SETTING PRIORITIES FOR SPACE
The United States is dramatically reconfiguring its posture in space, the Bush administration’s top arms control official has disclosed. Speaking at a December 13th conference convened by the George C. Marshall Institute, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Robert Joseph publicly outlined the focus of the President’s newly-released National Space Policy. The rationale behind the new posture, Joseph explained, was to “ensure the long-term security of our space assets in light of new threats and as a result of our increased use of space.” As a result, the new policy focuses on greater “inter-agency coordination, collaboration, and information sharing,” more robust “space situational awareness and intelligence collection and analysis,” and “strengthening the space science and technology base, developing space professionals, and strengthening U.S. industrial competitiveness, especially through use of U.S. commercial space capabilities.”
Today, Joseph outlined, American space assets are vulnerable to a range of threats, from anti-satellite weapons to electro-magnetic pulse to direct military force. “Moreover,” according to Joseph, “the ability to restrict or deny our freedom of access to, and operations in space is no longer limited simply to nation states.” Thus, while the new U.S. space policy, consistent with previous ones, does not seek to “deny access to space for peaceful purposes by other nations,” it is designed to develop “a full range of options to deter and defend against threats to our space infrastructure.”
IN RUSSIA, MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO U.S. MISSILE DEFENSE...
The Bush administration’s plans for a European missile defense location are continuing to make waves in Moscow. RIA Novosti (December 14) reports that Russian General Staff Chief Yuri Baluyevsky has dismissed U.S. assertions that its missile defense efforts are designed to counter ballistic missile threats from rogue states, such as North Korea. Baluyevsky recently told a gathering of foreign military attaches that American missile defense sites in Eastern Europe represented a “major reconfiguration of the American military presence” in that part of the world, with serious implications for Russian security. According to the Russian military chief, the Kremlin sees America’s development of anti-missile capability as an “unfriendly signal” – one necessitating the development of asymmetric “counter-measures.”
...AND MORE MILITARY MODERNIZATION
At the same time, Moscow is moving forward with missile plans of its own. According to RIA Novosti (December 12), Russia has brought online a new generation of its “Topol”-class silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles. With a range of over 10,000 kilometers and a 1,200 kilogram payload capacity, officials in Moscow see the “Topol” as the new “mainstay” of Russia’s strategic arsenal. The next-generation missile reportedly is hard to detect, immune to electromagnetic pulse, and capable of defeating American missile defenses.
But the “Topol” is just one element of a much larger, $200 billion Russian rearmament and modernization program – one that includes substantial upgrades to the country’s strategic nuclear and submarine forces. A planned expansion of Russia’s aerospace defense system, including the adoption of “state-of-the-art early-warning, reconnaissance, telecommunications, and automated-control systems, as well as missile interceptors,” is also said to be in the works, according to the news agency.
CUTTING OFF CHAVEZ
Mounting pressure from Washington has forced Israel to reexamine its defense ties with the regime of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Geostrategy-direct (week of December 6) reports that Israel has frozen more than $50 million in defense contracts with Caracas, including past agreements to sell the “Barak” sea-based missile defense system, as well as an array of air-to-ground missiles. A representative of the state-owned Rafael defense company confirms the rationale behind Jerusalem’s reversal. “We want to complete this deal, but the [U.S.] administration is very much against this,” according to the industry source. Although not a friend to Israel and the United States, “until now [Caracas] was buying our systems,” but “we are going to have to review our defense relations.”
Want these sent to your inbox?
Subscribe
