Space Defenders
Gold, Philip
K ine years ago, as Americans watched live coverage of Tomahawk cruise missiles changing lanes in downtown Baghdad and government-supplied video of smart bombs ringing bunker doorbells before...
...The Air Force has always been a pilot-dominated culture...
...And, real-world, very doable--if not today, then soon enough...
...A few more space jocks and geeks are pinning on stars...
...The Army, no matter what its high-teeh appliqu4s and transformations, will still be about boots on the ground...
...During the 198o presidential can> paign, ]immy Carter, in a desperate attempt to look tough on defense, revealed the existence of the Stealth fighte r - a super-secret previously known only to God, the Pentagon, Area 51, and the readership of Aviation Week and Space Technology...
...Culturally, this means that the Air Force as we know it doesn't have much longer...
...They know it...
...20 shooter" in something approaching real time...
...The Russians and Chinese have had serious anti-satellite programs for decades...
...Sen...
...Clearly, it's vital to defend American satellites...
...In fifty years, perhaps less, person-in4he-cockpit combat will be as obsolete as the cavalry charge...
...Between 1947 and 1957, the service organized as a separate branch...
...And therein lies the problem...
...Destroy, incapacitate, or degrade the satellites and the military svstcm of systems begins to totter...
...Its weapons of choice: land-based anti-ship missiles and rockets that trashed U.S...
...nano-technotogies and MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems...
...In the first decade of its existence, the Air Force worked miracles that the American people have yet to appreciate fully...
...The Joint Strike Fighter may never get built...
...The RMA is trending there...
...Whatever else might be said of the American defense establishment, our stuffis world-class-plus...
...Very niche...
...But the challenge of space cannot wait until everybody's turf bowls are protected, or the balloon hits the fan in some fnture conflict...
...Seventh Fleet...
...How close are we to Phase II...
...Information can flow "from sensor t ~ PHILIP GOLD is director of defense and aerospace studies at the Seattlebased Discovery Institute...
...Very asymmetrical...
...The fllture lies with remotely piloted and robotic vehicles, with MEMS, and in space...
...The Navy: Ships will still be big and gray and sail away...
...To take them in turn: ' For the most part, the RMA--the ~ RMA Phase I, actually--has been an Information Revolution...
...Given the inter-seadce animosity and rivalry such an effort would generate, it's an "everything's-on-the-table" scenario that most would love to avoid...
...The third problem: A lot of folks don't ~ ~ , want us to go there...
...This spring, 2,000 students jammed a lecture hall at Harding University and it was standing-room only when 1,000 students heard a Foundation speech at Valparaiso University...
...Would that it could undertake the space mission with equal fervor and adequate resources...
...Not sexy...
...Still other opponents invoke the ABM and Outer Space Treaties, documents signed in an era when (hard to remember) there was but a single Star Trek series on earth...
...established a brilliant ICBM program...
...Targeting grows almost as precise as Tiger Woods's short game...
...Toward that end, there should be a Space Corps established within the Air Force, with its own budget line item and with ample career opportunities...
...Second, both this vulnerability and the evolution of the RMA point to the need--the ineluctable need--for a strong ' new U.S...
...We've built our last heavy bomber, the B-z (the Air Force intends to fly B-sz's until they're 7 ~ ?.'ears old...
...Were Karl von Clausewitz alive today, he'd be frantically updating Vom Kriege from his graveside PC...
...And unless and until '; the reasons why we must go there are ~3...
...Naval War College ran a rather disconcerting simulation...
...America has, at the moment, no mortal enemies--in Pentagonesc, "peer competitors7 Those who wish us ill know that they can't match our system of systems...
...military presence in space...
...There's no law made by humankind that can't be altered for suffiThe American Spectator _9 No v e m b e r 2 o o o 21 ciently good reason, starting perhaps with the good reason that the Soviet signatory of these and other relevant treaties no longer exists...
...In an impassioned 1998 speech, he held that if the Air Force wouldn't or couldn't get happy and busy about space power, perhaps another service--or an entirely new Space Service-could...
...High-level commanders and staffs now "see" their battlefields and beyond in ways that Napoleon (who could barely see over the next hill) couldn't have imagined...
...the goal is to get some good advice and do a bit of Beltway consciousness-raising...
...The white-scarf-and-goggles mentality dies hard, and missilery and satellite-driving have never been fast-track careers...
...In the 199o's , the Air Force described itself as an air force becoming an air and space force "on an evolutionary path" to becoming a space and air force...
...They're human...
...So, perhaps, have other countries, such as India and Pakistan, con> bining indigenous R&D with purchase of foreign components from states and private corporations...
...Opposition comes from many sources...
...If anything has gone into orbit of late, it's the cost of maintaining the present tactical aircraft fleet...
...Do not let the likes of Bill Clinton, ~ Jesse Jackson, Madeleine Albright, and Bill Bradley control the 2000-2001 campus debate by default...
...Some object to the "militarization of space," as though space hasn't been militarized since the first ICBM passed through and since the first satellite went up...
...In truth, there is an arms race in space...
...The Army recently played a war game in which a certain "New Islamic Republic" used both Chinese and commercial satellites to depressing effect, kald it might be useful to place systems in space that could directly affect terrestrial events, whether the space-based component of serious homeland missile defense or weapons that could participate in combat below...
...With the help of Young America's Foundation, you can sponsor speakers at your school who will have a powerful impact on its intellectual life...
...That's the couventional wisdom...
...But they may not have the will, or the wherewithal, to do much about it...
...Join the battle to bring balance to America's college campuses...
...Others fear provoking an "arms race...
...our microprocessors grow ever more potent...
...A country that looked a lot like China did quite a number on the U.S...
...When something has to give, it's usually space...
...and got damn good PR in Hollywood and elsewhere, because it had a proud story to tel1...
...y et perhaps the greatest opposition-no, call it hesitanc y - t o the full military exploitation of space comes from the organization that bears the greatest responsibility for such exploitation: the United States Air Force...
...The conventional speculation, however, is that, out there in the black-ops world, where things sometimes get done a lot faster, there's a lot of stuff maybe sorta getting ready to get ready to go up...
...Fifty years ago, mathematician John von Neumann predicted that of the two military revolutions going on, the nuclear and the computational, the latter would prove the more significant...
...we're just not racing...
...Most of what the Air Force does in space supports the other services...
...Three problems, actually...
...Perhaps it crashes...
...And, of course, nonviolent "soft-kill" techniques: cyberattacks, jamming, deceptive telemetry, etc...
...As to whether this Space Service should someday segue into Star Trek's Star Fleet...who knows...
...Kinetic kill vehicles...
...And the Air Force is the logical repository of the nation's space power...provided it can apply its traditional genius, energy, and courage to the effort...
...A defense insider familiar with the commission's work adds: "Absolutely everything is on the table...
...Think on it...
...But the Air Force suffers from a strange set of problems nowadays...
...Its mission should be to function as the "cavalry of the High Frontier," fighting in space and on earth when necessary, protecting and working closely with the civilian sector, and with scientific endeavors...
...He \~ called it right...
...This might seem odd...
...So they won't try...
...First, the same RMA that makes us uniquely powerful also makes us uniquely vulnerable...
...Several years ago, this got the attention of Senator Bob Smith, New Hampshire Republican and ardent space booster...
...All very fine, this system of systems...
...Israel has also been busy with lasers, missile defenses, and other adaptable items...
...Given that unclassified major defense programs now do take decades from concept to combat, it may indeed be a while...
...and placing these items aboard new types and generations of spaceware...
...Most probably, space issues would have to be settled as part of fundamental restructuring and revision of the National Security Act of 1947 and subsequent legislation...
...Funding the F-z2 fighter (replacing the F-15) and the Air Force portion of the Joint Strike Fighter (replacing the F-J6) will require more cash than most governments spend on everything...
...But students bold enough to take action can bring balance to their ~ campus...
...And so we are...
...They admit it...
...But the age of manned (in PC terminology, "inhabited") air combat is over...
...They don't like it...
...One that includes speakers only from the Left...
...Smith's passion led to the establishment, with strong bipartisan support, of the "Commission to Assess National Security Space Management and Organization...
...As Jean-Luc Picard would say, "Make it so...
...made so clear that not even NOPE -~:} (Naysayers Opposed to Practically Every- ~ - thing) can miss it, only disaster awaits...
...But the United States Air Force, at the very moment of its global supremacy, must morph into something very different.., and alien to its cultural essence...
...If the United States fails to exploit space, offensively and defensively, over the next few decades, the failure may be more political and cultural than technological...
...Space mines...
...The logic here seems to be that since our most precious assets are totally undefended, defending them will increase their vulnerability...
...After all, what more logical outfit to handle space...
...So don't let your administrators or faculty tell you that students don't i want to hear a conservative speaker...
...Rhetorically, they have no objection to exploitation of space...
...satellites faster than we could launch them...
...Generals make fine speeches about the importance of space and establishing a new culture, beginning with basic officer training...
...Last fall, 1,500 students turned out for an event at American University and 2,500 for a Foundation lecturer at Penn { State University...
...They want the deliberations to be flee from being vetted publicly...
...In any event, the gear is out there...
...It would also be nice to be able to deny the use of space to other nations...
...Our warheads molder and rust...
...We rely now on a military "system of systems" that, as retired Admiral Bill Owens puts it in his fine new book, Lifting the Fog of War, does exactly that...
...built the Strategic Air Command...
...And then there's the money crunch...
...But it's heavily and irrevocably dependent on military a n d - increasingly-civilian satellites for intelligence-gathering, comnmnications, navigation...
...The conventional wisdom holds that it will take decades to develop and deploy such systems...
...Nobody does it better...or even comes close...
...transitioned from prop jobs to jets...
...Anti-satellite missiles...
...RMA Phase I was basically about information...
...Not to mention how rough it would be on civilian cell phone addicts and those who love them...
...K ine years ago, as Americans watched live coverage of Tomahawk cruise missiles changing lanes in downtown Baghdad and government-supplied video of smart bombs ringing bunker doorbells before exploding, it became obvious that a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) was underway...
...For the moment, let's just get this country the space power it needs...
...They'll concentrate instead on "asymmetric threats" and "niche capabilities," including anti-satellite warfare...
...But in truth, space remains an afterthought, perhaps at best a yes-if-we-only-had-the-bucksbut-we-don't affair...
...fought the Korean War...
...Whether the speaker is Oliver North, Ward Connerly, William E Bucldey, { Dinesh D'Souza, or one of the scores of conservative lecturers available, a speaker sponsored by Young America's Foundation is often the best attended program on campus...
...Some years ago, the U.S...
...Now they're back to the old word, "aerospace...
...In time, this Space Corps might evolve into a separate Space Service within the Department of the Air Force, just as the Marine Corps exists within the Navy Department...
...Hard to tell, given the classified nature of so many programs and the fact that all components of any system have to mesh before you've got a real-world weapon...
...This blueribbon panel is scheduled to report by January 15, zoo1...
...RMA Phase II will be about exotic new systems: lasers and beam weapons...
...The obvious assessment of this RMA: Damn, we're good...
...Or could be...
...Gore to try something similar, he could no doubt find a program or two worth revealing...
...Were Mr...
...Call Young America's Foundation today at 1-800-292-9231...
...A staffer in Smith's office says that nobody expects any immediate radical action...
...N 22 The American Spectator College Administrators Think It's Just Fine l i m b ~ n l l . l i l l n L a F. M. Kirby Freedom Center 110 Elden Street Herndon, Virginia 20170 800-292-9231 The Reagan Ranch 812B Anacapa Street Santa Barbara, California 93101 877-797-7325 i They want to give students an incomplete picture...
Vol. 33 • November 2000 • No. 9
