating defenses for investments in space and our nation is entirely different from us stating "We own space, piss off." I mean, last I checked we didn't declare ownership of the moon even though we planted our flag on it.
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?
How many nations put satellites in space in geosynchronous orbit perfectly above their land? That's a serious question that I don't know the answer to, I'm hoping someone else does. And at what point do you think it's fair to say airspace ends?
And I think "Most violent nation in the world" might be bit of an extreme statement. We might be the only nation currently involved in conflicts in two separate countries but it's not exactly like we showed up to fill a bloodlust. Hell, how many conflicts has Europe started by in other country's affairs that it refuses to fix *cough*Africa*cough*.
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
Today, you have to do research or your grand children will be poor farmers. 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.
Cut something less important. Say, only start serious wars. Sure, a democratic arab country would make the world a better place -- but there has to be a cheaper way!
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
Well, if Michael Krepon, the director of something called the "Space Security Project" for something called the "Stimson Center" says we don't need space-based weapons, that pretty much settles the issue, doesn't it?
I mean, he's an EXPERT!
It sounds like he might even be an expert on SCIENCE and stuff!
What more is there to discuss!?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
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.
The ABM treaty is no longer in effect and is irrelevant to this discussion. There are no legal obligations preventing the US from deploying space weapons. It is solely a technical and policy and/or moral decision.
- Necron69
When the US first signed this particularly treaty, a clause was placed there to allow either side to withdraw from it so long as they gave six months notice.
So, to begin with, the notion that the treaty was broken is false. There was an exit clause placed in the treaty and that clause was properly executed.
Of course, that doesn't change the fact that we decided to pull out of the treaty. However, in regards to your question of "So why did the US sign them in the first place?" and whether or not such treaties are in our self interest... it appears obvious that the leaders that first signed them thought that it would be likely that either side might in the future decide that the treaty should no longer apply. They put that clause in there after all.
I'm not trying to debate the point of whether or not it is a good treaty with respect to our self interest. Frankly, I really don't know. Personally I feel that ABMs are only likely to increase the desire of potential enemies to build up the number of weapons they have capable of reaching us. And it is a particularly bad solution when the cost of an ABM weapon is greater than the cost of the BM it is designed to counter. However, this all comes from my rather limited viewpoint.
But as to the notion of the U.S. breaking the treaty, or whether or not the leaders who signed it thought it was in our best interest to be permanently constrained by such a treaty... it is pretty clear that it was not broken, and the leaders who signed it provided an exit clause.
The existence of a weapon means the possibility of being killed by the weapon, regardless of all other considerations. The first person to make the weapon is responsible for any death ever caused by the escalation thereof. There is zero excuse.
So the first guy to hit another guy with a stick is to blame for all the
bludgeoning deaths in the last 10,000 years? That's one of the most ridiculous
arguments I've ever heard.
*sigh* back to work...
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
The WMDs, which clearly did exist (we even have records he used them) don't need airholes, and are easier to hide harder to find
1) Pro-war hawk, Bush appointee, former devout WMD believer, and head of the WMD search David Kay acknowleges that no such weapons existed at the time of the invasion. The search teams are no longer operating.
2) The inspections teams were on the same track; the IAEA was reportedly close to declaring Iraq nuclear-free, while UNMOVIC was working on verifying chemical weapon destruction quantities based on the amount of residual chemicals in the destruction zones. The residuals were evident, but the quantity of source material was unknown. Both have now stated that they believe, just like Kay, that there were not WMDs in Iraq. In short, every inspection team sent to Iraq has reached that same conclusion.
3) The highest profile Iraqi defector in history, Hussein Kamel (Saddam's son-in-law), in addition to giving a bunch of humiliating information on Iraq that he later got assassinated for (exposing Iraq's biological warfare program and leading them to the information, pointing out that UNSCOM's head's personal translator was a double agent, etc), informed the teams that Iraq *had* destroyed its chemical and biological agents in order to try and get the embargo lifted and limit inspection team knowlege of how much their scientists knew.
Saddam's refusal to cooperate with inspections
The IAEA and UNMOVIC heads themselves described good cooperation from the Iraqi government. Blix - the more harsh of the two organization heads - stated that "Iraq wwas guilty of only small infractions". Most of the Iraqi complaints were of the US spying to gather information for war, which turned out to be true. And lets not forget the peace initiatives.
active promotion of terrorism
The closest thing Iraq did to active promotion of terrorism was giving money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers to compensate for Israel's policy of destroying the families' homes. Of course, Saudi Arabia did the exact same thing. Beyond that, there was very, very little that could be construed as supporting terrorism (a lot of misinformation went around on this subject: read up on Ansar al-Islam (more), Ramzi Yousef (mirror), Abu Nidal, and Salman Pak).
Now, if you want countries with clear, major ties to funding terrorists, you need to look at Iran and the United States.
Illegal attacks on peacekeepers
Oh, this is just rich. The No-Fly Zones were not UN-accepted; the French, Russians, and Chinese considered the joint US-British "No Fly" enforcement to be both illegal and counterproductive violation of Iraq's airspace. Then, before war began, we began bombing essentially at will to try and goad Iraq into attacking the US. The reason we were able to start the war with a ground assault was that our air assault began long before the war started.
I wish people would stop comparing JÃnsi to God. He's good, but he's no JÃnsi.
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.
The only reason is that they do not have enough shovels and don't have permission to search in Syria.
Yeah. Uh huh. The administration who sold the world on WMD doesn't have enough shovels to look for them. Why don't you do yourself a favor and read Kay's testimony yourself? He had all the resources he wanted. He conclusion? We made a big, big mistake on the WMD issue (he still supports the war, though).
The fact was that these WMD's existed.
Yes, they did. In 1991.
They were used
Yes, they were, in 1982-1987. When we were supporting Iraq against Iran.
and this is documented.
Not only is it documented, but the Reagan adminstration blocked a call for ceasing weapons sales to their ally Iraq at the time.
There is no documentantion of the destruction (or use) of the remaining stockpiles which had been previously inventoried.
Quite true, but there is ample *evidence* in every line of investigation. There was no documentation that Oswald shot Kennedy, but there's plenty of evidence.
Inspection/patrols to ensure and monitor compliance were part of the cease-fire agreement after the first Gulf War.
The heck it did! Quit making stuff up. One thing it did call for, I may note, is a nuclear-free zone in the middle east (*cough* Israel *cough*)
Iraq had no right to ignore it based on silly "spy!" claims.
A) The majority of the Security Council was in agreement with them in that the US and British had no right to be there.
B) The US *was* spying on them, not only through the No-Fly Zones, but through the inspection teams (to the disdain of many of the inspectors, who saw it as sabotaging their work). I already gave a ref - need more?
Attacks on these peacekeepers were entirely illegal and unprovoked aggression.
1) Read the bloody resolution
2) Read France, Russia, and China's comments on the subject (the majority of the SC)
3) I already gave refs documenting the extreme examples of provocation, including direct, deliberate, admitted attempts to goad Iraq into war.
To stop these attacks alone, the allies had the right to whomp Saddam's terrorist infrascture as hard as possible.
The "terrorist" issue was well referenced in the last post (same response to your next snippet, cut out)
The "attacks" you mention were retaliation for attacks against Americans which had already occured.
I *seriously* hope you're not one of those delusional "Iraq did Sept. 11th" nuts.
Blix's own reports detailed large infractions.
I bloody quoted Blix for you! What more do you need, him to tell you in person? The US media only reported the infractions and played them up. Blix himself stated that they were minor, and all of them were resolved. Now, if you want to talk about major, unresolved infractions in the middle east...
How many lies must be told to defend Saddam? There is nothing true about this.
Nothing true about it? He was bloody killed over it. He was the very reason that the Iraqi biological program was exposed. Look, deny reality all you want, but that's your own little fantasy world you'll be living in.
If they were eager to end the embargo, they would have welcomed inspections.
In case you forgot history, they *did* welcome inspections.
Well, duh! Realize that there is no difference between inspection and spying.
The heck there isn't! One has a goal of finding WMDs; the other had the goal of assassinating Saddam and uncovering his conventional forces and how best to defeat them.
Under the cease fire agreements at the end of the first Gulf War, Saddam had no right to complain.
To complain about *spying*? Point to me the "US gets to spy on anything they want in Iraq to pursue the
I wish people would stop comparing JÃnsi to God. He's good, but he's no JÃnsi.
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.