On the Edge of Earth: The Future of American Space Power

8. Freedom of Space and the Defect of Present Policy: Why Is the United States Unprepared for Its Military Future in Space?

• 8 FREEDOM O F SPACE AND THE DEFECT O F PRESENT POLICY Why Is the United States Unprepared for Its Military Future in Space? Freedom of space, a principle seated deeply in the psyche of the American people, remains a critical element of the national security strategy. Decades of prosperity and security at home cause many Americans to take for granted their freedom to explore and move about the world, to engage the rest of the world at all levels of interaction—economic, commercial, diplomatic, and military—on the land and the oceans, in the air, and now in space. Principles and goals underlying the United States' declared space policy are essentially unadulterated from Eisenhower's time, notwithstanding the political tumult that often arises during national debates on defense space subjects. That said, the organizational structures, program commitments, funding priorities, and implementation guidelines laid out to execute U.S. space programs have changed considerably over the past forty years, reflecting vastly different interpretations from administration to administration of how best to protect U.S. freedom of space. Both Presidents Reagan and Clinton touted the requirement to defend U.S. interests and freedom of action in space, but could there have been a more widely divergent set of military space programs? There is much to be learned about present policy deficiencies by simply examining recent space policy directives, not for what they address, however, but for what they ignore. Notable lapses include inadequate explanation of possible threats and ambiguous guidelines, especially in the areas of space control and force application . The policies leave each of the services to go their separate way in the development of space doctrines and visions at a time when unification of strategic thinking and consolidation of resources clearly is in order. In service parlance, the Freedom of Space 237 country has been "stovepiping" its visions. Declared policies leave untouched radical inconsistencies that hamstring the entire space policy regime and do not reconcile the country's treaty commitments and funding priorities to the now predictably tough public rhetoric about the importance of space for national security. A common refrain among critics of President Clinton's military space policy, especially of its neglect of the space-control mission area, is that although the 1996 directive itself is fine, the policy's implementation is flawed. Current written policy is good, in other words, it is just not being acted upon. I contend otherwise. Implementation is not the crux of the problem. It is a question, rather, of what it is that is to be implemented.1 Is Space a Battlefield? The National Space Policy is a flexible document, especially with respect to the two most politically controversial space defense missions, control and force application . "Flexible" is a positive-sounding attribute—indeed, it is the next best thing if one's preferred approach does not appear in official policy. "At least," it may be said, "the policy does not definitively preclude what we believe needs to be done." And this is true. No policy really is better than bad policy. But it is also true that no policy is ... no policy. The "Fourth" War-Fighting Environment Don't believe it for a minute! It is not my intention to denigrate the progress made by the United States armed forces since Desert Storm in the defense space arena. Chapter 3 is testimony to America's grand achievements there. Much has been accomplished to make space more relevant to the needs of U.S. military forces. Yet despite the rhetoric that the armed forces must fully "integrate" space into military strategy and operational planning and that space is like the land, sea, and air environments, where the country's interests must be protected, outer space has not yet made the grade. There is, in fact, clear policy support for the Defense Department to undertake aggressively and confidently only 50 percent of its assigned space missions! Mainly as a result of defective policy (U.S. technological capabilities to perform all assigned missions are not in doubt), the U.S. armed forces are fully prepared to execute just two of their four mission areas. The space support and force enhancement missions sustained by policy are, in fact, undergirded by detailed policy implementation guidelines in each of the three recognized space sectors. The achievements in these two mission areas have been significant, although many in the defense community will maintain that, 238 Confronting...