U.S. Eyes Space as Possible Battleground

Most of the stuff which upsets you the most isnt really news, as was said in the article the Star Wars program was instigated by Reagan and then put on ice by Bush the first and Clinton. Bush II have said all along that he intends to pick it up again. This missile defence have an impact not only on space exploration, its greatest impact is down on the ground. If the program is succeful one country will be completely impregnable from repercussions if they decide to start something. That is not a defensive system, it is an offensive weapon.

 

I think I played this game. Wasn't it called Battlezone? Or was that on Mars?

 

International law, consisted in treaties also signed by the US, prohibits the use of space for any other purposes than peaceful purposes. The legality of defensive military installations is questionned, let alone strategic reserves of any kind, which remain peaceful until first used

BTW, one of the criteria for Axis of Evil membership is not respecting international treaties, or refusing to sign any at large.

 

With the current administration they sure find an easy solution: They'll cancel the treaty ... just as they cancelled the ABM treaty for their missile shield.

That's their spirit.

 

Well, technically speaking, the U.N. charter that proclaimed that no state can own a foreign planet or moon was passed after Apollo 11.

The legislation is not retroactive...

And besides, the U.N. is on the verge of collapse anyway.

 

Blackhawk,
I really wonder where you get your infos about the future and fate of the UN from - be it the Weekly Standard, National Review, Washington Times or your drunken postman ....

The UN's core problem, especially in the current situation, is that one of the permanent members refuses to play the rules, that is, is abusing its power - I'm not sure if you understand: Votes like 190 : 3 in the general assembly, the 3 dissenters being USA, Israel and Micronesia tell a tale. They don't really suggest that the three are at the right side when interpreting international law. Please explain me, what again is a pariah state?

The US have the advantage of strenght, and a historical advantage that was cemented in the UN charter. They exploit it ruthlessly. And as long as Bush thinks he can run the world alone, that'll go on. I expect any opening of Bush to the UN as a pre-election maneuver - to deny the Democrats arguments that he acts "unilateral".

I mean, Bush has misused and played for a sucker even his friend Blair - and the UN is far less than that. With friends like Bush - who needs enemies? The UN will be very wary not to end up as a scapegoat for the mess Bush has caused in Iraq (mind, the f*cked-up invasion was his idea, not the UNs).

Bush thinks locally (his primary issue atm is certainly the election 2004) and acts globally to achieve his local goals. As this his glory all is funded with borrowed money there could be a rude awakening for the US. The question is if the US armed forces, overstretched, and the US economy, dependent on foreign investments, can sustain Bush's tour de force.

Face it: The US is atm the country in the world with the most agressive and bellicose foreign policy - of the sort that qualifies minors for the axis of evil. I'm not persuaded that you understand the degree the US have isolated themselves from the international support they enjoyed until early 2002. And I wonder wether you understand the dependence of the US from the rest of the world.

It's time for the US to shut down from their post 911 panic mode and recognise their place in the world.

You especially.

 

BTA,
ever heared of Space Dominance? That's the strategic goal of the US Space Command, and it describes exactly that: Space denial, with arms. US Space Command's "Vision for 2020" calls for, "dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect US interests". It aims on achieving "full spectrum dominance;" "control of space is the ability to assure access to space…and an ability to deny others the use of space, if required."

I read one US general state that the US have to seek these abilities, because the first country to dominate space around earth could likely be the last.

More on that can be found here, namely the mentioned US Space Command "Vision for 2020"

 

Exactly. There are insuffient checks and balances in the U.N.. This is why they have been in decline all through the eighties, nineties, and now as well.

U.N. needs not to be completely scrapped. However, any attempt to change the U.N. Constitution will probably result in complete failure.

While the League of Nations suffered a quick and painful death when it was unable to do anything against the Nazis, the U.N. looks like it is simply fading away.

Remember that the League of Nations failed because it did not, and could not, stand up to Hitler. Members argued, but no action ever took place.

This was the case with the U.N. and Iraq. They argued and argued about enforced their own edicts (which were signed 1991). However, they were unable to act and the U.S. had show the necessary backbone.

I like the idea of the U.N. This incarnation, however, has failed.

P.S. #1. I'm liberal. I would never read the National Review. #2. I don't drink - never had. I consider drunks to be a lower form of life.

 

The Leage of Nations failed because Japan and Mussolinis Italy and Nazi Germany behaved ... like the US today. Minor point.

That always included invading smaller counties they wanted to invade real hard ...

 

It has been for decades.

We should distinguish between space weaponization and militarization. Weaponization is actually putting weapons in space - missiles, anti-satellite detonators, laser beams, space planes, etc. Militarization is simply using something in space for a military purpose.

By that measure, space has been "militarized" since Sputnik. Using satellite imagery to spy on your neighbor's territory? Sending propaganda across a cable satellite? Coordinating GPS to direct a missile? Flying ICBMs through the heavens? Accessing weather satellites to detect battlefield weather conditions? Launching a space shuttle that could as easily pluck enemy satellites from their orbits as place new ones? (The USSR was especially concerned about this.) Yup, that's militarization.

The only way anyone could "pacify" space and stop that kind of militarization is to shoot down all the satellites. And that's exactly what the US is afraid of. Space doesn't have the kind of atmospheric protection we enjoy on earth, so a nuclear explosion of just a few megatons would fry every satellite in the area - and leave so much radiation and debris that it would scramble satellites passing through that orbit, along with poisoning any human beings that flew through. So much for an orbiting spacestation, a shuttle, or even cellphones.

In contrast, space weaponization is a losing proposition. First, you have to get the armament into space. Cost increases with weight, so anything you send into orbit will be light, pricey, and weakly armored. Second, you have to get that armament back down to earth once you pick your target. Laser beams don't work because they require huge fuel investments (can't send much fuel into space, too heavy) and then get diluted by cloud cover on their way back to the earth. Kinetic weapons - a big, long, heavy cylinder or cone that does damage by crushing, not explosion - are a bad idea, too, because of the enormous expense in getting that big, long, heavy cylinder into space. And ordinary bombs are just dumb, when the US has bases and aircraft carriers scattered everywhere.

Frankly, for the trillions it would cost to weaponize space, the US would find it cheaper to create a 24/7 blanket of UAVs worldwide.

The only time that space weapons are even remotely cost-effective would be space-on-space targets. ICBMs travel through space, so an orbiting anti-ICBM device could pick off the missile before it begins its descent. Trouble is, those same anti-ICBM devices could become anti-satellite weapons, too - in the same way that the USSR was so terrified of the American space shuttle. The US doesn't have any interest in encouraging anti-satellite weaponry - since we have the most satellites, we have the most targets! But weaponization of this kind would be perceived as an ASAT device. Plus, all it would take would be one or two nukes to render the entire orbiting defense grid useless. I think that's one reason why, despite all the space hype by those outside the government, most of the missile defense money is going to prosaic solutions like arming 747s and submarines.

So, space militarization is here to stay - and it's not just the US doing it, even Nigeria has its own satellite. But space weaponization is a long, long, long way off, and the long-term US military interest is in stifling weaponization.

 

I think "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" had something like that - rebellious lunar colonists ripped up chunks of real estate and let it fall to earth. Never read it, but my literary brother highly recommended it.

The practical difficulty with that is you'd still need to shape the block appropriately - otherwise a) most of it would get burned up in atmosphere, or b) the crushing range would be indiscriminate. At that point, you'd may as well just lob a nuke.

 

Well GM, from your last couple of posts, I'm all for it.

Think about it, no more cell-phones, much less TV, war is thrown back into the time when you had to discover the terrain for yourself, and best of all, no-one can get past the radiation to start strip-mining!

Woo-Hoo! Weaponization of space! Weaponization of space!

The best way in which to stop something is to go too far.

 

Germany and Italy quit the League of Nations before war began.

The League of Nations was unable to come to any decision on what to do - mainly caused by the members, which had the power to stop action and were afraid of conflict.

Basic history.

We are quite off topic on this. We can discuss it later. I suggest anyone who wants to debate to first do their undergrad reading beforehand.

 

Well, if there is anything to harvest on the moon, it's only normal that the US lays a claim on it. Finders keepers, and all that. The world depended on the Arab nations for a long time regarding oil, and now that period comes to a close. Now the US will have a monopoly on whatever it is the world will be depending on. They invested more than all other countries together in their spaceprogram, and it looks like they can finally make some profit out of it.

Way to go US, it's all about money in this world, and when it's up for grabs, go and get it. I don't have any problems with this. Filling the Arabs pockets, or the Americans, makes no difference to me.

 

Blackhawk,
I fear you got me wrong. History isn't only not mono-causal but more complicated than you put it too:

• 1935 - Following border disputes between Italian Somaliland and Abyssinia, Italy invades in October. League of Nations sanctions have little effect and by May 1936 the country has been taken over by Mussolini's forces. Italy left the league in 1937, indeed before the WW-II began - but you have the wrong war in mind.
  Italy's war in Abyssinia, an agression against a smaller country is the one I was referring to. Both Italy and Abyssinia were members of the League of Nations, which had rules forbidding aggression. More on the Abyssinia Crisis here, or search Wikipedia.
  .
• Japan left the league of Nation in 1937, well before WW-II, after occupying a good part of China's Mancuria, founding the puppet state of Manchukuo in 1931, and as a result of it blocking their ambitions in China, where Japan led open war from 1937 to 1945, and committed unbelievable atrocities against the chinese people.
  .
• Germany indeed did leave the League of Nations in 1933. The point the League failed to appeal on them was because it was inseparably linked with the dictate of Versaille - the Nazis left the League to "restore national pride". The link to Versaille was regarding Germany the "birth defect" of the League. And as for dictate they weren't even wrong: Look at John Maynard Keyne's eloquent critique on the santions that crippled Germany after WW-II.

What I want to point out is that the League did not fail because it failed to prevent WW-II, it failed way earlier, it failed first when it allowed itself to become instrument of France's revenge on Germany after WW-I. And it had no teeth and was unable to take effective action against agressors - that is a major fault of France and Britain who weren't serious in supporting the League, because as grand colonial empires they felt that their sovereignty was above international law. That mistake cost them their superpower status.

The problem of the UN is a structural one: While the majority of countries still support it, the only one valiantly defying it is unfortunately a permanent member. And without the cooperation of the Permanent members the UN is indeed blocked. Insofar, yes, a failure of the league repeats itself: Nationalism killed the League - and US nationalism today threatens the UN.

The security council's role is to protect peace, international law and that menas: the status quo - they are the wardens of the UN. That status, derived from WW-II, of the permanent members is the problem today - like the US blocking effective action against Israel due to US vetos. Or like the UN taking effective action against Russia's war in Chechnya due to the russian veto.
That flaw is one of the leagues flaws in small, with the same impact: While the league demanded unanimous votes, the non-dissent of the permanent members is to be achieved in the UN - that means - while the UN are way more capable than the League, she still needs the crucial cooperation of the permanent members. That is where the flaw is today - the most agressive superpower doesn't cooperate.
With the current US administration you have a classical case of the fox guarding the henhouse. Their ideology of regime changing the world ins incompatible with guarding the status quo.

There is an italian moment in the US actions toward Iraq - that a member of the league attacked another member, despite the obligation not to do so in the charter - and that the world couldn't stop them. That applies much more to the US than Iraq - because Saddam was stopped by the UN when he did that (yeah, that first Gulf War was a UN mandated one), the US not.

To come back to the original topic and treaty obligations: Japan and Germany and Italy left the Leqage because it in their opinion hindered their agressive agenda. The current US foreign policy of regime change is an agressive agenda.

The US dislike the UN's principles of war, namely non-agression and the necessity of a clear and present danger for UN action, and the restriction to self defense - pre-emption goes well beyond that. The hardliners in Bush's crew have decided to bulldoze the middle east, and international law is just an obstacle there. So, they act unilateral - which is in the case of Iraq quite a mild term for starting a war of agression.

I'm not sure if you got that right: The US asked the UN "Either you help us and become our tool or you'll be irrelevant when you dissent" That is, the UN is fine as long as she supports US policy, and if not, the Bush crew gives a sh*t and stops cooperation. Of course, then the UN is bad and failed, while she is good and great if she had supported the US, or when she can help a re-election
In case of Iraq supporting the war would have been appeasement not of Saddam but of the US. I find it amazing that the majority of the world had the guts to vote against the bellicose giant, despite all threats. For the rule of law, Bush's presidency is a dark period.

Leaving a treaty will spare you it's obligations. As simple as that. That's why Japan, Italy and Germany eventually left the League. They had plans of their own, that were incompatible with the interets of others.

It is not that unfair to state that the US left the ABM treaty for an as agressive goal: A missile shield in effect is there to discount deterrence, to allow intervention despite deterrence - with a missile shield they could for example risk attacking North Korea that atm is able to deter the US. No to mention that it is a stimulator for a possible arms race with a rival as a missile shield would threaten to devalue nuclear deterrence, thus forcing the opponent to have more nukes for a saturation attack to overcome the shield - Hooray! Back in 1980.

So, after all, what should deter Bush's jolly crew from cancelling the Space Treaty if they feel so? The hardliners there have dreamed of weapons in space since SDI.