Arms Races are Terrible, But Losing Such a Race is Worse—Another Winning Issue for John McCain?
By James P. Pinkerton
Columnist and writer, “The American Conservative”/FOX News Political Contributor
“China, India hasten arms race in space/U.S. dominance challenged” – that was the headline in The Washington Times last week. It should have been bannered everywhere.
Reporter David R. Sands detailed the military space race between India and China: “India, which has an extensive civilian space satellite program, must ‘optimize space applications for military purposes,’ army Chief of Staff Gen. Deepak Kapoor said at a defense conference in New Delhi. ‘The Chinese space program is expanding at an exponentially rapid pace in both offensive and defensive content.’” Those two Asian giants have fought wars against each other before—of course they understand the important of military space.
In addition, Japan and France are accelerating their own ambitious and barely concealed “milspace” programs.
So what is the U.S. doing? Obviously not enough. Missile defense is inching forward, although liberal Democrats make no secret that they would like to roll back even that modicum of progress toward a defensive shield for us and our allies. Meanwhile, of course, missile offense, from the likes of Iran and maybe even Venezuela, is moving forward. If present trends continue, the day will come when a dozen different countries can easily target American cities. Should that be an issue in the 2008 presidential election? I think so. And space-based defense will surely be a big issue in the elections thereafter.
And in the meantime, at the high-frontier level, America is under threat. The Pentagon takes the issue of space war seriously, even if political correctness—you know, the ideology says that it’s OK to lose a war, so long as The New York Times praises you—prevents the brass from speaking openly about all that’s going on up there, beyond the wild blue yonder.
Americans must understand that space, with humans in it, is ultimately no different from earth, with humans in it. That is, every virtue, and every evil, that is evident here will be evident there. If there have been, and will be, arms races on earth, then there have been, and will be, arms races in space.
And the same with wars. Yes, war is terrible, but losing a war is worse. Once again, what’s true for the earth is also true for space.
Meanwhile, Chinese have demonstrated that they have military intentions in space. Beijing’s deliberate shoot-down of one of its own aging weather satellites in 2007 was a test of China’s military capacity—and China passed, bigtime.
But some experts seem to think that America can’t win such a war. The Times’ Sands cites two:
Nancy Gallagher and John D. Steinbruner, researchers at the University of Maryland’s Center for International Studies, argue in a study that the Pentagon cannot hope to dominate space through technological and material superiority.
The United States will not be able to “outspend and out-innovate all potential rivals in space,” the two argue in a “white paper” just published by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Here’s a question: Why can’t we? Why can’t we plan to win? Obviously the US should have allies in space defense, just like every other kind of defense, but we should always be preparing to win, not lose.
The question of whether or not to try to win in space would seem be a profoundly important cleavage that is opening up between the two presidential candidates. As Sands explains, “Aides to Sen. Barack Obama, Illinois Democrat, and Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, are staking out markedly different stands on the space arms race as the presidential campaign heats up.”
Sands went on to quote Steve Robinson, an Obama campaign adviser, declaring, “We don’t need more battlegrounds. The idea of militarization of space is not something that Senator Obama is in favor of, and cooperation is better than confrontation.”
Sure, Mr. Robinson, cooperation is better than confrontation. And sugar and spice is nicer than coal and steel. But sometimes, your enemies don’t want to cooperate. They don’t want to play nice. Indeed, as Ronald Reagan proved in his dealings with the Soviet Union, sometimes firm confrontation actually leads to cooperation.
Happily, the McCain campaign seems alert to the danger from space. Floyd DesChamps, a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee staffer representing Mr. McCain, told Sands, that the Arizona Senator recognizes the need to defend U.S. space assets from hostile attack. ‘The reality is that we have to protect those assets.’”
The Washington Times did Americans a real service by putting this story on its front page last week. And Senator McCain could do his country one more service by highlighting this issue in the upcoming up election campaign.
If China, India, Japan, and France are going to be active in space, then it’s vital for us, too, to be in space.
And oh yes, whatever happens, we must plan to win.
Our lead in this particular race is overwhelming. There isn’t a close second. Anyone saying otherwise is just blatantly using fearmongering tactics to evoke an unreasoned response. This is such an amazing non-issue I can’t believe it’s even mentioned. This story goes right alongside idiots claiming this administration actively participated in the 9-11 attacks…in the garbage heap.
Sen. Obama is already on record as opposing any further development of SDI as a wasteful program.
The only govenrment expediture his has indicated reducing is natonal defense….. the Clintonian formula. Sen. Obama talks ad nauseum regarding nuclear proliferation, negociating with Iran, NK, Russia, et al but is imperviuos to the Chinese and Indian threats Mr. Pinkerton discribes.
I think it can be summarized by saying there is a widespread philosophy problem among the USA’s nasa and space exploration ‘community’ to gather all those involved into one group.
Looking closely at the projects and the politics in ’space technology’ if you can group it together that way we have (as opposed to other nations) wasted precious time and resources on looking for life in space and wasted untold money on finding some evidence that life began by evolution.
If people want such things? let them do it on their own dime. This gets to a point Jim makes, where is the innovation? Why has the USA slipped so far back? With the massive untold wealth China is accumulating? and if I recall the outrage from comments made in 1999 or 2000 that sparked a boycott of made in China products, China was said to be using the money made by selling products to the USA to fuel Chinas military strategy for world domination by 2014 or something like that.
So its not that China is some impartial passive country, they are motivated. Maybe the threat from China is the needed thing? Like the Sputnik and the Soviet space race from the 1950s all over again.
Instead of waste our resources we should be focused on technology. These ’search for alien life’ projects sound like some people have watched too many sci fi movies, and the conspiracy theories one could invent? could bring amusement for some time to come
Not to worry……Barack Obama will meet with the Chinese, Indians, French and Japanese the same way he will meet with Iran, North Korea, etc. and everything will be “hunky dory”. End of problem.
No one comsiders this a big issue until we lose our lead or get attacked, and then everyone gets outraged that the government let us get so far behind.
Watch, the liberal left will do everything they can to stop forward progress in this area, and when we do find ourselves in trouble, they’ll blame the conservatives.
If one considers this issue as stand-alone, it appears to be not that big of a problem. The US has always led the way in space. However, the core point of the article is that on a comprehensive level, we are becoming vulnerable to the Chinese in particular. Look at their sheer numbers in the military, and then at their stated objectives to be the strongest power in the world by 2014. The catalyst they needed to acheive those objectives is now in place……a booming economy. Just enough capitalism to leverage government ambitions.
This risk is very real and must be mitigated by a similar response. If Obama takes the helm, there will be dancing in government halls of China to be sure. Obama may sit down at the table and produce some beautiful documents with signatures and fanfare, but those agreements will never be honored by our enemies.
China will play us like a fiddle as long as it serves their interests, but the long term objective has not changed. Our next leader must realize this and act appropriately.
Get ready….no matter who is elected in Nov ‘08, the next 15 yrs will bring about a huge shift in power, and as Pinkerton says, we’d better prepare to win. If we build the strength to confront, maybe peace will prevail as it did in the Reagan plan. With BO, Pelosi, et al in power, the military will be trashed and negotiating power along with it.
Fearmongoring is becoming a very tiring & overused term by the left. Being prepared to fend off a known enemy that has clearly stated its intentions is just common sense. The rhetoric of the day is off the charts in that area. I clearly remember the week after 9/11, we were hearing that we just needed to understand what made the terrorists angry and then change our behavior to assure we did not continue to rile them up. That’s the Left’s definition of preparation to deal with enemies.
The US is behind in many areas - look at the statistics in this week’s Newsweek. Just going around saying “we’re the greatest country in the world” is not enough.
Heard Bill Clinton critisize our P.O.W’s. What a nerve that draft-dodging coward has! He put his tail between his legs and left the country. He never served this country. What a pity for our brave soldiers to have that coward as thier Comander-in-Chief!