[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 127 (Wednesday, September 26, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9826-S9828]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               SPACE WARS

  Mr. BYRD. Madam President, during the August recess, The New York 
Times Magazine ran a cover story entitled ``The Coming Space War'' The 
article caught my interest, as I am sure that it intrigued many other 
readers. The author's contention is that the U.S. military is 
considering a campaign to achieve military superiority in space similar 
to the kind of military superiority that U.S. forces seek in the air, 
on land, and from the sky. Military superiority in space is deemed 
critical in order to protect our increasing dependence on satellites 
for communications, surveillance, commercial and military purposes. On 
August 24, President Bush named Air Force General Richard Myers, a 
former chief of the U.S. Space Command and of the North American 
Aerospace Defense Command, as the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
Staff. General Myers' selection as Chairman is in keeping with 
President Bush's strong support for building a national missile 
defense, NMD, the follow-on to President Reagan's Star Wars Strategic 
Defense Initiative, SDI.
  It is certainly true that our dependence--and that of other developed 
and developing nations--on these winking, blinking objects winging 
through the night sky has increased exponentially over the last decade. 
It has rapidly become almost impossible to imagine a world without the 
Internet, the World Wide Web, electronic mail on handheld computers or 
cellular phones, automated teller machines, instantaneous worldwide 
credit card use, and other forms of global telecommunications and 
electronic commerce. This expansion and its dependence on satellite 
links will continue to increase in future decades. We are all 
dependent, and, therefore, we are all vulnerable, to the seamless and 
uninterrupted access to satellites. Most people, however, do not 
understand these technologies. I certainly do not. Like most people, I 
can understand that I may be vulnerable in ways that are new to me, a 
boy from the Mercer County hills in southern West Virginia. But how 
best to address this new vulnerability?
  The author of The New York Times Magazine article describes three 
fundamentally different philosophical approaches to this brave new 
realm of space. The first is a military approach, which opens up a 
Pandora's box of weapons in space. The military, it is reported, has 
looked into the future and come to the conclusion that space represents 
the ``ultimate military `high ground,' '' requiring the military to 
develop and deploy whatever technology is necessary to achieve what has 
been termed ``Global Battlespace Dominance,'' or ``Full Spectrum 
Dominance.'' The tools needed might include everything from National 
Missile Defense to antisatellite laser or high-powered microwave 
weapons, or clusters of microsatellites to hyperspectral surveillance 
satellites and other space sensors--or all of these things. Some of 
these systems are under development now or due for testing soon, 
according to the article, already undercutting the author's assertion 
that the weaponization of space is coming, when, in fact, it may 
already be upon us. Already--already--additional funding to the tune of 
$190 million is being sought in the defense authorization and 
appropriations bills for space weapons.
  Now, if I, like most people, do not really understand the 
technologies behind satellite communications and cell phones, it is 
even harder to understand the technologies behind hyperspectral 
surveillance satellites or space-based lasers. And that lack of 
technical expertise means, like most Americans, I must depend on the 
Pentagon to explain why these new technologies are needed, why no other 
alternatives will work, and what new questions and challenges might be 
unleashed by these choices. That is not, I suggest, the best way to 
perform oversight, but, unfortunately, there are few good alternatives.
  The second philosophical approach to space outlined by the author is 
that of the purist, seeking to unilaterally ban weapons from space and 
seeking to return the heavens to an earlier, unsullied era--an earlier 
unsullied era. This is not, in the author's view, a realistic hope. The 
final philosophical approach, the one seemingly favored by the author, 
is that of the ``pragmatist''--the ``pragmatist.'' This approach 
recognizes the inevitable migration of commerce and the military to 
space, but hopes to hold the line at surveillance. Weapons for space 
would, in this view, remain in the research and test phase, to be 
launched only in response to another nation's attempt to put weapons in 
space. This launch-on-warning approach would come in conjunction with 
further diplomatic efforts to establish operating rules for space 
modeled on those in place for blue-water ships on the open ocean.
  In the pragmatist's scenario, existing space treaties would be 
retained: the 1967 Outer Space Treaty banning nuclear weapons in space 
and the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty which, in addition to 
establishing the surveillance system to avoid nuclear conflict, also 
forbids most antimissile testing. One way of reducing competition and 
tensions in space proposed in the article is by ``mutually assured 
awareness'' in space. The U.S. would develop and make globally 
available direct video access to space, so that anyone could confirm 
any hostile action in space, as opposed to mishaps from natural causes. 
I am not sure that this is technologically feasible, but who am I to 
question it. The concept of greater openness is the point. It is 
interesting, in this light, to note that the 1975 Convention on 
Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space, operated by the 
United Nations, has not been very successful. In fact, the nation with 
the largest number, if not percentage, of unregistered payloads is the 
United States. The United States has failed to register 141 of some 
2,000 satellite payloads. Only one nation is in full compliance--
Russia. And, of course, it is the Bush Administration advocating the 
abrogation of the ABM Treaty in order to commence construction on the 
first National Missile Defense ground site in Alaska.

  I cannot say at this point what philosophical camp that I might find 
myself. The author, Jack Hitt, closes his article by pointing out that 
if the United States is not successful at holding the line at 
surveillance, if we ``plan, test, and deploy aggressively as the lone 
superpower, we make certain that after a brief respite from the cold 
war's nuclear competition, we will once again embark on a fresh and 
costly arms race. And with it, assume the dark burden of policing a 
rapid evolution in battlespace.'' This specter rings true. It should 
concern us, and it should be debated by the people and the people's 
representatives. As it stands now, the U.S. military is moving ahead on 
a trajectory that is both costly and one that

[[Page S9827]]

carries with it a kind of philosophical imperialism with dangerous 
ramifications.
  Now, what do I mean by philosophical imperialism? The military's 
plans for ``full spectrum dominance,'' and space superiority, if fully 
realized, would mean that in some not-so-distant future, the United 
States would be in a position to (in the words of the Air Force 
Strategic Master Plan) ``operate freely in space, deny the use of space 
to our adversaries, protect ourselves from an attack in and through 
space and develop and deploy a N[ational] M[issile] D[efense] 
capability.'' The U.S. would presumably, then, have information 
dominance in this arena as well. Thus, the U.S. would be in a position 
to know if a conflict between two nations, say India and Pakistan, was 
about to explode into open, even nuclear, warfare. The U.S. would also 
be in a position to act, but how? Would we shoot down the missiles from 
one side or the other, or both? If we shot down the missiles that each 
nation was firing at the other, what would happen if we missed one and 
it destroyed a city? What is our responsibility? What if we chose not 
to act because the conflict did not involve us, and tens of thousands 
or millions of innocent people died? What is our responsibility?
  If the United States achieves, at enormous expense, space 
superiority, how could we avoid becoming the space marshal on this 
dangerous new frontier? If we detect a threat against a third party, do 
we warn the third party? If we provide a warning, and are asked to 
interdict the attack because only we can, how do we say no? How do we 
avoid making our military personnel and our commercial enterprises 
overseas the targets of reprisals from those whose attacks we thwart? 
It is difficult for me to envision a future in which we could avoid 
such an imperialist, if benevolent, dictatorship in space.
  The role of global policeman and space marshal would not come 
cheaply, either, and in this period of shrinking or perhaps vanishing 
surpluses, we cannot ignore those costs. Space dominance would not 
replace air, land, or sea dominance, but would be additive. In fact, 
dominance in space might conceivably add to the cost of protecting 
forces on ground by making them targets for the kind of retaliation I 
mentioned previously. Gaining and maintaining a robust presence in 
space is technologically challenging. An airborne laser, reportedly 
operational sometime around 2010, is budgeted at $11 billion. It will 
cost still more to build and deploy a space-based laser. The estimated 
cost for a working space laser test is about $4 billion--that is $4 
billion merely to get to a test of a laser in space. A test is expected 
as early as 2010.
  The defense budget already consumes a bit over half of the domestic 
discretionary budget that Congress must allocate among programs ranging 
from health research to agriculture, education to highway and air 
traffic safety, environmental protection to diplomacy. How much more 
are we willing to trade between guns and butter? How much must we 
trade, or might alternatives be found in the course of free and open 
debate?
  As most people are now well aware, those large budget surpluses so 
optimistically predicted just a few weeks ago--it is not funny--while 
the economy was booming--and so irresponsibly paid out in the form of 
vote-buying ``tax refunds'' before the actual surpluses materialized--
are now gone, gone. Indeed, the Administration has had to employ a few 
green-eyeshade accounting tricks just to find a few dollars beyond the 
Social Security surplus to spend on other priorities. And the 
administration's No. 1 priority seems to be the defense budget--well, 
that might be all right--but more particularly, the defense budget for 
National Missile Defense and space weapons. The President wants an 
additional $39 billion for defense--more, perhaps, now--including more 
than $8 billion to research and test his missile defense plan.

  I am troubled that this Administration's number one priority is a 
project whose scientific feasibility is in doubt. That is the problem.
  We could very well be rushing down a path that leads to spiraling 
costs and lengthy delays. In the 1960s, Congress was told that research 
of a Super Sonic Transport plane was essential to U.S. competitiveness 
in future decades. I was here. We spent nearly a billion dollars 
developing this aircraft before cancelling it in 1973, a billion 
dollars then would be much larger now. I do not think we have lost one 
whit of competitiveness because of the cancellation of that program.
  We traveled down the same path again when we considered funding the 
Superconducting Super Collider. The $8 billion program was supposed to 
fulfill a supposedly vital role in basic scientific research, but we 
learned that the true cost was nearly fifty percent greater than 
expected, and we were not even sure it could ever work. Congress had to 
step in to end this program in 1993. Again, I do not think that we have 
lost any crucial advantage by not going forward with that project.
  I can think of no one who believes that a national missile defense 
system will be deployed on-time and under budget.
  I am troubled, not because such weapons might be needed, but because 
we are spending huge sums on them without being sure in our own minds 
that the weaponization of space is the best course of action to ensure 
our security.
  If the United States builds a missile shield to shoot down enemy 
missiles as soon after they launch as possible, a smart adversary would 
attempt to shorten the amount of time that our defenses have to react, 
in addition to taking measures to fool our defenses. One way to shorten 
the time between launch and impact is to launch closer to the target--
either from a submarine offshore, or, as the seas become more 
transparent to new technologies, from space. Another alternative for a 
wily adversary would be to switch gears entirely and employ other forms 
of weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical or biological weapons, 
that could be dispersed without using long range or intercontinental 
missiles whose launch points make determining the adversary a simple 
exercise in geometry. We must be aware that our actions produce 
reactions.
  We can assume that if the United States deploys weapons in space, 
even in a purely defensive posture, even in a global policeman role, 
not all of our friends, allies, and competitors will see this as 
benign. We have only to consider the reaction of the world to the 
recent statements by the Administration concerning National Missile 
Defense and the potential abrogation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile 
Treaty. Just what would we do when some other nation--friend or 
competitor--threatens our space superiority by deploying their own 
weapons there, even if for avowedly defensive purposes? Again the 
vision of a space marshal comes to mind, this time facing off another 
gunman down the dusty main street of space. Does the U.S. Marshal fire 
first, second, or is it a long, tense stand-off with weapons cocked? 
None of the alternatives sounds particularly promising.
  Though it is difficult to conceive, would a military competition in 
space weaponry deter commercial satellite growth or the growth of e-
business that depends on global satellite networked communications? 
Once weapons are in space, does the cost of doing business in space go 
up to the point that global commerce is stifled? That would be very bad 
news for business, for consumers, and for the prospects of returning 
our national budget to surplus or even to balance.
  These are all ramifications of our current course of action that 
merit discussion--broad, open, public discussion and debate. I do not 
wish for the United States to be left undefended--far from it--but 
neither do I wish for the military to be left, in the face of public 
silence, to make decisions that spend our treasure and which may create 
new problems for us in arenas yet unconsidered.
  In his farewell address on January 17, 1961, President Dwight D. 
Eisenhower looked upon the rising power and influence of armament 
producers and at the increasing share of technological research that is 
performed for the federal government. He warned the councils of 
government to ``guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, 
whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex . . .,'' 
and to ``be alert to the . . . danger that public policy could itself 
become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.''

[[Page S9828]]

 Mr. Eisenhower was concerned that, among other things, ``democracy . . 
. survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent 
phantom of tomorrow.'' He urged that ``[O]nly an alert and 
knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge 
industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods 
and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.''
  Coming from a former supreme commander of the Allied military forces 
during World War II, President Eisenhower's words carry the weight of 
his experience. They are also uncomfortably prophetic. Just forty years 
after President Eisenhower gave his warning, President Bush proposes to 
invest many billions of dollars to achieve military superiority in a 
new realm, where there currently is no threat, jeopardizing the 
economic health of the nation and creating instability and mistrust in 
the hearts of other nations. This will occur unless the citizenry--and 
its elected representatives--we members of the House and U.S. Senate--
especially us--consider and agree upon this course of action. Silence 
does not equal assent. We must talk, and learn, and consider.
  Again, I am admittedly a layman when it comes to high-tech gadgetry 
on earth, let alone in space. But it seems to me that we must set aside 
the whizbang and drama of lasers and satellites to consider the real, 
age-old questions--those that have plagued the great generals 
throughout time. We should be taking stock of what we have to gain and 
what we have to lose by moving the lines of battle. We must consider 
whether or not we have the necessary weapons to protect ourselves and 
our land before we send our military into new and vastly different 
frontiers. We should assess the real, known threats to our Nation, and 
gauge whether we have the weapons and the resources to remain secure, 
and whether our time, talent, and treasure would be better spent 
fending off those most likely threats or devising new unproven plans of 
attack and fabulously expensive means of battle. And we should ponder 
the awesome responsibility of militarizing space and then being the 
world's space cop before we rush headlong into the twilight zone called 
national missile defense.

  Madam President, I believe that it would be both wise and prudent to 
back off just a little bit on the accelerator that is driving us in a 
headlong and fiscally spendthrift rush to deploy a national missile 
defense and to invest billions into putting weapons in space and 
building weapons designed to act in space. That heavy foot on the 
accelerator is merely the stamp and roar of rhetoric. The threat does 
not justify the pace. Our budget projections cannot support the pace.
  Let us continue to study the matter. Let us continue to conduct 
research. But the threat, as I say, does not justify the pace at which 
we are traveling.
  Our budget projections cannot support the pace, so let us slow down a 
bit, look at the map, and consider just where this path is taking us.
  Madam President, I thank the distinguished Senator from California 
who is here prepared to manage the appropriations bill. She is waiting 
patiently.
  I take this opportunity to congratulate her also for the excellent 
work she has done in preparing this legislation. It was moved through 
the full Committee on Appropriations yesterday. She is here today 
prepared to guide its way through this Senate. I thank her on behalf of 
the Senate and on behalf of the Nation for the service she has rendered 
and is rendering and will continue to give us.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Carper). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________