News articles in the Washington Post, New York Times, and Boston Globe discuss the Air Force's recent conversations with the White House on expanding their active role in space operations.
The Air Force, saying it must secure space to protect the nation from attack, is seeking President Bush's approval of a national-security directive that could move the United States closer to fielding offensive and defensive space weapons, according to White House and Air Force officials.
The proposed change would be a substantial shift in American policy. It would almost certainly be opposed by many American allies and potential enemies, who have said it may create an arms race in space.
A senior administration official said that a new presidential directive would replace a 1996 Clinton administration policy that emphasized a more pacific use of space, including spy satellites' support for military operations, arms control and nonproliferation pacts.
It's expected that this new presidential directive will, in the words of Scott McClellan (who you know you can trust), "The policy that we're talking about is not looking at weaponizing space." Instead, this is to protect satellites from attack by other nations. Now, it's not clear that any other nation in the world has this capability, but the Air Force's opinion is, why wait - take the high ground and get there first. I guess some of the concern is exactly how we intend to "defend" U.S. assets in space - you know, the best defense is a good offense, etc.
As DefenseTech.org notes, this is not really a new trend. The Air Force has been actively looking at expanding its role into space for some years now. They named their operations directorate "Air and Space Operations" more than a few years ago, with ambitions on developing concepts and equipment designed to extend their area of control into space. Technically, I think the term "Stratos and Upper Atmosphere Operations" would have been more accurate, but it doesn't quite have the same ring. I mean, Star Trek has clearly revealed that future space operations belongs to the Navy (e.g., Captain Kirk).
What gets people riled up are all the crazy projects the Air Force likes to try out. Again, referring to the DefenseTech coverage, the laser beams, "rods from God," offensive microsatellites, lots of experiments going on that seem to illustrate a desire to weaponize space, despite protestations to the contrary. I think this concept exploration stuff is an Air Force trait - I've seen it in the CB defense world also. There's a constant battle between the AF civil engineers and the AF counterproliferation office as to who's developing their CB defense capabilities - or counter-CB warfare capabilities, whatever they're calling it today. About every two-three years, a new truckload of officers and consultants come into the offices and rewrite all the concepts and terminology for CB defense - despite its being a joint doctrine area and being a pretty stable field - and then foist the new ideas upon the AF community, causing much confusion and debate. On the one hand, it's good that they expend the intellectual energy to question the status quo. On the other hand, a lot of it doesn't make sense, most of which dies on the vine, and a bit lingers on like a fringe element of the Sith lords that the Rebellion just can't stamp out.
I think the Air Force efforts are important and that the military's space program is an important step in allowing the world to reach out to the stars. Certainly the anemic NASA program and industry efforts aren't generating that much steam to go back to the Moon and beyond. If the price to pay for space expansion is initial militarization, so be it. But we should keep an eye on exactly what's being put into space, and we absolutely should review and criticise the AF concepts of operation to ensure they don't stray too far off the reservation.
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