Need for Anti-Satellite Weapons

An article by Noel Gayler, a retired admiral, and Matthew Bunn, a researcher at a private arms control group (“Building New Anti-Satellite Weapons Could Shoot Down National Security,” Opinion, July 16) advocates a ban on further development of the U.S. Air Force anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon. This follows a self-proclaimed Soviet moratorium on ASAT testing after its own system has already been put in place. Bunn and Gayler argue that the Soviet ASAT weapon is primitive, and that we should seize the chance to negotiate mutual restraints now because we rely more on satellites than the Soviets do.

This analysis misses a number of key points, though. First, we have a need for ASAT testing that the Soviets do not share. The Soviets already have in place a fully operational, fully tested ASAT weapon system. They have conducted 20 tests of this system, and deployed operational weapons. In 1982 they integrated this system into full-scale exercises of offensive and defense strategic forces. It is one clearly intended to blind U.S. surveillance and communications satellites if war should threaten. The Soviets also have other systems, such as high-energy lasers, that have inherent anti-satellite capacity.

We have no comparable ASAT weapon. As a result, the Soviets threaten our satellites while theirs sail through space, invulnerable. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that they have offered to stop testing and development.

It is true that our own ASAT prototype, tested once successfully, is technologically superior to the Soviet weapon. However, as in other areas, this technological edge is critical to the balance of power given the substantial Soviet advantage in quantitative arms. Further testing by us is essential now in order to prove our system reliable.

Critics such as Bunn and Gayler claim that we are more at risk from ASAT weapons than the Soviets because of our greater reliance on satellites for a variety of functions, particularly communications and early-warning surveillance. However, while this may be true from a short-term perspective, the proper assessment of comparative satellite systems is considerably more complex.

First, most U.S. satellites are in geosynchronous orbit, at approximately 22,500 miles above the Earth, too high to be hit by the existing Soviet weapon. By the time the Soviets improve their ASAT weapon or develop others--and based on past history they will, no matter what we do--we will have taken measures to improve our own satellites’ survivability.

Second, the Soviets have been investing massively to acquire the naval, airlift, and foreign base capability to project military power far beyond their Eurasian land base. The day will soon come, regrettably, when they will have just as great a need for satellite communications as we. Indeed, the number of Soviet operational satellites for military application has already increased dramatically, and now exceeds our own by at least 20%.

If there is to be any meaningful limitation in the anti-satellite area, it could be one that limits weapons to lower altitudes, so as not to threaten the more critical high altitude early-warning and communications systems. Neither the proven Soviet system nor our own developmental one is currently directed towards these. This is the approach endorsed by a study prepared by former defense and national security officials under both the Carter and Ford administrations. Such an agreement would have to overcome the record of pervasive and continuing Soviet violations of other arms control treaties, as well as the fundamental problem of verification.

Realistically, however, satellite and anti-satellite systems should be seen as a continuum, not compartmented off into low-altitude and high-altitude categories. Ultimately the Soviets will threaten our more valuable, high-altitude assets, and even if they might not this is not a prudent risk to take. To guard against this, we should go forward with ASAT testing and development to (1) provide negotiating leverage to secure a meaningful agreement; (2) assure proven ASAT capability in the event no agreement can be reached.

A self-imposed ban, unfortunately, would accomplish neither goal. It would ensure instead the worst of all worlds--one-sided self-restraint that locks us into permanent disadvantage, while placing no limitation on the other side. We should not effectively give the Soviet Union a veto over U.S. development of our own technology. The military balance is a dynamic, changing equation, and we simply cannot afford, as a matter of national security, to engage in what is effectively unilateral disarmament. We need an effective ASAT system now.

RICHARD SYBERT

Los Angeles

Sybert served as special assistant to the secretary of defense during 1985-86.