Battlefield: Space

An Unclear Future

The goal of all these systems is what top brass call space superiority. "The threats we face are very real and dangerous," said General Lance W. Lord, Commander of the U.S. Air Force Space Command, during Congressional testimony in March. "As our dependence on modern space capabilities grows, the need to establish and maintain space superiority also grows proportionally, if not exponentially."

But who are our opponents in space, and what is the threat? Lord and others point to attempts by the forces formerly working under Saddam Hussein to jam GPS satellite signals during Operation Iraqi Freedom and thereby send U.S. precision bombs off course. U.S. forces, however, easily defeated those rudimentary efforts. And while China and Russia are experimenting with technologies such as microsatellites, there is little evidence so far of any serious threat to U.S. spacecraft-although it is clear that ostensibly benign partnerships with our allies, including that between China and Surrey Satellite, could lead present and future adversaries to the development of advanced space technologies.

The Bush administration feels that the U.S. must seize control of space before it falls into enemy hands. But experts within and outside the military contend that this country has the most to lose by starting an arms race in space. The U.S. has far more satellites in orbit than any other nation, yet these satellites are largely undefended. As John Pike, director of the Virginia-based think tank GlobalSecurity.org, puts it, "People who live in glass houses should not organize rock-throwing contests."
Pike and other critics further caution that any moves to weaponize space will only legitimize future efforts by others to develop antisatellite technologies-and will turn the U.S.'s asymmetrical advantage into a vulnerability. For now, the focus of American offensive efforts is on technologies designed to reversibly incapacitate an enemy's space hardware. For example, the Pentagon's new mobile, ground-based Counter Communications System is said to be capable of temporarily jamming an enemy's satellite communications.