The Truth Shall Set Us Free — Or At Least Defend Us: Senate Hearing Must Make Record For U.S. Space Control
(Washington, D.C.): In a Senate hearing room tomorrow afternoon, the genius of the
Founding
Fathers should be on display. The wisdom of the Framers in fashioning a constitutional
government based on the principle of checks-and-balances between separate, but co-equal,
executive and legislative branches will likely be evident as the Armed Services Committee
examines one of the most dubious presidential decisions in recent memory: Bill Clinton’s line-item
veto of three technology development programs that would provide the Nation with the
capability to exercise military control of outer space, should the need arise.
A Pox on All Space Control-Relevant Technologies?
Last October, cancellation of two of these three programs — an asteroid intercept experiment
that
would have further validated the feasibility of space-based anti-missile technology developed
under the Strategic Defense Initiative (Clementine II) and the Army’s
Kinetic Energy Anti-Satellite (KE-ASAT) program — was justified on policy
grounds. A programmatic rationale was
offered for the third, the Military Space Plane. As a practical matter, however,
the capabilities
inherent in a space plane optimized for military purposes would also have fallen afoul of
Administration opposition to technologies that enable the United States to neutralize or destroy
missiles and other objects flying through space.
For that matter, so would the Space-Based Laser (SBL) program. The
President’s advisors
reportedly decided not to include this item in last October’s veto message, though. A significant
portion of its development work is now being done in Mississippi and it was feared that the SBL’s
cancellation would precipitate a political backlash led by the Senate’s Majority Leader,
Trent
Lott (R-MS). (Such a backlash recently resulted in the override of Mr. Clinton’s first
line-item
deletions from Fiscal Year 1998 military construction legislation.)
The Administration nonetheless did the dirty deed last month when it ordered,
without
fanfare, the termination of all work on the nearest-term space-based laser, known as Zenith
Star. Perhaps calculating that Sen. Lott is only interested in “pork” for his state, rather
than real military capabilities for his country, the Clinton team has sent this program back
to the drawing board. To be sure, money will be spent for the next six months to study
two
new design approaches, but no technology will be mature enough to deploy — and thereby
jeopardize Administration space control policies — for the foreseeable future.
It stands to reason that, in due course, the same fate will befall another military laser program
that
would also pose problems given Mr. Clinton’s apparent antipathy to space control technologies:
the Air Force’s Airborne Laser. This 747-mounted laser is being developed to
intercept
missiles and aircraft; it should be able to damage or destroy orbiting satellites, as well. If the
policy enunciated at the time of the President’s line-item vetoes is allowed to stand, this program
too will likely die aborning.
Enter Jim Inhofe
Concerns about the Clinton policy on space dominance has prompted one of the Armed
Services
Committee’s leading members, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), to ask
Secretary of Defense William
Cohen and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Hugh Shelton some
probing questions about the
Administration’s view of the need for control of space and precisely how it is going to assure it.
In a letter dated 4 February, Sen. Inhofe asked whether the Pentagon agreed with the finding of
the blue-ribbon National Defense Panel that the United States must have the
capability to “deny
enemies the use of space” and “whether the space-based laser and airborne laser technology
development programs can be brought to fruition and deployed without violating Administration
policy?”
Sen. Inhofe also asked whether, as reported, “the Administration [is] engaged in discussion of
new limitations on anti-satellite weapons with Russia…discussions that [could] lead to
arrangements that would create further impediments to the fielding of other space control
technologies?” (Interestingly, in a recent public
forum, one of the Nation’s most irrepressible
advocates of arms control, John Pike of the Federation of American Scientists, declared
that he would oppose the Administration “wasting their time” on such a negotiation).
Finally, the Senator inquired if the Defense Department had “calculated what the impact would be
on our force structure requirements and warfighting capabilities if a hostile power were able to
deny us use of space for communications, intelligence, navigational or other purposes, to say
nothing of his being able to exploit space against us?”
What is at Stake
The latter point is of surpassing importance, as a symposium conducted by the Center for
Security
Policy in January made clear. Two former Secretaries of Defense (James Schlesinger
and
Caspar Weinberger), a dozen senior retired military leaders and a host of other experts
agreed
that, were the U.S. to lose control of space, the national security repercussions could be very
serious — and possibly catastrophic.(3) This danger was
strongly affirmed by 43 of the Nation’s
most accomplished former flag officers in an Open Letter sent to President Clinton on 15 January
1998.(4) They wrote, among other things: “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 Bottom Line
Given these stakes, it is all the more remarkable — and damning — that Sen. Inhofe
has, as of
this writing, received no response to his inquiries. It is to be earnestly hoped that he and
his
colleagues — notably, Sen. Bob Smith (R-NH) and a leader on space issues in
Congress who will
chair tomorrow’s hearing — will use the appearance by the Commander-in-Chief of U.S.
Space
Command, General Howell Estes, to good effect. At a minimum, Senators must make a
clear
record about just how critical control of space will be to future American military operations on
the land, at sea and in the air. General Estes should also be asked for his best
professional
military advice about the necessity of fielding as quickly as possible the means to exercise
such control.
Armed with such counsel, the legislative branch should ensure that whatever executive branch
policies currently impede the U.S. exercise of space control are promptly set aside, through the
enactment of binding statutory guidance, if necessary. To do otherwise will be to accede to Mr.
Clinton’s reckless disregard for the lives of American servicemen and women and his undermining
of their ability to protect the Nation’s vital strategic and commercial interests in space.
– 30 –
1. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
Senator Inhofe Engages Pentagon on Space
Control: Will U.S. Military Leaders Affirm They Can’t Live Without It? (
February 1998).
2. This remarkable statement was made in
Policy’s director, Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., at a debate on anti-satellite weapons sponsored by the
George C. Marshall Institute on 26 February 1998.
3. See the Summary of the Center for Security Policy’s
High-Level Roundtable Discussion of
‘The Need for American Space Dominance’ (No. 98-P
16at, 23 January 1998).
4. See the Center’s Press Release 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 07, 15
January 1998).
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