[A-List] US imperialism: space

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

The space industry and US supremacy
By Loring Wirbel
Asia Times, November 26 2002

(With permission from Foreign Policy in Focus)

Key points
* During the 1990s, the United States' commercial space industry flourished
and ties to the military lessened.
* Recent disasters, cost overruns industry shifts in technology, and
post-September 11 security measures have increased military ties to civilian
space programs.
* Foreign competitors represent only a minor challenge to the US space
program.

The mid-1990s were heady years for the commercial space industry. Space
buffs had been promoting the privatization of space applications for some
time, so the satellite industry could lessen if not sever its ties to the
military. When manned planetary exploration fell victim to spiraling cost
overruns, advocates of space privatization looked to the proliferation of
satellites in near-earth space, particularly to personal communication
technology. Just as investors in the 1990s considered anything
Internet-related as an instant gold mine, space advocates viewed the success
of small low-earth-orbit (LEO) communication satellites as a litmus test for
the commercialization of space.

On the balance sheet, this strategy appeared to pay off. The commercial
satellite industry posted double-digit growth trends to yield an industry
aggregate in 2001 of $97.7 billion in revenue worldwide. This total includes
$42 billion in satellite services, $17 billion in satellite manufacturing,
$18 billion in ground stations, and $9 billion in launch services and
vehicle manufacturing.

These numbers do not convey, however, the crisis in the satellite industry.
Several recent disasters, including the simultaneous loss of 12 Globalstar
satellites in Kazakhstan, have rocked investor confidence. Cost overruns
imperil key projects. In perhaps the most significant blow, the
telecommunications industry pulled the rug out from under the commercial
satellite industry by turning to cellular networks based on the ground
rather than in space. Throughout most of the 1990s, the average number of
satellite launches per year was 90, but in 2001 the number shrunk to 60, of
which only 15 were true commercial satellite launches.

Because of these problems, the United States' commercial space industry
remains dependent on the military for technology and capital infusions. LEO
networks have depended on technology developed by the National
Reconnaissance Office (NRO); without technology transfers and handouts from
the military, networks like Iridium never would have made it past the design
stage. With the help of the military, the space industry in the US remains
the strongest in the world. There are some competitors. The European Space
Agency (ESA) is still sending up Ariane satellites from the Kourou launch
facility in French Guiana. The European Union (EU) still supports the
Galileo navigation network, despite intense US pressure to cancel the
program. And China is on the verge of introducing an ambitious
manned-mission and satellite program. But these foreign competitors
represent only a minor challenge to the US space program.

Although the melding of the US Space Command into the Strategic Command
appears to have placed space dominance in limbo, efforts to maintain
unilateral control of space are as strong as ever, implemented by the
enlarged Strategic Command and the new Northern Command, which has taken
over the facilities of the former Space Command in Colorado Springs. The
directors of the Strategic Command and of the NRO have argued forcefully in
public for using existing strategic assets against any nation, any terror
group, any drug dealer, to help reinforce US invulnerability.

After the September 11 tragedy, even the so-called civilian programs within
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) began serving the
government in a more explicit fashion. For example, NASA satellite systems
like Sea-Wide Field Studies (Sea-WiFS) played a critical role in spotting
Taliban forces during the Afghan War. And ties between NASA and the
intelligence community are about to become even closer; the NRO announced in
September 2002 the opening of a Transformational Communications Office to
link Pentagon, NASA, and NRO communication networks in space.

Satellites and satellite launches are an integral part of the US government'
s vision of achieving control over space for both military and economic
purposes. The Space Command's 1996 document, Vision for 2020, talks of
controlling planetary space in order to protect the current global division
between economic haves and have-nots. In the 1990s, the notion of preserving
"permanent preeminence", as defense analyst Michael Klare calls Washington's
unspoken assumption of undisputed planetary hegemony, found unanimous favor
as a philosophical baseline in almost all sectors of the Democratic and
Republican parties. When the Bush administration took power in early 2001,
this unilateralism and its application in space became an element of pride
rather than merely a quiet reality as had been practiced by the Democrats.

Problems with current US policy

Key problems
* Ever since low-earth-orbit telecommunication satellite plans proved
infeasible, civilian launch platform and satellite efforts have faltered,
and the growth of the space industry has hinged upon Pentagon ambitions.
* Globalization of the space industry directly serves Pentagon efforts to
control planetary space for purposes of political and military power
projection.
* "Globalization" of space has facilitated the consolidation of space
control under Lockheed-Martin, Northrop-Grumman/TRW, Boeing, and Raytheon.

The US government is committed to achieving military supremacy in space and
maintaining dominant market share in the satellite industry for US
corporations. The mission of space supremacy did not suddenly appear when
George W Bush took office in 2001. It evolved from infrastructures that were
borrowed from intelligence and weapons networks and were developed over 40
years as part of the Cold War. After the Cold War ended, the US sought a
space-based, 24-hour reconnaissance network and the construction of a
national missile defense (NMD) system to extend its economic might. Although
the aerospace industry is not powerful enough to set the agenda for US-based
transnationals at large, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has
consistently stressed that the implementation of global free markets serving
large corporations would not be possible without the "hidden iron fist" of
the military, which is led by the aerospace sector.

As an indication of the central role space dominance continues to play - and
the intimate connection between commerce and the military - consider the
many hats worn by Peter Teets, former chief operating officer at
Lockheed-Martin. Teets now serves as the director of the National
Reconnaissance Office (NRO), undersecretary of the Air Force, and chief
procurement officer for all of military space, controlling a budget in
excess of $65 billion, a figure that includes $8 billion a year for missile
defense and $7 billion annually for NRO spying. Teets is a firm believer in
the conclusions of the Rumsfeld Commission's January 2001 report on the
military in space, which warns of a "space Pearl Harbor" if the US does not
thoroughly dominate all aspects of space. In addition, key lobbyists for
Lockheed-Martin, Bruce Jackson and Stephen Hadley, played central roles in
developing space policy, and Hadley later took a post within the Pentagon.

To underpin NMD and space supremacy, the US uses multiple space systems, and
the Pentagon is spending billions to update each of these. Space-based
intelligence collection is dominated by gargantuan geosynchronous satellite
networks that represent windfall profits for prime contractors and have
generated significant cost overruns. These systems range from satellite
launchers to different tiers of satellites circling the earth.

>From its inception in 1998, the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) was
designed to reduce the cost to the US government of imaging and
signals-intelligence satellite launches. Large rockets like Titan-4 cost
more than $1 billion dollars each, but the Atlas-5 and Delta-IV EELVs use
streamlined designs and cheaper components to reduce launch costs by as much
as 80 percent. Although the NRO heavily promoted the commercial spin-off
possibilities of EELVs, the commercial prospects for the new launchers now
appear minimal. Contractors see it as a potential bailout program for their
cost overruns. The public may never learn how much the government has spent
on EELVs. The NRO worked with contractors to insure that most information
remains "vendor proprietary" - even if the information is declassified, it
can remain secret to meet the wishes of the vendor. To date, it is believed
that the NRO has provided slightly more than $500 million each to Lockheed
Martin and Boeing, but even Defense Department inspector general auditor
studies on EELV expenditures are classified.

The Global Positioning System (GPS) can provide precision targeting for
military missions, while civilian customers use less accurate frequencies as
navigational aids. Newer military enhancements to the GPS provide support
for what the Pentagon calls "Navwar". Warning of impending missile launches
has been the domain of an aging infrared satellite system called Defense
Support Program (DSP). A critical part of the missile defense program
involves the replacement of DSP satellites with a two-tiered network of
satellites called the Space-Based Infrared System, deployed in two portions
called SBIRS-High and SBIRS-Low. SBIRS-Low is still in its early phases, but
SBIRS-High, managed by Lockheed-Martin, is facing a congressional review due
to cost overruns exceeding $4 billion.

Intelligence distribution is a function of the Global Broadcast System
(GBS). During the war in Afghanistan, the GBS provided "instant situational
awareness" to troops and pilots by integrating intelligence from satellites,
unmanned aerial vehicle flights, and ground signals intelligence stations.
Imaging satellites will be replaced by Boeing's 8X Future Imagery
Architecture, a satellite project with total procurement costs in the tens
of billions of dollars. The signals-intelligence equivalent is the Intruder,
a program that has amassed significant cost overruns.

As contractors retool international defense programs for missions serving
the homeland defense duties of the Northern Command, the four consolidated
defense contractors will increasingly develop dual-use capabilities. To cite
but one example of the blurring of public and private sectors, the NRO and
the National Security Agency (NSA) elected to outsource to Raytheon much of
the intelligence processing for Buckley Air Force Base in Colorado, the
largest electronic intelligence downlink base in North America. In 2001,
Raytheon announced that it would set up secure-hosted Web services for
corporate America in the same massive classified facility in which it
performs intelligence processing. In August 2002, Raytheon announced a
billion-dollar expansion at the same site to develop ground systems for the
National Polar-Orbit Operational Environmental Satellite, a joint
weather-satellite program of the Defense Department, NASA, and the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Raytheon's multitasking may
represent the norm in a system dominated by US-based defense contractors.

Toward a new foreign policy

Key recommendations
* It is important to have a space industry outside Pentagon control. *
Besides being ineffective, achieving nonproliferation through tighter export
control, as advocated by some arms control groups, allows the current
"keeper of the keys" to determine the legitimacy of foreign space projects.
* A uniform rule should apply to both the US and to other nations: No nation
should weaponize space, and no nation should use military platforms in space
in ways that encourage or reinforce power projection.

In the Clinton era, some efforts at controlling the proliferation of space
technology were made through international bodies such as the Missile
Technology Control Regime (MTCR). When such agencies participate directly in
preventing the export of multistage rockets from a nation like North Korea
or Iraq to emerging states, the mission appears to be a legitimate one. But
arms control advocates sometimes put too much faith in false multilateral
agencies that do not confront existing inequities. In the same way that
small nations object to the Non-Proliferation Treaty because of the inaction
of the major states in eliminating nuclear weapons, arms control
professionals must be wary when the current "keepers of the keys" promote
technology limitation that serves the interests of unilateral supremacy. The
NSA should not be in the position of single-handedly determining encryption
and security technology for the world, and the NRO should play no direct
role in determining which nations are "allowed" to have a given level of
space technology.

Since the advent of the Bush administration, multilateral bodies like the
MTCR have become almost irrelevant. A truly independent and peace-oriented
space program needs multiple centers of gravity, though that is not
necessarily easy to attain. Just as David Ricardo's rules of "comparative
advantage" make it all but impossible to return to an era of tariffs and
national commerce, the economies of scale in the space industry make it
unlikely that scores of space programs in other countries will survive.

European institutions are an important counterweight to Pentagon dominance,
whether through ESA or EU funding of large European space conglomerates, but
European programs are not wholly independent. For example, German activists
have exposed the role of some ESA radar programs in aiding forward-based
missions of NATO and the EU Rapid Reaction Force.

In examining space-based communication and intelligence systems, whether
funded by military or commercial interests, citizens should ask: Does this
system serve multilateral or unilateral interests, and will its further
development increase or decrease stability? Any system failing the
multilateralist or stability test should be opposed without compromise.
Citizens can also accelerate and expand opposition to militarization of
space by highlighting the hazards of unilateralism within the United States.
As the Department of Homeland Security introduces surveillance tools that
infringe upon the civil rights of US citizens, it will have to rely on
defense contractors to bolster space supremacy networks.

Legal challenges to the USA Patriot Act and related Justice Department
executive orders should specify limits on aerospace corporations that ply
their wares for domestic surveillance. Boeing and Raytheon, for example,
have developed analytical tools for the space intelligence community that
will be applied to new airport security and border security systems. Oracle,
a private software company tightly linked to the CIA and NSA, is working
with top defense contractors on unified databases for civilian profiling.
Although groups like the American Civil Liberties Union quickly grasped the
dangers of the USA Patriot Act and the Homeland Security Department, few
civil libertarians realize that many of the tools of domestic repression
were perfected when the intelligence systems developed for the Cold War were
retargeted in the mid-1990s.

A technology base involving several national governments and corporations of
various sizes, divorced from US military interests, may take five years or
more to emerge. Relying on a unilateralist and empire-building US military
as a transitional source of funds for commercial ventures in space, however,
may place space proponents in the Faustian position of supporting preemptive
warfare technologies.

The overwhelming role played by large US corporations in building space
systems that only the US government is permitted to use represents the
backbone of US unilateralism in space. Though it is true that European
defense contractors can't keep up with Lockheed-Martin, Boeing,
Northrop-Grumman/TRW, and Raytheon, US transnationals are not providing the
impetus. Instead, the supremacist tail of unilateral policy is wagging the
globalist corporate dog.

Loring Wirbel is editorial director at CMP Media LLC, a member of the board
of directors of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in
Space, and a member of Colorado Springs-based Citizens for Peace in Space.