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U.S. Military Moves to "Control Space" and be
"Enforcement Arm for the Global Economy" Presentation at Technology and Globalization Teach-In, February 24, 2001 By Karl
Grossman |
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The United States is seeking to
"control space" and from space "dominate" the Earth
below-and "control" and "dominate" are words used
repeatedly in U.S. military documents. The U.S. military, further, would like
to base weapons in space. The new Bush administration is
gung-ho for U.S. projection of space military power. As last month's report
of the "Space Commission" chaired by incoming Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld puts it: "In the coming period, the U.S. will conduct
operations to, from, in and through space in support of its national interests
both on the Earth and in space." Star Wars is back. But there's a difference since
Star Wars first emerged under Ronald Reagan in 1983. Then it was purportedly
needed to fend off what Reagan called the "evil empire," the Soviet
Union. There is no Soviet Union any longer. And a key rationale for Star Wars
now, U.S. military documents acknowledge, is the global economy-of which the
U.S. is the engine. The U.S. would, from the "ultimate high ground"
of space, "dominate" the planet below in part to keep the global
economy on track. Says the U.S. Space Command's
"Vision for 2020" report , its cover depicting a laser weapon
shooting a beam down from space zapping a target below: "The
globalization of the world economy will also continue- with a widening
between 'haves' and 'have-nots.'" From space, the U.S. would keep those
"have-nots" in line. The U.S. Space Command, set up
by the Pentagon in 1985, describes itself in "Vision for 2020" this
way: "US Space Command-dominating the space dimension of military
operations to protect US interests and investment. Integrating Space Forces
into warfighting capabilities across the full spectrum of conflict." "Vision for 2020"
compares the U.S. effort to "control space" and Earth below to how
centuries ago "nations built navies to protect and enhance their
commercial interests," referring to the great empires of Europe that
ruled the waves and thus the Earth to maintain their imperial economies. Consider the "Long Range
Plan" of the U.S. Space Command. "The United States will remain a
global power and exert global leadership," it says. "The United
States won't always be able to forward base its forces… Widespread
communications will highlight disparities in resources and quality of
life-contributing to unrest in developing countries…The global economy will
continue to become more interdependent. Economic alliances, as well as the
growth and influence of multi-national corporations, will blur security
agreements…The gap between 'have' and 'have-not' nations will widen-creating
regional unrest…One of the long acknowledged and commonly understood
advantages of space-based platforms is no restriction or country clearances
to overfly a nation from space." U.S. Space Command seeks to
become "the enforcement arm for the global economy," as Bill
Sulzman, director of Citizens for Peace In Space put it at the international
conference last year of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power
In Space. U.S. citizens are not aware of
the broad military plans of the U.S. for space because of the PR spin of the
new Star Wars pitch (it's about protecting against a "Space Pearl
Harbor," as the Rumsfeld Commission puts it, "just" about
"missile defense") and due to communications media that are lazy
and worse. But other nations of the world
do understand. That's why, at the United Nations last November 20, a
resolution was introduced-on which 163 nations voted yes-for "Prevention
of an Arms Race in Outer Space." It reaffirmed the basic international
law on space, the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, and specifically its provision
that space be set aside for "peaceful purposes." The United States
abstained. A country leading in the
international effort to stop the U.S. plans by strengthening the Outer Space
Treaty and barring all weapons from space is Canada-no potential rival. As Marc Vidricaire, representing
Canada, said at the UN last year: "It has been suggested that our
proposal is not relevant because the assessment on which it rests is either
premature or alarmist. In our view, it is neither. One need only look at what
is happening right now…" Moreover, stressed the Canadian
statement, "There is no question that the technology can be developed to
place weapons in outer space. There is also no question that no state can
expect to maintain a monopoly on such knowledge -- or such capabilities --
for all time. If one state actively pursues the weaponization of space, we
can be sure others will follow." But the rogue state called the
United States is blocking the Canadian initiative. For the U.S. thinks it can
be-as the motto of the Air Force Space Command terms it-"Master of
Space." It appears as a Space
Command uniform patch and is in three-foot high letters over the entrance of
the Air Force's 50th Space Wing. It pretty well sums up the attitude toward
space of the U.S. power structure. Working closely with the U.S.
military in achieving this goal are major aerospace corporations. Indeed, the
"Long Range Plan starts out by explaining how it has been U.S. Space
Command's "#1 priority…investing nearly 20 man-years to make it a
reality" and: "The development and production process, by design,
involved hundreds of people including about 75 corporations." The "Long Range Plan"
goes on to list those 75 corporations-beginning with Aerojet and going
through Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Sparta Corp. to TRW and Vista
Technologies. President Dwight Eisenhower
warned in his "farewell address" in 1959 of the influence of a
"military-industrial complex." Now, the U.S. military boasts about
how giant corporations are helping set U.S. military doctrine. Star Wars, with its powerful
backers, never, in fact, went away. Funding at $6 billion-a-year plus monies
in the "black" or secret for U.S. space military activities
continued through the Clinton administration. Last December, Clinton's
Department of Defense cleared the way for development of the "Space
Based Laser Readiness Demonstrator"-a project of Lockheed Martin, Boeing
and TRW-with a "lifecycle budget" of $20 to $30 billion. A second
space-based laser weapon on which development continued through the Clinton
years is the "Alpha High-Energy Laser," now test-fired more than 20
times. It was Clinton's Assistant
Secretary of the U.S. Air Force for Space Keith Hall who said: "With regard
to space dominance, we have it, we like it, and we're going to keep it."
And things are far worse now
with Bush and Cheney, their administration intimately linked to the aerospace
companies-Cheney himself a former member of the TRW board, his wife Lynn a
member of the Lockheed Martin board-and tied to the ultra right-wing
"think tanks" that, with the U.S. military, have been promoting
Star Wars. The new administration is
pushing hard and fast to make space a new arena of war. Last month's report by the
Rumsfeld "Space Commission" calls for U.S. "power projection
in, from and through space." It seeks U.S. "superior space
capabilities." It says the U.S. president should "have the option
to deploy weapons in space." It emphasizes that it is "possible to
project power through and from space in response to events anywhere in the
world. Unlike weapons from aircraft, land forces or ships, space missions
initiated from earth or space could be carried out with little transit,
information or weather delay. Having this capability would give the U.S. a
much stronger deterrent and, in a conflict, an extraordinary military
advantage." It proposes the U.S. Space Command become the nucleus of a
U.S. Space Corps, to be like the Marine Corps and possibly "transition"
to a fully separate Space Force or "Space Department" -on par with
the Army, Navy and Air Force-several years hence. As the man whose legislation got
the Rumsfeld "Space Commission" established, Senator Bob Smith of
New Hampshire, said in an interview just taped with him to be part of my
forthcoming "Star Wars Returns" video documentary, involved is the
new "manifest destiny" of the U.S. "It is our manifest
destiny," said Senator Smith. "You know we went from the East Coast
to the West Coast of the United States of America settling the continent and
they call that manifest destiny and the next continent if you will, the next
frontier, is space and it goes on forever." Now it's U.S. cosmic
"manifest destiny." The book, "The Future of
War: Power, Technology and American World Dominance in the 2lst
Century," by think-tankers George and Meredith Friedman, concludes:
"Just as by the year 1500 it was apparent that the European experience
of power would be its domination of the global seas, it does not take much to
see that the American experience of power will rest on the domination of
space...Just as Europe expanded war and its power to the global oceans, the
United States is expanding war and its power into space…Just as Europe shaped
the world for half a millennium, so too the United States will shape the
world for at least that length of time…For better or worse, America has
seized hold of the future of war, and with it-for a time-the future of
humanity." The rest of the world will not
sit back and accept U.S. "world dominance" from space. If the U.S.
moves ahead on its program of astro-imperialism, deploys weapons in space,
other nations-China and Russia right off-will meet the U.S. in kind. There
will be an arms race and inevitably war in space. As First Secretary of China's UN
delegation, Wang Xiaoyu, has declared: "Outer space is the common
heritage of human beings. It should be used entirely for peaceful purposes
and for the economic, scientific, and cultural development of all countries
as well as the well-being of mankind. It must not be weaponized and become
another arena of the arms race." "Space domination," he
stated, "is a hegemonic concept. Its essence is monopoly of space and
denial of others access to it." If the U.S. pushes ahead, "other
countries would in response launch their own" space military programs,
China vowed. However, China is, for now, holding off and, paralleling
Canada's initiative, also seeking an international ban on weapons in space. But
the U.S. has rebuffed the Chinese initiative, too. Incidentally, the weapons
the U.S. military wants to deploy in space-especially lasers-will need large
amounts of power. And nuclear energy is seen by the U.S. military as the
"natural" power source for them. As "New World Vistas: Air
And Space Power For The 2lst Century," a U.S. Air Force board report,
states: "In the next two decades, new technologies will allow the
fielding of space-based weapons of devastating effectiveness to be used to
deliver energy and mass as force projection in tactical and strategic
conflict…These advances will enable lasers with reasonable mass and cost to
effect very many kills." But "power limitations impose
restrictions" on such-based weapons systems making them "relatively
unfeasible….A natural technology to enable high power," it goes on,
"is nuclear power in space." "Setting the emotional
issues of nuclear power aside, this technology offers a viable alternative
for large amounts of power in space," asserts "New World
Vistas." The Outer Space Treaty is a
visionary document. It is a pact to keep war out of space. The U.S.,
incidentally, was a leader in getting it enacted. It is now signed now by
most nations of the world. Based on the Antarctic Treaty, it calls for the
"exploration and use of outer space [to] the benefit and in the
interests of all countries" and prohibits the "placement in orbit
around the Earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of
weapons of mass destruction." For nearly four decades, it has kept space
war-free. What a legacy to be left for our
children and their children at the dawn of this new century, this new
millenium, if the U.S. succeeds in trashing the Outer Space Treaty and makes
space a new place for war. No one will profit but Boeing, Lockheed Martin and
Raytheon and TRW, and so on. We have a narrow window to keep
space for peace, to strengthen the Outer Space Treaty and ban all weapons in
space. We must join with peoples from around the world and stop this move by
the United States to turn the heavens into a war zone. Getting and spreading the
information about what is going on is critical. And then: action, action,
action. I urge you to join with the Global Network Against Weapons and
Nuclear Power In Space and move against what is happening. We must challenge
the anti-environmental, anti-democratic global economy and we must challenge
its would-be "enforcement arm"-the new U.S. space military
establishment.
Karl Grossman, professor of journalism
at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, has specialized
in investigative reporting for more than 30 years. His books include "The Wrong Stuff:
The Space Program's Nuclear Threat To Our Planet" (Common Courage Press)
and his video documentaries include "Nukes In Space: The Nuclearization
and Weaponization of the Heavens " (EnviroVideo). His new video documentary, "Star
Wars Returns," is forthcoming from EnviroVideo (1-800-ECO-TV46 or http://www.envirovideo.com)
and new book, "Weapons In Space," soon to be published by Seven
Stories Press (http://www.info@sevenstories.com or
212-226-8760). Grossman is a charter member of the
Commission on Disarmament Education, Conflict Resolution and Peace of the
International Association of University Presidents and the United Nations. He is convenor of the Global Network
Against Weapons and Nuclear Power In Space. Grossman's home address: Box 1680, Sag
Harbor, New York 11963. Telephone: 631-725-2858. Fax: 631-725-9338. E-mail:
kgrossman@hamptons.com
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