Space: The new battlefield

Published: 2007 - March/April, Dossier

“Space, the final frontier” claimed one of the Star Trek films. Yet today a more appropriate slogan would be “Space: The New Battlefield.” That’s right, because if the militarization of space began with the launching of the very first satellites and has gone on over the years since, then the process has been greatly accelerated lately, mainly by the United States, where military use of space is a cornerstone of its military doctrine. This, though, does not include a renewed interest in the Reagan’s old pet project of missile defense systems, the Strategic Defense Initiative. In fact, right now even though the missile defense system has “eyes,” alarm and detection sensors, up in space – at least in part – the means of interception, the anti-missile missiles, are based on Earth, on the ground or navy craft. The killer satellites of the old “Star Wars” project are for now still on the drawing board. And when one talks now of “space wars” one refers to something that is beyond anti-ballistic defense. We had a taste of this with the recent Chinese anti-satellite test, shooting down an old orbiting satellite with a space interceptor. With it, Beijing has demonstrated that the U.S.A. is not the only power with an interest in space wars.
The Soviet Union – which was first to put a satellite in orbit, the famous Sputnik, and which over 20 years ago was the first to test anti-satellite laser guns based on Earth – has kept pace with the U.S.A. for years, but then began to lag behind and finally abandoned the race. Today, Russia is able to maintain a limited military capacity in space, only a fraction of its old power, and is unlikely, at least in the short term, to go back to investing massively in space technology and new systems.
The European Union as such does not have any space military capacity. On the other hand, various European countries do have space military capacity, though not offensive. The leading country among them is certainly France, but Italy too has made considerable progress: the first military telecommunications satellite, SICRAL 1,  is currently operational; and set to be launched this year is the first of 5 observation satellites, Cosmo SkyMed – officially fulfilling both military and civil tasks, but in truth the military role is more important. Other military communications satellites are to follow in coming years.
Japan has joined the race late, but it now dedicates increasing amount of resources in the creation of constellations of spy satellites, for surveillance and communications. China nurtures great military space ambitions and has demonstrated it is also after offensive capacity (it has tested for the first time a ground-based anti-satellite laser system) but must first close a big technological gap to catch up.
Many other countries, including Israel, North Korea, Iran, India, Taiwan, Brazil and Turkey, already have or are intent on having military space systems, especially for observation and communication purposes.
Only the U.S.A. sees space as an extension of Earth’s atmosphere and wishes to exploit its potential in every possible way, achieving and defending total supremacy and at the same time acquiring the capacity to eliminate rivals’ space systems and the launchers that can set them in orbit, using electronic or kinetic weapons. And the U.S. anti-satellite systems are far more sophisticated than those developed by China or Russia. This, considering also that the U.S. spacecraft are protected, made more robust for example and designed to be able to maneuver and elude attacks as well as be repaired in orbit thanks to the use of special space robots.
The United States is also developing military spacecraft, manned or unmanned, for missions of surveillance and reconnaissance but also for attacking targets on earth or in space. Also special satellites will be equipped to hit targets on earth. And there’s talk of odd “mirrors” in space for reflecting potent laser rays on any part of the globe.
This type of development should not shock us, as even the space shuttles had military tasks, as have all the space labs orbiting Earth. In a matter of just a few more years wars will be fought with equal ferocity anywhere from the deep ocean to the deep space. And the United States, as the unrivaled leader, shows no interest in negotiating a new treaty that is bound to limit the militarization of space. At least until the emergence of a new credible competitor, of which there’s no trace for now.