We need to protect our satellites
From: Steve Dufour (stevejdufour_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 11/20/04
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Date: 19 Nov 2004 20:35:39 -0800
Analysis:Can Iran alter US space strategy?
By Hil Anderson
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
Beverly Hills, CA, Nov. 19 (UPI) -- Secretary of State Colin Powell's
blockbuster allegation that Iran's mullahs were on the verge of
fielding nuclear missiles was a grave warning sign that the days of
the United States' military's virtual monopoly on outer space could be
numbered.
The American military's technical prowess has given it a dominance in
space-based systems, which leads to the logical likelihood that its
enemies could look for ways to attack and destroy the satellites that
U.S. troops routinely use to monitor enemy forces on the ground and
handle the steady flow of communications between units in the field
and commanders who are sometimes thousands of miles away.
"We are getting so dependent on them (satellites) that we are creating
a target," said Thomas Moorman, a retired Air force general and
current vice president of the defense consulting firm Booz Allen
Hamilton. "We have to worry about protecting those satellites; we have
to take away those tempting targets."
The United States has made great strides in establishing a virtual
military monopoly on the final frontier since the Air Force Space
Command was established 50 years ago in the heyday of the Cold War.
Other countries have military and intelligence-gathering satellites in
orbit; however the United States has seemingly been in a league of its
own in its utilization of space for tactical purposes.
Moorman and other speakers attending an Air Force Association
conference on space in Beverly Hills Friday were bullish on the role
the dominance of space has played in the current conflict in Iraq.
"You can't go to war and win without (utilizing) space," said Gen.
Lance Lord, the rightfully proud head of Space Command. "And if you
take space away from us, people will die."
The audience of Air Force personnel and representatives of the big
defense contractors that produce the futuristic birds were regaled
with war stories from battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan that
generally involved the military's various eyes in the sky bringing
Pentagon tacticians and far-off command-and-control into the action in
real time.
The advantage of good intelligence allows U.S. forces to escape
ambushes and locate massing enemy forces that can be struck by air or
artillery before they reach their intended target.
And if the need should arise, satellites would likely provide the
first warning that an enemy missile was about to be launched. Losing
the advantage in space, Lord and other speakers agreed, would result
in the United States losing an advantage on the ground.
"Our greatest threat is complacency and taking for granted our place
in space," Lord said. "We need to make sure that we maintain our
advantage.... We don't want to assume the environment where we operate
is benign."
The planners and analysts who look at space from the military point of
view don't have to make much of a leap to conclude that an enemy
planning a nuclear first strike -- or even a conventional attack --
against the United States or an ally would likely take some steps to
blind the constellation of satellites that serve as the United States'
watchful eyes and ears.
While it currently might not be possible to physically shoot down a
satellite in orbit far above Earth, it is considered within the realm
of possibility to detonate a missile in the general area of a crucial
satellite and either disable it or push it out of position so that the
only thing the controllers on the ground see is a nice view of deep
space.
The same theory of a shove in space is one of the earliest ideas
behind the concept of missile defense -- an explosion knocking an
incoming missile off course.
Waging war against satellites has been a point of contention in recent
years among some scientists and policymakers who cringe at the thought
of "militarizing" space and others who don't see anything wrong with
defending the satellites that have become a cornerstone of U.S.
military capabilities.
At the same time, the development of defensive measures for satellites
would boost the cost of the military's space program, possibly at the
expense of other weapons programs or even the fledgling missile
defense system that was spawned by President Reagan's much-maligned
"Star Wars" program and given new life by the current Bush
administration.
The possibility that a Muslim theocracy such as Iran could soon join
North Korea as the second of President Bush's "Axis of Evil" nations
to crash the once-exclusive nuclear club doesn't necessarily mean that
the world is a step closer to doomsday. It does, however, raise the
urgency of protecting the satellites that are the best of the United
States' limited means of preventing a surprise attack that could pale
Pearl Harbor and Sept. 11.
(Please send comments to nationaldesk@upi.com)
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