U.S. Anti-Satellite Program: ‘Space Is Part of Our Security’

I read with interest, amusement, and dismay the column by Edward L. Rowny, “Space Is Part of Our Security” (Op-Ed Page, July 18). Interest, because Edward Rowny has been a Reagan-Bush Administration arms control adviser for many years; amusement over the tortured syntax and logic of his article; dismay that he is, indeed, our government’s arms control adviser.

The meat of Rowny’s article is that without an anti-satellite program, the United States and our allies will be at the mercy of the Soviets, who, while complaining about our military space program, are the owners of the “world’s only operational anti-satellite (ASAT) system.” I believe it was last month that the Soviets’ “operational ASAT facility” was opened to American observers, who were amazed and embarrassed at the primitive capabilities exhibited there.

Be that as it may, an ASAT is not a defense against an ASAT, as Rowny seems to think, any more than a bullet is a defense against a bullet. The way American military satellites are protected from Soviet countermeasures is to harden them against radiation and provide them with means to detect and defend against attempts to blind the sensitive sensors on them. Ultimately, however, what protects our satellites is the consequences of making such a hostile gesture as to attack them.

The only thing an ASAT is truly good for is a surprise, massive, first strike against the enemy’s entire surveillance and early-warning system. If such an attack were ever launched, retaliation against the attacker’s satellites would be absurd; we would have much more pressing matters to attend to here on the surface of the Earth, like kissing our world goodby.

The idea that we should develop an ASAT as a sort of analog to the development of our naval forces in the last century to assure freedom of the high seas is specious reasoning. A closer analogy would be this century’s tragic development of first airborne and then space-borne nuclear delivery systems, which have assured nothing but the stillbirth of rational arms control policies.

DAVID O. KASE

Palos Verdes Estates