|
Monday, June 09 2008 @ 10:12 AM EDT
Who Owns Space?
Kevin Sanders
I once wrote a speech on space for President Reagan. The remarks were basic boilerplate for an event rather than for a president: the 20th anniversary of the first American in space, for which I was producing and writing a TV documentary on the Fox network. The White House asked me to write the introduction to be read by the president. As expected, Reagan read the speech flawlessly without change, with all the skills of the professional actor. But the last sentence had been cut. I had written: "As we reach for the stars, we invite the people of the world to join us in this grand odyssey."
America, it seems, does not see space as a global commons but as American territory.
This perception is reinforced in an article in the latest issue of Space Governance, the journal of the United Societies in Space, which reveals not only a deep seated American reluctance to share space with the rest of the world, but, among at least some American space experts, a determination to establish the United States as the sole official authority in space for the foreseeable future.
In "The US vs. UN: Cases for Space Authority" by Alex Lightman, a graduate of the Kennedy School of Government, he writes: "The US is the only possible guarantor of safety and freedom in space... only the US has consistently shown itself willing and able to slow or prevent the diffusion of dangerous or potentially dangerous technologies."
This is only one of a series of astonishing assertions on which Lightman bases his case that the US and not the UN should control space.
It is worth weighing Lightman's claim that the US and not the UN should be "the guarantor of safety and freedom in space" against the US Star Wars program. Only a week before Reagan announced - without warning - that he planned to put nuclear bombs in space, the UN UNispace 82 conference in Vienna had specifically warned against the weaponization and nuclearization of space. Unfortunately the conference was unable to formalize the warning because both the US and the then-Soviet Union conspired to keep the subject off the agenda. Only an independent NGO group at UNispace 82 managed to set up an emergency session (headed by Arthur C. Clarke) to discuss the dangers of space weapons.
Star Wars is a striking example of US contempt for the United Nations claim that space should be maintained as a global commons. Reagan's call for nuclear-powered laser weapons in space came without so much as a phone call to any other nation. The UN was never consulted or informed, even though such space weapons would violate the ABM (Anti Ballistic Missile) Treaty, and create a de-facto illegal anti-satellite weapon system that would threaten the entire international civilian space enterprise.
It was, as former US Defense Secretary Harold Brown said, “the most irresponsible single act by an American president this century”. On CNN the morning after Reagan's announcement I described the proposal as being as surreal and fanciful as the movie Star Wars. Others thought so too, and the name stuck.
Attempts by Sweden and other nations to discuss Star Wars in the UN were quashed by the US. And so the US has gone on to spend $55-billion on a plan that would involve nuclear bombs orbiting as close as 80-miles above the heads of everyone on earth while the US continues to use its power to block any UN discussion of the dangers of space weapons. And all for nothing - a fantasy. After sixteen years there is still no space defense system in place, nor even a workable system on the drawing boards.
As the renowned science writer, Arthur C. Clarke told the UNispace 82 conference, such a system is inherently impractical since it would cost trillions of dollars to build and launch and would always be vulnerable to cheap and easy countermeasures. (A bag of nails launched into reverse orbit would destroy even the most advanced system.) And there is no strategic value in Star Wars. Long before any effective system of space-based antimissile weapons could be put in place, adversary nations would simply take their bombs off the missiles and put them on low flying planes that could fly under the radar. More likely - and even easier and cheaper - would be the secret pre-positioning of nuclear bombs in the target area in a truck or a boat or a basement.
Are the policies advocated by Lightman those of a nation we should look to as the world's “guarantor of safety and freedom in space”? Is this the nation that has slowed and prevented the “diffusion of dangerous technologies”?
Lightman also boasts, "Only the US has shown the guts to consistently put its economic interests aside for what it perceives to be the greater good."
Really?
What about Sweden whose people provide more then double the per-capita aid to developing nations than that of US citizens? What about New Zealand, whose people suffered vicious US trade sanctions when the New Zealand government led the move to establish a nuclear-free Pacific? And what about the vast majority of the world's nations, rich and poor who – unlike the US - dutifully pay their dues to the United Nations?
Of course Lightman is openly hostile to the UN. He argues that there is no way the UN could exercise authority over space because "UN's treaties are unenforceable." He goes on to applaud the US for leading the defiance of the UN. "The US consistently ignores the UN and World Court resolutions...whether the issues are mining Nicaraguan harbors, eliminating land mines or execution of a Paraguayan national." This is a curious boast for a nation that claims the moral authority to lead the world on earth or in space.
Yet Lightman goes on to urge that the US should assert itself the sole "trustees" of the Moon, Mars and other celestial bodies. He proposes Congress set up a Space Authority under the auspices of the State Department. Does the world really want to yield space to the likes of Jesse Helms? (Helms, when asked if the US should violate the ABM treaty with space weapons replied, "We needn't ought to worry about such things because Jesus will be back before we have to decide.") The policies of the UN's Outer Space Affairs Committee would seem to offer the world a more reflective and balanced view of how space should be developed for the benefit of all humankind.
However, Lightman insists the US has earned the right to administer world policy in space because, as he asserts flatly, "The US is the society most deserving of replication." Probably not everyone would agree.
America is the world's only superpower, the richest and most vigorous of democracies, the nation that once offered inspiration and refuge to the world's oppressed. And as Lightman rightly notes, the US has given the world the priceless gift of the Internet. Yet here too is a nation that was founded on slavery, that decimated the native population, invaded its neighbors in Mexico, committed mass atrocities against civilians in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and My Lai, illegally invaded Laos, Cambodia, Libya and Panama, conducted secret wars in Latin America, still defies the World Court call for nuclear disarmament, fights every step of the way against setting up a World Criminal Court, leads the developed world in the proportion of its population behind bars - particularly black Americans, and is among the lowest in the proportion of funds it allocates for education, infant health and social services. It is not an unblemished record.
Yet if the nations of the world should raise objections to US efforts to reject UN authority and seize control of space, Lightman warns in a particularly ominous and truculent tone: "It is unlikely that the UN will be able to muster the force and stealth to become a threat to the US if denied the ability to be in a position of authority". He goes on to warn that, 'The US has a military space capability in the form of hundreds of strategic nuclear missile sites and nuclear submarines that is unmatched by the rest of the world." Clearly he is arguing not for democracy in the development of space, but for military control that would exclude other nations. Might is right. He is advocating a US takeover of space, involving possible military confrontation with the UN.
And why? The US is not threatened in space. It is obviously likely to remain for some time the most advanced nation in space technology and exploration. Russia has long since lost its early lead. America went to the moon and proclaimed they came for all mankind. But they planted an American flag. (Then committed what Norman Mailer described as the “ultimate obscenity” of playing golf on the moon.) A rich and vibrant democracy like America does not need to threaten or exclude the rest of the world from space. If America claims to be the leader of the free world then let space be free. By definition a commons is free to all. Besides, free people do not need leaders. They need vigilance to protect themselves against those who seek to impose authority in the name of self-proclaimed leadership.
Carol Rosin, director of ISCOS (Institute for Security and Cooperation in Outer Space) has warned: "The only alternative to weaponization of the inner solar system is a verifiable treaty to ban all weapons in space, combined with an international space program to convert the war mentality to a mentality of global cooperation." And as the late science writer, Isaac Asimov once said, "Every nation should be involved in the space program, even if it only to provide the paper clips."
Lightman's xenophobic article can not be dismissed as an isolated polemic - a singular voice of strutting American space macho. Within the US space community, the military and government there is at least some support for his views - although seldom have they been articulated so defiantly and provocatively. They serve, however unintentionally, as a much-needed warning to the world. The UN's next UNispace conference takes place later this year in Vienna. All delegates and participants, particularly NGOs, should arm themselves with copies of Lightman's article in order better to understand what the world is up against in attempting to develop a UN policy to serve - in the words of the UN Outer Space Affair Committee: "the peaceful use of space in the interests of all mankind."
Alex Lightman's article appears in the July 1998 issue of Space Governance Journal. Copies of Space Governance are available from: THE UNITED SOCIETIES IN SPACE INC., 3300 East 14th Avenue, Denver, CO 80206 USA Tel: (800) 6895-META Fax: (303) 780~0732 E-rnail: USISpace@aol.com
This article first appeared in the War & Peace Digest in 199. It regains relevance and urgency in light of George W. Bush’s revival of Star Wars.
|
 |
|
