Analysis –
By Glynn Wilson –

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Buried under all the latest news dominating the cable news talk and social media traffic about President-elect Donald Trump’s insane choices of unqualified loyalists to serve in his cabinet, clearly a team designed to destroy the United States government from within, there have been a few creeping stories being reported but not widely read or shared about this fantasy of preparing to “win” a space war with Russia or China.

President Joe Biden has been guilty of engaging in this folly, even refusing to consider regulating Machine Learning or Artificial Intelligence data centers because there are those in the Department of Defense who think it will be needed in a war with Russia or China.

I’m wondering why more effort and resources have not gone into engaging in diplomacy rather than space war planning. But before we get into a critical review of these stories, it seems prudent to remind everyone what author Mike M. Moore wrote about this in his book, Twilight War: The Folly of U.S. Space Dominance.

The Outer Space Treaty signed in 1967 designated space as the “province of all mankind.” It expressly prohibited nuclear and non-nuclear weapons of mass destruction in orbital space and exclusively limited the use of the Moon and other celestial bodies for “peaceful purposes.”

But changes in the post–Cold War world, as well as unforeseeable advances in satellite and weapons technologies, have compelled every space-faring nation – with the exceptions of the U.S. and Israel – to go on record as favoring a new treaty for the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space. That was in 2008, however, and now Russia and China have left the peace camp and are planning to fight a war from space.

Moore, former editor of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, argued that the U.S. merely provokes conflict when it presumes to be the exception to the rule.

“Rejecting treaty negotiations while further militarizing space renders America unable to lead by example,” he wrote, concluding that instead of trying to stop an arms race in space by starting one, “the U.S. must radically rethink its strategy.”

But along came Elon Musk , whose SpaceX science fiction fantasy of colonizing Mars now has higher ups at the Pentagon salivating at the prospect of “leapfrogging” global rivals on the cheap.

WP: Elon Musk’s Martian dreams are a boon to the U.S. military

“Defense experts say SpaceX has leapfrogged global rivals and could help the United States deter – or win – a war against China,” the subhead screams.

“Amused observers have long dismissed Elon Musk’s dream to colonize Mars as unserious science fiction,” reports The Washington Post, owned by Musk competitor Jeff Bezos. “But in his pursuit of the Red Planet, Musk has managed to build a deadly serious business with vast military consequences. Security experts say SpaceX has leapfrogged so far ahead in several critical technologies that it could deter major rivals like China from engaging in a war with the United States — or tip the balance if one breaks out. Others worry that it could provoke an untimely response.”

No shit Sherlock. Uncertainty and miscalculation have long been two of the key factors leading to devastating wars.

A war in space against China or Russia may not be imminent, but it seems to have become the focus of U.S. defense preparations, according to The Post.

The value of SpaceX has gone up from around $350 billion from $210 billion earlier this year, according to a recent Bloomberg report, naming it as the world’s most valuable private company and most valuable defense contractor. Another reason for the jump, apparently: The belief of investors that Musk’s ass kissing and financial support for Trump’s presidential campaign could make it easier to further enrich his business empire.

Musk claims he founded SpaceX to get to Mars. His advanced satellite system Starlink, which he has said he set up partly to fund Mars expeditions, “has proved to be a killer app on battlefields for steering next-generation drone swarms and coordinating troops. No other nation is anywhere close to matching the capability.”

Plus the company’s massive Starship, the most powerful rocket in history and the first reusable heavy-duty ship, is also in a class of its own.

“Even as Musk has touted its potential to help humanity explore the cosmos, the Pentagon is eyeing its 165-ton carrying capacity for rapid transport of troops and gear to Asia in case of war.”

The Post quotes Todd Harrison, a space policy analyst with the American Enterprise Institute, who said it would probably take China 10 years to develop a rocket with carrying capacity like Starship’s, giving the U.S. military a window of exclusivity. But given China’s mastery of and penchant for spying and hacking, what would prevent them from simply copying what Musk’s company is doing? Musk does lots of business in China, and the country copies everything else we do, including music and movies. What’s to stop them from copying rocket designs and weapons systems?

Gary Henry, former SpaceX senior director of national security space solutions, said he believed the next-generation military applications that can be built from Starlink and Starship will serve as deterrents that may prevent China from risking a war against the United States.

“I think no company or nation-state actor will be able to replicate or match Starship’s evolving performance capabilities in our lifetimes,” Henry said.

Public relations balderdash.

There has long been an intersection between space exploration and the military, of course, dating back at least to World War II, when German engineer Wernher von Braun designed the V-2 rocket. New technology brings its own risks of sparking conflict.

Earlier this year, Washington officials indicated alarm at the revelation that Russia had launched a “counterspace weapon” into orbit, which was partly a response to the U.S. satellite buildup. Security experts at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have noted that U.S. dominance in low Earth orbit investment means China “has more latitude to start war in space” than the United States.

“These are old ideas, that the United States might be able to be so dominant in space that others might not even try to catch up or contest that dominance,” said Laura Grego, a senior scientist and research director at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “That kind of rhetoric caused a lot of distrust and … accelerated the space arms race that we are currently in.”

William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, who has been a critic of arms sales, called the predictions that SpaceX could help the U.S. deter or win a war against China “wishful thinking” that is “typical of the techno-optimism of the Silicon Valley defense sector.”

But that is not stopping U.S. defense officials from checking out Starlink’s potential uses in a theoretical conflict with China.

Even though this first SpaceX rocket blew up in launch in 2006 and it’s TacSat-1 never got off the ground, military officials helped Musk troubleshoot the problems and more massive defense contracts followed.

As I recently posted on Facebook, even The New York Times seems to have turned stupid, believing they can influence Trump to understand and act in an intelligent manner in the space weapons race. This too is folly.

“In his first administration, Donald Trump created the Space Force, a clear indication that he recognizes the threat of the mounting militarization and weaponization in outer space,” the Times reported. “In his second term, it’s imperative for Mr. Trump to lead an international effort that aims to improve space traffic management, open new communication channels with adversaries and slow the rapid development of space weapons that is already underway.”

Right. Good luck with that.

In another recent piece for the New York Times Magazine, William Langewiesche writes that nuclear confrontation is fundamentally a form of communication, even after the first blows fall.

“Some in government see it as a language and revel in its complexity. This has been so ever since the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945 and the Soviet Union responded by testing its own device four years later. The ensuing dialogues have, with varying degrees of subtlety, involved tests, bans on tests, arms agreements, embargoes, clandestine and nonclandestine technology transfers and the occasional grand speech — a high-stakes conversation in which all sides have understood the fearsome price of miscommunication. These exchanges echo around the edges of a devil’s spiral. At the top of the spiral stand the preparations meant as deterrents. At the bottom stands all-out nuclear war.”

The Secret Pentagon War Game That ​Offers a Stark​ Warning for Our Times

“History shows that deterrence often fails and that countries can maneuver themselves into corners where they have no choice but to enter into wars they cannot win, wars of assured self-destruction,” he concludes. “Now we are entering an era where nuclear arms control is an open question, nonproliferation has failed, conventional conflicts are spreading, overwrought nationalism is on the rise, the use of small nuclear weapons again seems possible, deterrence is weakening and fools dream of managing nuclear escalation in the midst of battle. Nuclear war in some form seems to be coming to the neighborhood. There is little sign that changes are being pursued to lower the risk. There is no reason to panic, but Katie, bar the door.”

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