by Playfuls Staff |
18th October 2006
The US President George W. Bush has signed the new National Space Policy which extends 'rights' of the US over space. Among others, is introduced something called the country’s 'right' to deny access[more] to space to anyone “hostile to U.S. interests.”
Bush's top goals, as stated in the document, are to "strengthen the nation's space leadership and ensure that space capabilities are available in time to further US national security, homeland security, and foreign policy objectives" and to "enable unhindered US operation in and through space to defend our interest there," The Washington Post reported.
Government officials have been quick to point out that the latest revisions are not leading up to militarization of Earth’s orbit, but they are hardly believable. For many, it seems that the US tries to get a lead ahead in space weapons. This might be caused by the estimated and almost inevitable ascension of China, which will soon challenge the United States as the new superpower. Condoleezza Rice announced earlier this year the US has to prepare itself for that confrontation in the following decades.
The policy also states: 'Freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power.'
Many were also quick to notice the unilateral tone of the Space Policy, quite contrary to the encouragement of international diplomacy and co-operation, as the government claims it promotes. "The United States will oppose the development of new legal regimes or other restrictions that seek to prohibit or limit US access to or use of space."
What the Bush administration tries to say is that the new Space Policy is aimed more at protecting current and future US space assets, such as communications and positioning systems, on which both the civilian and military activities are dependent to an ever increasing extent. These stated goals are, however, contradicted by the actual facts.
For example, in 2004, the Air Force published a Counterspace Operations Doctrine that called for a more aggressive military posture in space and said that protecting U.S. satellites and spacecraft may require "deception, disruption, denial, degradation and destruction." In 2000, a congressionally chartered panel led by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld recommended developing space weapons to protect military and civilian satellites.
What actually seems to be happening is that the US tries to introduce space weapons slowly, and actually there might be already some deployed. Because the space weapons program is shrouded in the utmost secrecy, we'll never know until they are already in place for some time (maybe a lot!). A friend who worked for Lockheed Martin once told me that he noticed there is a delay of about 20 years before cutting edge tech employed in the latest defense devices reaches the public.
While the Clinton administration, more diplomatic and less aggressive, had sought more of a balance of science and security, the Bush administration seems more to "kick the door a little more open to a space-war fighting strategy," according Theresa Hitchens, director of the non-partisan Centre for Defence Information, quoted by WP.
