It is generally believed that the Bush administration's central priority for space military programs is the National Missile Defense system (NMD), a complex web of ground, air and space based devices intended to track and destroy enemy missiles before they reach their targets. NMD is a continuation of the Reagan era Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) also known as "Star Wars." While Bush and company are certainly committed to space-based NMD (Bush just nominated General Richard Meyers, head of the U.S. Space Command to be Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), it is only one component of a much broader strategy to establish U.S. "Global Battlespace Dominance." NMD itself has been described as a "Trojan horse" devised to sneak the militarization of space into U.S. policy. Recent government documents appear to confirm those suspicions.

According to the report of the Space Commission chaired by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, "power projection in, from and through space" is essential to U.S. national security. The report encourages the president to "have the option to deploy weapons in space" and recommends the transition of the U.S. Space Command, which coordinates the armed forces space initiatives, to a full-fledged "Space Corps" along the lines of the Marine Corps.

The Rumsfeld Report continues a long line of Department of Defense reports that call for the U.S. to "control" space and to "dominate" the earth. The Vision for 2020 Report issued in 1996 declares the U.S. Space Command's purpose as "dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect U.S. interests" and, as should be of note to globalization opponents, "U.S. investments." In the past, says the report, "nations built navies to enhance their commercial interests. During the westward expansion of the United States, military outposts and the cavalry emerged to protect our wagon trains, settlements, and railroads." The Space Commission hopes to continue these practices and update them for the space age.

Consider this "advantage" outlined in the long-range plan: " Economic alliances as well as the growth and influence of multinational corporations will blur security agreements. The gap between have and have-not nations will widen, creating regional unrest. One of the long acknowledged and commonly understood advantages of space-based platforms is no restriction of country clearances to over fly a nation from space." Translation: Space militarization allows protection of U.S. investments without the messy restrictions of international law. All the better to ensure the "have-nots" don't step out of line.

Last year the Air Force introduced its Strategic Master Plan for space with a clearly expressed game-plan: "To maintain space superiority, we must have the ability to control the high ground of space. To do so we must be able to operate freely in space, deny the use of space to our adversaries, protect ourselves from attack in and through space and develop and deploy an NMD (National Missile Defense) capability." In this report, NMD (National Missile Defense) is one part of a three-part strategy-along with space surveillance and offensive space technology. NMD is the media darling of the Pentagon's plans because it can be sold to the public as a "defensive" necessity. Instead, these reports illuminate that it is incredibly misleading to talk about defense without stating the offensive capabilities of the projects because the programs for their development are so intertwined.

Although much of the military's space talk sounds like science fiction (replete with microwave guns, space-based lasers, electromagnetic guns, and holographic decoys) the weapons they refer to and the consequences of their development are all too real. U.S. plans for space violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Outer Space Treaty of 1967; both were cornerstones of Cold War arms control and designed to keep war out of space. They threaten a destabilizing space arms race and make the use of space weapons an inevitability. These intentions frighten allies as well as enemies because they signal an alarming amount of sophistication and disregard for international law. It remains to be seen what "Global Battlespace Dominance" may bring to a world already reeling from military and economic warfare waged by the United States.

< previous  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 next >