I may say something about this at greater length later, but time grows short so for now let me simply note that the Bush administration today's signed a policy committing the United States to unilateral hegemony over outer space. This seems like a fairly peripheral concern at the moment -- there's no pressing space-based threat. At the same time, one imagines that countries like Russia and China aren't going to be thrilled with this idea. Coincidentally enough, right now we're trying to secure a higher level of Russian and Chinese cooperation over North Korea, which is a fairly pressing issue. So was it really necessary to announce this just now? Does the White House even think about that kind of stuff -- the idea that we should set priorities and try to avoid pissing people off over third-tier issues right when we're potentially on the verge of accomplishing something important?
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Priorities, Again
18 Oct 2006 10:48 am
Comments (18)
any countries that are not subservient to the US in fact
To be fair, they treat countries which are subservient to us like crap too.
If Russia and China can't come around to accepting the ultimate insurmountable awesomeness of the US... that's their problem, not ours. They should be asking themselves if they deserve to help us out on North Korea...
This has been today's installment of Easily Answered Questions.
To infinity and beyond!
I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.
-LoP
Well if it's Easily Answered Questions you want, PNH:
1. Is the Republican Party fundamentally a nationalist party with a strong nativist strain?
2. Has it decided that it profits electorally by keeping "national security" foremost in the voters' minds?
3. Does yanking painfully on most of the rest of the world's dicks maximize international antagonism, maximizing the likelihood that there's a useful foreign bogeyman for any given election cycle?
Oh for those pre-Enlightenment days when countries could just divide up the world between them by fiat. Too bad we don't have anybody to divide up space with....
I think Benedict XV might, if called upon, be willing to fairly divide up outer space between Christendom and the barbarians.
Nevermind pissing people off over third-tier issues, this policy is just stupid on the face of it.
And why announce the policy? Its likely the military is decades ahead of NASA in space technology, how many UFO sightings are really of spaceships piloted by intelligent creatures who look like us except they're wearing Air Force Academy rings? We're in the position to do pretty much whatever we want in space, so why piss people off now-- speak softly and carry a big stick and all that.
A few years ago, Nick Cook, a Janes Defence Weekly editor, wrote a kickass book, The Hunt For Zero Point, about just how advanced the Pentagon's aerospace technology is.
http://www.amazon.com/Hunt-Zero-Point-Antigravity-Technology/dp/0767906276
Just think of George Bush as the guy in the asylum wearing a Napolean hat and walking around issuing orders. He's the Decider!
Nixon tried to scare the Russians by appearing to be insane. George Bush has scared our own government by actually being insane.
I think we can assume the Bush administration would be very bad at chess.
Question:
Does the White House even think about that kind of stuff -- the idea that we should set priorities and try to avoid pissing people off over third-tier issues right when we're potentially on the verge of accomplishing something important?
Answer:
No.
Seems clear to me what the agenda is from this lovely quote, typically passed on by the Post without a hint of irony:
"This policy is not about developing or deploying weapons in space. Period," said a senior administration official who was not authorized to speak on the record.
Hey, Mr. Official, if the policy really isn't about weaponizing space, why can't you say so in public? You're off the record so The Administration can proceed with whatever no-bid, black-budget contracts they've already dreamed up and then announce the deployment when it's a done deal without being called out for lying.
But you guys, it's outer-space. I mean, how cool is that? One crazy slant-eye or another has been in charge of North Korea long before my daddy was president, but now I own outer space. I'm going to be a millionaire! I'm going to build a house on the moon, and Ted Stevens is going to help me build a bridge so I can get there.
I believe this has something to do with the fact that our current military deployment system depends heavily upon satellite-based Global Information System ( GIS ) technology.
If some foreign power could disable the United States' GIS satellites, this would severely impair the sort of military tactics the United States has repeatedly demonstrated and deployed since the first Gulf War. See, eg.,
4 Attack on US's command and control
C4ISR stands for command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. In a war situation, C4ISR is a prime target because therein lies the center of gravity of one's adversary. Neutralizing C4ISR is like cutting off the head of a chicken. It can run around in circles for a while, but will soon collapse and die. The same is true in warfare.
Having the mightiest and most modern armed forces in the world, America prides itself with having the most sophisticated and advanced C4ISR. US military spy satellites can gather intelligence data and disseminate it on a real time basis. US surveillance and reconnaissance satellites are so sophisticated that their sensors can detect objects on Earth as small as one-tenth of a meter in size, from several hundred miles up. Satellite sensors can also penetrate clouds and bad weather or see in the night. Some of these spy satellites can also monitor radio or telephone conversations.
Aside from communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, satellites are also used for navigation, most especially in guiding ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, aircraft and other smart weapon systems to their targets. Without satellite guidance, such "smart" and precision weapons turn into "dumb" bombs and directionless missiles.
The advances in C4ISR are rapidly revolutionizing warfare. Gathering, processing, disseminating, and acting on intelligence is now made possible on a real-time or near real-time basis on a global or regional level. Because of these developments, a new war principle is emerging in the modern battlefield: "If the enemy sees you; you are dead."
The US is far advanced in its C4ISR compared with, for instance, China. China cannot hope to catch up and match the American system anytime soon. So in order for China to survive in the event of a major conflict with the US, China has to resort to asymmetric means. This means that China has to develop effective means of countering and neutralizing America’s C4ISR. And that is what China had been working on for more than two decades now.
The heart of America’s C4ISR lies in its technologically sophisticated satellites. But this seeming strength is also an Achilles' heel. Neutralize or destroy the key satellites, and America’s major forces, such as aircraft carrier battle groups, are blinded, muted, and decapitated. This concept is part of China’s strategy for "defeating a superior with an inferior" called shashaojian, or "assassin’s mace". It is like the mace kept by ladies in their bags, which they use when attacked by a mugger or rapist. They squirt the mace into the eyes of an attacker to temporarily blind him, giving the intended victim time to escape.
China now has the capability to identify and track satellites. And for more than two decades they have been busy developing anti-satellite weapons. China has been developing maneuverable nano-satellites that can neutralize other satellites. They do their work by maneuvering near a target satellite and neutralizing the target by electronic jamming, electro-magnetic pulse generation, clinging to the target and physically destroying it, bumping the target out of orbit, or simply exploding to bring the target satellite down with it. Such nano satellites can be launched in batches on demand by road-mobile DF21 or DF31 booster rockets.
Another anti-satellite weapon in the works is a land-based laser that blinds the sensitive sensors of satellites or even destroys them completely. Of course, if worse comes to worst, China can always use its weapon of last resort, destroying adversary satellites with a high-altitude nuclear burst. But this will only be used if China has not yet fully developed the other options when major hostilities start. With the neutralization of its C4ISR, America would be like "a blind man trying to catch fish with his bare hands", to quote Mao Zedong. In short, America would be brought to its knees.
"Does the White House even think about that kind of stuff -- the idea that we should set priorities and try to avoid pissing people off over third-tier issues right when we're potentially on the verge of accomplishing something important?"
It thinks about this sort of stuff, it just thinks about it differently. The White House thinks that pissing people off like this is good diplomacy, because the White House's idea of diplomacy is projecting strength (and bullheadedness) so that other people are too scared to fuck with us. They fail to realise a) the world doesn't work like that, and b) constantly trying to project strength and failing is a good way to project weakness, especially when you're unbelievably incompetent. See Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, China, and the UN Security Council.
Comments closed November 01, 2006.
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Heads in the Sand
> Does the White House even think about that
> kind of stuff -- the idea that we should set
> priorities and try to avoid pissing people
> off over third-tier issues
This is the Administration that recess-appointed John Bolton to be Ambassador to the UN. Quite honestly, without sarcasm or snark, I believe that it is their deliberate policy to piss off as many people and countries as they can (any countries that are not subservient to the US in fact). Their "stir the beehive" theory doesn't just apply to the Middle East but to the entire world. Seriously (meaning that seriously, this is what they are doing, not that their policies are "serious").
Cranky
Posted by Cranky Observer | October 18, 2006 11:06 AM