It’s Shattering

The White House intends to shatter the sanctuary of space with a satellite-killing missile sometime in September. We hope the equipment is not as flimsy as the case that the Reagan Administration makes for doing it.

The shattering device, known by the Air Force as an ASAT system, will be a missile launched from racks under a high-flying F-15 fighter plane and programmed to cripple satellites by colliding with them. In the test, the target will be an exhausted American satellite, still wandering around the Earth in orbit.

In a written notice to Congress, President Reagan argues that final testing of the satellite-killer has an urgent bearing on the nation’s security. White House aides try to reinforce the argument, claiming that the Soviet Union has a monopoly on satellite-killers that must be broken. The truth is more complicated than that.

The Soviet Union has a ground-based satellite-killer that takes as long as 24 hours to get ready to fire and has, at best, proved effective less than half the time in tests--he last of which was conducted in 1982. Robert C. McFarlane, the President’s national-security adviser, calls that a monopoly. McFarlane, a former Marine Corps colonel, surely would hesitate to order men into action carrying rifles that would misfire half the time. A Soviet system with the same track record can hardly be called a monopoly.

In one breath White House spokesman Larry Speakes said this week that the September test might give the Soviets an “incentive” to bargain seriously on a treaty limiting or banning satellite-killers. In the next he said that the test would not affect Geneva arms-control talks. As for incentive, the Soviets have tried for months to interest the United States in such a ban, without apparent success.

In his letter Reagan told Congress that the United States must move, in part, because of a “growing threat from present and prospective” Soviet systems to American satellites. The CIA has told Congress that the Soviet systems pose no threat to American satellites. A prospective threat can be dealt with by treaty.

The White House arguments do not discuss the fact that America depends far more on its satellites to link this country’s global forces than the Soviets depend on theirs. They are misleading in their discussion of using American satellite-killers to “deter” Soviet systems. Satellite-killers cannot fend off attacks on satellites; they can only destroy satellites. White House statements equate weapons in space with militarization of space--also misleading. Spy satellites long ago “militarized” space, and the world is better for it. Satellites make it impossible for the Soviet Union to move forces around without America and its allies seeing them. Deploying weapons in space would provide no such stabilizing influence.

The White House should call off the September test. If not, it must at least level with Americans about the implications of the test. The risk that the test will stampede the Soviets into trying to build a better batch of satellite-killers is far higher than the chance that it will make them jump to negotiate.