US ramps up missile tests in the Pacific
By John Lasker
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Early this year, when China blasted one of its satellites into
thousands of little pieces, it was condemned by Washington as a provocative
act. But some arms-control experts believe Beijing was baring its teeth to send
the White House a different message. They say that China, which has
consistently opposed the weaponization of space, is hoping to negotiate an arms
treaty that would rein in both nations' growing arsenal of so-called "space
weapons".
Just days after the anti-satellite (ASAT) test, on January 27, Beijing
seemingly had its answer. On the west shore of the
Hawaiian island of Kauai, the United States' ground-based Terminal High
Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) shot down a dummy ballistic missile over the
South Pacific as it skirted the edge of space roughly 110 kilometers high.
Analysts say the administration of US President George W Bush is turning its
back on any new space-weapons treaty because it would ground many parts of the
United States' emerging missile-defense shield. One such pact is the Prevention
of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) Treaty China initiated at the United
Nations in 1985 and has pressed for ever since.
The existing international regime, known as the Outer Space Treaty, entered
force in 1967, and critics - who include such experts as Hans Blix, the former
chief United Nations weapons inspector - say it is hopelessly outdated.
However, Washington has made it clear that the US has no intention of endorsing
new restrictions.
"Arms control is not a viable solution for space," a US State Department
official told Space News on January 19. "For example, there is no agreement on
how to define a space weapon. Without a definition, you are left with loopholes
and meaningless limitations that endanger national security."
Pentagon officials insist the US is not seeking to put weapons in orbit. Its
space research, which is funneling billions of US dollars to aerospace
contractors such as Lockheed Martin, is strictly for defense, they say.
But arms-control experts suggest that this rhetoric has failed to assuage
China's fears.
"So many [missile] defensive capabilities have inherent offensive applications
as well," said Theresa Hitchens, a space-weapons expert at the Center for
Defense Information, a think-tank based in Washington.
China's ASAT test may have also been a response to the United States' new
National Space Policy (NSP) doctrine released late last year, wrote Hitchens in
a recent issue of the US Air Force's High Frontier Journal.
The new NSP states: "The US considers space capabilities vital to its national
interests. The US will preserve its freedom of action in space [and will]
dissuade or deter others from either impeding those rights, and take those
actions necessary to protect its space capabilities."
Hitchens said there is a more "aggressive tone inherent in this policy" and
that it "rejects any limits on US actions in space". She added: "This strategy,
this policy, more aggressively articulates a space warfighting strategy."
Meanwhile, the Pentagon continues to intensify its focus on the Pacific Rim,
where it has dispatched a very strange-looking, very high-tech ship.
The vessel is actually a revamped oil-drilling platform, and centered on its
top, roughly 20 stories above the ocean, is its most striking feature - a white
globe so immense it could engulf the middle of a soccer field.
Hidden inside the inflated white ball is the clue to its ultimate mission: a
radar dish so powerful it can distinguish a real ballistic missile from a dummy
missile, claims the US military.
The vessel is actually a new and important piece in the growing arsenal that is
the United States' missile-defense program, which is now run by the Missile
Defense Agency (MDA). Some have dubbed the agency the "Son of Star Wars", a
reference to a 1980s-era program to deploy missiles in space, and the strange
ship is the MDA's billion-dollar Sea Based X-Band Radar.
Last year, the Sea Based X-Band Radar was witnessed off the coasts of Hawaii.
It was taking part in an unknown number of missile-defense tests, said the MDA.
Space-weapons experts suggest it could also distinguish space debris from a
"killer" micro-satellite.
Indeed, all sorts of missile-defense tests are on the rise around the islands,
say Hawaiian peace activists, who believe they are intended to intimidate Asian
powers such as China and North Korea.
"The increasing missile-defense tests are a destabilizing factor," said Kyle
Kajihiro, director of Honolulu-based DMZ Hawaii. "The tests are provoking an
arms race in the region between nuclear powers."
Since being recently relocated from a New Mexico desert, the MDA's ground-based
THAAD has a perfect "hit-to-kill" ratio.
But it is the ship-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System that is
creating more tension for China. Since 2004, the MDA and the US Pacific Fleet
at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, have launched missile-like "interceptors" to
obliterate at least eight dummy ballistic missiles in space or in the
atmosphere.
What is so unnerving for Beijing is that Japan has spent millions of dollars to
arm several of its own battleships with this missile defense.
Ships with the "Aegis" technology have tremendous reach, say experts, thus
exposing more satellites to a shootdown. In Greek mythology, Aegis is the name
of the shield used by Zeus.
The US Air Force is also researching ground-based lasers. On a summit of Mount
Haleakala on the Hawaiian island of Maui, the USAF helps run the Maui Space
Surveillance Site. The military contends the site is for astronomical research,
and has powerful telescopes that can detect rogue asteroids.
"I'm not buying any of it," said Kajihiro. Lasers that can "paint" satellites -
to guide interceptors to their target - are being tested there as well, he
said.
However, Greg Kulacki, an expert on the Chinese military at the Union of
Concerned Scientists, said the theory that China's ASAT test was a call for a
space-weapons arms treaty "is just not true".
Kulacki has spoken to Chinese scientists who work for the military's defense
labs. They told him the ASAT test was a "20-year-old end result to an ASAT
program that began in the mid-'80s".
Even though China is spending more and more on its military, said Kulacki,
Beijing no longer subscribes to the theory that the US may someday contain
China's growing thirst for oil by "choking off its sea lanes".
Nevertheless, many still believe US forces positioned around China could deny
its people resources in the event of war. And as missile-defense tests are
ramped up in the Pacific, one expert says such tests make many Chinese even
more worried about the eagle's shadow.
"The Chinese don't like America's offensive posture in the Pacific - they don't
like it one bit," said University of Hawaii Professor Oliver M Lee, who was
born in Shanghai and studies Sino-US relations.
He said most Chinese believe "the US Navy controls the Pacific Ocean". They
also feel that China's military buildup is for defense only, he said.
For the past several years, Lee, Kajihiro of DMZ Hawaii and many others have
been resisting a plan by the Pentagon to bring 300 US Army Stryker armored
vehicles to the islands.
The Stryker uproar reflects Hawaii's internal debate over its militarization,
says Kajihiro.
Why would the islands need hundreds of armored vehicles that are loaded with
exotic weapons and also easily transported by plane?
"That's the $40,000 question," said Kajihiro. "We've asked that over and over
again, and no good explanation was ever given."
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