Top Defense Practitioners Establish That President, Pentagon Must Ensure That U.S. Can Exercise ‘Space Dominance’

(Washington, D.C.): A stunning array of senior military and civilian leaders yesterday launched a
debate of enormous consequence for U.S. national security. At a High-Level Roundtable
Discussion held at the ANA Hotel in Washington, DC, sponsored by the Center for Security
Policy, two former Secretaries of Defense, four former four-star flag officers and more than 120
other participants sharply disagreed with President Clinton’s evident determination to deny the
U.S. military the ability to control outer space as a theater of operations.

The Requirement for U.S. Space Control: Former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger
set the stage for this Roundtable by noting the bizarre absurdity of believing that space can
somehow be considered as different from combat environments on the land, in the air and at sea
which everyone understands American armed forces must be able to dominate in time of conflict.
He observed that the Administration’s line-item vetoes of three technology development efforts
with direct relevance to space control — the Clementine II, Army Kinetic-Kill Anti-Satellite
(ASAT) and Military Space Plane programs — was at odds with its own declaratory policy as
explained in the National Security Strategy document published last May. It is also inconsistent
with the strong recommendations of the congressionally chartered, blue-ribbon National Defense
Panel (a point that was addressed in considerable detail subsequently).

Following Secretary Weinberger, four of the Nation’s most distinguished four-star general
officers described how their personal experience and command experiences demonstrated that the
United States’ assured use of space — and assured ability to deny that use to adversaries — was
absolutely imperative. Powerful and thought-provoking remarks were provided by: General
Edward “Shy” Meyer (USA, Ret.), former Army Chief of Staff; Admiral Wesley McDonald
(USN, Ret.), former Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic; General John “Mike” Loh (USAF,
Ret.), the first Commander of Air Combat Command; and Admiral Stanley Arthur (USN, Ret.),
former Vice Chief of Naval Operations.

The insights of these commanders were strongly seconded by a number of other senior military
officers including: Lieutenant General Thomas Miller (USMC, Ret.) and Lieutenant General
Keith Smith (USMC, Ret.), former Deputy Marine Corps Chiefs of Staff for Aviation; Vice
Admiral J.D. Williams (USN, Ret.), former Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, Naval Warfare;
Vice Admiral Al Burkhalter (USN, Ret.), former Director of the Intelligence Community Staff;
and Major General Vince Falter (USA, Ret.), former Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of
Defense for Atomic Energy.

The overwhelming consensus of these officers and, indeed, of the conference as a whole is
that the United States military — particularly the down-sized military of today and that in
prospect for tomorrow — simply cannot perform its assigned functions without the assured
ability to control space. The point was made repeatedly that U.S. reliance on space was so
great as to create a potentially devastating vulnerability if adversaries could deny us the use of
that theater, to say nothing of being able to use it against us.

These points were forcefully underscored by an Open Letter to the President publically released
for the first time in the course of the Roundtable. This letter, signed by 43 of the country’s most
eminent military leaders — including former members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Commanders-in-Chief (CINCs) and many other distinguished career officers — urged Mr. Clinton “to heed the
recommendations of the National Defense Panel with respect to assuring an American capability
to ‘deny our enemies the use of space.'”⁽¹⁾

The Threats to U.S. Control of Space: The symposium’s participants next turned to a discussion
of the degree to which American equities in space — notably, the U.S. ability to use outer space
for communications, precision location (for both logistics, targeting and, increasingly, weapons
delivery) and intelligence collection. It also considered the possibility that arms control could
contribute to preventing such threats. This discussion was led by Ambassador Henry Cooper,
former Chief Negotiator at the U.S.-Soviet Defense and Space Talks in Geneva and former
Director of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, and the Hon. Fred Iklé, former
Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and Under Secretary of Defense for
Policy.

Drawing, in part, from a thorough analysis supplied to Congress by President Reagan in 1984
concerning the myriad means by which satellite operations could be interfered with and/or
destroyed,⁽²⁾ this discussion made it clear that arms control agreements in this area could not
be verifiable, effective or in the U.S. national interest. In particular, even though such
agreements would not protect U.S. space assets from attack, they would impinge upon — if not
preclude altogether — the necessary American ability to prevent others from using space against
U.S. forces and interests.

The Hon. James Schlesinger, former Secretary of the Departments of Defense and Energy and
Director of the CIA, provided a “Big Picture” context to the Roundtable’s deliberations by
discussing trends that powerfully reinforced the priority that must be assigned to maintaining U.S.
control of space. Particularly noteworthy were his insights into one of the most important lessons
Desert Storm provided to friends and foes alike: The United States’ success on the battlefield is
critically dependent upon the use of space. This creates a vulnerability that can be exploited to
our detriment.

Secretary Schlesinger also warned that the American public has become accustomed to the high
degree of military effectiveness demonstrated in the Gulf War; should U.S. use of space be
foreclosed or interrupted and degrade that effectiveness or otherwise increase the costs of
conflict, popular support for combat operations could decline catastrophically. He also observed
that expectations heightened by loose talk from American defense officials about the United
States enjoying “full spectrum dominance” — dominance that will be problematic even if the U.S.
controls space and impossible if it does not — also invites future difficulties of both a strategic and
public support character.

What It Will Take for the U.S. to Control Space: Finally, the Roundtable turned to a discussion
of some of the specific space capabilities needed to satisfy the United States’ future space control
requirements:

• Dr. Andrew Krepinevich, Executive Director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary
  Assessments and a member of the National Defense Panel elaborated upon the NDP’s
  recommendations, including those bearing on the need for reliable, ready and affordable access
  to space and the necessity of being able to deny space to adversaries.
• Hon. James Hackett, former Acting Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
  led consideration of the need for multi-faceted U.S. anti-satellite capabilities;
• Col. Simon Worden, the Air Force’s Deputy for Battlefield Dominance, described the
  technology development work being done on the Military Space Plane prior to President
  Clinton’s veto of that program. Participants discussed the importance of having a space plane
  optimized to perform military missions. The Roundtable considered the characteristics that
  would permit such optimization: the capability to enjoy on-demand, highly reliable and
  relatively low-cost access to space (a function of a concept of operations and technology
  approach oriented to achieving readiness rates common for jet turbine-powered aircraft);
  considerable mission flexibility (from placing payloads into orbit, to performing sub-orbital
  reconnaissance, to delivering weapons to and through space); and, ideally, providing the
  independence from large launch complexes and fixed runways that a vehicle capable of vertical
  take-off and landing at austere facilities would permit.
• Thomas Moore, Deputy Director of Foreign Policy and Defense Studies at the Heritage
  Foundation, led a discussion of the contribution space-based systems could make to correcting
  an ever-more obvious military shortfall — the ability to defend U.S. forces and allies overseas
  and the American homeland against ballistic missile attack. Mr. Moore made an impassioned
  appeal for a principled, forthright effort to educate the public about the moral and strategic
  roots of this shortfall and the urgent need to correct them.
• Dr. Stewart Nozette, a physicist as Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory who previously
  served as the Technical Advisor for the Clementine II at the USAF Phillips Laboratory,
  discussed the contribution the now-vetoed program would have made to performing useful
  astrophysics experiments and to validating Brilliant Pebbles-derived missile defense technology
  and other concepts bearing on militarily and commercially valuable constellations of small
  satellites.
• Hon. Tidal McCoy, a former Acting Secretary of the Air Force, lucidly summarized the
  policy, strategic and technology initiatives that are required if the United States is to exercise
  the control it must over outer space — and to satisfy its strategic and military requirements here
  on earth.

Upon its return to Capitol Hill later this month, the Congress will be obliged to tackle a
number of initiatives President Clinton has unveiled in recent weeks that have long-term
implications for the well-being of the American people and polity. Given the enormous stakes
for the Nation’s security, it is imperative that the issue of space control — brought to the
fore by Mr. Clinton’s vetoes last October — be high on that list. The Center for Security
Policy hopes that its High-Level Roundtable Discussion will serve as a valuable catalyst to such a
needed national debate.

A summary of this important Roundtable Discussion will be available shortly and may be obtained
by contacting the Center or checking its Web site (www.security-policy.org).

– 30 –

1. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled 43 of the Nation’s Most Eminent Military Leaders
Insist That the U.S. Must Be Able — and Allowed — to Dominate Outer Space (No. 98-P 7, 15
January 1998).

2. This important Report to the Congress may be obtained by contacting the Center.