Abstract
In a November 1945 report to the secretary of war, H.H. “Hap” Arnold, commander of the Army Air Forces, wrote that “any air force which does not keep its doctrines ahead of its equipment, and its vision far into the future, can only delude the nation into a false sense of security.”
Arnold commissioned Project Rand, then a newly created air force think tank, to conduct the first of many secret military space studies. The Rand study, completed in May 1946, concluded that orbiting spaceships and satellites were feasible and that they would be militarily useful for observation—in today's terms, for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. Some might even be designed as orbiting weapons that could be brought down on demand. The possibilities were limitless:
“It is not inappropriate to view our present situation as similar to that in airpower prior to the flight of the Wright brothers. We can see no more clearly all the utility and implications of spaceships than the “Wright brothers could see fleets of B-29s bombing Japan and air transports circling the globe.”
Arnold died shortly after the Rand report was issued, and the air force lost its most influential champion of space power. Over the following decades, advocates of an “air breathing” force—bombers and fighters— remained solidly in the pilot's seat. By the end of the 1950s, the United States was firmly committed to what came to be known, pejoratively by space-power partisans, as the “space for peaceful purposes” policy.
Yet President Eisenhower, the chief architect of the policy, did not bar the secret introduction of military-oriented satellites, particularly spy satellites. Such instruments, he believed, would be defensive and thus peaceful in character. They would allow the United States to more reliably understand what the hyper-secretive Soviet Union was up to.
According to Steven Lambakis, author of On the Edge of Earth, U.S. space policy has been schizophrenic ever since. Space would be militarized with a variety of satellites useful to earth-bound military analysts and combat commanders. But it would remain a weapons-free “sanctuary.”
Lambakis, an analyst at the National Institute for Public Policy, argues that it's time to abandon the sanctuary policy and get on with the task of exploiting space more fully. “The U.S. way of war requires superiority in all of the war-fighting environments. The ability to control space, therefore, will be a critical component of a future deterrence strategy to prevent hostile acts in space and on Earth.”
Lambakis is no space cowboy, as are some space-power enthusiasts who think the United States should have deployed spaceplanes, space-based guided missiles, high-energy lasers, and the like long ago. Lambakis is skeptical of some of the more fantastical schemes and wary of overwrought threat assessments:
“The reader will not find in these pages revelations of imminent threat to U.S. national space assets,” or a “prophecy of doom,” or words “intended to stoke the ardor in alarmists who desire to revive a Cold War call to space arms.”
Rather, says Lambakis, the United States must develop a clear, freedom-based space vision. “Freedom for all governments and private interests to come and go as they please, to function in space as they please, to stay as long as they please—provided that these activities pose no harm to U.S. interests or security.”
Power, not words, guarantees freedom. “The United States should strive to remain the preeminent military power in space. This is a laudable and noble end. To be powerful in space does not mean to act imperi-alistically. It does mean being mentally and physically capable of acting freely in space, if need be, in order to control specific orbits. Being in a position of dominance is important. The United States has not had to suffer wars imposed upon it precisely because it has been strong.”
To protect vulnerable military and intelligence space assets, says Lambakis, the United States should develop land- and space-based anti-satellite systems. The United States should also once again explore the possibilities of space-based antimissile systems.
But mainly, Lambakis's argument boils down to this: It does not make sense to treat space differently from land, sea, or air. If the United States can control space to the advantage of its friends and allies and to the disadvantage of its foes, it should just do it.
Lambakis's book ought to be read by anyone interested in understanding the coming debate over space weapons. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a long-time space-power partisan, is likely to push the Bush administration toward the development and deployment of anti-satellite weapons, a first step toward weap-onizing space. In turn, that could provoke the national security debate of the decade.
Hands down, On the Edge of Earth is the best resource available for understanding that debate. Lambakis's research is meticulous (the endnotes alone are worth the price), and his comprehensive treatment of military space policy is notable. But, in the end, he seems a bit wrong-headed.
Lambakis cavalierly dismisses space sanctuary arguments as being, in large measure, the product of incurable romanticism or misplaced religiosity.
“In modern times, there prevails an idea that we should ‘master the evil principle’ within and make politics bend to what is moral and right. And what is moral and right in the eyes of many is preventing man from taking his conflicts into space. Religious sentiments bolster the idea that space is a sanctuary, a place truly and almost divinely apart from Earth, an undefiled arena for men to behave toward one another as they ought.”
Well, yes. It is natural, I suppose, if a bit romantic, to look upward on a starry night and think that there may be something up there that is better than the mess we have down here.
But there are also, as Lambakis concedes, a number of hard-nosed strategic arguments for preserving space as a weapons-free sanctuary— beginning with the notion that weaponizing space is likely to trigger a new kind of arms race with unpredictable and dangerous consequences.
Lambakis thinks that argument weak, partly because there is no evidence for it. It is an article of faith in the liberal arms control community that space weapons would be “destabilizing.” But the assumption that U.S. efforts to weaponize space would not touch off a new arms race is equally an act of faith. Would China and Russia, to name just two not-yet-insignificant states, be willing to let the United States play Space Cop to the world?
Although Lambakis's book is solid and thoughtful, it should be balanced by a reading of “Space Sanctuary: A Viable National Strategy,” by Lt. Col. Bruce M. DeBlois, in the Winter 1998 issue of Airpower Journal (www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj98/win98/deblois.html).
DeBlois writes that the United States should continue to preserve space as a weapons-free “sanctuary.” DeBlois, who isn't some fuzzy liberal, also edited Beyond the Paths of Heaven: the Emergence of Space Power Thought, a 1999 book produced by the School of Advanced Airpower Studies and published by the Air University Press.
Now division chief of Strategic Studies and Assessments at the National Reconnaissance Office, DeBlois says a policy of space sanctuary is justified for a host of political, strategic, and practical reasons. He also argues that it is consistent with the U.S. national character:
“The United States exports its national values of individual freedoms and democracy and maintains a pattern of not bullying other nations into accepting these ideals. The expectation is that the inherent worth of the ideals is self-evident. Maintaining the moral high ground in order to support this pattern is essential, even if it requires the United States to take some risks….
“The idea of putting weapons in space to dominate the globe,” DeBlois concludes, “is simply not compatible with who we are and what we represent as Americans.”