MARCH 20, 2019
The US is formally committed to dominating the world by the year 2020.
With President Trump’s new Space Directive-4, the production of laser-armed
fighter jets as possible precursors to space weapons, and the possibility of
nuclear warheads being put into orbit, the clock is ticking…
Back in 1997, the now-re-established US Space Command announced its commitment to
“full spectrum dominance.” The Vision for 2020explains that “full spectrum dominance” means military
control over land, sea, air, and space (the so-called fourth dimension of
warfare) “to protect US interests and investment.” “Protect” means guarantee
operational freedom. “US interest and investment” means corporate profits.
The glossy brochure explains that, in the past, the
Army evolved to protect US settlers who stole land from Native Americans in
the genocidal birth of the nation. Like the Vision for 2020, a report by the National Defense University
acknowledges that by the 19th century, the Navy had evolved to
protect the US’s newly-formulated “grand strategy.” In addition to supposedly
protecting citizens and the constitution, “The overriding principle was, and
remains, the protection of American territory … and our economic well-being.”
By the 20th century, the Air Force had been established, in
the words of the Air Force Study Strategy Guide, to protect “vital interests,” including:
“commerce; secure energy supplies; [and] freedom of action.” In the 21stcentury,
these pillars of power are bolstered by the Cyber Command and the coming Space
Force.
The use of the Army, Navy, and Air Force—the three
dimensions of power—means that the US is already close to achieving “full
spectrum dominance.” Brown University’s Cost of War project documentscurrent US military involvement in 80 countries—or
40% of the world’s nations. This includes 65 so-called counterterrorism
training operations and 40 military bases (though others think the number of
bases is much higher). By this measure, “full spectrum dominance” is
nearly half way complete. But the map leaves out US and NATO bases, training
programs, and operations in Estonia, Latvia, Poland, and Ukraine.
As the US expands its space operations—the fourth dimension of
warfare—the race towards “full spectrum dominance” quickens. Space has long
been militarized in the sense that the US uses satellites to guide missiles and
aircraft. But the new doctrine seeks to weaponize space by, for instance,
blurring the boundaries between high-altitude military aircraft and space
itself. Today’s space power will be harnessed by the US to ensure dominance
over the satellite infrastructure that allows for the modern world of internet,
e-commerce, GPS, telecommunications, surveillance, and war-fighting.
Since the 1950s, the United Nations has
introduced various treaties to prohibit the militarization and
weaponization of space—the most famous being the Outer Space Treaty (1967).
These treaties aim to preserve space as a commons for all humanity. The
creation of the US Space Force is a blatant violation of the spirit, if not the
letter, of those treaties. In more recent decades, successive US governments
have unilaterally rejected treaties to reinforce and expand the existing
space-for-peace agreements. In 2002, the US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
(1972), allowing it to expand its long-range missile systems. In 2008, China
and Russia submitted to the UN Conference on Disarmament the proposed Treaty on the Prevention of the Placement of
Weapons in Outer Space, the Threat or Use of Force Against Outer Space Objects. This would have preserved the space-as-a-commons
principle and answered US claims that “enemies” would use space as a
battleground against US satellites.
But peace is not the goal. The goal is “full
spectrum dominance,” so the US rejected the offer. China and Russia introduced the proposed the treaty again in 2014—and
again the US rejected it. Earlier this year, the US withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces
(INF) treaty. Last month, President Trump sent an unclassified memo on the new
Space Directive-4 to the Vice President, Joint Chiefs of Staff, NASA, and the
Secretaries of Defense and State.
The document makes for chilling and vital reading. It
recommends legislating for the training of US forces “to ensure unfettered
access to, and freedom to operate in, space, and to provide vital capabilities
to joint and coalition forces.” Crucially, this doctrine includes “peacetime
and across the spectrum of conflict.” As well as integrating space forces with
the intelligence community, the memo recommends establishing a Chief of Staff
of the Space Force, who will to join the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The memo also
says that US space operations will abide by “international law.” But given that
the US has rejected anti-space weapons treaties, it is barely constrained by
international law.
In late-2017, Space.com reported on a $26.3m Department of Defense contract
with Lockheed Martin to build lasers for fighter jets under the Laser Advancements
for Next-generation Compact Environments program. The report says that the
lasers will be ready by 2021. The article links to Doug Graham, the Vice
President of Missile Systems and Advanced Programs at Lockheed Martin Space
Systems. In the original link Graham reveals that the Air Force laser “is an example of
how Lockheed Martin is using a variety of innovative technologies to transform
laser devices into integrated weapon systems.”
As if all this wasn’t bad enough, the British
Ministry of Defence (MoD) states in a projection out to the year 2050:
“Economies are becoming increasingly dependent upon space-based systems … By
2050, space-based weapon systems may also be deployed, which could include
nuclear weapons.” But this is extremely reckless. Discussing technologies,
including the artificial intelligence on which weapons systems are increasingly
based, another MoD projection warns of “the potential for disastrous
outcomes, planned and unplanned … Various doomsday scenarios arising in
relation to these and other areas of development present the possibility of
catastrophic impacts, ultimately including the end of the world, or at least of
humanity.”
“Full spectrum dominance” is not only a danger to the world, it is a
danger to US citizens who would also suffer the consequences, if and when
something goes wrong with their leaders’ complicated space weapons.
Dr. T. J. Coles is director of the Plymouth Institute for Peace
Research and the author of several books, including Voices for Peace (with Noam Chomsky and others)
and the forthcoming Fire and Fury: How the US Isolates North Korea,
Encircles China and Risks Nuclear War in Asia (both Clairview Books).
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