Obama’s next test: Space

Ajay Lele is a research fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi. He has Master's degrees in Physics and Defence and Strategic Studies, and a PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He works on issues related to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Strategic Technologies. The author of two books — ‘Bio-Weapons: The Genie in the Bottle’ and ‘Weather and Warfare,’ he also contributes regularly to various websites, newspapers and national and international journals.

In his first few days in the White House, new US President Barack Obama has sent out clear signals that he has a well-thought out policy on America’s global interests and that he is not afraid of pursuing it.

On day one, he signed orders to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and other overseas detention centers meant for terror suspects, and they are now expected to be wound up within a year.

As for his policies towards South Asia, he fired his first salvo by claiming that Pakistan is misusing the American aid given for the war on terror, and Washington has now decided to withhold $55 million which they were supposed to reimburse to Pakistan in connection with their efforts towards the fight against terrorism.

Many of these decisions follow an expected pattern. He had made his views public during election debates on these issues, and the only question was whether he would actually fulfil these election promises.

However, one decision taken by him which had hardly found a mention during the heat and dust of his campaign was that of banning space-based weapons.

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His pledge to seek a worldwide ban on weapons in space marks a dramatic shift in American space policy in particular and its overall defence policy in general.

Instead, Obama has articulated the need for international space cooperation for space security.

Relatively speaking, sending satellites to space is a recent phenomenon, with the first one put in orbit barely 51 years ago. The Cold War period also marked fierce competition over space between the two superpowers. The Americans did manned landings on the moon, which the former USSR could never achieve.

But both nations essentially used their space assets to keep watch on each other’s nuclear arsenals. Hence, for the Americans historically outer space has always been the zone of conflict. In March 1983, the then American President Ronald Reagan proposed the concept of a Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI), which subsequently became popular, as the ‘Star Wars’ plan.

The aim was to establish an architecture comprising both ground and space-based systems to provide protection against any attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. This initiative could not be achieved due to technical and other limitations, but the research carried out in this arena was partially responsible for the development of anti- ballistic missile (ABM) systems.

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Just before 9/11, in its report on the relevance of space in future wars, the Rumsfeld Space Commission report concluded that unless Americans took the threats to their space assets seriously, it could become their next “Pearl Harbor.”

But the Americans never wanted to have a globally acceptable space regime mainly because of two reasons: one, to protect their own space assets on which their military relied heavily, and second, because of its relevance for missile defence systems.

Certain parts of a ballistic missile’s trajectory pass through an area which could be considered as outer space. Naturally, any restriction in space has direct or indirect ramifications for the US anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system.

For the US, the establishment of such a missile defence shield was so important that they unilaterally withdrew from the 1972 Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia in 2002, because it had provisions prohibiting testing or deploying of weapons in space.

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The US clearly demonstrated the military utility of their space assets During 1991 Gulf War. In this war, they had a virtual monopoly on access to space-based surveillance, communications, and navigation support. The American space command with its network of highly capable electro-optical and radar imaging satellites was able to determine exactly where to attack, with what munitions, while avoiding enemy troop concentrations, reducing casualties.

Similarly during the Kosovo conflict, the 2001 Afghanistan campaign and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the overall concept of the American operations was heavily dependent on information received from space-based systems. Such use of space assets for the purposes of intelligence gathering, communication and navigation does not violate any space treaty or globally acceptable space norms.

But the Americans did not want to stop there. They wanted free access in space, which indirectly indicated that they were not averse to weaponisation of space.

They wanted to keep the flexibility of destroying or jamming enemy satellites if needed.

In this context, the Obama administration’s announcement of seeking a worldwide ban on weapons that interfere with military and commercial satellites is a welcome change.

For many years the American’s had stalled every move, either in the United Nation’s Committee on Disarmament (CD) or on other multilateral forums, to any globally agreeable attempt to ban space weapons. Attempts by Russia and China, wary of American intentions in space, to engage Washington in a debate on space security were in vain.

Destination Moon

This was probably why China ended up doing the unthinkable in January 2007, when it conducted an anti- satellite test (ASAT) and demonstrated its capability in this field.

Till then, only Russia and the US were considered ‘space weapon states’. The fact that no space weapon tests had been conducted for over two decades had led to the assumption that other nations which had such capability had decided against this. However, China destroyed this belief.

A year ago, when an American spy satellite went out of control, there was a lot of speculation about the danger posed by it to the population on Earth.

So on February 20, 2008, after reconfiguring their missile defence network, the satellite was destroyed at a height of 210 km with a missile fired from an US Navy Aegis cruiser. This act re-demonstrated America’s space weapons as well as missile defence capabilities.

Given this backdrop, Obama’s plans to ban space weapons indicates a major shift in policy.

However, these are early days. The Obama administration needs time to craft a new strategy, which would be vehemently opposed by the hawks in the government.

Technically, the first question would be about the definition of a space weapon. This is extremely difficult because even a small piece of debris in outer space has the potential to damage satellites.

On the other hand, the signing of any treaty to ban space weapons could take the sting out of the American missile defence programme. It could even be construed as an indication that the US had succumbed to Chinese and Russian pressure.

Obama would also have to factor in Chinese plans to invest heavily in space and its impact on the global security calculus.

During the election campaign, it was not weapons but deep space missions which were part of the debate.

Republican nominee John McCain had said that he would like to see a manned mission to Mars as part of a "better set of priorities" for NASA. But with the global recession showing no signs of abating, it could prove difficult for the Obama administration to provide NASA with the huge budgets needed to reach the moon and Mars.

It is possible that the US is temporarily shifting the focus from issues like missile defence and space weaponisation because it is not in a position to afford the huge investments in this field, and it thus does not want to start a space weapons race. This could also be a reason for Obama’s focus on more diplomatic initiatives like proposing a ban on space weapons.

But it is still far too early to predict whether he will succeed in this particular initiative.