The 'Gathering Storm': Will Clinton Persist in Ignoring Peril Arising from Emerging Threats to U.S. Control of Space?

(Washington, D.C.): One of the great tragedies of the 1998 election is the squandering it
represents of an all-too-rare opportunity: a chance to disabuse the electorate of its
misapprehension that the only public policy problems facing the Nation are education, social
security, race relations and other domestic issues. The reality is that the world is
becoming
ever more hostile to vital American interests and the United States is ever less equipped to
contend with the emerging challenges.

In his immortal memoir of World War II, Winston Churchill coined the term “the Gathering
Storm” to describe a period of widespread, blissful ignorance on the part of the public and a lack
of sustained attention by Western leaders — a period that ended in the most horrific conflict
humankind has ever known. The Republican Party appears to have contributed to its dismal
showing this week by failing to showcase areas of significant disagreement with the Clinton
Administration over security policy. At the very least, in so doing, it has left the public, and
therefore the Nation, ill-prepared for the coming maelstrom(s).

A Case in Point: Space Control

Shortly before the election, the Department of Defense submitted to the House National
Security
Committee a report concerning the military modernization program of the People’s Republic of
China, as required by the Fiscal Year 1998 Defense authorization bill. Among other alarms
sounded in this study entitled, Future Military Capabilities and Strategy of the People’s
Republic
of China,⁽¹⁾ was a description of the steps
being taken by the People’s Liberation Army to
exercise control of outer space — or at least to deny adversaries like the United States
assured use of that critical theater of military operations. Highlights of this section of
the
report include the following:

“China already may possess the capability to damage, under specific conditions,
optical
sensors on satellites that are very vulnerable to lasers….Given China’s current level of
interest in laser technology, it is reasonable to assume that Beijing would develop a
weapon that could destroy satellites in the future.”

“The ability to damage or destroy satellites will provide China with a strategic
weapon
against the U.S. military, which relies heavily on the use of spaced-based equipment for
communicating with forces and detecting foreign military activities, from troop movements
to missile launches.” (Emphasis added throughout.)

Wake Up Call for the Clinton Team?

Last January, forty-three retired flag and general officers, representing each of the uniformed
services, wrote President Clinton an open letter warning about the danger that would be posed to
U.S. interests and military capabilities should a hostile power acquire such a “strategic weapon.”
(See the attached.) The signatories, including former members of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
Commanders-in-Chief (CINCs) and dozens of officers who held major service and/or
Defense-wide commands, said in part:

“We can think of few challenges likely to pose a greater danger to our future
security posture than that of adversaries seeking to make hostile use of space — or
to deny us the ability to dominate that theater of operations.

“The stakes in this area were already clear six years ago. In Operation Desert
Storm, Coalition forces enjoyed the uncontested use of space-based assets. As a
result, they had a unique capability to assess and prevail on the battlefield. If the
enemy had the benefit of similar capabilities (or the means to deny us some
or all of these assets) that objective would have been achieved, if at all, with
far greater loss of American lives.

“What was true in 1991 will be even more so in the years ahead. Our
experience tells us that the contribution made to U.S. national security in the
future by space-based reconnaissance, communications, navigation and other
systems will only continue to grow.”

In addition, the congressionally chartered, blue-ribbon National Defense
Panel (NDP)
declared in its December 1997 report entitled Transforming Defense: National Security in
the
21st Century that: “Unrestricted use of space has become a major strategic interest of the
United
States” and that we must have “the capability to deny enemies the use of space.” The NDP
concluded that: “Space power is an integral part of the revolution in military affairs and a
key asset in achieving military advantage in information operations….The United States
cannot afford to lose the edge it now holds in military-related space operations.”

The Bottom Line

The Defense Department’s acknowledgment of the emerging Chinese capability to achieve
“strategic” advantage via attacks on American space assets underscores the utter
disconnect
between the Clinton Administration’s rhetorical position on space control and its
actual
policy approach. In the newly released National Security Strategy for a New
Century, the
White House has reiterated its view that “Unimpeded access to space is essential for protecting
U.S. national security, promoting our prosperity and ensuring our well-being in countless ways.”
It goes on to assert that “We will deter threats to our interests in space and, if deterrence
fails, defeat hostile efforts against U.S. access to and use of space.”

Given this stated policy, it is not only disingenuous but irresponsible and outrageous
that the
Administration continues to oppose efforts to acquire the means to “defeat hostile
efforts
against U.S. access to and use of space.” The arguments made by the signatories of the
15
January letter for programs line item-vetoed by President Clinton in 1987 — the Clementine II
asteroid intercept experiment, the Army’s Kinetic-Kill Anti-Satellite, and the Military Space Plane
— remain as strong as ever. Despite the Supreme Court’s overturning of these vetoes on
constitutional grounds, the Administration continues to drag its feet on giving the United States
the space control capabilities it requires. If the 106^th Congress appreciates the
necessity of acting
at long last to prepare for the “storm” now gathering, it could do worse than to start
with a
concerted effort to equip the U.S. military to exercise control of the strategic high ground of
space.