The recent war in the sands of Mesopotamia was won, in a sense, hundreds, even thousands of miles overhead.

Surveillance satellites provided valuable intelligence, in spectra both visible to human eyes, and those only viewable by computers, in real time.

Communications satellites relayed that data to those who needed it, from generals and admirals in Doha, to special forces in the north, down to the lowest ranking soldiers who needed to know if the enemy was across the river, or around the corner, and how many there were, and where their comrades and reinforcements could be found.

Navigation satellites told our troops where they themselves were at all times.

This did more than shorten the war and thereby save the lives of both our and the enemy's troops. It also saved many civilian lives, by the precision with which targets could be taken out, injuring few bystanders. It saved (and continues to save) lives in other ways.

In wars past, power plants and lines, water treatment plants, dams and hospitals, might all have been destroyed, not because it was necessarily a war goal, but because our crude warfare techniques would have devastated the incidental with the targets. The precision allowed by our satellites spared critical non-targeted infrastructure, necessary to restore life-saving services and utilities quickly, relative to a more old-fashioned, conventional war.

It was the first total communications, digital war, and it couldn't have been won, or even fought remotely like it was, without billions of dollars worth of hardware in orbit, assembled painstakingly over the past several decades.

It's becoming clear that the new high ground of space is critical to America's ability to, for better or worse, project both force and humanity on terra firma. As Britannia once ruled the waves, if America is to maintain its own sense of security, and ability to prevail in future such conflicts, it must rule the void above, as some members of Congress recognize.

This is not as radical or unilateral a notion as it may sound.

After all, our nation currently rules the air and the sea, in the sense that if we apply our will to it, we can dominate any other nation on the planet in a battle in those environments. It doesn't mean that no one else is allowed to fly, or to ply the oceans--it simply means that if we, for whatever reason, decide that we must prevent them from doing so in a particular place and time, we have the ability to do that.

Whether or not that's a good or bad thing, for either America or the rest of the world, is an interesting discussion, but one for a different column. Regardless, it's currently reality. Now some are simply saying that we must extend the fact of that primacy above the atmosphere, where we are currently relatively impotent.

No one, with the possible exception of the Russians, has the actual ability to interfere with the missions of any of our satellites, particularly the high-altitude ones, short of launching a nuke into orbit and detonating it, which would result in massive and comprehensive damage from the electromagnetic impulse of the explosion, at least in low earth orbit, which is where many of our surveillance satellites reside. But if someone were to develop such an ability, we have absolutely no current capability to negate it.

Our space assets are almost totally defenseless, and we are relying on our potential adversaries' (temporary) weakness, rather than our own strength and technological prowess, to ensure their continued availability. Certainly, it's much easier (and within easy technical reach of many advanced nations) to come up with an offensive weapon against our satellites, than it is to defend them.

No doubt there are many who believe that we should rely on a "multi-lateral United Nations transnational" defense force to ensure that no one should place weapons, or systems that can enhance or even, heaven forfend, enable weapons, in space, to protect it for the pristine purposes of science.

The reality is that space is a place, and this doesn't just apply to uses for entertainment and commerce, but military endeavors as well. Given the UN's track record in keeping weapons out of terrestrial areas, the notion that it should be in charge of maintaining a peaceful cosmos is laughable.

In some perfect, ideal existence, there would be a universal peace force that would patrol "greater metropolitan earth" to ensure that no rogue nation could get a march on innocent countries, disable their defenses, and bombard them from above of some terrestrial location. Sadly, that is not the existence in which we live. The US isn't perfect, but it's probably the best we're going to do on the planet, absent a massive global educational initiative.

This may sound arrogant, and perhaps it is, but if there is going to be a superpower, even a hyperpower on earth, what would you choose it to be? A nation founded on at least the principles of accountability and balance of power between the rulers and the ruled, or an entity on the bank of the East River of New York, consisting mainly of the votes of a number of satrapies and kleptocracies that perversely demand the rights of democracy, which they deny their own people?

Again, our nation is not perfect, but it has at least the mechanisms in place to achieve such a state, or at least approach it. "Britannia rules the waves" was not perfection, but in many ways it advanced civilization for a century or two. We will continue to improve on the American experiment, but while we're doing so, we could do a lot worse than to bask in the benefits of a "Pax Americana Cosmos" as we continue to work out the bugs. The world has to ask itself: would we prefer the domination of space by people whose credo is death and destruction of anyone who believes not in Wahabbism, or those who are pluralistic and tolerant of other religions that are tolerant themselves?

Perhaps the choice isn't that stark, but given the current state of the world, it's incumbent on those who think otherwise at this point to make their case.

To me, the decision sounds like an easy one, but then, that's the axe I grind seven days a week.

If there's a more substantial question to be addressed, it would be: would that sort of dominance of the High Frontier cause, or help to cause, the United States to become a more domineering, as opposed to dominant, force in the world? Would it cause us to retreat from our ideals of liberty and justice for all?

The evidence is thin for that proposition just now. Nevertheless, we're headed into the Great Up-And-Out, shuttle disasters and all, and no other spacefaring power appears able to catch us, so in the sweet rushing fullness of time, we'll surely know.

Rand,

Great piece.

Let me just note that other nations' militaries have noticed the extent to which we utilize and depend on space-based assets for our victories, and are working hard on countering and competing with us up there.

It's also amusing (in a sad way) how many of the folks who want to preserve space for the "pristine" venues of science are, in fact, people who not only have little understanding of military affairs, but an active dislike for military affairs, issues, and understanding. The likes of the UCS and the FAS and the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists suggests that many of these scientists are as unbiased as the reporters of the NY Times.

The US already spends more on its military than all other nations of the Earth combined (Newsweek). Is this somehow not enough? We could spend the entire GNP on the military and still not be 100% safe.

I’ll agree that the UN certainly has its share of un-intellectual members, but here in the US, the voters in very powerful states have elected actors, pro wrestlers, and a former KKK leader. The last election had questionable results, and many elections too feature a relatively unknown multi-millionaire who walks onto the seen with more advertising dollars than anyone else. I fear that one day, someone who is not so ‘middle-of-the-road’ is going to get into office and make use of this military machine.

The US military has always been aware that its satellites were vulnerable to such attacks. I believe that the military relies on those satellites when they have them and have backup plans for when they don’t (Aurora perhaps). J-Stars and AWACS aircraft have a much greater ability to track targets in the air or on the ground (in a localized region) than any satellite.

I feel that a UN properly supported by such a hyperpower would have a lot more leverage against rogue nations than the hyperpower alone. The US government and people do not have the level of commitment to become the world’s only peacekeeper. The US has shown that it is very reluctant to commit peacekeepers to troubled areas for any great length of time.

Functionally, it will be a UN supported by a hyperpower, just as it is on the sea or in the air. But when the UN falls down on the job, the power is ultimately controlled in Washington, not New York, as we saw a couple months ago.

The problem is that right now in space, there is no hyperpower, or any power at all. No one, including us, can currently defend a satellite from attack.

Maybe we just need to shut down NASA and transfer the few useful R&D projects to the Air Force. At least with miliary management you get some sort of accountability.

One thing I've always wondered about-- does the "militarization of space" require a manned presence?

Ultimately, I think it does, but that's still controversial in the DoD. I think that as the new generation rises up through the brass, and the old missile boys retire, that will become the prevailing view.

Chris Eldridge:

So, for fear that the US MIGHT elect somebody irresponsible, we should have as minimal a military as possible? Is that what you're trying to say?

This is as bad as the 1970s argument, which WAS enunciated, that, in order to avoid future Vietnams, we should not purchase strategic lift assets, since that way, we couldn't go there.

And I'm not a UN-basher, per se, but I have to wonder exactly why the UN SHOULD have more legitimacy, especially when it is hardly a repository of virtue or representativeness. When one sees the havoc wrought in places like Cambodia and Bosnia, when one witnesses it fecklessness and ineptitude in places like Congo and Rwanda, how is it any better than the US? If we are ineffective, at least there is someone who can be held accountable. Who in the UN CAN be held accountable, and who would seek to HOLD them accountable? I don't seem to recall anyone being punished for Rwanda, Srebenica, or the bordellos and looting during the UN administration of Cambodia?

I think we need to realistically measure the threat satellites face. For example, in order to set off a really severe EMF flux in orbit, you probably need hydrogen bombs with a power in excess of 1,000 – 10,000kt (1-10 Mega-tons). ‘Rogue nations’ at best can only produce WWII-type bombs, which are usually rated at only 20kt: or 1/50th – 1/500th that size.

It is also very important to clearly state that even a fairly large burst would only effect satellites in low Earth orbit: some 10,000 to 23,000 miles below geostationary orbit, where the vast majority of communications and GPS satellites reside. Such satellites are very very far away, widely separated, and indeed very hard to get to. I don’t believe even a large ICBM can reach GEO altitudes with a heavy WWII-like warhead, yet alone, a battlefield scud-like missile? Consider also that any nation with the desire and ability to basically take on the world with such an attack would have a lot of other more lucrative targets to choose from than even a hundred satellites. If “Rogue Nation A” wants to prevent me from watching CNN tonight that’s a bit different than blasting LA or Sacramento from existence, which is arguably a lot easier.

To protect low Earth orbiting satellites, space stations, and the shuttle, I’m not sure if your proposing a vast space armada to defend them, a completely dominate US military, that can stampede through an rogue nations boarders at will, or just protecting delicate electronics inside copper casings and using triple braided wiring (which are the common answer to EMF flux here on earth). The mere fact that even most of the X-Prize-Guys will be able to launch a few thousand pounds of ordinary ‘ball bearings’ into LEO (certainly enough to shred the space station or shuttle into a thousand pieces) sort of makes trying to defend such assets an utter impossibility – regardless of cost.

At the rate things are going, gravity and the atmosphere are a bigger threat to the space station, the remaining space shuttles, and our ability to consistently access space than any rogue nation is.. We should try to pick our enemies very wisely.

that's what sadms and the new mini nukes are for.. getting rid of inconvenient and threatening people...

"surrender, it's our only hope"

chris, are you french?? have a little petain blood in you? or just henry wallace, mcgovern and mondale??

why not move to france and join the "rising" eu super power taht will challenge the US?? do something productive

a--hat

A friend of mine works on Boeing's Air Borne Laser (ABL) project. Things are going quite well and none too soon, as the prospect of rogue nations with medium range or intercontenental missles looms closer every day. However, I wonder how long before we are not the exclusive purveyors of this technology, as a couple of ABL systems could quickly render all of a combatant's space-based assets useless.