Karl Grossman - Weapons in Space

Copyright 2001 by Karl Grossman
Foreword 2001 by Michio Kaku

A Seven Stories Press First Edition,
published in association with Open Media.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Grossman, Karl.
Weapons in space / Karl Grossman
p. cm. (Open media pamphlet series; 19)
eISBN: 978-1-60980-320-9
1. Space warfare. 2. Space weapons. 3. United StatesMilitary policy.
I. Title. II. Series.
UG1530.G76 2000
355.dc21 00-032937

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v3.1

When historians write the history of the 20th century, they will remark that the threat of all-out nuclear war, involving a cataclysmic exchange of tens of thousands of hydrogen bombs between the two superpowers, receded with the ending of the Cold War.

But just when one danger is fading, another one is rising ominously. Instead of ushering in an era of peace and prosperity, the beginning of the 21st century, historians will note, saw increased militarization, marked by the weaponization of outer space. They will remark that this represented a missed opportunity of enormous dimensions. Right before our eyes, the prospects of banning nuclear weapons is slipping through our fingers.

Unfortunately, most people are not aware of this. Vaguely hearing of arms control talks at the United Nations, people have been lulled to sleep, thinking that the great powers are finally dismantling their weapons.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Sadly, the U.S. military is dangerously pursuing its goal of military superiority, even though there is not an enemy in sight.

The U.S. military is shadowboxing with itself.

The weaponization of space represents a real threat to the security of everyone on Earth. Not only will this squander hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars, which are better spent on education, health, housing, and the welfare of the people, it will greatly accelerate a new arms race in space, with other nations working feverishly to penetrate a U.S. Star Wars program, or to build one themselves. A whole new round of the arms race could begin.

Ironically, it is the U.S. that stands to lose the most in such a race to militarize outer space. It is the U.S., not China or Russia, which is highly dependent on a vulnerable, fragile network of communication satellites. It is the U.S., not the developing countries, which has a high concentration of resources centered on just a handful of cities. In case of war, the U.S. would suffer greatly, its satellites blinded by anti-satellite weapons, its communications centers neutralized.

The time to stop this madness, therefore, is now, while Star Wars and affiliated programs are still in their infancy. That is why this book is so important. It raises peoples awareness about a matter which is largely ignored by the established media. Once again, Karl Grossman has done a great public service in unmasking the true implications of weapons in space, which would not be shields of peace, but weapons of war. Mr. Grossmans efforts in alerting people to the true danger posed by the weaponization of space have greatly aided the cause for world peace.

Michio Kaku is Henry Semat Professor of Theoretical Physics at City University of New York

The United States is preparing to make space a new arena of war.

U.S. military documents speak of the U.S. seeking to control space and from space dominate the earth below. The U.S. military, furthermore, would like to base weapons in space. Billions of tax dollars are being poured annually into U.S. preparations for space warfare.

Is it a return of Star Wars? In fact, Star Wars, the popular name given to the Strategic Defense Initiative of President Ronald Reagan, never went away. With its enormously powerful complex of backers, it developed and maintained a momentum of its own.

With the assumption of power by George W. Bush and Richard Cheney and an administration intimately linked to corporate and right-wing interests committed to expanding space military activities, Star Wars has received a huge boost.

What the U.S. is up to is a violation of the intent of the Outer Space Treaty, the landmark 1967 international agreement that sets space aside for peaceful uses. Ironically, the U.S. was a leader in drafting this visionary treaty which seeks to keep war out of space.

There is only a narrow window to stop the U.S. plans from going forward and triggering what inevitably would follow: other nations meeting the U.S. in kind, an arms race, and ultimately war in space.

If the U.S. is allowed to move the arms race into space, there will be no return, says Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, the organization that is internationally challenging U.S. preparations to turn space into a war zone, that has been striving at the grassroots to keep space for peace. We have this one chance, he emphasizes, this one moment in history, to stop the weaponization of space from happening.

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The multicolored Vision for 2020 features a laser weapon firing a beam from space zapping a target below. (Its cover is reprinted here because U.S. preparations for space warfare are so unbelievable, so incredible that it is best to see the actual documents firsthand. You can fully download this and many of the documents noted in this book from the U.S. Space Command website. The U.S. military is so brazen about its plans for space war, it displays them publicly on-line.)

Vision for 2020 starts with wording that crawls as in the beginning of the Star Wars movies: US Space Commanddominating the space dimension of military operations to protect US interests and investment. Integrating Space Forces into war-fighting capabilities across the full spectrum of conflict.

Vision for 2020, issued in 1996, compares the U.S. effort to control space and the earth below to how centuries ago nations built navies to protect and enhance their commercial interests, how the great empires of Europe ruled the waves and thus the world.

The U.S. military not only acknowledgesit proudly proclaims that U.S. corporate interests are involved in setting U.S. space military doctrine. President Dwight Eisenhower warned in his farewell address to the nation in 1961 of the military-industrial complex. That linkage is stressed in the U.S. Space Commands Long Range Plan.

The Long Range Plan, also starting out with a Star Wars-like type, states: The