Notwithstanding the CIA evaluation after September 11th that a missile attack on the United States is the least likely threat to our nation, the Bush administration fanned the fears of terror to implement plans to weaponize space under the guise of its so called “missile defense” program. In order to move forward, Mr. Bush trashed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia. That increased the certainty that the development of anti-ballistic missiles would lead to an arms race and would forestall further efforts for nuclear disarmament.

Indeed, as nations met during the subsequent treaty review last month, newspaper headlines trumpeted that the Air Force was already seeking permission to deploy its lethal assortment of space weapons. These included killer satellites, space lasers to hit targets on earth, radio waves to disable enemy communications, and the blasphemously named “rods from God,” 250 pound tungsten bars which can be hurled down from an orbiting platform.

Right now, we are in a costly arms race with ourselves. Russia and China repeatedly call on the United Nations to begin negotiations on a treaty to ban weapons in space. Last year, every nation on earth voted to support their resolution except the United States, Israel, and Micronesia. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty prohibits weapons of mass destruction in space, but doesn’t ban the current U.S. space weapons in development. It is folly to assume that the United States can “dominate and control the military use of space,” as the U.S. Space Command proclaims, or that it is "possible to project power through and from space in response to events anywhere in the world.” Just as we were unable to maintain a monopoly in nuclear weapons, we will face a similar challenge in space. Indeed, Russia, which has declared that it will not be the first country to field weapons in space, also announced that it would consider resorting to force were the United States to put a combat weapon out there. And China announced possible plans to develop “parasitic” microsatellites that could attach themselves to U.S. satellites and disrupt and destroy them on ground command.

Further, the Bush administration’s fixation on using the heavens as a battleground is sorely affecting our ability to control the proliferation of nuclear weapons here on earth. Air Force Space Command leader, General Lance Lord, defined “space superiority” as “freedom to attack as well as freedom from attack” in space. He described the new Air Force strategy, Global Strike, as giving the United States the ability to bombard the planet with a half-ton of munitions that could destroy targets “anywhere in the world.” Is it any wonder that countries designated by Mr. Bush as the “axis of evil,” like Iran and North Korea, seek nuclear weapons as a hedge against U.S. aggression from space? Or that nuclear disarmament talks are stalled, not only by U.S. abrogation of the ABM Treaty, but by Pentagon assertions that the United States must prevent the use of space by other nations and establish “full spectrum dominance?”

President John F. Kennedy in 1962 acknowledged that “space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own”…and noted, “whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man…. [O]nly if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war.” While acknowledging that we can’t go unprotected “against the hostile misuse of space,” he urged that space “be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war.”

The United States now occupies a position of pre-eminence. The fate of the earth is in our hands. With a world of willing partners, we should negotiate a ban on weapons in space and preserve the use of space for peace.

Alice Slater is president of the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE) www.gracelinks.org

© 2005 MinutemanMedia.org

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