Test The MIRACL Laser Against A Satellite: The Outcome Of The Next War May Turn On A Proven American A.S.A.T. Capability

(Washington, D.C.): The New York
Times gave front-page,
above-the-fold treatment yesterday to a
proposal by the U.S. Army to test the
Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser
(MIRACL) against an Air Force satellite
that has outlived its design life and
usefulness to the Pentagon. The reason
for this prominent placement was only
partially a function of the dearth of
other important news on Labor Day. More
likely, it reflected the Times‘
adherence to the arms control theology
which holds that U.S. tests of directed
energy or other weapons against
satellites will lead to the
“militarization of space,” a
“space arms race” and/or
precipitate new threats that will, on
balance, add to — not diminish —
threats to U.S. security interests.

Such nostrums overlook several
critical points:

• Space Is Already a Critical
  Theater of Military Operations

If it is to prevail in terrestrial
combat, the U.S. military must
be able to dominate the theater of
operations in space. Operation Desert
Storm may have had a very different
outcome — or at least been vastly more
costly to the United States and its
coalition partners — if Saddam Hussein
had enjoyed timely access to overhead
reconnaissance. With the advent of
commercially available satellite imagery
and the proliferation of satellite
technology, American military planners
can no longer count in the absence of
a proven anti-satellite (ASAT) capability
on having exclusive access to such data.

• Proliferation of Systems with
  Inherent Anti-Satellite
  Capabilities

More and more nations are acquiring,
along with the ability to put satellites
into space, the ability to interfere with
others’ satellites. A Report
to the Congress on U.S. Policy on ASAT
Arms Control submitted by President
Ronald Reagan on 31 March 1984 identified
the following as among the techniques
available for this purpose:
“maneuvering spacecraft…into the
path of, or to detonate next to, another
nation’s spacecraft; direct ascent
interceptors such as exo-atmospheric
anti-ballistic missiles; ballistic
missiles with modified guidance logic;
space boosters; homing vehicles; directed
energy weapons such as lasers and
particle beams (either ground-based or
space-based); electronic countermeasures
of sufficient power to damage or
interrupt satellite functions; and
weapons which could be carried by manned
space planes or orbital complexes.”

• Arms Control Would Not Help

Given this array of
potential threats, it is clear that arms
control cannot provide security for U.S.
space assets. If anything, by
creating a sanctuary in space for hostile
satellites, it could severely degrade
American national security.

Reagan Had It Right

President Reagan’s report — the most
comprehensive official assessment to date
of the idea of trying to ban or otherwise
limit ASAT systems — found that there
were two show-stopping problems with such
arms control proposals:

• Definitional
  conundrums: The
  report pointed to insoluble
  definitional problems in devising
  any ASAT arms control, noting
  that:

“…Many activities related to
space give rise to capabilities
inherently useful for ASAT purposes, for
example, the rendezvous and docking
operations routinely conducted by the
Soviets could be used to attempt to
conceal development of one or more types
of ASAT techniques. Restricting
the definition…could make an agreement
easier to verify, but ineffective in
achieving its purpose of protecting
satellites.” (Emphasis
added.)

• Verification
  concerns: Even if
  a way could be found to define
  dedicated ASATs, the reality is
  that a wide number of systems
  would retain the inherent
  capability to perform
  anti-satellite functions — even
  if such dedicated systems were
  banned or sharply constrained.

“In keeping
with…[congressional] satellite
survivability concerns, we need to
recognize that ‘ASAT capability’ relates
to all systems capable of damaging,
destroying or otherwise interrupting the
functioning of satellites….Furthermore,
problems of weapon definition are
compounded because some non-weapon space
systems, including civil and commercial
systems, could have characteristics which
would make it difficult to frame a
definition to distinguish them.”

• Verification is especially
  problematic when it comes to
  monitoring covertly conducted
  tests of directed energy weapons
  against satellites. In fact, in
  the early 1980s, the United
  States abandoned the so-called
  “Lazy Cat” satellite
  program on the grounds that it
  would be unlikely to be able
  reliably to perform such a
  mission.

These problems are as intractable
today as they were thirteen years ago.
Should the United States ignore such
realities and enter into ASAT arms
control treaties of one form or another,
it can have no confidence that its
satellites will actually be protected
against attack. It will, however,
unilaterally be allowing its ability to
neutralize threatening satellites to be
impinged upon — if not, as a practical
matter, precluded altogether.

The
Bottom Line

Military use of space has been an
accomplished fact ever since the first
ballistic missile transited the heavens.
It would not start with the
proposed test of the MIRACL laser against
the third Miniature Sensor Technology
Integration (MSTI-3) satellite. (For that
matter, these assets were used in an
inconclusive low-power laser test last
April.) And it assuredly would not stop
if the Clinton Administration chooses not
to conduct the high-power experiment now
being proposed by the Army.

What will happen, however, is
that the U.S. military will continue to
lack confidence that it can control the
use made of space by future adversaries
in order to determine the outcome of
terrestrial conflicts. And nothing of
consequence will have been done to
redress the growing vulnerability of some
American satellites to hostile efforts to
neutralize them. For these reasons, the
Administration should permit the utility
of MIRACL for anti-satellite purposes to
be demonstrated and steps taken to bring
on-line a robust anti-satellite
capability (i.e., both directed energy
and kinetic kill ASAT systems) at the
earliest possible moment.