Rumsfeld Lays Out a Strategy for Space

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld announced a Pentagon reorganization plan Tuesday that he called the first step toward protecting U.S. satellites from hostile attack, but critics charged that it is intended to project American power and weapon technology into orbit.

“More than any other country, the United States relies on space for its security and well-being,” Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon news conference. “Our dependence on operations in space, however, makes us somewhat vulnerable to new challenges. It’s only logical to conclude that we must be attentive to these vulnerabilities and pay careful attention to protecting and promoting our interest in space.”

Rumsfeld’s plan, which would put the Air Force in charge of planning and purchasing decisions for all of the Pentagon’s space programs, touched off fears among critics that the United States plans to extend its superpower influence into space.

“I think putting weapons in space may be the single dumbest thing I’ve heard so far in this administration,” said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.). “It would be a disaster for us to put weapons in space, of any kind, under any circumstances.”

For his part, Rumsfeld insisted the reorganization announced Tuesday will not by itself put weapons in space. Instead, he said, “these proposals have to do with organizational arrangements within the Department of Defense that put a focus on the important issues relating to space.”

But, describing the initiative as the second step in a high-tech military strategy that began with President Bush’s proposal for a missile defense system, Rumsfeld made clear that he intends to prepare the Pentagon for anticipated threats in space.

“We’re taking an enormously significant issue that deserves debate, that deserves discussion. . . . It deserves a lot better than the old worn-out arguments of the last 20 or 30 years,” he said.

Rumsfeld’s plan was essentially a bureaucratic reorganization, placing military space programs, now scattered around the Pentagon, into two interlocking commands, each headed by a four-star general.

But the objective of the new commands was clear. In his written report to Congress, Rumsfeld said the Air Force will be “assigned responsibility to organize, train and equip for prompt and sustained offensive and defensive space operations.”

He said the existing Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will be “directed to undertake research and demonstration of innovative space technologies and systems for dedicated military missions.”

Currently, the Pentagon’s space program includes reconnaissance satellites as well as several systems that are under development, including airborne and space-based laser systems and a system of satellites that can detect missile launches from hundreds of miles above Earth.

In accepting a blue-ribbon commission’s report, Rumsfeld was giving blessings to his own views.

The commission, assigned to study the risks of the Space Age, concluded in January that warfare in orbit is a “virtual certainty” that the United States must prepare for by deploying weapons in space if necessary. Its chairman was Rumsfeld, then a private citizen. Now, having been appointed to Bush’s Cabinet, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld described the panel’s recommendations Tuesday as a “thorough, independent and objective assessment.”

Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.), a congressional supporter of the commission’s report, underlined the threat faced by U.S. satellites used for reconnaissance, communication and a variety of other civilian and military applications.

“There are nations out there who are hostile to us,” Smith said. “And they are in space. They have such weapons as lasers, anti-satellite weapons and electromagnetic pulse weapons, and we have to be ready to recognize that threat.”

But arms control advocates said there are no reliable reports that any nation has a workable anti-satellite weapon, although both the United States and the Soviet Union tested such systems several decades ago.

“U.S. policy has been to recognize the importance of maintaining space as a sanctuary, providing free and unimpeded access for all countries,” said Spurgeon Keeny, president of the Arms Control Assn., a private advocacy group. “The best way to protect satellites is by not establishing military programs. . . . One doesn’t want to casually inject systems that suggest that we would try to deny other people’s access to space.”

Keeny, an official of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in the Jimmy Carter administration, said Bush’s team is developing theoretical weapons “to combat nonexistent threats. They can say you have to do it 10 or 20 years in advance and some of that is legitimate. But there are plenty of real problems to be dealt with; this seems like a diversion of effort and treasure.”

Other critics said Rumsfeld’s comments are sure to stoke growing complaints from abroad, including from some U.S. allies, that Bush’s policy borders on arrogance.

“It reinforces world anxiety about American hegemonism and American military domination of the planet,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a private arms control organization in suburban Virginia. “It certainly will raise anxiety that America wants to control the world from outer space.”

Rumsfeld dismissed such complaints. “I don’t believe there is an anti-satellite warfare race in space,” he said. “Certainly it has nothing to do with what we’re talking about today.”